The Fence

by Meredith Jaffe

  She and Val were having their weekly coffee morning, although Gwen was still struggling to adjust to Babs’ absence. The mere presence of Babs was enough to bring out a more genteel Val. Now, Gwen was lucky if Val removed the cake from the supermarket wrapper and she never bothered with the milk jug and sugar bowl anymore.

  ‘Did I tell you,’ Val had said around a mouthful of cake, ‘what your new neighbour said to me?’

  It wasn’t Gwen’s job to warn Val about how prickly Francesca could be. And Val wasn’t exactly the most tactful of people at the best of times.

  ‘I thought I’d pop over on my way to bridge, seeing as I was dressed up and all. I had no intention of staying, but I thought it only polite to extend a welcome from the neighbourhood.’

  ‘I’m surprised you found her home on a Friday. She works full-time you know.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that, Gwennie, but she was so rude. Said she was on her way out before I even had the chance to invite her kiddies over for a play date with the grandkids. Practically slammed the door in my face. She’s got tickets on herself that one.’

  Brandon hadn’t slammed the door in Gwen’s face but he may as well have. She moved her basket from one arm to the other and flexed her arm against a cramp.

  ‘Sorry about that, Mrs Hill. What can I do you for?’

  ‘I brought you a gift, to welcome you to the neighbourhood.’ Gwen pressed the basket towards him, adding, ‘They’re from my garden.’

  He poked about in the basket.

  Gwen smiled, wishing she could turn on her heel and flee. ‘I popped some mandarins in as well. Kids like mandarins, so much easier to peel than oranges.’

  Brandon thought it best not to tell Mrs Hill that Marigold was allergic to citrus. That of the four children, only Bijoux liked fruit.

  Gwen drew breath. Would it kill him just to say thanks and leave it at that? Young people today had no idea about courtesy. ‘Well I must be off, plenty to do at this time of year.’

  He nodded and closed the door, leaving her stranded there. ‘Cabbages and strawberries,’ she fumed as she stomped down the stairs and raced between the crab apples. ‘That’s what we are Babs, cabbages and strawberries.’

  When she recounted the story to Eric over their morning cuppa, Eric had said, ‘It sounds like His Lordship is hiding something,’ and the name stuck.

  Francesca moves into Gwen’s line of sight. She is wearing a straw bonnet that makes her look like Caroline Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. Wielding secateurs as if she has two left hands, she is cutting branches from the Camellia japonica in the centre bed and throwing the broken limbs into a barrow. ‘I think this is the perfect spot for a lemon tree, Brandy,’ Gwen hears her call.

  Not unless you cut everything else down first, Gwen thinks. Lemons need light. Can’t they see the giant flowering gum in the neighbour’s yard?

  The twins race around the garden beds on their glider bikes, spraying white gravel everywhere. Babs used to rake that gravel. ‘I find it meditative,’ she’d say, shaping curved lines with the tines around the meandering path. She might not have liked getting her hands dirty but Babs did have an eye for aesthetic detail.

  And the toddler, Marigold, has strayed over the border and is plucking alliums from under the crab apples.

  ‘Hey, stop that,’ Gwen yells, hastening from the shadows to where the little girl merrily destroys the display. ‘Don’t pull the plants out, dear, you’ll ruin my garden. Go and see if you can help Mummy and Daddy.’

  The little girl stares at Gwen clutching her flowers to her chest, her eyes widening as she decides whether to cry.

  Francesca appears, her smile demure beneath her bonnet, resting her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘She’s all right, Mrs Hill. She’s only trying to help, aren’t you, Goldie?’

  The little girl squats on her haunches and digs in the earth, exposing the white flesh of the allium bulbs. Francesca smiles benignly at her but Gwen can’t help herself. ‘Now, Marigold, that’s enough of that. Leave the poor plants alone.’

  Francesca takes Marigold’s hand and whispers in her ear, pointing at His Lordship. Marigold smiles and skips over to her father who is stacking branches of buddleja in the green bin.

  When Francesca straightens, Gwen notices that the young woman has invested in a gardening smock with pale pink and blue stripes, high collar and elasticised pockets. She removes a pair of ladies’ split palm leather gardening gloves with a striped cuff that match her shirt. Gwen knows the brand, they advertise in the magazine every issue, marketing themselves with some nonsense about being essential gardening apparel.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about these trees,’ Francesca says, pointing to the row of crab apples.

  Gwen follows the line, admiring the trees that, at this time of year, without their leaves, add a sculptured element to the drive. The rounded canopies, the squared box hedges at their base, the alliums’ bobbing heads poking over the top, create a delightful study in form and texture.

  She smiles at her neighbour, knowing Francesca will probably ask, as so many have, how many years it took Gwen to create the rounded foliage, the square hedges, the bobbing under feature. Did she have to prune them regularly to keep them rounded? How inspirational to create such a marvellous garden feature!

  ‘You know they’re on our land?’ Francesca smiles sweetly.

  ‘Pardon, dear?’ Gwen must have misheard.

  ‘Those trees are on our land. I’ve checked and they encroach over our boundary a good fifteen centimetres.’

  Gwen stares at her. Of course they straddle the border, that was the intention. One day, the four of them – she and Eric, Rohan and Babs – had sat down and discussed it, as good neighbours did. It was not long after the Modys had moved into number 18. Gwen had invited them over, to introduce themselves properly, for a cuppa and a slice of sponge cake.

  They had completed a tour of the Hills’ backyard and were enjoying their cake and tea, when Rohan said, ‘I love what you’ve done with the garden, Gwen.’

  ‘Mmm, this sponge is delicious, so light,’ Babs had added.

  ‘Anyone for seconds?’ Gwen asked and Eric and Rohan pushed over their plates.

  ‘When I look at our yard it’s hard to imagine it ever being as lush and productive as yours,’ Rohan continued.

  Gwen’s cheeks had pinked. This was years before the gardening column, back when the backyard was her one true pleasure. There was the chicken run on the southern side where the girls had the benefit of the morning sun rising over the fence. The mulberry tree she had planted when they first moved in was already over two metres tall. It provided shelter and a good crop of fruit on which the chooks gorged themselves in summer. She had laid out garden beds using old railway sleepers Eric and his father, Harry, had sourced from the railway yards at Clyde. There was a row of citrus along the back fence, an apple tree in the corner and behind the vegetable beds she was experimenting with espaliering a fig.

  Babs had laid a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘Don’t go getting ideas, Rohan. Neither of us have a green thumb.’

  Rohan had laughed that low chortle of his that would become so familiar. ‘No, my love, there’s no danger of that.’

  As they drank their tea and enjoyed another slice of Gwen’s sponge cake, Rohan stood at the window staring at the expanse of lawn Gwen had been rolling out the day they moved in. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t done something similar out the front here, Gwen. It gets plenty of light too. Perhaps more fruit trees?’

  Gwen rose and stood beside him. ‘I love a good stretch of lawn. Eric is thinking of putting up a trampoline for the kids in the neighbourhood to share. I’ve planted a couple of rondeletia under the windows to soften the brickwork but I’m stuck on what to plant along the boundary. It’s a bit of a nothing spot and it seems a shame to put up a fence just for the sake of
it.’

  ‘You could plant a hedge?’ offered Babs, joining them.

  ‘Well, yes, I could but then I’ve always liked the idea of the children roaming free. Fences are so dominant and overbearing. No one can get in but then no one can get out either, can they?’

  ‘They can always go over the top,’ added Eric. ‘Kids love climbing.’

  ‘But would they? A fence says, “Stay out”, don’t you think?’

  ‘Whereas a hedge . . .?’ said Babs.

  ‘It depends what you use,’ said Gwen, ‘and it’s certainly more visually appealing than a fence, but it still discourages access. I can’t imagine this street being turned into one where the ­children didn’t feel welcome.’

  ‘When we were children, there was an old hedge that bordered the common,’ said Rohan. ‘We used to burrow under there and play all sorts of games. We were tunnellers in the war or revolutionaries in our secret hideout.’

  ‘As the boys get older, they’ll like that,’ added Babs.

  ‘No more lawn though,’ said Eric, ‘I spend enough of my Sundays mowing the wretched thing as it is.’

  ‘Do you know what we could do?’ Gwen turned to the gathering. ‘I mean, if it’s all right with you. We could turn your front garden into a maze with winding paths that the children could play hide and seek in or ride their scooters around and then instead of a full hedge, we could plant an intermittent one using small trees the children can duck in and out of. That way, they can pitch a tent on our lawn and then set off on adventures in your garden.’

  ‘Yes! Or even play cricket,’ Rohan added. ‘The row of trees would be the boundary. Over the trees for a six.’

  ‘Mrs Hill?’

  Gwen realises Francesca is talking to her. ‘I’m sorry, dear?’

  Francesca tsked. ‘I’m wondering how we might fix this problem. I mean, the obvious solution is to remove the trees. You could replant them on your side of the boundary, although I see there’s not much space between the boundary line and your driveway, is there? So maybe that wouldn’t work.’ Still that sweet smile but it is cut with steel.

  ‘Why must we move them at all?’ Gwen argues. ‘They’re doing no harm.’

  ‘They’re on our land, Mrs Hill. That’s the problem.’

  ‘But it was agreed, between neighbours.’ And she can feel them too, Babs and Rohan, hovering in her defence.

  ‘Your old neighbours, Mrs Hill. This free access between properties is unacceptable. We have small children and dogs. We need to know where they are at all times.’

  ‘Your backyard is fenced.’ Gwen is trying to be reasonable but struggles to understand why Francesca is so rigid in her thinking.

  ‘The backyard.’ Francesca removes her gardening gloves, easing them off finger by finger and placing the pair in one of her elasticised pockets. ‘The thing is, Mrs Hill, space is limited in our backyard. Between the pool and the courtyard, there’s barely enough room for the trampoline. There’s certainly nowhere for the dogs to run around.’

  The pool does take up most of the backyard. They both know Gwen cannot argue that point. Francesca pushes her advantage.

  ‘Your garage is full of all that dangerous machinery and my son Silver is a curious child – it happens with gifted children, as you may know – and it worries Brandy and I that he might wander in and hurt himself. I’ve noticed Mr Hill is quite relaxed about safety. He’s always leaving the garage door open. Peanut came home the other day covered in sawdust. And then there’s that smell!’

  Gwen knows she’s referring to the industrial glue Eric works with. Which is why he keeps the garage doors open so he doesn’t poison himself. But he doesn’t use the glue every day.

  ‘I don’t see what any of this has to do with my crab apples,’ she says.

  ‘They are on my property.’ Francesca folds her arms and glares at Gwen.

  Gwen steps forward. ‘And your dogs gallivant all over my lawn, defecating where they please. I don’t come knocking on your door complaining, do I? Those animals are out of control.’

  Francesca’s smile thins. ‘You can’t possibly expect us to chain the dogs up. That would be cruel.’

  ‘No, but you have a backyard. That’s where the dogs should be.’

  ‘Our dogs are part of the family, Mrs Hill. When we’re out in the garden,’ here she sweeps her hand around the expanse of her fiefdom, ‘we like to have them with us. There is an obvious solution.’

  Gwen doesn’t like the sound of this but Francesca has hijacked the conversation. She steps away, wanting to walk off and leave this modern day Caroline Ingalls in her prairie outfit to massacre the rest of the camellias.

  ‘Brandy and I have discussed this at length and to our minds there is only one viable solution.’

  Gwen glances up at the house where Eric potters in the garage, oblivious to the unfolding crisis.

  ‘I mean, the trees will still have to go of course, given they are encroaching on our property there is no way around it, but trees or no trees, the only real solution is to put up a fence.’

  Without thinking, Gwen turns on her heel and races towards the garage, away from this vile woman and her extraordinary ideas. It is not enough that they are desecrating Babs’ memory, now they wanted to shut the world out as if, as if, they were some kind of royalty or Paris Hilton or the Kardashians trying to keep the paparazzi at bay when all they are is a couple of middle class wannabes who think they are better than ­everybody else.

  Frankie’s July

  Frankie watches the old lady huff up the driveway flapping her arms as if taking flight. Stupid old biddy, she thinks. Did she really take Francesca for such a fool that they didn’t know those trees were on their property? The plans from the real estate agent had a clear dotted line where the boundary was. At the time, Dave Henshaw had said that the trees had been there since he was a kid and, yes, technically they shouldn’t be, but the neighbours had always been amicable. He had a vague memory, though don’t quote him on it, that the neighbours had agreed on the trees straddling the boundary.

  Frankie hadn’t let it worry her then. After all, the trees were small, it wasn’t like they’d be difficult to remove. Brandy could do it in-between looking after the children.

  That night, she sits at her desk, checking the proofs for the ad campaign for Hush Hush’s new range of baby food. Officially the line follows the corporate formula of rhyming with hush and is called Hungry Hush. Although within the office it’s called Slush Mush, because you can put pictures of cute babies eating spoonfuls of organic lentils and pumpkin on the packaging but however you wrap it, when you unscrew the safety cap and squirt it into a microwave proof bowl, it still looks like baby poo. It’s actually quite tasty. Many’s the night Frankie has come home from work to a house strewn with toys and Brandon playing the Xbox. Too tired to argue about the state of the house or the lack of an adult meal on the table, she often supplements cold half-chewed pieces of organic chicken sausage and peas with a squirt of mashed lentils and pumpkin straight from the tube followed by blueberry and apple custard from another. At least it means she knows her product. No sly jokes like when they talk about the Eco nappy range and some smart alec can’t resist saying, ‘Know how to use one of these, Frankie?’ Laughing away as if it is the best joke in the world.

  Tonight, Frankie wavers between selecting organic free-range chicken and sweet corn or organic beef, macaroni and broccoli. As it heats, she watches Brandon, fingers twitching over the controller, and reflects how little has changed since this move to the suburbs. In the terms and conditions she stipulated as part of Brandon’s return to the family, she had insisted on something other than children’s leftovers for dinner. To start him off, she signed them up to an online store that delivers all the ingredi­ents for a nutritious home-cooked meal with simple to follow recipes. Opening the fridge, she sees that tonight is supposed to be salmon fil
lets with ginger and shallots cooked en papillote with Asian greens. Grabbing the organic non-homogenised full-cream milk, she finishes off the bottle. It’s a poor substitute for a bottle of white wine but the marketing and product team has agreed to do Dry July to raise funds for the Cancer Council. It’s only the fifth and the effort is killing her. Life is much nicer diffused through the numbing effects of a glass or two of wine.

  Eating her mush, she reads the Gumnut Cottage calendar stuck to the fridge door. The children are making bird scarers this week. They’ve been saving tin cans, washing them out and smoothing off any sharp edges. Tomorrow, parents will be helping the children stick mirrored beads on the cans for eyes and gluing on swishy tails made out of aluminium foil. The bird scarers will be strung up in the kindy’s fruit trees and on poles in the vegetable patches to keep the birds away. Brandon has to take his mother to hospital for a colonoscopy, so she is stepping into the breach.

  Taking a day off work to do stuff with the kids always fills Frankie with anxiety. Oh Klaussman & Sons say all the right things about being a family-friendly company until anyone actually asks for the day off. No matter that she is taking an annual leave day, she still feels as if she is letting the team down. If she were flying interstate for work, they wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But if she didn’t take the day off work, and her child­ren had no parent at kindy to help them make bird scarers, another whole group would insinuate that she was putting her career ahead of her children’s wellbeing. Corralled by guilt, it was impossible to feel anything but defensive.

  Frankie joins a group of women the following morning at 10 am, right after crunch ’n’ sip. They gossip in casual groups, dressed in leggings and floppy cardigans or in activewear, chatting about their offspring, whilst future Gumnut attendees cling to their sides. Frankie has Bijoux in her baby capsule at her feet, a large decaf almond latte clutched to her chest.