Ivy Lane: Summer: Part 2

by Cathy Bramley

  About the Book

  Romance ripens at Ivy Lane . . .

  Tilly Parker is feeling happier than she has done since her life completely changed nearly two years ago. As she flourishes under the summer sun, she throws herself into life at Ivy Lane, complete with strawberry planting, chinwags with Gemma and cups of tea with Alf.

  And excitement reaches fever pitch when a TV crew descends to capture life inside a modern-day allotment, bringing out the best (new wellies and lipstick) and the worst (parsnip rivalry) in them all.

  As Tilly’s broken heart slowly mends, she attracts the attention of not one but two suitors – but is Tilly ready for romance and what secrets is she still keeping from her friends at Ivy Lane?

  Ivy Lane is a serialized novel told in four parts – taking you through a year in the life of Tilly Parker – with Summer the second part.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Previously at Ivy Lane

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Ivy Lane Autumn – Part 3

  Cathy’s Favourite Summertime Recipes

  About the Author

  Copyright

  SUMMER

  IVY LANE

  Cathy Bramley

  In Spring at Ivy Lane . . .

  Tilly Parker was determined to leave the past behind her and get on with her life. A new start at Ivy Lane allotments was exactly what she needed, with fresh air and plenty of peace and quiet.

  She might get lots of fresh air, but there was no chance of any peace and quiet! Before she knew it, Tilly was organizing Easter egg hunts, swapping gardening tips, sharing tea breaks and making new friends – and for the first time in years, she began to smile again. She even caught the attention of plot holder Charlie . . .

  With new friends Alf, Gemma and Charlie, is Tilly ready to finally move on and mend her broken heart?

  Read Summer and find out . . .

  Chapter 1

  It was a warm Saturday at the beginning of May and as I sailed through the gates of Ivy Lane allotments I could see that the place was alive with activity. It might have been busy at this time of year anyway as far as I knew, this being my first season, but there seemed to be an additional frenzy to the hoeing, weeding and planting this morning. I suspected that the root of this extra ‘effort with a touch of hysteria’ was the forthcoming visit from the Green Fingers TV show. It was all anyone could talk about.

  It was a revelation to me; so far all I had witnessed from my fellow plot holders was the therapeutic side to cultivating your own vegetables (and the social side in the case of Roy and Dougie – now that Dougie’s homemade scrumpy had matured, they spent most of their time serenading us with a medley of Daniel O’Donnell and Bob Marley songs).

  ‘Morning, Tilly,’ called Christine from the steps of the pavilion as I cycled past. She was overseeing the erection of five colourful hanging baskets along the covered porch that ran the length of the building. ‘What do you think – grand or what?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ I replied, winking at Nigel and Alfred who were balancing on stepladders and rotating the baskets to Her Ladyship’s satisfaction, looking like their arms were about to snap off.

  I waved and wobbled past the other plot holders and dismounted at my half of plot sixteen. Gemma’s shed was open. Hurrah, that meant I would have the pleasure of her company while I worked. And my apple tree was in blossom, double hurrah.

  ‘Ivy Lane allotments will look like a film set by June,’ I said, parking the bike next to my shed and heading over to see her.

  ‘They all think they’re going on flippin’ X Factor,’ grumbled Gemma from her deckchair. ‘Green Fingers will be looking for quirky characters not perfect plots.’

  She rolled up her pink capri pants and stretched her legs out for maximum UV exposure.

  ‘I, on the other hand, shall be cultivating nothing more strenuous than a tan,’ she added, leaning back and tilting her face to the sun.

  Today her hair was clipped back with a pink ladybird and I eyed her summery outfit enviously, wishing I had the confidence to strip off. I was wearing a T-shirt and my arms, exposed for the first time in yonks, were already turning pink but my legs, clad in skinny jeans, were sweltering.

  ‘I swear, Mum, if you make me be here when they’re filming I’m going to go and live with Dad,’ said Mia, without looking up from her phone.

  Grounded again, presumably. She was sprawled out on the grass next to Gemma, wearing barely decent denim shorts and a T-shirt.

  Probably just as well my legs weren’t on display, I thought, noticing how toned and golden Mia’s teenage limbs were.

  ‘I’d rather die than be seen on a gardening programme. They’d probably make me stand up in assembly at school and talk about it,’ she continued with a shudder.

  I smothered a smile; poor girl, her mother would relish the limelight, but I was with Mia on this one and remembered how much I’d yearned to blend into the background at her age. Still did, come to that.

  I was feeling pretty excited today. Not because of the TV thing – the mere thought of that had the same effect on my stomach as the smell of Shazza’s mushroom compost. My good mood was down to an imminent event: the harvesting of my first crop. Yippee!

  After a catastrophic start to my allotment career in which I nearly threw in the trowel, the plot that I shared with Gemma had come on leaps and bounds over the last month and my radishes, I had been reliably informed by Nigel, were ready for harvesting.

  ‘OK, drumroll please,’ I announced, willing my crop not to let me down.

  ‘Get a picture of this on your phone, Mia,’ said Gemma, leaning forward in her deckchair. ‘This is history in the making.’

  I knelt down gingerly on the edge of the path near what I referred to as my salad patch, delved down into the roots with my pink hand fork and lifted the first fruits of my labour.

  Four pinky-red spheres with tiny white roots twinkled at me through the crumbly soil. Mia zoomed in close – to be honest, they were quite small – and took a photograph.

  ‘Look at these beauties,’ I said, holding them high as if I’d won an Oscar. ‘Like little rubies.’

  Radishes. I couldn’t even remember buying radishes before and now I had grown my own. With Nigel’s help, but even so.

  ‘Ah, look at you, beaming with pride!’ Gemma got to her feet and I yielded to her rib-crushing hug.

  It was ridiculous but tears sprang to my eyes. Gemma was right, my heart was singing with joy and I sent my counsellor a silent message of thanks for encouraging me to take on the allotment as a way of getting my life back on track.

  A few minutes later I had a little pile of radishes on the path. A few had grown too big and spongy and several were too small to bother with, but on the whole I was flushed with success.

  ‘We ought to try some,’ said Gemma. ‘Go and give them a wash under the tap, Tills. Whoops, sorry!’ She cringed at me. ‘Tilly.’

  While I fetched a basket from the shed to put them in, Gemma began extoling the virtues of the radish to Mia from the grass path at the edge of my plot.

  ‘Packed with vitamin C, love,’ she said, ‘and very low in calories.’

  ‘I don’t think Mia has to worry about her weight,’ I said, pinching the tops off the radishes and dropping them into my basket.

  ‘Huh!’ said Gemma. ‘Maybe not now, but when she first hit puberty she ballooned like—’

  ‘I’ll wash those,’ sai
d Mia, snatching the basket out of my hand and sprinting off to the tap.

  ‘This allotment is largely for her benefit,’ whispered Gemma, although Mia was out of earshot by now. Gemma did make me laugh; she had a habit of only being discreet when there was no one else around. ‘It’s hard work but it’s worth it . . .’

  That was debatable; she palmed off all the hard jobs to Colin.

  ‘Teaching her about eating healthy food is one of the best gifts I can give her.’

  I touched her arm gently and she patted my hand. Underneath that bubbly, carefree exterior she was a great mum. The sort I would have given my right arm to be. My heart pitched suddenly, but Gemma, as usual, brought it straight back up again by snorting with laughter.

  ‘Besides which,’ she said mischievously, plonking down in her chair again, ‘I’ve met Mia’s grandmother. That woman’s butt has probably got its own postcode.’

  I joined in the laughter and glanced over to the tap. Mia had turned the water on full blast and had soaked herself and Liz, who was waiting in turn to use it. I had two minutes at most.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Can I ask you a personal question?’

  ‘Of course you can!’ She looked at me in surprise. ‘We’re mates. My life is an open book.’

  A wave of something close to nausea washed over me. Mine was more like a secret diary that required a special key to open it. A key that was currently in hiding.

  I took a deep breath, forced a smile and carried on. ‘Who is Mia’s dad?’

  Gemma rolled her eyes as if the story of Mia’s parentage was so old hat. ‘A tall, dark and handsome hairdresser called Kevin from Birmingham who I met on an experimental colour course in London when I was eighteen.’

  ‘You were a hairdresser?’

  ‘Trainee. Although, to be honest, I wasn’t cut out to do hair. No one ever wants what will suit them.’ The glance she flicked over my straggly locks didn’t go unnoticed. I dreaded going to the hairdresser’s. Such inquisitive types.

  Moving on.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘We were staying in a hotel and let’s just say we ended up experimenting with more than hair colour. Both virgins we were. A few weeks later I found out I was pregnant and he came out as gay. You can imagine what that did to my sexual confidence. I mean, just how bad in the sack do you have to be to turn a man gay?’ Her huge blue eyes searched mine and for a moment I thought she genuinely wanted an answer.

  ‘Are you still in touch with him?’

  ‘Yeah. Kevin’s not a bad dad, actually; Mia sees him every month and he’s quite handy for free haircuts. Anyway, after I had Mia, I decided to retrain as a beautician.’ She sighed and pinched her thumbs and forefingers together. ‘I see myself as a holistic healer focusing on the outside of the body. Healing people is my gift.’

  I studied Gemma’s face with affection as she lay back, closed her eyes and soaked up the early-summer sun. I had only known her four months, but already she had brought some much needed fun into my life. I hadn’t made many friends in Kingsfield, but she, like her name, was a gem. A gift.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ I said, giving up all pretence of gardening and setting up a chair next to hers. ‘I thought grounding a teenager meant not allowing them out. But Mia is – very regularly, I notice – allowed to come with you.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Gemma. ‘How little you understand of Planet Teenager. Firstly, Mia has got a very cunning streak—’

  ‘Oh, I can’t imagine where she gets that from,’ I said, wide-eyed.

  Gemma arched her perfect eyebrows at me innocently.

  ‘At fourteen she thinks her job is to push the boundaries twenty-four/seven. It’s my job to keep the boundaries intact.’

  ‘Yes, but isn’t the punishment meant to be being grounded at home?’

  ‘What, lolling around in her bedroom with unlimited wifi?’ She scoffed. ‘That’s not punishment, it’s heaven. Whereas here I can embarrass her and she gets hardly any phone signal. Both of those things are murder for Mia.’

  I nodded, it all made sense now.

  You’ll see,’ she said with a brisk nod, ‘when you have kids.’

  I swallowed hard, momentarily at a loss for words. As if that was going to happen any time soon.

  Mia was on her way back from the tap, swinging the basket, her arm fully rotating like the sails on a windmill. Goodness knows what state the radishes would be in. Caught unawares, Mia seemed much younger and Gemma and I exchanged indulgent smiles.

  ‘Besides which – don’t tell her – I like having her near me. A few more years and she’ll be gone. Flown off to start her own life.’

  I looked at her sharply, worried that she was going to get all tearful on me. That was usually my domain. But her eyes twinkled. ‘That’s when phase two of Gemma’s beauty empire will commence.’ She sat up tall in her seat and held out her hand for the basket. ‘Come on, Mia, let’s have a taste then.’

  The radishes were a triumph. By that I mean crunchy and peppery and exactly as a fresh radish should be. To me they tasted of success and accomplishment and of the start of a new era in my life. Quite a lot really for one small vegetable.

  ‘Ooh, have one of these, Mia,’ said Gemma, pursing her lips, ‘they’re like sweets.’

  I wouldn’t have gone that far.

  Mia tried one and declared it as bad as earwax. I wouldn’t have gone that far either.

  ‘So what are you grounded for this time, Mia, if it’s not too personal?’ I had given up trying to be cool around Mia. While I still thought of myself as young, I suspected she thought I had one foot in the grave already.

  Mia sighed with all the pathos she could muster. ‘My phone bill.’

  Gemma glared at her daughter and shook her head at me. ‘Fifty quid! Texting her new boyfriend, apparently.’

  I thought Mia might blush, but she smiled dreamily. Perhaps she was more like her mother than I’d given her credit for. She also didn’t seem particularly repentant.

  Gemma tutted. ‘That’s three legs I have to wax to earn fifty quid.’

  The mind boggled.

  ‘Talking of which . . .’ she added, jumping out of her seat and running to her shed. She returned with a wodge of leaflets and handed one to me. ‘My new price list. So if you fancy getting your legs done . . .’ She looked pointedly at my jeans.

  I drew my feet underneath me protectively. ‘No thanks.’

  Ivy Lane wasn’t ready for these legs just yet.

  Alf, pushing a wheelbarrow, grunted his way to the edge of our plot. He rested his hands on his hips and puffed out his cheeks. He looked like a scarecrow in his battered straw hat and moth-eaten shirt.

  ‘Would either of you two ladies like some strawberry plants?’ he said, pointing to his barrow. ‘I potted up my runners last year and I’ve got too many now.’

  Gemma declined the offer, saying she didn’t have room. Neither did I really, but I did like the idea of strawberries.

  ‘Dig up the lettuces, then you can make your salad patch into a strawberry patch,’ Gemma suggested. ‘We’ll help you eat the strawberries if you like.’

  I grinned at her, noting the word ‘eat’ as opposed to ‘plant’. ‘But the lettuces are only tiny, they’re not ready yet.’

  ‘True,’ said Gemma, ‘but the baby leaves will be tender and sweet. We’ll have some, won’t we, Mia? Fancy a salad for tea?’

  ‘Oh, not more sweets,’ said Mia, rolling her eyes and patting her stomach. ‘You’re spoiling me today, Mother.’

  I swapped the strawberry plants for half of my radishes. Alf was chuffed and I was happy to pass them on (you could have too much of a good thing) and I set the little pots down next to my shed.

  Before I was able to plan my next move, Colin swaggered down the path towards me in a pair of low-slung jeans.

  ‘Seeing as our plot could win gold at Chelsea, and my mother has gone home a happy woman, I’m here to offer my services,’ said Colin, wearing a chee
ky grin. ‘Do those strawberries want planting?’

  I hesitated. The idea was that I tended my own plot: exercise, fresh air, a sense of achievement . . .

  ‘Oh, go on then. Thanks, Colin,’ I said, opting to enjoy the sunshine from the comfort of my chair instead of at ground level, as soon as I’d shown him where to put them.

  ‘Still OK to do another chapter today?’ he muttered as we went into the shed to fetch some tools.

  ‘Of course,’ I said and smiled.

  It had become obvious that Colin was dyslexic when we’d started reading together at Easter and I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t been picked up before now. I’d pointed him in the direction of an adult literacy course that was due to start soon but in the meantime, whenever he managed to escape from his mother’s clutches, I was helping him with his reading practice. We were halfway through Killing Mum. His choice. I didn’t question it.

  Colin’s droopy jeans retreated even further as he bent down and I was treated to an eyeful of his underwear. I didn’t want to damage his self-esteem but I was sorely tempted to let on that, actually, women didn’t find grey boxer shorts particularly exciting. Then I caught Mia staring at his bum with undisguised appreciation. Maybe just old women, then. I turned away and tried not to feel ancient.

  ‘Got any mulch?’ Colin asked, tapping the base of the pots sharply to free the small strawberry plants.

  I shrugged. I was still getting to grips with the allotment jargon. I might have had mulch, and then again I might not. It depended what it was.

  ‘Straw’ he explained. ‘To protect the base of the plants.’

  ‘No, but I can soon sort that out,’ I said. The allotment shop was open and I strode off to pick some up.

  The shop was less retail emporium and more converted garage with double doors and shelves full of odd things like Epsom salts, seaweed extract and vermiculite. I found Christine in charge. She was sitting on a bag of John Innes Compost No. 1 and gazing into the distance like a love-struck teenager. In fact, she wore an identical expression to Mia’s not five minutes ago. I had never seen her so still, she normally moved like an industrious ant on a mission.