by Paul Finch
Each of her neighbours had already put their rubbish out, slumped sacks lining the street like squat little sentinels, and she realised it must be even later than she'd initially thought. The streetlamps were on, heavy rain clouds reflecting the light so that the road seemed to simmer in a sulphurous sodium glow. It made Mary think of how the Earth's volcanic sky must have looked, back when the planet was young and still forming, cloud-filled and lava-lit, all aglow with fire.
She deposited her rubbish and was about to return to the house when a mobile phone beeped twice, loud in the quiet of the evening. It made her pause.
The new girl across the street, Jasmine, was lingering at her gate with a young man. There was another double bleat, the technological heartbeat that seemed to keep teenagers alive these days, but Mary saw that neither of the two made any effort to check their phones. They were too engrossed in each other, their hands on each other's waist. They looked as if they were about to kiss, or had recently been kissing.
"Careful," Mary said quietly. "Boys are bad for your heart."
She glanced away and down at the plants in her front garden, uncomfortable watching the couple in their private moment but too curious to go inside just yet. She focused her attention on the gladioli she had growing at either side of the front gate where they'd catch the sun. Gladioli were great for bringing colour to a garden, a bright array of simple flowers hardy enough to use year after year, if the winter was a mild one. That said, and it was difficult to tell in the poor light, it looked like the leaves of these were mottled. She bent to look closer rather than kneel, wincing at the crack in her back, and took a few of the leaves into her hand. They were certainly wilting a little. She'd check in tomorrow's daylight but she thought (hoping she was wrong) it was perhaps greenfly.
Across the road, the two shadowy forms at the gate melted into each other as they kissed. Mary thought of the young brother, and what he might think of it. She thought about the hole she had made in the back garden, in the shed, and that maybe she should fill it in again already.
When the outside light came on at number 45 the teenagers pulled away from their embrace. The front door opened and there was the father. "Jasmine, time to let the boy go. School tomorrow."
Mary thought that as far as reprimands went, Jasmine had been lucky. Mary's own father had been a far sterner sort. He had made boys afraid of him, and her afraid of men, and she thought it no exaggeration to say that as a result of such a strict upbringing she had become the seventy-year-old spinster she was today.
She watched as her new neighbour retreated inside to allow his daughter a final moment of privacy, though he left the front door open to emphasise his point about curfew. Mary waited in case she caught a glimpse of Peter but the boy was probably watching television or maybe even in bed. Then the door was closed and Mary was alone again except for a teenage boy walking away, face lit eerie green by the light of his phone.
A movement to her right caught Mary's eye and she turned in time to see the curtains of 44 twitching closed. James or Claire had been watching as well, it seemed, but the show was now over.
Mary retreated to the warmth of her own home for a much-needed drink.
****
Mary had not been much of a drinker until recent years. Oh, she used to enjoy the occasional tipple on special occasions, and once or twice she maybe had a glass of wine in the bath, but otherwise she was very much a tea-drinker. Tonight, though, she needed something a little stronger. And for Mary, that meant whisky. Just a wee dram.
Her hands were sore from clutching the handle of the spade so fiercely and for so long. The skin of her palms had been rubbed raw and it hurt to straighten her fingers. She looked, in fact, like she had been stricken with the arthritis she had so far been lucky enough to avoid, her hands curled into fleshy claws. Still, she managed to twist the bottle open easily enough. Only a supermarket own-brand (on her pension, it had to be) but it would do. She half-filled a cup and took it through to the living room where she could put the electric heater on for a few minutes, just to take the evening chill from her bones.
The island of Islay produced a wonderful whisky, she'd heard. It had a delicious smoky flavour, apparently, thanks to how the malt was dried over a peat-heated fire, the barley infused with the flavours of the smoke.
Peat-heated fire , she thought. Pete-heated.
Peter.
Peter: the stone, the rock. From the Greek, petro. Mary had looked it up.
Peat was similar to coal in that it came from plants but it burned down more quickly, delivering a lot of heat but only for a short period of time. Coal took a lot longer to form, but it burned for longer.
She put the whisky down on the drop-leaf table beside her but her hand remained bent into the shape that had held it. Or rather, the shape that had pushed and raised and turned a spade for the last few hours. Like petrified wood, her hand looked like it always had but was locked in place the same way trees would transition into stone as minerals replaced organic matter. Fossils were mere impressions in rock, a trace of what was, but petrified wood had its own three-dimensional shape, not simply a trace of what once was but a stronger version of what it used to be. Solid, not hollow. It had substance, albeit one that lacked any kind of life. Like the Tollund Man, wonderfully preserved in a peat bog for centuries. Curled up like a child in the belly of Mother Nature.
Mary took another drink, a petrified fossil trying to forget what had made her.
****
Mary was in her front garden picking at mottled leaves when Mr Turner came over to say hello. She hadn't noticed him at first, examining the plants which were just as damaged as she'd feared. She turned each leaf to check the underside because often a problem lay underneath, unseen, and yes. Greenfly. She wasn't sure how that had happened-she'd been spraying the garden regularly-but here was the proof. The leaves had curled and browned and she knew the combination of toxic greenfly-saliva and the plant's lack of sap would prove to be its downfall if she didn't act quickly.
"Good morning."
Mr Turner had a very deep voice, loud even from across the road. He was approaching her garden, smiling politely. "Problem with your flowers?"
"Good morning, yes, gladioli, Mr Turner. I mean, it is a good morning, yes, Mr Turner, and the flowers are gladioli. It's a-"
He was holding up his hand and Mary worried about her babbling- he'd clearly heard enough-but he simply said, "Elijah, please. Mr Turner makes me feel like I'm in trouble for something." He smiled.
"Elijah." Mary said it quietly.
"Actually, I suppose I am sort of in trouble. Thought I'd come to ask you for some help."
"Is it the forsythia? It can get out of hand if left for a while like yours has been. I mean, that's not your fault, of course, the property's been empty, but you should prune it just after it's bloomed. If you-"
"No, no, it's not the… forsythia? I'm not too sure what that even is, actually. It's just that-"
"It's that beautiful yellow shrub. Sunrise forsythia. The one you have tangling with the hydrangea, in that corner bed by your front door."
"Is it? Thank you. I'll take a look at that, see if I can sort it out. Mrs, Miss…?"
"Oh, just Mary."
"Mary. Hi, Mary. My wife said you two had met, and that's the closest I've come to meeting anyone yet, and I was wondering if you knew someone around here who babysits? Maybe there's a teenage girl, like my Jasmine, only one who doesn't disappear with her boyfriend at the last minute and conveniently forgets her own little brother?"
He smiled again, but it looked a little strained to Mary. She thought his attempt to joke actually had its roots in a more serious concern about his daughter. That was what happened, though, and it was a shame: children grew up. And whatever they grew into was often the parents' fault.
"I only ask because we're desperate, you see. My wife and I, Pixie, we're supposed to go to this-"
"I could look after him for a few hours."
The
first expression on Mr Turner's face was a mixture of relief and happiness but he recovered enough to shake his head, saying, "No, I couldn't ask you to do that. I didn't come over to ask that."
Mary thought he had come over with the hope at least, if not the expectation, that she would look after Peter, but she simply said, "Nonsense. It would be a pleasure. I haven't seen my grandchildren in a while. It'll be good to have some lively young blood in the house again."
Grandchildren? Oh, why had she said that? Now he'll want to know their names, and their ages, and all sorts of other things.
"Grandkids, eh? How old? How many?"
"Just the two, and not so young now. The eldest is about the same age as your daughter and the youngest is eight. Both boys."
Mr Turner was nodding. It was the nod of a man not really listening but rather agreeing with his own thoughts. Mary thought they probably went something along the lines of she's got grandchildren, they're boys, she'll be fine. "Thing is," he said, "it's rather short notice, too. As in, tonight."
Mary waved that away as the trivial detail it was. What would she be doing that couldn't be put off for another day? How did any of her days or evenings differ anyway? "That's okay, he'll save me from the horrors of Coronation Street."
"Petey said you two spoke the other day," Mr Turner said, more at ease.
"Yes, that's right. About digging, and fossils. I said I'd show him some of mine. I have a few fossils in the back garden, you see, ammonites mostly, all in a row bordering-"
"Sounds wonderful. Just his cup of tea. If you really don't mind?"
"Not at all. It would be my pleasure."
They arranged a suitable time and said their goodbyes, Mr Turner offering a final compliment before he went. "I love your garden. So full of colour."
When he'd gone, Mary looked again at her gladioli. Aphids were the most destructive of pests in any garden and last year her sweet peas had succumbed, becoming sickly and dangerous themselves so that she'd had to destroy them. Greenfly reproduced asexually, the offspring an exact replica of the parent, and they would spread quickly throughout the entire garden if she didn't act quickly. Nip it in the bud, so to speak.
She went to the shed.
****
Mary thrust the shovel into the thick wet earth, grunting with the effort.
The babysitting had not gone well.
Peter's parents had given him dinner before bringing him over but Mary had fed him fuller still with biscuits and cakes she had made especially for his visit. They had played a board game in the conservatory, surrounded by cacti and draping ferns, snug beneath hanging red stars and purple petunias. They'd played Snakes and Ladders. Mary only had old games, and certainly nothing like a computer, but that hadn't seemed to bother Peter, unless he was just very polite.
"I like snakes," he'd said, moving his piece down one of the colourful serpents. "Do you like snakes?"
"If I'm honest, and I always try to be, I find them a bit frightening," Mary had admitted. "I'm all right with slow worms, though."
Peter had looked at her with a frown and so she'd explained. "They look a lot like snakes but actually they're lizards. You wouldn't know it, though. I find them in my garden occasionally, near the compost heap where the grass is longer. They're quite harmless." She'd smiled, adding, "Unless you're a slug or a worm."
"Can we look for some?"
"Slow worms? Of course we can."
Peter had leapt up, knocking the board but only scattering the pieces a few squares backwards. "Can I keep it if I find one?"
"We can't look now. It's too dark, and quite chilly."
"I've got my hoodie."
"It's still dark."
"I've got a torch at home, I can get it."
"They're probably sleeping now anyway, underground. We can look in the day time. Let's finish our game. It's your go."
He had sat on the settee again without sulking or complaining, correcting the knocked pieces on the board, and Mary had thought, such a nice boy. Such a nice young man. So well behaved. Then he'd started shaking the dice for his next turn, his fist pumping up and down, back and forth in his lap, like something obscene.
"All right, come on, let's look for snakes," Mary had said, just to make it stop.
"Yes!"
"Slow worms, I mean. I've got a torch. And I'll show you those fossils."
In the hole, in the shed, Mary attacked the mound of soil with renewed vigour, shovelling all she'd unearthed back into the dark hole she'd made. One hard horizontal thrust buried the shovel blade right up to the shaft, and when she tried to lever it there was a loud crack and the handle broke so suddenly that she fell.
Nothing broke, nothing in Mary. Nothing dislocated. That was a small miracle at her age. It was going to be tricky getting up again but for now she sat staring at the length of wood she held in her hands. "Bloody thing," she said, and dropped it into her lap where she saw that the handle was indeed bloody. She checked her hands and found them wet with it. Sticky where it had mixed with her sweat. It hurt to straighten her fingers but she would not cry. She would not. The skin was pink, seeping in places and bleeding in others where blisters had burst. Dirt lined each of her wrinkles, emphasising them with a brown colour not her own. She was herself a fossil, hollowed and cracked.
"He has such beautiful smooth skin," she said. "Dark like soil. Like wet earth."
She brought her hands close to inhale the pungent damp smell of the dirt but smelt only her own sweat and the tinge of blood.
Peter had smelled of sunshine, as if all the heat of the day had been trapped in his skin. They'd gone to the compost heap, sweeping at the long grass with sticks, small lengths of cane that she used to support young plants. Sweeping at the long grass with torchlight, looking for slow worms.
"Ugh, gross," Peter had said, "what is that smell?"
"That's the compost. Look, there." She'd pointed to a dark heap in the gap between the shed and back fence, hidden behind the water barrel that collected rain from the shed's guttering. Peter had shone the torch over it, covering his nose and mouth with his free hand. Mary had become used to the odour but Peter's reaction had her smelling it as if for the first time. A sour smell, like spoiled milk, yet sickly sweet, too, with grass cuttings and the stems of decaying flowers as well as potato skins and egg shells, the rotting refuse of her past meals. Draped across the top, loose bouquets of pulled weeds and pruned branches, and beneath it all the rank smell of damp manure. The pile had greyed up one side with a fur of mould, and some nettles had sprouted. A warmth emanated from the waste, the compost snug in the heat of its own decay.
"It's so gross," Peter had said again, pretending to vomit.
"Well, maybe it's you," Mary'd said, daring a joke. "When did you last have a bath?" She had scooped him close and breathed deep, her nose pressed to the nape of his neck, and that was when she'd discovered his sunshine. Mary was too old to lift him for tickles as his mother had, but she pressed her fingers to his armpits. Peter had tried to pull away.
"Stop it!"
Mary had released him immediately. "Sorry," she'd said. "I thought you liked tickles."
"That hurt. You pinched me."
"Sorry."
Peter had swept at the long grass, making a show of one final check. "No snakes," he'd said.
"No snakes," Mary said again, sitting in the vast hole she'd excavated. She pressed her palms to the cool damp soil and it soothed her raw skin. She clutched the soil in tiny fragile fists and turned her hands to see what she'd been given, opening her fists to find muddy shapes, ridged by the squeeze of her fingers. "He has such beautiful skin," she said again. She dropped the two clods of earth and plunged her hands deep into the pile of dirt beside the hole, scooping it towards herself and tossing cupped handfuls over her shoulder, trying not to sob as somewhere behind her Adam told her what it was she wanted to do.
He had emerged early in the digging this time, his head appearing on a shovelful of dirt. She'd cast it as
ide, heard it land and roll, only to see him rise again from the earth with the next shovel of soil. She'd cast this one aside too and it rolled to where the other had been only moments before. She'd bury it with the next load. She'd bury all of them, again, as many times as she had to.
She was hot, even at this late hour. Using the broken handle to help, Mary eventually, carefully, stood. She stripped away her clothes, undressing down to her underwear, throwing her garments to the door where they wouldn't be buried. She felt as heavy as the soil beneath her feet, slow and sagging, a repulsive filthy old woman, but still she swept handfuls, armfuls, from the dug up heap back into the hole, sweating in the fury of her activity. She thought of the world's earliest years, when continents crashed together and spewed volcanic clouds to fill the skies, raising the temperature so that life had a chance to form and flourish. The world heating and cooling, breathing, so that new life might bloom or, sometimes, end abruptly.
"I bet he tastes like soil, too," Adam said. "I bet he tastes of life. You'd taste all the nutrients of the world in the sap of that darksoil."
Mary shuddered but still she shovelled, using both hands to fill the hole. She thought of things not Peter. She thought of the titanic heaves and descents of plate tectonics, rocks (Peter, petro, the stone, the rock) taken down into the Earth's depths before being shoved up again filled with new nutrients, convulsions of earth shaping the surface of the world anew with mountains and valleys, an up-down wave of stone and soil forced into shape by the churning of the world's hot rocks. It was the same movement that created the world's magnetic field, the irresistible push and pull that made Mary think of her own impulses. If she didn't let such shifts affect her, who would she be? What was her Nature if not this?
No. Nature could be contained, controlled-her own garden was the beautiful proof. But the weeding, the pruning, the constant landscaping, it was so exhausting. If she was honest with herself…
The next handful of earth she brought to her face, relishing its coolness on her cheeks and brow, the moist aroma of it. She plunged her tongue into the dirt she held and tasted an acidic sourness, a metallic sharpness, sweet alkaline. Kneeling in the earth, half-buried in it, tasting it on her skin, she prayed to her Nature, a monster goddess she could worship but never hide from. She confessed her deeds and desires until the entire pit she had made was gone, full again, sated with its own soil.