Chapter Eleven - Green Fingers

Saturday 11^th November  

Having spent all morning staring at a screen, Catherine decided she needed fresh air and exercise.  For exactly the same reason, she suggested her daughters could do with some too and should join her down on the allotment.

Both played the homework card.

'You could do that tomorrow,' she told Kirsty.

'But you always tell us off if we leave it until the last minute...'

That was true.  

'I'll see you later, then.'

'What's for tea?'

'Rhubarb, hopefully.'

Kirsty didn't seem impressed.  Catherine wondered whether she should big up its properties as a source of vitamins for healthy skin but opted to say nothing.  Her younger daughter didn't need reminding about her acne.

'Have we got any more pads, Mum?'  Kirsty asked.

'They should be in the bathroom cabinet, love.'  Poor kid.  She had only started her periods three months ago and was on and off like a tap.  'Have you checked?'

'There are only two left.  There are some of those fat ones without wings, but I hate those.'

Catherine didn't use them from choice but for cheapness.

'I'll get some more at the Co-op.'

'I like the Bodyform ones.'

'I'm not sure if they've got those,' said Catherine.  'If they have, I'll get you some.  If not, you don't mind their own brand ultras, do you?'

'They'll do.  They aren't as good.'  The child was already displaying keen brand loyalty.

Catherine put her coin purse and two spare carrier bags in the pocket of her gardening coat, along with her pack of garlic.  If she didn't take her cards or notes, she wouldn't be tempted to spend more than she could afford.  Even the garlic seemed like an extravagance, but it needed planting now if they were to have a crop the following summer.  They should get plenty from the three bulbs and, putting the cost into perspective, she had once been happy to spend more on a coffee.

It was bitingly cold and, although the sun was out, there was a cruel edge to the breeze.  Catherine judged there was a good chance she would be out of the wind on her plot, as the hedge between the allotments and the housing estate should shelter her.

She called into the Co-op on her way.  Kirsty's favourite pads were on a three-for-two offer ,which made them cheaper than the own brand alternative.  Catherine snapped them up, although this meant passing on the orange-labelled beef joint that would have given them all a much-needed change from chicken for tomorrow's Sunday roast.

She it was a long, dull trek up the main road from there but, eventually, she came to the high mesh fence and the gate to the allotment site.  She twisted the combination on the padlock to let herself in, closed the gate and muddled the numbers behind her.  The small site was busy, fellow gardeners were engaged in pre-winter work all around her.

‘Wotcher Cathy!’ 

Bernie, who greeted her as he looked up from cutting back his autumn-fruiting raspberries, had the plot to the right of hers.  A round little chap in his late seventies and something of a chatterbox, he had been a great help to Catherine when she had been picking up the pieces during the spring, and had quietly made sure that the paths were mown and the worst of the weeds cleared in the months before she decided to keep it on.  It was his advice to ‘start with taters – you can’t go wrong with taters!’ that had precipitated the glut she had needed help to harvest.

‘Hello, Bernie!’  Catherine opened the shed and put her purse and shopping on the shelf inside.  All the tools were neatly ranged in a rack along the rear wall, hanging in the same order that Will had left them.  Today, she needed only the trowel and a rake.

‘Nice and bright again!’ Bernie chirped as she started work levelling the patch where the garlic would go.

‘Yes, it is.’  She had been right about the hedge keeping the wind off of.

‘Don’t forget, if you need a hand with your winter digging, you only have to ask.’

‘That’s very kind.  I think I’ll be alright.  I’ve done most of the plot already.  It’s been good exercise for me.’

‘Old Lionel, he doesn’t dig his plot anymore.  He covers it over with cardboard and piles fresh muck on it over the autumn, then plants through it in the spring.’

‘That’s an interesting idea.’

‘Bloody bonkers, if you ask me.  He’ll never get decent crops if he doesn’t work his soil.’

Bernie explained at some length why he felt Lionel’s strategy was misguided.  There was a friendly but keen rivalry between the site’s two oldest gardeners, which Catherine literally found herself caught between.  Bernie was a traditionalist, digging over his whole plot every year, rotating his crops assiduously and resorting to chemical warfare if bugs or weeds threatened to overwhelm it.  Lionel’s patch was divided into raised beds; he had embraced organic principles some years back and was now dabbling in permaculture.  Bernie had apparently predicted each of Lionel’s trendy new practices would end in disaster, but every year he had been disappointed. 

Catherine listened, nodding her agreement, while she cleared the thin top-growth of fresh weeds from her chosen garlic bed, trod it down and raked it to a fine tilth.

‘What you got there, then?’ Bernie asked, seeing her splitting the bulbs into cloves.  ‘Garlic?’

‘That’s right.’

‘That should be an ideal spot for it.  Nice and sunny, not too wet.  Needs a bit of frost over the winter, so don’t stick Will’s cloches over it.  On the other hand, if you don’t cover it with something, the old cats will scrape in that nice bit of ground you’ve raked over.  You could do with a bit of net or some chicken wire.  I’ve probably got a bit round the back of my shed.  Hang on while I have a look.’

Catherine had started planting the cloves when he came back with a handy roll of mesh.

‘You want to give them a bit more room, love,’ Bernie advised.  ‘Use your trowel as a spacer.  And they want to go right under the ground, not leaving the top poking out.’

‘Thanks!’

Having set her on the right track, Bernie carried on composting his raspberry canes, but only for a few minutes.

‘I’m off to the site hut to do a brew for the gang.  Do you want one?’

‘I’m alright, thanks.  I’m not staying long.  I’m just getting these in.’

‘The others are all having one.  Sally’s brought biscuits and some of those funny Indian things her father-in-law makes.’

‘That’s very kind, but I have to get on.  I’ve got things to do at home before it gets dark.’

There was a kitty for the milk too.  Catherine would be embarrassed at not having spare change to chip in.  She carried on measuring out the spaces between her garlic cloves, setting them carefully in place and covering them with soft, crumbly earth.  The robin that hung about the hedge came closer, snatching worms almost within an arm’s reach of where she was working.  She finished her planting and, mindful of Bernie’s words about the cats, spread his chicken wire cover over the bed.

She stood up, stretched and turned around.  The afternoon sun cast a watery-yellow light across the flat site, stretching long shadows across her allotment from the vacant bean poles on her organic neighbour’s plot.  There was no sign of him today; she wondered if it might be the wrong phase of the moon for him to tend his crops; such things supposedly mattered, according to Lionel.  Plenty of the others had work to do, though most had downed tools for the time being.  A pale wisp of bonfire smoke was rising from one of the plots at the other end of the site.  A strimmer wined, although that might have been in one of the nearby gardens.  The sound of laughter drifted across from the Allotment Association hut.

Catherine took her tools back into the shed, wiped them clean and hung them back where she had found them.  On a whim, she lifted the spade down, set it to one side and put the fork in its place.  She moved the hoe to where the fork had been.  Then she took all of the tools off of the rack before sorting them back on, in an order which seemed more logical to her.  She put her purse in her pocket and picked up her bag.

‘Mustn’t forget the rhubarb!’ she reminded herself, as she locked the door of her shed.

There was a clump at the top of the plot, close to the hedge.  The leaves were yellowing but there were still plenty of sturdy stems.  Catherine pulled three, enough for dessert tonight, then a few more to use in a crumble, when she had the oven on tomorrow.  That would be the last of the season.  Bernie had told her to leave it alone last week but it was free food, so couldn’t be allowed to go to waste.  She put them into her spare plastic bag and started back towards the main path through the site, a carrier bag in each hand.

There was a figure standing at the edge of her plot, silhouetted against the sun.

‘Is that you, Ralph?’ Catherine said, shading her eyes against the glare.

It was.  He was carrying something that looked rather like a slightly-undersized rugby ball.

‘I’ve ended up with a glut of spaghetti squashes,’ he said, as if he owed her an apology for his lack of foresight.  ‘I wondered if you’d like one?’  He offered her the rugby ball.

‘Er, thanks…’

‘Sorry.’  He noticed she didn’t have a free hand.  ‘I’ll put it in your bag for you.’

He reached for the bag with the sanitary pads in.

‘Other one, please!’ said Catherine, offering the bag in her right hand.

The squash went in with the rhubarb.

‘How do you cook it?’ Catherine asked.

‘The easiest way is to wash it, cut it in half,width-ways, put it face down on a baking tray and roast it for about half an hour.  When it’s done, you'll find the insides break up like spaghetti.  Serve it with pasta sauce and a glass of red.  Easy!’

‘The girls might like that.’

Ralph apologised.  ‘You could do with another one really, to feed three.  I’ll fetch one.’

‘That’s alright.  I'm sure…’

But he was already loping away down the path to his plot.  Catherine stood waiting with her bags, watching the sky turning red and gold.

‘There you go!’  Ralph slipped the second squash into the wrong bag.

‘Thanks again.’

‘I’ll get the gate for you.’  He walked beside her, hands in his pockets, in nervous silence.  ‘How are things?’ he asked at last.

‘Not too bad.  I’ve got two interviews next week and I’ve got to do a course.’

‘That sounds interesting!’

‘I'm sure it won’t be.  It’s going to be a pain to get to as well.  It starts early and it’s in Basingstoke.’

‘Crikey!  That’s a long drive.  The traffic on the M3 in the morning’s murder too.’  Ralph stopped short.  ‘Oh Catherine, I’m so sorry!  I didn’t mean…’

‘I’m going up by train,’ Catherine said.

‘Right.’  Ralph fiddled with the combination lock.  ‘If it would help, I could drop you at Winchester station.’

That would help immensely.  It would save Catherine the cost of an early morning taxi and cut her rail fare in half.

‘That’s very kind, but I’m fine, thank you.’  She stepped through the gate.  As she did so, her purse fell through a hole in her pocket and onto the ground.  

Ralph picked it up. 

‘You don’t want to lose that!’  He dropped it into the wrong bag, with the soggy ends of the rhubarb.  ‘That reminds me…  Wait there!’

‘Ralph, I…’

He strode away again.

Catherine wasn’t sure she wanted any more heavy produce to carry home.  It was a good twenty-minute walk and now the sun was almost set, it would get dark and cold quickly.  She could already see her breath.

Ralph reappeared.  He didn’t appear to be bearing gifts.

‘I picked this up by your plot a couple of weeks ago,’ he said, offering her a twenty-pound note.  ‘No-one seemed to have missed it or asked about it, so I was going to put it in the tea kitty.  Seeing your purse fall just then made me think it might be yours.’

Catherine was certain she would have noticed if she had lost a large note.  It was tempting to own it nonetheless.  She would pass the Co-op on her way home; perhaps the use-by today beef joint would still be there and she could put it in the slow cooker for lunch tomorrow?  She could stock up on Kirsty’s pads while they were cheap and have her taxi fare ready for the morning, rather than having to ask the driver to stop at the cashpoint so she could draw her child benefit out. 

Even though nobody else had missed it, she couldn’t accept it, however.

‘That’s very honest of you, Ralph, but I’m sure it isn’t mine.  Put it in the kitty.  If nobody claims it, we could have mince pies  on it next month!’

‘You are absolutely sure it isn't yours?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And you’re sure you're sorted for transport tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘I hope it’s not as bad as you expect.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Good luck with your interviews too.’

‘Thanks.’  Catherine smiled.  ‘I’ll let you know how I get on.’

‘Fingers crossed!’

‘Fingers crossed.’  Her fingers were actually starting to feel numb from holding the bags.  ‘See you again.' 

She smiled and turned away, stepping out down the main road back towards the village and wondering why she was so proud and so stupid.