The Garden Plot Read online

  By the time she finished her internship at Wisley, Christmas loomed, but she took a philosophical attitude about being by herself in London for the holiday. She couldn’t help but enjoy the sights and sounds—secretly pretending she lived in some version of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol—and decided she wouldn’t mind being alone on the day. She hadn’t talked with Jo in a week or two, and so was disinclined to phone her and sound pitiful as the holiday approached.

  “You’ll spend Christmas with us,” Jo said, ringing one day out of the blue. “Cordelia, Lucy, you, and me. Cordelia will play for us—oh, you’ll need a party piece.”

  Pru arrived at Jo’s on Christmas morning with a bottle of wine, flowers for the table, and a printed-out copy of “ ’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” which she had tried to memorize, but she kept getting stuck on the bit about throwing up the sash.

  Jo’s tiny flat had a tiny tabletop tree decorated with tiny exquisitely carved and painted wooden birds. Pru thought Jo might be a bird-watcher, but as it turned out, she had bought the entire tree, already decorated, from Selfridges in an after-Christmas sale a few years before, and only because it fit in her flat.

  As the turkey roasted, the three women asked Pru to explain how Americans could eat a turkey for their Thanksgiving in November and then again just a few weeks later for Christmas. “But isn’t it the same menu?” asked Cordelia. Pru agreed that it did sound odd, but pointed out that Christmas dinners might be ham or beef, whereas Thanksgiving was always turkey.

  Lucy and Cordelia supplied the Christmas crackers. Pru knew about crackers—they looked like toilet paper tubes covered in wrapping paper. The cracker was yanked apart by a person on either end, and with a pop, it broke open to reveal tiny gifts and tissue-paper crowns inside. “You see,” said Jo to Pru, “you even us out. I wouldn’t have anyone to pull the cracker with if you weren’t here.”

  They spent the rest of the evening wearing their crowns, drinking wine, playing with the toys, reading the jokes, singing carols accompanied by Cordelia, and presenting their party pieces. Lucy did a few magic tricks, during which the other three helped by paying no attention when the coin she was about to pull from behind Pru’s ear fell on the floor. Pru got through her poem with no hitches, and Jo sang a lovely rendition of “Flower of Scotland.” “There,” she said, “that’s for Alan.”

  Pru spared a thought for Christmas the year before, which she had spent with Lydia and family. She missed Lydia—she missed having a girlfriend. She cherished the occasional dinners she and Jo shared, meeting for drinks or coffee, and certainly being included in Christmas, but had to remind herself during the long stretches of empty evenings that Jo was a busy woman and new friends were sometimes hard to work in.

  After Pru had finished at Wisley, she acquired her first few business contacts in the gardening world, and Jo introduced her to several potential clients in the general Chelsea/Kensington neighborhood. Jo had the enviable position of being distantly related to the Bennet-Smythe family, who owned Grenadine Hall, a Grade II–listed house in Upper Oddington near the town of Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswolds where, unfortunately, they had no openings for a gardener, head or otherwise.

  After a quick cup of tea, Jo left and Pru packed her preliminary client kit into the large canvas bag that rarely left her side: a few colored-pencil garden renderings made to look as if they were dashed off in a moment, when in fact Pru had labored over them, drawing not being her strong suit; notepad; pencils; pens; hand pruners, because you never knew when someone wanted to try you out by having you clean up a misshapen boxwood on the spot; and two pairs of gloves. When she stepped out, a shaft of sunlight hit her, and so she stored her slicker in the bag, too. She headed out to the bus stop.

  What seemed odd transportation for a jobbing gardener moving from client to client through the day actually suited her. Pru found a patchwork of journeys on the Underground and buses to be the best transportation. All of her clients lived in central London, and many kept the necessary tools already—spade, fork, rake—which Pru need only augment. For particularly dirty or large jobs, she could give Sammy a ring. He would haul anything around, although his battered Mercedes truck looked as if it should be chucked in the tip along with whatever trash he was dumping.

  Pru sized up the front entry at the Wilsons’ when she arrived. Two stone pots flanked the door; they contained the remnants of a summer planting of pelargoniums, perilously hanging on to life in powdery dry soil by a few leaves and a couple of optimistic, but unopened, flower stalks. Knowing there would be just cause for the name “Toffee Woof-Woof,” Pru took a second to wonder which would prompt the bigger outburst, the knocker or the bell.

  She opted for the bell, and a barrage of barks greeted her from the other side of the door. Mrs. Wilson answered. Well-dressed in tweeds, she held back a caramel-colored terrier by the collar and said, “Oh, the bell always sets him off. He’s so much better with the knocker.” Good start, Pru.

  The town houses around Chartsworth Square had the usual two-up-two-down arrangement, including a hallway that led straight to the back door. Halfway down the hall, a door on the right opened to a combined sitting and dining room, and at the end of the hall, the kitchen. Stairs led straight up from the hall to two bedrooms and a bath. It was the same arrangement in Pru’s house, although flipped: the rooms were left of the stairs. As she followed Mrs. Wilson through the entry hall, she thought the Wilsons could easily have spread into the next town house over.

  Pru dodged a maze of half-moon display tables with spindly legs, each one covered in framed photos, enameled boxes, and monogrammed letter openers. She caught bits of wording as she passed: “In great appreciation to Harry Wilson from his friends at the AASL” engraved on a gold plaque; “To Harry Wilson on the occasion of his first successful dig …” on an unrolled parchment scroll; and, on a silver-framed certificate, a pen-and-ink sketch of what looked like a Roman bust, and scrawled underneath, “To Harry—a prince of a …” Pru didn’t have time to decipher the illegible last word or the equally illegible signature.

  Mrs. Wilson led her straight through to the back door and opened it. As they stood at the top of the outside stairs that led down to the garden, she waved her arm in presentation. “There! Isn’t it just awful?”

  The back garden, as narrow as the house, and deep in that typical London fashion, was framed by brick walls. Near to the house, at the bottom of the stairs, a small flagstone patio gave way to lawn that had seen better days. Against the walls grew creeper vines, just starting to color up for autumn.

  The lawn grew weedy as it receded, until at the back—the “bottom” of the garden—rose a mountain of ivy. On the left, a couple of bare white branches emerged from an unfortunate birch, and on the right, just visible above the sea of green, a small roof. The garden on the other side of the wall contrasted sharply: a tidy lawn with an oval island bed full of shrub roses and climbers lining the walls.

  “We haven’t had a moment to sort it out since we moved in last year, and I’m afraid it’s got the better of us now. Mr. Wilson, you see, is so very busy with work, and he didn’t want me to bother with this at all. ‘Just leave it, Vernona,’ he said, ‘don’t touch it,’ but I want to give him a bit of a surprise and get a good start on a proper garden, just like we had in Hampshire.”

  “It’s a lovely space, and with good sun. May I take some snapshots today?” Pru asked, reaching into her canvas bag. “Once it’s cleaned up, I’d love to be able to make a garden for you. Would you like to see any of my designs, Mrs. Wilson?”

  “No, certainly not; Victoria couldn’t say enough about you, wonderful American gardener. She said you transformed her rose arbor.” Yes, Pru remembered that rose arbor—a neglected climber with vicious thorns engulfing it, Pru had spent days untangling and pruning it back; she still had the scars to prove it.

  “Shall we get down to particulars, dear? Let me write you a cheque now for £200, and we’ll say that’s for your visit today an
d a bonus, then we’ll begin your hourly wage when you get going—plus expenses, of course. Will that be sufficient? You can take a look at what you’re up against now, and get stuck in tomorrow.” Mrs. Wilson grabbed a diary off the small desk just inside the door and flipped a page. “Yes, you’ll need to do it tomorrow.”

  What a wonderful woman, this Mrs. Wilson, thought Pru, although she knew that the job would call for Sammy and his truck, and she wasn’t sure how quickly she could get him. Still, she wouldn’t argue with a £200 deposit.

  At the sound of the phone, Mrs. Wilson retreated into the house with an “off you go, dear, have a look round” to Pru who, accompanied by Toffee Woof-Woof, struck out across the lumpy lawn for the wilds of the back garden, wondering if the Wilsons might be interested in an architectural water feature, just a small one, with a weeping willowleaf pear behind to echo the flow of the water.

  Near the ivy forest, the dog slowed, then stopped and growled slightly. Pru stopped, too, and considered the green mass. Rats? Neighbor cat? Nothing flew out of the green tangle at her, so she dropped her bag, put on gloves, got out her pruners, and began snipping away at some of the freshest ivy stems, the easiest to cut. That made no difference at all, but it seemed to cause a head topped with reddish, curly hair to pop up over the back wall.

  “Hello, I’m Malcolm Crisp. I saw you out my window. Are you helping Vernona with the garden?” Malcolm appeared neither young nor old—probably about forty. He rested his arms on the top of the wall, which was at least six feet high; Pru wondered what he stood on.

  “Yes, hello, I’m Pru Parke. Mrs. Wilson’s asked me to clean up down here, and I hope to do some design and planting after that.”

  “Oh, an American. Did you train here?”

  “I did a month at Wisley, and I’ve done a few study days at Great Dixter … but I did my coursework in the States and worked at a garden there,” she finished feebly, and a little too defensively. The conviction that an American could never know as much as a Brit when it came to gardening was something of a given in Pru’s London life, but she didn’t mind, as she pretty much thought the same. Why else would so many American horticulture students want to study over here? Pru hoped her own voluntary internship at Wisley, the most prestigious of the Royal Horticultural Society Gardens, had added some credibility to her own curriculum vitae.

  “Did you? Where?”

  “Dallas … Texas.”

  “Texas?” Malcolm sounded delighted. “Did you grow lots of cactus?”

  Yes, we all have cactus gardens in Texas, thought Pru. We all ride horses and most of us can lasso a steer. “We have a lot of color in the gardens there—crape myrtles, lantana, roses.”

  “You grow roses in Texas? Brilliant. Roses are something of a speciality for me,” he said, warming to Pru and the topic. “I’ve fourteen climbers, twelve species, twenty-three … twenty-one shrub, mostly English or old varieties—very few hybrid teas, though. They’re all over the garden, except down here at the bottom. I’ve lost several I tried to grow up against this wall. I believe the soil is too wet for them in this spot.”

  “Is that Quatre Saisons I see blooming against the wall?” asked Pru.

  This apparently upgraded Pru’s credibility with Malcolm. “Well spotted. What sorts of roses do you grow in Texas?”

  “All of them, but the old-fashioned ones are my favorite.” After a pause she added, “We have rose rustlers, you know.” She thought she might as well go with the Texas mystique.

  “Rustlers? People steal roses in Texas?” Malcolm’s eyes grew large.

  “No, they save old roses on abandoned farms and in cemeteries. The rustlers just take cuttings and grow them on, trying to ID them. And some have been reintroduced into the trade, so gardeners can grow them again.” Pru began to lose her enthusiasm for the topic as she felt the ivy mountain needed more of her attention. “I’d love to talk to you about it sometime,” she said as she made a move with her pruners.

  “I’ll just let you work then, shall I?” he asked. “I’m sure Vernona’s a slave driver, and I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.” Pru started to protest, not wanting to paint such a generous client in a bad light—at least not this early in the game—but Malcolm carried on. “First chance you get, pop round for a coffee and we’ll talk roses.” After a second’s pause and a quick glance toward the buried shed in the corner, he added, “Will you be starting on all this today?”

  “No, I’m mostly just having a look around. I’ll dive in tomorrow.”

  “Right,” he said. “Good. Yes. Well then … cheers, bye!” And with that, he disappeared.

  Pru thought better of going farther into the ivy, and instead snapped photos of the entire back garden with her phone, turning around for a panoramic sequence. She held the phone over her head and concentrated on the ivy, the tree, and what could be seen of the shed, both to remind her of the space and help with inspiration for design. She looked at the last few shots on the screen and saw Malcolm looking at the camera from the steps leading down to his basement. She hoped he didn’t think she wanted to rustle any of his roses.

  Toffee Woof-Woof, who had retreated to a late-afternoon sunny spot in the kitchen next to a tin of dog treats, met her at the back door. She stepped in, but before she could call out her rearrival, Mrs. Wilson’s voice drifted in from another room.

  “Are you back in London?” Mrs. Wilson said. “No? Well, Harry’s at work, and he said nothing about a letter.” A slight note of irritation crept into her voice. “I don’t know what Jeremy said about it, and really, isn’t this your husband’s business?”

  While she stood and waited, Pru glanced down at a small writing desk. A letter from Hodges & Hodges Appraisals to Mr. Harry Wilson caught her eye. She wondered how much the Wilsons downsized before they arrived at the town house; perhaps they auctioned off furniture that wouldn’t fit. If so, they hadn’t got rid of enough. A small seating area had been nestled into the kitchen, and through a door from the kitchen into the dining and sitting room, Pru saw a table set for eight with three sideboards lining the walls.

  “Well,” Mrs. Wilson said, “that’s it, then. We’ll see you when you return.”

  After a pause, Pru said, “Well, Mrs. Wilson, I’m finished for today, but I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Is eight o’clock all right?”

  Mrs. Wilson’s head ducked around the dining room doorway, her eyes wide. “Pru? I didn’t realize you were there.” She dusted off the front of her skirt and touched her hair, which looked as if it hadn’t moved for the past two decades, then stepped back into the kitchen.

  “Oh, don’t bother to arrive before nine, dear. Mr. Wilson prefers to be out of the house before any work begins, and besides, I hope to make this a little surprise for him—he’ll be so pleased I’ve actually got to work on the garden. You’ll still be able to transform the place before Thursday, I’m sure. That’s when I have a luncheon here, Thursday, so I know you’ll do your best to have the back garden in proper order by then.”

  Thursday? In no way would the back garden be “in proper order” in two days’ time, £200 bonus or no. And yet, she could feel that check already being nibbled at by various bills.

  “Shall I start in now, then? I’m happy to work as long as it’s light.” She should justify the advance, she thought, and two full days didn’t seem long enough for the job.

  “Mr. Wilson prefers a quiet evening when he gets home, so we’ll just leave it until tomorrow, shall we?” Right, enough work to do in the meantime.

  Pru began to mentally rearrange her schedule as she started toward the front door. “I met your neighbor Malcolm while I was out there. He says he’s a rose gardener.”

  “Malcolm? Did he now?” Mrs. Wilson said, with a slight edge to her voice. “Don’t let him distract you from your work, dear. He’s a bit of a chatterer, and he … had a spot of trouble last year, as well. Not that he isn’t friendly, but really, you don’t want to get mixed up with him.”

  “W
hat does he do?” Pru asked. “I mean, does he have a job?”

  “He’s ‘retired,’ or so he says. He doesn’t do anything, as far as we can tell.”

  “How did he retire so young?”

  Mrs. Wilson shook her head, as if baffled by the whole idea. “Harry says he started some computer software company and then sold it and made a great deal of money. Now his sole occupation is other people’s business.”

  Deep in thought as she rumbled along on the Tube, Pru felt good about the extra work, yet the rejection from Damson Hill weighed on her mind. She couldn’t be a jobbing gardener forever, yet she couldn’t go back to the States, either; that life was finished. Born and raised in a happy home in Texas, an only child of only children, she always had kept Texas life at arm’s length; she felt more at home in her English mother’s stories of life in Britain.

  The year before her mother died, Pru, just shy of her half-century birthday, went on her own to England, her mother already too ill to travel. On her return, her mother had seemed hungry to hear Pru’s tales of the gardens and countryside.

  Her mother always had seemed to float above the surface of Texas, tethered only by her husband and her daughter, and after her husband died, by Pru alone. Her mother’s love of her native England had infused Pru’s life and so, although they remained in Dallas after her father’s death, in her mind, Pru spent her mother’s last years living in stories of the past—gathering elder flowers in May and making damson jam in late summer. It left Pru with nowhere to call home, except for faraway England. She avoided permanence in anything except her job—she was too practical to give that up, until she made the big move—and when personal relationships appeared to be heading down the path to commitment, she abruptly made a U-turn.