A Bit of Earth (22 page)

Erica, Guy and Felix all thought that they wouldn't like to stay, but they did.

Erica had been planning to talk about the different flowers, the changes throughout the year, the ponds and streams, some history of the garden. Oh well. She had been hoping to gain some more regular visitors, perhaps establish a gardening club or a scheme for people without gardens to grow their own fruit and vegetables. The nucleus of it could form a vocal pressure group, something that the university could not ignore without great embarrassment.

The big debate on pigeons was this: Should they be culled? Should people who feed them be prosecuted? Should special pigeon feeders be set up at focal points around the area? And might it actually be a cultural issue? Guy and Erica hadn't realised that pigeons were a local issue at all. When the discussion got quite unpleasant, they both wished that Felix wasn't there. Luckily he was tending his ladybird and probably not taking it in. At last it was over. Guy was astonished that anybody had voluntarily turned out for the meeting, let alone sat through it all.

A breakdown of the list of those present would have revealed that there were actually two other council officers, two prospective councillors trying to establish their credentials, a lay reader from the church who was also responsible for locking up the hall if the evening ever ended, a couple who ran a cheerleading club and were seeking a grant for a minibus, a sitting councillor, a youth worker, and the chair of the city's Council for Voluntary Services. The local bobby who tried to attend couldn't make it. There must have been fewer than ten bona fide local residents.

Afterwards, some of the audience came to talk to Erica about plants. She could have run a very successful
Gardeners' Question Time.
They all told her that they would try to visit the garden soon. The Primary Healthcare woman packed up her display boards and was gone before you could say ‘Obesity Epidemic'. Guy and Felix helped the NVO stack up the chairs. She gave them some chocolate chip cookies and was suddenly much nicer now that the meeting was over. Perhaps anxiety and dread had been making her so unfriendly.

A few days later they were in the office when the phone rang.

‘Erica, for you,' said Jeanette. ‘Gloria Gregson from the Primary Healthcare Team. What on earth would that be about?'

‘Thanks, Jeanette. Put her through.'

‘Hello,' said Erica. ‘Can I help you?'

‘I was given your name by my colleague. You spoke at the residents' meeting together, I believe.'

‘Yes …'

‘University switchboard had a devil of a time trying to think who you were.'

‘Oh,' said Erica, ‘perhaps it was someone new.' She had a feeling that one day the phone lines to the Botany department would be cut. She and Guy would find the locks to the lab and office changed. Jeanette would be moved full-time to Biology, who were always asking for more of her hours. Botany would slip out of the prospectus and be forgotten for ever. She thought that it might take Guy a while to notice, he seemed to pay so little attention to what was going on
around them. Perhaps they should be looking for positions elsewhere …

‘Well, when I suggested Biology instead of Botany they found you.'

‘We share some facilities.' Really, had the woman just rung up to point out how insignificant they were?

‘It's about your botanical garden. Is it open to everybody?'

‘Oh yes,' said Erica, quite aware that it was not her garden, and that she had no jurisdiction over it at all.

‘I am working with a number of groups of people with mental health issues. We are hoping to establish some sort of garden project, but we lack the space. All we really have are a number of front gardens and forecourts at doctors' surgeries. I was wondering …'

They arranged to meet in the car park behind the Geography building two days later.

When Gloria Gregson arrived wearing eminently sensible shoes Erica decided to like her.

‘I'm a Friend of Kew,' she told Erica. ‘You have some really gorgeous trees. Would it be a good or a bad idea to have a plot near the handkerchief tree?'

‘Um.'

‘Actually we'd quite like a number of plots. You see, there's a Refugees' Group, and a number of different therapy groups. There might be issues around some of them working on the same ones.'

‘I hope none of them are, er, dangerous,' said Erica. ‘I don't want to be rude, but we do have a school with a little garden up the other end.'

‘They'll be supervised through all of the gardening sessions.'

‘Of course it's open to everyone, the garden,' said Erica, feeling as though she must seem like a bigot, somebody who would call a radio phone-in.

‘I can quite understand your concerns,' said Gloria. ‘Now, is there a shed where we can keep our own things? I have a budget for tools and so on.'

‘Lucky you,' said Erica, ‘but I don't know about sheds. It's all pretty dilapidated.'

‘Well, I expect we could fix something up.'

‘There are some long-term plans for development around here,' said Erica. ‘Some question marks over the garden's future.'

‘Oh, well.' They were now standing beside the stream. ‘We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.'

Gloria Gregson tried to think of a name for the projects as she walked back to her car. Fresh Air, Fresh Start? New Ground? Tranquillity Garden Project? She couldn't think of anything good. The groups would of course be encouraged to decide their own title for it. Mustn't be pushy and controlling, Gloria reminded herself. How about New Leaves Together?

What have I done, what have I done? Erica thought as she walked back to the office. She wondered if there had been a point when she had actually said ‘yes' to what Gloria was asking for. Gloria certainly seemed to think that she had.

‘Erica,' said Guy, ‘you are the sneakiest woman who ever lived. How are you going to get that past any committee?'

‘Oh, somehow,' said Erica. ‘How can they say no? Just a little corner of the garden on a temporary basis …'

‘Pulling in a load of people with mental health problems, and letting them start building something together – a bit of a low-down mean trick.'

‘Not really. I told her that there were plans afoot for the garden. I didn't actually say plans to completely destroy it, but they know it might be temporary. Anyway, I don't care,' said Erica. ‘If it saves the garden.'

‘I expect it will end up as a leisure centre with a few raised beds in the car park,' said Guy, staring into his tea.

Jeanette came in. ‘Everything OK?'

‘Well,' said Guy. Erica explained what she had done.

‘Easy,' said Jeanette. ‘Go through the Community Liaison Office. The secretary there is the V-C's sister-in-law. He never says no to anything from there. Plus it's such good PR. They'll bypass that old A D & M Committee, temporarily at least.'

‘I don't think anyone would notice anyway,' said Erica.

‘But we don't want you getting into trouble, do we?' said Jeanette.

Guy decided not to mention the kick-step stool, or the espresso machine that had now appeared, or even the new blinds.

‘These health groups have given me another idea too,' said Erica. ‘I think I'm going to write a sort of coffee-table book. Are there still things called coffee-table books? About doctors' surgery gardens and plants. I've always loved them. False castor-oil plant, cotoneaster, choisia, mahonia, inner city pyracantha, snowball tree, maybe flowering currant. I might have photos of real people, say doctors and receptionists
and patients, and practice managers, saying why they chose or hate particular plants. Pebble and gravel things that manage to look dusty and dark and depressing whatever the time of year or day, whatever the weather. The case against flowers …'

Not long until summer half term. Erica was off to visit her mum and dad, there was to be a large family gathering, celebrating lots of birthdays. They were just the sort of family to have nearly all their birthdays close together in a big matey bunch in the summer. Parties were always huge outdoorsy affairs with lots of games and larking about. To an outsider they might have looked like a family of ponies, galloping and whinnying around their field.

‘What are you doing at half term?' she asked Felix, hoping that he might actually be doing something, going somewhere, but also wanting to invite him along.

‘Dunno,' said Felix, swishing a bamboo cane through the air. ‘Nothing as usual.'

Erica could remember the acute boredom of childhood, even with her three big brothers and a sister, and endless activities; there were times when it was all just screamingly boring.

She didn't want to do what her mum called ‘putting somebody in a position', but decided that she would act.

‘Guy,' she said, ‘um, it's my birthday next weekend, and there's going to be a family party. Most of the family have their birthdays around now, so there's always this big party. Next Sunday. Anyway, I wondered if maybe you and Felix would like to come. It's half term. But I'm going down the night before.'

‘Um,' said Guy, ‘we don't really go to that many parties …'

‘It's just a big all-day picnic really, with drinks. And people usually play games. I just thought Felix might enjoy it. I've got lots of nephews and nieces, and as it's my birthday, it would be nice …'

‘Oh, you meant just Felix! Sorry! Well, he's never really stayed away from home, but if he was with you …'

‘No, I did mean both of you, really.'

‘You don't have to say that.'

‘But I did, really.' Erica wished she had never invited him now. Honestly, what a fuss about something so little. It wasn't that big a deal, was it? ‘It's at my parents' house. In Wiltshire. They've got this big garden beside a river. We could drive down together if you like. On the Saturday afternoon.'

‘OK. I mean thanks. Felix will be really excited.'

Guy told Felix about it at teatime. They were having Vegetarian All-Day Breakfast out of a tin, with lots of toast, and cups of water from the cooler out in the corridor because it made them so thirsty, and also because Felix loved
using it so much. They had endless debates about whether the water from the blue tap was any cooler than that from the green one. They were eating off paper plates in the office where Jeanette had now installed a microwave and a toaster. Guy felt a bit guilty using them, even though he suspected that they'd been bought out of his budget.

‘So how old is she going to be then, Dad?'

‘Oh. It's impossible to say when women are that age. Could be forty-five, could be nearly sixty. You can't ask.'

‘Nearly sixty! Erica! No way!'

‘Oh, I thought you meant Jeanette. I was just thinking about the microwave and stuff.'

‘Dad, how old is Erica? You can ask someone if they invite you to their party.'

‘Oh, I don't know. About twenty-five, I suppose, or something. Very young.'

Twenty-five seemed a hundred years ago. He couldn't imagine what twenty-five must feel like now. He couldn't imagine what it must feel like to be young. He wondered if anything really bad had ever happened to Erica, or happened
yet,
he caught himself thinking. It sounded as though her parents were still married and living. She seemed to have plenty of siblings. There had been mention of a river. Potential for tragedy and disaster there. He couldn't imagine what it must be like to inhabit a world that was basically good and not full of menace. He looked out of the lab window and across the car park, all tarmac and concrete, towards the building site that was to be the Electronics department's next phase of expansion. There
were too many students swilling Coke. Too many students arriving in their cars for lectures. A few years ago they would have cycled. He could see a fellow with elaborate facial hair fly-posting some vulgar doctors-and-nurses posters for the weekend's drinkathon. The only thing to please the eye was some ragwort breaking through the cracks in the paving slabs. Really, the world would be so much better off without human beings. Bring on the asteroid strikes. Then he thought of Felix. A flaw in the argument. Perhaps if the plants could just slowly win back control … let the bindweed choke the phone masts, let lichens grow across the windscreens, let fungi spring up out of every laptop, let buddleia flags wave from the rooftops, let grass grow high across every golf course! That made him snigger out loud, something he didn't do that often.

Perhaps it would do them good to get away. He quite liked Wiltshire. Even though he'd grown up with an idea of it as quite unpleasant. He'd had a wooden puzzle of the counties of England and Wales. Wiltshire had been large and mauve. The image on it had been a pink and black pig. Other counties had all sorts of things, lots of different things each, combine harvesters, important buildings, power stations, apple trees, mountains, even gold coins for some part of Wales. All Wiltshire had was a pig. The artist must have just got very bored. Wiltshire could have had Stonehenge, or Salisbury Cathedral, or army bases and tanks. There must have been plenty of things to put on besides that pig. If they were making that puzzle now they could even give Wiltshire great bustards.

He'd always known how fat Wiltshire was. They'd driven through it so many times on the way to Cornwall
when he'd been Felix's age. Why not go to Erica's party and then on to Cornwall? He smiled. They would have a real holiday.

‘We should get some puzzles or something up here for you to do,' Guy said. Felix was looking out of the window too now, sitting on Jeanette's chair, swivelling and swinging. Jeanette had a bad back and that green chair had been brought in specially. It had taken several visits from someone in Human Resources and a lengthy debate between them all about which green was the nicest. In the end Jeanette had asked Felix to decide. Green was his favourite colour, and he always went for the same shade if he had a choice. It was what people called ‘sea-green'. Guy couldn't recall ever seeing a sea that colour. One would probably have to go to a South Sea island.