CHAPTER 15, Part 1: Around nine o’clock…
Around nine o’clock on a sunny, warm Saturday morning, Clara’s car pulled up beside the house, followed by a pick-up truck loaded with small machines and tools. Katherine came out of the stone house, Noodle bounding happily over to be petted by Clara. A surprising number of young people unfolded out of the truck, and Clara said “These are some of the landscaping students who help out at Sunrise. They want to have a look at an old overgrown garden. I thought you’d like their help, too. This is Marty, that’s Michael, and Corey, and Margaret.”
“You can call me Maggie,” said the young woman with a dazzling smile. She had red hair that fell past her shoulder in long curls.
“And I’m Katherine. This is Noodle. Good to meet you.” Katherine noticed the one called Corey squat down and ruffle Noodle’s neck fur. Noodle licked him and he laughed. All four young people were stunningly attractive, the picture of health and vitality, and seemed to be completely unaware of it. All wore shorts, and their long, lean and muscular legs ended in short work socks and boots. The boys – and to Katherine they looked so young and fresh that they couldn’t be men – all wore T shirts over their broad flat chests and stomachs. Maggie wore a sleeveless cotton checked shirt that narrowed at her belted waist. All four had arms with shapely curves at their bicep muscles, even Maggie. Katherine thought they looked like stars in a foreign film.
“Shall we see what you’ve got?” asked Clara. Black-haired Michael reached into the cab of the truck and pulled out a well-used botanical reference book.
Katherine led the way to the dark front yard, pushing through the scratchy cedars that blocked the way. Beyond, the area opened up somewhat, although a tangle of bushes surrounded the space. To Katherine it was hopeless, but Clara and the students moved off confidently in different directions, examining leaves and buds, bending plants forward to peer behind them, occasionally calling out names to each other. Blond-haired Marty would pause to write in a little notebook.
“Flowering dogwood here, and a lot of berry canes,” reported Corey. “I think raspberry and blackberry together, both wild.”
“These look like clumps of daylilies among the grass here,” called Maggie.
Clara was poking around the relatively sunny space in front of the house. “Hollyhocks and lupins. Lovely!” She studied what appeared to be a dead vine climbing up the side of the house. “Look at that. A well-established clematis that may still be alive.” Turning to Katherine, she smiled. “A gardener used to live here.”
Katherine didn’t know what some of the names meant, but she smiled back at Clara’s pleasure. “You expected to find something there, didn’t you?”
“When you’re looking for signs of a garden, it helps to think where you would put a garden if the space was yours. Next to the house, where it’s sunny, is a natural.”
“Mostly cedars and pine seedlings along the front,” said Michael. “Look like white pine to me. And some violets.” He moved to join Maggie’s side of the yard.
Noodle kept close to Corey, poking his black nose into the plants as Corey was doing with his hands. Corey grinned. “Helping out, are you?”
Katherine looked up at the sun filtering through the branches of the canopy overhead. The warmth felt good on her face. Spring was here, a time of new beginnings. She was looking forward to having dinner with Lawrence next week. Clara took a tour around the yard, bringing the four students back with her. Maggie and Marty flopped down on the ground. Noodle immediately inspected them.
“You’re lucky,” said Clara. “You’ve got the remains of a garden, although there’s been a lot of wild growth. But some of that you may want to keep, such as the trees that screen the road.”
“What would you recommend I do?” asked Katherine. “Knowing that I’m not a gardener.”
“I suggest keeping the flowers you’ve got, maybe restoring a couple of beds. The one at the front of the house, and the daylilies. They’re resilient and can look after themselves. Let’s see whether they’re all orange or if any of them are a different colour. Along the front, you could build up the biennials and get some more climbers against the house. Wouldn’t you say so, Michael?” Clara and Michael moved off to look, her gray head at the level of his shoulder.
Marty stretched out onto his side and selected a spear of grass to suck. Maggie leaned back on her arms and closed her eyes against the sun. Katherine wished she felt relaxed enough to join them. They seemed innocent of their sensuality. Corey tossed a stick for Noodle.
“I suggest we clean up the beds, and thin out some of the bushes,” said Clara. “And Marty found a dead elm that should be cut, didn’t you?”
“Right over there,” he said, closing one eye and pointing his spear of grass.
“These people are prepared to do the heavy work, if you like,” said Clara, “and we can concentrate on the front bed. I’ll show you the flowers you’ll want to keep.”
So went the morning. While Clara was teaching Katherine to recognize hollyhocks and lupins, explaining the mystery of biennials, the students got down to work, cutting down the wild shrubs and pruning tangled forsythia and lilac bushes. Marty’s chainsaw roared through the elm, which fell safely in the centre of the open space. He then cut it into smaller pieces which Corey transferred by wheelbarrow to the wood pile. Gradually the choked edges thinned out and were tidied up. Maggie and Michael used shovels to clean up the daylily patch.
“You should have a compost pile,” declared Clara, and pointed to a sunny yet discrete spot. “You can get a plastic contraption if you like, but I recommend the old-fashioned heap.”
Katherine watched the young people bend and stretch, dig and haul, pile and pull, easily and tirelessly using their strong, fit bodies. She imagined them in an art film, suddenly leaving their work, opening bottles of wine and beginning to cavort with each other. She shook her head and went inside to mix a pitcher of juice, which she brought outside with tall glasses. They were thirsty, and cheerfully wiped sweat off their foreheads. Under their arms were dark crescents, yet this somehow only made them look more attractive. Katherine wondered how they smelled up close. Out here, she smelled only cut grass, dark earth, sun and a breeze.
When she finished weeding the front bed with Clara’s guidance, Katherine brought over some folding chairs so that they could rest. The yard was shaping up before her eyes. Marty had cut down a couple of the cedars at the sides of the house, opening up a passageway to the yard. Katherine was intrigued by the transformation, seeing it as a space she might like to spend some time in. And of course Rick would say that it would increase her property value. But she was trying to forget about Rick, and tried to imagine what Lawrence would think instead.
Ch.15, Pt.2: After work days later » »