A Hunter's Plot

Elderberry

‘Never thought of murdering anyone until I started up the herb garden,’ said Fenella. She sipped the elderberry wine she’d so over-fermented, it’d bypassed fizzing for sizzling. Or maybe that was us, in the ponderous late-summer sun.

‘But this lot can really bring it out of you.’

I’d arrived at the allotment, some months ago, expecting sedate, solitary afternoons. Perhaps meditatively plucking a leaf here or there, having a cry about my empty nest, and seeking salvation through some nurture-based metaphor. Maybe I’d finally get to know the difference between radicchio and radishes. Find a new purpose in life. Or at least stop having to Google things on restaurant menus.

My neighbour was already there - harmless old biddy, tinkering away with her ergonomic weeder, wearing a boiler suit in worn pink floral and a rose visor. A border terrier hobbled about beside her - puppy-sized but clearly an elderly dog, and like its owner, its movement impaired.

‘Don’t worry,’ she’d said, gesturing to the dog. ‘About the limp. Rescued from one of those farms when she was a puppy, and now she’s suffering from being an old gal, like me. You don’t mind dogs, do you?’

‘Never been able to get one,’ I said. ‘My kids are allergic.’

‘Get rid of the kids,’ said Fenella.

‘Have done,’ I replied. ‘Newcastle and Edinburgh unis.’

‘Oof, that’s far,’ she said. ‘What did you do?’

‘Still figuring that one out,’ I said. Then, to the dog: ‘What’s her name?’

‘Twiglet,’ she said. ‘A light snack, but saucy when you bite. Bit like me,’ she went to get up, struggled, and waved instead. ‘Fenella.’

I walked over to shake her hand. ‘Diana.’

‘Goddess of the hunt.’

‘Done enough chasing people down,’ I said. ‘Didn’t make me popular. Thought I might get into nurturing.’

My bed lay a twenty-by-twelve-metre shrine to unrealised potential - an embarrassingly bare testament of its previous owner’s failure. It had been claimed by a commuter with big ideas and no commitment. They’d let it go to seed and been summarily evicted. I was starting from scratch: a clean slate. Except there’s no such thing as a clean slate, because - as Fenella explained - the legacy remains in the soil. A few dried out stems bedraggled the surface. God knows what was underneath.

Twiglet was keen to help me turn out the patch - soon as I started digging she was in, paws and snuffles, stiffness forgotten. Except there it was, hidden under the dirt, that yuppie’s neglectful cruelties: shards of glass. Poor mite got cut. As I tended to her paw, I realised I was already quite fond of her, and her owner - and she might just be able to tolerate me.

Once the soil was workable again, I had to ask myself: what was I actually going to do with it? Fenella, naturally, delighted in this sort of existential provocation.

‘Is it for you?’ she said, eyebrows raised. ‘Or are you growing for someone else? What’s your purpose, Diana, and how exactly do you plan to express it in legumes?’

She cackled. Her plot was already abundant and riotous: courgettes in flower, an elderberry bush, a herb garden for her botanicals. The shed was small and plain and full of beautifully adapted tools, her understated dedication to continuing her life’s love against every bodily limitation.

I stood in the middle of something that looked more like an archaeologist's dig.

‘What do I know about plants?’ I bemoaned. ‘I just point at things and say, “ooh, that looks nice.”’

‘Walk with me,’ she said. ‘When you see something you like, say ooh, that looks nice. Really nice and enthusiastically, all right?’

She was enjoying herself. But she taught me a neat trick. Instead of telling me the names of the ones I liked, she took out her phone and took a photo. Turned out you could use a photo to search for an answer. Who knew?

‘See,’ she said. ‘Now you can ooh that looks nice your heart out, and you don’t even need me.’

Plainly, I looked astonished.

‘I’m no old dear,’ she said, jabbing me with her elbow.

Allotment rules said edible plants mostly, but I bent the rules for some of my newly discovered favourites. Bright bursts of blue, good for the butterflies and bees: globe thistle, fountain grass, hyssop, foxglove - ‘now that one,’ said Fenella, ‘you don’t want to mix up with your mint.’

She’d taken me under her wing, making sure I was kept informed of all the important things: planting cycles, weeding, soil care, pest control, and most crucially, allotment gossip, which seemed to become increasingly febrile over the long, hot summer. So there we were, two glasses of hedgerow pop in hand as the sun went down, Twiglet curled up between two garden chairs, increasingly faded from our days in the sun.

‘That Bill, over in the corner plot. Nosey bugger. Jealous of my climbers. If I catch him with his grubby gloves on my sweet peas one time it'll be a fork straight through the eyes.’

‘At least he doesn't play harmonica to his courgettes, like old Bob Dylan on plot four.’

‘Bobby D, who got plot six thrown out.’

‘He didn't. What for?’

‘An illegal bonfire. But he staged it. The truth is -’

She leaned in.

‘She belittled his beetroot. Called it shrivelled. He took it very … personally.’

She looked meaningfully at her crotch.

‘And she's not the first he’s done it to. Don't mess with Plot Four.’

Twiglet snuffled.

‘She knows,’ said Fenella. ‘She can sniff out a rotter.’

Beetroot

For someone with bad thumbs, she was always on that bloody phone. So when she didn’t reply to my “I dig you” meme with a scathing riposte immediately, or even in fact within the next day, I knew something was up.

I went to her house. No answer. I didn’t bother waiting - just called the ambulance straight away. They took two hours to arrive and then refused to break in, the cowards, so I smashed the window with Miguel Espectacular, a big metal flamingo she had in the front garden.

There she lay, my effervescent friend, so strong in spirit - betrayed by her body and a set of stairs. Twiglet lay ensconced in her fallen frame. The old dog seemed to know: we were too late.

If you’d asked me how I’d thought Fenella would “go”? Maybe infused with botanicals, the dog star high in the sky, as the grass grew up between her fingers, before pulling her down into her beloved patch. I tried to imagine what she’d say about her death. Maybe, ‘at least it was dynamic’.

Her kids took the money and the house, but left the allotment and the dog. I’d been looking after Twiglet ever since that day at the house, and we’d taken to each other like a seedling and its stake.

Everyone from the allotment turned up to her funeral: even Bobby D (real name still a mystery), meaning she must’ve kept her opinions about his harmonica very quiet. After several G&Ts at the wake, he cornered me, glass and speech sloshing.

‘I never would have got her evicted, not ever,’ he said, before pulling out his harmonica, and launching into ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’. He remained, perennially appalling.

Fenella would have loved it.

I told Mr. Allotment Manager I’d tend to the plot before its new owner arrived. I didn’t exactly have a full appraisal of what was there, since our evenings had been spent consuming her botanicals, not discussing them. Luckily, I had Fenella’s image search trick. I was determined that for however long I was its guardian, her plants would thrive under my care.

Twiglet could barely manage the stairs by then, but say ‘allotment?’ and she was up, tail thudding, ready. Between Fenella’s plot and mine, I was there more than ever. Hands in the soil, trying to make sense of what she’d left behind. Autumn crept in. People fell away. The place was thinning out, but we were still there.

The new owner was taking his time getting started. Time for one more harvest of elderberries.

Carrot

I didn’t wish to prejudge, but I knew an abominable tyrant when I saw one, and the man who came to take over Fenella’s plot? Abhorrent.

Adrian.

Took him until spring to show himself. Apparently he heard the plot was being taken care of, and decided he wasn’t in a hurry. Then the sun came out for five minutes, and bam - here he was. Crocuses, snowdrops, daffodils - all well out by the time he arrived.

It was early one Wednesday, which is too early for someone below retirement age to be creeping round an allotment, in my view. By the time Twiglet and I got in, he’d already pulled it all up. There wasn’t a leaf, a stem, or even a root left in Fenella’s plot.

Looked at me with a stupid grin plastered on his face which wasn’t disarming in the least, and held out his meaty hand. He was balding in the shape of a toilet seat and looked like he might have been World’s Strongest Man 1992, but had been dining out on it ever since.

‘Adrian,’ he said.

‘Diana.’

‘The people’s princess! Big fan.’

He bowed. Twiglet yapped.

‘Didn’t you want to harvest anything?’ I asked, staring at the macabre pile of plants: fruit ripe on the branch but unearthed, wrenched from life.

‘I’m a potatoes man, me,’ he said, looking at the pile. ‘Wouldn’t know what to do with all those leaves on a plate.’ Then, quick, sensing I was put out: ‘I’ll use them again, though,’ he said. ‘Make a lovely start to my composter.’

I tutted.

‘I can see I’ve offended you,’ he said, his sweaty, imbecilic brow furrowing.

‘I was the one taking care of the plot,’ I said, taking care not to unearth anything up from the words as I said them. I’d see if he was brave enough to try and break the surface.

‘Oh!’ he said, pointing a stubby finger up as if it was divine inspiration. ‘I’ve got you a thank you present!’

He rummaged into the rucksack by his feet and pulled out a pair of gardening gloves. Brand new, and clearly meant for someone twice my size. If the glove fits, as they say. These did not.

‘Thank you.’

I raked any sense of thanks out of the words and handed back the gloves.

‘These are much too large.’

He held his hand to his forehead, like he was a buffoon. ‘What am I like?’ he said. ‘Look, go easy, Di - I’m just a newbie. More used to the warehouse than the greenhouse. I’ll get them exchanged.’

He proceeded to bundle all of Fenella’s lovingly cultivated crops into a plastic bag. After a short while, he was panting from the great effort - so loudly he drowned out my own huffs of indignation.

‘Think that’s me done for the day,’ he said. ‘Hard work this, isn’t it? Not supposed to exert meself, but I think I could take to this gardening lark.’

As he heaved himself out of the allotment, I looked at Fenella’s now-bare patch. Gutted.

Twiglet and I shared a look. The soil would remember.

Apple

The soil did not remember. Spring turned into high summer, and Adrian’s plot became abundant. In horror, I watched carrot tops rise with the temperature, legions of corn stand to attention, runner beans climb to reach the early morning sun.

All the while, my plot was struggling. The dwarf apple had put on a few inches, the foxgloves looked as though they might survive, but everything else seemed to need coaxing just to tremble through another day.

Twiglet, too, carried a shadow, and I wondered how much longer she had in her. The vet said there was nothing to worry about, just a flare up on her old injuries, and prescribed her some anti-inflammatories. But she refused the allotment, refused to walk, and before I knew it, I was Googling dog prams. At night, she twitched beside me, whining and restless, small paws curled tight.

Adrian was always there.

He’d found a new passion in life, he said.

And what was worse, everybody liked him.

When he hogged the water taps the day before the hosepipe ban, no one said a word. Mr. Allotment Manager disregarded my objections. ‘I haven’t received any other complaints, Diana. And I had to rescue this email from my spam folder due to your creative use of profanity.’

When he replaced Fenella’s modest tool shed with one so gargantuan it looked like it could be a kennel for Cerberus himself, old Bill just admired the paintwork. I emailed Mr. Allotment Manager. ‘It’s half a centimetre under regulation height,’ was his bureaucratic defence.

When his polytunnel blew off in the wind and launched a bottle of highly toxic pesticide across my patch, Bobby D didn’t just watch it happen - he grabbed the flailing plastic and even helped him tie it down. And then, as if we were conspirators, he leaned in and murmured, ‘let’s keep this between us.’

I emailed Mr. Allotment Manager and all he could say was, ‘Diana, do you think you’re having trouble coming to terms with Fenella’s death?’

What’s that got to do with anything? I began to type in my furious reply, glaring across the plots, Twiglet tucked up behind my heels. It’s obvious he’s unscrupulous. Just look at him.

As soon as I’d written the words, I deleted them.

The man was enormous, but he’d built so many structures, he had plenty to hide behind. But eventually, out he came.

I zoomed in: made sure I got a really clear shot. And then right in front of his oblivious eyes, I loaded it into Google.

He looks so generic, I thought. He’ll never -

- but there he was.

‘Oh, Twiglet,’ I said, and she gave a little whimper. ‘You knew all along.’

I scooped her up, set her in the pram. Thought about how it’s funny. You leave yourself vulnerable, and then some surprise - eventuality - ambush, makes it clear. Got to keep your teeth bared.

‘Foxglove’s doing well,’ I said to her. ‘Let’s take some home for the windowsill.’

Foxglove

It was the hottest day of the summer - one of those dog days, when they say nothing happens. The kind of day that wrings your character out through your pores, into the world - pressing you, to infuse a world full of life, and colour, and flavour, at your expense.

I sat in one of Fenella’s old sun-bleached garden chairs, sipping a glass of elderberry wine: the last from the final harvest from her patch.

One year, he got. Suspended. Never served a day behind bars. Banned from owning pets for ten years, and ordered to pay back sixty thousand, just half of the dirty money he earned from running that puppy farm. That was ten years ago now, but Twiglet remembered. Still flinched at his voice. Lucky for her she doesn’t know that what was done to her wouldn’t carry the same sentence if she walked on two legs instead of four.

Adrian didn’t know I knew. In fact, we’d been getting on a lot better since the spring.

‘Never thought you’d come round to me, Di,’ he said, eyeing the armfuls of chard I’d brought him like it might eat him alive. ‘Used to peek through me broad beans and see you with a permafrost on your face.’

‘Grief does funny things to people.’

The platitude seemed to serve, by way of an explanation.

I kept the offerings coming, swapping some limp leeks for his outstanding onions.

‘Where'd you work again?’ I asked.

‘Retired,’ he said.

‘But before then?’ I pressed him. ‘Forgive me for saying, but you seem a bit young for a retiree.’

‘Oh, just warehouses,’ he said. ‘Logistics. Boring stuff.’

‘Been in that all your life?’ I asked.

‘Pretty much,’ he said. But it didn’t fly with me - or Twiglet.

I didn't talk to him too much, for Twiglet’s sake. But I explained to her, as we curled up in bed - we had to extend the hand of friendship. Otherwise we'd miss our chance.

The afternoon sun settled on the allotment, marinating every leaf in viscous heat.

Adrian was packing up. He wiped his shiny scalp with the back of a hand, sweat running from his exposed crown in rivers down his cheeks.

‘You look like you could use a drink,’ I said, holding out a glass. ‘A summer digestif.’

He hesitated. Blinked out the sweat from his eyes.

‘Oh, go on,’ I said. ‘In Fenella's honour. Almost a year now. Can't toast her on my own, can I?’

I approached him, glass in hand. He took it.

‘To Fenella,’ I said.

‘Cheers,’ he said, and the drink was downed in one, leaving him wincing. ‘It’s very sweet.’

I made sure to take the glass. ‘Must have overdone it on the sugar.’

I watched him for a second, smiling.

‘Maybe tell me when you turn your hand to craft ale,’ he said, and turned to leave.

Twiglet nosed my leg. I waved him off.

‘Safe travels.’

They say nothing happens on these hot, oppressive days. But Fenella wouldn't have had that. After he left, I dug up my foxglove, stuck it in the footwell of the pram, and planted it in my garden.

Bobby D said it was a cardiac event; history of heart trouble, he claimed.

And as the summer rain finally broke the dog days, my pumpkin, carrots, parsnips - all of them - began to look like they might just make it. Twiglet started jumping when I said ‘allotment’ again. At night, she curled up beside me, finally still.

Now, I think my hunting days are done.