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Authors: Josephine Myles
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varied mix of habitats, including a spectacular yet completely neglected old walled kitchen garden, the companion to the rose garden they’d buried the bird in. He headed back that way, drawn to the space despite knowing it would never be his.
The gate creaked and scraped over the old paving stones, but once he was inside it
was like stepping back a hundred years. Blooming fruit trees were trained against the walls, but the beds below were a riot of weeds and the more tenacious perennial herbs and
vegetables. Triffid-like rhubarbs and giant clumps of mint jostled for space with brambles and nettles. The Victorian glasshouse built against the south facing wall was grimy with decades of accumulated filth, yet only a couple of panes were cracked and he could see it wouldn’t take much more than a concerted cleaning to get it back in use.
Smutty wandered through the raised beds on his way over, mentally filling them with
herbs, climbing peas and beans, golden squashes and fragrant strawberries. You could grow more than enough fruit and veg here to keep a large family well fed, let alone a single man.
Or a couple. But there wasn’t any point in thinking that way. He had a few weeks here, tops, then he’d have to move on. Keep up his travels, never stopping to rest in one place for long enough to get attached. It was better that way. Less painful when the time came to leave.
The glasshouse door was locked, but the key lurked under an upturned flowerpot next
to the rusty bootscraper that kept guard. After wrestling with the lock for a long minute and making a mental note to bring his can of WD-40 next time, the ancient mechanism gave way and Smutty entered the humid heat.
A laugh escaped him, and he drew in a deep lungful of warm air, scented with rich
earth. Staging lined the first room, piled high with terracotta pots. Motes of dust swirled in the shafts of green tinged sunlight that penetrated the dirty glass. He looked up to the roof, admiring the ornate cast iron mechanism for raising the lights. That would probably need a good squirt of lubricant as well, but imagine what you could do with the place! Smutty’s memory conjured up the heady scent of tomatoes ripening in the sun. It would smell like home.
Home was in his mind when he heard footsteps behind him, and the joy of it
transfused him as he turned to face Giles. And maybe it was contagious, because something like joy flitted over Giles’s face, before being subsumed by naked hunger.
“This place is amazing,” Smutty said, thrilled at the way Giles’s eyes grew so dark
they seemed to absorb the light in the room. He watched, mesmerised, as Giles stalked towards him. “Do you even realise what you have here?”
“What do I have?” Giles stopped scant inches from Smutty’s body, and all of a sudden the heat was stifling.
Smutty took a step back lest he lose his train of thought. He’d never been one for
formal wear, but the cut of the dark suit made Giles’s body look even more powerful, like a wild beast had been sedated just long enough to get it dressed, but was threatening to wake up at any moment. The shirt didn’t help either, the blue reflecting up and turning Giles’s eyes the colour of a stormy ocean.
But no, he’d been thinking about practical things, not dreamy nonsense. “You have
the means to cut yourself free from supermarket tyranny. You could grow absolutely all your own fruit and veg in this garden, and it would all taste amazing. None of those bland waterbombs they try and pass off as tomatoes – you can get them in all sorts of shapes and colours.” Smutty remembered the fragrance of the tomatoes he’d grown with Finn all those years ago. They’d tasted like ripe peaches. Tangy and piquant and downright delicious.
“Come to think of it, in a greenhouse like this you could even grow your own peaches.
There’s this shit-hot variety that… What?”
Giles was giving him the strangest look—bemused affection with
The gate creaked and scraped over the old paving stones, but once he was inside it
was like stepping back a hundred years. Blooming fruit trees were trained against the walls, but the beds below were a riot of weeds and the more tenacious perennial herbs and
vegetables. Triffid-like rhubarbs and giant clumps of mint jostled for space with brambles and nettles. The Victorian glasshouse built against the south facing wall was grimy with decades of accumulated filth, yet only a couple of panes were cracked and he could see it wouldn’t take much more than a concerted cleaning to get it back in use.
Smutty wandered through the raised beds on his way over, mentally filling them with
herbs, climbing peas and beans, golden squashes and fragrant strawberries. You could grow more than enough fruit and veg here to keep a large family well fed, let alone a single man.
Or a couple. But there wasn’t any point in thinking that way. He had a few weeks here, tops, then he’d have to move on. Keep up his travels, never stopping to rest in one place for long enough to get attached. It was better that way. Less painful when the time came to leave.
The glasshouse door was locked, but the key lurked under an upturned flowerpot next
to the rusty bootscraper that kept guard. After wrestling with the lock for a long minute and making a mental note to bring his can of WD-40 next time, the ancient mechanism gave way and Smutty entered the humid heat.
A laugh escaped him, and he drew in a deep lungful of warm air, scented with rich
earth. Staging lined the first room, piled high with terracotta pots. Motes of dust swirled in the shafts of green tinged sunlight that penetrated the dirty glass. He looked up to the roof, admiring the ornate cast iron mechanism for raising the lights. That would probably need a good squirt of lubricant as well, but imagine what you could do with the place! Smutty’s memory conjured up the heady scent of tomatoes ripening in the sun. It would smell like home.
Home was in his mind when he heard footsteps behind him, and the joy of it
transfused him as he turned to face Giles. And maybe it was contagious, because something like joy flitted over Giles’s face, before being subsumed by naked hunger.
“This place is amazing,” Smutty said, thrilled at the way Giles’s eyes grew so dark
they seemed to absorb the light in the room. He watched, mesmerised, as Giles stalked towards him. “Do you even realise what you have here?”
“What do I have?” Giles stopped scant inches from Smutty’s body, and all of a sudden the heat was stifling.
Smutty took a step back lest he lose his train of thought. He’d never been one for
formal wear, but the cut of the dark suit made Giles’s body look even more powerful, like a wild beast had been sedated just long enough to get it dressed, but was threatening to wake up at any moment. The shirt didn’t help either, the blue reflecting up and turning Giles’s eyes the colour of a stormy ocean.
But no, he’d been thinking about practical things, not dreamy nonsense. “You have
the means to cut yourself free from supermarket tyranny. You could grow absolutely all your own fruit and veg in this garden, and it would all taste amazing. None of those bland waterbombs they try and pass off as tomatoes – you can get them in all sorts of shapes and colours.” Smutty remembered the fragrance of the tomatoes he’d grown with Finn all those years ago. They’d tasted like ripe peaches. Tangy and piquant and downright delicious.
“Come to think of it, in a greenhouse like this you could even grow your own peaches.
There’s this shit-hot variety that… What?”
Giles was giving him the strangest look—bemused affection with
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