Read Online Ivy Lane: Spring: by Cathy Bramley - Free Book Online

accent at full volume and I liked him all the more for it. ‘Good morning, just potting up my runner beans.’
    I’d opted for broad beans myself and they were already sown; a double row of wrinkly old beans that I’d plopped into a narrow trench and covered back over with soil. I had great hopes for them; they were the beans for beginners, I had been told. Foolproof, apparently. It had taken me hours, all that raking and whatnot, but it had been so easy that I was convinced I’d done something wrong. In fact, the hardest bit had been marking out the rows with canes and string. I was from the Nigel school of gardening; wobbly lines were strictly prohibited.
    ‘Flapjack?’
    Nigel whipped off his gardening gloves and selected the largest piece.
    ‘My wife was an excellent cook,’ he sighed. ‘I do miss home-baking.’
    Poor Nigel. I knew from Christine, the font of all knowledge, that he’d lost his wife a couple of years ago. The allotment had been their joint passion. How lovely to have shared an interest like that. I racked my brains to think whether James and I had shared a hobby, but all I could come up with was tequila slammers. That would hardly have been a suitable pastime to take with us into old age, would it? I didn’t even drink these days.
    ‘Take another piece for later,’ I said. He helped himself and set it aside on a clean bit of his workbench.
    ‘I’m planting shallots today, any tips?’ I said, mesmerized by an oaty lump stuck to his jumper.
    Nigel paused from his chewing and frowned.
Come on, Nigel
, I urged silently, there was no such thing as a free flapjack. He swallowed his mouthful.
    ‘Ah. Yes,’ he said, finally. ‘Leave the tips showing.’
    He shovelled the rest of the flapjack into his mouth and raised a hand. ‘Thanks for that.’
    Dismissed.
    I turned ninety degrees, marched off and resisted the urge to salute.
    The plot opposite Nigel was occupied by an elderly woman; I’d never seen her close up, but had noticed her pottering about on several occasions wearing a furry hat with earflaps and a shapeless chunky cardigan. Her shed had lace curtains at the window and was flanked by an array of terracotta pots, currently brimming with tulips and pansies. The plot was neatly dug and dominated by a large polytunnel in the centre, but I couldn’t see any evidence of vegetables or the woman herself today, come to that.
    Up ahead there were four children running round on the plot next to Nigel’s, all pre-schoolers – just as well seeing as it was a school day. A woman emerged from the shed: long red hair, red lipstick and a black polo-neck jumper. ‘Hiya!’ she yelled at me. Amazing that I hadn’t met this in-yer-face woman before now; she was completely unmissable.
    No point asking her for help; she already had her hands full, but I was in happy mode and could do sociable if the situation required. I walked up the path and the children immediately crowded round her for protection. Or perhaps a look in my cake tin. You could never be sure with small children, pre-programmed as they were for survival.
    I introduced myself and quickly learned that Brenda normally came to the allotment early in the morning before work – she had her own catering business – but her van was in for repair, so she had taken the day off; she only wore black, not because she was in mourning but because it made life easier, and she had three children. I say ‘quickly learned’ because she spoke like a machine gun and barely stopped to draw breath.
    ‘This lot,’ she said, taking two pieces of flapjack, breaking them in half and placing them into eager little hands, ‘are my grandchildren. I’ve got eight altogether.’
    I scanned round the allotment nervously. I had only cut the flapjack into nine squares.
    She grinned at me and ruffled the hair of the smallest two. ‘So what are you growing, then?’
    I filled her in on my endeavours to date, which as well as the broad beans consisted of twelve