Page 17 of The Allotment on Willow Tree Lane

Putting the rest of the tools in the wheelbarrow, he hooked his shirt from where he had hung it on one of the branches of the overgrown willow tree for which the house, and subsequently the lane, had been named, and stowed the barrow back in the shed, making a note to add ‘Replace broken panes of glass in greenhouse’ to his ever-growing list of jobs. It wasn’t urgent, seeing as he wasn’t planning on growing anything in it, but it did look very sorry for itself.

The potting shed was in better shape, and he pushed the door open and went in, breathing in the familiar smell of his childhood: a mixture of soil, dust, and warm summer air.

Although Damon could feel Hyacinth’s hand in the garden, it was in this shed that his grandmother’s presence was most keenly felt. He sensed her in the tidy stacks of empty terracotta pots waiting to be filled, in the dibbers and trowels hanging from pegs on the wall, and in the shelves on which sat baskets, metal watering cans, an ancient radio, and several old biscuit tins.

He ran his fingers across a grubby kettle, wondering if it still worked, and picked up one of the mugs next to it. It was chipped and stained from hundreds of cups of strong tea, and had sprigs of lavender decorating the rim.

Curiously, he opened one of the biscuit tins and peered inside to see loads of packets of seeds. They were mainly wildflowers, and another tin held packets of root vegetables. All of them would no doubt be years past the recommended use-by date, and he wondered how many would germinate if he ever got around to sowing them.

Opening several more tins, he smiled as the contents of each one was revealed. There were more seeds here than in the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens!

But some tins didn’t hold seeds. They held old photos of the garden, and as he sifted through them, he found something even more remarkable underneath: journals!

Spellbound, Damon opened first one, then another, scanning the pages swiftly, and as he did so he could feel his grandmother looking over his shoulder.

‘Your journals,’ he murmured. ‘How wonderful.’

There was page after page of notes on everything and anything concerning the garden. What to plant in a shady corner; how the camellia had recovered after a harsh winter; when to divide the sedum… There was so much in here, that it would take Damon weeks to read them thoroughly. Each one – there were five in all – was crammed with Hyacinth’s small spidery writing and appeared to span more than four decades. What history must lie between these pages, he mused… the history of a garden and the woman who had loved it and nurtured it.

Once or twice a non-gardening-related note would catch his eye.V bought me a car. A brand new one. Too expensive. He has to take it back. The note was dated over fifty years ago, and Damon wondered whoVwas. Another read,When you are young, they don’t tell you about bunions, and he laughed out loud.

Finally, though, hunger overcame his desire to carry on reading, so he carefully replaced the journals in their tin, and popped it back on the shelf.

However, before he stepped inside the house, he paused. He didn’t know whether that brief stint working in the garden had honed his powers of observation, but something in the overgrown border just outside the kitchen door caught his eye, and when he looked down his heart missed a beat.

Bell-shaped flowers, in shades of such deep purple that they were almost black, grew in clusters supported by sturdy stems surrounded by bright green leaves. The plants were past their best, but he recognised them instantly: hyacinths.Blackhyacinths. And he would bet his last pound that this particular variety was called Dark Dimension.

Sadness washed over him and he sank to his knees, the delicate perfume bringing tears to his eyes. Spring was morphing into summer and by rights these plants should have lost their flowers, but the fact that they were here and still in full bloom made him want to cry.

The band was named after this very plant, and their first single, as well as the album it had spawned, was calledDark Dimension. The other band members had loved the title, believing it to be eminently suitable for the kind of music they were fast becoming known for. Little had they realised it had been a tribute to Damon’s grandmother. The band’s name, Black Hyacinth was also a tribute to her – hyacinths had been her favourite flowers, as well as her name. And considering how much she had loved her garden, the allotment and all growing things, the name Hyacinth was perfect for her. It had also made a bloody good name for a rock band.

‘Sorry, Gran,’ he muttered, aware of how badly he had let her down. She had bequeathed her beloved house to him, and it had lain unloved and empty since she’d died, because Damon had been too busy pursuing a dream she hadn’t lived long enough to see him achieve.

Guilt pricked at him with thorny fingers, and he stared at the blooms with tears in his eyes.

He should have spent more time with her, and visited her more often. She had loved him and nurtured him when he’d needed it most, more than his own parents who, let’s face it, hadn’t had much to do with his formative years because they’d been too busy visiting far-flung places digging around in the dirt. Archaeologists tended to do that a lot. As had his gran. But where his parents had lifted fragments of bone, tools and pottery from the soil with no thought to their only child, his gran had lifted potatoes, carrots and onions from the allotment, with him at her side.

Damon had been envious of his parents’ ability to travel where they wished and make their home wherever they happened to be, yet he had also been envious of his grandmother’s ability to ground herself to this house and its garden. In his desire to achieve both, he had achieved neither. But as this was the only place he felt he truly belonged, maybe it was only to be expected that he would hide himself away in Willow Tree House when his life had fallen down around his ears.

Damon suddenly barked out a laugh; he could have sworn he heard his gran telling him to buck his ideas up, but he knew it was only the wind sighing through the stand of trees that provided a backdrop to the garden. He had yet to venture that deep into the grounds and he winced as he thought of the state that part of the garden must be in.

His gran had always maintained that Mother Nature was quick to reclaim what she thought of as rightly hers. But his grandmother had never been at war with her – instead, she had tried to persuade nature to do her bidding, to work with her rather than against her. Saying that though, Hyacinth had been known to indulge in a minor skirmish or two with nature as she tried to keep the weeds at bay.

Damon guiltily realised that he should have done more than simply employ a property service company to check on the place once a month and do any repairs necessary. The house hadn’t suffered too badly from his lack of care, but the garden certainly had. An annual cutting back of the shrubs by the same company hadn’t done much for the appearance or the health of the garden.

Damon clambered to his feet, his back in bits and his shoulders aching. Flexing his fingers and feeling the pop as the joints realigned themselves, he was relieved that he wasn’t due to be in the studio or on stage anytime soon. His hands were so stiff, he felt as though he was wearing mittens.

An image of the last night that the band had been together, performing to an ecstatic crowd of German fans, slammed into him, catching him unawares, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

The three of them had been jubilant, on top of the world, exhausted yet ebullient. It was the end of a brilliant tour, their best yet. There had been no inkling of how fragile life was, or how swiftly it could be snatched away.

He could feel tendrils of darkness as the memory of Aiden’s last few minutes crept into his head once more and he was consumed with dread: the tyres screeching on the tarmac, the music filling the car, Aiden’s frantic voice—

‘No…’ Damon muttered.

Gritting his teeth, his jaw aching, he screwed his eyes shut and willed the memory away. It was no use. It swept over him in a torrent, and as it sucked him under, his heart pounded furiously and his breathing became shallow frantic gasps.

He didn’t know how long it held him in its grip but when it finally spat him out, Damon found himself sitting on the ground, his arms wrapped around his legs, his knees touching his chest. He was shaking and a trickle of sweat ran down his back.

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