Page 105 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
‘I just …’ Cora takes a breath. ‘I am wondering if Rose is here to stay.’
Lorraine frowns, trying to work out why Cora is asking. Then it hits her: with Mike gone, Cora must think her position isn’t certain. So if Rose moves in, she has to move out. The idea hadn’t actually occurred to Lorraine until right now and it’s kind of tempting …
‘No,’ Rose says. ‘Once I’m fixed up I’ll be straight back home.’
So that’s that.
Cora looks so relieved that Lorraine feels slightly guilty for hoping for a better outcome. They’ve been getting along okay, sure, but Cora isn’thermother so Lorraine doesn’t feel the same obligations she does to Rose. Besides, for all she knows Cora is feeding info to Mike. About what, Lorraine doesn’t know, because life around here is pretty routine, but Cora can’t be trusted. Not as much as Rose can.
‘Oh,’ Cora says. ‘Well, if you need some company while you are here I would be only too pleased.’
That’s a turn-up for the books. She mustreallybe happy that Rose will be going home.
‘Do you play cards?’ Rose asks and Lorraine’s mouth drops open.
‘I like gin rummy,’ Cora replies.
‘A game a little later on would be good,’ Rose says.
Lorraine narrows her eyes, suspicious of the cahoots these two now seem to be in, but she can hardly tell her mother what to do.Thathas been clearly established.
‘Very well,’ says Cora. ‘After lunch?’
A nod from Rose, a wave from Cora and the rest of their day is sorted.
Lorraine, meanwhile, feels a slight sense of unease and an awareness that there will be no gin rummy for her.
MARCH 1988
YELLOW BUTTONS
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
‘Right,see, what you want to do is not cut that one back.’ Shirl is pointing to something but Kathy can’t tell what.
‘Which one?’
‘The thyme.’ Shirl puts the secateurs back on her tool belt. ‘If you go too hard it’ll never recover and it’s a nice bit of ground cover there. Plus it smells good.’
It’s a turn-up for the books that Shirl would in any way endorse the growth of a non-native plant, but as this is Elizabeth’s garden and she’s long since accepted defeat on the natives front, perhaps Kathy shouldn’t be surprised.
The dedication they all have is to making sure that this garden is what Elizabeth wants, or what she believes Jon wanted, since it’s still his garden. They’re the guardians of it, and holding it in trust for Charlie. Or that’s how Kathy likes to think of it. And today they’re making sure it looks as lovely as possible for Charlie’s birthday party, which is looming.
Elizabeth has invited them all and Kathy was really touched to be included, given she feels like much less of a local than the others. Cynthia and Lorraine have deep roots on the coast, and Elizabeth is emotionally rooted here because it’s where her son was born and her husband died. Kathy was agonising over what to buy Charlie as a present until Cynthia suggested a book – ‘Children can never have too many of them,’ she said, and Kathyremembers her kids borrowing the maximum number of library books each time and ploughing through them.
‘So, er, what would you like me to do?’ she asks Shirl, since she’s not yet at the stage where she feels confident doing garden work without instruction.
‘Why don’t you give Cyn a hand inspecting for pests?’ Shirl gestures towards the hydrangeas, where Cynthia is squatting down scrutinising leaves.
Kathy nods her assent and moves in that direction.
‘I’m with you,’ she says to Cynthia.
Lorraine is scrabbling around in the dirt next to them, while Elizabeth is pruning the roses. Roses seem to need pruning around two hundred and fifty times a year by Kathy’s calculation, and it’s always so brutal: the blooms are lopped off and the bushes are cut back to a bunch of sticks.
‘Bug watch,’ Cynthia says with a smile.
‘I guess we do all the jobs.’ Kathy gets down on her haunches with a wince.
