Page 56 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
‘This … stuff.’ She gestures to the tangle in front of them. ‘Sorry. These beautiful native plants.’
There’s a hint of a smile on Cynthia’s lips as she pulls sticks away from living branches. ‘We’ve barely started,’ she says. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a fair-weather gardener – only interested in daffodils and crocuses?’
‘Um …’ Kathy screws up her face, trying to figure out how not to admit the truth.
‘It’s all right if you are. Just because Shirl is rah-rah about natives doesn’t mean you have to like them. Although I should do as she suggests and tell you about any I recognise.’ Cynthia gestures to a low shrub. ‘That’s midyim. It flowers from spring so that’s why it doesn’t look like much at the moment, but the flowers are white, very delicate.’
She crouches and puts her fingers under green leaves on a plant that is dandelion-sized. ‘Beach sow thistle. Again, doesn’t flower until it’s warmer.’ She stands up. ‘This garden would look pretty once everything flowers.’
Kathy nods. She realises she’s rushed to judgement on something she knows nothing about, but can you blame a person for liking a pink rose? Or a blue iris? Maybe she’s been brainwashed by the gardens she grew up with and the paintings she’s seen – who doesn’t love a bit of Monet? – but native flora just aren’t herthing. They’re clearly Cynthia’s thing, though. Just maybe not as much as they’re Shirl’s thing.
‘So, like Shirl said, you know this because you grew up around here?’
‘No,’ Cynthia says with a tight smile. ‘I did grow up nearby, that’s true.’ She jerks a thumb over her shoulder. ‘My dad’s house is just back there and that’s where I’m living at the moment. But I didn’t know anything about the plants until I joined the society.’
Kathy frowns. ‘So how did you …’ She stops just as Cynthia starts to speak again.
‘My friend Von has been teaching me. And my mum made drawings of native plants.’ Cynthia looks away. ‘I just found them. Well, Dad remembered he had them. I’ve spent some time with the drawings.’
‘Your mum’s not alive?’
‘No.’ Another tight smile. ‘Although I really wish she were. She was a member of this society too.’
‘Really? Wow! Is that why you joined?’
Cynthia appears to consider this. ‘Partly. And partly because I thought Lorraine and I could do it together. I lived overseas for a long time and we lost touch.’
She smiles over her shoulder in the direction of Lorraine and Elizabeth, who are deep in conversation and pointing at something in the bush before them.
‘Happy to be back in touch now, though,’ Cynthia concludes.
‘Yeah, Lorraine’s great,’ Kathy says. She always has a kind word for each of them and while Kathy sometimes thinks Lorraine looks tired, she is always positive. It’s a quality she’d like to cultivate in herself if only she could find the motivation to do it. Or the reason.
‘So this,’ Cynthia says, leaning forwards and running her fingers over thin drooping stalks hanging from the branch of a large tree, ‘is a coastal she-oak.’ She looks up to the top of thetree, which is several metres above ground. ‘It’s probably been here for a long time. They get to be about ten metres high and I’d say this one’s close to that.’
Kathy looks around at the property they’re on and how there are no boundary fences. ‘So is this house even meant to be here?’ she says. ‘It’s pretty much right in the bush.’
‘Kev’s been here so long no one can remember when he wasn’t here,’ Cynthia says. ‘It’s possible he, uh, just went ahead and did what he wanted with the house.’ She grins. ‘He has a reputation for that. What brought you to the area?’
Cynthia might have asked this because she’s genuinely interested, but Kathy wishes she hadn’t because she doesn’t feel ready to ‘share’.
That’s what Jemima used to ask her to do – ‘share’. There were regular requests for Kathy toshareher feelings,shareher stories,shareher dreams and aspirations and fears. And Kathy did share, more than she had with anyone, so that when Jemima left her it felt like she lost a huge part of her … self. She doesn’t like to say ‘soul’ – that’s a term for hippies and people who go to India to find enlightenment.
‘It wasn’t a trick question,’ Cynthia adds gently.
‘No.’ Kathy licks her lips, stalling.
She should be able to just tell people and not feel ashamed that at fifty-four she got dumped, after dumping her husband, and ran away to a different state because she thinks she’s made a mess of her life. But she can’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The people she works with don’t know a thing – she told them she moved to Queensland because she ‘felt like a change’, which is a version of the truth. It’s a good line and she should stick to it.
‘Oh, you know,’ she says. ‘Queensland has the best weather. Melbourne can be so cold and grey.’
‘You’re from Melbourne?’
‘Yes. Anyway – what’s this plant called?’
Cynthia gives her a funny look but Kathy knows enough about her to feel she’s unlikely to pry further. Which gets Kathy off the hook, for now.
‘Not sure,’ Cynthia says. ‘Shall I ask Shirl?’
