Page 64 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
‘Michelle! I hope you didn’t come here to lecture me.’
‘What if I did?’
‘Well …’ Kathy pauses. ‘Then I guess I deserve it.’
She sits gazing at her daughter, who looks as though she’s not sure what to say.
Michelle takes another sip of water.
‘No, you don’t,’ she says. ‘No more than anyone.’
She stands. ‘Show me your miserable garden?’ She grins.
Kathy stands too. ‘With pleasure.’
She slides open the glass door that leads to the garden and feels the afternoon sun on her cheeks. Out here she can still hear cars passing by. Now, though, she can relax: her girl is here. They can work their way back to each other, starting now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘Well,would you look at that!’ Shirl is standing on the steps leading to Elizabeth’s garden, hands on her hips, feet wide, and a look of satisfaction on her face. And Shirl is what Elizabeth calls her now, ever since it popped out of her mouth one day and she realised that they must be familiar enough with each other for it to fit.
Today she’s wearing a singlet with a faded Eureka flag on it and Elizabeth wonders – not for the first time – where Shirl gets all of her tops. Last weekend she wore a different singlet bearing a cartoon of Joh Bjelke-Petersen with a handful of peanuts and she apologised for showing her ‘flappy bits’.
‘Don’t worry, we can’t see your boobs,’ Lorraine had retorted and Elizabeth blushed.
‘I was talking about the backs of my arms,’ Shirl said, lifting a limb and shaking it. ‘But thanks for the compliment.’
Elizabeth was mortified for Lorraine, who merely laughed.
‘After two babies I knowmineare flappy,’ she’d said, then put on her gloves and got to work.
Shirl hadn’t seemed the least bit offended, which made Elizabeth wonder if she reads too much into things. Or if she doesn’t have a sense of humour. Both, of course, can be true at the same time.
Now Shirl is nodding and looking proud as she surveys the riot of colour in the garden. ‘Gotta love spring,’ she says. ‘It was a bit slow this year but now …’ She throws her hands in the air. ‘Colour! A riot of it!’
‘And here I was,’ says Barb as she draws alongside, ‘thinking you had no kind words for anything that isn’t a native.’
‘I have my principles,’ Shirl says, picking up the plastic tub she uses to toss weeds into. ‘Which include appreciating beauty where I find it.’
It is true that the garden is looking beautiful. The pansies are blooming purple and pink and yellow, and the magenta-coloured bougainvillea is cascading down one part of the fence as jasmine blooms in another, the scent carrying on the air, and the pink hibiscus nod alongside it all.
That jasmine was here when they moved in, and she and Jon would sit in the garden on a warm evening, before the sun set, and take in its aroma. They stopped doing that at some point Elizabeth can’t recall; all she knows is that smelling it now reminds her so strongly of the times before he ailed – when he was strong and tall and hearty – that she gasps and bends over, putting her hands on her thighs.
Smell is the strongest sense – she has been told this. It’s just never captured her as much as it has now. Never transported her so fully to a different dimension of time.
‘You right?’ Lorraine pats her on the back.
Elizabeth takes a deep breath through her mouth – avoiding the scent of jasmine – and stands up.
‘I’m getting there,’ she says, smiling as Lorraine frowns.
‘You’re crying,’ Lorraine says, pointing to her cheek.
‘Happy tears,’ Elizabeth promises, and it’s half-true. She’s happy to be in this garden, smelling something that once gave her so much pleasure.
‘Sure,’ Lorraine says drily.
‘I just …’ Elizabeth exhales raggedly and shakes her head to try to rid herself of a display of emotion that is no doubt as unwelcome to her companions as it is to her. ‘I haven’t smelt the jasmine for a while. I haven’t … been out here when it’s been blooming.’
