“Do you remember old Mr Patterson next door?” Angela Morrison asked her daughter when she popped round on Friday for her usual cup of coffee, “Well, he’s moved away to live with his son. And the strangest young couple have taken the house.”
“Strange how?” smiled Diane. “Rings through their noses?”
“Actually, I think there might be,” said her mother seriously. “The girl’s face sort of glints when you look at her from a distance. And they both wear black all the time. Perhaps they’re in mourning for someone. Of course, I haven’t actually talked either of them yet, they only moved in on Monday.”
“Let’s hope they’re better neighbours than Mr Patterson,” commented Diane. “He really let his garden turn into a jungle.”
“Well, he was over eighty,” said Angela, “But I don’t think this lot look like gardeners either.”
But she was pleasantly surprised to find how wrong she was.
The following day, as she was hanging out the washing, the girl in black came down her kitchen steps and walked over to the fence.
“Good morning,” she said, “I’m Zara Andrews. And that over there is my partner, Spike Nash.”
Spike, expressionless in studded black leather and biker boots, gave her a half wave from behind the motorbike he was polishing.
“Pleased to meet you, dear,” said the older woman, “I’m Angela Morrison.”
She looked with undisguised interest at Zara whose long black hair was secured with a red comb, the only touch of colour she allowed. Eyes thickly lined with black, a long black cotton dress and shiny black nail polish. Good heavens, she even wore black lipstick. And not one ring, but three, through her nostril. How very different, thought Angela. How interesting.
“You have a pretty garden,” said Zara, standing on tiptoes and looking over at the neat lawn edged with bright flowers. “Spike and I want to start planting too, once we’ve cleared this mess.”
“Oh good,” said Angela, relieved. “The previous tenant was too old to do much any more, he let it become quite wild.”
“Once we’ve cleared it, we want to prepare the soil properly for planting. I think you’re supposed to dig in compost and manure. That right?”
Angela was impressed at how eager she was to learn. Zara might look like a sinister creature of the night, but Angela warmed to her. Any girl who was interested in gardening had her heart in the right place, and deserved encouragement.
“I know a farmer who supplies well rotted manure,” she said. “I’ll ask him to bring you a load, shall I? That soil of yours will need quite a bit of help, I should think.”
“Thank you,” said Zara, “We do want to make a success of this. We’ve never grown anything before.”
Angela was pleased to see they set about clearing the ground that very weekend. Spike removed his black leather jacket, revealing a well developed chest beneath a black vest emblazoned with a red skull and crossbones. His well-muscled arms sported several striking tattoos which at first alarmed Angela but then quite fascinated her, the snakes rippling and dipping as he worked. He was busy all afternoon, chopping the overgrown shrubs and trees and leaving a large sunny patch of earth. Zara dug and cleared, raking the weeds into piles for burning.
Angela watched from her kitchen window as they stopped in their labours, sat on the back steps and lit up cigarettes.
She pursed her lips. What a pity so many young people smoked, she thought, so bad for their health. But they seemed full of energy so it obviously hadn’t affected their lungs yet. Sitting on the steps, dressed all in black, they looked like two undertakers, although Angela was sure an undertaker wouldn’t have his hair glued into stiff daggers like Spike.
When the manure was delivered, Spike dug it over and he and Zara marked out long straight rows with two sticks and a piece of string that stretched right across the garden. Ah, vegetables, thought Angela, that’s sensible. She hurried out of her kitchen and spoke across the fence.
“Zara, dear, you’d be better off if you made the rows a little shorter and put a path between,” she said helpfully. “That way you can weed more easily.”
Spike looked up and spoke to her for the first time.
“Waste of valuable growing space,” he said shortly, and carried on.
Angela pursed her lips. They’d see their mistake when their seedlings started to sprout and they wanted to thin them out. Well, they couldn’t say she hadn’t warned them.
But the seedlings, when they grew, seemed not to need thinning out and grew strong and healthy. Zara could often be seen throwing handfuls of fertilizer amongst the plants and she watered them attentively twice a day.
“And how’s your garden coming along?” Angela had met Zara by chance in the supermarket. “It all looks very green and healthy. Growing vegetables, are you? I can’t really tell without my glasses.”
“Yes,” said Zara.
“With the price of greens today, I’m not surprised,” said Angela. “Look what I had to pay for this bunch of spinach. Criminal. I’ve never gone in for vegetables, myself, but I can see why you do. You’ll be able to sell some too, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Zara smiled. “We’d certainly like to. If frost doesn’t kill the whole lot. Spike’s dad was a farmer and he says frost can ruin your crops.”
“No fear of that here at the coast, dear,” said Angela, “But you’ll have to watch out for downy mildew. Or red spider. White fly can be a killer too and of course the American bollworm.”
Zara grimaced. “That sounds awful! How do we prevent all those nasty things?”
“You spray,” said Angela firmly. “You mix pesticides and fungicides with water and spray you vegetables at least once a week.”
“We couldn’t do that,” said Zara, “We’re organic. Spike would never spray poison on anything.”
“Well dear, you could easily find all your hard work just wiped out overnight,” warned Angela. “I’ve been a gardener for forty years and I’ve had some real disappointments, what with insects and disease . Not to mention snails.”
“There’s so much I don’t know about gardening. It’s a lot of work, isn’t it?”
“But worth it in the end,” encouraged Angela.
“I hope it will be,” said Zara. “We’ve invested a lot of time in our garden.”
Angela didn’t consider herself a nosy parker but she did like to know.
“What does your Spike do, dear?” she asked. “Unemployed at the moment, is he?”
“Oh, no, not really,” said Zara vaguely. “Spike’s self- employed, he sells stuff. You could call him an entrepeneur.”
“That’s nice,” said Angela, unpacking her basket at the checkout. “Well, see you soon.”
The cashier stared after Zara in disapproval as she left the shop. Her usual black dress had been enhanced by the addition of dangling jet earrings and a long black lacy over- garment, rather torn in places.
“You know her, Mrs Morrison?” she asked incredulously. “Dracula’s sister, we call her.”
“She’s my neighbour,” said Angela crisply, “And one should never judge a book by its cover. Although she may not look it, that young lady is a very keen gardener and she’s quite improved the look of the house next to mine.”
“You don’t say,” said the cashier dubiously. “Doesn’t look the suburban type, somehow.”
Angela sniffed. She prided herself that she was open- minded and able to appreciate the good qualities in the young people of today. Even if they didn’t look suburban.
“So how are you getting on with that couple next door?” Diane sat in her mother’s kitchen, eating homemade gingerbread and wondering if she would be given some to take home.
“They’re really rather nice,” said Angela. “Keen gardeners. They’re out there watering their plants twice a day. Surprising, because they look so odd, but as my father used to say, any man with soil under his nails must have some good in his soul. Although it’s the girl who does most of the weeding and so on.”
Diane stood up and glanced across at the next-door garden. She stiffened, then her shoulders started to shake and her mother flinched as she exploded into shrieks of laughter.
“Mum, you are priceless,” she gasped. “Don’t you see what they’re growing over there?”
“Vegetables of some sort,” said Angela uncertainly.
“Your keen gardeners are growing a healthy crop of marijuana!” she giggled, wiping her eyes. “Grass. Cannabis. Indian hemp.”
“Drugs?”
“No wonder they’re working so hard! Those plants of theirs must be worth a fortune.”
“They’re drug dealers?” Angela was horrified and then filled with a white-hot rage at the perfidy of her neighbours. To think that drug dealers should take up residence in Canterbury Close and pursue their terrible trade under her very nose.
She would see about that.
The next day she walked down to the gardening shop and made a large purchase. Expensive, but worth it, she thought grimly. That afternoon she called to Zara over the fence.
“Zara, dear, have you noticed that you have Australian creep- worm? Rather a bad case of it too, from what I can see.”
“What? Where?” Zara spun round in dismay and surveyed her flourishing crop. “I can’t see anything.”
“Not called creep- worm for nothing,” said Angela sombrely. “They’re very tiny, but I saw several early this morning. They disappear just as the sun rises so you and Spike might not have spotted them.”
“I’ve never heard of Australian creep-worm,” she said anxiously. “Is this serious?”
“Oh yes, dear. They’re the foot-and-mouth of the vegetable world! Creep-worms attack from inside the stalks and the first thing you know, your plant topples over, quite dead. And completely toxic, of course. There was that awful case of some market- gardeners in Knysna who sold their infected produce and everyone who ate their lettuce became completely paralysed afterwards. Cost them a fortune in compensation.”
Angela was enjoying herself.
Zara started to sweat. “Isn’t there a cure?” she asked piteously, “A spray of some sort?”
“Of course there is, dear, “ said Angela, “I always have some handy. But as it’s a pesticide, maybe Spike wouldn’t want to use it?”
“He will, he will! Please, let me have some right away and I’ll replace it for you tomorrow.”
“It’s very strong,” warned Angela. “And it’s a systemic poison so it needs watering in very well.”
“I’ll be sure to do it,” said Zara. The poor girl looked almost haggard with anxiety.
Angela watched her neighbour spraying the bright green plants, dousing both sides of the five -pointed leaves.
“I must warn you dear, if those Australian creep- worms have taken hold, you might not be in time to prevent the damage. You’ll know tomorrow.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” said Zara confidently. “I’ve really sprayed them thoroughly.”
“Of course, if those plants die, you’ll have to burn the whole lot, you know that, don’t you? The Domestic Agricultural Inspectors’ll prosecute anyone found with creep- worm. They’re terribly strict, especially after Mad Cow disease.”
Zara nodded, round-eyed. Really, the girl’s ignorance was almost pathetic.
That evening she and Spike walked out and looked at their garden in the moonlight. Angela could hear them muttering anxiously. We’ll see tomorrow, indeed, she thought.
She was woken by a primal, savage scream coming from deep within Spike’s tattooed throat, and peered nervously from her bedroom window.
He stood amongst the brown and rotted corpses of his marijuana plants with tears running down his eyes. Zara was hurriedly pulling them out and raking them into a pile. Angela heard the hissed warning “Prosecuted ” and Spike joined her in clearing the garden, emitting guttural noises of disappointment and rage.
Feeling almost guilty, she remembered the empty bottles of Broad Spectrum Weed Killer in her garden shed and threw them in the bin.
It wouldn’t do for her young neighbours to see them, nor the instructions: “Take care to dilute one part weed killer to 100 parts water before spraying”
As every gardener knows, undiluted weed killer is pretty powerful stuff.
