ROSALIE PARKER GREW UP on a farm in Buckinghamshire and has lived subsequently in Stockholm, Oxford, Dorset, Somerset, Sheffield, Sussex and North Yorkshire. She took degrees in English Literature and History, and a Masters in Archaeology, working as an archaeologist before returning to her first love of books.
She now co-runs the independent publishing house, Tartarus Press (winner of three World Fantasy Awards), and lives in the Yorkshire Dales with her partner, the writer and publisher R.B. Russell, and their son Tim. Her interests include writing articles for The Book and Magazine Collector, gardening, hill-walking and antiques.
Parker’s short fiction has appeared in The Black Veil and Other Tales of Supernatural Sleuths, The Fifth Black Book of Horror and Supernatural Tales #15, and her first collection of stories, The Old Knowledge, is to be published by Swan River Press.
“‘In the Garden’ was written after I challenged myself to write a horror story about gardening,” explains the author. “It emerged more quickly and easily than anything I’ve ever written. I think of it more as a prose poem than a story.”
IT REALLY IS a lovely day.
I’m not used to sitting in the garden, basking in the pleasant weather and enjoying the fruits of my labour. I spend most of my time here weeding and pruning, so I’m grateful for the opportunity to laze around for a change, watching the flower heads bob gently in the soft breeze, listening to the drowsy hum of the bees as they gorge on the comfrey blossoms.
You’ll have noticed that where we’re sitting, beneath the high wall, is concealed from view. None of the surrounding houses overlooks us. We can lounge in perfect peace while we chat – and I’m in a chatty mood today. An afternoon of rest after all my work. Yesterday’s showers mean that even the vegetable plot doesn’t need watering.
It never ceases to amaze me how the garden, cold and as good as dead just a few months ago, has burgeoned into lush green life. Is it only two years since I hacked back the old lilac tree behind you there – and look at it now! Tall enough to peep over the wall, its vigour restored by the judicious elimination of unproductive wood.
You’re not a gardener, are you? So perhaps you don’t know that once a garden is established, much of good gardening is about removal rather than planting, honing what you have to produce a pleasing effect, sacrificing the particular for the good of the whole. Gardening is a creative pastime, but the result is always a work in progress; unlike a painting or a piece of music a garden is never fixed in time.
I couldn’t see the attraction when I was a child. My mother would sometimes ask me to help weed our extensive vegetable beds, and it seemed a thankless task to me. I didn’t understand or appreciate the work that went into it, just the end result, which I viewed as entirely natural and given. Perhaps that’s how you see it now? As an adult I have learned to appreciate the satisfaction of managing nature, but as a child the garden was simply my world, the arena of my imagination, the setting for my elaborate games.
In those games I would order existence to suit myself. One day I’d be head of an animal capture company, exploring the rainforest in search of wildlife to sell to zoos, the next, the tamer of a wild bronco stallion, galloping on my hobby horse round and round the corral until the animal became tired and more responsive to my commands. My favourite game involved my brother as my trusted chimpanzee servant as I ruled, queen-like, over a large household. I expect many children have played similar games in gardens over the centuries, rehearsing unrealistic expectations of their adult lives. The green shoots of our imagination are soon blighted by the late frosts of adolescence.
Before we moved here I’d never owned a garden larger than a postage stamp and at first I was daunted by it. I tinkered around the edges, snipping a twig here, pulling a weed there. But gradually I’ve become more confident, until now, I feel I have ordered it how I want it, within the limits of the time available and the amount of money I’ve had to spend. I think you’ll agree that it pleases the eye – is well designed, both ornamental and practical. The oriental poppies are over now and I have tidied them away but they are one of my additions, along with the ferns and hostas in the shade of the southern wall. I removed the rowan tree that overshadowed the goldfish pond and dug the vegetable beds over by the pear tree. The chairs we are sitting on I found in an architectural salvage yard. Despite the occasional attack of aphids and the despoilations of the wind that blows down this valley, I have charmed – and coerced – nature into doing my bidding.
Stephan doesn’t spend much time working in the garden; he regards it as my domain, which suits me. As you know, he prefers to tinker around with car engines. Each to their own. In the summer he comes out here to eat his meals in the sun, and he feeds the goldfish every day. I think he appreciates the garden, although he’s been so busy recently he’s not spent much time at home. We have achieved a hard-won symbiosis, he and I, which is as satisfying to me as it is, I have always thought, to him. We rub along well together, which is more than you can say for most couples. You’re probably too young to understand.
I wouldn’t want you to think that I am totally obsessed by my garden. I do have other interests: reading, for one, and my voluntary work. But gardening is the way I unwind; it soothes away the cares of the day, and keeps me fit. I’ve never been one for the gym – by the look of you I expect you go regularly. When you get to my age you have to allow for a bit of running to seed, middle-aged spread – as you know, we don’t have any children to chase around after – although I must say that Stephan somehow manages to keep himself in trim.
We did try to have children but it wasn’t to be. I’m not one for test tubes and hormones and what have you. I think it’s best to accept the hand you’re dealt on that score. I thought about adoption or fostering, but Stephan wasn’t keen. He said, “I don’t want to look after someone else’s kids”, which is, I suppose, an entirely natural response. This would’ve been a good garden for children to play in, though, wouldn’t it? With all its nooks and crannies. There are plenty of places to hide and you could play cricket on the lawn.
I love columbines – don’t you? So willowy and delicate-looking. And so easy to grow; they sow themselves everywhere. In fact I spend quite a lot of time digging up the seedlings so that they don’t completely take over. For such a fragile-looking plant it’s very invasive.
Some plants are like that; you have to take them in hand. Others – that delphinium there, for instance – need nurturing and protecting from slugs and the wind otherwise they’d never flower at all. And the lilies, so showy and fragrant, so worth the wait! I have even had some success with roses, although black-spot is a perennial problem. Each flower in the garden has its season – its time and its place – and the picture changes from week to week, day to day even, so you never get bored. Well I don’t, anyway. I feel I am here to nurture each plant and encourage it to perform to the best of its ability.
The blackbird is singing again I hear – such a chirpy bird and so unafraid. Of course they’re a devil when it comes to fruit! I protect the currant bushes and the strawberries with netting, but they always manage to get in somehow. I have come to accept a certain amount of depredation, but how far should you allow it to go before taking more stringent measures? And just how rigorous should those measures be? Most people would think nothing of spraying aphids with insecticide or poisoning slugs and snails, even trapping a mouse. Is it the size of the predator that determines our response? To my way of thinking you should not be squeamish when protecting your own.
The shotgun belongs to my uncle: I’ve borrowed it to shoot the rabbits that have been eating my vegetables. Not strictly legal, I know – I don’t have a firearms’ licence – but it’s the only way I can think of to get rid of them. My neighbours have become used to the occasional shot and they’re sympathetic because the rabbits are menacing their gardens too.
I’m always on the lookout for new ways to adorn the garden – I did well at the salvage yard, not only finding these chairs and the table, but also the wrought-iron bench through the archway and the stone mermaid fountain in the fishpond. I thought as soon as I saw you that you would be an adornment to any setting, so slim and young and pretty – I could understand what Stephan sees in you – but you’re a bit of a disappointment close up.
In fact you don’t look too good at all now – bloated and blue around the edges, with the flies crawling into your eyes.
Like the honey fungus in my soil, the blight in my crop, I have dug you out, and now I must burn you. The neighbours are used to my bonfires and will think nothing of it. Stephan is coming home from his work trip this evening and unless I get on with it, you will still be sitting here, corrupting my garden. I thought that I had found the way to end the situation but after our chat I can see that you’re going to be another work in progress. If I am not careful and clever about disposing of you, you could still spoil my design. I have to maintain constant vigilance to keep everything in the garden rosy.