When her spade encounters the flat expanse of stone, the woman pauses. Carefully she scrapes the dark soil off the surface, examining it for any signs of carving – names, dates, pictures of bones or skulls, such as she has seen in the nearby graveyard. Excited by the possibility that someone deemed unworthy of God’s acre might be lying below the surface of her own back garden.
But there is nothing. The texture of the slab is rough. but there are no signs of human artwork. It must have been part of the footpath that once formed a shortcut to the nearby public house. The villagers have mentioned this… and she can see for herself the network of stones that have been used to block the gap in the wall. They have been laid this way and that and interrupt the normal pattern of its fashioning.
Straightening up, she pushes a hand into the small of her back and stretches. It’s a while since she has done anything this strenuous and her muscles ache. A pair of buzzards call to one another across the valley. She looks up into the cloudless sky, screwing up her eyes against the brightness, emphasising the crows’ feet and the laughter lines that have intensified with age. When she spots the wheeling black specks, she follows their progress as they circle slowly towards the pines and disappear among the foliage.
Her blue-grey eyes refocus on the tall graveyard wall in front of her. It runs the length of her garden. One or two taller headstones tower above it, but others can only be seen from the vantage point of the cottage and the rest from a walk through the cemetery itself. The small tower of a church, deconsecrated long since, is also visible. It is the likely home of the jackdaws sharing the bird seed that she puts out each morning.
It’s a comfort to live so near to this final resting place. Not that she is expecting to join her neighbours in the near future. But it is good to see that the graveyard overlooks such a magnificent view. Her mother, so recently buried, lies in a grimy and huge urban burial ground far from the countryside. How she wishes, however irrationally, that her mother could be at rest in a place such as this and with such a view. Her garden slopes down the valley side. Beyond the wooden post and rail fence, the incline is steeper. Through the wide base of the valley, a river meanders, fed by a small tributary that runs down the hill to one side of her garden. This burn has gouged out a path for itself through a large field used for grazing, and rocks protrude from the eroded sides like a geological timeline.
On the slopes facing north, the hillside is cloaked with a dark forest of pines, within which the buzzards, the occasional deer and a myriad of small birds have their home. The trees stand dark and clear against the blue sky today. But on damp days the mist is a grey shroud that obscures the view. When it lifts, it leaves behind hazy trails, like sheep’s wool caught on a barbed-wire fence.
The square of black earth exposed by her digging is small. But she has made a start. Each day she will add to it, as long as this good spell of May weather holds. And if her back complains, she will vary her activity. Plenty of other jobs await her in the neglected plot. Flower beds, anonymous in the brown sludge of decayed vegetation, untidy grass cloaked in rotting ash leaves, bushes unpruned, whippy stems surrounding a central body like a bad haircut.
She smiles and the skin of her face creases again. Oh, yes! There is plenty to be done. But it is for this reason… among many others… that she has bought the cottage. She loves to get her hands dirty. Her last garden was as big as this and even more neglected when she bought the property, but slowly and painstakingly she had planned its rejuvenation. And although she had needed help with the heavier jobs, the majority of it was her own hard labour. Everything she planted there had grown to gigantic proportions. Little chance of the same happening here on this exposed slope on the side of an upland valley. But it is nevertheless a challenge.
Gathering up spade and fork, she stands a minute, drinking in the view. Her mop of white hair is untidy now, her cheek smeared with the mud she has wiped across it from her glove. She is not good-looking, her teeth irregular and her nose exhibiting a tendency to redness. The skin of her face has begun to sag. Sometimes she stares at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and gently pulls the skin back towards her ears, as she knows they do in plastic surgery. The effect is immediate. She loses fifteen years in an instant. She gives a wry smile. Her face in repose makes her look sad. But when she smiles, her cheeks dimple. Then, like all who smile, she is beautiful.
Liz cleans the garden implements and returns them to the shed. The phone is ringing when she steps into the kitchen. She hurries to the windowsill.
‘Hello, Elizabeth Deighton speaking.’
‘Hi Liz, it’s me. Are you alone?’
She toys with the idea of a sarcastic response, but sarcasm always leaves her feeling mean-spirited. So she merely replies, ‘Of course.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m about to make a cup of tea. Care to join me?’
‘Have you been busy?’ he asks, ignoring her question.
‘Yes. I’m starting to sort out the garden. How about you?’ Knowing what the answer will be.
‘Awful! Loads of work piling in at the moment. Can’t seem to get on top of it. And the study’s a tip. I need to get that sorted out before I start.’
She smiles. How many times has she heard that before? Remembering the days when she used to visit and he would heave piles of books and papers onto the floor to make room for her to sit.
‘Oh, sorry.’ The tone becomes businesslike. ‘The meal’s ready. I’ll speak to you later.’
The line goes dead. She stands a moment, the handset clamped to her ear.
‘Goodbye,’ she replies coolly into the silence and clatters down the phone.
She stares out of the window in a bad humour, surprised that the sun is still shining as brightly as it was. Taking off the old jacket that she uses for gardening, her feet search for the slip-ons that she discarded under the table at breakfast time. Not that she stayed still for more than a couple of minutes. Breakfast has become a time of snatched mouthfuls while she dries her hair or feeds the cat or rakes the ashes from the grate. She can’t sit down. The sound of the news programme grimly detailing its latest catalogue of misery is too impersonal a companion. At other meals, the computer or the television gives her a face or at least a screen. At breakfast she cannot afford to idle, for fear her thoughts will uncover the heart-heaviness that lurks always just below the surface.
She fills the kettle and switches it on. While she waits for it to boil, she takes down a circular biscuit tin from the shelf and cuts a generous slice from the fruit loaf contained within. She pours boiling water onto a teabag and milk into a small jug and carries her snack through to the conservatory. Placing the tray on the floor, she drags two heavy books from the shelf and kneels on the mat, running her finger down the index of one. Planning your Garden. It sounded like a good place to start.
Munching on the fruit cake, Liz reads about Climate and Location and then the section on Avoiding Problems. Lastly, her eyes scan the suggestions for Exposed Sites, Sloping Sites and Acid Soils. It is obvious that she will never be able to recreate the nooks and crannies of colour and rampant greenery to be found in her last plot. But the extensive list of drawbacks fails to dent her enthusiasm. It may take twice as long as usual to grow anything remarkable in the sloping, windswept area that is her garden, though the previous resident of the cottage obviously had, at some stage, green fingers. But she has plenty of time to make her own mark. She has no intention of going anywhere, not now, perhaps not ever. That is, until such time as she joins her silent neighbours in their final resting place.
She glances at the wall and the top of the headstones beyond it, one of them topped with a cloth-draped urn, and grins. Her garden soil might be more fertile than anyone imagines. After all, the graveyard has stood for at least three hundred and fifty years. Ample time for a collection of those considered outwith the mercy of God – or at least outwith the mercy of the established church – to be buried deep beneath the surface of her garden. Just as long as she doesn’t come across any of them. She would much rather their contribution to her garden remained anonymous.