The desecration of Babs’ memory begins with the buddleja. The Desmarchelliers or the Boyds, whichever they are, Gwen finds it confusing that they can’t use the same surname but then hyphenated the children’s. She is constantly calling the husband Mr Desmarchelliers and the wife Mrs Boyd when really they are both and neither. Starting at Gumnut will soon wipe the smile off their faces. How many four year olds can wrap their tongues around Desmarchelliers-Boyd? None of their children will be starting school until they are sixteen because it will take them that long to be able to spell their surname.
‘They’ve hacked down the buddleja.’ Gwen bursts in on Eric who has earmuffs on and is turning a piece of wood into the side of a dollhouse. He continues feeding the timber through the machine oblivious to Gwen’s distress. Breaching their unwritten rule, Gwen switches the lathe off at the powerpoint. That gets Eric’s attention.
‘What the . . .’ he begins.
‘Those dreadful people have hacked the buddleja along the front verge. All of them, down to the ground.’
Eric sighs and removes his earmuffs. ‘Perhaps they’re pruning them?’ he suggests.
‘In July?’ Gwen crosses her arms for fear they will fly off and commit harm, maybe box Eric around the ears for his reasonableness. ‘That’s not pruning, that’s destruction.’
‘I thought buddleja were hardy. Won’t they grow back? Not everyone is as informed a gardener as you, Gwennie.’
But Gwen is no longer listening. Creeping over to the shadowy corner of the garage, she spies on the Desmarchelliers, the whole lot of them at work in the garden. ‘Oh dear,’ she cries as His Lordship paints weedkiller onto the remaining stumps. That’s the end of the buddleja then and a large contributor to the fertility of their garden is killed in a stroke. Contemplating the decimation of the butterfly population and the ripple effect to the rest of the garden brings a sheen of sweat to her brow.
This is all Eric’s fault. He insisted she overcome her first impressions and extend the hand of friendship. About a week or so after they moved in, as the packing boxes diminished in their garage enough to tell her they were settled, Gwen went into the garden and collected a basket of produce. Mindful that their children were young, she ignored the brussels sprouts and the cauliflowers and instead picked a bunch of English spinach and carrots and threw in some lemons and a dozen mandarins. As an afterthought, she included a jar of her homemade dandelion jam.
She chose a weekday as it lessened the likelihood of running into Francesca. ‘You’re intimidated by her,’ Babs chided in her head. ‘I am not,’ Gwen replied. ‘That girl is like an ocean liner, sailing her course without care or concern for those who cross her path.’ Gwen had thought that sounded quite witty but Babs hadn’t laughed. As she picked her way up the Desmarchelliers’ drive, past their overflowing bins, waving good morning to Val who was collecting her Northshore Advocate from the letterbox still in her nightgown and slippers despite it being after ten, Gwen told Babs that since the husband was home full-time, it was he that she would have to build bridges with. ‘He’s not an ocean liner then?’ imaginary Babs said. Gwen thought about this. ‘No, he’s one of those little yachts that skitter about and almost gets run over.’
Gwen knocked on the door and waited, wishing she could put down the basket but not wanting to ruin the impression of her standing there, the bounty from her garden front and centre. Inside she heard a fight erupting between the little boy and one of his sisters. ‘I want it, I had it first, no you did not. OW! Da-a-ad!’
She smiled. Some things never changed. When it became apparent her knock was going unheeded, Gwen rapped more sharply and the door swung away from her hand.
‘Yes?’
Brandon stood before her, his hair an unbrushed thatch. He wore tracksuit pants slung low over his hips and a polar fleece with a glob of something that might have been porridge congealing on the collar. On his face was one of those silly little facial hair designs young men went in for these days. Val’s Murray had one – a bit of fluff under his bottom lip as if he had a permanent blind spot when shaving.
‘Good morning, Mr Boyd. How are you?’ Oh dear, Gwen thought, she sounded like she’s selling something.
‘Yeah good thanks, Mrs Hill.’ He yawned and stretched. Marigold had wet the bed again last night. Another 2 am strip and wash, singing her back to sleep, waking to find himself curled alongside her, his aching back reminding him that a toddler bed was not built for two.
As he pulled his arms over his head, Gwen noticed the tattoo snaking around his forearm, the words ‘Silver’ and ‘Amber’ ensuring the world would know of his undying love and devotion to his offspring. There was no ‘Marigold’ or ‘Bijoux’, maybe they were hidden somewhere under that polar fleece, a love heart with an arrow through it perhaps. Still, it was no worse than those casts of their newborn’s feet and hands people went in for these days. One of the mothers at Gumnut had brought in an actual cast of her entire newborn. It was a grotesque thing, for all the world like a stillborn baby.
Mr Boyd stayed in the doorway, no invitation for a cuppa or any indication she was welcome. Cursing Eric, Gwen decided it was best to get this over and done with. She knew how it was with young children, there was always some catastrophe brewing. As she opened her mouth to speak, there came a loud wail and Brandon raced away to deal with the crime.
Gwen stood there, unsure what to do. She wasn’t used to standing on doorsteps. In this neighbourhood, one barely needed to knock. It was ‘Yoo-hoo, it’s only me’ and in you sailed. Well, at least at Babs’ and Val’s it was. Then again, Val had said the same thing happened to her when she had tried to welcome the Desmarchelliers-Boyds to the street.
She and Val were having their weekly coffee morning, although Gwen was still struggling to adjust to Babs’ absence. The mere presence of Babs was enough to bring out a more genteel Val. Now, Gwen was lucky if Val removed the cake from the supermarket wrapper and she never bothered with the milk jug and sugar bowl anymore.
‘Did I tell you,’ Val had said around a mouthful of cake, ‘what your new neighbour said to me?’
It wasn’t Gwen’s job to warn Val about how prickly Francesca could be. And Val wasn’t exactly the most tactful of people at the best of times.
‘I thought I’d pop over on my way to bridge, seeing as I was dressed up and all. I had no intention of staying, but I thought it only polite to extend a welcome from the neighbourhood.’
‘I’m surprised you found her home on a Friday. She works full-time you know.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that, Gwennie, but she was so rude. Said she was on her way out before I even had the chance to invite her kiddies over for a play date with the grandkids. Practically slammed the door in my face. She’s got tickets on herself that one.’
Brandon hadn’t slammed the door in Gwen’s face but he may as well have. She moved her basket from one arm to the other and flexed her arm against a cramp.
‘Sorry about that, Mrs Hill. What can I do you for?’
‘I brought you a gift, to welcome you to the neighbourhood.’ Gwen pressed the basket towards him, adding, ‘They’re from my garden.’
He poked about in the basket.
Gwen smiled, wishing she could turn on her heel and flee. ‘I popped some mandarins in as well. Kids like mandarins, so much easier to peel than oranges.’
Brandon thought it best not to tell Mrs Hill that Marigold was allergic to citrus. That of the four children, only Bijoux liked fruit.
Gwen drew breath. Would it kill him just to say thanks and leave it at that? Young people today had no idea about courtesy. ‘Well I must be off, plenty to do at this time of year.’
He nodded and closed the door, leaving her stranded there. ‘Cabbages and strawberries,’ she fumed as she stomped down the stairs and raced between the crab apples. ‘That’s what we are Babs, cabbages and strawberries.’
When she recounted the story to Eric over their morning cuppa, Eric had said, ‘It sounds like His Lordship is hiding something,’ and the name stuck.
Francesca moves into Gwen’s line of sight. She is wearing a straw bonnet that makes her look like Caroline Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. Wielding secateurs as if she has two left hands, she is cutting branches from the Camellia japonica in the centre bed and throwing the broken limbs into a barrow. ‘I think this is the perfect spot for a lemon tree, Brandy,’ Gwen hears her call.
Not unless you cut everything else down first, Gwen thinks. Lemons need light. Can’t they see the giant flowering gum in the neighbour’s yard?
The twins race around the garden beds on their glider bikes, spraying white gravel everywhere. Babs used to rake that gravel. ‘I find it meditative,’ she’d say, shaping curved lines with the tines around the meandering path. She might not have liked getting her hands dirty but Babs did have an eye for aesthetic detail.
And the toddler, Marigold, has strayed over the border and is plucking alliums from under the crab apples.
‘Hey, stop that,’ Gwen yells, hastening from the shadows to where the little girl merrily destroys the display. ‘Don’t pull the plants out, dear, you’ll ruin my garden. Go and see if you can help Mummy and Daddy.’
The little girl stares at Gwen clutching her flowers to her chest, her eyes widening as she decides whether to cry.
Francesca appears, her smile demure beneath her bonnet, resting her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘She’s all right, Mrs Hill. She’s only trying to help, aren’t you, Goldie?’
The little girl squats on her haunches and digs in the earth, exposing the white flesh of the allium bulbs. Francesca smiles benignly at her but Gwen can’t help herself. ‘Now, Marigold, that’s enough of that. Leave the poor plants alone.’
Francesca takes Marigold’s hand and whispers in her ear, pointing at His Lordship. Marigold smiles and skips over to her father who is stacking branches of buddleja in the green bin.
When Francesca straightens, Gwen notices that the young woman has invested in a gardening smock with pale pink and blue stripes, high collar and elasticised pockets. She removes a pair of ladies’ split palm leather gardening gloves with a striped cuff that match her shirt. Gwen knows the brand, they advertise in the magazine every issue, marketing themselves with some nonsense about being essential gardening apparel.
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about these trees,’ Francesca says, pointing to the row of crab apples.
Gwen follows the line, admiring the trees that, at this time of year, without their leaves, add a sculptured element to the drive. The rounded canopies, the squared box hedges at their base, the alliums’ bobbing heads poking over the top, create a delightful study in form and texture.
She smiles at her neighbour, knowing Francesca will probably ask, as so many have, how many years it took Gwen to create the rounded foliage, the square hedges, the bobbing under feature. Did she have to prune them regularly to keep them rounded? How inspirational to create such a marvellous garden feature!
‘You know they’re on our land?’ Francesca smiles sweetly.
‘Pardon, dear?’ Gwen must have misheard.
‘Those trees are on our land. I’ve checked and they encroach over our boundary a good fifteen centimetres.’
Gwen stares at her. Of course they straddle the border, that was the intention. One day, the four of them – she and Eric, Rohan and Babs – had sat down and discussed it, as good neighbours did. It was not long after the Modys had moved into number 18. Gwen had invited them over, to introduce themselves properly, for a cuppa and a slice of sponge cake.
They had completed a tour of the Hills’ backyard and were enjoying their cake and tea, when Rohan said, ‘I love what you’ve done with the garden, Gwen.’
‘Mmm, this sponge is delicious, so light,’ Babs had added.
‘Anyone for seconds?’ Gwen asked and Eric and Rohan pushed over their plates.
‘When I look at our yard it’s hard to imagine it ever being as lush and productive as yours,’ Rohan continued.
Gwen’s cheeks had pinked. This was years before the gardening column, back when the backyard was her one true pleasure. There was the chicken run on the southern side where the girls had the benefit of the morning sun rising over the fence. The mulberry tree she had planted when they first moved in was already over two metres tall. It provided shelter and a good crop of fruit on which the chooks gorged themselves in summer. She had laid out garden beds using old railway sleepers Eric and his father, Harry, had sourced from the railway yards at Clyde. There was a row of citrus along the back fence, an apple tree in the corner and behind the vegetable beds she was experimenting with espaliering a fig.
Babs had laid a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘Don’t go getting ideas, Rohan. Neither of us have a green thumb.’
Rohan had laughed that low chortle of his that would become so familiar. ‘No, my love, there’s no danger of that.’
As they drank their tea and enjoyed another slice of Gwen’s sponge cake, Rohan stood at the window staring at the expanse of lawn Gwen had been rolling out the day they moved in. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t done something similar out the front here, Gwen. It gets plenty of light too. Perhaps more fruit trees?’
Gwen rose and stood beside him. ‘I love a good stretch of lawn. Eric is thinking of putting up a trampoline for the kids in the neighbourhood to share. I’ve planted a couple of rondeletia under the windows to soften the brickwork but I’m stuck on what to plant along the boundary. It’s a bit of a nothing spot and it seems a shame to put up a fence just for the sake of it.’
‘You could plant a hedge?’ offered Babs, joining them.
‘Well, yes, I could but then I’ve always liked the idea of the children roaming free. Fences are so dominant and overbearing. No one can get in but then no one can get out either, can they?’
‘They can always go over the top,’ added Eric. ‘Kids love climbing.’
‘But would they? A fence says, “Stay out”, don’t you think?’
‘Whereas a hedge . . .?’ said Babs.
‘It depends what you use,’ said Gwen, ‘and it’s certainly more visually appealing than a fence, but it still discourages access. I can’t imagine this street being turned into one where the children didn’t feel welcome.’
‘When we were children, there was an old hedge that bordered the common,’ said Rohan. ‘We used to burrow under there and play all sorts of games. We were tunnellers in the war or revolutionaries in our secret hideout.’
‘As the boys get older, they’ll like that,’ added Babs.
‘No more lawn though,’ said Eric, ‘I spend enough of my Sundays mowing the wretched thing as it is.’
‘Do you know what we could do?’ Gwen turned to the gathering. ‘I mean, if it’s all right with you. We could turn your front garden into a maze with winding paths that the children could play hide and seek in or ride their scooters around and then instead of a full hedge, we could plant an intermittent one using small trees the children can duck in and out of. That way, they can pitch a tent on our lawn and then set off on adventures in your garden.’
‘Yes! Or even play cricket,’ Rohan added. ‘The row of trees would be the boundary. Over the trees for a six.’
‘Mrs Hill?’
Gwen realises Francesca is talking to her. ‘I’m sorry, dear?’
Francesca tsked. ‘I’m wondering how we might fix this problem. I mean, the obvious solution is to remove the trees. You could replant them on your side of the boundary, although I see there’s not much space between the boundary line and your driveway, is there? So maybe that wouldn’t work.’ Still that sweet smile but it is cut with steel.
‘Why must we move them at all?’ Gwen argues. ‘They’re doing no harm.’
‘They’re on our land, Mrs Hill. That’s the problem.’
‘But it was agreed, between neighbours.’ And she can feel them too, Babs and Rohan, hovering in her defence.
‘Your old neighbours, Mrs Hill. This free access between properties is unacceptable. We have small children and dogs. We need to know where they are at all times.’
‘Your backyard is fenced.’ Gwen is trying to be reasonable but struggles to understand why Francesca is so rigid in her thinking.
‘The backyard.’ Francesca removes her gardening gloves, easing them off finger by finger and placing the pair in one of her elasticised pockets. ‘The thing is, Mrs Hill, space is limited in our backyard. Between the pool and the courtyard, there’s barely enough room for the trampoline. There’s certainly nowhere for the dogs to run around.’
The pool does take up most of the backyard. They both know Gwen cannot argue that point. Francesca pushes her advantage.
‘Your garage is full of all that dangerous machinery and my son Silver is a curious child – it happens with gifted children, as you may know – and it worries Brandy and I that he might wander in and hurt himself. I’ve noticed Mr Hill is quite relaxed about safety. He’s always leaving the garage door open. Peanut came home the other day covered in sawdust. And then there’s that smell!’
Gwen knows she’s referring to the industrial glue Eric works with. Which is why he keeps the garage doors open so he doesn’t poison himself. But he doesn’t use the glue every day.
‘I don’t see what any of this has to do with my crab apples,’ she says.
‘They are on my property.’ Francesca folds her arms and glares at Gwen.
Gwen steps forward. ‘And your dogs gallivant all over my lawn, defecating where they please. I don’t come knocking on your door complaining, do I? Those animals are out of control.’
Francesca’s smile thins. ‘You can’t possibly expect us to chain the dogs up. That would be cruel.’
‘No, but you have a backyard. That’s where the dogs should be.’
‘Our dogs are part of the family, Mrs Hill. When we’re out in the garden,’ here she sweeps her hand around the expanse of her fiefdom, ‘we like to have them with us. There is an obvious solution.’
Gwen doesn’t like the sound of this but Francesca has hijacked the conversation. She steps away, wanting to walk off and leave this modern day Caroline Ingalls in her prairie outfit to massacre the rest of the camellias.
‘Brandy and I have discussed this at length and to our minds there is only one viable solution.’
Gwen glances up at the house where Eric potters in the garage, oblivious to the unfolding crisis.
‘I mean, the trees will still have to go of course, given they are encroaching on our property there is no way around it, but trees or no trees, the only real solution is to put up a fence.’
Without thinking, Gwen turns on her heel and races towards the garage, away from this vile woman and her extraordinary ideas. It is not enough that they are desecrating Babs’ memory, now they wanted to shut the world out as if, as if, they were some kind of royalty or Paris Hilton or the Kardashians trying to keep the paparazzi at bay when all they are is a couple of middle class wannabes who think they are better than everybody else.