I Should Be So Lucky (24 page)

‘Yes, I’m ready! And look at us both, kitted out for horticultural warfare, all in black, though I think you’re short of one Che Guevara beret,’ she told him, carefully double-locking the front door after her. Should she have invited him in for a drink first? She felt strangely shy about the idea of having him on her premises. This house was intimately
her
in a way the flat at Naomi’s simply hadn’t been. She could imagine him padding about the place, looking at the books on her shelves, checking out her CD collection and mocking her mixture of Puccini and vintage punk.

‘I may be a well-tough guerrilla gardener, but it would crush my coiffeur, darling,’ he said, running his fingers through his hair as he opened the car door for her. ‘And you have to have a certain youthful
insouciance
to carry off a beret with style.’

‘The way you say that reminds me of … oh, just someone I know.’ She laughed, thinking how like Marco he’d sounded. Very fleetingly she wondered – maybe Greg was gay as well? No, she didn’t think so – not that either way affected her, in any case.

The Land Rover had a damp earthy smell of rich loam and wet dog.

‘Sorry about the niff – Mickey’s had her stinky old spaniel in here,’ Greg said as he drove out on to the road.

‘Mickey’s dog? Not yours?’

‘Hell, no. I like dogs but I wouldn’t want one. They’re so damn needy, always looking at you with those huge wet eyes, and just when you think they
lerve
you they go and eat your shoes.’

Viola managed not to blurt out that she’d had a husband who’d been a lot like that, though it was on the tip of her tongue. Damn Rhys – awful as he’d been, she couldn’t bring herself to say something so heartlessly frivolous. He’d been someone’s beloved son, a brother and – for some poor unknown woman – a lover worth running off with.

‘So – where are we going?’ she asked as she braced her foot firmly against the side of the door. The Land Rover didn’t seem to have a lot in the way of suspension, and it bounced and bumped its way over every tiny pothole.

‘Tesco’s,’ he said, turning briefly and giving her the smile.

‘
Tesco’s?
’ It sounded too ordinary, surely. ‘Right. So not a spare patch of earth outside Buckingham Palace? Not the hanging baskets of Downing Street?’

‘Yep. Tesco’s. Hey, are you disappointed? Sorry. I
know
it’s not
the
most romantic of venues to take a beautiful woman for a night out, but it is the big Tesco’s, not the titchy little Express by the station. So please don’t think I’m not pushing the boat out for you here.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she replied, overlooking the reference to ‘beautiful’. After all, he’d seen her at three in the morning after half a night in a police cell, so he could only be joking. ‘I mean it’s not as if it’s some kind of …
date
exactly, is it?’ When she thought about it, Viola felt quite relieved to be heading somewhere both nearish and fairly public. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going, or even that she’d be out. Rachel was over at Emmy’s so she didn’t need to know, but Kate and Miles would have been appalled. Even Marco would have done his best furrowed-brow look. Ever since the Rhys fans had started tormenting her they’d been insistent that her personal safety had to come first, that she should let someone know where she was going
at all times
.

It made sense on one level, but with Kate too frequently reminding her that ‘you never know who’s out there’, as if every moment of darkness were loaded with peril, she often felt as if she was expected to ask permission before so much as putting the bin bags out. No wonder her default setting was, until so recently, to stay at home. Tunnelling out could be such a palaver. If she’d told Kate about tonight there’d have been a whole long list of questions, starting with Who with, Where to,
and
eventually …
Why
? To be honest, if she had to explain this quest, she wouldn’t blame Kate for that last one. Random gardening in the dark wasn’t really the sanest thing to do.

‘It’s
not
a date?’ Greg said. ‘Ah, now I’m disappointed. And I got all dressed up for you too.’

‘Don’t tease me!’ She whacked him on the arm, realizing at the same time it wasn’t the wisest thing to do to a man who was about to change gear. She really must learn to
think
.

‘Who’s teasing? This is my very best old hoodie. And also, it may lack the usual clichés of romance but the Tesco’s car park has its charms. Those recycling bins make a stunning silhouette against the night sky. And it is
such
a beautiful evening. See, the magic lights!’ He pointed to the vividly lit sign over the Tesco 24-hour garage and sighed, thoroughly overdoing the drama as he turned the car off the road and into the car park, which was deserted apart from a few vehicles dotted around the edges and someone in a Mini with L-plates practising parallel parking.

‘Need to trust to luck a bit here,’ he told her, crossing to the farthest corner where there were sheltering trees. ‘There’ll definitely be CCTV, but I reckon it won’t be pointing at the bit we’re heading for. They’re not going to be wasting footage on a scruffy little patch of neglected ground by the valet car wash, now are they? It’s not exactly in brick-lobbing distance of the main doors.’

He pulled up at the back of the little car-wash marquee and they both climbed out, Viola wondering if she should have brought a scarf to tie round her face, looter-style. ‘The trick is,’ Greg was saying, ‘to keep the car behind us so we’re pretty much hidden from view.’

‘I hope we are.’ Viola suddenly felt a bit unsure. ‘I really don’t want to spend any more time being interviewed by that vile detective. Do you ever get challenged when you’re doing this?’

‘I haven’t been so far. I think people generally steer clear of men digging holes in the ground late at night. Apart from you, that is.’

‘Yes, well – it’s not as if I knew you were there. I’d have run a mile if I had. But there’s always a first time, though …’

He got closer to her, took hold of her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Hey, we can abort the whole mission if you’d prefer. I can take you straight home or we could rush to the pub before it shuts if you’d rather not do this. I thought … you know, just
a laugh
…’

Leaving now would certainly be the sensible option. Playing safe, taking the adult, no-risk course, just as Viola had promised herself she would do for the rest of her days so as to avoid havoc and chaos. But that didn’t exactly go with her determination to accept every invitation on offer and get her life back. So here she was – and she could feel it as an almost physical euphoric rush – actually for once knowing that excited flicker of
really
enjoying herself. It was as if backing out now would mean she’d never let herself have any silly, spontaneous fun ever again. She could picture herself months later in the spring, coming here to shop and spotting the rogue bed of flowers that would remind her of this night. Something good, something positive for once.

‘No, it’s fine – I really want to.’ She reached back into the car for her bag. ‘See? I’ve got my trowel all ready to go. What are we planting?’

She pulled a scrunchie out of her pocket and crammed her hair back into a ponytail, not caring how messy it looked but wanting to be able to see what she was doing without stray tendrils trailing in her eyes. Greg was leaning on the car bonnet, smiling at her and watching. ‘Hey, it suits you like that. Shows off your cheekbones.’

‘Oh – thank you. It’s probably the Croydon-facelift effect, hauling all the loose skin back really tightly.’

He reached across and smoothed a finger down her cheek. ‘Come on, learn to take a compliment, why don’t you? And if you’re embarrassed by it, you can return the favour and make us even.’

‘Oh – OK. You’ve got, um … quite nice … er … eyes? Aaagh!’ she laughed. ‘You’re winding me up, aren’t you?’

‘Totally.’ He nudged her gently in the ribs with his trowel. ‘And it’s
so
fantastically easy! Come on, let’s get
on
with the planting. It’s way too early to be putting in tulips really, because too much heat once they’re in the ground isn’t good for them, but this is a shady little patch so we’ll plant them deep and risk it. I’m sure the plants I put out in the wild know they’ve got to make a bit of a special effort to thrive, so we’ll let them take their chance against the dreaded tulip fire. Perks of the trade – I was given a whopping big free-sample bag of those parrot ones, pink tinged with green.’ He opened the back of the Land Rover and pulled out a small sack of bulbs and a garden fork.

‘Oh, I love those frilly tulips; they’re completely mad-looking. Like regular ones but dressed up in really fancy frocks. But aren’t they wasted on a tatty old bit of supermarket ground?’

‘I don’t think so at all,’ he said. ‘I mean, you might think I’m just sweating the small stuff, if you like, but an unexpected random flash of beauty in this sad suburban wilderness will gladden a lot of hearts, even for a few seconds. Isn’t it worth it for that?’

Viola felt that hers was gladdened already. Greg’s committed belief in his mission almost made her want to cry. How come some people could be so damn
nice
?

He looked down at the sack of bulbs. ‘I spend all my working days renting live plants out to be used as fake scenery, then bringing them all back again, a lot of them damaged because they’re just there to be functional and no one’s bothered to take care of them. And then when
I
drive through the areas the powers that be have allowed to rot with neglect, places that collect nothing but filthy litter and nobody cares, sometimes I just want to dig the real thing in and make a bit of a difference,’ he said, stabbing the fork into the ground and beginning to turn over the earth.

‘Ah, that’s such a lovely thought.’ Viola was touched by his admission.

‘Is it?’ He turned and grinned at her. ‘I thought it sounded vomit-inducingly worthy, myself. But this kind of thing is a worldwide movement. You should Google guerrilla gardening and have a look. My personal buzz comes when I drive through the area and see strange little subversive plots of greenery that I’ve been responsible for. Gives me a silly, secret tingle.’

‘You’re a kind of Banksy with a spade, then?’

‘I completely am. Here, I’ve turned this patch over; now you can start making the holes.’ He stopped forking and handed her his dibber. ‘Put them in at around four inches deep and only about the same apart; there’s nothing worse than sparse tulips. We’re going for the de luxe massed version, like you would if you put them in a big pot. They probably won’t come back the year after. In fact, if I remember, and if they’re still here, we could come back and lift them after they’ve flowered.’

Viola set to work as he’d directed, getting completely absorbed in what she was doing and feeling exhilarated by the now-cooling night breeze and the shared
adventure
. She and Greg knelt on the well-dug earth and planted the bulbs together, working silently and fast. The scent of fresh earth made her forget all about the madly incongruous location. It was only when they’d nearly finished and she heard a dog snuffling at the car wheels and saw a beam of feeble torchlight weaving about that she remembered that they were in a highly public spot. Greg didn’t seem to have noticed so she reached out and took hold of his wrist, giving it a warning shake.

‘Someone’s behind the car,’ she whispered.

A short, stout man wearing a shiny football shirt and a hand-knitted beanie hat, with a fat Labrador on a lead, was peering in through the Land Rover’s open back door.

‘Looking for something?’ Greg stood up and asked politely. The man jumped back, looking nervous and a bit furtive.

‘Er … no. Sorry. I just thought … I mean, you had the interior light on so I thought …’

‘Thought the battery would go flat? How kind of you to worry.’ Viola smiled, deciding that the friendly option would be the safest. The last thing she wanted was some suspicious bloke doing a concerned-citizen act and reporting them to the police. Or maybe he’d just intended to rob a bag of compost from the back.

‘Well, not exactly, I just … er. Yes. Sorry. My mistake.’
The
man wouldn’t look at her but kept his gaze firmly floorwards. He tugged impatiently at his dog’s lead but the dog was taking its time, having a copious pee against the rear tyre. Viola saw Greg quickly scan the rest of the car park, then grin at the man. ‘Ah … Now I know what you thought! Jeez, is this one of the sites for it, then? If only we’d known.’ He pointed across at the far side. ‘Look, mate, there’s a Volvo estate over by the bottle bank, with its headlights on. I reckon you’ll have more luck with them.’

The man started to shuffle away, looking embarrassed. ‘Well, like I said, my mistake.’ He grunted, then turned back. ‘But if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly are you doing here then if you’re not … you know …?’

‘We’re gardening.’ Greg told him. ‘And no, that’s not a euphemism. Goodnight!’

The man frowned. ‘Gardening? At this time? Oh, I get it. A wind-up.’ And he stomped off crossly, pulling the reluctant dog after him.

‘What on earth was that all about? And this place is known for
what
, exactly?’ Viola asked as soon as he was far enough out of earshot. Every last tulip bulb was planted, and Greg was treading the ground to make it look less freshly dug and to dissuade neighbouring cats from taking advantage of soft earth.

‘Dogging!’ he laughed. ‘Poor bastard didn’t know where to look once he realized his mistake.’

‘
Dogging?
Oh, yuck! And he thought … we were … um,
at it
?’

‘Yep! He was all geared up for a bit of lecherous watching. Interior light on, you see. Apparently it’s a sign – and before you ask, that’s just info picked up along life’s way. I
definitely
don’t know from personal experience. Poor bastard!’ He laughed. ‘Talk about looking disappointed.’

‘That’s
gross
!’ Viola squinted through the dark in the direction of the far side of the car park. A couple of cars
did
have their lights on. If she hadn’t been told this, she’d have assumed their occupants were reading a map or choosing a CD track or something equally innocent.