The Garden Plot

The rain leaked down the outside of the window, caught on the sash, and dripped onto the sill, each drop counting down the days remaining before the end of Pru Parke’s life. Through the rivulets, she could see the London street outside and, across the road, the line of plane trees inside the wrought-iron railing that surrounded the private square. Inside the railing, a mixed border, flowering shrubs, and climbing roses surrounded a three-tiered fountain that splashed merrily.

“What a pretty garden,” an American tourist had said to Pru one day last summer when they both stood looking through the rails.

“It was designed in 1845 by Rowland Mason Ordish,” Pru said, “the engineer who designed the Albert Bridge and the dome of the St. Pancras rail station. The fountain was added at a later date. There’s a giant sequoia, more than one hundred and fifty years old, in the far corner.”

“Oh, you’re American,” the visitor replied. “How did you learn so much about the place?”

Bits of garden history stuck to Pru like cat hair on wool—a master’s degree in garden history and lifelong love of learning made sure of that.

“I grew up in the States, but I live here now.” As much as Pru loved saying it aloud, she knew it couldn’t really be true until she found a permanent job, a job as head gardener at a small historic garden. Give her a couple of acres and a place to live; she didn’t need the grounds of Windsor Castle.

She had continued to look into the square after the tourist departed, taking along directions from Pru to the Sloane Square Underground station. The plants, the fountains, the roses all called out for Pru to enter the square and enjoy, but only residents of the houses around the square held keys. Real residents, not her, not an American subletting in such a tony neighborhood as Chelsea while she searched for acceptance and a job that would keep her in the only place that ever felt like home.

… Thirty-six days, thirty-five, thirty-four … Pru felt time slipping away and taking with it her dream of escaping her former life in Dallas to live in England. Not that she had a life to go back to. She knew that sounded overly dramatic and carried overtones of self-pity—perhaps not the most attractive qualities in a woman in her early fifties—but Pru felt it true to her very bones. She hadn’t begun a new chapter of her life by moving to England, but rather an entirely new book—one that she’d prepared her whole life to
write. Not only had she given up the physical pieces of her life in Texas—sold her little adobe-style house, quit her steady job at the Dallas Arboretum—she had also relinquished all ties; she had untied herself in order to follow a path that felt new and old at the same time. England was her home. The boldness of her move had energized her and scared her half to death.

She glanced around the sublet surroundings that she got for a song, at least until the owners returned from a year in Italy—comfy chintz sofa, overstuffed chair and ottoman, tea tables, requisite Constable print on the wall by the door to the hall, piles of magazines—her own more recent issues of British garden mags next to a stack of two-year-old
Country Life
issues left by the owners. They had left the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace full, but locked up the rest of their possessions in the basement. Pru carried out no gardening here; the small space behind the house had been completely paved over.

“You’ve got the place to yourself,” Jo, the property manager who had become her good friend, had said. “And you won’t have to worry about stumbling into a vase or ancient Greek urn.” Pru got the idea that antiques filled the basement.

When she first arrived, she had toyed with the idea of becoming The American Gardener in Chelsea. Maybe she could acquire enough rich clients and become so well known that she’d be asked to design a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show, win a gold, and be interviewed by that cute Chris Beardshaw from BBC One or possibly Alan Titchmarsh, a famous garden personality who, just a few years ago, had been named Sexiest Man in Britain. Only in Britain would a gardener be at the top of that list.

In reality, this temporary lodging plus filling her days with garden work at many different London houses kept her going, but it could not be a permanent replacement for an actual job and home. And she desperately wanted something permanent; she wanted to fit into this new life she had chosen. Middle-aged American woman with no head-gardener experience seeks complete life change in the form of a position in a highly competitive field in a foreign country. What was she thinking?

Three piano chords in G major came from her phone. She pushed her hair out of her face, reached for it, and wondered where her hair clip had got to.

“Is this Pru Parke? Mrs. Vernona Wilson speaking,” said a rushed voice. “Victoria Pegg-Wells gave me your name, she said you’re a wonderful gardener, and I do so need someone to tidy up the bottom of the garden. It’s frightfully overgrown, and there’s a shed down there I would be afraid to even put my nose in—if I could get close enough. Can you come and sort it out for me?”

Oh fine,
Pru thought.
I’ve gone from gardener to rubbish removal.

“I could stop by tomorrow to take a look,” Pru replied. “May I email you a brief form to fill out? It’ll help me get familiar with your garden before I even see it. You can jot down exactly what you’d like done.”

“Oh, no, dear, tomorrow is too late a start. You’d better stop by this afternoon. You can take a look at what you’re up against, and after you’ve sorted this out, I’ve a whole list of other jobs for you,” Mrs. Wilson said. “I’m sure your form wouldn’t have room for everything. It wasn’t terribly tidy when we moved in here last year, and I have had so much to deal with in the house … well, I’m afraid I turned a blind eye to the garden. We had such a large place before and to fit the furniture and all our photos and art into such a small town house …”

Pru stopped listening to Mrs. Wilson’s description of her change of life when she heard the post drop through the slot in the door. Hoping that one of her clients had paid a bill, she headed into the front hall, offering sympathetic “mmm’s” occasionally as Mrs. Wilson explained that the only reason she’d decided it was time to attend to the garden was that she was afraid her little dog, Toffee Woof-Woof, would get lost in the chaos and what would her luncheon guests think at the sight of it.

Pru scanned the few letters that had landed on the front mat, among them was a note from her best friend in Dallas, Lydia Morales. She glanced to the end and saw that Lydia had added: “Marcus says hello.” Marcus—Lydia’s brother and Pru’s old … what, flame?—could say all the hellos he wanted, but he shouldn’t expect one back. A photo slipped out of the envelope, a snapshot of Lydia and her husband, Ray’s three girls, Yolanda, Dora, and Lupe, in their school uniforms. On the back Lydia had written: “They’ll never be this clean again.”

When Pru had announced her move to England, Lydia had protested, “But the girls will miss you.”

Pru had responded, “You’ll bring them over to visit.”

That had prompted Lydia to say, with a sly grin, “Yes, you can take them up in that Ferris wheel on the Thames.”