I know she watches me because, when I get the tools from the shed by the vegetable garden, the curtains in her thatched cottage opposite always twitch.
Once, she was cleaning the inside of the window, and she’d drawn the net curtains back so I was able to see her. She was not young or pretty. But I liked her brown hair, even if it was going a bit grey. It was tied in a bun. If she let it down, I reckon it would look really nice. Even though the net curtains were drawn back, she still stood half hidden to the side of the window.
I noticed she watched me longer one day when I took my shirt off. The gardening work I do for the Manor keeps my body strong and I don’t feel the cold. But it’s the end of the year and the sun doesn’t come out over the hill until later in the day. So I do jobs around the estate until the sun is up, then I work in the vegetable garden with my shirt off, which I think she likes.
It makes me happy to think she’s looking forward to seeing me.
In fact, I think she is the only one who really likes to see me each day. I only got this job as a gardener when my mum took me to see the Estate Manager.
“He’s slow,” she said, “but he’s a hard worker and won’t let you down.”
The Estate Manager seemed very friendly with mum. They laughed and joked a lot. He said he’d see her later, after she’d taken me home, to ‘tie up the loose ends’.
When my Dad heard about me getting the job, he said “He’ll never keep it up, you mark my words. He’ll break all the tools and the plants will shrivel up and die.”
But I haven’t broken anything. Mrs Yates, the cook at the Manor, even told me yesterday that she’d never seen such good cabbages out of the garden as this year.
I suppose, perhaps, Mrs Yates thinks I’m worth something too. And I’ve always turned up on time.
Yesterday, the lady behind the curtains came out and brought me a cup of tea. She was very nice. She said she’d seen I was working hard and, because she is retired from working at the Manor, she gets to eat some of the vegetables that I’m growing, so it’s her way of saying thank you.
She also said she would make me something special and did I like carrot cake. I said I did, especially if it was made with carrots I’d grown myself.
She said for me to come and see her after work today and I said I would. I’ve even got a change of clothes and shoes in the vegetable garden shed so I won’t mess up her clean furniture and carpet.
My mum said I should watch out and not get into trouble with an older woman.
My dad said she was probably trying to get some jobs done in her garden for free.
Mrs Yates saw me arriving with the carrier bag full of clothes and asked me if I was meeting a sweetheart.
I’m really looking forward to seeing her.
She said she’d show me some photos of her son who’d been my age when he was killed in the war.
The End
Rob Hopcott
(On-line author – fiction – news)
Copyright Rob Hopcott 2007. All characters in this gardening very short story and other free on-line short stories, flash fictions, micro-fictions, sudden fictions or very short stories on this site are fictitious and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.
Tags: carrot cake, garden, gardener's story, gardeners, gardening, gardening stories, gardening story, gardening storys, lonely people, vegetable garden, war