Dads Allotment
The fact that she and her dads allotment had been sold came as an absolute shock to Olivia. She found out by accident, in the most ridiculous way, while ringing her mum from a phone box in another city. Things like that dont happen outside soap operas, do they? Olivia became an unintentional fly on the wall, eavesdropping on two peoples conversation after the operator managed, by some cosmic blunder, to connect a third party to the line. Two cities, two people, and a couple of precious paid minutes spent discussing a tragedy: the allotment was gone, flogged most profitably, and nowwell, there was plenty to be done, perhaps even help Olivia out with a bit of money!
There were Olivias mum and her own sister Irene on the call, voices achingly familiar, a hundred miles apart, chit-chatting away in sound waves transformed into electric signals, wiggling their way through the wires. Olivia had always found physics baffling; her dad was always pushing her to study harder.
***
Dad, how come the suns so odd in September?
What do you mean, Liv?
I dont know I cant explain it. Feels different, sort of cosier. Its sunny, but not like in August.
You should really revise your physics, darling. The positioning of the celestial bodies is wildly different in September. Catch! And with a chuckle, he lobbed her a massive applesquat and shiny, honey-scented and red as a postbox.
A Bramley?
No, not yet. Theyre not ripe. This ones a Russet.
She bit in with a crunch; her mouth filled with sweet white froth, soaked in the warm English summer rainand perhaps a smidge of Hertfordshire soil. Apple varietiesand physicswere not Olivias strong suit. Which was saying something, because it was currently her biggest problem. Olivia Sutherland, year nine student, had been hopelessly in love with her physics teacher for nearly two years. The heavens had opened, fate had drawn its chalk lines, and physical laws refused to fit into the squares of an exercise book. Dad understood, simply from her faraway gaze and abysmal appetite. Of course, Olivia confessed last yearspent the night sobbing hopelessly on his lap, like a toddler. Mum had been away at the spa, big sister Irene off studying football stats in another city.
On the allotment, dad was always cheery, whistling some tune or other. At home, only mum and sister took centre stage, when they visited. Mum was a stunnerthe formidable head librarian at the military base, tall, proud, with a mane of henna-red curls she treated every few months; shed emerge from the bathroom draped in towels, exuding a whiff of herbs and summer rain. Mums beauty was hard to miss. Dad, on the other hand, just shy of her height and nearly ten years her senior, always described by mum as utterly unremarkable. Olivia overheard once and was sorely offended.
Sams hardly dazzling, but a man shouldnt be pretty.
Unremarkable next to mums bonfire-bright hair, dramatic crockery-smashing, unpredictable spirit. Mum was fond of comfort and order, but had to put up with dads soldier boyshis termwhod camp out on their lounge floor in the pokey two-bed flat. While Sam was in the army, they came and went, some passing through, others needing help finding work. His boys. In 1960, Sam was swept out in the big army cuts1.3 million troops and officers, as Khrushchev put it (the only Russian in the story!). He retired as Major, then became chief mechanic at the St Albans telegraph office. Those same chaps helped build dads allotment, dug the ground for free, took turns hammering away. A tiny shed with a single room and a porch, where Olivia liked to read in summer. Dad would pass her bowls of gooseberries, cherries, or strawberries right up to her sun-soaked roof. The best of times. Mum hated the allotment, visited rarely, careful not to ruin her pristine handslovely, manicured, long-nailed. Olivia admired them; dad kissed them.
These hands should be handing out books, not battling the carrots! hed always say with a wink at Olivia.
***
The first drops of September rain rattled on the porch roof, not like autumn at allmore like a giddy English shower in May. Olivia tucked her book away.
Liv, come down, love. Mums coming soon with Irene. We need to rustle up some grub, called dad, his voice brighter on the allotment than at home.
But Olivia lingered, craning her neck at the swelling grey skythreatening, not threatening. Rain soaked her face. She hugged herself for warmth. It was only up therecloser to clouds, farther from choresthat she could see sunlight lancing through the clouds above the neighbours sheds. Physics and its hard facts forgotten. On the first year of journalism, in a student hostel in another city, she pondered the new rules of life.
Olivia was quickly dropped in student halls, but spent her first September week in a rented room with the landlady, the other taken by students too. Lectures were a plungeliterature, words, and awe-inspiring tutors, so magnetic the whole group fell in love with them. Post-lectures, loneliness pressed in; no friends yet.
Shed grab lunch at the canteen, roam city streets till dusk. Londons beauty was harsh, alien. She felt alone, as though it wasnt Olivia slipping down the steep Metalworkers Hill by the main university building, not her heading home past barking dogs, not the one who tripped and bruised her foot in tight shiny new shoes.
The kitchen reeked of apples dad had given the landlady, a sweet, faintly musty scent that made Olivia teary and sent her heart skittering about her chest.
Once in halls, Olivia discovered her flatmates were German: Viola, Margot, Marion. Living with Germans meant evenings of pounding heads from all the Guten Tags and Schnitzels. Smokers piled onto the steps for their evening fix. The Germans would leg it after Olivia, bum a smoke, insist on paying her backmystifying the Brits. They marvelled at the jars of mums homemade pickles, devoured them with fried potatoes. When Olivias stash ran low, the Germans sausage stash came outa stuff of legends!but never offered round, oh no. In May, their exchange year up, they returned to Germany, leaving heaps of winter boots by the bins. German boots! The Brits snapped them up on the sly.
***
Liv, chop this cabbage, love. Ill dig up the carrots. Broths bubbling away.
Boiling broth fogged the kitchen windows. The cabbage sprawled in lacy green leaves across the board. Olivia tore off a leafdivine. Veg straight from the earth, always best. She thwacked merrily away with the knife, filling the kitchen with sweet cabbage fragrance. She flung open the window, letting in the smell of damp leaves, bonfires, apples. Dad was a hunched figure outside; digging was hardhis back always at him. Olivia ditched the knife, dashed to the garden, hugged him tight from behind. He turned, embraced her wordlessly, kissed her hair.
That evening, Irene arrived solo; mum had a headache and stayed home.
***
Fast forward: universitys behind her, a student marriage dissolved, a job at the aviation plants Innovator newspaper, dads first heart attack, a new daughter, even a divorce. Five years flew. Olivias husband left her for another woman; she lived with toddler Mary in a rented flat. Dad did his best, visiting every other weekend, bringing groceries and playing with Mary.
Liv, dont get cross with mum for not coming as often as me, alright? The travel just does her in And, you know, I think shes got herself a bit of a gentleman friend.
Dad, dont be daft! At your age?
Dad laughed, but bitterly. He fell silent. Olivia suddenly saw how old and grey hed become, shoulders hunched, even his whistling had vanished.
Dad, why dont I take next week off work? Lets get away to the allotment, squeeze in a few warm days with Mary?
***
The allotment was buried in leaves, Octobers last golden week, proper Indian summer. They lit the stove, brewed tea with blackcurrant leaves. Olivia fried potato cakes, dad raked leaves (Mary helped by scattering them). The kitchen sizzled and popped. From deep in the orchard, dads old whistling drifted.
By evening, bonfire blazed. The road was empty, neighbours sheds dark. Dad speared chunks of thick bread on cherry sticks, helped Mary toast them. Olivia warmed her cold hands by the fire, always entranced.
She remembered her first student summer up north, songs round the campfire, head spinning with heady lovenot of some boy, but for the stars, for the breathtaking night, the haunted silence of the moors, off-key guitars and the fire-lit faces. Campfire faces are differentevery face carries its own secret life. Thats where she met her future ex-husband. At work that week, party committee summoned herconsidering her for the Labour Party. Shed crammed the party constitution, all the conference papers. Suddenly, questions about her divorcewho was to blame, whod failed morally. She stammered, near tears. A colleague piped up, stuttering:
This is a committee of clods, not comrades!
Years later, shed look back and laugh, hard.
When night truly fell, they doused the bonfire. A car stopped at the gate with a thundering door slam. Mum! Gorgeous, in a vivid coat, explaining a colleague had driven her over. Mary ran to grandma, dad frowned and gave mum a stiff kiss.
So, whos this colleague?
Sam, does it matter? He just gave me a lift. You dont even know him.
Dinner conversation sputtered, Mary got cranky. Mum grilled Olivia about work but clearly had other thoughts. Dad watched mum, shoulders sinking, scowling. The evening was ruined.
***
A year later, dad was gone. The heart attackhe slipped away in two days, early October, sunny and warm. After the funeral, Olivia took time off to live at the allotment. Mary stayed with her gran.
Olivia couldnt settle. The apple harvest was huge; she gifted buckets to neighbours, boiled up apple jam with mint and cinnamon, as dad liked. Dads old mate, John, arrived to helpregular trips to the nursery for new fruit trees together, he said.
Ill stay a couple of days, Liv, dig over the veg beds, trim the trees, if thats alright?
Oh John, youre too kind, thank you.
Johns Liv made Olivia tear up. Right then, a shattering sense of loss hit hertrue orphanhood and futility. Up to that point, shed hoped dad might somehow come back, as if it was all a bad dream. In those first days, at the cusp of sleep, shed forget for a second why everything hurt so much. Then, clarity crashed indad had vanished.
For a while, guilt gripped her, that she couldnt keep him here.
Just dont sell the allotment, will you? Ill keep coming, help out as much as I can. Do you know, Liv, we picked this golden apple together, back when you were just a sprite. On the way to Tring, Sam talked about you more than your sister. You were such a funny kid. He said his trees would outlast him. Hed always fuss for ages over the saplings; Id get impatient
John stayed three days, dug the garden, pruned the trees, spread fertiliser, planted three yellow chrysanthemum bushes right by the porch, with Olivias permission.
Theyd be better earlier, but its a warm autumn, theyll be fine. Sam wouldve liked them Ill come again to cover the roses for winter, clear off the leaves.
They hugged goodbye; the rain started. Olivia lingered by the gate, watching John walk away until he turned, waving, Go back inside, love! The rain beat down, drumming relentlessly on the roof, the wind slammed the gate shut in sorrow. Yellow chrysanthemum petals covered the doorstep. Everything here was dadsand always would be. The rain, the trees, the autumn scents, the soil. So, he must be somewhere close, always. And Olivia would learn everything, in time. Shed keep coming with Mary until the first frost, it was only a couple of hours by bus. Next spring, when the snow melted, perhaps she could get proper heating installed. She needed to start savingjust bits and bobs. Shed definitely go back to Tring and choose a white currant bush with Johndad had always wanted one.
***
Six months later, come early April and the last patch of snow, the allotment was sold. Olivia found out by accident, through a phone call from a phone box, on her way home from Tring. In the cramped booth, by her feet, stood a white currant saplingwrapped at the roots in an old childs t-shirt damp with earth.
