Beyond the Garden Gate

A bit more writing for you. This is an idea that has been knocking around in my head for a little while, and which I've finally gotten around to writing down. I won't say too much because I don't want to spoil the ending, but my inspiration will be obvious. If anyone has any suggestions for a better title, please let me know. This one is strictly a working title.

Beyond the Garden Gate

John stamped over to the greenhouse, yanked the door open and stepped inside. He knelt and picked up the tray of young cabbages, trying not to moan as his knees and hips reminded him that he was no longer a young man. He straightened, and his back added its voice to the litany of complaints.

In reality though, he barely felt the merely physical pains. He was smarting too much already to pay them much notice. His whole body was thrumming with hurt and anger and resentment. He and Mary had had another argument. “Argument”. Call it what it was; a blazing row. The house stood by itself in the midst of a huge garden, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Miss Potter up on the hill had heard them. Nosey old busybody that she was, always wandering about the countryside looking for gossip, the hard-faced bitch.

Mary always seemed to be angry these days. He knew what had set her off this time. The Cothills down in the village had just had another grandson. Their third, John thought. Mary would never admit it, not in a hundred years, but he knew she resented the fact that they’d never had children. Not for want of trying, at first at least. But either something wasn’t right with him, or it wasn’t right with her, or the Lord had just never seen fit, and now they were both far too old. No children, no grandchildren, no-one to look after them as they headed slowly downhill.

That was why he had to keep up the garden. Keep growing the vegetables, keep selling them, keep sending them off to town to grace the dinner tables there. Couldn’t stop, because if he did where would the money come from? Where would the food come from? They had already complained that the last hamper was too light, and warned that they’d have to buy their vegetables elsewhere if he couldn’t make up the shortfall. Something else to worry about. They were poor enough as it was. Couldn’t even afford to buy himself baccy nowadays, unless he happened to catch a couple of rabbits that he could sell in the village.

He stumped out, carrying the tray of young cabbages. Ah yes, the rabbits. The garden backed onto a wood, and it was crawling with them. Not to mention the mice, badgers, birds and other pests who made it their job to despoil his garden and snatch the very food from their mouths. He’d set traps and snares, put up netting, tried to close up the gap under the gate and still they got in.

He reached the bed he’d prepared and set the tray down with another groan. How much longer could he keep this up? He was an old man, and he could tell that his strength was failing. His hearing was going too. Soon he wouldn’t be able to hear Mary going on at him, so that was something at least.

Always going on. Always something wrong. Always something he hadn’t done, or something he had. Never a kind word. Never a smile. Never a thank you for all the hard work he did to keep them fed. Never a bloody help around the garden either. At least she could cook. Her rabbit pie was more than half decent. His stomach rumbled. He’d get these cabbages planted, then he’d go in for a sandwich.

He picked up the trowel and leant forward, digging a hole and putting one of the plants in. His knees hurt. His back hurt. His hips hurt. He planted another one, and another, stabbing the soil with his trowel as though he could pay the earth back some of the pain and anger and sadness and disappointment and resentment and fear that filled his life.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. Looking up, he saw a rabbit hop out from behind a cucumber frame. It froze, staring at him with wide eyes. He stared back at it, and for a moment they were both absolutely still.

“Oh no you don’t!” he snarled under his breath. There was a rake on the ground near him and he snatched it up, leaping to his feet. The little bastard immediately bolted. “Stop, thief!” He sprinted after it with a speed born from rage and desperation. The creature had made itself an avatar for everything that was unfair and unjust and unhappy about John’s world, and he was going to get his revenge.

The rabbit darted here and there in a wild panic, and he moved to try and cut off it’s escape, ready to strike with the rake and break its back if he could. It rushed in amongst the cabbages, then darted through the potatoes, going faster now. The little demon would have got away completely if it hadn’t run headfirst into the gooseberry net. It thrashed around in a frenzy of fear, but only got itself more thoroughly tangled.

John grinned. “Got you, you little bastard!” He snatched up a large metal sieve and stepped forward to slam it down on the rabbit and trap it, but at the very last moment, thrashing around wildly it tore itself free. Still in a blind panic, it turned and bolted straight into the tool shed.

John was breathing hard, trembling with exertion and excitement. “You won’t get away this time…” he growled. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him. “I know you’re in here,” he called in a sing-song voice. “You’re in here somewhere!”

He glanced around. He had a large number of flowerpots in here, stored upside down. Maybe it had got in under one of them… He moved up to the first and carefully turned it over, ready to grab at anything that made a move. Nothing. He turned over the second. Nothing. The third…

At that moment there was a sound from the rusty old watering can in the corner. He spun towards it but as he came up a shape burst out in a spray of water and the stink of wet fur. John yelled and tried to stamp his boot down on it but it darted away, leaping for the window. He swore; it stood slightly open and the beast forced its way through the gap, knocking over three plants that he’d placed on the sill. He heard the pots shatter on the path outside.

John stared at the empty window, panting. His shoulders slumped, and all the aches and pains came flooding back as the anger drained away, worse than ever. He sighed. He’d wasted enough time, and slowly stumped back to the cabbages.

He got them done, and thought about heading in for a bite. He was hungry enough. But Mary would be in the kitchen. If he went back in, she’d start tongue-lashing him again. Or worse still, she’d say nothing, and there’d just be silence, hot and heavy and tense. He couldn’t face that. Not yet.

He went back to the tool shed and got the hoe. The onion beds needed doing. Perhaps after that he’d go back inside. Perhaps. Or he could stay out here by himself. Better to be alone. Better to be lonely than to face her anger and resentment and disappointment again today. They had to go to town tomorrow, and they’d be sat in the gig for an hour each way. Best to stay out of her way for now, and maybe by tomorrow they’d both have calmed down a bit. Enough to be civil at least. Maybe.

He set to hoeing, letting himself get into the rhythm of the work, letting it drown out everything else. Scriiiitch. Scratch. Scratch. Scritch.

Suddenly movement again. John looked up in time to see another rabbit, or perhaps the same one as before, dart out from behind the blackberry bushes and streak towards the gate. Out of habit John leapt up to give chase, but the rabbit was under the gate and off into the woods before he could get close. He slowed as he reached the gate, and watched as it galloped away into the woods and out of sight. He envied it. If only he could run off into the woods. Just squeeze under the gate and disappear. No garden. No worries. No work. No Mary. He stood and stared for a long time after the beast had vanished from view, his hoe forgotten in his hand.

Eventually, he sighed and shook himself. The light was starting to fade, and he was famished. Mary would probably complain about him not coming in for lunch. Make it a deliberate slight. “You do it a’purpose!” she’d say in her querulous, whining voice. Well, yes. He had.

He did a quick tour of the garden to see that everything was right, and give himself a few more peaceful minutes. While he was doing so, he picked up a few things that the rabbit had dropped as it ran. “Too small to sell,” he muttered, “but I can use them to make a scarecrow.” He had an old hat he could use too. Maybe he’d do that before he went back in. It wouldn’t take long. Carrying the two shoes and the little blue jacket, Mr. McGregor turned and headed back to the tool shed.

Copyright Thomas Jones 2022

Drought and Drudgery

It's been quite a while since I've posted here. Not because there has been nothing worth commenting on, there most definitely has been, but because I don’t feel that I had anything particularly worth saying that wasn’t already being said by someone else. In writing this, I am now wondering whether that should actually matter. Sincerity is surely better than originality. I’m side-tracking myself before I’ve even got started, but it’s possibly something worth considering in a later post.

ANYWAY. I don’t feel like I’ve been doing very well lately, Christianity-wise. Worse, I don’t think that I’ve been trying especially hard. One has dry patches during which religious feeling seems hard to come by, and although I’ve at no point during this period questioned the philosophical or intellectual basis of my faith, I have not been doing very much to live it. They happen, and they do pass.

My parents are both very keen and very talented gardeners. My father has had an allotment for as long as I’ve been alive, and now he’s retired he grows fuchsias for competition. My mother had always grown flowers. Wherever we’ve lived we’ve had beautiful, productive, well-ordered gardens. I strongly suspect that it is a constant source of mild disappointment to both of them that I have never shown the slightest interest or aptitude towards gardening.

For me, Christianity is an awful lot like gardening. I love the idea of it, but the reality just seems far too much like hard work. I love the results, but at the moment the thing itself seems like far too much effort for far too little immediate result. The conception of it is wonderful, the purpose and the logic of it sound, but I am simply not the person to live my faith with the intensity and the outright dedication with which it ought to be lived.

Fear not, dear reader. This is not my recantation. Rather, it is the admission of a weakness. We are told that the first step to solving a problem is to admit to it being one. I’ve written before about my concerns that my faith is too intellectual. Now I wonder whether it isn’t too lazy. I read about the great preachers and missionaries of times gone by, the Wesleys, Booths, Spurgeons and so on, and all I can do is envy them the burning, obsessive driving faith that seems to sustain them from early rising to late bed. I don’t have that.

There are those who’ve had a sudden, transformative Damascene Road moment that has filled them with faith. I have not. I’ve come to my religion more slowly, more cautiously, piecemeal. I like to think that as a result it is rather deeper, firmer faith than the quickly gained and quickly lost fervour of the sudden convert, but perhaps I’m fooling myself. If it’s burnt longer and more steadily then it certainly burns cooler, and mostly under the surface.

If this whole post sounds like a self-indulgent and self-pitying moan, then I apologise, but it’s really not what I intend. Rather it’s an honest appraisal, an acknowledgement that there is plenty of room for improvement. More, it is an acknowledgement that improvement is possible. There is power in such things, I think. Perhaps, like the first Methodists, I simply need to be more organised and methodical in my faith. I need to make sure that I spend time on it more often and more regularly.

I said earlier that these dry patches happen. They do. Even the Pope and Archbishop Welby admit that they have periods, sometimes even extended periods during which they find their faith a struggle. The trick is in not mistaking them for an endless drought but recognising them as a mere temporary lull. They also tell you that perhaps something needs changing; in yourself, in your life, perhaps both. Christianity, like gardening, is not all flat lawns and beautiful flowers; it is also occasionally drought and drudgery and backache.

So then, I’ll keep on keeping on. I'll carry on trying to try. I’ll pray for help. I’ll pray for rain. My garden might be poorly kept and poorly mowed, with too many weeds and too few flowers, but I can see what it ought to look like and I’ve got the tools. It’s just a question of forcing myself to pick them up and do the work.