The Secrets of Ivy Garden: A heartwarming tale perfect for relaxing on the grass. Catherine Ferguson
arm snakes round my waist. ‘Hey, why don’t you come along? Join the pub crawl?’
Actually, how it sounds is Heywhydntcmlongjnpubcrawl? I stare up at his stupid false nose and black-rimmed glasses, the lenses of which are like jam jar bottoms. I’m amazed he can see through them. No wonder he charged right into me.
He sways closer and the booze on his breath almost knocks me flat.
I feel like weeping. Today’s long journey from Manchester has been emotionally exhausting, to say the least, and now – to cap it all – I’m being propositioned by a drunk disguised as a nun?
It can’t get any worse. Oh hang on, apparently it can.
His hand just slipped lower and is clamped so tight, there seems to be no escape. The rest of him might be listing like a yacht in a force nine, but there’s nothing flaky about that firm grasp.
I try to move away but the pavement is packed with people and I just keep getting pushed back against him. Then when I do manage to put a small distance between us, he staggers a bit and lurches forward. That’s when I realise he was probably just grabbing on to me in an attempt to remain upright.
He grins and the cheap nylon veil slips down over one eye. ‘Dirt on your coat,’ he mumbles helpfully.
I glance down. Sure enough, there’s a big splodge of muck from where I wiped his joke glasses on my otherwise pristine beige coat. The one I had dry-cleaned last week.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, catching my look of horror and attempting to look contrite.
‘So you should be,’ I snap, thinking miserably of the two-hour wait ahead. ‘Pretending to be one of God’s holy sisters and making me miss my bus!’
‘Youdon’tapproveofmendressed’snuns?’
Quick translation while leaning away to avoid beery breath. ‘No, I don’t approve of men dressed as nuns. Especially if they’re rat-arsed. If I were a nun, I’d be absolutely horrified.’
He snorts, apparently finding it all very funny indeed. ‘Butyouaren’tanunareyou?’
I grit my teeth.
A six-foot-two fake nun is using me as a prop to remain standing and people are staring. Plus, I have a two-hour wait for a bus and a lovely reminder of my unholy encounter in the form of a nasty black stain on my coat.
Just then, to add insult to injury, the bus to Appleton swooshes past, hurling a litre of gutter rainwater at me. Tears prick my eyes as I watch it accelerate off into the distance.
‘No, I am not a nun,’ I growl, and Maria von Trapp on growth hormones sniggers like a schoolboy. I fix him with my sternest look. ‘Not yet, anyway.’
He blinks several times at me behind his glasses. At least, I assume that’s what he’s doing because I can’t actually see his eyes through the stupid joke lenses.
‘In fact,’ I add, enjoying his confusion, ‘I’m actually training to become a nun.’
He snorts, nearly overbalances, then starts convulsing with laughter.
‘It’s true,’ I say, feeling ridiculously offended on behalf of nuns everywhere.
He’s laughing so much, he’s having to lean against some iron railings for support. ‘You off to the convent now, then? Didn’t know there was one in Stroud.’
I give him my haughtiest stare. ‘Actually, I’m – erm – having a last long holiday in the Cotswolds before I start my training up in Manchester. And if you weren’t so pissed, you’d be wishing me luck instead of acting like an utter moron.’
I walk off, nose in the air, fairly impressed with my spontaneous put-down. When I turn a moment later, he’s leaning against a lamppost, arms folded, staring dazedly after me.
Me? A novice nun? Ha, that’s a good one!
My triumphant smile slips when it occurs to me that a vow of chastity isn’t exactly a stretch for me right now. It’s been well over six months since I did anything even remotely horizontal and non-nun-like.
I can’t face waiting for a bus, so I decide to treat myself to a taxi. It’s expensive, but I’ll get there much faster. Luckily, the taxi driver seems to sense that I don’t want to chat and leaves me alone with my thoughts as we wend our way towards Appleton.
We drive through a string of pretty villages and I try to stay calm, telling myself everything will be fine. But the trouble is, I know what’s coming. I know that in a minute, we’ll be driving into open countryside without a single house or village pub or any sign of civilisation to reassure me. It’s the wide open spaces that scare me the most.
I squeeze my eyes shut so I don’t have to look at the fields on either side that seem to stretch away to infinity. I’d thought that with the passage of time, the terror would begin to subside. But here I am, my heart pounding in my ears as if it happened only yesterday.
I want Ivy so much right now, I feel as if my heart will break.
Last time I saw her, she was waving me off on the train back to Manchester.
I remember thinking how elegant she was that day. Normally, Ivy lived in casual trousers and tops. Life was too short, she said, for feeling like a trussed-up goose in the name of fashion. But she’d taken me for an early supper at a nearby pub before driving me to the station in Stroud, which was why she was all dressed up. Right then, on that station platform, she could have passed for a woman in her late fifties. Hard to believe she was seventy-two.
Actually, the way I usually remember her now is in the old gardening garb she used to wear, or in her hiking gear, fresh from walking in the country lanes around Appleton.
A painful lump wedges in my throat.
This is how it happens. I’ll just be starting to think I’m doing okay, coping well, beginning to make plans – then boom! The thought that I’ll never be able to see Ivy or hug her ever again sends a flood of grief washing through me.
Hot tears prick my eyelids. The nails-in-palms trick isn’t working. Then something Ivy used to say zips into my mind: Worry’s like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.
I swallow hard, picturing her giving me one of her no-nonsense pep talks. It’s almost as if she’s sitting right here next to me, a twinkle in her eyes, on the bench in her beloved Ivy Garden. Telling me not to worry because things are never as bad as they seem and I’ll figure it out somehow.
Of course! That’s where I need to be.
Ivy Garden.
Her favourite place in the whole world.
With my eyes still closed, I picture Ivy Garden the last time I saw it, on that final weekend I spent with her.
It was a hot August day. We wandered over the road and squeezed through the gap in the hedge, to the dappled woodland clearing that, over the years, Ivy had transformed into a sanctuary of peace and tranquillity.
She discovered the place years ago, when she was newly married to Peter, my granddad. He died long before I was born, when my mum was only three years old. Ivy never talked about Peter much, except to say he was ‘a good man’. She said that a lot whenever I asked her what he was like, so I still only had a rather hazy impression of him. He was a self-employed accountant and I got the impression he worked really hard. I think Ivy liked to escape the house and leave him in peace with his calculations. More than once, I heard her say laughingly that her ‘secret garden’ had kept her sane during her marriage.
The clearing in the trees was on public land, on the edge of a wood, and Ivy nurtured it into a lovely woodland garden. She planted shrubs, flowers and grasses for every season, so there was a rolling show of colour all year round, from the banks of snowdrops and crocuses as the frosts of winter melted into spring, to the glorious