The Tulips in Alice's Garden

Alice watched as her new neighbour pushed the shovel into the cold November earth.

"It's really so very nice of you to help me. At my age, I just don’t have the strength. The first time I used that shovel, it almost killed me." She contemptuously eyed the shovel in her neighbour’s hand, remembering the pain.

"It's really no bother, Mrs Beresford; what can you do if you can't look after your older neighbours?"  Alice saw him blush. "I didn't mean that you're old."

Alice reached out and touched his arm gently. "It's OK, dear. I am old. Now, back to work with you. These tulip bulbs aren't going to plant themselves," she said with a smile. He was a good lad, and having some company after all this time was nice. Simon and his wife Claire often looked in on her to ensure she was OK.

Alice opened the back door to her kitchen and clicked on the kettle. On the wall over her small drop-leaf table was a photo of her and her husband, Don, taken on her Fiftieth birthday. All her friends said Don was the perfect husband; they said he had a kind face when they met him. The photo, taken as they had docked in Mexico, was twenty-two years old. Don had been dead for five years.

"He's doing a good job out there, Don. We'll have those bulbs planted tonight, and then we're all set for spring." She still spoke to her husband and knew his responses to anything she said. She often imagined whole conversations between them. She had known Don almost as well as she knew herself. Almost.

"Here you are, dear." She carried the tray with two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits outside and set it down on her tiny garden table.

"Thank you, Mrs. Beresford. The ground is hard, but I'm getting there." He stood back to admire his work, sweat dripping down his temple. "Are we planting these too late to grow next year?"

"No, dear, they need to be planted now. The cold conditions reduce the risk of fungal disease in the roots you see." She realised she sounded knowledgeable, but gardening was still her new hobby.

Simon pointed to a flower bed in the middle of the garden filled with rose bushes, now cut back for winter. "That's unusual having a flower bed in the middle of the garden, right?"

"That was my first flower bed. I like it there. I can see it perfectly from the kitchen, and I can smell the sweetest fragrance of roses in the summer." Alice thought back to when she made that first bed, "There used to be a pond there, you know. Don loved his fish, Koi carp and all sorts. He wasn't the best at looking after them, though; the day he died, I took the last remaining fish to the big pond at the park in a metal bucket. Set It free. It felt good releasing it from the tiny world it was used to. And then I planted bulbs. I only ever wanted flowers, dear."

Alice had always wanted a garden, but he dismissed the idea whenever she spoke to Don about it, saying the hours she would spend outside were better spent inside taking care of him. Eventually, she came to accept his way of thinking as her own. In their tender moments, he would often say, " I know I can be demanding of you, but you are the glue that holds my whole world together; I'm lucky that you love me."

"And I always will." It was always Alice's reply, and she meant every word.

He had his faults. Sometimes, appearing with a cheap bunch of petrol garage flowers for her birthdays or anniversaries when she knew he had spent more money on his own interests. But then there were other occasions when he had lavished her with gifts like a queen, and there was Mexico. Whenever she felt low, she would remember Mexico. That had been their crowning moment as a couple.

 

After Don, the garden had been her salvation and filled her every waking thought. They never had children, and with no other family the garden had given her something to tend and watch grow. Alice still missed her husband, though, even though over the years, through work, she had been away a lot of the time. She had always joked that Don was more married to his career than her. Alice missed the in-jokes they had shared as a couple the most; they were gone now, buried with him.

During the winter, she felt the loneliest, with fewer daylight hours and less chance to see some life outside her window or hear children playing as she sat on her garden bench.

That night, she slept in the armchair, facing her beloved garden. Early the next morning, she was woken by a gentle tap on the glass. The chill of the cold autumn morning hit her as she opened the door.

"Have you been there all night?" Simon had a concerned expression on his face.

"Just for a while, dear." No point worrying the lad, she thought.

"I was just dropping that bulb catalogue back before we were off out. Are you sure you're OK?"

Alice confessed. "I've been thinking about my husband. There were so many things left unsaid between us. He died suddenly, you see, a year or so before you moved in. I often wish I could have one more conversation with him and tell him everything I didn’t get time to say."

"My mum said a similar thing after my dad died. She saw a grief counsellor who told her to write it all down in a letter. Perhaps that would help you, too?"

The next morning, she took the photo of herself and Don down from the wall, set it on the table in front of her, and started to write.

 

 

Don,

It still feels so strange that you are gone. There are days I still expect to hear you come      through the front door or listen to you shouting at the racing from the front room.

When I look at my life over these past five years without you, I have survived and flourished even without your need for me to organise everything for you.

My garden, which you would never allow me to have, is thriving and a joy to behold.

Your death also showed me the fragility of life, and I know I am always waiting for the inevitable knock at the door and for my life to be over, too.  I remember just after you died, and I was still in shock and pain, wandering the supermarket aisles alone. I knew what we liked as a couple, but I had no idea what I enjoyed as a single person, what I wanted, who I was as just Alice. I was lost and realised I'd been lost, drowning inside of 'us' for a long time. On that day, I saw a bunch of tulips, quite withered and battered, looking at how I felt. Then, suddenly, I knew what I wanted: my lovely garden, full of flowers and life. I put my basket down and went home to fill pots, hanging baskets, and borders full of colour.

One unexpected thing was that no one asked after you, not really. A couple of old neighbours said they hadn't seen you around, but then they moved or died within the first year. Then it was like you had never been there. To the neighbourhood, I was just the old lady with the nice garden.

Hopefully, my crime will not be discovered until long after I'm gone. People will think the worst of me, seeing things only in black and white rather than in the shades of grey that make up a life.

We had our problems over the years, as do all couples, but when I found all those betting slips, Don, the statements showing all of our money were gone. I just saw red. I shouldn't have hit you with the shovel as you leant over your blasted pond, but I was so angry at the lies and broken promises. The betrayal.  Burying you there seemed fitting, though; I think it's what you would have wanted.

 

It's a hard life without you and without the life you promised we'd have in our autumn years, but my lovely garden makes me smile every day, and I also know you are close to me and part of it.

Indeed, the only things I have ever loved are right outside, planted in my garden.

With love always

Alice

 

Alice sat back and put her pen down. She felt lighter somehow.  She went into the garden, momentarily pausing to look at the roses and her husband’s final resting place. She smiled. Alice found the old, battered metal bucket inside her cluttered shed, placed the letter inside, and struck a match. She watched the paper burn; it felt ceremonial.

Later, she settled into her armchair to read through her bulb catalogue again; there were summer beds to plan.