The Insistent Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

round your hips, as far as I can see.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œFun, I suppose.” She turned towards me. “Are you alright?” Nothing happen at home, did it?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSomething’s on your mind though.”
    â€œI saw this photograph, today.”
    â€œWhat photograph?”
    â€œOf a garden.”
    â€œWhat sort of garden?”
    â€œOne of those big rich ones. It’s quite near here, just beyond Stony Ridge.”
    â€œAnd?”
    I sat on the bed. “Have you ever seen something and for some reason been unable to stop thinking about it?”
    â€œMr. MacKenzie comes to mind, I used to live for English class. Where did you see this picture?”
    â€œIn a magazine; it came in the post. I can’t explain it very well, but there were these beautiful flowers there, but it wasn’t just that.”
    She sat up. “What was it?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWas it something about the place?”
    I thought. “I really don’t know.”
    â€œ You could plant some flowers, couldn’t you? Your garden’s big enough. Archie’d give you some seeds, he’d love it.”
    â€œMy father would never let me.”
    â€œNo.” She looked down at the magazine. “What about a hula-hoop, would he allow that?” She smiled.
    For some reason it was Vivian’s hips that came into my head, swaying round and round, rubbing red onto the inside of the hoop. “No, of course not, no.”
    Una leaned against me. “Edith, you know I’m leaving next week.”
    â€œI know. Tuesday at ten o’clock.”
    â€œLondon’s not so far, you know and I’ll be in student digs. You could come and visit me. You’d have to sleep on the floor of course.”
    â€œI probably wouldn’t get to sleep if it was just the floor.” I laughed.
    â€œNo, you probably wouldn’t.”
    â€œWhat are going to do now school’s over, Edith? Have you thought any more about it?”
    â€œOh, you know, there’s so much to do in the house —”
    â€œEdie,” she squeezed my arm, “there really isn’t.”
    â€œBut my father, he can’t cope on his own. You understand.”
    â€œOf course I understand, but one day you’re going to have to leave him.”
    â€œI know. I’m just not ready, I. . .”
    â€œWhen will you be ready?”
    â€œOh, Una, don’t make it so hard.”
    She put an arm round my shoulder. “Edie, you can do it you know, everyone leaves home sooner or later, you just have to look towards the horizon rather than at what’s behind you all the time.”
    â€œI know that. Please don’t talk about it. I will move out — when I’m ready.”
    Dusk had settled grey onto the street when I set off for home, yet Una’s house looked welcoming when I turned to look back. She was starting a new life in another town. She’d be living in a place I’d never seen.
    I used to think about leaving home when I was a child. A bag stuffed with clothes was a regular part of my more adventurous dreams and I’d even brought home a train timetable from the station once but when I’d rummaged at the back of my father’s wardrobe then slithered beneath his bed looking for a suitcase, I couldn’t to find one. It’s still there, that timetable, lying at the bottom of my drawer, all departure times long past.
    The horizon looked limp when I looked up the hill beyond my house, sagging at the edges where the trees met the sky. And there it stood, the stranger in the wood, its branches sticking out in every direction, uncomfortable with itself.

    Blackbirds were warming up their throats when I looked out of my bedroom window later that evening. The brick extension built onto the rear of my house forced my gaze towards the back fence beyond which it settled on a vanishing point deep in the woods.
    The