Hell is all right. The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.
EVELYN WAUGH, Put Out More Flags, 1942
My first involvement with gardening was aged seven. I am sitting in the back of my mother’s car (Austin 1300 Countryman, cream, wood-effect trim). She’s at the wheel; my father’s in the passenger seat, my older brother Jonathan is in the back with me. We’ve pulled off a country road alongside some iron railings. Through the railings a garden can be seen leading back, via a wide lawn, to a handsome stone-built villa. Wiltshire probably; possibly Gloucestershire or Somerset.
‘Antony’—my mother only used my full Christian name when she was serious—‘I won’t ask you again. Get out of the car.’
‘No.’
‘Get—out—of—the—car.’
‘Why? Why me?’
‘The more you sit here arguing, the longer we’re going to be.’
‘Why can’t Jonny do it?’
‘You’re smaller than he is. Anyway, it’s your turn.’
‘What if someone comes? What if the people come back?’
‘They won’t come back.’
‘But what if they do?’
‘I must say, I’m not sure this is wise,’ says my father. ‘It’s breaking the law.’
‘Don’t be so feeble, Peter. How could anyone mind? If the child got on with it, we could all be on our way home by now.’
‘Exactly. It’s breaking the—’
‘Be quiet, Antony.’
‘What if someone does come?’ says my father.
‘He just runs for it, of course.’ She turns to me. ‘You can come back through the gate if you want. Look,’ she adopts a more conciliatory tone, ‘it won’t take a second. You’ll be back here before you know it, and I’ll cook sausages for tea.’
‘The fence is too high. I’ll never get over.’
‘It does look high, Liza. I really do think—’ says my father.
‘Fiddlesticks. Really Peter, you’re as bad as the children.’
‘It’s not fair…where’s the bloody thing again?’
‘Don’t use bad language. It’s the helianthemum. Over there under the wall, with the small white flowers. In that raised bed. On the left.’
From the car there is a view through the wrought-iron gate, down a short, flag-stoned path onto the lawn. Diagonally across this is the raised bed, about eighty yards away.
‘The white thing by the big red bush?’
‘Yes. Now get a move on. And remember: pull downwards so a piece of the stalk comes with it.’
It had recently rained and as I push through the shrubbery to the railings, every move brings a shower of water droplets down my neck and arms. Insects hum loudly, and beetles keep dropping onto me. Straddling the crossbar, trying to get my second leg over, one of my belt loops catches on an iron point. For a few seconds I’m helpless, exposed to both the house and anyone passing. Vigorous arm movements from the car indicate that my mother thinks I’m stalling. I wriggle free, drop back down into the laurels, crawling under their cover until I reach the lawn’s edge. Then I sprint. By the raised bed, I grab at the plant, and a few moments later, breathless with adrenaline, I’m back at the gate. The latch is tight, lifting with a clang, the hinges screech deafeningly, but at last I’m back in the safety of the car.
‘Quick, go,’ I pant, pulling the car door shut.
‘Let me see,’ demands my mother.
I thrust the sprig of foliage into her hand.
‘Come on. Go.’
‘This isn’t a helianthemum,’ says my mother. ‘This is aubrietia. You nincompoop, Ant. You’ve got the wrong plant.’
‘What?’
‘This is no use at all.’
‘Well, I can’t help it. You should have said.’
‘No use at all,’ repeats my mother. ‘Why on earth would I ask for aubrietia? Quick—back you go.’
‘WHAT?’
‘Come on. We haven’t got all day.’
‘I’m not going back in there.’
‘Of course you are. And this time, use your nous,’ she adds, tapping her temple with her forefinger; ‘it’s an alpine. Come on. Get on with it.’
For the second time, I find myself ejected. ‘Well make sure you switch the engine on…’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’
The angry yell of a man’s voice comes from the direction of the house just as my hand stretches out to the raised bed: ‘Hey! You! What are you doing?’
I don’t look, I just leg it across the lawn to the flagged path to the gate. This is my undoing. Following the rain, as soon as my feet touch the flags, I perform a graceless cartwheel, coming down agonisingly on my left thigh. Picking myself up, I fumble for the gate latch. A clang, a squeal of hinges, and I’m back in the car. ‘Quick. Quick. Someone’s coming. Quick. Go. Go, go, go.’
My mother hasn’t started the engine. I dive behind the front seats as she fiddles unhurriedly with the ignition. As we at last pull away, I emerge to find my mother holding the cutting at arm’s length (she’s longsighted), appraising as she steers with one hand.
‘Please keep your eyes on the road, Liza,’ says my father.
‘That should take alright,’ she says. She starts to wrap the cutting in one of the numerous crumpled paper handkerchiefs that always surround her, the car swerving dangerously as she does so. ‘See darling?’ she says, turning to me. ‘That couldn’t have been easier, could it? All that fuss. You do make such a meal of everything.’
This book is partly about an attempt to make a garden and partly an attempt to resolve my vexed relationship with the whole subject of gardening. The specific impulse was planted about twenty years ago, during a conversation with a friend whose party trick was hypnotising people. ‘We all have a garden in our heads,’ he happened to mention. Asked to close our eyes and imagine ourselves in our favourite garden, most people will find a special place, usually a childhood garden. Real or imaginary,
