be familiar with. On this gross, unforgivable insult, their relationship nearly foundered. You just could not tell Makepeace something he didn’t already know; it was as simple as that. Sitting in this very Birthplace of Aphrodite one afternoon, and regarding the Greek pictures on the walls, Osborne had learned this lesson the hard way when a civilized difference of opinion about aetiological myths had hurtled seriously out of control.
They had been talking – as all literary people will, from time to time – of the legend of Persephone, whom Hades famously stole from the earth to make Nature mourn (thus proving the existence of winter, or something). Anyway, the question was this: had Persephone eaten six pomegranates while underground, or six pomegranate seeds? Osborne said seeds, and afterwards checked it in a book at the library. And he was right. Naïvely assuming that only the truth was at issue, he made a mental note to pass on the information to his friend when next they met. After all, seeds were probably significant, seeing as the myth was concerned with seasonal renewal, and all that.
So next time he saw Makepeace he mentioned their discussion and said, quite innocently, that yes, it was seeds.
There was a fractional pause, and then Makepeace said, ‘Yes, seeds. That’s what I said.’
Osborne gasped at the lie, and then giggled.
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Yes, I did.’
Makepeace wasn’t joking. He should have been, but he wasn’t.
‘No. You didn’t. You said she ate pomegranates, that’s different. It was me who said it was seeds.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘Look, I’m sorry, but this is really silly, and it’s not worth arguing about, but you really did say pomegranates. You argued with me, don’t you remember?’
‘I fucking didn’t.’
‘Makepeace, what’s the big deal here? I don’t understand. Why can’t you admit you were wrong?’
At which point Makepeace stood up so abruptly that his chair fell over backwards, and bellowed, ‘What the fucking hell are you talking about?’
It had been a tricky moment.
‘What’s all the stuff?’ asked Makepeace now, reading Osborne’s envelopes upside-down.
‘My post. I can’t face it.’
‘Do you want me to open it?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Makepeace, and picked up the envelope with the Come Into the Garden postmark.
‘Not that one,’ protested Osborne, but it was too late. Makepeace had already taken out two sheets of paper and started to read them.
‘Odd,’ he said, shuffling the pages one behind the other, and frowning. ‘This is dead odd.’ He read them both a couple of times, and then handed them to Osborne.
Dear Mr Lonsdale [said the first],
I have long been a fan of your column. Being a keen gardener myself, your insights into sheds of the famous fill me with interest. I think you are probably a nice man. I can imagine you wearing a nice coat and scarf and slippers possibly. Also smoking a pipe, quite distinguished. While I am wearing not much while writing this actually. Just a thin négligé and some gold flip-flops. And green-thumb gardening gloves.
Phew, it’s hot work, gardening. I am not a celebrity like Melvyn Bragg and Anna Ford but I would let you rummage in my shed if you asked me!! I’ve got all sorts of odds and ends that nobody knows about tucked away behind the flower-pots. If you catch my drift.
Yours affectionately,
G. Clarke,
Honiton, Devon
Osborne was slightly embarrassed. But at least it made a change from the terracotta maniacs. He finished his coffee in a single swig, and shrugged at Makepeace.
‘Mad, I expect,’ he said.
‘There’s more,’ said Makepeace.
Osborne shuffled the papers and found the second letter, identically typed, and on the same-sized paper as the first. It seemed to be from the same person, but it had a distinctly different tone.
Dear Mr Lonsdale,
Having counted no less than 15 errors of fact (not to mention grammar) in your last ‘Me and My Shed’ column, isn’t it time you stopped pretending to be a journalist? Call yourself a writer well I don’t think. I could do better myself, and thats saying something. I haven’t even met Trent Carmichael. How much longer must we be subjected to this slapdash twaddle masquerading as journalism? I am surprised anyone agrees to be interviewed by you. Do you know you make all the sheds sound the same? Why does a magazine of such evident quality continue to employ you? Stay out of sheds and do us a favour.
G. Clarke,
Honiton, Devon
P.S. Someone ought to lock you in a shed and throw away the key.
‘What do you think?’ asked Makepeace.
‘Bugger,’ said Osborne.
Lillian lit a cigarette, narrowing her eyes against the smoke, and looked round to check that no one was watching. Coughing, she leaned back and continued to ignore the ringing of the phone. There is a cool, insolent way that blonde, permanent-waved secretaries inspect their fingernails in old film noir movies, and Lillian, a baby blonde herself in an electric-blue angora woolly, attempted it now, arching her eyebrows like Marlene Dietrich; but then suddenly broke the illusion by tearing off the broken top of her thumbnail with a savage rip from her teeth. She looked round again, smiling, spat the nail expertly into a waste-paper basket and tried momentarily to imagine what it would be like to be deaf.
Since the announcement of the takeover of Come Into the Garden, the phone had not stopped ringing. The newspapers were not very interested; but readers would phone in panic, selfishly demanding reassurance that the magazine would not cease publication just when the greenfly problem was at its height, or when the monthly ‘Build your own greenhouse’ series reached a crucial stage in the glazing. Lillian fielded these inquiries in a variety of ways. For example, sometimes she simply unplugged the phone. At other times she answered, but pretended to be speaking from the swimming baths. And sometimes, as now, she sat and suffered its ringing, perched on her typist’s chair with her legs crossed and with her eyes fixed steadily on the ceiling.
To add to the picture of martyrdom, a new sign hung above her desk, with the legend ‘Is Peace and Quiet So Much to Ask?’ But a keen-eyed observer might also notice that today Lillian was mixing her metaphors, for her corner of the office was adorned with items suggestive less of pietism than of couch potato. A fluffy rug had appeared; also a standard lamp, a magazine rack and a basket with knitting in it. Half a sitting-room, in fact, had blossomed overnight where previously had stood only furniture and fittings appropriate to the office of a small magazine. She was not using this stuff yet, but it was there, and it
