Sara Alexi - The Illegal Gardener

“Aaman.”

“I am Juliet.”

They drive in silence just around the corner and up a lane. A private lane that needs weeding. Aaman sees opportunity. The lane ends at a whitewashed stone farmhouse with faded blue shutters. The gates stand open onto a weed-filled gravel courtyard. Mahmout heaves a sack full of rubble around from the back of the house.

The car comes to a stop. Juliet springs out, and Aaman quickens his speed. He takes off his jacket, puts it on the ground and rolls up his sleeves. He needs to show her he is a good worker.

With a sweeping gesture she indicates the garden to the rear of the house. She hands him a rubble sack from a pile.

“Please clear this. Put the full sack by the gate.”

Aaman sees enough work to last weeks. He also sees Mahmout trying to smile at the lady. Aaman pulls a pair of seam-split leather working gloves from his back pocket. He will work harder than Mahmout.

The lady leaves them to go inside the house. Her hair shines like gold in the sun. She turns, and Aaman realises he has been staring after her and quickly averts his gaze. She seems to be about to say something but changes her mind and goes inside. There has been no agreement about wages. Aaman does not feel it is his place to raise the subject. On a good day he has been paid twenty euros and been fed, on a bad day five euros and no food.

He still wonders if he will eat today.

A phone rings in the house.

“Hello?”

“Juliet? Where are you?”

“Michelle?”

“Yes. You OK?”

“Yes, of course, I feel great!”

“Where are you?”

“In a village.”

“In a village in Greece?’’

“Yes.”

“Thomas said Greece, but I thought I must have misunderstood. What are you doing there?”

“I live here.”

“You live there?”

“I bought a house! It took ten days to complete. It needs work and the garden is unbelievable.”

“Juliet, are you serious?”

“Apparently Albanian refugees had been renting it for ten years and, by the looks of the garden, they never threw anything away.”

“Albanian refugees?”

“I have counted three mattresses out there so far and that’s just what’s visible!”

“Juliet? What on earth are you talking about? I had to call Thomas to find out where you were. He gave me this number and said you had left the country. He said Terrance knew and that you had to ‘get away.’ I thought it was some elaborate joke. What’s going on?”

Juliet laughs, briefly. “I’m in Greece and I am fine actually. Now that I’m here, I feel great. It is so beautiful.” Her tongue drawls on the word beautiful as she looks around the undulating plastered stone walls and tiled floor. A small, green, shiny-backed beetle runs from under the faded sofa.

The uncared-for look of the cottage had intoxicated Juliet. The traditional fireplaces whispering secrets of years gone by, the crude wooden cupboards in the kitchen telling of men with basic tools, old ways. Their chambers full of mismatched crockery, wooden bowls and tins even though human presence has been absent for some years. Piles of abandoned domestic artifacts and heaps of past lives crawl from corners. Outside, greenery climbs over unnatural shapes, hiding the debris of a disrespectful generation around a solitary old olive tree.

Juliet looks out of the little window in the back door to what will be the garden, the two men, hunched in the bright sunlight, beginning the care.

“I am so glad to be here. I had just had enough. Mick, solicitors, Mother, enough of people and their ways. So I decided to take a break from people. Take myself to a place just for me.”

“Hide away, more like…”

“What?” Juliet looks at the receiver and curls her upper lip, surprising herself as she slams the phone down. She grabs last night’s wine bottle and pours a drink. The bottle clonks, echoes, as it slams back on concrete work surface. Juliet swallows in one and throws the glass in the stone sink. Curses and the glass breaking shatter the interior’s silence, both dismissed in the wake of her stomping into action.

Opening from the still of the greying whitewashed sitting room, with its overfilled sofa and painted chairs, is a room that brims with the passing of time. A wooden dough pan is crammed with garden implements that have escaped a museum. Brass bed ends lean against a wall cupboard, which lies on its side on the floor, one door missing, the insides spilling, promising finds and treasures. A hook on the wall supports a donkey’s bridle and a ring of several dozen large, old, rusted keys. The light streams though a cobwebbed window, picking up dust flecked in its rays that dance with Juliet’s approach.

Her oversized washing-up gloves impede her anger as Juliet yanks the door to this room wide open. For the sake of immediate gratification with progress, Juliet pulls at the largest item in the room. The mouse-eaten, disintegrating mattress produces lung-threatening fluff and hand-gashing, rusted spring ends. Her self-righteousness brings the power of twenty and she pulls and manoeuvres, twists and bends until the remains of the bedding sit wrapped in twine like a foot-bound animal, awaiting its fate by the gate.

Juliet flounders backwards as the mattress comes to rest, her energy exhausted. At the sun’s insistence, she slumps against the wall of the old stone house. She becomes vaguely aware of the forgotten men working around the back. Tinkering sounds, hushed voices.

She sits, her focus on the few feet in front of her. Batteries, an odd shoe, half a plate, and blunted knives fight for space with plastic bags, empty unlabelled tins, and unidentifiable electrical circuit board pieces. The enormity of the mess begins to overwhelm her.

Contemplating her foolishness, she finds herself thankfully distracted by a pitiful sound. A small-framed cat meows its plight and, half afraid but desperate through curiosity, it sidles from under the shade of the old olive tree towards her.

“Hello kitty kitty.”

The cat grows bolder at the gentle sound of Juliet’s voice.

“Come on, then.” Juliet now as much in need of the touch of soft, comforting fur as the cat is in need of a friend.

The cat fights the battle of fear until it succumbs to the pleasure of the ruffling and stroking of Juliet’s hand.

“Hello, you cute little thing. Where have you come from?” The cat’s presence gives Juliet a new energy, a slight sense of power. The cat winds its way through Juliet’s legs. Its black and white fur leaves traces on her grey, faded jeans.

The phone rings again inside. Juliet reluctantly shuffles to her feet, marches inside and pours herself some water before picking it up.

“Sorry.”

“Michelle?”

“Yes, sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. But you can see, can’t you? It does seem a little bit—well, come on Juliet—moving out there on your own is a bit crazy for most people.”

“But I am not most people. You know, out of everyone, that I have been stifled, suffocated, smothered, for goodness’ sake, all but strangled by that man for so long. So now I am doing it my way. Besides, what did you expect I would do? I have a job I can do anywhere. Was I expected to stay in that poky flat and just hang around waiting for a man to replace Mick?”

“I was never for Mick, as well you know. Those that were just thought he might settle down, calm down your wild ways. You were pretty wild, you know. And it seems you still are. I mean, you have just left the country, bought a place abroad…”

“And it’s fantastic,” Juliet says. She picks at some fluff hanging from the edge of the sofa before stuffing it back into the hole it came out of.