Lob Read online

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘Sorry – I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s you, isn’t it?’ The words were out before Alison knew what she meant. ‘Where’ve you come from? Where are you going? Are you tired? Are you hungry?’

  A deep happiness glowed through her. The greenish man gave no reply, but she knew he was listening intently.

  ‘You’re here for me, aren’t you?’ she whispered. She crouched on the grass. ‘Waiting. That’s why I’m here—’

  Her friends waited, bored. Jason kicked at a fallen twig; Craig had taken out his mobile.

  ‘Come on, Ali,’ called Priya. ‘What you looking at?’

  Alison twisted round. ‘At him! Come and say hello!’

  She saw Priya glance at Jason, puzzled.

  ‘You know what she’s like.’ Jason made a durr face. ‘She’ll be yattering away to a beetle or an earwig.’

  But they drifted over. Alison saw wariness on the small man’s face. He was fading to the colour of beech bark.

  ‘See? See him? What now, though? What shall we do? We can’t leave him here.’

  ‘Ali,’ said Craig, ‘what you on about?’

  ‘Winding us up. As usual.’ Jason flopped down on the grass, flinging his arms back and almost whacking the small man on the ear.

  ‘Careful!’ Alison pushed him aside.

  ‘What?’ Jason grumped.

  ‘If you just tell us,’ said Priya. ‘What is it? A pigeon or something?’

  ‘What’s the matter with you lot?’ Alison huffed. ‘Can’t you see? Right here by the tree?’

  Priya stood hand on hip, head tilted. ‘Yeah, what are we gawping at?’

  ‘Have you had your eyes tested lately? He’s right there! A – a man, look.’ She pointed. ‘Sort of greenish, old – come on, I’m not making this up! You’re just pretending, aren’t you?’ She looked at each of their faces in turn; saw amusement flicker from one to another, as if they were ganging up on her.

  ‘Little green man, yeah, yeah,’ muttered Jason. ‘From the planet Zarg, right? His flying saucer’s parked over there. Better watch out – he might take us hostage.’

  ‘No! Not that sort of green man.’

  ‘Little green pixie sitting on a toadstool?’ said Craig.

  ‘No! Not that sort of green man, either,’ Alison insisted. ‘Come on! You’re not looking properly.’

  Priya giggled. ‘All we can see is you gawking into thin air.’

  Jason made a screwy sign, one finger against the side of his head. Then he jumped for the tree’s lowest twigs, grabbed a handful of leaves and ripped them off, scattering fragments on the grass. He reached for a branch and hung on with all his weight, swinging, scuffing his feet.

  Alison winced. ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Come on, Ali,’ said Craig. ‘You’ve had your joke. Very funny, ha ha. Let’s go. I want an ice cream.’ He tugged at her arm.

  ‘Ow. Get off!’ she protested, pretending not to like it. She twisted away, and narrowed her eyes at the greenish man. She saw only a mossy, barky blur now, smelled only a hint of earth and leaves. Then she blinked him away altogether.

  She laughed, and let Craig pull her up.

  ‘Course there’s nothing there!’ she told her friends. ‘I mean, little green men? Had you fooled for a minute, though, didn’t I?’

  And, looking back one more time, she saw nothing at all.

  Lob watched them go across the grass, laughing, pushing and shoving each other, friends together.

  The girl – so promising she’d seemed! blue eyes full of friendliness. Her pretty face, shaded by a pink hat, glowed with interest and delight. She knew him at once. But then, when the others surrounded her …

  He saw something he’d never seen before. Into her face came the determination not to see – not to want to see. She made herself see only what she expected to see. Her eyes seemed to glaze over; they looked through him.

  In his long life, Lob had met many people, more than he could count. Hundreds and hundreds who didn’t see him, and the rarer ones who did. But never before had he known someone decide – actually decide – not to see him.

  He made himself stand, and walk, with no sense of any direction being better than any other. His steps wavered.

  Shrunk. Faded. Pale as a cobweb, frail as a husk. Last leaf that clings to a twig.

  Not-seeing eyes that blank and shrivel. Eyes that lie, deny.

  Go. Walk. One step and another.

  Walk. Walk. Find … Must find …

  Thoughts blur.

  Only later, in bed at home, did Alison feel a twinge of loss.

  She kept thinking – half-dreaming – of the park, the tree, the green eyes that seemed to speak to her. It was like meeting someone she’d known for years and years, someone she could know for ever. If only the others hadn’t been there …

  Next day, on her own, Alison went back to the park and hurried across the grass.

  Which tree had it been? This one? That one? but no shabby figure waited under any of them. Maybe she’d only dreamed him.

  September

  ‘I wish we had a garden,’ said Lucy. ‘Couldn’t we move to a house with a garden? I want to grow things.’

  ‘Oh, Lucy! Dad and I would love a garden of our own,’ Mum said, ‘but we just can’t afford it, in London. And we have to be in London for our jobs.’

  Mum and Dad were trying to get an allotment, but there was a waiting list.

  ‘You can still do a bit of gardening, Lucy-Lu,’ said Dad. He had a stone sink and some pots outside in the tiny courtyard, where he grew herbs – he was Grandpa Will’s son, after all. ‘We’ll get you some pots of your own, and some seeds. I’ll help you.’

  They went to the garden centre, and chose a window box and a large pot for Lucy. They bought seeds, and bulbs – crocuses and daffodils and dwarf irises – to come up in the spring.

  ‘Next year you can sow seeds in pots indoors, on the window sill,’ Dad told Lucy, ‘to go outside when the weather’s warm enough.’

  They spent a long time looking at the packets of seeds – rows and rows of them, with pictures of bright flowers. Lucy thought of sowing beans with Grandpa, how carefully he tipped them and tucked them in. She shook her seed packets, and heard the dry rattle inside. She smiled, and remembered.

  Lucy had her birthday at the end of the summer holidays. Granny Annie, hearing of her new interest, bought her a little trowel and fork, and a watering can.

  September came, and school started. Now, every afternoon when she came home, Lucy went out to the yard to water her pots, and to see if anything new was sprouting. On warm nights she opened her bedroom window, and leaned out to smell the growing.

  She didn’t talk of Lob any more, but on her bedroom wall a Green Man seemed pleased with the new developments.

  September

  It was the start of a busy Monday. People set off in their cars to sit in traffic jams. They waited for buses. They pushed buggies along the pavements and delivered children to school.

  For Lob, the day was hours old. He was walking. He’d forgotten where he was going and why. Now he just followed his nose, and his nose had brought him to a part of the city made mainly of houses.

  Excited voices drew him to a school playground where children ran and skipped and hopscotched. This cheered him, and he paused to watch until a loud bell rang, and the children filtered inside. The voices faded, and Lob walked on.

  Today was grey and cool. Feeling the first drops of rain, he tilted his face to the sky.

  Harder and harder it rained. Drops plinked from leaf to leaf. Water pit-patted, gutters gurgled. Flowers and shrubs reached out and drank and were thankful.

  But the people – how stupid they were when it rained! They seemed horrified. Instead of standing out in it to be watered and refreshed, they squealed and ran for cover. Some held up umbrella-sticks or pulled hoods over their heads. Lob sneered. How did they survive, knowing so little? Did they think they could live without rain?

&
nbsp; He plashed on through puddles, boots squelching. For a mile or more he walked, and then …

  A narrow path, well-trampled. Fence, bindweed clinging. Space beyond, smells that beckon. Bonfire ash, compost, manure. Wet grass, wet soil, wet leaves.

  Breathe.

  Breathe it all in. Beanpole tents. Stripes of lettuce.

  Ferny carrot-tops, strawed strawberries, tendrilly peas. Tool sheds and barrows, heaps of clippings.

  Leafgreen grassgreen mossgreen wetgreen greengreen.

  A place that welcomes. A place to stay.

  Cornelius was singing to himself, in his creaky old man’s voice, as he walked steadily towards his allotment.

  Twelve paces to the corner; turn left. Twenty paces to his shed. Touch the corner with his stick. Round to the front.

  He knew at once that someone was there. Cornelius’ eyes saw nothing, but still he knew.

  Someone was there. Someone ageless.

  Someone he remembered, deep inside himself.

  ‘Who there?’ he called, balancing himself on his stick.

  He listened closely, facing the pile of sacks under the lean-to part of his shed. His ears, almost as good as eyes, heard the someone sitting up and yawning.

  ‘Who there?’ he asked again.

  Lob. My name’s Lob, came the answer. The whispering, reedy voice sounded as if the Someone wasn’t used to speaking aloud.

  ‘Lob, you say? You very welcome. My name Cornelius – very please to make your acquaintance, Mr Lob.’

  You can hear me?

  ‘I hear you faint,’ said Cornelius, ‘but you there.’

  No one’s ever heard me before. No person. Some folk see, but they don’t hear.

  ‘Then,’ said Cornelius, ‘I guess it make sense that I hear but don’t see. Seems fair to me.’

  Most folk don’t see nor hear.

  ‘That make sense, too,’ Cornelius chuckled. ‘Lot of folk don’t see nor hear what’s in front of they noses. You come a long way?’

  A long, long way. Days and nights and days. I don’t know how far.

  ‘And where you heading?’

  I never know till the road takes me there.

  Cornelius nodded. ‘Good way to travel.’ With his stick and his free hand, he felt his way towards a plank seat against the shed. Carefully he sat. When he was settled, with his stick placed by his feet, he patted the bench beside him. ‘Well, Mr Lob! Looks like the road brought you here. You welcome to rest you bones, and take the air with me.’

  Thank you, Mr Cornelius.

  ‘Just Cornelius is fine. No Mister.’

  Just Lob, then. No Mister.

  Cornelius heard Lob settle beside him, light as a leaf. A blackbird sang close by.

  Good. A good patch of ground.

  ‘This my patch,’ Cornelius said proudly, spreading his hands to the square plot in front of him, bordered by a grass path. ‘Not big, but it keep me out o’ mischief. I come here every day, rain or shine. See, I got tomatoes, and spinach, and callaloo. In the frames over there I got peppers and squashes and eggplant. I got beans and red peas. I look after them, they look after me.’

  But you can’t see.

  Cornelius nodded. ‘My hands do the seeing. Hands, nose. And I got my—’

  ‘Granpa! Granpa!’

  Two children came running, criss-crossing the paths.

  ‘My grandbabies.’ Cornelius’ lips parted in a beaming smile. ‘My Benji and my Zirvana – Zivvy, we call her. They come every day from school.’

  He stood up, and swept both children into a big hug. They giggled and wriggled.

  ‘Granpa, we made cake!’ Zivvy was rummaging in her rucksack. ‘Coconut and mango – yumptious! Mine fell to bits, but Benji’s didn’t.’

  ‘That’s ’cos you drop the tin.’

  ‘I didn’t! Sumira pushed me —’

  ‘Listen, child. Listen, both.’ Cornelius held up a hand. ‘We got a visitor today – don’t you see him?’ He turned to the bench.

  There was a silence. A searching silence.

  ‘But, Granpa,’ said the girl. ’Nobody here ‘cept you and us.’

  ‘Maybe he gone,’ said the boy.

  I’m here. I’m still here.

  ‘No, I think he shy,’ said Cornelius. ‘Don’t let’s frighten him ’way. Maybe he show himself in a while.’

  They all had jobs to do. The children put down their rucksacks by the shed. Benji emptied the wheelbarrow of clippings, Zivvy fetched a tray of tomato seedlings and a stack of pots. Cornelius scooped soil out of a sack, and sat on his bench to pot up the little plants. The children told their grandfather about their day, the lessons they’d had at school, the games. They talked very fast, often both at once. Cornelius smiled and nodded.

  Soon, his ears told him that Lob was helping – firming the tomato plants into their pots, spreading their leaves.

  Cornelius felt a deep, deep contentment, as if he’d met up with an old friend, a friend he’d known for ever. And Lob had met …

  A man who sings to himself as he walks. Prods a stick to feel his way. Filmy eyes that gaze at nothing. Face keen and listening. Dark, dark skin, hair silvered grey.

  Cracked voice sings of distant islands, of waves breaking, of birds bright-plumed.

  A happy man. A man with growing in his fingers.

  September–Winter–Spring

  At last, at last! Lob felt properly himself. Was this his journey’s end? Was this what he’d been looking for, this allotment, this patch, this Cornelius?

  And the children! Bright and keen, with their glossy dark skin, black hair and white, white teeth. The girl’s hair was roped into tight rows like a corn doily. They made Lob feel as old as midwinter and as young as spring.

  Lob stayed.

  When Cornelius knew that this was how it would be, he went with his grandchildren to a car boot sale and bought a huge patchwork cushion. He put it in the shed, where it took up most of the space. Lob made himself a deep hollow in this cushion and slept warmly there, under the shelf of flower pots and twine and packets of seed.

  Every morning, in first dawn light, Lob was at work. He moved down the rows of beans, weeded round the tomato plants, watered the peppers. Cornelius grew plants Lob had never seen before: callaloo, eggplant and squashes. But he soon learned what they wanted: how much water, how much sun.

  Lob kept the watering cans full, and the tools bright and clean. Each trowel, rake and hoe had its own hook to hang on, where Cornelius’ clever hands knew where to look.

  ‘You know,’ said Cornelius, ‘this going to be the best harvest ever. I feel it.’

  Lob felt it, too. And the plants felt it, and the butterflies, and the bees. The squashes plumped up, the tomatoes reddened, and some of them split their sides with growing. The peas and beans ripened in their pods. Most days, after school, the children came, with their overflowing energy.

  Cornelius was always there, every day: the cool grey days, the plashing wet days and the days of baking sun. Each evening, when he’d finished watering and was ready to go home, he said, ‘Thank you, friend Lob. Thank you kindly.’

  Evening quiet, everyone gone.

  Work well done, and a bench to sit on. Work still to do. Cans to fill, tools to clean, weeds to pull.

  Beetles skitter, snails glide. Scritch of hedgehog. Fox’s stealth. Countless tiny creatures busy being.

  Roots reach underground. Stems push higher. Fruits and buds swell.

  Listen. The song of the earth.

  December came, and Lob shrank deep into himself, as he did in winter’s depths. In hard frosty spells he went brittle and dry as a leaf, so deeply asleep that he wouldn’t have woken if you’d nudged him with your foot. On milder days he stirred a little, and stretched, and smelled spring coming. If one of the gardeners had a bonfire, Lob crept out to warm himself by the blaze, and would stay there as long as there was a glow in the embers.

  Then! Spring, and Lob was full of vigour again, young, sappy, his eyes sparkin
g. He had extra work now, because Jake, whose allotment was next to Cornelius’, was getting old, and found it hard to cope. But Lob had energy enough for two. He had no wish to sit about idle.

  Spring, spring! Nature’s extravaganza was everywhere – the life-giving, bird-nesting, egg-hatching, seed-sprouting, bud-bursting, leaf-greening summer carnival, when every living creature shouted BE! BE! BE! at the top of its voice.

  But what about Lucy?

  Part Three

  April

  A whole year had gone by since Lob left Clunny Cottage: a whole year of growing and seeding, fading and shrivelling, springing into new life.

  A year wasn’t much in the long, long life of Lob – nor, for that matter, in the rather long life of Cornelius. But in the short life of Lucy, a year was a big stretch of time. She was taller. The shoes she’d worn to the wedding didn’t fit her any more. Her hair had grown, and she wore it differently.

  Through the winter months, Lucy had little thought for gardening. She hardly glanced out of the window at her pots and window box waiting outside.

  Then, quite suddenly in March, there was a different feel to the air. A tingle of expectation. The sky was streaked silver-blue. A blackbird sang in the tree by the park gates, and new shoots speared the soil. The pigeons seemed busy, strutting and cooing; the squirrel had a confident curl to his tail.

  Lucy’s pots knew it was spring, too. The bulbs had waited all through the winter with just the tips of their shoots showing. Now they were bright with colour: purple crocuses, yellow dwarf daffodils.

  ‘We’ll sow your seeds, soon,’ Dad told Lucy, and she thought of Grandpa and the beans: how dried and wizened in the palm of his hand, but how much life was in them. She felt a tug of longing, happy-sad.

  Usually the post brought only boring stuff, but this time:

  ‘Brilliant news!’ Dad waved a letter. ‘We’ve got an allotment at last!’

  They all went to see it. Their allotment. Their patch of ground. On the way, Mum and Dad discussed plans for potatoes, onions and leeks, for raspberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants. The seasons rolled ahead of them as they walked and talked.

  Lucy felt odd, as if her feet were leading her. She had a strange feeling of knowing where she was going, though she’d never been there before.