“Oh Harold.” She fingered the coarse tweed of his English gentleman’s jacket.

An urge came over her to do something completely different. It was like a shock of energy right through her, forcing her once more to her feet. She took out the shrimp garment she had worn for the graduation and hung it at the centre of the rail. Then she took Harold’s jacket and arranged it on a hanger beside the dress. They looked lonely and too apart. She scooped up his sleeve, and draped it over the pink shoulder.

After that she paired each of her outfits with one of his. She tucked the cuff of her blouse in his blue suit pocket. A skirt hem she looped around a trouser leg. Another dress she wrapped in the embrace of his blue cardigan. It was as if lots of invisible Maureens and Harolds were loitering in her wardrobe, simply waiting for the opportunity to step out. It made her smile, and then it made her cry; but she didn’t change them back.

She was interrupted by the sound of Rex’s Rover drawing up outside. Soon afterwards, she was aware of a scraping sound from her front garden. Lifting the net curtains, she found he had marked rectangles of turf with string and posts, and that he was cutting into them with his spade.

He waved up at her. “If we’re lucky, we might be in time for runner beans.”

♦

Wearing an old shirt of Harold’s, Maureen planted twenty small shoots and tied them to bamboo stakes without damaging their soft green stems. She patted the soil at their roots, and watered them. At first she watched in fear, lest they were pecked by seagulls or killed by a May frost. But after only a day or so of constant watching, her worry subsided. In time, the plants thickened at the stems, and grew new leaves. She planted rows of lettuce, beetroot and carrots. She cleared the rubble from the ornamental pond.

It was good to feel the soil under her nails, and nurture something again.

18

Harold and the Decision

“Good afternoon. I am ringing about a patient called Queenie Hennessy. She sent me a letter just over four weeks ago.”