The Great Allotment Proposal. Jenny Oliver

gardening. Digging, raking and hacking down branches, busying themselves with bonfires and trundling wheelbarrows. In the distance the attractive blond man in a black top was fiddling about in a greenhouse. In the far corner an older woman, Enid’s daughter, Martha, was lifting the slats out of a beehive with no protective clothing – she was clearly as tough as old boots. When they got to the damson tree, Emily saw the plot opposite theirs was being tended by a fierce-looking old guy with a black beard, long brown hair and a hat like Crocodile Dundee. His plot was immaculate. Like he’d built it with a set-square and protractor.

      All around there were things that just didn’t crop up ever in Emily’s everyday life. Colourful pinwheels and little gnomes, swing seats and deck chairs. Earth and worms and cages of birds that might be quails.

      She pulled a face at Annie, who shrugged as if to say, ‘I know!’

      The guy with the Crocodile Dundee hat straightened up from where he was digging, wiped some sweat from his face with his gardening glove, staining his skin with mud in the process, and looking Emily’s way said, ‘All right?’

      ‘Lovely,’ Emily replied, shielding her eyes with her hand to try and see him clearer.

      ‘Know what you’re doing?’

      ‘Oh yes, absolutely,’ Emily nodded. Then looked away, eyebrows raised unsure what to do next.

      ‘We just need to water it,’ Annie said. ‘That’s all she said, try and water it every day.’

      ‘OK then,’ Emily nodded, ‘Let’s water it.’ She paused and looked around, ‘What with?’ As she said it, Annie’s annoying brother Jonathan walked past carrying a black plastic bag full rubbish. He cast a look at their wilted plot and said, ‘You girls should quit while you’re ahead,’ and then trundled off with a snigger.

      Annie watched him go. ‘We have to win something just to wipe the smile off his face,’ she said. ‘He went on a gardening course last year. Sees himself as a regular Alan Titchmarsh.’

      ‘I don’t know who that is,’ Emily said, leaning against the corner of the dilapidated shed as Annie went to unravel the hose.

      ‘He’s on the TV. Mind that shed, Em, it looks a bit wobbly.’

      Emily ignored her but then the wood she was leaning against gave a loud creak. She glanced behind her and it wobbled. She went to stand up straight but the shiny sole of her high heel slipped against the mud and she couldn’t get purchase. She reached across to the big plastic water butt next to her to try and get more support but that, supported on just a couple of bricks, also swayed under her grasp. ‘It’s bloody moving, Annie,’ she said. ‘Help me.’

      Annie tried to get back to her from where she had started watering but she got caught up in the knot of hose and shouted instead, ‘Just stand up, move away from it.’

      ‘I’m trying,’ Emily said, her eyes widening as the wooden planks cracked again and then one wall of the shed caved in.

      Annie watched, horrified, as Emily fell back with it. Her hand was still hooked on the rim of the unstable water butt so, as she fell, it fell with her like a giant bear. Algae-fied rain water sloshed out the top as it rolled along the fallen wooden wall, over the top of Emily, and then down to the corner of the shed where it hit the earth and rolled to a stop by a small cherry tree, a stream of green water pouring onto the grass.

      ‘Oh Jesus Christ!’ Emily shouted, flattened to a heap on the broken shed.

      ‘Are you OK?’ Annie called as she yanked the hose from round her ankles and tried to get over to help her up.

      But then suddenly a camera flashed, a shutter clicked maybe a hundred times and a man laughed and said, ‘That’ll do nicely, Ms Hunter-Brown.’

      Emily scrabbled her way up to standing as the paparazzo photographer clicked a hundred more shots, his lips hitched up into a smile. She recognised him immediately as the good-looking blond guy with the wheelbarrow. He’d followed her here and been biding his time.

      Her hair was dripping with green algae-water, it was in her mouth and her eyes and on her skin. Her ribs felt crushed from the giant water butt, but all she could think was that she didn’t want this guy here. She was used to being papped. Used to seeing a photo of herself just about to take a bite of a massive burger or sunbathing in a bikini – the magazine circling her cellulite in red, but she didn’t want them here. This was her place.

      ‘Oh god, can you just leave me alone?’ she shouted, pushing her soaking hair back from her face.

      ‘Just doing my job, Emily,’ he sniggered.

      ‘Well you’ve got your shot, can you go away now?’

      ‘Come on, Em,’ the paparazzo shouted, ‘Can’t you give us a quick pose? Be a good sport?’

      In the past she knew she would have wiped her face clean of the algae, tied her hair up and blown a kiss for the camera, or maybe turned and given them a quick cheeky wink over her shoulder. Anything so they wouldn’t be horrible about her. She’d found it was the best way to divert any negative press. Give them what they want and they’d support her. But she just couldn’t. She could feel people looking from where they were working on their allotments. She could sense them exchanging looks and thinking about whether to come over. She could almost hear their split-second thoughts – she’s back and she’s trouble.

      ‘Please?’ she said. ‘Please just go.’

      But the guy shook his head and, lifting up his camera, started snapping again, over and over the thrumming sound like a big fat moth caught in a jam jar.

      Then, suddenly, there was a hand on the paparazzo’s shoulder and the man with the beard and Crocodile Dundee hat from the allotment next door said, ‘You heard the ladies, this is private property. You’re trespassing.’

      ‘Get your dirty hands off me,’ said the photographer, twitching out his grasp.

      Emily couldn’t really see the man’s face clearly, but she could tell from his arm muscles and the bit of un-muddied skin on his face that he was younger than she’d first thought.

      ‘I said, this is private property. You have no licence to take photographs on this land.’ The man’s voice was calm and steady.

      ‘You gonna stop me, cowboy man?’

      The man pulled off his gloves and ran his hand across his lips as the paparazzo started firing off more shots in his direction. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

      ‘You touch me, mate, and I’ll get my lawyers on you.’

      The man laughed and took another step closer. The paparazzo rolled his eyes as if this bearded gardener wouldn’t have the guts. Then, quick as anything, the paparazzo was pinned up against the cherry tree, held in place under the neck by the man’s muddy forearm, his legs squirming an inch or two above the ground. The guy tore the paparazzo’s camera out of his hand and chucked it into the puddle of water where it slowly sank, then he threw him over his shoulder and walked off in the direction of the river.

      Emily watched in fascination. The sun beat down like a beast. Annie stood with an open-mouthed smile while the man strode off like a giant, the paparazzo’s legs waggling over his shoulder. Emily looked at Annie. Annie looked back at Emily.

      ‘Who the hell was that?’ Emily asked.

      ‘Are you kidding?’ Annie said.

      Emily looked blank like she had no idea.

      ‘Emily!’

      ‘What?’

      ‘It was Jack Neil,’ Annie shook her head as she said it. ‘How could you not recognise him? You went out with him for a year!’

       Chapter Three

      ‘No