The Peas and Carrots Series Boxset 1, page 16
part #1 of Peas and Carrots Series
Monday arrived and was its normal hectic self. It hit like a ten-tonne bull elephant and dragged Eric along with it, regardless of how much he wanted to curl up under the duvet and hide. Suzy had an event with her publishing house in Glasgow, which meant Eric had to pick up Abi from school at four. Under normal circumstances, and with his new ultra-efficient routine, it would have been fine. Only things at work weren’t exactly normal.
The problem with having a boss like Jack Nelson – who even at the tensest times appeared so calm you’d think he’d just spent a week in a Japanese onsen listening to the entire Norah Jones back catalogue – was that seeing him even slightly flustered was, to put it mildly, troublesome.
On Monday, there was a sense of unease, by Tuesday people were notably agitated, and by Wednesday the tension was so palpable that Greg went home at lunch and reappeared in a pinstripe shirt and tie. Fingers tapped at keyboards with extra force and simple questions were met with snappy retorts. Jack progressed from pacing and hovering to slamming doors and banging his fist against various desks. After thirty-five minutes of marching in and out of his office, traipsing in and around various cubicles, and barking orders at unsuspecting interns, he appeared at Eric’s door.
Eric’s windpipe constricted.
‘Do you mind if I …?’ Jack said as he poked his head into the room.
‘No, no, not all,’ Eric said. ‘Come in, sit down.’
In a dirge-like walk, Jack crossed the office, then hovered, hands on the back of a chair, opposite Eric. It was a solid two minutes before he pulled out said chair and actually sat down. Eric, with his hand having adopted an unexpected quiver, abandoned the email he was writing and focused his full attention on his boss. He swallowed hard.
If anything, the extra lines nested around the corners of Jack’s eyes and forehead added to the debonair spirit he carried so well. A touch of Clint Eastwood, perhaps. An older George Clooney. Jack scratched his temple, then his eyebrow, then finally lifted his gaze to meet Eric’s.
‘Eric,’ Jack said. ‘You’ve been at this firm a long time. A very long time.’
‘Yes. Yes, I have. I mean I suppose I have.’
‘And you’ve seen a lot of people come and go?’
‘Well, I suppose so …’
‘And I bet you’ve heard a lot of things on the grapevine. A lot of things that maybe people wouldn’t like me to hear.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean … I’m not exactly sure what you mean.’
Eric’s pulse rose, sweat forming along his hairline. He really didn’t know what Jack meant, and he definitely didn’t know where the conversation was about to head, but it was looking less and less likely that Jack had come in to award him the company’s very first employee of the month award. Jack leant back on the seat. He took a deep breath in through his nose and rested his fingertips against his brow bone. When he looked back up, he’d aged a decade.
‘Sunday was my thirtieth wedding anniversary,’ he said. ‘Thirty years of marriage to the same wonderful woman.’
‘Oh. Congratulations,’ Eric said.
‘And I forgot it.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yup.’ Jack nodded. ‘Thirty years of marriage and I forgot it.’
‘Well.’ The word came out of Eric in a long, drawn-out gust, expelling the tension that he’d been holding in his lungs since Jack’s arrival. ‘I’m sure if you do something nice. Buy her a nice present, perhaps? Does she like jewellery?’
Jack shook his head. ‘Used that one up. Harry Winston, Bulgari, Cartier. She doesn’t even open the boxes anymore. I think this is it. I think I’ve really blown it this time. She reckons all I care about is the business and the money.’
‘What about a trip together then?’ Eric grinned as he tried to keep the mood jovial. ‘Somewhere special, exclusive. Romantic?’
Jack’s head shook again. ‘Tried that last year. Took her to Necker, she barely even cracked a smile.’
‘Necker?’
‘Little island, Richard Branson, and all that. Nice, but what’s another beach holiday when she already spends half the year at some resort or another?’
Eric scratched his head. It was clear from this point that Jack had not come in to discuss any matter of impending business doom, yet it was also becoming apparent that he was not planning on leaving until he’d figured some solution. Another email pinged on Eric’s screen. The to-do list was mounting, and there was no way of staying late with Abi to sort out.
The silence prolonged past a point of neutral contemplation, and Eric considered telling Jack that a little over a fortnight ago his wife had moved in with her sister on account of his lying and perhaps he’d be better taking his quandaries to Greg, who was clearly far savvier than himself when it came to handling cases of the opposite sex. He reconsidered, however, deciding that perhaps that wasn’t the type of information Jack wanted to hear right now. Wishing to speed up the process as much as possible, he did what he often felt he should do in these situations, but never normally managed to master. He channelled his inner Suzy.
‘What about going small then?’ he said, after a moment’s reflection.
‘Small?’
‘Back to when you first met. I’m assuming she didn’t always get twenty-six weeks holiday a year?’
Jack smiled a sad half-smile. ‘No, that she didn’t. And you’re not including the ski-season.’
‘Well, why not plan something you’d have done before you had money? Just go for a drive in the car and see where the road takes you. That’s what Suze and I used to do, before Abs of course.’
Jack raised an interested eyebrow.
‘Go on?’
‘You could go to the cinema. Or watch a movie at home with a takeaway?’ Eric scoured his head for other ideas. ‘What about you take a class together? Like a dance class, or a cookery class?’ Jack’s head cocked to the side. Eric kept on, not wanting to stop now that he was on a roll. ‘Wine tasting? I hear there are lots of wine tasting courses. And brewery ones too. Or you could go on a picnic. Take the train down to the coast, book in at some cheap B&B? What about going to a museum? Or grabbing a load of board games and spending a weekend playing Monopoly?’ He paused and noted Jack’s somewhat bewildered expression. ‘What I’m saying is that I’m sure all you have to do is show her that you’re still the same man she married, and she’ll forget all about the millions you have squirrelled away in the bank.’
Jack jumped to his feet, nodding his head enthusiastically. ‘You know what, I think you’re right. I know exactly what to do. You’re a genius, Eric, you really are. And that wife of yours is one lucky lady.’
Eric glowed inside and out. ‘My pleasure, sir.’
Jack bounded across the room and swung open the door. He was partway to his office when he spun around on the spot and bounded back. ‘You won’t tell anyone of this conversation, will you?’ he said, an unusual air of trepidation in his voice.
‘Of course not.’
‘Just checking,’ he said and disappeared again.
With a new sense of accomplishment and motivation, Eric turned back to his computer screen, finished off composing his last email, then stopped. There was a florist on the way home, opposite Abi’s school, or at least there had been a few years back. He picked up a Post-It from the pile and a biro from the pot and beneath a memo about staff turnover scribbled down, Buy Suzy flowers.
Chapter 22
FEBRUARY MELTED INTO March and signs of spring began to appear. In the city, knitted hats and thick woollen scarfs were abandoned in favour of more lightweight versions, and although Easter eggs had graced the shelves of the supermarkets since the second of January, their presence was now highlighted by the countless adverts of over-smiley people gorging themselves on foil-wrapped goodies. In Burlam, the changes were more subtle; bare trees budded with green, boats began to move up and down the estuary. The allotments were the busiest Eric had known them.
Finally, his plot was clear. It had taken more than a little hard graft, during which Eric had discovered several sets of previously dormant muscles, most of which he’d be perfectly happy never to encounter again. However, when all was said and done, even he had to agree it was worth it. The sixty by forty parcel of land was now a serene patch of smooth brown earth, ready for digging and planting, although until this misadventure Eric had never truly understood the misery of weeding.
Weeding for Eric had previously consisted of blasting the Islington patio with a twice-yearly glug of Weedol and occasionally plucking the stray survivors from the fence line. It had been a chore, but then jobs around the house usually were. Weeding in Burlam was never going to be that simple.
During the previous two Saturdays, Eric had spent over three hours clearing the ground, pulling up every root, stem and leaf he could, only to find that when he returned the following weekend they’d returned en masse and brought with them several of their more stoic friends. Eric considered it a genuine ecological mystery that despite slicing, maiming, and uprooting, they kept managing to reappear. The option of weed-killer was highly frowned upon, not only by his fellow alloties but also by Suzy. Suzy was all about organic; organic milk, organic eggs, even organic shampoo, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let Eric grow vegetables in compost filled with more chemicals than the periodic table.
So digging it was. Abi had started to show more interest in the plot and had even become somewhat of an asset when it came to dandelion extraction, albeit in the hope of stockpiling enough to persuade Eric they had to get a rabbit.
One corner of the plot which proved particularly stubborn when it came to weeds was the patch where the old greenhouse had stood. In a burst of inspiration, Eric decided an easy way to rectify this was to put another one in its place. He also purchased – with a sizeable discount given the greenhouse – a small shed. By the end of March, Sunday mornings had developed into an unnerving routine involving traipsing around garden centres and pining over the excessively expensive accessories one apparently required to grow a batch of carrots.
It was Sunday evening and Eric was lying in bed. Suzy had been out for over an hour beside him. The pages of her book lay crumpled between her face and the pillows as a soft semi-snore buzzed from between her lips. The scent of fresh earth clung to her hair; evidence of their family day at the plot.
‘Gotcha!’ Eric shouted.
‘What? What is it?’ Suzy jerked awake and flicked on her light. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Raised beds.’ Eric waved his book at her.
‘What?’
‘I can do raised beds. We can make them out of old timber, line them, fill them with compost, and boom. Then the rest of the earth we can pave over and nuke with enough weed-killer to flatten the Amazon.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Suzy rubbed her eyes and stretched before she relocated her crumpled book to the side-table. ‘Are you talking about the allotment?’
‘Of course, what did you think I was talking about?’
‘What time is it?’
‘I don’t know. Half eleven maybe?’ Eric glanced at the clock beside him. ‘Twelve forty then. What does it matter?’
‘You’re right, it doesn’t.’ Suzy groaned, switched the light back off and buried her head back into the pillows.
‘So?’ Eric insisted. ‘What do you think?’
‘About the fact it’s twenty to one?’
‘About the raised beds?’
Suzy muttered something, almost certainly uncomplimentary about raised beds, into her pillow and drifted back off to sleep.
Still, it was such a good idea that the next morning, and afternoon, it remained lodged at the forefront of Eric’s mind. During the marketing team’s meeting, his thoughts were fixated on what type of wood he would use, and where, of course, he could source it. During his working lunch with Greg, he was wondering whether the leftover crusts from his thin-pan goat’s cheese and artichoke heart pizza would make for good compost. On the way home, he struck gold.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Suzy asked when she glided past the dining room that evening and came to an abrupt stop. Eric was crouched down on the floor among nails, hammers, and various offcut planks. A decrepit wooden door lay flat on the dining room table, the paint chipped and peeling, and emanating a scent reminiscent of blocked drains and day-old kebabs.
‘Don’t worry, it looks worse than it is.’
‘I very much doubt that,’ she said.
Noting his wife’s obvious disdain, Eric rose to standing and surveyed the situation himself. There were flecks of paint working their way into the beige carpet, and a long streak of mud marked the door’s entry route into the room. Four more doors were resting against the wall, a spirit level was on its side propped against a pack of eighteen-inch stakes, and dozens of nails were sprinkled like confetti, marking out a clear silhouette of where Eric had been sitting. Charging by the plug-socket was the old Philips electric screwdriver they’d been given as a wedding present.
‘I’ll admit, it looks a bit of a mess now, but by bedtime you won’t even know I’ve been in here.’
Suzy didn’t move. Deciding it was best to get back to work, Eric started to shift smaller pieces of wood onto bigger ones until he found what he was looking for. A small bag of nails.
‘You know we have a garden?’ Suzy said. ‘We have a perfectly good garden you could do this in?’
‘I did think that. But it was already getting dark when I got all this, and I didn’t want to waste any more time fumbling around not being able to see properly.’
‘We have patio lights,’ Suzy stated, and Eric had to admit he couldn’t think of a response to counter that.
‘What exactly is all this?’ Suzy said. ‘And where did you get it?’
Eric beamed at the question. ‘You’re going to love this,’ he said.
‘Really?’
Eric’s smile stretched across his face. It was a face evocative of the expression a teenage boy would use to tell his friends he’d finally gone and popped his cherry, radiating satisfaction and pride from every pore.
‘I got them from a tip,’ he said.
‘Pardon?’
‘A tip. That grubby yellow builder’s tip. Just down the end of the road. Can you believe that?’
‘To be honest —’
‘It’s saved us a fortune. It’s brilliant. I reckon I’ll be able to make five beds from this lot. Maybe even more.’
‘I’m sorry, you’re doing what?’
Eric was about to reply – rather bluntly given that in his mind they’d already discussed the matter at length last night in bed – when Abi bounded in through the door, waving a two-foot-long, matte grey, steel crowbar.
‘Is this what you wanted, Daddy?’
‘Perfect.’
Eric grabbed the crowbar and jammed it into a gap between two planks of wood. He tensed his biceps and flexed his arm ready to wrench. He stopped and turned to his wife.
‘Sorry, darling. Was there something you wanted me to do?’
Suzy’s line of sight went from the dining table to the crowbar and back several times.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing at all.’
Despite Suzy’s concerns, Eric deemed the dining room a most suitable location for the separating and sorting of the wood and timber, although even he couldn’t deny it wasn’t ideal for building the actual beds. They needed to be secured into the ground as they were built, and the only way to do that was to be on site. After a brief discussion with Suzy, he decided to book a room at the Sailboat for the following Saturday night.
‘I know it was a bit chintzy,’ Eric said. ‘But even if we stay at your sister’s, it’ll be ten before we’re down there and then we’ll have already lost half the day. Besides, I looked on their website and it says they have family rooms, so at least we won’t be so cramped.’
Suzy agreed. ‘You’ll have to take Abi for a couple hours on Sunday, though. I need a bit of time in the morning to get some work done or I’m going to miss these deadlines.’
‘That’s not a problem. I’ve got the perfect job. You can go find worms for my compost heap can’t you, Abs? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, going and finding lots of long wiggly worms?’ Abi screamed in delight as her father chased her around the house, wiggling his fingers and making apparently wormesque noises. When Eric eventually collapsed on the sofa from exhaustion, Abi continued to spend next five minutes jumping on the sofa singing ‘We’re going to eat some worms at the weekend!’ to the tune of Daddy’s Taking Us to the Zoo. Their weekend was decided.
While the old Philips screwdriver had served them well in their twelve years of marriage – if Eric’s memory served him right, it had hung at least fourteen photo frames in that time – he decided he needed something with a bit more oomph for the amount of drilling and screwing he’d planned for the weekend. So, en route to Burlam, he detoured into Chelmsford and Lewis at Tools4U.
‘You have to be kidding,’ Lewis said when he saw him. ‘You know you’ve lost your deposit on everything you’ve hired from us so far?’
‘Which is why you should be even more grateful for my custom. You have insurance. You’re raking it in. Besides, I’m not hiring anything today.’
‘No?’
‘No, my wife is.’
Lewis rolled his eyes.
‘And I guess she doesn’t need instructions on how to use these tools either?’ he said.
‘That’d be like cheating,’ Eric replied and waited for him to fetch the power tools.
It was amazing the difference a month and a few good days of weather could make. Late Saturday morning, the allotment bustled with activity, and even Janice was too busy raking parallel lines in her topsoil to look up and announce Eric and the family’s arrival. Either that or he was now too commonplace to be worthy of her high-level greetings. Suzy decided she needed to clear her head before she got to work and so took Abi for a walk along the river in search of seals while Eric unloaded the car. As well as the Black and Decker cordless drill, Eric had also borrowed – in Suzy’s name – a workbench and a small jigsaw from Lewis at the shop. It wasn’t until he’d unloaded all the wood and was setting up the workbench that he noticed Norman.
