Cont'd …

I nod and crush a leaf between finger and thumb, savouring the acrid green fragrance which is like nothing else on earth. Mother loves tomatoes more than any other plants, and she has always grown them.

“What’s this one called?” I ask, indicating a different variety which is already turning orange.

“That’s ...” Mother stares at the plant, a look of complete concentration on her face. “Do you know,” she says, “I can’t remember.”

“Oh well,” I say, “it doesn’t matter.”

Mother stares at me with an expression which is part withdrawn, part angry and part helpless.

There is a frown on her forehead, and her lips move. I know the expression well, for she wears it more and more these days, as she forgets words more and more frequently. “Hereford Beauty?” she attempts at last. “Hardcastle King?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, “really.”

Mother shakes her head. “I could go and look at the packet,” she suggests.

“No, don’t,” I say.

“It’s only in the kitchen,” says Mother.

“Don’t bother,” I say. We both know that the word will come back in its own time.

You always had a love of words. Words and vegetables, the two things you ever knew anything about. That was one of the first things that attracted Father to you, your wit, your love of words. You were intelligent, well-spoken (almost too well-spoken for this area of London), and very, very witty. I know the stories. I know how you met on the bus and what he said and what you said.

You must have made quite an impression on Father, whose background was so dry and stolid. He must have felt as clumsy and inadequate as I used to feel with girls when younger. Ironic that I inherited his stiltedness so directly. Why didn’t I turn out agile and witty like you? Now that you’re forgetting words, I don’t know how to speak to you.

Mother refuses the aid of a gardener, though I have offered to pay for one. She says that the exercise keeps her alive and that any jobs she can’t do herself aren’t really worth doing anyway. For a woman of her age and infirmity she achieves remarkable results: her garden, although small and awkwardly-shaped, contains more life and colour than any other space I know.

Next to her tomato plants, the most important thing is the vegetable patch, which is almost as big as it was in the War years, when she dug for victory and found a German bomb lying there one morning. This year she is growing beetroot, parsnips, marrows, a new kind of lettuce which is supposed to be slug-resistant (neither of us believes that) and a splendid bank of runner beans with bright vermilion flowers.

“Who put up the frames?” I ask, horrified at the idea of my mother blundering about the vegetable-patch with a mallet in her hand.

“I got the Scouts to do it last Bob-a-Job Week,” she says.          

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