John Saxon
sat on the steps of his allotment potting shed and whistled a joyful little tune.
He didn’t know what the tune was, not for sure, not really, but he was sure he’d
heard his mother whistle it when he was a child. And it just so happened that the
nameless ditty had stuck with him all this time. In fact, the tune was so jolly
that the average passing Joe would have been forgiven for thinking he may have
had something to celebrate. But they would have been mistaken. Because in this
instance, John Saxon only happened to whistle this tune when he has something
on his mind.
Like now.
If anyone knew what was really happening
in the gloom of the potting shed at his back then perhaps – just perhaps – they
may have considered his whistle an indication of something far more ominous
than it really was.
You see, John Saxon loved everything
about his little inner city cube of land. Moreover, he also loved the fact he was
almost (almost because he still had to rely on supermarkets a little for the
time being) self-sufficient in most regards. And what was more; he’d learnt how
to grow the best goddamn stuff in the county.
And people adored him for it. They
came from far and wide, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in carloads, and asked if
he’d be willing to spare them just a little.
He didn’t make much of a living, but
word of mouth proved enough to keep the wolf from the door. Although John was
not much of a business man in this regard; he was an independent, an
opportunist, a chancer. But he survived.
“What’s your secret, John?” Mitch
Strider, sixty-two, recently widowed, asked coolly. “I mean there’s got to be
one. Everyone I’ve spoken to agrees there has to be.”
“No secret,” John said, speaking
through an average looking smile. His eyes squinted as he turned his face towards
the sun. “Just a lot of love and attention, that’s all.”
“That’s all?”
John nodded, yes.
Strider looked over his shoulder,
thinking it was a strange thing to say considering the only thing John Saxon
ever seemed to farm lately (aside from a sickly collection of sprouts) were
weeds and brambles. In fact, unless he was very much mistaken, the last time
he’d seen John tend anything at all was a week after the last awkward bout of
frost. And wasn’t that four months ago now, give or take? Yeah, good lord, yes,
he was sure it was.
“So how come I don’t see you growing
an awful lot out here these days? You got some kind of magic recipe I should
know about?”
John smiled again. It was not the
first time he someone had asked that particular question; he seemed to get it a
lot these days, but he supposed that was mostly to do with the absence of crops
poking out of the unturned soil in front of his little yellow hut. Not that he
could blame them of course. Had the shoe been on the other foot he’d have been
inclined to ask, too.
“No recipe,” he said. “Just ...
nurture. That’s all. You’d be surprised what a man is capable of growing when
he puts a little body and soul into it.”
There was a pause in the
conversation as Strider considered the statement. Then, swatting his hand in
front of his face, probably thinking how foolish it sounded, strode off in the
direction of his own plot of burgeoning land.
He
won’t be happy with that, John thought to himself as he pushed a slightly
crooked homemade cigarette between his thinning lips. No, he won’t be happy with that answer at all. In much, the same way Ted
Willis didn’t like the answer when he asked the very same question.
But poor old Ted Willis had proven
himself to be a thief and a scoundrel, and deserved everything he had got.
Something Strider had not yet proved himself to be.
John remembered the night he found
dear old Ted trying to break in. Caught red handed, he had attempted to deny
his actions, claiming he thought he had seen someone with a flashlight on the
inside, and, when John never answered the call, elected to try and resolve the
curiosity himself.
Of course, it had been lies – and obvious ones at that –
because what kind of crook would lock themselves in an allotment potting shed?
Ted had gawped, John remembered, slack jawed and a little bemused at the
question, and that was when John hit him.
He couldn’t remember what he hit Ted
with; only that a red mist had descended and anger took over. He supposed it could
have been his fists, or the iron bar he’d taken out of Ted’s pudgy little hands.
Yes, it could have been any of those things. But the one thing John knew for
sure was that whatever he had hit him with had been enough to kill him.
He’d stowed Ted’s body in the potting
shed, burying him beneath torn sacks of compost and multitude of spilt seed. Then,
somehow, he forgot old Ted was there. And that, somewhat by accident and, it would
now seem, good fortune, was when John discovered the secret to a successful
crop.
He smiled a wintery kind of smile as
he watched Striker amble away, and knew with some kind of authority that one
day, perhaps one day soon, Striker would try to sneak-a-peek into the potting
shed and uncover the secret for himself.
“I guess that’s the thing with
gardeners,” he said to himself, crushing the butt of his cigarette on the little
wooden step as he got to his feet. “They’re always looking to get into another
man’s secrets.”
He laughed at that.
John looked back over the allotments,
to the eyes cast in his direction, and chuckled to as he unlocked the padlocked
door. It gave with an audible click and instead of catching it as he usually did;
he allowed it to fall between his feet with a dull thud.
John stepped into the potting shed,
still smiling, and there, half in and half out of thinning compost, glazed beneath
a ray of jaundiced sunlight, sat Ted Willis’s soupy remains. He was in much the
same position as the day curiosity had ended him. His mouth was now cracked open
in a silent scream; his jaw dislocated as some uncertain and unnameable thing
grew out of his maw. His eyeless sockets were home to steadily growing (and,
again, uncertain) saplings. His fleshless chest an abode to a multitude of interwoven
vines of grapes and berries and –
Again he smiled, lowered to his
haunches. He plucked a berry nestling within the dissolving cavity around Ted’s
ribs, wiped away a teardrop of bitter rot on his jeans, and began to eat.
Life, he decided, had never tasted
so good.
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