Page 4 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
‘I’m trying to work over here. I want peace and quiet, and all I can hear is the wailing cry of an elephant seal giving birth! This is a peaceful garden, go and yowl somewhere else!’
The nerve of him! No flipping wonder he keeps to himself if that’s how he speaks to people.
‘I’m not an elephant seal,’ I yell back. Quite possibly the most unexpected sentence I’ve ever uttered. ‘I’m going to be evicted for letting the garden get out of hand, and I just fell over and landed half in a patch of stinging nettles and half in a bramble bush, and it’s really painful!’
‘Go and tell someone who cares!’
‘Thereisno one who cares!’ My tears had stopped with the surprise of hearing him speak, but the truth of that sentence hits me like a bramble bush to the face. There isno onewho cares. When did my life become this empty? When did I become this lonely? I try to stifle the sob that rises in my throat. I shouldn’t – whoever he is, he has no say over what I do in my own garden, but I’ve got enough trouble without riling up Scary Neighbour too.
He doesn’t speak for a while, and I think that last outburst must’ve been enough to shut him up, but then his voice filters through the hedge again.
‘I know that feeling.’ It’s a quiet mutter this time, so low that I might’ve imagined it. ‘Open your gate, and on the right side, there’s a clump of dock leaves growing. Crush one up and rub it over the stings.’
Is there? I never knew there were dock leaves so close by. I push myself onto my feet and go along the path on still-shaky legs to look out the gate, and sure enough, he’s right. I lean down to pluck one, crush it a bit, and rub it over my hand. ‘Thanks.’
No response. I wait, and a few minutes pass in silence. It seems that the extent of my contact with Scary Neighbour is going to be a couple of insults and a helpful observation about dock leaves. I lean against the gatepost and carry on rubbing the leaf, appreciating the cooling sensation that turns the red and lumpy part of my hand from prickling to only tingling.
‘Heads up!’ The voice from the other side of the hedge speaks again, and something small comes flying over the greenery and hits the ground with a metal clink.
‘What’s that?’ I pick it up and gingerly turn over a pair of small, sharp tweezers.
‘You’re incapable of identifying a pair of tweezers?’
‘Obviously I know what they are, what I don’t know is why you’re lobbing them over the hedge at me.’
‘They’re thorn tweezers, good for getting blackberry thorns out of your hands.’
‘Oh! Right.’ That was surprisingly thoughtful of him. I was just going to try picking them out when my other hand had stopped feeling like it’s on fire. ‘Thank you.’
‘Take your time. If you try to rush it, you’ll only push them in deeper.’
‘And you’d know, would you?’ I mutter under my breath, not intending it to be a question, and looking up in surprise when he answers.
‘I grow roses. I’m used to working with pricks.’
It takes a few seconds to comprehend what he’s said, and then the unintentional innuendo makes me laugh out loud.
‘I’m sure we’ve all felt like that at some point or another,’ I say, thinking of some ex-colleagues who are better left forgotten.
‘Prickles,’ he corrects, but it’s too late for me. I can’t stop laughing. My eyes are watering again for an altogether different reason now, even though I’m sure he’s going to yell at me for laughing like a walrus or something equally insulting.
Instead, I’m surprised when there’s a reluctant but deep rumble of laughter from the other side of the hedge too.
I’ve laughed so hard that I’ve given myself hiccups and I hold my breath for a couple of minutes to make them stop, and then release it, panting. The laugh was a much-needed distraction, and everything feels momentarily less overwhelming.
The stinging nettle sensation is fading now, but the bramble thorns in my right hand are still throbbing. I find a spot on the path beside the hedge that separates our gardens, and sit down so I can brace my elbows against my legs and use the tweezers left-handed.
I can sense Scary Neighbour is still there. I hear him take a breath like he’s about to speak a few times, but he doesn’t.
‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ he barks eventually.
It’s said with the same tone as the Beast demanding Belle join him for dinner, and I feel equally obstinate in the face of such a harsh demand. ‘No, thank you.’
I’m sitting with my back to the hedge between us, but I can hear movement behind me, footsteps that make me think he’s pacing, and then a quiet groan and the unmistakeable sound of him lowering himself to the ground. I glance over my shoulderas if I can somehow see through the thick hedge. He’s sat down with me?Really?
It takes a while for him to speak again. ‘Look, I’m not very good at saying what people want to hear, or knowing what to say in any given situation, but I don’t see how they have any right to evict you. You’re in trouble because of the garden?’
I focus on picking bramble thorns out of my skin. I wasn’t intending to share any of this, but this time, his voice sounds soft and encouraging, and something about it makes me feel calmer than I have all day. He doesn’t push any further, just lets the question hang in the air, and as I concentrate on pulling out each thorn with his little tweezers, the whole story comes spilling out.
