V. The Garden
OUR PLANTS
In our garden were plants that were growing for
us. There were roses on the trellis: they would
open just for us, smiling as if I saw
faces in them like the roses in Alice
through the Looking-Glass. I would think if they could
speak, they would say they were our friends. Our lettuce
grew all summer to feed just us, and the lawn
made itself soft to lie on. Even the weeds
were ours (went on our compost) 'cause they were born
inside our hedges. Mrs. Crabtree sowed seeds
next door. but they weren't ever friendly flowers,
and the hedges, from her side, weren't like ours.
PLANTS
I thought plants were a mystery. There they were,
dithering helplessly in the breeze. Didn't
even know they were doing that. Through the year
growing was all of the moving they did on
their own: sycamore seeds twirling, obedient
slaves to the wind — couldn't count that. The sun shone
and they turned, and the roots all went fingering
down for the water, but none of them knew what
they were up to or down to. No lingering,
wondering why. Being trodden on, they'd not
give up trying, and camomile, it would spur
all the faster. How different from us they were!
SNOWDROPS
Called them 'snowdrops'. Like drops of snow even though
snow couldn't drop. But then snow was all around
them, at least on those days when there had been snow.
Under the snow they could do nothing 'cept sprout.
On a clear day perhaps some ant on the ground,
some foolish midges stirring too early out
for a flight just might pick up the sweet fragrance,
crawl in to find it and pick up the pollen.
What a chance! And then who would have such patience?
It was no wonder it drooped its head, lenten
gray-white nun all in prayer to create a corm.
You find all of them gone when the sun was warm.
DAFFODILS
Seeing telephones daffodils made all the
daffodils telephones. You could ask about
when the summer would come, perhaps call the
god who was weatherman, but I hadn't an
earphone. Sure enough, you wouldn't have to shout
since there were so many, all in spick-and-span
yellows, gamboge and lemon and chrome as in
paint-boxes, they'd pick up a whisper. They'd turn
with the sun as if answers were found within
light. But who was the operator? Could learn
about nature's own secrets. Nice to have known
from a call, but instead you told them your own.
THE WINTER'S TALE, Act IV, Sc. iv, ll. 119-120
'Daffodils,/ That come before the swallow dares,
and take/ The winds of March with beauty!' Mammy
always said this in spring. Those yellow fanfares
'took' up your eyes in the living-room so why
shouldn't March winds be 'taken'? Like a happy
prayer she'd repeat it, and the way she looked I
at once knew I'd to feel just the same. You might
then be just thinking of something else, but you
had to stop, pay attention, see the sunlight
turned to their glow, see the crisp petals so new,
and their stems stiff as Grandad's folded spills. Made
you feel ever so sad as you saw them fade.
TRAINING THE ROSES
At the top of the garden was a trellis
Daddy had made out of thin logs, all criss-crossed,
so the roses could grow to shade the terrace.
Tied up with black leather, the thick stems, in spite
of their thorns, had to bend to the wood. They cost
money — you had to make sure they were tight
or the wind would just shake all the petals down.
One place the stem and the log were parallel,
but where Daddy had made the angles, the brown
stem had to twist like a torture. You could tell
from the wrinkles and corkscrewings it was strained,
but undo it, you'd find it stayed — it was trained.
THE ROSES
Could see Mammy was proud of the roses. Each
year from their beautiful pale pink and creamy
petals they filled the arbour with scent. To reach
up and cut more never seemed to reduce them.
We'd say, 'Here are the roses again!' — freely
blossoming for us. The shining red thorns. green stem,
and the flowers, unfolding ballerinas —
these were 'the Rose'. But each year was different,
every time opening out like concertinas
made every time from water, and non-fragrant
air, and phosphates and nitrates, leaf-mould and more.
So where were they the year past, the year before?
'LONDON PRIDE IS A FLOWER THAT'S KNOWN TO US'
In our garden the edges of the path that
led round the house were all London Pride, dark green
leaves in rosettes so much darker where they sat
deeply enshaded by privet and high walls.
Never needed to weed that thin strip between
front and back garden. The rainfalls and snowfalls
were the care it received, never sun. A plant
splendid in bloom, like the dahlia, we rescued
every year from the caterpillars — one can't
banish it there. But London Pride's flowers renewed
their breeze-quivering pale-pink stars. As a boy,
they made passing in shade a caressing joy.
THE DAHLIAS
In the garden were dahlias, for Daddy
liked them especially. I did too. A petal
was so thick and so deep-coloured, so very
dense in its glowing yellow or burning red
you would think it was like some sort of metal,
same all the way through, like that compound of lead
that we had in the chemistry lesson, bright
scarlet. But there were 'burgundy' ones, a rich,
dusky, aristocratic crimson, twilight
lamps inside secret folded curtains which
let exciting hints steal out of a distant
garden where they had come from by accident.
THE LUPINS
Learned at school what was the Pea family was named:
'Leguminosae'. All the flowers had a
petal shaped like a rhino's horn; it was framed
trim in a bonnet peaked at the top, a flame,
or a tongue, or two joined wings. Could add a
tinge of another colour. It was the same
whether tiny and crowded in clover, or
burst wide on gorse, or crosier-tasselled on
vetch, but we had the Lupin: beak of macaw
bright in each bloom, each totem-pole tower shone
as if jewelled in blue, built high from open
leaves like spokes. In the pea-pods was a poison.
STONECROP
Called a 'succulent', Daddy said the Stonecrop
was. All its leaves were translucent like jade, plump,
and so smooth, tiny polished jewels on top
of the flat rockery stones, bead-mats in green,
turning ruby at edges. Here it would hump
over a ridge, there flatten out, or, between
rocks, would flow up like foam. Saved its water safe
even on driest gravel, binding its net
so that every stem helped, and it wouldn't chafe
over the sharpest of grit. A low plant, yet
it made flowers like golden suns, starry eyes,
twinkling galaxies of miniature size.
THE MICHAELMAS DAISIES
Saw the Michaelmas daisies in October,
purples and pinky-blues, all shades, so sprightly.
There were lots of them, in wind arching over,
springing back, petals curling like eyelashes,
all their stars fitting stepwise and so rightly
placed each time. Tough, like ducks, against the splashes
of the raindrops, and crisply wearing frost. They
grew in the dark front garden, knowing the year
had reached autumn again, where no direct ray
ever could reach. From the back window we'd peer
at the wrecked, wet, brown tatters of the summer,
from the front at the crowns of this latecomer.
FLOWER FACES
Saw the pansies as Mr. Molotovs and
Generalissimo Stalins since they had
black moustaches. Chrysanthemums were so grand
fluffed in their ostrich feathers like Mae West. You
saw the lupins so tall and strict like Conrad
Veidt. Shirley Temples were curly like the blue
clustered hyacinths. Snapdragons lolloped their
lips down like Claude Dampiers. Foxgloves had long
noses borrowed from Cicely Courtnedge. Where
asters opened big eyes, it wasn't wrong
seeing Glynis Johns' eyes too. All the places
in the garden would show familiar faces.
THE FALLING FLOWER
In the garden a little flower, a pink,
fallen from somewhere, hung in the air. Nothing
seemed to hold it. No movement. It let you think
that it was still falling, like a photograph
of one blown by the wind. Saw the fluttering
leaves and the quivering grass, but it stayed half-
way down, fixed in the air. But in one little breeze,
saw it vibrate just the tiniest bit, so
it was caught on a cobweb strand! Saw it freeze
back into stillness, and thought, suppose some flow
of eternity yesterday reached and curved
round it! Time couldn't touch its beauty, preserved.
THE WEEDS
Why were weeds such a trouble to dig up? They
grew so much faster than flowers, too; and then,
if you trod on them, didn't much mind — they'd stay
just as they were. The lawnmower chopped off all
the new heads of the daisies: they'd grow again
soon because some lying flat had escaped. They'd crawl
under other plants, wriggle up their stems to
get to the light and then choke them. And their seeds
would fly everywhere over the avenue,
drifting along, carrying all next year's weeds,
all our weeding too. Didn't care who they vexed.
They were criminals, plotting who to rob next.
THE BIRCH TREE
By the gate was a birch tree, the only tree
growing in any garden, not very tall.
It was shaped like a flower, a canopy
round as a hive, slim bare trunk, with delicate
bowing twigs with a Y at the end. A squall
made it conduct an orchestra, each leaflet
in a wriggle, like tambourine discs. You'd see
it from a hundred yards off. It never grew
bigger. Never saw Daddy prune it. To be
taller probably wasn't allowed, and you
wouldn't darken a north-facing garden. I
wished we lived somewhere else and it could grow high.
THE POTS FROM THE CLAY IN THE GARDEN
In the garden deep down was clay. A long time
ago glaciers laid it there, Daddy said.
They had ground it to smooth blue, free from the grime
of the soil, like the paste of a cake before
it is cooked. It was ready to take the tread
of my foot or the print of fingers, to store
berries, stand as a man, wriggle as a snake,
roll to sausage or shit. Put it in the fire
and it hardened to powdery red. To slake
thirst with pots you had made would outdo desire
for the water. The trouble was it would soak
through. The pots began leaking, finally broke.
'WHITEYS'
In the garden we'd find 'whiteys', quartz pebbles.
When they were washed, we held them up to the light.
Some would glow like a luminous disc, jewels
cool-pale as snow; some had facets inside, old
mirrors, flattened-out silver-paper; some white
and gray like twirled ice-cream turned to stone and rolled
smooth. Collected a lot. Made a treasure-chest.
Ran them through fingers as if we were misers,
feeling delicate cold tickles. What was best
was to make patterns, a crown or a spider's
web, a flag. Couldn't drill them to make them beads.
Was enough for our playing they could be seeds.
THE GARDEN STEPS
From our backdoor some steps led down to the lawn,
wooden ones, eight of them, very thick, dark brown
from the creosote, old sleepers Daddy had sawn
making the garden. Once they had carried trains.
Couldn't see where the chairs had been, upside-down
set in the soil like that. Was beyond our brains
to find out where they'd been, what lines, what locos
chuffed with their loads along them, but I'd think they
really knew, since they still, like some sort of echoes,
kept secret marks of the pressures the railway
put on them, farther back of the trees they came
from before. I kept thinking we were the same.
THE ROCKERY
Daddy made a big rockery, horseshoe-shape,
dug from the slope below the house. The big stones
became crags in a jungly southern landscape:
huge mossy cliffs with chasms between them, all
crammed with strange flowery trees; crawling shrubs in zones
red-tinted, yellow-spiked, hanging like a shawl
or a waterfall down a high ridge, each
succulent, soft, fat as barrels. Soldiers would
struggle onward, amazed at a butterfly
big as a kite, at a beetle that stood
prehistoric in size, waving antennae
wide as whips. That Aztec dais was a penny.
TRANSFORMATIONS OF PLACE
The back-door step was roadway, garage, journey
for my Dinky Toy cars. The bricks and mortar
of the corners were houses, each a city,
and my voice spoke for everyone. The garden
was a continent: jungle, desert, tundra,
and an icefield in snow that would not harden
into sameness. I made London of Horwich,
Pickup's chimney a top-hatted monument,
black and red like a totem. But hard to switch
all the wonders of London, as the extent
of my world widened, to Bolton, to London,
and to where I began the comparison.
HEAVEN ON THE LAWN
Had a garden tent, sort of a canopy,
striped red and green, held up by jointed metal
strips, unfolding green scissors, a balcony
on the lawn, where a delicate picnic tea
neatly served on the trolley, a pastoral
celebration, was held, open to the free
air in shade from the thrusting heat of the sun.
Nibbling salmon-and-cress sandwiches, seed-cake,
on the best lemon china, felt we had won
near an elegant heaven, that I would wake
to find everything perfect in a minute.
Didn't know that I was already in it.
SURVIVAL
You would look at the caterpillars prying
round on the dahlias, each raising its head
like a walrus, and think they'd soon be flying
garden to garden. Like clockwork toys God
wound them up, but at last they'd run down, be dead.
All of those clever antennas and those odd
spiral tongues that they had, those pomegranate
eyes couldn't work any more, and those levered
wings all smashed, crushed or rotted. An amulet,
glossy and plated brown, bullet armoured
against frost, against time, it still would thrive,
like a mummy in Egypt, but still alive.
THE GARDEN BUTTERFLIES
There were so many butterflies. The cabbage-
white that duetted from garden to garden
in loops, flashing like Aldis lamps. Privilege
having red admirals to visit from far
off, all epaulettes, medals, sashes, pollen
dusting their fur like braid. Cinnabar
moths that scissored their pink about till they pinned
themselves like brooches on a stone. And the rare
Peacock, staring with no eyes. A touch of wind
makes them all close their wings, their colours forswear.
See their watchspring probosces slowly unwind,
probe for nectar the years have trained them to find.
THE NESTLINGS THAT FELL FROM THE NESTS
They would be on the path, bulgy blind eyes
covered with purply skin, their bodies scrawny
like a marbles bag, plucked; legs too big a size,
head nearly all beak, gaping like a purse that
has brass edges for mouth. They had a gawky,
floppy, and cold flesh that not even a cat
would want. Sometimes we found them still alive, but
Daddy would 'put them out of their misery.'
No use, Mammy said firmly, and she would shut
Daddy out while he did it. The feathery
ones, though, looked so much better. Daddy ended
lives, just like God. Was by us they were buried.
WORMS
Didn't like worms. Like little snakes they would bend
this way and that, looking for something without
any eyes. They were naked and pink. The end
stretched out; it tried touching, and you'd see it shrink
away horifiued, wrinkling up its fat snout
squashed like a closed concertina. Every kink
of its path all its body had to follow,
heaving itself along in the dirt. The spade
often cut it in two, but each part would go
writhing about with a bleeding end. It made
me feel sorry to see it wriggle and squirm.
There was nothing could make me tread on a worm.
THE BIG FROGS
Saw the hens at the bottom of the garden.
Their life was set by the farmer in chicken-
wire, and forced to lay eggs just for us. Even
pigeons went back to the cosy holes up there
on the end of the barn. What was so foreign,
down in the garden, were the big frogs. A scare
when you saw one, not like those tiny fellows
scrabbling in hundreds by the pond in May. It
took no notice of fences, did what it chose,
went where it wanted to. The world had to fit
to the frog, who hopped off calmly to explore
for we humans were just something to ignore.
GREAT YEARS FOR THE CREATURES
It was funny how some years favoured some one
creature. One year there were cabbage-whites flying
in the gardens like eiderdown; it was fun
running right through a shaking cloud. And next year
little frogs would be hopping about, prying
everywhere down in the Green Grounds, with no fear
at all. Ladybirds crawled like a miniature
army of Wellsian tanks after greenfly
on the roses. And like condensing vapour
widening, shrinking flocks of starlings up high
would come down in a rush; their wings you would hear
as a shock, like a breath too close at your ear.
THE SNOW ON ALL SAINTS' DAY
I find memory strange. Just to take one time:
All Saints', November the 1st, and the snow
in the morning still deepening, now a prime
six inches deep — on a holiday! Now why
should I specially remember from long ago
snow on the path by the side of the house, by
the back corner? I imagined myself in
snow at the front, saw myself tramping around
to the back — but I entered the genuine
past of November snow, and then, as if bound
by a spell, I walk out again! Yet the snow
looks exactly the same! I tramp to and fro.
FROST
In the privet the frost was all sharp spikes, crammed,
spilled like a box of pins turned solid. On sills,
Daddy's wire brush, turned silver. In keyholes, jammed,
pointing like spokes on my Meccano car's wheel.
A plush rope were the aerial was. In frills
round all the leaves. Struwelpeter's hair in steel
on the top of a post. Close to, you'd see blades
all overlapping, a penknife half-opened,
but a breath made them shrink into balustrades,
hat-pins, ball-bearings. The bold frost had fastened
itself all over everything everywhere,
but an hour or two's sun could turn it to air.
MR. AINSCOUGH'S GARDEN
In the garden of Mr. Ainscough were no
flowers. Square paths with wooden sides marked out plots
where the vegetables, in row upon row,
made all their growing like work. Asparagus
floated feathers of green hair; in flowerpots
tall leeks made sabres out of crumbly humus;
saw his cabbages roses, wrinkled and fat,
petals of net; beans that had red epaulettes
on their trim bamboo ladders; dim cucumbers that
hid in a glass frame like fish. To pay their debts
for this weed-free and caterpillar-free life
they all quietly awaited the Ainscough knife.
MR. CRITCHLEY'S GARDEN
All the flowers in Mr. Critchley's garden
stood at attention. He'd kept the geraniums
in a greenhouse all winter. Frost could harden
soil into rock, snow make cauliflowers
from the rose-bushes: in their sanatorium's
warmth he preserved them like patients from showers
and nights freezing with stars. Had to stay in their
pots to be watered and sprayed, like pupils trained
in a school. They came out when he said. The air
free to the sky was then theirs, whether it rained
or was sunny. They grew as if it were spring,
all in lines and in patterns marked out with string.
THE AERIAL
It was higher than our house, the aerial.
Daddy had put it up, couldn't remember
when. The mast all of steel tube, a flexible
fishing-rod forty feet high, with wire stays taut
like a ship's mast, our garden the ship. Freer,
slung between white insulators, like a sort
of sly trap for the radio waves, wire swung
round in the wind like a skipping-rope.. From masts
far away flashed the waves; as quick they had sprung
down the wire, wriggled into the house, broadcasts
of the news, Children's Hour, Roy Fox and the rest.
Our tall aerial said our signal was best.
IN THE TENT IN THE GARDEN
When you slept in the tent in the garden, you
knew that it wasn't a real adventure like
in the Swallows and Amazons books. Was true
you were alone in the night, and the wind flapped
all the canvas, but you weren't up on the Pike
even. No Windermere lake outside. Were trapped
by the hedges, the chicken farm, the council
houses and Horwich. And Mammy had brought sheets,
pillows, blankets. But still you saw the groundsel,
daisies and grass by your nose. Although the streets
were around you, you still could pretend, you could,
you were far far away in the wildest wood.
OVER THE FENCE
There were times when your ball went over the fence
into the chicken farm. When you climbed over
and went just a few feet farther, you felt tense
like pushing off from the side of the swimming
bath. Our garden looked strange; the henhouse, closer,
seemed to be threatening you. There was nothing
between you and the hens, and they weren't your pets.
Under your feet the funny pitted ground where
all the hens had been pecking. Seemed to be threats,
too, in the sudden toots of the cock to scare
you away. It was not a place to explore.
Made you feel that you weren't the same as before.
MAKING CHICKS
If you went to the bottom of our garden,
there was a poultry farm. If you asked Mammy
why the cocks got on top of the hens, the question
always made her frown. The she would say it
was 'to make baby chickens'. The fluttery
hens made such angry squawks. Sometimes the cocks bit
at their necks in a nasty way and their claws
grabbed at the feathers so the hens had to let
them stay balanced on top. Then there'd be a pause:
squawkings and flappings stopped. Then the cock would get
off. I knew that the cocks did something 'with dicks'.
I thought it a funny way to make chicks.