The Raised Beds - A Short Story

Maeve looked through the dining room window at her son. He was safely asleep in his moses basket with his blue crochet blanket tucked carefully around his body. Not too close to his face for fear of covering his mouth, but close enough to keep him warm. “He’s ok”, she reassured herself. Thomas was two months old now and Maeve was trying to fill her two newly raised beds with top soil from the enormous landscaping bag that had been lifted with great ceremony by a cherry picker over the side wall into the garden. Mrs. Butler next door stood watch that day in case the heavy machinery dared touch her precious rose bushes that grew down their shared boundary. Maeve’s husband Michael had made the mistake once of hovering near the roses with a shears, the drama that ensued had kept Michael away from the gardening tools ever since. Maeve glanced at Mrs. Butler's house and saw movement at the top window. She was being watched. “Well let her watch”, Maeve thought, she probably had only half an hour until Thomas stirred and the shovelling of soil was taking so much longer than anticipated to fill. 

Two raised beds had turned into six raised beds by the time Thomas was three. Maeve sat in her deck chair and Thomas sat on his, a miniature version of hers. Maeve passed the bowl to Thomas again and took three sugar snap peas and chewed on them eagerly. “Look Mammy, look at the butterfly”, Thomas pointed to a small white cabbage butterfly that was fluttering on the outside of the brassica net. “He’s trying to eat the cabbages' ', Thomas squealed. “Don’t worry, he won’t get in, he’s just hungry and the smell is attracting him”, Maeve told him. “I’ll catch him”, Thomas said, dropping the last of the sugar snap peas on the ground and chasing the butterfly and then a bee around the garden. Maeve laughed as he ran with his little arms outstretched as if to hug the bee. He tired after a few minutes and climbed into his sand pit that was beside the raised beds. It was filled with his current favourite toys, a digger and a tractor, that were mobilised by Thomas’s little hands to move sand from one side of the pit to the other. “Break over”, she thought and grabbed her trowel to continue weeding their new flower beds. Feeling eyes on her, she looked up to see the familiar curtain twitch in Mrs. Butler's upstairs window. 

Sweet peas became Maeve’s favourite flower and their scent was something she vowed never to live without. Thomas thought they were a magic plant of some sort because no matter how many they cut, a few days later, more would appear on the plant. They filled jam jars with them every couple of days, nearly all the rooms in their house had a jar of them. Then Thomas wanted to set up a flower stand at their front gate to sell them. He’d been deeply influenced by a book they’d borrowed from the library in which a pair of siblings had amassed an immense fortune of a few English pounds by selling flowers and homemade lemonade from a table at the end of their country road. “I’m seven mammy, I’m old enough to have my own business”, Thomas said firmly. She agreed, delighted with his entrepreneurship. Michael lifted out the garden table and chair for him and Maeve sat discreetly on the front door step keeping an eye on her son. Thomas stood confidently behind his table of sweet pea jam jars complete with a hand drawn sign declaring them “The best sweet peas in the world 50 cents”. He had a shoe box as a till and had spent an hour examining coins so he would be sure of giving the correct change. Mrs. Butler was the first customer, no doubt having been observing the whole set up from her top windows. “Thanks Mrs. B”, Thomas said taking her coins and letting her choose a jar. Maeve smiled as Mrs. Butler gave the impression of selecting a jar with great care and then burying her nose into one with pink only blooms. Maybe she wasn’t the worst neighbour after all, Maeve conceded. 

The year of the courgette was one she would never forget. Maeve mistakenly thought each plant would be quite small and produce a couple of vegetables and be done. The weather that summer was one of the best they’d had in years, it was warm for nearly two months with plenty of glorious sunshine. This was the perfect weather conditions for courgette growing it seemed. Yellow long courgettes and small round green courgettes were added to every conceivable meal and she’d even attempted a chocolate courgette cake. Thomas had refused to try the cake declaring it “disgusting”, but had brought half it to Mrs. B, as he called their elderly neighbour. That day Maeve had decided it was time to call it time on the courgettes and began pulling out the plants. First she cut their great big leaves off. They were surprisingly prickly to touch, so it was taking longer than she had anticipated. Thomas appeared beside her, she hadn’t heard him approach so engrossed she had been in the job at hand. “Mam I’m heading to Donal’s house, we’re going to play football on the green”, he informed her. Maeve turned around and looked at her ten year old son. He was nearly as tall as her now. “Ok be back for your dinner at five and give me a hug first”, she said. He obliged, she’d take all the hugs she could get. Thomas’s interest in the raised beds and their contents had waned, his head was full of football and video games. But he still helped her from time to time. “Oh hold on, can you bring these to next door for me”, she grabbed a few of the smaller courgettes for Mrs. Butler who as it turned out was more a fan of them than anyone else. “Sure”, Thomas said as she loaded up his arms. 

“Thomas”, Maeve called into the house. No answer. She tried again a few times. It was as if her son had suddenly gone deaf, at least he seemed to whenever there was a job that needed doing. She went into the house and nearly tripped over his school bag that had been left at such a position near the back door it was impossible to avoid. “Thomas”, she called again. Nothing. She stuck her head into the sitting room and there he was on the couch, headphones on, playing some game that looked like a car race course, on the tv. She went over and stood in front of him. “What?”, he said grumpily. “Did you not hear me call you?”Maeve asked. “No obviously”, Thomas replied cheekily. “I need your help in the garden for a minute”, she told him, “come on before the rain starts”. She went back outside, avoiding the school bag, and hoped he would follow. Thomas was thirteen and his interest in the garden was now at zero. He appeared a few minutes later. “What do you need me for?”, he asked her. “Help me lift this please”, she gestured towards the large compost bag that Michael had left by the shed. Thomas took one end and she took the other and they lifted it on the empty raised bed. He sat silently on the end of it for a few minutes. He was watching the birds at the feeder. Maeve sat down beside him and they both watched silently. 

Maeve carefully sowed the radish seeds into the straight line down the middle of the raised bed. She always marked the lines with a string of twine around two sticks, one at each end of the bed. Then she made a line by dragging another stick from one end down to the other making a perfect row. It was a skill she’d learnt after mistakenly pulling out vegetable seedlings instead of weeds a few years running. With a true crime podcast playing in her headphones, Maeve was in her happy place. The weather was finally warming up again after a long wet winter and she had been counting down the days to get her hands back in the soil. A couple of hours later and the beds were all transformed. New seedlings sticking cheerfully out of the ground made it look like a show vegetable garden for now. She cut the last of the kale and added it to her basket. Mrs. Butler would appreciate it, she said there was nothing like the taste of Maeve’s vegetables, they were the highlight of her dinner. A phone alarm sounded reminding Maeve to get a move on. Thomas had stayed late for a play rehearsal in school but now it was time to collect him. Transition year was turning her into a taxi driver, Maeve thought taking off her gloves, picking up the basket of kale and heading inside. 

“Just one more photo”, Maeve promised to Thomas as he posed with Lucy, his girlfriend, in front of the shrubs that had grown so tall behind the raised beds. It was the night of his school debs and he was anxious to get going. Mrs. Butler was sitting on the outdoor couch in the newly created patio area. Maeve had added extra cushions to it so Mrs Butler would be comfortable, she’d gotten very frail the last couple of years. “Do you want to take a photo with your granny?”, Lucy asked Thomas, gesturing to Mrs. B. “Good idea”, Thomas said, not correcting her. He and Lucy went over and sat either side of her as Michael snapped away on the camera he had bought especially for the occasion. “Enjoy yourselves now this evening”, Mrs. Butler said, pressing money into Thomas’s hand. “I couldn’t”, Thomas said, handing it back. “You will, call it payment in advance for flowers”, she insisted. Thomas thanked her with a gentle kiss on her cheek. Within a few minutes they were off. Silence in the garden now. Maeve felt a tear roll down her cheek, she suddenly felt this overwhelming sadness. Her boy had grown up. She felt an hand on hers, “It’s ok dear”, Mrs. Butler said and Maeve nodded. She took a drink of the champagne that Michael had poured with a great ceremony earlier. She wasn’t sure it would be ok. 

The sweet peas were in full bloom again. Maeve took a deep inhale of their incredible scent. She cut the twine to tie them up higher on the frame Thomas had made for them. He was an expert with tools now, Michael was the first to admit the skills hadn’t come from him, and was suitably impressed with the DIY jobs Thomas did about the house every time he visited. Last year he had replaced two of the wooden raised beds that were rotting with stone ones, and built them brick by brick. He said he didn’t mind doing it and Lucy was happy to have their apartment to herself in peace for a few hours every Sunday. This year he was going to replace two more wooden ones with metal tubs which were the latest in edible gardens he told her. Maeve took another deep breath of the sweet peas and out of habit looked up to the window of Mrs. Butler's old house. The new neighbours had replaced the curtains with blinds so there was no more twitching. Maeve had managed to convince the new neighbours that the boundary roses were rare heirlooms and not to be cut back. She’d read every book she could find on roses and watched videos online to make sure she minded the roses to Mrs. Butler’s standards. Later she’d lay the sweet peas on Mrs. B’s grave along with some roses and tell her about the new raised beds.