A Passionate End To The Drought
Mary stood at her living room window and watched him as Ted worked methodically and purposefully. She was waiting for the kettle to boil and she would take him a drink and have a chat. She liked to do that and most of all with him, whenever she got the opportunity to do so. He was only too friendly and attentive, and she had grown to like that in him, even if Ted was some years younger than she was.
The summer so far had been uncommonly dry, the weeks flying by and with little or no rain to keep the grass of her lawn looking just as she wanted it. She always had her gardener attend to whatever concerned her about it and whenever she thought it to be necessary.
Her hanging baskets on the walls of the house and set on each side of the front and back doors, along with the riot of colours presented by potted plants that she had set out on her front terrace, received all the water that they needed from the butts that she had asked Ted Llewellin, her gardener, to place by every downpipe that drained the roof gutters of her immaculately kept bungalow. He did everything that she asked of him and the cost of his attendance upon her never changed. The work that he did for her was but a small part of his landscaping business but he devoted equal attention to what he did for her.
She would have paid him extra, but she sensed that he took particular pleasure to be with her and she would often work in the garden alongside him, or in Ted's presence, so that they could talk but neither of them becoming over-familiar. Such restraint was both a blessing and a curse because she wanted so much more from him. In Ted's looks upon her she also sensed that something of what she felt was also at work in him.
Ted had always worked for himself. He had numerous clients for his gardening services and he always called in once a month, on a Thursday, the routine of his visits having been set over the three years that he had attended to her. In spite of the arrangement, Tony always rang to say that he would be with her, 'come rain or shine'.
Now, as she saw how the clouds were scudding across the sky, it might well be a day when it rained, and she hoped that interruption was still some time away. She realised that she was becoming somewhat obsessed by thoughts of him being with her in the only way that had begun to matter; the consummation of her infatuation with him.
She heard the click of the kettle as it switched off, but she lingered a while longer to watch him, Ted's strong body and broad chest clothed in a black T-shirt that he wore with black jeans and black protective ankle boots. His biceps flexed and she saw the frown of concentration on his rugged face, his greying hair parted on the left side of his head. He had grown leaner, his paunch no longer what it once was when she had first met him, but that was when he was married.
"What am I getting into now?" she murmured as she checked on the weather once more, gazed at his shadowy figure through the net curtain she had put up to offer the room some privacy from prying eyes as pedestrians walked past on the pavement that was lined by the hedge he had been trimming and tidying up.
His divorce, some twelve months ago, had almost led him to stop his work for her and move on, to leave the area and all of its associations, but she had chatted to him and consoled him as far as she dared, quelling the instincts to put her arms around him and to feel his touch and warmth. Her circumstances, as a widow, gave her an insight into what he was going through.
"Perhaps we can help each other and put an end to our particular loneliness?" she murmured, deciding to open the window and call to him. She saw the first signs that a misty drizzle was beginning to fall. "Ted?"
"Hi, what's up?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to say that coffee's ready."
Ted looked at her approvingly. Mary had leaned out of the window of her front room as she called out to him. He'd not failed to notice the woman when he had arrived an hour or so earlier, how she filled a tank top that was worn under a loose, floaty blouse, the buttons undone, along with some faded sky-blue cotton skirt with patch pockets.
She was not as tall as him and moved with a captivating grace, her broad hips swaying and her soft smile always making him think of what was at work in her when he was around. He'd like to peg the woman, given half a chance, and put an end to a drought in those ways of it. There was something about Mary, the 'Butler woman' as he often thought of her, that set Mary apart from the others he met through his work. Mary was the kind of woman he liked, more his class and so easy to form a bond with. She'd owned and managed a care home for the elderly in a nearby town and had retired early when she'd lost her man.
"Don't get wet, not even for me!" she was heard to laugh and put a hand on her hat that covered her greying hair to keep it from falling off.
"If it keeps up it looks like the rain may well put a stop to my day here with you, Mary. I'll clear up and let you know when I'm done."
"Not before you've had a coffee with me. It's already made so don't you go rushing off!"
She snapped shut the window and went back into the kitchen to grab the tray. If they could, or the gentle rain allowed it, she wanted to sit on the bench under the living room window that she'd just closed and talk with him for a while. There was also that appraising look of his to deal with; a look that she had seen before and that had her wondering what lay behind such a glance.
Until now, she had enjoyed an unlikely, but chatty, relationship with him, flirtatious even, but it had never strayed into over-familiarity. If pressed, however, she would not deny her feelings of attraction to him and that she always looked forward to his presence around the garden and where she would also work, just to be close to him.
Ted sensed that she was there, watching him from behind the net curtain, and that hid Mary from view.
He had always been taken by Mary's intense, thoughtful, gaze and by how her greying hair with its flyaway ends framed an oval face, her eyebrows pronounced and neatly plucked but not too thin as to be severe. Her reedy voice could so quickly become bright as she laughed, and there was a vivacity to be seen in her bright shining eyes, the amber brown lively and her gaze attentive as they discussed what was to be done, a telephone call only suggesting the work that she wished him to attend to. It was always done with care and attention, none of the debris, or brash being left for her to clear away, even if she was a keen gardener.
He did more for her than Mary paid for, and he knew the reason why.
Now, as he worked on finishing his work of trimming the hedge that formed the boundary to all of her front garden, he heard her call to him, again, and he turned, her voice reaching him as the noise of the electric hedge trimmer faded away instantly.
"I'm almost done!"
"Good, and I've brought you a coffee and a snack!" she smiled, her eyes drifting over him as she took in the strength in his arms, the sleeves of his short-sleeved shirt clinging to his biceps. "The weather's not looking so good, so I'm sorry if I'm interrupting you. My work in the back garden's finished."
"You're not interrupting, Mary. It gives me a moment to have a drink and chat with you." He would tell her what was on his mind, what plagued him sometimes, and saw that she had left her drink inside. "Go get your coffee, Mary, will you? I don't want to be out here on my own if that's okay with you?"
He didn't wait for her to answer but resumed his work, only more quickly. He had said what was on his mind and now he wanted to follow through on that. The rain might well prevent him from working for others on his list of jobs for the day so there was no rush to leave her.
He met her at the bench seat and watched as Mary stepped nimbly over the slabs of the path that curved over the grass and led from the metal front gate set into the hedge. She'd been seen to kick at it but the wrought iron gate wouldn't shut properly.
"Something else to fix for you if you want that?" he ventured, going to help her close it. In doing so, and standing at her shoulder, he breathed in her scent. "A floral scent is it, for the lady gardener?"
She chuckled as it occurred to her that Ted was flirting with her.
"Yes, it is, and the gate can be fixed some time. There are other things to mend before we get to that. Now, sit down beside me before our coffees get cold."
"Yes ma'am," he teased and winked at her. She had shifted and he felt her knees press against his thigh as he sat down and saw more clearly how her tank top shaped the tumble of her breasts. It offered little or no support and flattered her aging but, to his sight, only too desirable figure. The woman possessed a tended, understated, attractiveness. "At least the rain's held off."
"So, we can do this," she smiled on meeting his look upon her. "Do you give other customers of yours the eye as you're doing with me?"
Ted chuckled on hearing her speak so directly. At least she now knew where he was coming from.
"No, Mary. There aren't any others like you." He had answered her as he sat back against the wall and felt its rough texture through the dampness of his shirt. "It's all strictly business with them, but with you it's different. Maybe it's because of what we've been through. You were a help to me in bad times..."
He had left what had been confessed to hanging in the air between them and he looked at the woman now seated so close to him. He took in every detail of her face, the small creases at the sides of her eyes, the silken softness of her hair, the light tan on her skin, and the creases on her breastbone, her jangly pendant necklace, all that was shaped by her tank top and the fleshy firmness of her thigh as it pressed against his leg.
She sighed over barely parted lips. "I didn't know that you held on to that. For me, it was the only thing to do and I wondered if you got comfort with another woman you might do work for, or those you had in your life already, before...you know?"
"Before I was ditched?"
