Danielle sat quietly, swinging her legs on the old green seat in the shade of the tree at the place Siobhan and she always met. Her brown legs poked out from under her light cotton dress. She looked down at them and liked what she saw. Shapely and feminine, a good pair of legs in brown strappy sandals. Not just decorative legs but good strong legs which could walk a fair distance and run as well. It was useful having good legs. Her friend, Siobhan, had good legs, so why did the girl not use them to arrive on time!
She sighed, it seemed her lot to wait for Siobhan. If her best friend had been another girl, any other girl - then there would not be all this waiting, but she and Siobhan had been 'thick as thieves' forever. They were paired, and that was how it was.
Up the dusty street came the girl. She could see it was Siobhan, just by the way she walked though the red hair was just a bit of a giveaway! Her hair was down and flowing, all coppery when the sunlight caught it. Mostly, though, she was sensibly walking in the shade.
Unlike Danielle's cool, flowing dotty red dress, Siobhan had on a tee shirt dress. It was simple and effective and looked lovely on her. In effect, simply a long, dark green tee shirt belted with a brown, leather cord to give the whole thing shape. With Siobhan's small breasts it was not perhaps as shapely as it might have been, not as shapely as if Danielle had been wearing it though she would have needed a larger size, no doubt. Danielle's breasts were generous: Siobhan's were not.
"Hi," called Siobhan.
"You're late," Danielle called back. It seemed to be almost her standard response to Siobhan's greeting."
"Doesn't it make you wonder what's behind it?"
Siobhan came across the street, her hair seeming almost to blend into the orange of the brick wall behind her. It was a brick wall with an old, arched, green painted door in it. A door that was always closed. What was behind the wall they did not know because the door was always shut and the wall far, far too high to see over.
Danielle knew what lay beyond the wall made Siobhan wonder and always had. She was intrigued herself, had indeed wondered, but not quite as much as her friend.
Siobhan plonked herself down beside her and tapped Danielle's cotton covered thigh.
"I imagine..." said Siobhan looking back at the wall.
"Fairies?"
"Don't be silly. I sort of imagine a pretty, a really pretty garden with an old grey bearded gardener scratching away with his hoe."
"What like Mr McGregor?"
"Yeah, something like that!"
"What shall we do? I fancy an ice-cream."
"You always fancy an ice-cream!"
"Yeah, so? Well, it's hot, really hot."
"I fancy..." but Siobhan's fancy was not to be revealed because her attention was suddenly distracted. "Look Danielle, the door, it's... it's actually open."
And indeed it was. Danielle was sure it had not been moments before but, undoubtedly, there it was ajar.
"Should we...?" But it clearly was not a question requiring an answer or a decision from Danielle. Siobhan had made up her mind herself and was already up again on her legs and crossing the street.
The door pushed open easily as if the hinges had been freshly oiled, not the hint of a creak or a groan, and Danielle followed her friend through into just what Siobhan had imagined, a really pretty garden. A garden full of colour and scent. Flowers in profusion and vver against the wall an orange tree complete with ripening orange fruit. All in all an absolute delight and a feast for eyes and nose. Indeed, as the orange colour of the ripening fruit, so clear against dark green leaves, especially caught her eye, she appreciated a garden for all senses. Her tongue slid over her lips at the thought of the sweet juice of an orange, so full of taste. The bees buzzed and the occasional song of a bird came to her ears even in the afternoon heat and, as she reached and touched a flower with her fingertips her fifth sense of touch coming into play.
She was entranced and even Siobhan had paused simply to stare. It was a place of enchantment, Danielle thought, even the show gardens she had visited did not seem to come quite up to the perfection of this enclosed and secret garden. Were there indeed fairies hidden in the garden, watching from who knows where?
"You were right," she said, "such a pity we can't go in." Danielle turned to go and found the door had closed.
"Have you pair o' lassies come a visitin'?"
She had not seen, and neither, she was sure, had Siobhan, but he must have been standing right behind the door when they had opened it. It was though a shock to see a man standing there. The garden had seemed quite empty.
The man seemed kindly, that was Danielle's immediate impression. First impressions can be deceiving but they are also powerful. It is a natural and primaeval summing up of a situation, a necessity to judge whether there is a threat perhaps requiring fight or flight.
The man was dressed in workaday clothes, clean enough but suitable for work not going out. He had on old grey, rather baggy, trousers held up by twin braces over a white long sleeved shirt with sleeves rolled up in acknowledgement of the heat of the day. The trousers were supported in the old fashion by red box cloth braces though these were almost hidden by a rather striking royal blue waistcoat with brass buttons. Again in acknowledgement to the warmth of the summer afternoon the waistcoat swung open. His shirt was a little unbuttoned too and around his neck the man had tied a red kerchief. Upon his feet stout brown boots rather suggestive of a man engaged in gardening. Indeed, when you looked at his bushy grey beard, grey curly hair and nut brown skin not only did you think of a man used to the outdoors but, just as Siobhan had said, Mr McGregor the gardener from Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny. He looked rather kinder though, with a ready smile, wrinkles all around his eyes and along his forehead, rather full lips and white teeth. Clearly he was Siobhan's supposed gardener.
"We... we were just looking."
"Comes you on in, see me garden, see me penstemon and hollyhocks."
They were tempted, so tempted, the garden looked so pretty. He offered them his hands.
Hand in hand they walked with him, Siobhan to his left, Danielle to his right, their little feminine hands clasped in his strong, big, brown and rather calloused hands.
The brick paths so neat, the brick looking freshly raked, such a contrast with the hot tarmac outside; the soft greenness of the finely mown lawn, perhaps recently mown as there was an old green petrol mower with wooden handles standing on the lawn and, indeed, the scent of freshly cut grass in the air; there were trees overhanging the path and giving welcome shade and such brightly coloured flowers in profusion in the beds between the old orange wall and the bricked paths, flowers, not just the penstemon and hollyhocks but all sorts and yielding such scent; rosemary, thyme and other herbs yielded still more scent as their essential oils were brought out by the heat of the sun.
Danielle had the smallest sense of déjà vu but could not think she had ever been to such a delightful garden before.
"Oh, how pretty!"
A little willow arbour with a seat by the path and cut into the bed between wall and path, inviting and cool, but the girls passed on with the man, on and around the garden. There were vegetables growing, strong and wholesome, their flowers no less pretty than the ornamental flowers if, mostly, smaller. It was something of a potager, mixing vegetables and flowers together in pleasing and decorative company.
There were so many things to see. An old sundial set one end of the lawn in full sunlight; espalier apples and other fruit trained up the old wall; even an old shed tucked almost out of sight with roses growing up and over its roof; in the centre of the lawn an oval stone pool with a tinkling fountain. All such a delight to the senses, such a pleasure to walk around the garden and admire.
