Just a gap. No big deal. Simply a slight opening next to the privet, atop the ivy-clad bricks of the century-old wall. It’s nothing special to look at, and barely noticeable, offering only the most limited views depending on where in the garden you may be sitting: from here, just a view of a corner of the neighbour’s kitchen, from there, a top-slice of the hills behind and from another angle still, the vista offered is no more than a section of open sky punctuated by the odd passing cloud. Yes, just a gap. No big deal.
The whole stretch along the top of that wall used to appear far more prim and proper, pruned back regularly and kept airy and open, from the tiny purple flowers of the chaste tree reaching over next to our back door, along to that privet at the further end of the garden. On most days one or both of us would see our neighbour Margaret whilst bumbling in the garden, and this would inevitably kindle a new conversation of that over-the-wall, neighbourly sort that is becoming more of a rarity nowadays. Local goings-on, the weather, the escapades of our young daughter (now a grown woman); our talk would range across the topics easily and flow through cups of tea during hazy afternoons.
It’s been ten years and more since Margaret last leaned over that wall and, ever since the house passed on to her London-centric son, it has become the empty preserve of slanting sunshine and passing breezes, making it a fine, undisturbed snoozing spot for our two cats during the summer months. Since the garden is rarely inhabited by people anymore, it seems that the plant life seems intent on reclaiming it for its own, and over the years those carefully pruned plants and trimmed-back areas have run riot in their own triffid-esque way. At first we trimmed and pruned from our side of the divide, cutting back and maintaining order as we could. A quick text message to Margaret’s son to gain permission would also see me climb over the wall (something that is becoming more challenging as the years roll by!) to maintain order on the other side too. In recent years, however, we have opted instead to allow the plants to have their way, intervening only occasionally from time to time to prevent full rewilding. Thus, week by week, month by month, that boundary has slowly but surely become more entangled and more overgrown, giving it the appearance of a quiet corner in a cottage garden, a place for reading, pots of coffee and the occasional snooze.
There is, however, amongst the tendrils and the twining green shoots, one space above the wall that we keep free and clear despite the passing of the years and the other changes wrought by time. Only a couple of feet across, no matter what may try to grow into it and backfill its small patch of clear sunlight we keep it clear and open so that, for a chunk of the calendar, it somewhat resembles a missing tooth amongst the greenery until the spring and summer swing around again to make sense of it once more.
As soon as the winter weather relents and opens the door to spring again, we begin to look to that space for the first signs. Nothing at first. Just a gap. No big deal. Only a few fresh stems waving in the breeze. Then, one day, it begins. Those stems start to thicken and the buds at their ends begin to fatten. A little patience here goes a long way, but eventually those buds swell to fullness until, usually some time in May, they burst open and that empty space, the space we maintain for just this moment, is filled with a bank of bright pink roses. Margaret’s roses. Soon after moving in nearly a quarter of a century ago we noticed them for the first time and on many occasions over the years they became the topic of those neighbourly chats, soon becoming a significant temporal marker for us, a staging post in the rolling months.
Yes, they are beautiful and, yes, they make us smile every time they arrive, but those roses are so much more to us than simple flowers filling a space above a brick wall. They grew there, in their little space, there long before we became the new neighbours and they have bloomed through all our significant life moments since. They were in flower at the time of my graduation and will brighten the garden for my daughter’s graduation a couple of years from now; they have coloured the garden through career changes, through successes and disasters and a million other significant moments. Most importantly, though, they have become a symbol for us. Through the years that have gone and those yet to come, they have bloomed and will continue to flower no matter what may come, and when they do they will always bring with them that wonderful fact that once again the difficulties of winter are officially over and summer is just around the corner.
