‘Um, I’m Lucas,’ said the boy, who looked at my hand, and then suddenly reached out and shook it, looking shy. I turned to my helper, holding out my hand again.
‘I’m Toby’ he said, shaking it and smiling.
Then the girl, I held my breath as I held out my hand. ‘I’m Daisy’ she said, reaching out her hand and solemnly shaking mine.
‘Great, can you guys help me, so I don’t crash into anything?’ I asked, as I picked up the wheelbarrow and turned it around. ‘See if you can find the bamboo plants, they’re really tall with thin leaves’
‘It’s what pandas eat,’ volunteered the girl.
I smiled at her, and with Toby still holding some of the leaves at the front, set off for the way out. We reached the fence without mishap, and more importantly without any adults turning up.
At the fence line, Lucas stopped and stepped back. ‘We’re not allowed to leave.’ he said.
‘Uncle Ben says this place is forty… fortif… fortible,’ said Toby.
‘Fortifiable,’ I corrected, ‘that’s true, it’s a great place with lots of resources.’ It sounded like his uncle definitely wouldn’t be happy with my trespass and burglary. I turned to Daisy, ‘you should tell him about this hole in the fence,’ I said. ‘So he can fix it.’
They stood and waved goodbye, as I wobbled across the scrubland, and after a quick check that the coast was clear; down the bank to the car. I looked back one last time before they disappeared out of sight. I hoped they would be ok.
The red robin was awkwardly large; wide and leafy with a pot that was much bigger and heavier than the bamboo pots. It was almost impossible to lift out of the wheelbarrow, but eventually I closed the boot on the squashed branches and sat back in the driving seat to take stock.
It was still only mid-morning. There would be knockers about and people watching from their houses. I drove back, parked in the side road, but left the plants in the car to remove later that evening when the roads were empty.
The side road was a short access road to the street behind mine. I walked along the length of the brick wall beside my garden, and then along the fence of the house behind mine. The fence was old and neglected with several feather boards missing. Could I get inside somehow? I felt along carefully; there were several loose boards either side of a narrow gap. If I swung two boards aside, I could get into my neighbour’s garden. I looked around, but there were no houses overlooking this strip of road, so I quickly pushed the boards apart and ducked inside.
As expected, the garden was a wilderness. I could barely see the bungalow at the end, and what I could see looked abandoned. My elderly neighbours must have left years ago and the place had remained unsold, slowly decaying away. The original shrubs had gown straggly and tall, and the ground was covered in weeds. But what really impressed me was a massive conifer at the centre of the garden. It was some sort of cypress, with a large pyramid shape. It must have been planted ages ago, and it probably looked fine for a couple of years, but now, well, it dwarfed the bungalow behind it and covered almost two thirds of the garden. The foliage was dense and dark green, and the branches drooped so that they were touching the ground, with no trunk showing at all.
I moved right, towards my garden, but the way was blocked by an impenetrable undergrowth of viciously-thorned brambles and damson saplings, that covered the back all the way to the fence. There looked to be a path on the other side of the cypress, but I just couldn’t reach it. I would have to wait where I was.
I brushed away some of the leaf litter from the tiny oval of patio paving that I was standing on, and sat cross-legged on the stone. I looked around. Well it wasn’t a terrible place to wait. I shifted my legs, and decided to do a bit of meditation to pass the time.
About thirty seconds later I opened my eyes, reached forward, and lifted the nearest trailing branch of the cypress to check. Sure enough, the inside of the conifer was mostly dead wood, and much less dense than the outer foliage suggested. Maybe my meditation technique was rubbish, but my chattering mind had come up with a fairly decent idea. With a bit of judicious pruning, I could clear a space at the base, to crawl through to the other side. Only one problem; I didn’t have anything to prune it with; all my tools were in my house.
I stood up and walked towards the back of the bungalow, At the side, half hidden, under a tangle of ivy, was a derelict greenhouse. The glass was cracked and opaque with years of dirt and neglect. I found the door, removed some of the blocking vegetation, and managed to shove it open wide enough to slip inside. Spotting a brush that was propped up against the staging; I waved it in the air to clear most of the spider’s webs and looked around. The greenhouse was a veritable treasure trove of broken things, but beneath a pile of pots, I found a pair of old secateurs; jackpot.
I spent ages beneath that cypress, trimming away at the dead wood. I couldn’t just cut away the branches because I would lose all the concealing greenery at the end of the branch. I had to painstakingly work along each branch, snipping away all the dead wood, and then repeat for the branches above and below. The inside of the tree slowly opened up as I gradually worked further inwards. The large bits of wood I pushed to the edge of the tree, and the ground became carpeted with dead needles as they broke off and rained to the ground. When I reached the trunk, I snipped out some of the dead branches and turned around. The tunnel was fairly spacious, but I would have to cut at least a couple of branches to move round to the other side of the tree. I backed out and went looking for the ancient garden saw, I had seen earlier.
Back under the tree I carefully cut a couple of branches at the base of the trunk, then I had to work my way out again, snipping along the branches to the other side. When I finally reached the edge of the cypress, I saw that there was indeed a path to my garden, and with the trees up against the fence, climbing over would be, if not easy, at least possible. I scrambled over, avoiding the sprouting dahlias as I dropped the six feet on the other side. Once inside my garden I relaxed; I couldn’t get into the house as the back door was locked, but I could lie in the hammock and rest, and most importantly, feel safe.
After dusk had fallen, I opened the side gate, went around the front, and let myself in. I was starving. I made a note to stash some crackers in the boot of the car, and then cooked some pasta with tomatoes, olives, and sweetcorn. Later that evening, when the streets were clear, I went out to the car and brought my loot round to the front of the house.
The bamboo plants were taller than the brick wall and leafy. The sturdy Red Robin in front would keep them from falling over, but although the door was disguised from a distance, up close anyone would be able to see it, and worse, see that someone was trying to hide it. I dragged round a couple of pots of potatoes from the front, but what it really needed was a load of trailing ivy and some weeds. It looked entirely too neat and tidy. I was a little discouraged, but perked up when I tallied up the successes of the day; not only had the main objective been fulfilled, but as a bonus, I had found a way of getting in and out of my bungalow undetected.
Phase two was to reinforce the door to make it harder to break open. Now that I had found a back way into the garden, I could seal off the front semi-permanently. I might conceivably need to use the side-gate to get large loads into the garden, but most of the time I would probably use the cypress route. I decided to kill two birds with one stone; I would dig up some of the brambles from the garden behind mine and plant them by the gate. If some of the roots were intact, it would probably survive, and would soon send out new shoots. I would use the long whippy branches of bramble to weave across and over the gate. It would help with the disguise, and would make it very difficult to open, but if I needed to, I could just cut all the stems with a pair of loppers in order to open the door.