The Gardener

The late afternoon sun glistened like a thousand tiny stars on the rippling bay. The beach was eerily deserted except for a lone woman who stood motionless at the shoreline, her head cocked slightly to one side. A light breeze softly ruffled her hair and with one hand she absentmindedly swept it off her face. In her other hand she held a book, little and black. All of a sudden, as if her name had been called, she turned, striding purposefully away from the water and the city view, across the bay. Ahead of her the beach stretched towards an outcrop of rocks in the distance, signalling what would be the end of her walk.

Reaching the rocks and the almost hidden walkway to the top, she took a sweeping look back at the beach, before making her way up the winding path. Emerging at the top through a canopy of stubby trees she made her way barefoot along the dusty, dirt track. After a few hundred yards, the track opened up onto a small, circular green, adorned with a toilet block; a concrete monstrosity amid the surrounding beauty, and off to one side a parked car that had seen better days. Taking the keys from her back pocket, she unlocked the car, winced at the angry creak of the door, slipped in, pulled it closed and slumped forward in the seat. Her head rested on the steering wheel, her arms hooked around her head like a halo as she held the book tightly in her hands.

Moments later, she composed herself, sat up straight, slipped her shoes on, placed the book on the passenger seat, buckled up and started the car. The drive back was short, million dollar homes adorning each side of the crescent and almost at the end was her home. A two storey white weatherboard with huge glass sliding doors top and bottom, all prettily interspersed with lush greenery at the front, before sloping down to the creek at the back. On the surface it looked idyllic, a picture perfect family home, beachside of the highway in the middle of a salubrious Australian suburb.

Pulling onto the cobbled driveway, she took a deep breath and walked to the front door, kicking off her shoes on the worn deck, before inserting her key. She lugged the heavy sliding door open, noticing the tell-tale crunch of gravel stuck in the runners as she did so and walked through the entrance hall to the kitchen at the back. Placing the little, black book on the bench, she paused momentarily, one hand resting delicately on its cover, her thoughts racing back over what she had discovered inside.

She had stumbled upon it three weeks ago, after tripping clumsily on the leg of a chair in his office and falling face first onto the floor. Whilst In a crumpled heap, catching her breath, she’d glanced up. The ledge under the desk would not have been visible from any other angle, hidden discretely by a deep drawer at the front. The light was fading, the trees outside creating lengthy shadows like hand puppet creatures on the wall by the time that she had finished reading. The initial shock painfully palpable, like a knife cutting through her very soul. Details shot back and forth, pin balling in her head until a strange calm washed over her and she carefully returned the book to its place.

Internally, his deceit and the overwhelming disgust that she’d felt had hit her like a train wreck shattering her life image like a mirror into thousands of tiny pieces, the shards piercing her heart from every angle, however, on the surface she had skilfully kept up appearances. He had come home from work that day, dirty and dusty and blissfully unaware of her discovery.

She’d maintained the equipoise of their life together playing her role like an actress on the stage, yet off to the sidelines wasting no time in plotting and planning the ending of their story like a script writer. She’d taken some well-earned annual leave to undertake the extra workload that her story and its finale would need, when the cash had started to trickle in, just days later. It arrived surreptitiously in small, discrete envelopes, initials only the evident detail of the sender, her carefully worded letters and explicit instructions having done the trick.

The women he’d serviced so regularly and effectively could easily afford the extra outlay; he had chosen his prey wisely. Their disposable incomes easily covered the final gardening service and a special one-off gratuity to save their sanctity and the serenity of their flawless lives. Their regular pampering schedules of pedicures, pressure massages, lunches and lattes might take a slight hit initially, but would no doubt resume to normality in time, their unassuming husbands remaining in the dark.

The final scene was set, his suitcase was packed, sitting forlornly at the front door next to a brand new little, black book. From the original she had accrued the amount of twenty thousand dollars, having carefully calculated a reasonable payment per person, and each and every one of his special clients had paid in full. She wasn’t entirely sure what she would spend her recently acquired slush fund on, however the new gardener was a dream come true, offering a very personal service for a nominal fee!

The Gardner by Miss E J Kerr