Summer Blooms

Nobody knew exactly why young Mrs Nancy Williams had such an aversion to the word “mother-in-law”, and to everyone who was one.

Some said it was because, as a child, she had witnessed her grandmother hurl the choicest abuses at her mother whenever the apple pie had pips in it. Others argued it was to do with her friends, who would regale her with their tales of horror, more than a trifle exaggerated, carefully omitting all instances of kindness. Miss Hopkins, a spinster with a particularly acerbic tongue, had even alleged that Nancy had married Peter Williams only after making sure that their residence was at least 500 miles from his widowed mother’s.

Nancy sat at the dining table, looking at the modestly furnished room around her. Her eyes ran over a few pieces of china on the mantelpiece, and a crystal vase that caught the fading evening light streaming in through the window. The deep brown rug on the floor was fraying at the edges, but was a perfect match for the much-used sofa set. The tablecloth on the little centre-table held testimony to previous night’s party; she sighed and made a mental note to put it into next day’s laundry. Her eyes surveyed every part of the room – all save one. She didn’t want to look straight ahead where a pair of brown eyes looked eagerly at her.

She had avoided Mrs Heather Williams for the better part of two years. The few times when a meeting had been inevitable, like on her wedding, she maintained a stoic silence which smothered any attempt at conversation. She knew it was silly to typecast people this way, but the prejudice had been too strong to overcome. And so her mother-in-law, a slight, soft-spoken lady with bird-like manners seemed to her like a power-monger whose innocent façade was simply a smart decoy to hide a scheming brain.

“So, what do you think?” Peter asked a second time, breaking her reverie.

Peter worked for an insurance company. Incidentally, the firm was opening a new branch in the town where his mother lived. Of late, his mother had been keeping ill, and so he saw this as a good opportunity to be able to look after her. He applied for a job posting, and despite Nancy’s fervent prayers, the administration had approved it.

This was it! Two years of perfect peace and now a lifetime of suffering. She suddenly wondered if her balance of good karma was that low.

“We can give it a shot for sometime, and then decide whether to stay on or move out…” he trailed off, his eyes imploring her all the time.

“Yeah, right!” she thought, and quietly said, “Alright.” She couldn’t think of a reasonable argument against the plan.

A flurry of activity followed. They sold their small suburban apartment, and the little furniture they owned. The rest was neatly packed into cardboard cartons and sent off to their new residence.

Nancy stood in the empty house, looking at the vacant spaces for one last time. “It’s going to be hell from here on,” she thought bitterly, “but I’ll make it just as miserable for her.” She turned and walked out to their car, without a backward glance, where Peter was impatiently revving up the engine.

It was spring and the countryside presented itself to them in all its glory. The sunshine seemed to drench every plane and hillock in a warm glow. Huge clumps of daffodils and tulips sprung up every now and then, in a shock of colour amidst mundane green.

On another day Nancy would have been singing along “Summer of 69” playing in a loop on their car stereo. Today she sat stiffly, looking straight ahead at the winding road in front of her, ignoring Peter’s happy banter. She pictured her mother-in-law celebrating a hard-fought victory, and suddenly felt the entire world was up against her.

Maple Heights was a quintessential bungalow, witness to three generations of the Williams. Mismanagement and modernisation had taken their toll on what had once been a magnificent estate of five-hundred acres, and reduced it to a measly five acres. The wide eaves, decorative cornices and numerous gables must have once presented a glorious sight to the beholder; now they were simply painful reminders of the past, sadly withering away with the rest of the house. A flickering lamp outlined a few leaves of morning glory entwined around the gothic columns, as Peter and Nancy drove up the crumbling driveway.

Immediately, the mahogany door opened, and Peter’s mother hobbled out to greet them. Her delicate shoulders were draped in a knitted stole, and she looked weaker than ever, shivering slightly in the chilly night. As Peter rushed forward to embrace her, a faint aroma of vegetable stew drifted out through the open door. “The trap is set…” thought Nancy, as she curtly nodded at her mother-in-law and busied herself with getting a valise out of the trunk.

For two days Nancy preferred to stay in the large bedroom given to them, on the pretext of a migraine. Boredom got to her on the third, and she descended down the creaky wooden staircase, that probably hadn’t seen a dab of polish in years. Peter had already left for work, and there was no sign of his mother. A maid scurried about, pretending to dust the furniture, furtively looking at the clock all the time. Nancy ignored her – it wasn’t her business, anyway – and walked straight out into the garden.

A haphazard maze of shrubs and trees greeted her. While flowers and weeds competed for space and sunshine, shrubs had grown into unkempt bushes. Roses grew wild and nasty nettles awaited anyone who dared to take the garden path. As she carefully picked per way through the overgrowth, an old gardener materialised out of a clump of forsythia. Dark and wrinkled, he seemed fragile enough to be blown away with a strong gust of wind.

“Ah, bless me soul! Ain’t it young Mrs. Williams?” he wheezed, flashing a set of brown teeth, two of the front ones missing. She nodded, and made to walk past him. But he continued, wagging his head vigorously, “Fine garden we have here, aye?”

Convinced that the man was either blind or mad, or both, she stared at him for a minute. “Yes, very nice,” she muttered as she turned and briskly walked back to the house. Determined to avoid her mother-in-law at all costs, she hurried up the stairs to the ancient library and settled down with a fat book in a huge leather chair. But she found she couldn’t read two sentences without her mind wandering back to the garden.

She remembered her childhood days when she would spend her summer vacations at her grandfather’s house in the country. Her grandfather was a passionate gardener, and he seemed to have a theory about everything from the best seeds to building the garden compost pit. Some of those genes had passed down to her, and so the two would be out in the garden for hours. Under her grandfather’s watchful eye, she learnt how to trim the hedges in precise arcs and angles, how certain designs created perfect harmony in colour and which manure gave the best plums. Of course, all that came to nought when college, and later marriage, happened. She walked to the window across the room. From her vantage point, she could see the entire garden spread out before her, inviting her back.

The next morning, Nancy awoke early. After a quick shower, she came down to the living room, where her mother-in-law was knitting a sweater for Peter.

“Good morning…” Nancy began, a little unsurely. She was on unfamiliar territory here.

“Good morning, my dear!” Mrs Williams said. The click-clacking of needles stopped for a second, before resuming again.

“Do you mind if I work in the garden?” Nancy asked.

There was a short pause and Nancy thought she saw a hint of a twinkle in the deep grey eyes, set in a creased face, riddled with age-spots.

“Not at all my dear… In fact,…”

“Thank you.” Nancy interrupted brusquely, and proceeded into the warm sunshine outside.

A couple of minutes later the gardener came running inside, all hot and bothered.

“Oh, for the life of me, ma’am, you must come out at once!” he panted.

“What’s the matter, Dennis?” Mrs Williams asked, without taking her eyes off her knitting.

“It’s the young missus, ma’am…” he almost yelled with growing impatience, “she pulls out weeds with her own hands… I says I has done all the work for ten years with ne’er a help from ‘nother… but who listens to this old man!”

“It's alright, Dennis. Just do as she says,” said Mrs Williams, and the old man almost fainted with rage. But he knew better than to argue, and after a few minutes of silent protest, he went out to join his young missus in the garden, his face still a beetroot red.

By evening, a little patch near the porch was clear with a neat seedbed. As she worked on the garden bit-by-bit, Nancy found a pattern in the melange, although years of neglect had obscured it. ‘Someone has planned the garden incredibly well’, she thought to herself, as she clipped the last of the spruce trees into shape.

Though initially scandalised, Dennis melted when he found Nancy so knowledgeable, and loyally followed all her instructions. Within two weeks the garden was negotiable without being blinded by thorns or getting a mouthful of leaves. Nancy discovered a stone bench hidden under a clump of hawthorn. It gave a fine prospect to the most colourful part of the garden, and she loved spending time on it after a hard day’s work. Mrs Williams would often stand on the porch, watching the garden develop, but Nancy simply ignored her.

Slowly the household slipped into a routine. Peter would start for work early in the morning. Nancy would be in the garden for the most part. Peter’s mother would stay indoors, knitting enough woollens to keep a small regiment warm. The three would meet only during the evenings, but conversation hardly ever went beyond two or three perfunctory sentences. The only one who grew increasingly worried about the cold silences was Peter. He wondered how long this arrangement would last before a flashpoint was reached.

In a month, the first seedlings sprouted out of the carefully tended flowerbeds. By mid-summer, the garden was a riot of colours. The pathways, flanked by geraniums in red, yellow and white, formed a pretty labyrinth in the plush lawn. Hollyhock and marigold vied for attention at regular intervals. Asters in every shade of purple and blue lined the fences, while roses, alliums and lavenders took centre-stage. The stone bench under the hawthorn tree was now surrounded by neat rows of cannas, fuchsias and dahlias.

One day, as Nancy bent over a cluster of lilies, a steely voiced called out, “Hello there!”

She stood up to see a tall woman, smartly dressed in a deep-blue dress. Her eyes were a cold grey, their severity accentuated by horn-rimmed spectacles. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back in a neat topknot, making her look like a school ma’am. She carried a leather bound journal that she now opened and stood with a pen poised over it.

“I’m Mrs Margaret George from Phelps’ Nursery,” she said, her voice sharp and acerbic, “You must be Mrs. Nancy Williams?”

“Y-Yes…” Nancy stammered.

“Would you show me around your garden, please?” It seemed more like an order, than a request.

Nancy put it down to one of those market-surveys that companies usually conduct and complied, partly because she didn’t have much to do that day and partly because she felt too intimidated to turn the lady away.

Mrs George spent a full hour going through every nook and cranny of the garden, making copious notes in her journal all the while. Not a single petal or blade could escape her stern gaze. She frowned at a bunch of bluebells and rhododendrons that grew wild in a corner, but otherwise her expression remained wooden. That the flowers actually withstood it without wilting was a relief to Nancy.

That night, she related the incident to Peter. He nodded absently, and abruptly said, “Look honey, I don’t think this is working out… This cold war between you and mum is driving me nuts. There is an apartment complex about five miles from here. We could find a flat on rent there… ”

Although she felt a twinge of despair for the garden, Nancy felt elated. She immediately began to make a mental list of all that they would need to buy for their new home. In fact, she found herself in high spirits even the next day, and decided to give the ongoing fest in the town a dekko.

It was the last day of the five-day annual fest in the town, and the carnival atmosphere was at its peak. The community park being used for the event was abuzz with activity. There were joyrides and tens of stalls selling everything from food to grunge jewellery. Though miffed that Peter had a working weekend, Nancy found amicable company in some new friends. There were several cultural events and competitions to keep them busy till late afternoon. Exhausted, they found a quiet spot to relish their ice-creams and catch up on local gossip.

A cheerful voice suddenly crackled on the loudspeaker, “Ladies and gentlemen, your kind attention please… Now for the results of our Flowers and Greens competition, so kindly adjudicated by Mrs Margaret George of Phelps’ Nursery.”

Nancy sat up, as though struck by lightning.

A drum-roll went off, as voice went on, “And the winner of a cheque for a thousand dollars and a gift-hamper from Phelps’ is… Mrs Nancy Williams for Maple Heights!”

She collected her award in a daze, and abruptly found herself facing Dennis, grinning ear-to-ear.

“I always says to the ma’am that the young missus is a good hand in the garden! Ah, my old eyes don’t miss much, eh?”

“We’re a good team, Dennis, so you have a share in this. But I have to go now… See you tomorrow!”

Extricating herself from her friends as soon as was politely possible, she hurried home, wondering who had entered her name into the competition. It couldn’t have been Peter – he was too busy. The only other person was – no, it wasn’t possible!

As Nancy entered the gate, she saw a frail figure sitting on the stone bench under the hawthorn tree. As she made her way through the garden, she spotted a familiar twinkle in the dark eyes – yes, it was her.

“But why…” Nancy began.

“Sit down, child”, Mrs Williams said, in a firm voice. Nancy quietly obeyed. They were silent for several minutes before Mrs Williams began to speak.

“Peter’s father and I would sit here for hours, talking about everyday problems, watching Peter play in those bushes there – we spent some of our best times here.” She paused, probably reminiscing. “He died more than twelve years ago… I had so much to deal with… Of course, the garden wasn’t on my priority list.”

She took Nancy’s hands in hers, before continuing, “You’ve given it a new life… and you’ve given me back some pleasant memories.”

They sat talking for about an hour, until Peter returned. Nancy met him as he entered the living room, looking more tired and haggard than ever. His face brightened when he saw her.

“What’s this I hear about you winning a competition?” he asked.

“Yeah, I did.” she said calmly.

“Well, I have some news too. I’ve found an apartment for us – not too big, but comfortable.” he said, somewhat deflated, “We can sign the papers tomorrow and move in next week.”

“Peter, I’m really sorry for the last few days. But we’re staying right here. So forget about the apartment, will you? Now, why don’t you freshen up, while I fix some tea for all of us.” she said with a smile, and started for the kitchen.

She turned back to find the brown eyes staring after her, bewildered - and happy.