Garden story books11/12/2022 ![]() She smells woodsmoke from the fires in the human settlements, she smells Akela’s wolf tribe heading for the hills, she smells the spoor of the tiger. She is Bagheera from The Jungle Book, placing each paw with care, stepping lightly from shadow to shadow to deter the predators on her trail. She is aiming for the old eucalyptus tree. But she wouldn’t go through the gate – why would she? It’s boring. #Garden story books full#The mud is treacherous at low tide, full of sinkholes that can suck you under, choke you. The gate is at the edge of the garden it leads out onto the mudflats of the river estuary. ‘Don’t go out of the gate!’ Rosie knows this. ‘Stop! I’m exhausted just looking at you!’ Mum pauses, then says, ‘Have you seen Dad?’ She hasn’t moved, but if she were a cat, her tail would have twitched. ‘I want to see if the swamp is still there. ‘Where are you going next?’ Mum asks as Rosie picks herself up and rubs the grass stains on her knees. ‘You’re going to be a botanist when you grow up,’ he’d said, and Rosie had got worried because she didn’t know what a ‘bottomist’ was, but it was obviously something to do with bottoms and she didn’t feel that was at all proper. He’d talked to her as though she was an adult, giving her the Latin names and genera of the plants she liked, and she was sure she had memorised it correctly. Last year she’d followed one of the gardeners. ‘The Crocosmia aurea,’ Rosie had said solemnly. Mum had told him – had shouted at him, Rosie had heard – that he needed to show more interest. ‘Which is your favourite flower?’ Dad had asked that morning, looking pointedly at Mum. It is her kingdom, her domain, her very own magical land. #Garden story books Patch#Shaped by huge rhododendron bushes and studded with palm trees, it tumbles down the hillside in a series of interlocked rooms – a Japanese garden full of tiny maples and raked gravel, a patch of thick woodland with a carpet of jewel flowers, a moss garden hairy with froths and drapes of lichens – each area more rampant and profligate than the last, full of dangling blood-red fuchsias and tangerine spikes of montbretia. #Garden story books skin#The garden is perched on one of the pointy peninsulas that jut into the Atlantic in the far south-west corner of Ireland, on land that is so barren the rock breaks through the skin of turf more often than not and the sheep need to be as surefooted as goats to survive. She has been looking forward to visiting the garden since they arrived at their usual cottage at the beginning of the summer holidays. ‘Yes! Yes, yes!’ Mum laughs at her, but Rosie is telling the truth. She has obviously decided to be amused by her little tomboy today. ‘Careful, careful! Slow down! You’ll twist your ankle!’ But Mum’s lipsticked mouth turns up at the corners. She laughs as she tumbles over, running too fast to stop, catching the toe of her plimsoll in a tussock of grass in the clearing and landing on her knees by the picnic rug where her mother is curled, neat as a cat, reading her book. She rushes around the curve and bursts out into the light, out into the mouth of the crocodile. This is one of her favourite paths, lined with bamboos whose trunks are as thick as her neck, as tall – much taller – than her house, bamboos that meet over her head so she is encased in a livid green tunnel like the throat of a crocodile. She likes the way the leaves flutter against her fingertips, like butterfly wings. Rosie runs along the path, both arms as wide as they can go, fingers brushing the bamboo leaves on either side. ![]()
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