Becoming Delilah by Sara Marchant

Author:Sara Marchant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairlight Books
Published: 2023-06-02T11:31:25+00:00

To Espalier an Apple

After the handyman had finished digging out every second sandstone slab from the backyard, moved them to the front garden to form a new path and smoothed the newly bereft holes left behind, he went away. Delilah had circled him like a feral cat meeting another cat in her particular alley the entire time he’d been on the property. Her hands clenched and unclenched when Roy handled her wheelbarrow, as if physically stopping herself from jerking it away.

Luckily, he’d brought his own shovel and crowbar, removing them from the small red truck he’d backed up the graveled drive; Delilah opened and closed the driveway chain for him. Delilah knew Anton watched from his window above as Roy arrived and departed. Anton no longer tried to hide, and with a strange man on her property, using her tools, his supervisory presence felt protective. Safe. Each time the driveway chain clinked into place, Anton’s head nodded in satisfaction. With more tourists arriving on the island every day, Delilah assumed their plague-like descent explained Anton’s vigilance. Mostly. Maybe.

The handyman, Roy, was almost completely silent and worked with an economy of movement. He was probably in his thirties, wore a thin wedding band and never once looked Delilah in the eye, although he, too, knew that Anton watched, and raised a hand in greeting. Delilah didn’t mind Roy’s avoidance of her person and direct gaze; in contrast, it made her feel powerful, like a Gorgon. When the job was completed, Roy accepted the cash she handed him with a muffled thanks and quickly drove away. Once she placed the chain in its proper position, Delilah ran back to the garden, grabbed a shovel and reclaimed her land.

The next week she spent on her knees, planting herbs she’d ordered from Island Hardware. Not only had she held endless discussions with Ted over the correct herbs to order, but she’d also placed a rare long-distance telephone call to Uncle Martin at the Garden to ask his advice. Oddly, he’d seemed quite emotional to hear from her. She shrugged this off as men being men (incomprehensible and prone to nostalgia), before bicycling over to the hardware store. She argued with Maisie Thompson over every single herb she wanted, but good-naturedly, almost. Maisie didn’t seem to know how to interact without arguing, and Delilah found Maisie’s personal antipathy to thyme entertaining. ‘It stinks something awful,’ Maisie ended. ‘But if you want a stinky garden, that’s your business.’

Delilah carefully separated the tender roots of the new herbs into smaller sections; these she placed into holes she scooped with her fingers in the freshly spaded and amended soil. She planted in the mornings after her run, not bothering to change into her overalls or washing the sweat from her face. What would be the point? Sometimes, still sweaty from her exertion, she drank from the garden hose, so unwilling was she to waste time entering the house for a glass. In the afternoons, tired and grimy, she walked around the garden, plotting.

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