The Second Bag

Micah's grandmother disliked plants that needed persuading.

That was the first thing Leila learned about her, before learning her name or why Micah was carrying a tray of seedlings through the supermarket car park on his afternoon off.

“These are all the wrong size,” he said when Leila stopped beside him. “She'll tell me to bring them back.”

“They look like plants.”

“That's the minimum. She has other requirements.”

A seedling leaned dangerously near the edge of the tray. Leila put out a finger to stop its pot sliding.

“Where are you taking them?”

“Allotments by the railway. She sent me for compost. Someone offered these, and I said yes before establishing whether they'd improve my standing.”

“Do you need a second bag?”

He looked at her, then grinned.

“Actually, yes.”

She had two in her schoolbag now. One folded neatly and one shoved into the side pocket after the shopping last week. She took out the folded one. Micah set four pots inside it and picked up the rest.

“You don't have to carry them,” he said.

“I know. I'm carrying them because otherwise they'll die here and your gran will have been right.”

They walked along the edge of the car park and through a gap in the fence where a public path ran behind the loading bays. Leila had seen the path from the bus without knowing where it went. The noise of the retail park faded surprisingly quickly. Beyond the railway bridge, a gate opened onto rows of allotments, sheds painted several shades of leftover paint and a line of damp gardening gloves pegged above a water butt.

An older woman in a man's shirt stood beside a raised bed, inspecting a leaf.

“That's not compost,” she said.

“Hello to you as well.”

“Did I ask for plants?”

“No.”

“Then why have you brought a small forest?”

“Because it was free. This is Leila.”

The woman looked up. Her hair was cut close at the back and longer in front, where she had pushed it behind her ears with fingers carrying traces of soil.

“Jean,” she said. “Did he recruit you into this?”

“I volunteered.”

“Dangerous habit. Put them there.”

Leila set the bag beside the raised bed. Jean inspected the seedlings with an expression that became less hostile as she reached the fourth pot.

“Those are good,” she conceded. “Where were they?”

“Clearance rack. Too long without water, apparently.”

Jean looked at him. “Did you get the compost?”

“It's being delivered with Mrs Holt's order.”

“Well, why didn't you say?”

“You began the trial before I was sworn in.”

Jean made a small sound that might have been laughter. She gave Leila a chair that had once been part of a dining set and now had a potato sack protecting its seat.

“Tea?”

“I should go.”

“That wasn't quite the question.”

Leila checked her phone. Mum was taking Toby to an appointment and would not need her until later. There were no messages asking where she was. The idea of staying because she wanted to seemed to need an explanation she could not produce.

“Yes, please.”

Jean went into the shed. Micah knelt beside the seedlings and began separating them according to a system Leila could not see.

“She isn't always like that,” he said.

“Disappointed in you?”

“She normally takes longer.”

Leila sat. Beyond the fence, a train passed with a slow metallic rushing sound. The beds held things at different stages: neat rows of onions, a wild patch of herbs, dark soil waiting for something. A chair stood beneath a plum tree with a paperback open face-down on it.

“Do you come here a lot?” she asked.

“When I'm not collecting trolleys or being educated.”

“What are you doing at college?”

“A bit of everything I don't want to do forever. I'm applying for a horticulture apprenticeship. The one I want is at Calder Gardens.”

She knew the name from signs on buses advertising a place that looked too expensive for an ordinary afternoon.

“Isn't that miles away?”

“Forty minutes on a train. More if the train develops a personality.”

“Would you move?”

“Maybe later. Not straight away.”

He pushed soil around one seedling with his thumb. Leila watched his hands again, then looked deliberately at the train.

“What about you?” he asked.

“Art.”

“I'd guessed.”

“There's a summer job at the Mercer Gallery. I'm applying.”

“Good.”

“I haven't got it.”

“I didn't say congratulations.”

She smiled. Jean emerged with three mismatched mugs and a packet of biscuits folded tightly at the top. She gave Leila the mug with an intact handle.

“What sort of art?” she asked.

“Drawing, mostly.”

“People?”

“Things. Places. Sometimes people if they're not looking at me.”

“That's sensible. People interfere.”

Jean sat on an upturned bucket. Her knees seemed to object, but she ignored them. Micah reached for a biscuit and was told to wash his hands first.

“There's soil on yours,” he pointed out.

“I know where my soil's been.”

He went to the tap. Leila took out her little museum notebook and opened it on her knee.

“Could I draw the chair under the tree?”

“It's not going anywhere,” Jean said. “Unlike that boy, who keeps announcing future plans when there are already things to do.”

“I'm still here,” Micah called from the tap.

“For the moment.”

The exchange was light, but Leila saw him glance back at his grandmother. There was something beneath it that was not hers to ask about yet.

She drew the chair, the uneven paving slabs and the low branch above it. The line came more easily here than it did at the hotel. She did not have to move her elbow when someone passed. She could look up and find the same thing where she had left it.

Jean watched without leaning over the page.

“What's the little pot for?” she asked when Leila mentioned the chipped one on the hotel windowsill.

“Nothing yet.”

“How much light does it get?”

“Morning, I think. The window faces the back of the restaurant.”

The word hotel had come out before Leila prepared for it. Jean merely considered the light.

“Thyme might manage. Mint would, but then you'd have to live with mint making all the decisions.”

Micah returned with wet hands and shook them into the grass.

“We're at the Junction Lodge,” Leila said. She looked at him while saying it, giving him a chance to do the thing she feared.

He nodded.

“I thought you might be. I saw you walking that way.”

“You didn't ask.”

“You were carrying a lot of shopping and declining assistance. It didn't seem the moment for a questionnaire.”

She laughed. Jean reached behind her for a small pot, broke a rooted piece from a larger thyme plant and pressed it gently into the soil.

“Take that,” she said. “Don't drown it. People often mistake worry for a reason to add water.”

Leila held the pot between her palms. “I haven't got anything to put under it.”

Micah found a cracked saucer in the shed. Jean examined it, decided the crack did not affect its qualifications and wrapped it in newspaper.

Leila stayed until half past five. She drew while Micah and Jean worked, then held a piece of netting when holding it became clearly more useful than pretending to be a visitor. Micah showed her how to keep the loose edge off the plants without claiming she ought already to know.

At the gate, he handed back the shopping bag.

“Thanks for saving the forest.”

“Your gran seems pleased with it.”

“She'll deny that.”

He walked with her to the railway bridge. Neither of them spoke for a few steps.

“Could I see what you drew?” he asked.

She showed him. He looked properly, which was different from the quick smile people sometimes gave when they wanted to be encouraging but did not know what they were seeing.

“You've made the chair look comfortable,” he said.

“Isn't it?”

“Depends which direction you're prepared to lean.”

She took the notebook back. He had not asked for her number. She had been waiting for him to ask, which suddenly seemed an inefficient use of two people.

“Do you want my number?” she said.

“Yes.”

His immediate answer made her feel both delighted and temporarily unable to operate her phone.

He took out his own. They exchanged numbers beside the bridge while a train rattled above them loudly enough to make conversation unnecessary. When it had passed, he said he would send proof if Jean admitted the plants were good.

At the hotel, Toby met her at the door.

“Did you buy a bush?”

“It's thyme.”

“Why?”

“Because there was a pot.”

He thought about that and moved the headless footballer to give it space.

Later, as Leila washed the soil from her fingers, a message arrived from Micah.

She says they're serviceable. Highest rating available.

Leila replied with a photograph of the thyme in the chipped pot. The hotel window, a corner of the restaurant and the footballer were all visible behind it.

She sent the whole photograph without cropping anything out.