A Drake at the Door by Derek Tangye Read Free Book Online Page B

up the strings, the roots had found their way to the drainpipes.
    And so our first crop had been doomed before it started to grow.

    Hubert when he was king of the roof

4
    In the summer Jane once again disappeared into the greenhouse, tending the tomatoes.
    We had seven hundred plants of a variety called Moneymaker in eight long rows. Each had a string attached, like the sweet peas, around which the stem had to be twisted as the plant grew; and each had to have their shoots continually pinched out so that the main stem was left to grow on its own. Then at a later stage the plants were defoliaged.
    It was easy to teach Jane what to do. As with Shelagh, Jeannie or I had only to show her something once for her to grasp the idea, and probably improve on it. She watched plants, any plants she was looking after, as if they were individuals; and so if a tomato plant, for instance, showed signs of a fault, she was quick to notice it.
    ‘Mr Tangye?’
    ‘Yes, Jane?’
    I would be standing at the greenhouse door and from somewhere in the green foliage in front of me piped her small voice.
    ‘The thirty-first plant in the third row from the right shows signs of botrytis on its stem.’
    Sometimes I have noticed among people who work on market gardens a certain pleasure in reporting some disease or other misfortune to a crop. Not so Jane. I always found she was as upset as myself that something was wrong.
    When it was fine she worked barefooted, looking like a child peasant, blue jeans and loose shirt, with the summer sun bleaching her hair fairer and fairer. There was something of a pagan about her. She was unlike Shelagh, who was to be as tidy at the end of the day as at the beginning, however dirty the work she had been doing. Instead Jane, within an hour of arriving, would have smudges on her face which would remain there until she went home. She was quite unconcerned.
    It was particularly dirty among the tomato plants, and so Jane was an inevitable victim. Tomato plants ooze a green stain-like dye. I had only to walk the length of the greenhouse between two rows for my shirt to be touched with green. And so Jane, who spent the whole day there, would finish up with green hands, a green face and, for that matter, green hair.
    She had an unreliable sense of time. Both her mother and herself had a strange effect on watches. I believe this sometimes happens when people have a surfeit of electricity in their bodies; but whatever the reason no watch would keep correct time for these two. Hence Jane would occasionally arrive for work at unconventional hours. Sometimes very early, sometimes very late.
    Of course, it did not matter her being late because she could make up the time at the end of the day. Indeed, she was never a clock-watcher. She always stayed on until the job was finished. But in the beginning, when she was late, when she did not know what our reaction might be, she used to creep along like a Red Indian, keeping out of sight behind hedges, reaching Minack by a roundabout route; and hoping that she could begin work without her absence having been noted. She did it out of adventure, not out of guile. She always told us in the end.
    At first we used to water the tomato plants in the old-fashioned way with a hose; and it was Jane’s job to spend hour after hour dragging the length of the hose down the path behind her, thrusting the nozzle towards the base of the plants on either side. Jane performed the boring task without complaint but when I, at weekends, took her place, I soon found myself wondering why I should waste my time in such a way. My time, and Jane’s, could be better employed doing something else.
    So here was the old evergreen problem. Money had to be spent to save money. Sense seemed to be on the side of extravagance for if the watering was made automatic not only would hours be saved, but also it would be distributed more accurately. The arguments seemed wonderfully convincing. My only hesitation sprang from