How Does Your Garden Grow?

"Bloody hell! What are you doing woman?"

Keith was feeling exasperation and anger in equal blows, it was then and there he realised how much he hated living with his mum, how petty she really was and how senile she acted.

"My garden needs as much attention as possible, so I’m watering it."

"It’s about to fucking rain!"

Keith took one long smoke of his cigarette and blew the smoke all over his mother’s prize-winning gardenias for the umpteenth time out of sheer spite, taking a secret thrill out of the agonised looks of the green-fingered woman who was meant to be his mother.

Except she wasn’t, how could she be? Every time Keith looked at the woman and studied her movements and her habits he realised he had to be adopted, how could he ever be related to this silly old bint - a silly woman who paid more attention to her garden than her own flesh and blood.

Keith puffed on his cigarette again, surprised his mother didn’t even chastise him despite the fact he was sixteen and puffing madly on forty a day.

"Now son, do you want to know the secret of a prize winning garden?"

"Not really but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway."

Keith’s mother continued despite her son’s severe lack of interest, "I just talk to them. Lots of TLC you know? Although, in saying that I’d love to know what he does to maintain his garden?"

Keith’s mother motioned to the next-door garden in reference to the only man who had defeated her in the annual prize winning garden competitions. The lengths old Mr Greene (the irony of his name hadn’t escaped Keith either) went through to keep his garden in perfect condition were legendary but Keith couldn’t see the point in maintaining a beautiful Eden if no-one could see it.

Keith craned his neck up to see the top of the twenty foot fence that obscured Mr Greene’s prize winning garden and took a puff of his cigarette, wondering what the old man got up to in there. Raping children probably…

"He has some sort of machine, I know that son. I hear it at nights you see – a compost heap churner I suppose. I’d kill to see what was next door…"

Keith groaned inwardly at the trifling behaviour of his mother, a woman who was fast approaching her forties and who into gardening of all things. Now Keith wasn’t ageist or anything but everyone knew it was only old people who were into gardening.

"Who cares what Mr Greene adds to his garden to get it all shiny and nice, what you should be doing is going out and having it large with the other women, no?"

"Perhaps to the bingo?"

Keith stifled another scream at how desperately uncool his supposed flesh and blood was, if he didn’t want her gardening because it made her look old then bingo was definitely off limits.

"I won’t win this year either," Keith’s mother muttered softly, "Not with Mr Greene next door winning. I suppose I’ll have to give up my dreams of that cash prize."

Keith screamed out aloud.

"What’s wrong son?"

Keith’s mother looked up and stared at her son, the source of the girlish scream, with a trowel in one hand and a weed in the other.