Grandad's Garden

I stood in Grandad's garden for the last time. I wanted a perfect memory of it: the warm sun coming through the trees to make dapples on the lawn; the scent of the heavy headed roses and even the string trip-wires Grandad stretched across the flower beds to deter the neighbours' cats from visiting. It hardly compared to Monet's water lily garden, but it was our special place. I loved going there to help him with weeding, watering the roses and chasing off the cats.

I think it was his enthusiasm for my drawings of his roses that got me interested in art. I visited him most days, and he always had pencils, paper and a quiet place for drawing. He took me to the local art gallery so that I could look at the old paintings. He always put my pictures up on the mantlepiece, and was so proud of them that I got kind of embarrassed. Grandad had been urging me to go to Art college before he died.

'You're not here to just stand around,' Mum called from the window above me. I sighed and headed back in. When Grandad was alive and I had come round for a meal and a break from my arguing parents, the house had always smelled of roast dinner, casserole, chips and sausage or bacon, now it just smelled of stale air shut up in stuffy rooms. The change of smell made me feel sad, it told me that Grandad really was gone.

'I'm doing the bedroom, you do the study,' Mum yelled down the stairs. 'Sort through the books in case there's any you want and stick the rest in boxes for the charity shop.' My mum has always been bossy, probably because she was an only child, and I often wondered if that was the reason Dad left her. Beneath the bossy layer she was a worrier, though. She worried about me, my exams, her job, money, everything. If I went off to art college, she'd worry even more, and I wasn't sure what would happen to her if I wasn't there to look after her.

The door to Grandad's study squealed when I opened it, the room hadn't been used for years, not since his eyesight got bad. My nose tickled with the clouds of dust that floated up whenever I moved anything. Grandad had left books piled everywhere. He had bought books by the dozen from charity shops and car boot sales. When I was little, he had spent all the time when he wasn't gardening reading in there. His hoard of books had been important to him and I didn't want to part with them, but Mum and I would never never read them. Still, the idea of putting the books into charity boxes felt as bad as seeing Grandad's coffin being lowered down into the ground. I couldn't bring myself to throw away the last of his possessions.

Delaying for a few more minutes, I took a book from a shelf at random, an old Wild West story. I ran my finger along the top of the pages and a coating of dust like mouse fur covered my fingertip. I opened it, wondering how old it was. I found a pencil sketch of a cowboy riding a horse drawn on the title page. The horse was bucking, and although the drawing was small, you could see the lines of the horse's muscles and the tension in the cowboy's posture. I wished I could make my sketches so simple and accurate, whoever drew it had been talented.

I picked up other books at random, a book about the life of Strauss had a waltzing couple in the margin, the woman held out her skirt elegantly and all the folds and froth of lace were visible in the tiny drawing. A copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover had a beautiful naked woman with an arm raised above her head and her feet surrounded by vines and leaves. When I looked closely, I could see the likeness to photos of Gran as a young woman.

'Mum, have you seen these?' I rushed into Grandad's bedroom with an armful of books.

Mum stopped in the middle of pulling some checked pyjamas from a drawer, sat down on Grandad's bed and looked at the pictures. Her eyes grew wet.

'Yes, I remember,' She took the cowboy book in her hands, and ran her finger over the horse's head. 'Grandad read this to me when I was a little girl and drew the horse for me.'

'He was brilliant!'

'Grandad wanted to be an artist, but, when Gran got pregnant with me, he became an accountant and that's where he stayed until he retired.'

'Didn't he ever paint or draw properly? Even as a hobby?'

'No, he never spoke about it, but I think it made him too sad,' said Mum. 'He preferred to read and do gardening, he only did these little sketches when he was bored,' Mum paused for a few seconds. 'He thought so much of you and your talent. He didn't want you to end up in a dull job like him.'

I looked at the horse and rider, took a deep breath and tried to speak in a steady voice. 'Mum, I've been thinking about going to art college .... would you be OK if I did?'

Mum pulled me in close for a hug and I nearly dropped the books. She stroked her hand down the side of my face for the first time in years.

'Darling, don't worry about leaving me! I want you to go out and live your life, more than anything.' Mum and I sat together on the bed, the books on our laps and her arms around me. Our tears made wet circles on Grandad's drawings but I'm sure he would have understood.

Hope you like the photo. It's a 'Bleeding Heart' I photographed in my garden. It's one of my favourite flowers.