Say it with flowers a time-lapse love story by Matt Harvey

From his garden he could see her garden, as she his, from hers. He realised she was the woman from the garden centre. She’d smiled at him. He’d smiled back. He saw her hastily putting down Pride and Prejudice when he came to buy his things. She’d blushed. He went back three days running, bought things he needed in small batches, then things he didn’t need in smaller batches. “Thank you.” He earned 500 loyalty points, and they gave him a string bag of bulbs.Which gave him an idea. He chose a patch and planted them. YOUR BEAUTIFUL. No apostrophe. No e. They didn’t all come up. YO BE IF He wondered if she’d got the message. Or any message. Probably not.Time passed. Come spring, after the first snowdrops, there, in neat crocuses: PARDON? Surging with adrenaline he bought two bags of bulbs. All the same this time. Fritillaries. Tenderly reiterated: U R BEAUTIFUL. There, he’d said it.The wait was difficult.Then they didn’t really synchronise. While some were still just peeking through the soil the keen ones spelt: UTIFU. The rest would catch up soon. Before they did though, strong winds in the night flattened the UTI. She woke to the message: F U. He panicked. He should have fluffed up the others, propped them with sticks if necessary. Instead he mowed them all down, hoped she’d not seen.

Puzzled, but enjoying the botanical banter, she planted blue, yellow and red primulas: F U 2.

He was crestfallen.Would not trust fritillaries ever again. Painstakingly he planted penitent red lupins. OOPS SORRY.Then across his former lawn with cornflowers, NO OFFENCE MEANT. Feeling for him, she replied in January, NONE TAKEN – in snowdrops planted compassionately but perhaps not as carefully as before.What he saw was I MTAKEN. A bitter blow. He knew what he had to do. Bravely he planted hardy pansies, let his house and rented a flat. She was sorry to see him go, and surprised to read GOODBYE, GOOD LUCK. Two years later he moved back. She spotted him, out tidying the garden the tenant had let slide. Shyly she planted grape hyacinth. HI. He responded cautiously, in delphiniums, HI. She, in careful crocuses: R U OK? He’d had enough. Speak and be damned. He blurted out, in unequivocal red tulips bought full-grown. I ♥ U. She replied almost immediately, a smiley face in happy marigolds. Marigolds. Marry-golds. Yes. He began to dig, his trench so deep she could read WILLYOU… She went indoors to sow seeds in a tray. Before his bulbs came up she was knocking on his door, tea-tray in hands, her eyes inviting him to pull back the covering tea-towel. Revealed, in stencilled cress, the word YES.

Matt Harvey is a poet and the author of Where Earwigs Dare, published by Green Books, and presents Wondermentalist Cabaret (Radio 4). www.mattharvey.co.uk

Issue 275

Resurgence & Ecologist

57