Love Is a Four Letter Word by Claire Calman Page A

say?’
    â€˜Nothing, nothing. Just a tickle in my throat.’ She cleared it loudly. Very alluring. Why not just hawk phlegm all over him? ‘What are you doing here?’
    â€˜I’ve come to blowtorch your garden. Will Henderson.’ He smiled. ‘Hello. I’m glad I’ve bumped into you again.’ He apologized for having dashed off after the reading without saying goodbye. He’d been embarrassed when he saw her talking to the woman with the hat after he’d been so rude about it.
    â€˜Hey, psychedelic toes.’ He nodded at her shimmering blue nail polish. ‘Or is that a rare disease I shouldn’t mention?’
    Good grief. Blue toenails, as if she were a teenager. She cast about for a pair of shoes.
    â€˜So, have you just moved in then?’ He waved at the multi-storey box park in her sitting-room. She explained that there was no point unpacking everything because there was still the DAMP to be done.
    â€˜I see it in capital letters in my head now because I’ve been meaning to have it done for so long. Mr Bowman’s more elusive than the Scarlet Pimpernel.’
    â€˜Bowman, eh. Hmm-mm.’
    â€˜What? What?’
    â€˜No, he’s very good. You’re not in a hurry though, are you?’
    She explained that she’d already been waiting for over two months, then launched into a tirade about Mr Bowman and his imaginative range of excuses, he never came when he promised, now he wasn’t even bothering to ring to say he wasn’t coming. Was he a local legend, Bella asked, was that why Will had heard of him?
    â€˜No. He’s my brother-in-law.’
    â€˜Yeah, right. Very droll.’ At school, certain kids always made that joke; if you passed a man wearing a bad toupee on your way to the library (holding a sticky-handed boy with the tips of your fingers) and you hissed ‘Wig!’ at your neighbour, he would say, ‘That’s my uncle actually,’ and pretend to be offended. It was a fashion, a phase, like jacks or saying ‘Vanies’ or putting cartoon-character stickers on the inside of your desk lid.
    â€˜No. He really is. Sort of. Well he’s my brother-in-law, in-law. My sister’s husband’s brother. What does that make him?’
    â€˜It still makes him a very annoying person who hasn’t done my damp, I’m afraid.’
    They went out to the garden. He nodded in places, humming, clucking his tongue in others, making a running commentary to himself – ‘mellow brick wall, dum-de-dum, courses of flint – hmm-mm, concrete pavers – dodgy lawn – few decent shrubs – good clematis dum-de-dum – Russian vine, oops – brambles – perennial weeds – clear this bit – transplant that–’ He plunged between bushes, got down on his hands and knees to peer under things, stuck his hand into the soil, crumbling it between his fingers.
    She saw him make scribbly sketches, numerousnotes, tiny diagrams. He would come back and measure properly if she wanted to go ahead, he said.
    â€˜OK if I ask you a few questions?’ Will put down his mug and took out a notebook from one of the bulging pockets of his jacket.
    â€˜Sounds ominous. It wasn’t me, Officer. I wasn’t even there. Ask anyone.’
    â€˜Remain calm.’ He looked up from his notebook. ‘Trouble is, the reason people end up with a garden that doesn’t suit them is they plunge straight in without thinking about what they really want.’
    Bella shifted in her seat and sat on her hands to stop herself fiddling.
    â€˜I feel as if I’m in an exam.’
    â€˜You are.’ Will rolled up his sleeves. ‘If you get too many wrong, my fee goes up.’
    â€˜Ready? Right, question 1. What do you want to do in this garden?’
    â€˜Can’t we start with an easier one?’
    â€˜No we can’t. Judging from the state of it, can I assume you’re