Growing food, flowers and friendships…

The earth oozed beneath the soles of my rashly chosen trainers as I squelched past some polytunnels in the direction of a decking, where sat two women in their early 70s.

“Are you looking for Dave?” asked one of them, unscrewing the lid of a flask and topping up her tea.

“I don’t actually know who I’m looking for,” I confessed. “I’m Emmet, I’m from the ‘Herald, and I’m up to do a story on the gardening group.”

They looked at each other, their widening eyes, canting brows and pursing lips communicating secret, inscrutable, best friend code.

“Do ye want a cup of tea?” asked the second woman, in an unmistakably Scottish accent.

I was about to answer in the affirmative when my phone rang. It was a call from the office. I pressed accept. “Yes Michael (Devlin),” I said. “How’s the form? I’m just up at a gardening group in Gortin here chatting with two ladies.”

“Ladies,” I heard one of them repeat after me, her tone a mix of amusement and derision.

I never let on.

“Oh aye?” I said. Right enough? No way? Aye, I’ll tell her ye said hello.”

I hung up. The lady with the Burns Country brogue was already smiling knowingly at me.

“Well Jean,” I said. “I never knew my work colleague’s mother was Scottish.”

“Sure why would ye?” she laughed, the likeness suddenly becoming obvious.

I headed into the shed-come-kitchen and made my own tea; meanwhile the two pensioners sat outside on the decking improvising a ditty about ‘running away with the wee fella from the ‘Herald’.

I discarded my teabag, milked my brew and took a seat beside them at the long glass table.

“Neither of the two of us sleep, Emmet,” said Frances, sliding a packet of cake bars over to me.

“There are days I’m standing at the backdoor with a fag and a cup of tea at five o’clock in the morning.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Guilty consciences,” interjected Jean. “You know what time I am up from this morning? Half three.”

“You’re not wise,” said Frances.

“I know,” laughed Jean.

I was happy enough listening to this double act doing their thing. However, Jean, skeptical that a discussion on their insomnia would furnish me with the material I came for, decided to try to direct the conversation towards more fruitful pastures.

“If you came here to listen to a pile of rubbish, we can keep talking. But I assume you want to hear about the group?”

“I suppose so,” I said.

Frances took the lead and outlined her entire weekly social schedule, successfully demonstrating that Gortin is a hive a-buzz with community life.

I frantically scribbled down phrases like ‘knitting circle’, ‘community centre’, ‘crochet class’, ‘Christmas cushions’…

“You’re hardly writing all that rubbish down, are you?” enquired Jean.

Friendship

But every so often, despite their best efforts, the cloud of craic would break and I’d catch a glimpse of what the two women really get from the group – and from each other.

“I had a stroke 18 months ago,” mentioned Frances, only to excuse her occasional stammer.

“I’m a lot better than I was just after it happened. But this woman here is the best friend I’ve ever had, and she has helped me so much.”

Jean looked away, almost bashfully, chuckled, then said something sardonic and deflective.

But I pressed on and asked about their relationship. How long had they been friends? How did they meet? What makes them a good match? That kind of thing.

“We’re both mad,” said Frances.

Turns out that the two were waiting to get the bus from Omagh back to Gortin one day about ten years ago. They got chatting and that was the start of it.

“We chat about everything; about everybody else. We chat about what groceries we are going to get in the shop. We chat about what groceries we forgot to get. Before you arrived, we were chatting about how much it cost us to get our chimneys cleaned out,” they said, alternating between one another.

Then another wee woman of roughly the same age rounded the corner and started making her way over.

“Oh, here comes Nora,” said Jean.

Introductions were barely made before the silver-locked lady was telling me that she and her husband joined the group not long after it started, which everyone agreed must be about 14 years ago.

“Arthur was the real gardener, I just came along. But after he passed away seven years ago, I just kept coming. I am not much use, but I like the company. And I do like planting flowers and watching them grow,” said Nora.

Apparently, modesty is one of Nora’s best qualities. Every year, for example, she grows the best strawberries. They’re even better than those cultivated by group leader and horticultural savant, Dave – which is remarkable because within the sanctums of the group Dave is regarded as a ‘gardening genius’.

Before I started saying goodbye and weaving my way home through the glens, Jean insisted on giving me a handful of tomatoes from her raised bed. “Now put them there in yer poacket, and don’t forget they’re in there,” she said, filling my palm to capacity.

I headed straight home and had them with scrambled eggs and toast for my lunch.

They were the tastiest tomatoes I’ve ever eaten.