The Garden Of Forking Hannahs

A new short story

Hannah was in one of her mum’s flowerbeds trying her best to make some new trainers she’d bought look weathered and dirty when she spotted the woman behind the rhododendron. The bush was not one Hannah had noticed before but she had long since decided it wasn’t her job to keep up with her mum’s obsessive plant buying, which had, in her view, crossed the line separating addiction from full-blown illness. Even as someone with little time for plants, though, she could not fail to appreciate the rhododendron’s purple flowers, which now, in early June, were reaching their apex of loveliness. From behind one of them a hand beckoned to her. She assumed the person it was attached to was one of her mum’s weird gardener friends: another of those ruddy, makeupless women with potting soil in the footwells of their cars who were always coming over and running their hands across the bark of small trees or hovering pensively over alliums. But, no, on closer inspection, Hannah had not seen this person before. Her dad had always warned her not to talk to strangers, especially the kind who hid behind shrubs, but since her birthday last week she had been in an insurrectionary frame of mind, so she wandered nonchalantly over in the woman’s direction.

“Hi,” said the woman. “Are your parents in?”

“Nah,” said Hannah. “They’re at Sharon and Roger Forsythe’s. Roger bought a franking machine for his home office and Sharon invited some people over to celebrate.”

“Oh wow, I’d forgotten all about Sharon and Roger. They had that really flatulent Irish Wolfhound and their house always smelled of talcum powder.”

“It still does! That’s why I decided not to go.”

“Anyway, good. Because there’s some stuff I need to tell you and it’s best if your mum and dad aren’t here since it would only complicate matters. First of all, don’t marry Josh.”