Free A Cast of Vultures by Judith Flanders Page A

my partner, Jake Field.’
    ‘Boyfriend,’ said Jake, glowering as he put out his hand.
    I contemplated banging my head repeatedly against the cupboard I was opening to get Steve a cup, but I managed to refrain. Instead I smiled with saccharine sweetness at Jake. ‘How about “the sun around which my world revolves”?’ I amended, batting my eyelashes for good measure.
    He finally cracked a smile, and poured Steve some coffee, which I took to be a positive sign. ‘Sit,’ he said, at least sounding like the good cop, not the bad one, in a good-cop-bad-cop routine.
    Steve watched us warily, and I couldn’t blame him. Someone wasn’t happy, even if Steve wasn’t a criminal vagrant deviant. Which he didn’t resemble, not any of the elements. He was short, probably only five foot eight or so, and wiry rather than thin. Although I guessed he was in his thirties, with his slightly too-long, mousey-coloured hair, which curled over his forehead and into his eyes, and dressed in his standard uniform of worn jeans and clean white T-shirt, he looked like a college student.
    ‘Have you and Mike found somewhere to stay?’ I asked. Please God, let them have found somewhere to stay . Whatever I’d originally thought about offering them space,given Jake’s response to Steve even working in the garden, anything more was impossible.
    ‘Yeah, we’re fine. A bit further away than before, but someone Mike works for has a room in St John’s Wood. She’s happy for us to stay until we can get sorted out.’
    That was a relief. ‘OK. The garden.’ I looked up. ‘What do you think?’
    His smile could have lit Piccadilly Circus. ‘I think it’s great. It’s south-facing, it’s bigger than a window box, and it’s near most of my jobs. What else could I think?’
    ‘So you’re undecided,’ I teased.
    Jake snorted. I thought about accidentally spilling my coffee over him, but decided to hold it in reserve.
    Steve looked serious. ‘Look, it’s a wonderful offer, but if you want to change your mind, I entirely understand. Not just now.’ He grimaced. ‘Vegetables aren’t the most ornamental things. If you decide you can’t stand the way it looks, that’s fine. Or for any other reason. We can do it, and if you don’t like it, I can finish out the season and go. No hard feelings.’
    I couldn’t really ask for more. ‘Sounds good to me.’
    He must have spent a while looking at the garden before he rang the bell. ‘With the space you’ve got, I can grow what I need for the six of us, if we find somewhere to live together again, and plenty for Mo’s salads. I was doing that before, so that’ll easily come out of my half of the garden.’
    ‘Your half?’
    Uncertainty crossed his face. ‘I thought that was the deal. I do the work for half the produce; you get the other half because it’s your garden.’
    I squeaked. I sounded as if a puppy had had its bumbitten, but the thought of coming home every evening to find a tonne of leeks and a bushel of lettuce on my doorstep was panic-inducing. ‘Not so fast.’ I didn’t add ‘Buster’, but it was implicit. ‘There’s just the two of us here. If you can feed six, plus make the café’s salads on half, the other half is more than I want, or can handle. Way more.’
    ‘But that isn’t fair,’ he argued. ‘You’re giving me the space. You should probably get more than half.’
    ‘But I don’t want half, much less more than half.’ I thought for a moment. ‘How does this sound? For the first while, until we settle into it, you can let me know once a week or so what’s available, and I’ll choose what I want, and how much. And I’ll let you know in advance which vegetables I detest, so you can allow for that when you plan out what you’re going to plant.’ Visions of baskets of turnips were added to the leeks and onions on my doorstep, and my gorge rose.
    ‘It still doesn’t seem right,’ he said, ‘but if that’s what you want, fine. And if there