Free The Great Allotment Proposal by Jenny Oliver

lines on his face, the slight stubble, the tan, the new tattoos. She got really close up on one picture of his face front on and examined every detail. She looked at his clothes, at his shoes, at his wedding band. And she realised that she didn’t know him at all any more. Not even slightly. His smile was the same. His eyes were the same. But otherwise he was a stranger. A person with whom her life once crossed.
    Yet as they crossed, she had been snagged. Caught like a bit of flotsam on the back of his boat, bashing about through the waves as he speeded forward. And, try as she might, she couldn’t shake herself free.
    ‘Damn you!’ she said, slamming the laptop shut.
    ‘Are you talking to me, Emily?’
    ‘No, Winston, you’re all right.’
    She had to get out. She needed an hour’s peace. She needed, she realised, to go to the allotment.
    ‘Oh you’re back?’ Emily said as she walked up to her patch, surprised to see Jack there watering his tomatoes.
    ‘Just now,’ he said, bending down to retie some of the stalks to their canes. ‘Why? Did you miss me?’
    Emily got her hoe out from the precarious shed and shook her head. ‘Not really.’
    Jack laughed. ‘No, I don’t suppose you did. What’s wrong with you? You look furious.’
    ‘I’m not furious.’
    He leant on one of the canes, raised one eyebrow and said, ‘Em, you’re fuming.’
    She started hoeing, severing the heads off the tiny weeds. ‘I’m fine.’
    ‘Suit yourself,’ he said with a chuckle and went back to detangling and tying his tomato plants.
    ‘All right, son?’ said a man’s voice, then, ‘Oh hello Emily! Nice to see you here.’
    Emily turned to see Jack’s dad, Alan Neil, walking up the path with a bag of beers in one hand and a tray of seedlings in the other. She knew him pretty well, not just from when she was a kid, but because she hung around with the kind of people that recorded at Alan Neil’s studio. The venue was infamous not just because it was based in an old lighthouse, but because Alan was one of the best producers in the business and musicians flocked to work with him. He kissed her on both cheeks when he got close and said, ‘I heard you’ve single-handedly saved the Cherry Pie Show.’
    Emily saw Jack frown in the background. It was clearly news to him.
    ‘Did you know that, Jack?’ His dad asked. ‘Emily’s bringing back the festival. Well not exactly is it, it’s more like a hybrid show and festival. I got your email about the music, I’ll get the bands there, don’t you worry. I’ve got some brilliant little up and comers and I reckon I could pull in a few favours. You’ll have to make sure you’ve got some decent security though. Don’t want a rerun of the last one.’
    Emily shook her head. ‘You might have to help me with that as well,’ she said, looking sheepish. ‘I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start with that.’
    Alan winked. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll sort it for you. You could put Jack on the door. That beard’d scare away any rogue visitors.’
    Emily laughed for the first time that day. ‘No kidding. He’s like a monster.’
    Jack ignored the two of them and moved on to some other plants that Emily had no idea what they were.
    ‘Hey, here’s Ed and the little ’un–’ Alan pointed over to the gate where Ed Neil, Jack’s younger brother, was walking over carrying a young kid, who must have only been one, on his shoulders and behind him was a tall, tanned, willowy woman dressed in a flowery cotton sundress, her hair pulled up on top of her head in a messy bun, and her face like an Egyptian goddess. She was breathtakingly stunning. Emily was almost tempted to ask her to be the face of her new campaign.
    ‘Blimey, Ed’s done all right for himself, hasn’t he?’ Emily said, with an incredulous look at Alan. ‘Where did she come from?’
    But instead of laughing back, Alan just gave her a tight smile and started to walk towards Ed and his family.
    Emily