Free Flowers for the Dead by Barbara Copperthwaite Page A

digging up the roots; yanking them out won’t do.”
    Adam nodded. “Like this?” he asked, and tenderly dug into the ground, slowly shaking free roots.
    “Perfect. Well done! You’re a good boy, Adam.”
    He basked in the glow of the compliment.
    Side by side they worked in companionable silence after that. That was another thing Adam loved about his gran: she never teased him for not speaking. And when he did say something she actually listened and responded in kind. In front of most people, Adam felt his words bottling up in his throat. His brain became a confusion of feelings that he could not get out, and that made his head buzz painfully. It wasn’t like that with Gran. She understood him without his having to say a word. Being with her was the only time he ever really felt peace.
    After just over half an hour, Ada sat up with a grimace. “My back,” she gasped. “I’ll have to stop now.”
    Adam dutifully stood, held out his hands, and helped the delicate old lady to her feet again, knowing she would be stiff after being on her knees for so long.
    “Thank you. You’re growing up to be a real gentleman,” she smiled approvingly as she straightened up, leaning on him slightly.
    “I can carry on gardening,” he offered. “I’ll do over there, by the fence.” He pointed to a patch of long nettles and weeds, but Ada shook her head.
    “That’s very kind of you, thank you, Adam. I always leave that patch though, even though it drives me wild not to have a completely tidy garden.”
    Adam tilted his head, trying to understand. “Why do you leave them if you don’t like them?” he asked.
    “Weeds are bad for gardening, but good for nature – lots of insects, butterflies and birds rely on them. Always be kind to nature, live and let live, and put others’ needs before your own.”
    Ada was always saying things like that. “Put other’s needs before your own.” “Make someone happy and you will make yourself happy too.” And her particular favourite was: “Nothing bad can happen to you when you’re here, because the whole house is protected by a force field of love.” Those words were like a warm embrace to Adam – because they were true. His mother never did anything to him when he was at Granny’s.
    It was Ada who had gently drummed into her son and now her grandson how to be a gentleman. Adam knew that ladies always went first, that he must open doors for them, and walk on the outside of the pavement nearest traffic in order to protect them. Such manners were important to Ada, and Adam enjoyed learning from her because she was a gentle teacher who always seemed so enthusiastic and encouraging of him.
    Ada practised what she preached too. Her manners were impeccable; and this, Adam suspected, was the reason why his gran put up with his mother. He might only be six, but he had already grasped that the two women did not get on. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse between the pair of them that bordered on dislike; then there had been that row where Mother had ordered Ada from the house.
    They put up with one another. Barely. Even when Sara was being nice there was a knife hidden beneath the words, and Adam could tell his gran noticed their cutting edge. She loved to praise the old woman’s home while surreptitiously criticising it. “What a cosy little room! If this place were mine I’d knock down that wall and really open up this room,” she would say. Or: “What interesting stuffed animals. Have you ever thought of asking a museum if they’d take them off your hands?”
    Adam had not liked the stuffed animals and birds much either when he was really little, but now he was a big boy and over the years he had learned all about them from Ada. He loved them.
    “My father’s father – that’s your great, great grandfather – he was interested in nature and went travelling,” Ada would tell him. “He brought these specimens back and preserved them himself. In those days travelling was