The garden at night is often a forgotten place – a world of cats brushing against the bushes, and trembling mice, and hedgehogs longing for a saucer of milk. And plants, spilling their scent quietly into the grass.
Archie stepped back and disappeared inside the shawl of darkness draped across the wall. I could not see him cross over but I heard him: a belt rattled as his trousers were shaken into position, spitted palms were rubbed together and a word sounding like ‘geyerselfover’ punctured the dark. He landed in a square of light beaming from the kitchen window.
“It’s something important isn’t it?’ he said, moving towards me.
“Yes.”
The Insistent Garden.
Rosie Chard 