When I am sad I sow. This seed, though, is saturated in memory. Henriette’s mum, Ina, has died. Peacefully, in her sleep, a few weeks past her birthday. I plant her window box (sorry, I’m not yet quite ready for past tense). I sow calendula – of course – in her pots. We always buy her flowers, posh English tea and biscuits. This time, though, we walk past the pretty tins to check-in.
Denmark is bathed in sun by the sea. My daughters Kala and Radha have come to offer Henri support. To help pack away Ina’s long life. To sort through her house and memories.
I find myself buying too many packets of flower seed. I water. I hoe. I sow wild meadow, with lots of cornflowers, daisies.
There is a box of wild blue lupin pods. The sort that line Scandinavian roads. I scatter far too many in the borders, the new flower bed. The poppy seed will wait till Easter when we return for a gathering with her sisters, neighbours and friends.
Ina was a genius of jam. She recently trained Henri’s brother Jørn. We find blackcurrants in her freezer. He – and we – will make Ina’s favourite. We’ll buy more bushes from the plant nursery. Line them along the sunny side of the summerhouse.
There is an early budding calendula outside her front door. From seed I sowed. It’s replanted now where the blackcurrant bushes will grow. Cheery summer orange among the melancholy.
Henri finds a note her mother wrote after she’d told her we’d met, with exclamation marks. It’s now the weekend of our 30th anniversary. In the quiet evenings we walk together on the beach at sunset, Kala, Radha, Henriette, three extraordinary women honouring a beloved family pioneer.
The badger tears the low bird feeders down. A hare loons around the garden. As we leave, the new autumn-planted daffodils join the primroses in bloom.
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com
