Read Ivy Lane: Spring: for Free Online

moving weeds and kicking clods of earth off the path. Eventually, Charlie took a breather.
    ‘You have to keep on top of weeds,’ said Charlie, wiping his arm across his brow. ‘I learned that the hard way.’
    ‘Dig them out, you mean?’ I said, noticing two men with their arms around each other’s necks weaving unsteadily towards us like a geriatric version of The Monkees. One of them was the man with the eyebrows I’d seen earlier, the other a West Indian man with a wizened face, bandy legs, grey dreadlocks, and a nautical-style cap.
    Charlie lowered his voice. ‘That’s Roy and Dougie. The Belfast meets Montego Bay Two Man Piss-up Club. This should be interesting.’ And then more loudly, ‘Hoeing is better, less disruption to the roots.’
    I’d have to go invest in some new tools; the trusty rake alone wouldn’t cut it. So far my shopping list consisted of spade and fork, which I kept referring to as spoon and fork accidentally, and now a hoe. I glanced across to see if Christine had spotted the return of her husband: steely glare, braced feet and crossed arms . . . I was guessing she had.
    ‘Er, what about weedkiller, am I allowed to use that here?’
    Charlie and I were making conversation to delay the eruption, which, judging by the metaphorical steam pumping from Christine’s nostrils, was mere seconds away. He knew it. I knew it.
    ‘Well, strictly speaking—’
    ‘Yeah, Man, I use it all de time. Anytink for an eeeeasy life,’ crooned Dougie in a lilting Caribbean accent. He waved one hand in front of him making gun fingers. ‘Den I say “Die, ya bastard” and I fire. Dem weeds don’t stand a chance.’
    Charlie sucked in his breath, a low prehistoric moan emanated from Christine, and Gemma descended on Dougie like a small tornado.
    She jabbed him in the chest. ‘Irresponsible dot com.’
    I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh. We hadn’t had a dot com explosion so far this morning and I’d forgotten how much fun it was.
    ‘Don’t you use that language around my daughter,’ Gemma snapped, stamping on his toe with her pink wellingtons. ‘She’s at an impressionable age.’
    Dougie cried out and hopped up and down whilst simultaneously squinting at me, looking confused.
    Roy, who until this point had only muttered unintelligibly at the ground, let out an almighty belch, earning a prod in the backside with a bamboo cane from his wife.
    ‘I know what a bastard is, Mum, we did it in history,’ shouted Mia, poking her head out from the shed. ‘It’s when the mummy and the daddy aren’t married and they have an ickle baby.’ This said in an ickle-baby voice. ‘And that,’ she announced authoritatively, ‘is how you get bastard hair.’
    ‘Heir,’ called Charlie, getting in there before me. ‘The H is silent.’
    Mia gave him a look that could have withered tomatoes on the vine and held up her ponytail for inspection. ‘Mum’s blonde curls mixed with my gay dad’s afro? I think you’ll find I was right first time.’ And with a smirk she shut herself back in the shed.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ said Charlie quietly to me.
    Gay dad?
    Christine took another swipe at Roy for some reason, meanwhile Gemma gasped, her face as red as her mother’s.
    Dougie seemed to find Mia’s comment hilarious and let go of Roy to hold onto his sides as he doubled up with laughter, leaving Roy to fall headlong into my ramshackle compost heap.
    ‘Woah, steady on!’ said Charlie. He hauled Roy back to his feet and with Gemma’s help installed him on my rickety wrought-iron bench. Dougie used the commotion to retreat and moved off, seemingly to a Reggae beat that only he could hear.
    ‘Turn the rotavator back on,’ I whispered to Charlie. He obliged, leaving Gemma and her family to recover from that particular load of publicly aired dirty laundry. Well, the women anyway; Roy was snoring raucously, mouth open, hands clasped across his beer belly. Gemma stomped off to the shed; I had the feeling