GNOME

‘I’m telling you, someone, somewhere will be doing it,’ the young man said to his older companion, who laughed so hard it made the café shake. These men were huge, bearded and bloody hot, she thought – too hot for a cold day in Croydon’s Crêpe Times. When the older one seemed to be drowning in laughter the younger one swam out to join him, the Norse timbre of his voice rumbling of ancestral runes and longships on stormy seas. 

People at tables stared; chatter in the queue ceased as awe descended. An adolescent ‘roadman’ pulled up his jeans from under his arse and the boy holding a Marvel hammer toy whispered, ‘Thor and his dad,’ to the princess he had in a headlock. 

The men didn’t notice their audience; they laughed on, until the younger one slapped the table to signify the end of levity. Shocked cutlery leapt from table to floor and life stories resumed. Phones out, eyes down, sugar ordered – let the hamster wheel keep turning.

There was just one person who couldn’t quite pick up where she’d left off and it was bloody annoying. She’d lost her appetite. Carb-Up Wednesday brunch was important; she needed these thirty minutes of solid eating if she had any hope of bulking tonight. Her ripped physique wasn’t going to stay that way if she got distracted by wannabe Vikings. 

Mesmeric, that’s what they were, these men at the adjacent table with their larger-than-life size and sound. They had the same blue eyes that sparkled like sun on water. Listen to her, getting all poetic and whatever. Although they were dressed like normal people, jeans and t-shirts and whatnot, the father wore a patch over his right eye. Maybe they were extras in one of them Games of Thrones TV shows, or party performers? 

‘I bet there is someone out there who’d be crazy enough, or desperate enough to accept the job. If you won’t allow carers in the house when I am at work, at least have someone to keep watch. Outside, Far? They won’t step over the threshold. You wouldn’t even know they were there.’ 

He rubbed his beard and looked around the room. He met Loretta’s gaze but dismissed her, perhaps on account of her sex or her suit? Underestimation was surely the biggest of all insults. Loretta cracked her knuckles and rolled her jacked shoulders. She stared back, insisting he take the time to reconsider her application for whatever job it was that he assumed she couldn’t cope with. His steely gaze caught hers and there was an acknowledgment, a gentle nod, but ‘no’ he shook his head politely, brushing off the colourful insect that was her interest.  

‘Like him, over there.’ He pointed at a stocky man whose head and arms were covered in plaster dust. ‘For the right price, I bet he’d do it.’

‘Enough now, Lars. Don’t be degrading.’

‘I’m not. It is a great job for someone who needs a rest but can also handle themselves in an emergency.’

That sounded like Loretta. She could handle herself in all situations, especially in an emergency. Didn’t she pull that lady from the car wreck on the A2 just a few weeks ago? She could mention that. 

Lars – now that was a proper name. She could see it all: stepping off his longship and mistaking this dingy caf en route to Streatham for Iceland. She could tell him he’d taken a wrong turn, but this Lars didn’t look like the type to be disheartened by reality. Loretta’s kind of man. 

‘You need companionship, Far. You will need people other than me. Come on – your very own garden gnome with a phone.’

Loretta choked on a gulp of coffee.

‘A living, breathing gnome that would keep you company and be able to check in with me if needs be. You wouldn’t even have to talk to him or her – just another set of hands for when I’m not around.’

‘You are being ludicrous!’ said this “Far”, but he smiled kindly all the same. 

The love in the young man’s suggestion, however bloody mental, was hard to misinterpret, it was sticky like honey – the temptation to lick it off him was quite overwhelming. Blimey, what was she thinking? There was a very great risk that if she stayed here, she may well go soft like other women, all goo and goodness.  Nah, she couldn’t be doing with that bollocks. She pulled a pad from her bag and doodled the weekend’s upcoming tattoo. This kind of focus would help her ignore sexpot Scandinavians and their insane ideas about carers impersonating garden ornaments. No one in their right minds would sit in someone’s garden in the sunshine for money. Just sit there, listening to the water bubbling in a pond filled with Koi carp and what-not, watching these fascinating blokes interact To be a paid observer, no one asking anything of you except to appreciate it all. Who would want a lazy job like that?

‘Nice wolf,’ said this Lars, as he leaned into her personal space and tapped her pad, making the animal frown. ‘But I would add… may I?’ He took the pen from Loretta’s fingers and drew a man spearing the wolf’s mouth. ‘It’s always better to slay the wolf,’ he said with sincerity. She should have slapped him really.

He went back to his Far.

‘Your pen. Forgive me,’ he rumbled, handing it back. This Viking had redrawn what she’d wear for life like it was nothing; she couldn’t decide if she wanted to deck him or kiss him.

Far checked his watch. Perhaps it was time for them to step outside and slaughter a few seals and drag fiery women back to the ship. That sounded like a nice alternative to brokering mortgage deals for the desperate. Still, work was work and she wasn’t about to complain.

‘Ten more minutes,’ Far said.

Ten minutes before what? Ten minutes wasn’t going to give her anything. A strange sensation. It felt like the “roid rage” she’d got from those stims the bouncer at the Ferret and Firkin sold her last week. Straight up Cortisol. Yes, it was panic chasing the hope around her body like a ravenous cat. How odd to feel this after so many years. She’d made a pact with self-preservation, but here it was, out the blue, in a crap crêpe house, knocking on the door and asking to come in and make her weak like everyone else. Ten minutes would tear out her heart and stomp on it. That pissed-off looking mother approaching Loretta’s table could roll right over it with her two-seater pushchair and no one would notice.

‘Excuse me, but are you nearly done?’ she asked Loretta’s abandoned sandwich. 

‘I always wanted to go whale watching,’ she told the mother.

‘That’s nice,’ the woman looked anxiously at Loretta’s tattooed fingers, then her laptop and chose to put her faith in the laptop. ‘But when you’re done, can I have your table?’

‘We’re leaving in a minute,’ Far said. 

How did ten minutes become one? Tick-tock said the clock above the poster of Mike Tyson baring gold teeth. Tick-tock said the expressions of the people waiting to do Socials scrolling in peace.

‘I’ll be done in minute,’ Loretta told the mother and the sadness made her bow her head faster than a twenty-five-pound plate. What had happened to her? 

‘But what if I could find someone?’ Lars asked Far.

‘I’d be horrified.’

‘Mor would have liked it.’

‘Now Lars...’

‘You spend all day alone except when I come in and I won’t be able to soon. Just one little gnome? Mor would be asking me to do this if she could. She’d say put someone in the garden to keep an eye out for the anti-social old bastard.’

‘Time’s up now, son.’

‘I was joking. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned –’

‘Enough!’ The old man’s roar was enough to trigger a tsunami. The roadman nodded, impressed; the young boy dropped his Thor hammer.

This Lars, now meek as a seven-foot meerkat, walked behind Far, unclipped the brakes and began to reverse the wheelchair Loretta hadn’t noticed. This was it, the Vikings were leaving; leaving her behind in a world that was now out of focus and muffled. She’d never see them again. She would have to sit here and wait for them to sail by once more and how long would that take? Years? Maybe never.

‘I’ll do it!’ She stood, blocking their path. 

‘Excuse me?’ said Lars, his eyes twinkling with amusement, like he’d been fishing all along but just hadn’t told anyone.

‘The gnome job; I’ll take it.’

The men looked at her suit, her laptop, the two phones on the table, the car keys with the posh logo and laughed again. It was a sound she couldn’t say goodbye to.

She handed them her card, after hastily scribbling out the Mortgage Provider of the Year 2022 title and the initials after her surname. 

‘I’m free Sundays and after six on weekdays.’

Loretta was raised to believe that if a job was worth doing it was worth doing well, even one that required circles of red lipstick on her cheeks. That’s what Lars had requested, so that was what she did, and yes, she felt like a dick as she approached the cottage, but it was oddly liberating to be foolish for once. A garden gnome didn’t have to crunch numbers, crush dreams, or feel responsible. What adult would say no to relinquishing those burdens for a few hours each week?

Far’s cottage was something out of a Brother’s Grimm fairy tale, with wisteria circling the door and gnarled roots reaching out of the ground. It couldn’t be a century younger than 17th and had probably never seen a spirit level, but its charm would make any buyer overlook the uneven floors. She was so caught up in looking for the damp course that she didn’t notice the young Viking behind her on the path.

‘You came,’ he said.

‘I did.’

He bade her follow him to the garden and showed her the outside studio, complete with a bathroom and kitchenette and indicated a uniform hanging up by the sofa bed. She laughed, but when she saw his serious expression, she nodded. Whatever it took.

He left her alone then to remove the last of her good decisions. Obviously, these men were crazy and no woman in her right mind would want to sit in a garden just to watch them. Was she meant to sit there with a smile on her face, or would they want a neutral gnome? Would she be expected to hold up an umbrella or a hoe? Perhaps a fishing rod.

The outfit consisted of dungarees and a green t-shirt. Where was the bodice and the lace and all the other things that made up the buxom Mrs Gnome you saw in freaky garden centres? There was a label pinned to the outfit with a picture of what she was meant to create and, sure enough, the character was holding a rake. Loretta was not to be Bombshell Babe Gnome, but dirt under the nails, carrot digging gnome. A relief in a way – half a kink, nothing more.

When she stepped out into their colourful paradise of tulips, magnolia and roses, Far’s amusement shook the blossom from the apple trees. 

‘Lars, you terrible boy!’

Loretta blushed beneath her blusher, her biceps flexing in preparation to defend against attack.

‘Please, Miss?’

‘Loretta. Loretta Spani.’

‘Miss Spani, go put your normal clothes back on and wipe off that make up. You are a glorified babysitter for an old man, not a circus performer.’

Lars gripped Far’s wheelchair handles. Grinning, he licked his lips. 

‘Do you like role play, Miss Spani.’

She did not answer but allowed herself a fantasy where she’d wipe that smirk off his pretty face. 

‘You are one game female,’ Far said when she was back but no less self-conscious. At this compliment, Loretta, who had the day before locked-in a £1 million mortgage for someone, felt like she had just speared a whale. 

‘So,’ Lars said, slapping his hands together, ‘You will sit there for six hours a day,’ pointing to a hand-carved wooden throne, complete with sheepskin lining. ‘We have put you in the half shade so the sun will not burn. I will garden when I can for Far and he may talk to you from time to time. Please interact – we do not want a mute gnome.’

‘Shut up, Lars! Miss Spani, feel free to move around as you please. There is a list of emergency numbers in the studio – the hospital, etcetera. If something happens inside and I need you I’ll call out. Nothing shall. You can go now, Lars. You have a set of eyes on me.’

Lars didn’t go each time. Sometimes the hedge was horribly overgrown, the roses needed dead-heading, and week after week, as spring danced towards summer, this odd trio navigated time and each other. Loretta took her job seriously, but she couldn’t sit still while Lars toiled. 

Over the sunshine months, nothing happened and everything happened. Each Sunday, she would let herself in via the back gate and at 10am Lars would push Far out into the garden, occasionally asking Loretta if she approved of their plant choices or to lift her feet as he mowed around her. At first, she read then she drew new tattoos, but inevitably, as in all things, she stood up and helped. She fed the fish, then she took out the water weeds and soon she was offering to make tea in the studio kitchenette. Her ripped physique softened and while she chided herself for being lazy, she had to admit it was pleasant not to hear her pulse when she closed her eyes.

One Sunday she noticed there were cakes and fruit left in the mini fridge; next, a picnic blanket, and soon the afternoons became a haze of lying on their backs, staring at the wistful clouds and listening to the birds discussing inevitable migration. She didn’t want to hear their chatter. Why didn’t they just shut up about going back to Africa? Nothing could be as good as this garden on the outskirts of Croydon. This time was a gift that Loretta knew would have to be given back, because how many weeks can a woman pretend to be a gnome when she’s really a number cruncher, a body builder.

And so it came, the Sunday when they were picnicking in the garden on strawberries grown and harvested by their rough hands, when Lars stroked her wolf tattoo and noticed.

‘You did not spear him.’ 

‘I couldn’t.’

He nodded respectfully.

‘As it should be.’ 

Far smiled at Loretta and thanked her for all she did for them. Lars looked amused, proud of his clever trick; his little swindle that made the next step less brutal.

‘Look who is not lonely anymore,’ he said to Far.

Lars said Loretta should become a house gnome and wear a cook’s outfit, especially since he was leaving to go on his travels and would not be returning for some time.

‘How much time?’ Loretta choked the wolf on her arm. 

‘This lifetime.’

‘Well,’ said Loretta, unable to find air to breathe, ‘I feel it is inappropriate for me to step into Far’s home given that you will not be there.’

She tried to sound business-like but a stupid tear streaked her cheek. There had to be a solution to this problem of leaving and changing and stomping into people’s lives only to lose them to the shadows of memory. 

Far studied her intently before releasing the brake on his wheelchair. No, no, he told his son he could push himself. He may have lost the use of his legs, but not his head.

‘You have to step inside somewhere sometime, woman,’ Far said. ‘The winter will come, and you will freeze to death. I should know. You are welcome to join me.’ With that Far pushed himself up the ramp, back into the house.

Lars reached out and held her face in his hands.

‘Listen to me.’ 

But he didn’t speak, and she listened hard to what he didn’t say.

‘I refuse.’

‘But you hear it all the same.’

It was right to demand a stop to an idleness that would only tear the fabric of existence, a beautiful tapestry that was full of possibilities. She could shout out that it wasn’t fair, but Loretta wasn’t a shouter. Punch first, speak later. 

He could have hurt her in every conceivable way if he wished. He did not. He stood and patted her shoulder. He walked into the house that he would never get a re-mortgage on because he was leaving and that didn’t show consistency, did it? And she’d tell him that if he only sat back down. 

Just before he disappeared, he called back, ‘Look after Far when I am gone.’

Loretta slumped in the gnome throne. The carefree bubbling water of the pond now sounded like a drowning man; the bees that had flown so enchantingly that morning now seemed angry and overworked. There were two choices: she could go into the house and make the best of it, hear the laughter of a life gone by and share what was left, or she could let herself out of the garden gate and not look back. She already knew which one she’d choose; it was just a matter of standing up.