The Glasshouse Volunteer – Part 1: Fern House

"Say hello," said Hugh. "She likes to be spoken to."

"The fern?"

"Adiantum. Maidenhair. She has been difficult all winter."

Margaret, sixty, a retired librarian, bent over the delicate green fronds and said "Good morning" in the gravest voice she had. Beside her, Hugh smiled. He was sixty-four, tall and slightly stooped, with white hair that stuck up like a dandelion, and a gentle, scholarly way of moving through the glasshouse as if apologising to the plants.

The Victorian glasshouse was a great iron-and-glass hall of warm air, tangled green and dripping water. Palms brushed the high arches. Orchids dangled from baskets. Condensation gathered on the glass and ran in slow silver lines. It smelled of wet earth and growth. Outside, a grey London drizzle fell, and no one in the whole steamy building seemed to mind.

Margaret had volunteered after her retirement, wanting something to do with her hands. Hugh, a retired botanist, had volunteered for thirty years. He had been widowed for four. "The plants are very good company," he said. "They never interrupt."

"I used to shush people for a living."

"Then you are a very good listener."

They spent every Tuesday and Thursday together among the ferns. He taught her to prune, to mist, to take cuttings. She taught him that tea breaks were not optional. By March, they had a bench in the corner of the palm house and a thermos shared between them.

"I'd like to ask you something," said Hugh, on a wet Thursday, with a cutting in his hand.

"Ask."

"Would you come to supper? At my house. It has a very small garden. And a very good kettle."

"Hugh." Margaret smiled. "I would like that very much."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Cuttings.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Cuttings.