The Rooftop Garden – Part 1: Tomatoes and Strangers

Hana's tomatoes were dying. She knew it from the yellow leaves and the sad, shrivelled fruit clinging to the stems like forgotten Christmas decorations. She had planted them in January, in fourteen big pots along the rooftop of her Fitzroy apartment block, and every week since then they had looked a little more miserable.

"Too much shade," said a voice from the next roof.

She looked up. A man was leaning over the low brick wall that separated her garden from the neighbouring terrace, a mug of tea in one hand and a sunhat pushed back on his head. He had tanned forearms, a crooked nose, and the cheerful confidence of someone who had never once worried about a plant.

"Excuse me?" said Hana.

"Your tomatoes. They're getting no sun. It's the stairwell. It blocks the afternoon." He pointed with his mug. "I've got the sunniest spot in the building. Would you like some advice?"

"I'd like you to stop judging my garden from your side of the wall."

"I'm not judging. I'm observing. Theo," he added, with a grin. "I'm the one who's been growing very healthy basil since October. You've been watching me from your window for weeks, haven't you?"

Hana went hot. "I have not."

"You have. You wave at the basil every morning."

She laughed despite herself, and turned to look at the wall, and at him. There was a small bright tomato on the top of his own plant, glowing red in the sun.

"Fine," she said. "Teach me your secret."

"It's not a secret. It's geography," said Theo. "Move two pots this way, and get some shade cloth for the afternoons. The tomatoes don't want to be cooked. They want to be looked after, gently, by someone who isn't afraid of a few aphids."

"I'm not afraid of aphids."

"I can tell," said Theo. "You've been yelling at them all week."

She laughed again, and this time he laughed with her, a warm, easy sound that drifted across the gap between the roofs.

Over the next few weeks, they talked every evening across the wall. About the tomatoes, first. Then the basil, and the lemon tree on Theo's roof that had produced exactly three lemons, and the chilli plants Hana had grown from seed in an old cereal box. Then about the city: the trams, the laneway cafés, the art galleries Theo liked and Hana found too quiet. Then about themselves.

"Why did you move to Melbourne?" asked Theo one night, when the sun had gone down and the city lights were flickering on.

"To get away from a job I hated and a family who wanted me to be a lawyer," said Hana. "And you?"

"I got tired of being the one who never stayed anywhere long enough to grow anything," said Theo.

She turned to look at him over the wall. "So you bought a flat with a rooftop."

"I bought a flat with a rooftop," he agreed, grinning. "And I've never been so happy to be stuck in one place."

They were quiet for a while, the traffic humming in the street below, the first stars coming out over the tram lines.

"Can I ask you something?" said Hana.

"Yes."

"Would you come round tomorrow and help me move the tomatoes? I'd like company while I do it. And I'd like you to tell me if I'm doing it wrong."

Theo's face softened into a slow, delighted smile. "Yes," he said. "I'll bring the shade cloth. And a bottle of wine, since it's clearly going to take all afternoon."

"Green?" he asked, teasing, as he stood up to go inside.

"Green," said Hana. "Very green. Bring the good wine, though, not the cheap stuff that comes with the basil."