World Naked Gardening Day: Warning! Deep Water!

Warning! Deep Water! is my contribution to the Naked Gardening Day stories that are now out as a box set.

It’s part of a project with Holly Day, Nell Iris, K. L. Noone and Amy Spector. As regular readers will know, Ofelia Grand (who also writes as Holly), Nell Iris and I write together in the early mornings. This involves a fair amount of chat and discussion about what we’re working on.

As Holly, Ofelia writes stories to mark all the different holidays throughout the year and one day in December Nell and I were teasing her about what she should write next and joked that World Naked Gardening Day would be an excellent idea…and lo and behold, here are five of us writing on a similar theme. Our brief was that somehow, somewhere in the story, our MCs had to be naked in a garden.

Scroll on down to read an excerpt from Warning! Deep Water!

Warning! Deep Water is a 16,300 word novella set in England in 1948. When given half a chance I slip back in time, because as you know that’s my thing, pretty much. It’s set on a horticultural nursery in Somerset that’s a blend of the place I grew up and one or two other places I know personally or heard about from my parents and the people who worked for them.

It seemed natural to me to gravitate to somewhere like that when we had the idea. For me, gardening isn’t really about things that look pretty or are ornamental. I’m more a permaculture vegetables and banging things together with a bit of rusty wire sort of person.

The idea of actually gardening naked fills me with fear. What in hell’s teeth are people thinking? I mean, maybe it’s all right if you have an ornamental garden and can potter round wielding a pair of secateurs in a graceful fashion. But this most recent weekend my Apocalypse Gardening involved the supervision of helpers digging over and pulling up a four yard square patch of nettles and docks; and kneeling in the polytunnel picking out the tiny nettle plants from between the lettuce and spinach. Then we shovelled a load of rotted manure into the potato patch.

This morning, I’ve got soaked with muddy water trying to tape up a leak in my soaker-pipe watering system and a broody hen has scratched my arms as I moved her from her practice nest to the place I actually want her to sit.

Wafting round glamorously with my bottom on show to all is, quite frankly, against every health and safety guideline I have ever heard of.

However.

The concept of World Naked Gardening Day makes me giggle every single time it comes around. And I thoroughly admire anyone who does bare their all either for actual gardening purposes or just for cheeky photos. It was an absolute delight to collaborate with the others for these stories…they are unconnected, but they all feature someone naked in a garden somewhere, at some point.

I think mine is the only historical–the others are contemporaries–and I have had a great deal of fun both writing it and hanging out in the chat with the others.

With no further ado, let me introduce you to Warning! Deep Water!

Read an excerpt…

“You didn’t say you liked music,” Peter said, as they were sitting across the table from each other over a cup of tea, once he’d finally pulled himself away from the instrument and reverentially closed the keyboard. 
“Well,” said Peter. “It didn’t come up, did it?” He paused. “Mother used to play a bit,” he said, eventually. “Not like that, though. Hymns, mostly. She was big on chapel.”
There was clearly a story there. 
“It’s nice to hear it played,” George went on. “Instruments should be used, not just sat there as part of the furniture. And…,” he paused again and blushed, “And you play very well.”
“Well,” said Peter shuffling with embarrassment. “I learned as a nipper and just carried on with it. Dad wanted me to go and study somewhere, but I wanted to get out and earn. It would have taken the joy out of it if I’d had to pass exams and such.”
George nodded. “I can see that. And you’re good with your hands.” He blushed again and became very absorbed with mashing the tiny amount of butter left from the ration into his baked potato. 
Peter coughed. “Well yes,” he said. He couldn’t help smiling a little at George, although he didn’t let him see. He forged on. He really didn’t want him to be uncomfortable. “I think mathematics and music sort of go together, you know? And I was always good with numbers as well…it’s a good trait in a joiner.”
George nodded, clearly feeling they were on less dangerous territory. “Yes,” he said. “There’s all sorts of things you can use maths for; but music is pretty rarefied, isn’t it?”
Peter nodded. “This way I get to keep the music and earn a living. There’s always work for a carpenter, like you said the other day.”
He gradually became less self-conscious about playing when George and Mrs Leland were in the house over the next few weeks. It made him feel like another piece of what made him a person was coming back to life. 
****
What it didn’t do was make him any less confused about what was happening between him and George. Half the time he thought George was completely uninterested. But then something would happen that would make him reconsider. The comment about being good with his hands was a case in point. It was a perfectly commonplace thing to say and George shouldn’t have been embarrassed. But he had been. Which meant he’d thought of it in a context that might cause embarrassment. 
Peter spent several very enjoyable hours spread over several evenings working through different variations of what the other man might have been thinking.
George was nobody’s Bogart. But he was decent-looking. Nice face, especially when he smiled. A bit soft round the middle, but otherwise hard muscled from the physical work he did day in, day out. Clever…did his own accounts. Liked music. Made Peter laugh with his dry commentary on things in the paper or local gossip and the social pickles the girls reported on in the break room. 
Peter liked him a lot. And fancied him. After the third night of considering at length how he could demonstrate how good with his hands he actually was, he gave up pretending. He fancied George a lot.