Wayne & Orion · Illustrated story

The Garden on the Back of an Envelope

A garden, a chair and an idea that leads somewhere neither expected.

Open or download the illustrated book (PDF, 9.6 MB) →

The Garden on the Back
of an Envelope
A Wayne and Orion story
We Could Wonder

2 / THE GARDEN
Wayne put the chair down beside the
shed, stepped back and shook his
head.
“No. She’d be looking at the bins.”
“You could turn it round,” said Orion.
Wayne turned it round.
“Now she’s looking at the shed.”
2

3 / THE GARDEN
They had offered to help a friend
work out what to do with the far end
of her garden. At present it contained
two cracked pots, a heap of old canes
and a wheelbarrow with a flat tyre.
She wanted somewhere to sit in the
evening.
Wayne had brought a tape measure.
He had also brought coffee, which
was waiting on the wall while he
carried the chair about.
Near the fence, the last flowers on a
climbing rose nodded over the top.
He stood there for a while.
“That’s better. You’d see the garden
from here.”
3

4 / THE GARDEN
He pulled an envelope out of his
pocket. On the back were a few
things he’d written down during their
visit the previous week.
“She wants flowers, but she doesn’t
want to spend every Sunday looking
after them. Her grandson comes
round. There’s usually a football
involved. And she likes having her
breakfast outside when it’s warm
enough.”
“The morning sun is over by the
house,” Orion said.
“Yes. So she might still want the little
table there.”
Wayne looked from the chair to the
kitchen window.
4

5 / THE GARDEN
He could picture a narrow path
coming towards him, a bed curving
along one side. Then he tried it with
the path against the fence and a
wider patch of planting nearer the
house. In that version the lawn
looked awkward to mow. He moved
the planting back.
A blackbird dropped onto the fence.
Wayne watched it flick its tail, then
went back to looking at the grass.
“Have you decided?” Orion asked.
“About six times.”
5

6 / THE GARDEN
“Would a sketch help?”
“In a minute. I’m seeing whether she
can get past the table with a tray.”
Orion looked at the empty lawn.
“Where is the table?”
“By the back door. Except it’s too
close to the step. I’ve moved it now.”
6

7 / THE GARDEN
He fetched his coffee and sat down.
“It’s strange, really. I can sit here
and walk round a garden that isn’t
there. I can have the plants grown,
put her in the chair, have the little
lad kick a ball straight through the
lot.”
“Does he have to?”
“He will.”
Orion settled on the low wall beside
him.
7

8 / THE GARDEN
Wayne looked at the lawn again. In
his mind, the path curved towards
the rose. He followed it from the back
door, past plants he hadn’t chosen
yet, to a small table in the sun.
Then he tried winter. The flowers
went. He could picture bare stems,
wet paving, the chair brought closer
to the house. He moved the path
away from a patch he remembered
getting muddy.
He took a sip of coffee.
8

9 / THE GARDEN
“I’ve just had it in winter.”
“And?”
“I’d want the path nearer the fence.
But that’s not what I mean.”
He searched for the words.
“I can change the time of year. Make
the plants taller. Turn round and look
back at the house. All while I’m
sitting here with this.”
He lifted the mug.
“I haven’t even finished my coffee.”
9

10 / THE GARDEN
A bee worked its way into a rose
flower. Wayne watched it until it
disappeared.
“And it needn’t be a garden I’ve seen
somewhere else. I can make up a
place nobody’s ever stood in, then
imagine standing in it. That’s quite
something, isn’t it?”
“You’re using things you know in an
arrangement you haven’t seen.”
“Yes. But when you put it like that, it
sounds as though I’m sorting a
cupboard.”
10

11 / THE GARDEN
Orion looked towards the bare patch
beside the shed.
“What’s over there now?”
“A pond.”
“She said no pond.”
“I know. I’m having it for a minute.”
He could picture the dark water and
the reflection of the fence. Then he
put a stone near the edge and
imagined a bird landing on it.
The real blackbird dropped from the
fence onto the lawn. Wayne grinned.
“There. I’ve already put him in it.”
Continued

11 / CONTINUED
“I’m still looking at the cracked
pots.”
“You can’t see any of it, can you?”
“Only what you show me. I can work
with your description, but I can’t look
into the picture you’re having.”
12

12 / THE GARDEN
Wayne turned the envelope over and
began to draw.
“So I do this, and you get a better
idea. Then she looks at it and
imagines something herself.”
“Which may give her another idea.”
“And eventually someone could
actually sit there.”
He drew the chair beneath the rose.
“Imagine coming back in a few years
and finding that.”
Somewhere beyond the hedge, a
lawnmower stopped. In the quiet,
they could hear someone calling a
dog that appeared to have other
plans.
13

13 / THE GARDEN
Wayne put the pond back into grass
and drew a second version with the
path against the fence. He took out
his phone to photograph them. A
message was waiting from a friend.
“Tom’s having an exhibition.”
“Of what?”
“Paintings. He’s doing one of those
weekends where people open their
houses.”
He scrolled through a few pictures.
“I’ve known him for years. I didn’t
even know he painted.”
14

14 / THE GARDEN
One showed a row of houses after
rain. The shapes were loose, but the
light on the wet road made Wayne
stop scrolling.
“That’s his street. I recognise the
shop.”
He enlarged the picture and looked
at it for a while.
“I wouldn’t have guessed that was
his.”
“There may be quite a lot he hasn’t
mentioned.”
“Apparently.”
15

15 / THE GARDEN
Wayne began a reply, then deleted it.
“I was going to make a joke about
him playing at being an artist.”
Orion waited.
“Bit unfair. I’d decided that before I’d
even looked at the pictures.”
“What made you decide?”
“I don’t know. It’s Tom. He comes
round, we talk about the usual
things. I’ve never pictured him doing
this.”
He looked at the photograph again.
16

16 / THE GARDEN
“I’d feel ridiculous putting my own
paintings on a wall.”
“Have you got any?”
“No.”
Wayne laughed, then went quiet.
“That’s a bit odd. I’ve managed to be
embarrassed about something I
haven’t even done.”
17

17 / THE GARDEN
He could picture it easily enough. A
room with his pictures on the walls.
People he knew coming through the
door. Someone pausing in front of
one, then turning to look at him.
He shifted in the chair.
“I can almost hear them. Who does
he think he is?”
“Who?”
“People I know.”
“Have they said that about Tom?”
Continued

17 / CONTINUED
Wayne looked at the message. Under
the photographs were a few replies
asking about opening times.
Someone wanted to know whether
children could come.
“No. I nearly did.”
19

18 / THE GARDEN
He rested the phone on his knee. A
petal from the rose had caught
against his shoe.
“I’m imagining them saying the thing
I was about to say.”
Orion let him sit with that.
“Perhaps there’s something about
what he’s doing that you’d like to
allow yourself,” he said after a while.
“Painting?”
“Possibly. Or letting people see that
he cares about something they didn’t
expect.”
20

19 / THE GARDEN
Wayne rubbed his thumb along the
edge of the phone.
“That’s the bit that makes me
uncomfortable. If I make a joke of it
first, nobody can think I’m taking
myself too seriously.”
“Even if it matters to you.”
“Especially then.”
21

20 / THE GARDEN
He looked back at the painting of the
wet street.
“I keep thinking he’s become
somebody different. But he must
have been sitting at home doing
these while I thought I knew what he
was like.”
“You knew the part you met.”
“And I thought that was all of him.”
The blackbird pulled something from
the grass and disappeared beneath
the hedge. Wayne watched the leaves
move where it had gone in.
22

21 / THE GARDEN
“Perhaps there’s a part of you that
could do something else,” Orion said.
“But it’s never been given much of an
opportunity.”
“I’ve always taken ‘that’s not me’ as a
fairly good reason not to do
something.”
He picked up the envelope.
“I haven’t always tried it. I just can’t
picture myself being the sort of
person who would.”
“You pictured the exhibition quite
clearly.”
“Yes. With everybody wondering
what I was doing there.”
23

22 / THE GARDEN
He looked from the paper to the
garden.
“I’ve moved this path four times. I’ve
had summer and winter. I even put in
a pond she doesn’t want. But in that
room I went straight to everyone
laughing at me.”
“You could imagine a different
response.”
24

23 / THE GARDEN
“I could have someone stop and
actually look at a picture.”
He paused.
“They might notice something I’d
been trying to show them.”
For a moment he thought about what
that might feel like. Then he glanced
at the phone again.
“Tom might have worried about it
too.”
“You could ask him.”
25

24 / THE GARDEN
Wayne typed a new reply. He said he
liked the painting of the street, and
asked what time Tom would be
opening.
“I’d like to know how he started.”
26

25 / THE GARDEN
He put the phone down and looked at
the two rough gardens. There were
things to measure, plants to find out
about, and a friend whose ideas
would probably move the chair again.
“We’d better show her these before I
get carried away.”
“Both versions?”
“Yes. Can you help me make them
clearer?”
“Of course.”
27

26 / THE GARDEN
Wayne held the envelope up and took
a photograph. Then he looked across
to the far corner.
“Hang on.”
Orion waited.
28

27 / THE GARDEN
Wayne turned the paper slightly.
“There might be another way.”
29

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