The Gardener

   

    This, thought Mr. Parsons, was more like it. The skies above Jerusalem were clear for the first time since he'd arrived, and the cold wind that had blasted up the valley below his convent guesthouse for the past three days had given way to a light and playful breeze. Pigeons cooed in the vine-covered trellis above his head, and the comfortable chair he had earmarked for himself was already occupied by a plump black and white cat. On the opposite ridge the late afternoon sun lit up the golden cupolas of the Russian monastery, and from somewhere in the trees below him he could hear the clanking bell of the Greek Orthodox Church, where he had spent a pleasant hour chatting with the priests earlier in the day.
   
    He was carrying a plate of sandwiches and a cup of hot chocolate from the communal kitchen. This he placed on one of the shaded picnic tables overlooking the valley and sat down. He was about to start eating when he realized he wasn’t alone. At an adjoining table sat a group of elderly nuns. Led by the Mother Superior who ran the guesthouse they were praying over their rosaries in Arabic. Not sure of the protocol, Mr. Parsons decided it might be best to postpone his meal until they finished, so he just leaned back in his chair and listened to the nun’s soft, wavering voices as they responded to the prayers—Halelujah, Halelujah--until he almost dozed off. Then he jumped as he became aware of someone sitting down next to him.
   
    “English, are yer, mate?”
   
    Mr. Parsons looked up in surprise and saw a tall, thin man of about sixty with an Australian bush hat on his head. The man had bright blue eyes and his face was brick-red from the sun. He was dressed in torn jeans and an old white T-shirt advertising a rock concert. Over the T-shirt he wore a tattered, beaded waistcoat with a pair of spectacles held together with sellotape poking from the pocket. His graying hair was drawn back in a scraggy ponytail and he could have done with a shave.
   
    “Cat got yer tongue?” the man said.
   
    Before Mr. Parsons could reply the Mother Superior appeared beside them. She was a large, grim-looking woman, with a no-nonsense air about her.
   
    “Ricky,” she snapped, “don’t bother the gentleman. Haven’t you got work to do?”
   
    He glared at her, shook his head slowly, and shambled off without a word.
   
    The nun sighed.
   
    “He really is quite harmless,” she said, “but if he makes a nuisance, please let me know and I will speak to him again.”
   
    “Who is he?” asked Mr. Parsons
   
    “A homeless man,” she said. “He works in our gardens for food and a place to sleep.”
   
    Mr. Parsons’ curiosity got the better of him.
       
    “But how did he get here? This is the last place I’d expect to meet someone like him.”
   
    The Mother Superior laughed. “Don’t worry, sir. He’ll tell you himself. He tells all the English guests.”
   
    “Oh,” said Mr. Parsons, dubiously.
                                                                  *
    The Mother Superior was right. As Mr. Parsons took his breakfast out onto the terrace the following morning the man called Ricky was watering flowers next to the main entrance. When he saw Mr. Parsons he came and sat down at his table without so much as a by-your-leave.
   
    “I’ve gotta get out of ‘ere,” he said. “Can you ‘elp me?”
   
    “I beg your pardon?”
   
    “Us Englishmen got to stick together. Show all these bleedin’ foreigners what’s what.”
   
    “But surely,” said Mr. Parsons reasonably, “we’re the foreigners now.”
   
    “Ought never’ve allowed ‘em inter the Common Market, that’s what I say.”
   
    Mr. Parsons wondered if the gardener was entirely sober. Before he could come up with a response the man was off on another tack.
   
    “You know who I am, don’t ya?”
   
    “Well…,”
   
    “Ricky Randall, that’s me.”
   
    “Oh,” answered Mr. Parsons. “I’m afraid…”
   
    “Ricky Randall,” the gardener said slowly, and pointed with a grubby forefinger at his chest. Mr. Parsons dutifully read what was printed on the T-shirt: Ricky Randall and His Volunteers.
   
    “That’s who I am,” said Ricky Randall proudly. “We was as big as the Beatles in our day. Could have been, anyway, only…”
   
    “Only what?”
   
    “Booze…hash…women. ‘Specially women. You know ‘ow it is.”
   
    Mr. Parsons, a shy, retiring bachelor, did not know how it was, although he had sometimes wondered.
   
    “But how did you end up over here in the first place?” he asked, interested in spite of himself.
   
    “Volunteer, wasn’t I? On a kibbutz down near Beer Sheva. I mean, it’s better than ‘angin’ around the Labour Exchange in Fulham, innit?”
   
    “I’m sure of that,” agreed Mr. Parsons.
   
    “Those were the days. Nothin’ but sun, beer, an’ birds: Swedish, Israeli, American, Dutch…” The gardener cackled. “Life o’ Riley, that’s what it was.”
   
    “And now you’re living in a convent?”
   
    Ricky Randall sighed. “Payment for me sins, old son,” he said. “The price of a mis-spent youth.”

                                                        *
    Over the next few days Mr. Parsons was treated to a number of installments of Ricky Randall’s chaotic life story to date: how he’d married a kibbutz girl, got divorced, started to drink, and been thrown out of the kibbutz as a result. He also hinted at a spell in prison, while being a little vague about the circumstances, as well as a breakdown from which he had not entirely recovered. On top of all this a woman posing as his friend had cheated him out of all the money he had realized from the sale of his mother’s house after her death back in England, leaving him penniless and living on the street, where the nuns from the convent had found him, and offered him a job.
   
    “Little did I know, Arthur,” said Ricky Randal in a lugubrious voice. “Little did I know.”
   
    “About what?” asked Mr. Parsons.
   
    “They didn’t just want a gardener, did they? They wanted a slave. Me, Ricky Randall, reduced to scrubbin’ out bogs and vaccumin’ ‘otel rooms. And all at the double, as well. The ol’ bat what runs this place never leaves me a minute to meself.”
   
    “Then why do you stay?”
   
    “Waitin for me money back, ain’t I? I got a lawyer suin’ the bloody woman what conned me. When I gets it you won’t see me for dust.”
   
    “I wish you luck with that.”
   
    “Listen, you won’t tell ‘er what I said, will yer? She’s just dyin’ for an excuse to kick me out.”
   
    “Mum’s the word,” said Mr. Parsons.
                                                                    *
    Mr. Parsons saw quite a lot of the gardener during the next few days, for the weather turned cold and wet again, and the Mother Superior advised him to put off his visit to the Old City because of rioting in the area around Temple Mount. Truth to tell he was glad of the company, for he only saw the other guests at breakfast. 
   
    One thing was obvious: Ricky Randall was not as hard done by as he said. He always seemed to have time to stop and chat. Not that Mr. Parsons minded very much; when he could be got off the subject of his own troubles, the man was a treasure trove of hilarious stories about life as a kibbutz volunteer in the late nineteen sixties, when the wine was free and the women were freer, and he and his band had played venues all over the country, as well as at concerts in Turkey and Greece. He also claimed he’d driven a tank in the Yom Kippur war, and had even parachuted over Damascus. This last sounded a little unlikely, but Mr. Parsons’ own grasp of local history was too shaky for him to dispute it.
                                                                     
                                                                *
    On his last day Mr. Parsons decided to visit the Old City anyway. It was still raining, so he bought an umbrella, something he had not thought to pack for a visit to the Middle East, and spent a most enjoyable day tramping round the sights, returning to the guesthouse after dark.
   
    As he unlocked the gate he thought he heard a radio playing. A man was singing a love song in a cracked, but pleasant voice. The voice sounded familiar, but Mr. Parsons couldn’t quite place it.
   
    When he reached the entrance to the guesthouse he found the Mother Superior seated at a table under the trellis. She motioned him to take a seat, and poured him a cup of tea. Before he could thank her she put her finger to her lips and pointed up at the second floor balcony.
   
    Ricky Randall was sitting there, lit from behind by a weak light bulb. In his hands he held a guitar, but he wasn’t playing it. He simply sang quietly to himself for another minute, or so, without seeming to notice that he had an audience, then stopped in the middle of a phrase, and wandered back inside, trailing his guitar behind him.
   
    “Well, I never,” said Mr. Parsons. “He’s good, isn’t he?”
   
    “He was better, once.”     
   
    “Once? You knew him before?
   
    “I did not know him,” she said. “But I saw him. It was a long time ago, and I was just a young girl. A child.”
   
    “But where?”
   
    “In a club. My sister and me, we were not allowed to go to clubs, so we waited one night until our parents are asleep, and then we climbed out of the window.” The Mother Superior chuckled at the memory. “That is when I saw him. He had such a beautiful voice, I never forgot. And he was so handsome…But there were no more clubs after that. I chose a different way, and I am not sorry for it.”
   
    “And then you recognized him in the street?” asked Mr. Parsons. “After all this time?”
   
    “Not him. He was singing for money on the corner. I recognized his voice.”
   
    “Well, I never,” Mr. Parsons said again. “Does he know?”
   
    The nun looked at him over the top of her glasses. “He does not,” she said. “And you will please not tell him. He will be completely impossible if he knows.”
   
    “Mum’s the word,” said Mr. Parsons.

                                                                  *
    The following morning Mr. Parsons paid his bill and phoned for a taxi to wait for him down by the gate. Ricky Randall was there, as well, chatting to the driver in Cockney-accented Hebrew. When he saw Mr. Parsons he held out his hand.
   
    “Off home to Blighty, are we?”
   
    “That we are.”
   
    As Mr. Parsons opened the taxi door the gardener said, “I saw you in a conflab with ‘Er  Royal ‘Ighness last night. What was the ol’ Gorgon sayin’ about me?”
   
    “Oh, nothing much,” said Mr. Parsons. “I think she’s a bit of a fan of yours in her own way.”
   
    “Pull the other one,” said Ricky Randall.