Born Whole

I’ve been ghosted. [1]

By my gardener. Well, he wasn’t mine, to begin with, I suppose, but for me, it was love at first sight. Platonic love, of course, but still.

I had high hopes for the garden. Three years after we moved into our house in North West London, and following several false starts, it seemed my husband, and I had finally met someone who understood what we wanted to do with the small plot of land we call a garden.

Mr Gardener swept into our lives and dazzled us with his impressive knowledge of all things horticultural and a dreamlike vision of what our garden could become. My husband was finally going to get his herbal garden, and I would have my roses. It didn’t hurt that Mr Gardener was a tall, handsome man with a delicate manner and a voice that seemed to sing rather than speak. I was completely seduced, and in fairness, so was my husband.

It started out well. Having paid a 60% deposit, Mr Gardener came as planned to clear up the green area in front of the house, rearranging plants and inserting some much-needed colour. My husband and I loved it and couldn’t wait for him to tackle the main garden at the back of the house. Confidently, we paid another deposit into Mr Gardener’s bank account and looked forward to the day he was scheduled to come again.

Except, he never came.

My husband called him, no answer. He left a message.

‘Where are you? We thought it was today you were coming.’

We heard nothing back, so my husband called again and left a new message.

‘What’s happened, are you alright? Please be in touch.’

Still no reply.

We kept calling him for a week, but all we got was his voice mail.

‘Something must have happened to him,’ I said. ‘There must be an explanation.’

Two weeks of no contact and my husband started leaving threatening messages on Mr Gardener’s voice mail.

‘If you don’t call us back, we will have to go to the police.’

Still no response.

‘We’ve been had’ my husband said three weeks later. Although my head agreed with him, my heart kept coming up with excuses for Mr Gardener’s absence.

‘Maybe he’s been in an accident?’, ‘or Home Office has deported him,’ ‘or he’s been attacked and is lying injured and incapacitated in hospital.’

‘No, Jenny, we’ve been conned.’

‘But he knew all things about gardening,’ I protested. ‘He wasn’t a fraud.’

A month and a half later, I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that we’ve been ghosted. But even though we’ve found a new, honest, gardener who seems to know what he’s doing, I can’t help wishing that Mr Gardener would come back. All would be forgiven.

 

[1] [Ghosting: when a person cuts off all communication…with zero warning or notice beforehand. Source: urbandictionary.com]