Barnes: Gardeners' World

In de bundel Pulse van Julian Barnes staat een verhaal Gardeners' World waarin het verloop van een huwelijk via de groententuin in beeld komt (“a couple bond, fall out and bond again over flowers and vegetable patches”):

“What have you done with the blackberry?”
“What blackberry?”
This made him more tense. Their garden was hardly that big.
“The one along the back wall.”
“Oh, that briar.”
“That briar was a blackberry with blackberries on it. I brought you two and personally fed them into your mouth.”
“I’m planning something along that wall. Maybe a Russian vine, but that’s a bit cowardly. I was thinking a clematis.”
“You dug up my blackberry.’
“Your blackberry?” She was always at her coolest when she knew, and knew that he knew, that she’d done something without consultation.