6 Ellie
E than and I spent all of the next morning clearing the half-dead bushes in the tiny front garden. The house came with gardening tools, shiny, sharp and unopened, neglected for too long in the little back garden shed. I rubbed my hands with glee when Ethan brought them out. Today was the day they fulfilled their snippy, choppy destiny.
Ethan didn’t have to help me at all. Starting a garden had been my idea, but he had insisted.
“I live here too, Ellie. Of course I’ll help.”
We made good headway hacking away at half-dead bushes in the tiny front garden. The bushes were westringias, also known as native coastal rosemary, and they were neither edible nor as fragrant as their namesake. They were hardy and often used as hedging plants, but it was obvious they hadn’t been trimmed for years. I had thought about keeping them, but they had already grown out of control. The lack of pruning meant that their inner branches were woody while their outer branches sprawled wild and messy. It was better to get rid of them and start from scratch. It was a small space, but those suckers were dense, and their roots ran deep.
After lunch, Ethan took his leave, citing something he had to do in the house. I spent the rest of the afternoon hacking the felled bushes—branches, roots and all—into tiny pieces so they could fit into the compost heap, then tidied up as much as I could. Next week, I would build up the sandy soil, and then the planting could begin in earnest.
Ethan was busy in the kitchen when I finished up and went inside.
“Dinner’ll be ready when you come out,” he called to me as I headed to the shower.
Half an hour later, I sat at our shared dining table, staring at the spread in front of me in disbelief. “Did you make all this by yourself?”
There was a plate of what looked like popcorn-sized fried chicken pieces in some kind of dark sauce that smelled absolutely moreish. There was another plate of stir-fried veggies. Then there was a whole damn fish, steamed and topped with ginger and spring onions and coriander. Rice was neatly scooped into little bowls for each of us, and there was even another little bowl with what smelled like fragrant lotus stem, pork and peanut broth in it.
“I kinda overdid it, but I wanted us to have leftovers.” Ethan looked sheepish.
“Oh my God.” I stared at all the food again. “This is just like being at a Chinese restaurant.”
“With a lot less oil and salt,” Ethan was quick to point out.
This was seriously testing my resolve to not crush on Ethan. Who wouldn’t adore a man who could cook like that ? And he made it all for me.
“This is a fairly standard Chinese home-cooked meal,” Ethan tried to appear casual about his cooking, but I knew he was downplaying his effort.
“This is a feast, Ethan. Thank you. ” I wasn’t letting him off the hook for this amazing gesture.
Ethan smiled shyly. “In that case, yeah. It’s a feast. For your moving in. Welcome, Ellie.”
He poured me a glass of white wine. What? I didn’t even notice the glasses and the wine bottle until now. Ethan had been a great housemate ever since I moved in, but all this went above and beyond.
“To us being good housemates.” He lifted his glass towards me.
“Good housemates,” I echoed and clinked glasses with him.
I had promised myself that this attraction I had towards him would not get in the way of us co-existing harmoniously and unawkwardly as housemates. Right now, I had a massive lid on my reactions to his presence, but if Ethan kept on being this nice , it would be a massive challenge indeed.
As we tucked into the food, Ethan said, “Oh, and I didn’t think through the fish. We have to finish it today because fish doesn’t keep.”
If everything tasted as good as it smelled, that wouldn’t be a problem.
“Did you and Nat swap cooking chores when you lived together?” Ethan asked as we ate. He was careful when he mentioned Nat, but he was also curious.
I shook my head. “Not as often. She hated cooking, but I loved it, so it worked out.”
“Hmm,” was all Ethan said in reply. Sensing it was still a sore subject for me, Ethan changed topics. “What are your plans for the front garden?”
That, I was happy to elaborate on.
“I’m going to turn it into a cottage garden,” I smiled. “This is a gorgeous cottage, and I think it’s only fitting.”
My planting plan included a mix of hardy native flowers up front, along with my beloved David Austin roses. Autumn was the perfect time to get started, and when spring rolled around, if things went according to plan—fingers crossed—the front would be picture-perfect.
I had already googled the best nurseries around the area. There was a native plant nursery just across the river in North Fremantle, and I planned to head on over to check it out. Checking our council website, it even looked like said nursery was selling discounted plants to residents of our area on a first come first serve basis this month. That was on my agenda for next weekend.
Ethan listened patiently as I rattled on all about waterwise plant choices and companion planting with the roses, but I noticed he started glazing over when one too many botanical Latin names rolled off my tongue.
“Sorry, I’m boring you,” I apologised.
“Nah, don’t be sorry,” he grinned at me. “It’s just going all over my head right now.”
“Ah, well. Just leave it with me, and it’ll all make sense in spring,” I promised. It was half a year away, but any work for a spring garden had to start now.
“I trust you, Ellie,” Ethan smiled, and something warm bloomed in my chest.
“How do you know how to do all this, anyway?” Ethan asked. “Haven’t you been living in an apartment?”
The thought of my old home made my heart twinge with hurt and regret, but I answered Ethan’s question. “I grew up in country-ish Victoria. My parents’ house sat on a huge chunk of land, and I had a lot of free time.” Meaning my parents left me to my own devices a lot. Raising a kid wasn’t on their planned agenda and child me had picked up on it early on, so I made extra effort to entertain myself and not be in the way. I was an easy kid to raise. “I ended up turning a chunk of the backyard into my personal garden.”
Having food and flowers to share made me popular with my neighbours and schoolmates too. I had learnt early on that as long as I made myself useful, it didn’t matter as much that I wasn’t the prettiest or funniest kid at school.
“As a childhood hobby, it could have been worse.”
Ethan gave me a wry look. “You mean you could have walked into a library and discovered books.”
“Oh, I already did that,” I grinned. “If this cottage had another room for rent, I’d totally rent it just so I could turn it into my private library.” In my old apartment, I had bookshelves in my old bedroom. Nat wanted me to leave them behind when she kicked me out. My books currently lived in boxes in my room; I’d get around to unpacking them eventually.
Ethan smirked. He had called me a stern librarian before, and I knew he was thinking it again. My wardrobe probably didn’t help, but I so loved my knits and clean lines.
“You must have missed gardening a lot when you moved to Perth,” Ethan observed astutely.
“I did, but I made do,” I shrugged. “Back at the apartment, I had planters on the balcony for herbs and veggies.” Those herbs and veggies were still there, under Nat’s and now Andy’s custody. I just hoped they were being watered and harvested. They were due for their quarterly dose of fertiliser, but all my messages to Nat had gone undelivered. I was still blocked on her phone. I pushed the thought aside and added, “And I had one indoor plant.”
Ethan caught my emphasis on the word “one.”
“Why just one?”
“Because indoor plants are their own rabbit hole,” I informed him. “Once you get addicted, it spirals out from there, and before you know it, your entire home is turned into a greenhouse, and you trade in rare plants on the internet.”
I had stared into the void, and the void was all the rooms in the house filled with pots and pots of indoor plants, windows sealed with plastic to keep moisture in, large full spectrum LED strips and timed misters decorating the ceiling in place of normal lights. Knowing how I became fixated on my hobbies, it was one rabbit hole I wouldn’t let myself jump into. Managing the outdoor gardens, now that I had permission from the landlord to do what I wanted, would be more than enough work.
Ethan looked sceptical. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”
I laughed. Oh, my dear sweet summer child. I pulled up my phone and pulled up a quick search, then passed my phone to Ethan.
“Here. Check this out.”
Ethan stared down at the sale price for the rare variegated monstera on my phone screen.
“You’re joking. People pay almost two grand for a plant?”
“Oh yes. And much more if it goes to auction. A rare one of these sold for five thousand dollars in New Zealand a few years ago.”
A thoughtful look crossed Ethan’s face. “It seems to be a very profitable enterprise…”
I laughed. “You’d think so, but it costs that much for a reason. They’re difficult to propagate. Really difficult. And even if you successfully do so, there’s no guarantee the next generation of plants will develop the rare variegation. You need a full-on setup to even get started, and then you need to keep the plants alive.”
The void beckoned to me again. I shuddered.
I described a plant cutting and tissue culture setup, then told him about the controlled lighting and humidity the plants required, which involved expensive equipment and plenty of space indoors. By the time I was done, Ethan had completely written off his indoor plant enterprise ambitions.
The rest of dinner was more of the same, with the conversation turning to random things. It was too easy to keep talking to Ethan. He seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, and I was always interested in everything he talked about. He had always been like that the entire time I had known him, but now, living with him, I had his attention all to myself, and it was addictive.
After dinner, Ethan insisted on clearing up because I was so knackered from gardening all day. I made myself comfortable in front of the TV, and Ethan joined me when he finished up in the kitchen. He even let me stream the latest episode of Gardening Australia without complaint. Nat always made me change the channel to something else less “granny-like.”
We finished the bottle of wine together. Everything was cosy and everything was easy. The entire time, I couldn’t help but marvel at how nice everything felt. Living with Ethan was going to be great. Still, I reminded myself not to get too used to this, because at the end of the day, we were just housemates and friends. Nothing more.