The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

I first met Tom during an in-store collection for Lincoln Foodbank. As I begged innocent shoppers for a spare Fray Bentos pie or two, an elderly gentleman in traditional countryside attire hobbled towards me with a look that somehow managed to look both cheerful and threatening.

Here we go, I thought to myself. You always get at least one charity refusenik at these events. Instead, the old boy coughed up a sly grin and said he was there to help out. I soon realised he was a lot more adept at cajoling passers-by to take a shopping list than I was so I let him crack on with the interpersonal stuff and started boxing up donations instead. We made quite a team, albeit a team in which one member was constantly in fear of the other’s wrath.

When his volunteer stint was up, Tom hobbled over and finally revealed the nature of his initial discontent. “I’ve been trying to donate apples to your food bank for years and keep getting turned away,” he grumbled. “What’s going on?”

I had no idea and told him as much. He turned up a few weeks later with crateloads of apples, all waxy pockmarked skin and irregular bruises. I could have wept with joy, but I didn’t because I think that might have given the wrong impression. Most intriguing was a handful of russet-covered fruit that Tom told me he had snaffled from a friend’s tree. Russet is a type of velvet that you find on some apple varieties. I’m not sure that it affects the taste, but they’ve always been my favourites and my father’s favourites before me. As far as I’m aware, there are only a couple of original Lincolnshire russets, the Old Man of West Torrington and Thomas Laxton’s March Queen. Both are on the East of England register of lost varieties and I had always doubted I would ever see them in the wild. I described my own attempts at raising an orchard, hoping for an invitation to Tom’s. Instead, he blanked me. He blanked me again the following year, but I persisted with my insidious whining. I wasn’t about to give up. I needed that Russet in my field. Also, I’m good at whining.

Eventually, when all hope seemed lost, I got a short-notice invitation to visit the secret garden wherein lurked my dream apple. Unfortunately, by that time I had given up on him for another year and didn’t have any bare trees ready for grafting. The sensible thing to do would have been to postpone until the Autumn, but I was eager not to let the opportunity slip through my fingers. I poked around some dark-web orchard websites and discovered an obscure method that involved planting six-inch-long cuttings into potatoes. I could find no endorsements of this apple sorcery in textbooks and there wasn’t even anything on YouTube, but I figured it was worth a shot. It’s not like my tree-husbandry normally meets with success.

Tom gave me a date and time and I set off bright and early to meet him in the village of Heighington, a posho-enclave just outside Lincoln. The first part of the journey sped by on the PC Coaches red-eye but the almost-luxury of the Lincoln to Heighington double decker was all new to me. The sparkling bus turned left and right through an ascending warren of identikit suburban streets, and I sat amazed as I looked out of windows that weren’t even smeared with dirt and mud. Despite the view, I soon lost all sense of my location. I could have been half-a-mile or ten miles from Lincoln. I was convinced we went past the same bus stop twice only the first time it was on the other side of the road. Two other lower deck passengers chatted happily about a feral dog that’s been blighting their village. I wasn’t included in the conversation, but I listened anyway. To be honest, I suspected they might be exaggerating the pooch’s reign of terror. Just before they inadvertently revealed their plan of action, the bus arrived in Heighington, and it was time to alight.

Tom was waiting outside the Spar shop as promised, leaning against a bum-high brick wall. Although he was older and frailer than the first time I met him, his eyes still sparkled, and his handshake could still crush concrete. He was glad we could meet up this week, he lied, because he was off to Germany for a family wedding at the weekend. It confirmed my suspicions that he’s a secret Sax Coburg Prussian aristocrat. I could easily imagine him wearing a monocle and plotting the assassination of Adolf Hitler along with his fellow upper-class rebels. That would make him about 120 years old though, which is probably pushing it a bit. Maybe he’s just an affable English gent after all and his children moved to Germany because they really liked Bratwurst and leather shorts.

We’ve only got an hour because he’s had to book an emergency dental appointment, so we set off post-haste for the secret orchard and my date with russets. He walked slowly but made conversation about various topics along the way. Normally we’d get fed by his friends, he confessed, but today we’ll only have time for a cup of tea.

I’ll not divulge sensitive information about the route we took in case there are malevolent parties reading but suffice to say it wasn’t far. Just behind the shop really. Disdaining the main entrance, Tom led me through a side gate and into a patch of trees and sculpted hedges that wouldn’t look out of place in a mid-rank stately home. If someone told me CS Lewis had written a book about the place, I wouldn’t have doubted them for an instant.

The owners emerged from their conservatory, and we set to discussing the wheres, whens and how-on-earths of apple tree growing. The russet tree was old and gnarled with greying bark and twisted, chaotic branches. To me, it looked entirely wonderful, dripping with the magnetism of unfettered nature. I was almost loath to snip off a branch but I let my desperation for velvety apple goodness overcome my respect for person. I ended up with three likely looking cuttings, foot long sprigs with leaves and at least a bud or two. Our hosts were a lovely couple; a retired matron and an orthopaedic surgeon who made me feel entirely welcome and rashly invited me back. I was surprised Tom hadn’t warned them. They even feigned interest in my blog and encouraged me to persist even though we all knew no-one cared.

I ended up stopping for about an hour, enough to spoil their afternoon but not enough to prompt violent removal. I learned that the garden was regularly invaded by families of ducks drifting in from a nearby stream. As well as apple trees, they grew pears, gages and even kiwi fruit. I was glad my own orchard wasn’t there to see any of it. It might have felt intimidated. I love my place, but this was on a different level entirely.

Eventually, with three spindly cuttings poking out of my rucksack and the other ends wrapped in moist kitchen towel, I headed back Louthwards. As soon as I got home, I took advantage of the evening sunshine to transplant them firstly into suitable potatoes and then into an abandoned planter in my back garden. As per interweb instructions, I surrounded them with protective bags that I cobbled together from a roll of transparent sheeting and some Sellotape. Suffocating them seemed counter-intuitive but every gardener I spoke to said they needed plastic shrouds throughout their infancy. Apparently it conserves water or something. I’ll confess that I lifted the bag to let in fresh air whenever I walked past. I had been heavily indoctrinated by school safety videos as a child.

That was as much as I could do. I watered them, begged them to at least try to survive and then settled down to watch their inevitable decline. Maybe roots were prospering below the surface, sustained by their nutritious starchy homes. I hoped so. A week later, the leaves weren’t looking too healthy but I always suspected this would be the outcome. I tugged gently on a stick to see if it had taken root in the potato and the dead wood slid out in my hands. It was another crushing defeat for Ticklepenny Orchard. Fortunately, Tom’s friend had invited me back in case the twigs came to nothing. More fool him. Six months from now I might even know what I’m doing.