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this load and back to antiques the better.
    He began, ‘These are miniature variants of Cydonia japonica, very colourful. The trays are early...’
    Gardeners are dull. I switched off. They’re all desperate to preach their particular gospel - plums more succulent, flowers more dazzling, roses more floribunding, whatever. They’re like anglers, yawnsome fibbers. I mean, even if their tall tales were all true, so what? My gardening philosophy is that everything that grows is fundamentally grass, and that’s that. It varies a bit - here, it swells into a big woody thing we call a bush; there, it lurks and goes blue and folk call it a harebell, but basically it’s all grass. Anybody who says different doesn’t know Mother Nature like I do.
    I wandered over to the flower stall opposite while Meti-vier prattled on about Armeniaca vulgaris. ‘Here, Christine,’ I said. ‘Is that bloke’s stuff any good?’
    Christine’s a rawboned lass from Hertfordshire. I like her. I’m not really sure what rawboned means, because anybody whose bones are raw is in pretty serious trouble. I suppose I mean hefty. She did me a favour once when I was escaping from three horrible people who said I’d forged a painting and sold it to a rival. I had, actually, but whose fault was that? She sells big spuds, big firuit, big vegetables, in boxes she hauls about as if they contained air. She owns two farms and brings two sulky cats. They miaowed and stalked towards me, but they only ever want to sit on my chest and nod off, lazy sods.
    ‘You two can get lost,’ I told them. They looked at each other, put out.
    ‘Him? Good, but weird.’
    She was wrapping fruit in a paper bag for an elderly couple. I watched admiringly. She spins the bag so it finishes up with two ears, the bag tight as a drum. I’ve tried to do it but it falls apart, then I look stupid.
    ‘Weird how?’
    She rested a fist on a hip. ‘Lovejoy. Do me a favour? As a friend?’
    ‘Yes, love. What?’ I went all anxious.
    ‘Don’t ever go into market gardening. You’d starve.’
    ‘I promise, love.’ A promise I’d keep. ‘Weird how?’
    ‘It’s ...’ Christine stared over, judging Metivier’s layout. ‘It’s like from some time warp. Nothing real, y’know? For Christ’s sake, look round.’ She hauled me round and round on the spot.
    ‘I’m looking, I’m looking,’ I bleated. ‘What at?’
    ‘At folk, Lovejoy,’ she said in exasperation. ‘See these bedraggled droves? We have a special word for them -customers. Yes, love?’
    A bonny woman with two children bought some tomatoes, lettuces, mushrooms. Christine did her spinning bag trick, chatting the whilst, gave the woman her change.
    ‘See, Lovejoy? It’s a new invention called a sale. I grow produce. I give it to customers. They give me money in payment. It’s catching on everywhere. That lady’s gone off happy. I’m happy. My vegetables are happy.’ She embraced me, laughing, wet through. It was teeming. ‘It’s called commerce, you ignorant nerk.’
    Like I say, we’ve been friends. I told her ta and sploshed through to the fifth line of stalls, where Marker - garden signs to the nobility - agreed to do me instant lettering on a giant piece of hardboard. I returned to Metivier and his merry sister. Latest bulletin on his stall: George had sold nothing.
    ‘As I was saying about Clematis viticella, Lovejoy,’ he resumed. ‘It was introduced by Mr Hugh Morgan in 1569 from Spain—’
    ‘Good old Hugh,’ I cut in. ‘Have you got a couple of poles?’
    ‘Poles?’ He inspected his area. ‘I’m so sorry, Lovejoy.’
    ‘Then we’ll use your awning. Take it down. And your garden umbrella.’ I hauled it from its concrete disc, giving Marie a bright smile. ‘Shift, love.’
    She stood there exposed to the rain, speechless. It’s an ill wind does that, right?
    Marker and his little lad brought the hardboard and rigged it up. It dwarfed the patch. I like Marker, a real artist. We stood