‘The stones for this church were mined from valleys of volcanic shifts.’ I might tell you this, then nod across the street, and above, where the Ochil hills rise high in the sky.
We might stand together outside a church, to venture in, perhaps. We might link arms, to peer past the ‘For Sale’ sign, then round the dark corner.
‘There he is,’ you might say. ‘We found him. I see his saltire bandana-mask.’
‘What’s he doing?’ I will ask because I will have forgotten my glasses.
‘He is bending over a raised bed of potatoes, stroking their leaves and singing. Oh he’s looked up and seen me, he’s coming over. He’ll know we followed him.’
‘Come in come in come in,’ he will shout through the saltire, over the bee-thrum and the songs of all the winged ones. He will lead us to the old garden. ‘Help yourselves,’ he will say. ‘We have more than we need.’
We will go into the patchwork jumble of car tyres sprouting carrots behind ox-eye daisies. Pallet-frame salad beds will be tucked around ornamental rose bushes. Maybe two juice-bottle polytunnels house a baker’s dozen of kids making pea frames from old black plastic drain pipes. Maybe knitters sit by whisky barrel tables. ‘We have been waiting for you,’ they might say, ‘please help yourself, take what you need.’
Broccoli will blossom from old boats and barrows. The church lawns, flower beds and orchards will be acres of plants and people, growing.
I will sit on a rough hewn bench while you flit to small wild strawberries, gathering a salad of flowers and leaves, picking all the time. You might remember the ways you learned the tastes of nasturtiums.
‘Can we buy this Mum?’ you will ask and I will say, ‘No, this church was built by their grandfathers. They must come together and own it, re-open it, grow tomatoes or hemp inside it.’
‘We can build one like it, Mum,’ you will say. ‘They have built a heaven on earth and we can too. Can we have this sort of church too?’
‘Yes.’ I will say. ‘Yes.’