For my Lemon Friend.
“What’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for you?” I found myself asking a friend earlier this month. I wasn’t asked the question in return, but it’s something I have the most glorious answer to, so I’ll share it on here instead.
One bygone summer in Sardinia, a Wonderful Man gave me a lemon to hold. I will never forget it. The temperature was sweltering hot, and he placed the lemon – cool and damp – in my hands. It was the most enormous lemon, and I remember the way its dimpled skin felt. Fresh from the tree, it still had leaves attached. It was a significant gesture, a really special moment.
At the time, I lived in the microclimate of the Elephant and Castle, where I had some success in growing magnificent lemons of my own in my postage-stamp-sized garden. Plump and juicy, they adorned the branches of the trees I’d purchased from a little Sicilian man who would appear from time-to-time to set up a citrus oasis on a corner of East Street. If the trees didn’t still exist, I’d have thought I’d dreamt him.
I became close to the Wonderful Man, my Lemon Friend. During that magical summer, he plucked ripe lemons from my trees. I thought he’d taken them to make a gin and tonic, or a lemon meringue pie, perhaps.
I was touched and surprised a few days later when he handed me a Kilner jar crammed full of my lemons pickled with chillies he’d grown in his own garden. “Here”, he said, handing me the jar. “Your lemons mixed with my chillies.”. I was touched. That jar held so much meaning. Our fruits combined. A vessel of dreams, it was a bittersweet taste of what might have been, but something that never was, because sometimes The Universe doesn’t quite find the right time or place for two people for reasons of its own.
That beautiful jar of love and friendship moved with me from London to Cornwall, and still lurks at the back of my fridge to this day. Every now and then, a house guest, or my mother holds it aloft in bewilderment, exclaiming “Jennifer, what on earth is this?!”. Admittedly, many years on, it’s not looking its best.
“Put it back!” I tell them firmly. They don’t know it, but in their hands is a meaningful moment, a little piece of my heart tender from forgone yearning, preserved amidst the memories of a long-lost friend. That’s why the rusty jar of my lemons mingled with his chillies languishes at the back of my fridge, for all those who’ve ever wondered.
It’s possible to love many people in life, and to find happiness in every heartbreak. It’s funny the things one remembers. I wonder if those memories are shared or if they are long forgotten by the other person, my beloved Lemon Friend from times gone by.
