BUT IS IT ART?

Harriet is outraged to find vandals have scrawled graffiti over the park bandstand

Pulling on on her thick gardening gloves, Harriet gestured at the rest of the volunteers: “Right, come on all of you. It’s not going to get any warmer so we may as well make a start.” They tightened their scarves, picked up their tools and marched over to the nearest flowerbed.

The group had been working in the park for the last six months. It had been Harriet’s idea and seemed like a good one in May. Now autumn had come, the only hardy souls left were Harriet, her friend, Joan, and three weather-hardened men from the local allotments.

They got down to work, planting the free daffodil bulbs that Harriet had bullied out of the local garden centre. They laboured in peaceful silence until the tranquillity was shattered by the sound of pop music.

“What on earth is that racket?” Harriet demanded sharply. She turned to find a young girl standing by her side. The girl blushed a painful red and quickly switched off her headphones.

“Sorry!” the girl stammered. “I read about volunteering on Facebook and thought maybe I could join you?”

Harriet sniffed and was about to send the girl packing when Joan said: “That’s a lovely idea. My name’s Joan, this is Harriet and these gentlemen are Jack, Flynn and Bob.”

The girl seemed to relax a little and when she smiled her thin face glowed. She said: “I’m Daisy.”

Harriet felt her unchallenged leadership of the group was slipping away. She clapped her hands briskly. “Well, now we all know each other, let’s get on. The light won’t last much longer and we need to weed round the bandstand before we call it a day.”

Turning to Daisy, she asked:

“Do you know anything at all about gardening?”

“I used to help my granddad until…” she faltered. “Well, until he had a stroke. I carried on looking after the house and garden, but when he died the council took his house back. I had to move to a shared flat – which is OK, but there’s no garden. I miss…”

Harriet cut her off abruptly, pointing dramatically at the bandstand. “Look at that! I can’t believe how mindlessly destructive people can be!”

The group turned to see what had enraged her. Bright patterns had been scrawled in paint all over the white bandstand. Daisy blurted out: “That must be Wayne’s. He’s got the flat next door to me. He always signs his work with a W like that.”

Five pairs of eyes turned on her. With some satisfaction, Harriet said slowly: “So one of your friends is the vandal? You’d better come with me and report this to the police.”

She moved to grab the girl’s skinny arm, but Daisy was too quick. She took off across the park at a pace that the gardeners couldn’t match. Harriet turned to the group, but none of them would meet her angry gaze.

Joan broke the silence. “I think that was a bit unnecessary, Harriet. It’s not as though that poor girl did the graffiti. We’ve only known her for five minutes and you want to haul her off to the police station. Her grandfather hasn’t

‘I think that was a bit unnecessary, Harriet. It’s not as though that poor girl did the graffitti’