"Look, I'm sorry if I offend anyone. Well, I'm not sorry really, so if some of you don't agree with what I'm about to say, you'd better leave now. You see, the truth is, gardening is all about sex."

Laughter. The tutor in the flowing dress tossed her tresses, confident of the reaction from her class. "By that I don't mean the birds and the bees, all that sort of thing. No, what I'm interested in, is why men and women garden."

Maev Lascelles leaned earnestly across the desk, revealing an impressive depth of cleavage. "For those whose marriages have grown stale, they can channel time and energy, and yes, love to their garden instead. But for those men who still have hopes of reviving the spark, it is chance to put on a courtship display, of luxuriant foliage, and dazzling colour that sweeps away all resistance. Excuse me while I take a large glug of water at this point ... "

More laughter. They hadn't expected this, but she was marvellous.

"And for a woman, it may be a chance to attract a man who shares her romantic view of the garden, who is willing to accept a glass of lemonade on the terrace, and then follow her down a twisting path to an arbour entwined above with roses, or clematis, or wisteria ..."

Yet more laughter. The middle-aged women exchanged happy glances, yet managed to avoid making eye contact with the one man in the group. Phil Prescott didn't feel awkward about being the only male there, at least, he didn't think he did. But he wasn't sure about the tutor; her glowing clothes were a bit hippyish for his taste. He had been a bank official for many years, until his branch closed following a takeover. Now he had decided he need never work again, so long as his wife was happy to continue doing so. As he explained to Maev Lascelles during the coffee break:

"It was a godsend, being made redundant. Gave me a chance to reassess my life, the direction it's going."

"And where is it going?" asked Maev, the coffee cup almost hiding the smile upon her lips.

"Still not sure. Maybe painting, maybe creative writing, maybe a little sports journalism - I rather fancy spending all day at a cricket match and getting paid for it - or maybe garden design. I find this class quite inspiring. I thought it was just a question of keeping everything tidy, weeding beds and borders, mowing the lawn, that sort of thing. Never realised you had to use your imagination."

She caressed his arm for quite some time.

"Phil, you're so sweet! It's always so exciting to make another convert!"

Spring turned to early summer. Maev Lascelles threw open the windows on entering the room - "it's like a greenhouse in here!" - and wore lighter, diaphonous clothes that revealed even more of her bountiful figure. Phil felt himself falling under her spell. While dispensing information and useful tips she tantalised her class with references to her own garden: "It's very private. But perhaps I'll throw it open one day and you can all come and see it." Phil Prescott's eyes narrowed at this. He coveted a viewing of Maev's horticultural treasures, all of his own. But she would never say exactly where she lived, apart from it being "somewhere up the river, with fabulous views in late autumn and winter, when the leaves have fallen."

Then one day she arrived late, rather breathless, explaining that she had had to come in by bus because her car had broken down. The bus didn't return until four in the afternoon, but she was damned if she would take a taxi.

"I could run you back," he offered during the coffee break. "I've got no plans for today."

Maev looked at him intently, as if she was reading his thoughts, even though he wasn't sure exactly what he was thinking.

She was quite stern after coffee that day. "I want to mention dangers in the garden. Particularly for men." Everyone turned round and laughed with Phil. They were more comfortable with him now. "One man in my class damaged two knees, suffered a hernia and two prolapsed discs while attempting various hard landscaping projects. I told him, gardening can be a matter of life or death," she said, looking hard at Phil.

Her mood softened in the car park, when she saw his blue sports car glinting in the sun. She caressed his bonnet, and exclaimed at the colour. Phil was exhilerated by Maev's presence in the car beside him; this was what early retirement was all about, he told himself, as they roared round bends and flew up and down hills, the wind in Maev's hair. She looked at him, hunched over the steering wheel; just as he must have crouched over his computer for all those years in the bank. They swerved abruptly off the Totnes road, and up a steep, bumpy, twisting track. Trees on either side of the banks entwined branches, embracing, almost obscuring the light. Phil kept a look-out for rocks that might damage the paintwork. In his short-sleeved shirt he felt chilly for the first time that day. Suddenly, a thatched cottage in a clearing. Fuschias, geraniums and African marigolds in pots around a courtyard. Dazzling tiles. A bee in the middle of a deep-blue clematis.

The garden dropped steeply. Through the trees he thought he could see the river far below. Or it could have been one of the creeks that twisted and turned on the map like a snake. He wasn't sure. It was difficult to get his bearings up here. There were no straight lines, only curves, no neat edges. Everything flowed.

"This is ... I'm lost for words," he said

"Enchanting?" Maev offered.

"Idyllic," he concluded, overwhelmed.

"Not when the rain sweeps off Dartmoor, " she replied. "But it's why everything grows so lush, I suppose."

"That, and your green fingers."

"Young man, flattery will get you everywhere."

She took his arm; Phil was thrilled to feel her body close to his. As well as the flowers there were ornaments in every corner and crevice, bizarre and bewildering. Astonishingly lifelike birds - jays, kingfishers, woodpeckers - along with abstract sculptures, blocks of stones in strange shapes, shimmering in the light. Nothing like this had come up during the weeks at the adult education college; maybe she was saving them up for the advanced course. He bent his head to inspect them more closely; it must have been his imagination, but the stone shapes seemed to pulse with life.

"This is the sort of place you never want to leave," he said ecstatically.

"I might hold you to that," she murmured.

She let him explore the house as she busied herself in the kitchen. The walls were painted in a jumble of glowing colours, although he was baffled by the number of bright ribbons tied to objects in unexpected places. Phil found himself upstairs in her bedroom. He was struck by the number of candles in the room, on every surface; the window sill, dressing table, chest of drawers, top of the wardrobe. He stared at the bed, and imagined himself on it with Maev, and thought he could hear it jingling. He came downstairs in a fever.

"Had a good look round? Have you got a feel of the place?"

She poured him a glass of wine the colour of gold. The liquid flooded his senses, making him think he understood everything for the first time. He had not realised until this moment how much he resented the fact that Janet had been redeployed in the bank merger, instead of being made redundant as he had. Now she was earning more than he had ever done. And then he found himself confessing something. It had only been a little thing, hardly a fraud at all in the overall scale of things. "I used to sign up these little old ladies who had been with us for years to what we called our Coronet card. It meant they got discounts on gyms, and golf club membership. Things they couldn't possibly ever use. It cost them £50 a year, but they never noticed. Harmless, really. That's what I always told myself."

He cursed his humdrum existence, the facts and figures, endowments, insurances, loans and mortgages, his bungalow by the sea, his safely invested redundancy payment. He drank another glass of wine. At that moment he knew his life was about to change for ever.

"I don't want to leave," he blurted out. "I want to stay. I want you."

"I know," she replied. "All men are unfaithful, or would like to be. It's true, some just don't have to nerve to do it. But you're not like that, are you, Phil?"

His soul was swooning. The whole garden seemed to sigh as the wind fingered the trees. The last thing he heard was Maev's voice, apparently repeating like an incantation: "A garden can capture you body and soul, demanding attention day after day. There can be no love for anything else, or anyone. It becomes your only passion, and like a painting, a canvas that will always remain unfinished ..."

"It's just that you appear to be the last person to have seen Mr Prescott. It's been three days. His wife is a little concerned ..."

"If only I could help, chief inspector. But after sampling a glass or two of my nettle wine, he was gone. Almost before I could blink."

"Maybe we should test some of that wine," suggested the detective constable. "I'm afraid he finished the last drop," Maev explained with a dazzling smile.

"Well," said the older police officer. "You have a most attractive if unusual garden, I must say."

"You're sure you've checked every nook and cranny?"

"Don't worry, Miss Lascelles. We won't take up any more of your time."

Three days? It all seemed such a long time ago now, those moments in the garden, sharing the nettle wine. After she had seen the detectives to the front gate Maev strolled back along a path by the side of her house, hedged on either side by dense, glossy laurel, that led to a small fountain watering a gleaming blue object. It wasn't clear what it was meant to be, although its shape suggested motion and speed; and it had a small red dot at its centre.

"Now Phil, dear," she murmured fondly as she stroked the sculpture. "Is this what you had in mind for your early retirement?" Her fingers teased the object. "I'm just so happy you're here. And I do love the way you light up at night."

"Gardening with passion" by Greg Freeman