‘Just the leg work, the planting, the heavy lifting. It was his science and his knowledge of Christmas trees. I’m not that clever.’
I watch him as he chews on his lip. He’s definitely being modest there.
‘I never thought Peppermint Branches would run as a Christmas tree farm again. I was certain it would go to a property developer who would flatten it and re-use the land. I intended to make a deal with the new owner to buy this field in exchange for a good chunk of cash or a different part of my adjoining land. Anything to stop these trees being destroyed.’
‘Oh. Okay, I suppose we can still do that …’ I start, trying not to sound as disappointed as I feel.
‘No way,’ he says quickly. ‘That was only my plan if it sold to someone who was going to destroy it. You’re running this place as a tree farm, so these are yours now. I was only an interim caretaker. Just try not to kill them.’
I laugh at his offhand tone. ‘No pressure then.’
He doesn’t laugh. ‘I’m sorry about the trespassing. It’s terrible, and if anyone had known I was doing it, or caught me in here, they wouldn’t have been so understanding.’
Either I’m missing something or I just don’t get what the big deal is. ‘The land wasn’t mine then. It wasn’t anybody’s. These trees are beautiful, and obviously important, you weren’t doing anything wrong by keeping them alive.’
His shoulders drop as relief visibly floods through him, and he smiles for the first time since I opened the gate.
The tree I’m standing next to must be roughly seven foot high because I have to look up to see the tip. ‘How old are these?’
‘This one is six years,’ he says without needing to read the label that’s tied around a low branch. ‘But they vary. Each row was planted at a different time. The oldest ones are eight and the youngest ones are toddlers at three.’
‘Do they scream a lot and refuse to eat their vegetables?’
This time he does laugh, a warm rumbling sound that makes me grin as he points out the younger trees, each row shorter than the one before. It looks organised and professional. The moss is green and plush and the trees themselves have an unusual eye-catching colour, the traditional dark green but with an underside of a lighter greyish-blue that makes you want to stop for a closer look, and it’s all about a million miles from the hotchpotch of dead trees I saw when I drove in. In comparison, the Nordmann fir fields look like an overgrown forest, and it makes me realise how much work I’ve got to do to get the rest of the fields looking anything like this, and I haven’t even seen the balsams and spruces yet.
‘There’s something else,’ Noel says in a rush. ‘When they reach about six feet, they’re mature enough to start producing cones, so I’ve been collecting the seeds and growing them. It sounds like stealing but I was only trying to protect them and make sure the species would live on, no matter what. I have a polytunnel full of seedlings that are rightfully yours.’
‘What’s a polytunnel?’
‘You haven’t … You don’t know what a polytunnel is?’ Him being able to make fun of my horticultural knowledge eases the weird atmosphere in the air between us. ‘It’s a bit like a greenhouse but much bigger and covered by polythene rather than glass. It’s for frost protection, cover and warmth for starting vegetables off early. Pumpkins need a long growing season, so I start hundreds of seeds early in the year, so they’re well-established plants by the time the risk of frost has passed and I can plant them outside. Christmas trees are much hardier, but the little seedlings need a bit of protection in the first couple of years.’
I try not to think about how complicated it all sounds. God knows how he remembers all this stuff.
Gizmo runs back up to us, woofs and dodges around our legs, then runs off again. I can’t help grinning at his happy tail wagging as I follow him to get a better look at the rows of trees. There must be at least five hundred of them spread throughout the field, and I can’t believe how amazing it looks.
‘At least with the saplings I’ve got, you’ll have enough stock to replant in the spring without interrupting the Peppermint Branches ancestral line.’
His words make me feel more excited than it’s reasonable to be over a tree, but maybe it says something about my life lately that tree heritage is currently the best thing in it.
When Noel’s finally captured Gizmo, we leave the Peppermint firs and I can’t help leaning on the gate as I close it and looking at them for a moment longer. They really are beautiful, like sentries in their rows, making me feel optimistic and bright again.
‘Thanks for taking care of them,’ I say as we walk further down the track and cross a little stone bridge across a gently flowing stream. ‘I feel guilty for selling them when they’re not mine to sell. You’re the one who’s raised them. I shouldn’t be earning a profit from something that had nothing to do with me.’
‘You’re missing the point of a Christmas tree farm. They were raised for the farm. Whatever money you earn from them will go back into the farm – believe me, you have a lot of work to do here, and every bit of your income will go towards that for the next infinite amount of years. The only reason I took care of them is because those particular trees are special, but they were never mine to begin with. They’re yours now, everything on this land is yours, and every bit of money you make from it will be returned to make it better. Farming is an endless circle. It takes a lot of years to make a disposable income – Evergreene was doing well for himself, but those missing years have been a huge setback. You’ve lost a lot of his crop, and a lot of what’s left might be unsalvageable, and you only have a few weeks to learn everything you can about Christmas trees and how to shear them, cut them, and make people buy them.’
‘Is that as impossible as it sounds?’
He shrugs. ‘Depends how dedicated you are and how much you want this. If it’s too difficult, are you going to hop back in your car and leave in January?’
We’ve stopped at the edge of the bridge and there’s a little pebble beach leading down to the shore of the river and Gizmo is pulling to go onto it. Noel bends down to unhook his lead and I can’t help watching as his big hands give the tiny dog a scruffle before letting him go, his bright eyes watching him potter around in the stones. This isn’t the first time he’s mentioned leaving when things are difficult. It’s obviously what he expects. Instead of answering, I look around. The mixed scent of all the different species of Christmas trees is heavy in the air, the little stream is burbling away beside us, a trickle of water that looks like something that should be in a country park and it’s unimaginable that this is literally my garden. For the first time since my parents died, I feel like I could live again.
I look back at Noel. ‘There’s something about these trees that makes life seem better. It’s unreal that I own this place. You make it sound so special. I was terrified last night, I thought it was a huge mistake, but talking to you and now walking around it … how could this ever be a mistake? I’m not going to run away because somewhere as special as this is worth any amount of work I have to put in.’
When I pluck up the courage to look at his face, his smile is obscenely wide in a way it hasn’t been before. There’s nothing tight or sarcastic about it. He seems totally uninhibited, and the silver ball in his lip catches the light every time he shifts, making me forget what I was thinking about in the first place.
Suddenly there’s a woof from the beach below us and we both look down to see the plop of a frightened fish as it flops back into the stream, and Gizmo on a rock in the middle of the water, having jumped there from the shore.
‘Giz, no!’ Noel shouts and flies off down the shallow slope after him. ‘Don’t you dare chase that poor little fishy, it’s October, you’ll freeze if you fall in.’ He stops short at the edge of the water and leans over, trying to reach the dog, but the rock is far enough out that he can’t get there.
The fish makes the mistake of jumping again and Gizmo yaps and crouches down on his haunches and
wiggles his back end, readying himself for launch.
I see Noel resign himself as he wades into the river and lets out a yell as cold water seeps into his work boots. He scoops the dog up easily with one huge hand. ‘Oh, no, you don’t, matey. Not at this time of year. Leave the poor salmon be.’
Gizmo grumbles his disapproval.
‘How did you manage that jump?’ Noel grumbles back at him. ‘Leah’s pet squirrel must’ve been giving you athletics training.’
I can’t help giggling as Gizmo tries to squirm over Noel’s shoulder to get back to the fish.
‘Yeah, yeah, I know it’s my own fault for letting you off your lead near a river at salmon migration time. But don’t worry about it, it’s not like I’ll have frostbite or gangrene in my toes by the time we get back or anything.’
Gizmo is still grumbling about it.
I’m laughing so hard at the conversation between them that I have to sit down on one of the large, flat stones behind me. ‘Do you think he’s going to multiply if he gets wet?’
‘Like the mogwai in Gremlins?’ He trudges up the bank, leaving a wet trail through the pebbles behind him. ‘I wouldn’t mind that. I love him so much, I’d happily have ten of him.’ He stops to look up and give me a wide smile. ‘And I’m glad you find my misery so funny.’
‘Actually I was laughing at how much he’s telling you off.’
Noel grins down at the little dog in his arm and drops a kiss onto his brown and white head. ‘No way is he going in the river at this time of year. His fur is really thick and takes hours to dry, and he doesn’t realise there’s a difference in water temperature between now and when he was happily splashing about in there in July.’
I barely have time to register the hot flush at the huge man being so openly affectionate with the little dog, before Noel’s in front of me. He leans over and deposits Gizmo onto my lap and my arms automatically encircle him to prevent him jumping off and giving chase to the fish again. As soon as he realises he’s on me, he turns in a circle and licks my arm before standing up to lick my chin. Noel sinks down on another rock to my left with a groan and leans over to unlace his boots.
‘I think he’s mistaken himself for a grizzly bear. You know how you see them in the shallows catching salmon as they swim upstream? It’s my fault for letting him watch Countryfile unsupervised.’
I stroke his tiny head as he turns in a circle to get comfortable and curls up on my lap. ‘Oh, bless him. Butter wouldn’t melt.’
‘Not now his dad’s got wet feet, it wouldn’t.’ Noel grouches.
‘You’re being a big baby, you know that, don’t you? It’s a lovely day, you’ll dry out quick enough.’
He glances over his shoulder at me with a raised eyebrow and a look of indignation. ‘I will, my boots won’t.’
Noel unlaces his boots and pulls them off one at a time. He tips the first one upside down, looking unreasonably forlorn as a trickle of water splashes onto the stones at his feet. He pulls the sock off and wrings it out, then does the same with the other foot.
I try to concentrate on stroking Gizmo, but it only gets more difficult when I catch sight of a flash of colour on his ankle and make a noise of surprise. ‘Is that a Truffula tree?’
He glances down at his foot and then back at me. ‘So, let me get this straight, you can identify a fictional tree tattooed on my ankle but you can’t identify a cedar standing right in front of you?’
‘I love Dr Seuss.’ I hold my hand out and scrunch my fingers together. He turns to the side and holds his leg out behind him, letting me see the tattoo.
I lean over Gizmo, who huffs at being squashed, to clamp my hand around his wet trousers and pull his leg closer until I can see the back of his foot.
‘I can’t believe you have a Lorax tattoo. That’s amazing.’ Without even thinking, I run my fingers across the red cotton candy tree and down the striped trunk that extends from a patch of grass at the back of his heel and leans over the outside of his ankle bone. ‘Unless,’ I say aloud, reading the word that’s written underneath it, an echo of the final stone-carved message The Lorax leaves behind when all the trees are gone. ‘I love that quote. I had it pinned on the noticeboard above my desk in my old job.’
He’s gone from laughing to very still as I’ve been touching his foot and he murmurs the full quote.
‘That’s the most amazing tattoo I’ve ever seen,’ I whisper, feeling like talking in a normal voice will ruin the peace that’s settled over us. It feels special, like he’s trusting me with something by showing it to me. It’s hidden in a place that probably not many people get to see, and he’s gone so quiet that I get the impression he didn’t intend for me to see it. It feels too personal.
‘Thanks.’ He’s whispering too. ‘You’re the first person who’s ever understood that. My ex couldn’t understand why I had a “pretend tree from a Danny DeVito children’s film” tattooed on me. She thought it was a drunken dare or something. Didn’t even know it was a book first.’
‘Good clue as to where the “ex” part comes in.’
He laughs, looking as surprised by it as I am. It didn’t seem like a laughing moment. ‘I love the quote, I love the meaning of the story, and I love trees. Dad used to read it to me when I was little. One of my most vivid memories is snuggling up in bed with him and reading The Lorax together. When I was older and he was ill, I got into bed with him and read it aloud and neither of us could stop giggling. It was the last time I ever heard him laugh. He never approved of tattoos but I think he’d approve of that one.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I murmur, my fingers stroking the skin of his ankle.
He sighs, looking lost in memories for a moment, until he suddenly shakes his head and yanks his foot out of my grasp. He starts straightening the socks on the sunny rock like they need the concentration of a chess game, and I struggle to take my eyes off him. He tucks his right foot behind his left leg so the tattoo is hidden again then smooths the wet bottoms of his trousers out, trying to squeeze river water from the material.
It obviously means a lot to him, and I want to ask about his father, but he definitely doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. ‘I didn’t think you got this much sun in Scotland.’
He looks over his shoulder at me with a dark eyebrow quirked, like he knows I’m offering a much-needed subject change. He holds my gaze for a long moment, before he shakes his head again and looks determinedly back out towards the river. ‘A common misconception. All right, we get more than our fair share of drizzle, but we’re generally treated to gorgeous autumns and a good bit of winter snow. It’s not for everyone but I think it’s perfect here.’
I make noises of agreement as he starts talking about the Scottish weather because I’m as grateful for the neutral conversation topic as he is. There’s something about him that makes me want to say too much, makes me want to know too much, and it can’t be good, because he obviously isn’t interested in sharing it with me. Besides, I definitely don’t want another man in my life – Steve was more than enough for one year. ‘What do you do with all your pumpkins?’
‘My goal is to sell as many to the public as possible, but it’s impossible to predict how many will realistically sell each year so I end up with loads left over. I sell some to restaurants around the county, and there’s a local produce shop in Peterhead that I supply throughout October. I sell a lot at the market too, and then at the very end of the season, there’s a farmer a couple of miles away who buys whatever’s left in bulk and uses them as cattle feed. But pumpkins are a fussy crop and need a lot of care to grow in this climate. You won’t have to worry about stuff like that with Christmas trees though – trees never expire. Whatever you don’t sell will still be here next year. Any trees that are dead, you can cut down and replant with saplings in the spring, and any trees that are okay but unsellable, you can use the branches for your wreaths, and anything that’s beyond saving, you cut up and poke the smaller bits through the woodchipper and use the chippi
ngs as mulch around next spring’s saplings, and dry out the trunks to use as firewood.’
‘You make it sound so straightforward.’ I try not to sound as nervous as I feel. I really hadn’t a clue what I was taking on here, and the huge number of things to do, learn, and keep track of, is beyond overwhelming.
‘You’ll get the hang of it.’ He looks up and meets my eyes. ‘Once you’ve done it a few times, you’ll get used to it. Give it a few weeks and you’ll be telling me what to do.’
I let out a laugh. ‘I can’t imagine anyone telling you what to do.’
‘You have met my mother, right?’ He pulls a face of pure terror and it sets me off giggling again.
I think he can hear that my laughter is covering my nerves, because he turns serious again. ‘Have you thought about taking on seasonal workers?’
The idea of employing people, of being responsible for other people’s livelihood, even for a few short months makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and it must show on my face because he chuckles.
‘It’s not that terrifying. Evergreene and I used to share seasonal workers, because your season begins just as mine ends. The same two blokes still work for me every autumn, they’re trustworthy and hard-working and they know what they’re doing on a Christmas tree farm. If you get in quick before they find festive work elsewhere, I’m sure they’d be overjoyed to stay on and work for you too. I guarantree it. Get it? Guaran-tree?’
I laugh, mainly at how pleased he is with himself for such an excellent pun. And it makes sense, I know that. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that I can’t manage this on my own.
‘One of the guys at the market used to be a groundsman for Evergreene. Keeping the weeds down, path maintenance, gritting in winter, that sort of thing, and I happen to know he’s between jobs at the moment. He helps out with his dad’s gingerbread stall across the aisle from mine, if you wanted to have a word. I’m going in the morning if you fancy tagging along? Meet some of the locals? You’ll love Fergus and Fiona. They’ll never admit it, but they’ve got a little flirtation going on between them, that’s always fun to watch. And believe me, once they get wind of this, everyone in Elffield will know about Peppermint Branches reopening, and it’s never too early to start getting the word out.’
Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm Page 11