I don’t know how long I work for. It’s late in the afternoon judging by the grey tone the sky has taken on, but I jump so much when Noel clears his throat that I nearly take out half the holly bushes with the scythe.
‘Well, aren’t you a regular Poldark?’
‘Oh ha ha, I hadn’t thought about that once.’ I stop and swipe an arm across my forehead again. My hair’s falling down despite already putting it up again twice. How many times in one day can you look an absolute mess in front of one of the hottest men you’ve ever seen?
He flips a bottle of water in his hand and holds it out to me. ‘Second rule of farming: dehydration isn’t fun. Bring a bottle of water every time, even at this time of year. This work is hard and I wouldn’t mind betting that you aren’t used to it.’
Is it that obvious? ‘Actually, I do plenty of scything and digging at home. You barely see me indoors for all the scything and digging I do.’
‘That’ll be why you asked me if The Grim Reaper had left his “thingy” behind when you saw it in the barn?’
I glare at him. ‘I was winding you up. I knew it was a scythe.’
‘From Poldark?’
I huff and he nods towards the bare soil in front of me. ‘Got to admit I’m impressed.’
I can’t hear any sarcasm in his tone, and I wait for him to follow up with a snarky comment, but he doesn’t. I look around at the patch I’ve cleared. It isn’t a lot, but it’s a start. And I feel better for it. For actually getting out and getting my hands dirty. Literally. I pull off the gloves and look down at my nails. Three are broken and all of them have got mud ingrained underneath them, even through the gloves.
‘The roof’s done temporarily,’ he says. ‘But it’s not going to hold up under a storm, and there are a few due this winter. All I’ve done is nail felt across the broken bits. You need to get onto that builder as soon as you can.’
‘I know.’ The roof is already on my endless list of things that need repairing or replacing. ‘But I have to pay the workers and fork out for insurance. The roof can wait. Opening this place in December can’t.’
‘I agree, but living in a warm, dry house is also important. But your priorities are admirable. I thought you’d be all about the cosy home comforts and the trees would be an afterthought.’
I’m sure there’s an insult in there somewhere. It’s no secret that he thinks very little of me, but he doesn’t sound insulting. ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done, Noel.’
‘Ah, I’m not finished yet. I came for your help. I’ve hooked the caravan onto my truck to get it across the fence and into position, but I could do with someone to guide me in.’
‘I didn’t expect you to do that,’ I say in surprise. ‘I could’ve done it.’
‘Because you’ve got a towbar on your pretty little car that’s never seen a mud splash in its life?’
Okay, fair point. I take another gulp of water to avoid answering.
I like how kind and helpful he is, even though it’s pretty clear he still disapproves of me. I didn’t expect him to do any of the things he’s done to help me today, and I know he’s got plenty of his own work he needs to be doing, but he hasn’t made a big deal out of it at all.
He’s much different than I thought he was.
***
There are a variety of crunching and grinding noises as Noel reverses the truck diagonally across my little back garden at the pace of geriatric snail, trying to slide the caravan onto the wide grass path at the side of his pumpkin patch. I’ve swept up the broken glass and kicked down the remains of the rotting fence, and now I’m trying to guide him incrementally left or right in an attempt to stop the caravan veering off, feeling a bit like a Chuckle Brother with all the ‘to me, to you-ing’. He seems to be doing a better job without my help.
Once the caravan is on his land, he straightens up easily and guides it neatly into perfectly parallel place. As he gets out of the truck and detaches it from his towbar, I climb inside, and discover it’s not as bad as I first thought. It needs a deep clean, and the upper cabinets that are dangling off need to be removed completely, but the units installed around the kitchen area are still sturdy. If I replace the broken window with a wooden shutter it can act as the rustic serving hatch I’d imagined and keep the squirrel out if colliding with my face didn’t give it enough of a fright to prevent it ever returning.
‘What’s it like?’ Noel pokes his head round the door and leans in.
‘It could be worse.’ I kick my foot through some of the debris on the floor, and then walk to the seating area at the other end. The cushions and soft furnishings have been chewed to bits by the previous bushy-tailed resident, but I get my hands under one and rip it off, and the wooden benches underneath are still undamaged.
The caravan dips under Noel’s weight as he climbs in too and treads through the rubble to poke around the kitchen area and prod at the window frame.
‘What do you think?’ I bite my lip as I wait for his verdict. I’m assessing it like I know the first thing about caravans when the nearest I’ve ever got to one before is being stuck behind them on the motorway.
‘It could be worse.’ He deliberately repeats my words. ‘Pull an extension lead out from the house and you’ll have a power supply, a folding shutter on this window, and a really good clean inside and out. I think it’s a cracking idea. I looked into getting a hot chocolate machine a couple of years ago, so I know that’s going to set you back about three hundred quid. It’s kind of an investment, but it’s going to be better quality and easier than trying to do it with a kettle, and if you can imagine a cold, snowy day after walking around a Christmas tree farm in December … there’s nothing people will want more than a hot chocolate.’
It does seem like a good idea. All right, it’s another expenditure I hadn’t planned on – and something tells me there are a lot more of those to come – but I can’t think of anything nicer than walking around the farm and then coming back to the entrance for a cup of hot chocolate to stave off Jack Frost nipping at your nose. There will be waiting time while trees are netted and paid for and fitted into cars, and there’s nowhere else nearby for people to get refreshments. It’s the festive equivalent of the ice cream van in the beach car park.
I duck around a hanging cabinet as I go back towards the kitchen area, trying to assess how much work the caravan will need and how much time I’ll have to do it in. I bump into Noel as we move around each other in the small space and he leans over to test the under-unit storage cupboard doors. It’s so nice of him to get as involved as he has, and I wish I could do something in return.
‘If I sort out the caravan and get a hot chocolate machine, you could borrow it next year, if you want. Just as a thank you for letting me use your land this time around. I mean, why shouldn’t we help each other out, if we can?’ I say, fully aware that there’s pretty much nothing I could help him with because he’s an expert who seems to have everything under control and running like the well-oiled machine it should be. Clearly, I need his help a lot more than he needs mine.
‘I don’t expect anything in return, but that’d be great.’ He turns around to speak and jumps as we bump into each other again. ‘We usually make drinks from the kitchen when the patch is open, but it gets busier every year and running back and forth and passing drinks out through the kitchen window is getting increasingly unprofessional. You can be the guinea pig and see how it goes this year. It might fail miserably for all you know.’
‘Yeah.’ I roll my eyes. ‘Thanks for that vote of confidence.’
‘Just being realistic. You’ve got all these grand plans, but …’ He trails off, deliberately not finishing the sentence.
He doesn’t need to because I can finish it for him. But you’re a city girl and this world isn’t for you. He might be helping me, but he’s clearly still in no doubt that I’ll leave whenever things get tough. I decide not to push it. I can’t tell him he’s wrong about me – I can only prove it. ‘How
is it possible that you’re this grumpy on a lovely sunny evening, but at six o’clock in the morning, you’re as chirpy as a cheerful canary who’s had frosted cereal for breakfast?’
He raises an eyebrow that gradually goes higher and it takes a ridiculously long time for him to start laughing. ‘I’m a morning person, all right? By this time of day, the caffeine hit has worn off and I turn back into a yeti. Like a hairier Cinderella in reverse.’
The mental image washes away all the lingering annoyance. ‘You’d never suit a ballgown.’ I don’t mention that his shoulders are so wide and his arm muscles are so defined that they’d never find a ballgown large enough for him to suit.
He laughs. ‘But at least I’ve got plenty of pumpkin carriages and a terrible sense of timekeeping, and the prince wouldn’t have any trouble remembering my giant feet in glass slippers.’ He rubs his fingers over his chin. ‘The stubble might give it away too.’
I’m giggling so hard that I have to lean against the caravan wall for support, and the more I laugh, the more it makes him laugh too, until the lines around his eyes are crinkled up and tears of joy are forming in the corners.
He suddenly seems to realise that we’re just standing here laughing at each other, because he jolts upright. ‘Pumpkin spice!’
‘What?’ I say in confusion, wondering how you go from Cinderella to pumpkin spice.
He looks really pleased with himself. ‘It goes brilliantly in hot chocolate, and you look like you could use a drink. Stay there, I’ll prove it.’
He squeezes past me in the narrowest part of the caravan and our bodies drag against each other as we both breathe in and I try to flatten myself against the wall to let him pass.
I get the feeling it’s an excuse to get out of this cramped space and away from whatever that was that sparked between us, but a hot chocolate sounds absolutely perfect right now, and I find myself watching from the doorway as he walks through the rows of pumpkins towards his house.
The sun is setting in the distance, making the clouds around it look pink and gold. It’s too late to start cleaning up the caravan tonight, and now I’ve stopped moving for a few minutes, I realise that I’m as knackered as I must look. I grab the long, flat cushion I’ve just pulled off the bench and put it on the grass outside. I turn it upside down and sit on the least damaged part, facing the setting sun.
Noel grins as he comes back, a Roscoe-Farm-branded recyclable cup in each hand and a paper bag between his teeth, containing two pumpkin cupcakes with orange butter icing and sprinkles of sugared pumpkin seeds.
‘I like your thinking.’ He sits beside me on the cushion and hands me one of the cups. ‘Pumpkin spice hot chocolate. Roscoe Farm’s finest. If you like it, I’ve got plenty of pumpkin spice you can have for the caravan. And you’ll have to get some peppermint flavouring as well, because you can’t run a place called Peppermint Branches without offering peppermint hot chocolates. A couple of different options will help too. If you don’t make them too expensive, people are likely to try a plain hot chocolate when they arrive and then a flavoured one when they leave.’
‘You’re really good at this sort of thing, aren’t you?’
His cheeks go red as he sips his hot chocolate and flinches because it’s too hot.
I set mine down on the grass beside me and start on the pumpkin cupcake instead, swiping my finger through the sweet icing and taking a bite of fluffy and lightly spiced orange-coloured cake. As arrogant and harsh as Noel can be sometimes, he’s actually quite humble, and in the few days I’ve known him, I can already tell that he’s terrible at taking compliments.
‘I’m fascinated by the number of things your mum can pumpkin-ise. Is there anything she doesn’t put pumpkin in?’
‘Hmm.’ The look of concentration on his face makes me smile as he seriously considers it. ‘Toothpaste?’ he says eventually with a grin.
The sky above us is almost completely pink as the sun drops to the west, the pumpkins sprawling out on Noel’s side, and Christmas trees waving in the gentle breeze on mine.
‘It’s been ages since I stopped to watch a sunset.’
‘The sunsets in autumn are always the most spectacular.’ I nod towards the sky. ‘It’s my favourite time of year.’
‘And yet you bought a Christmas tree farm …’
‘Ah, but my favourite thing about it is the lead up to Christmas. Autumn and the part of winter before Christmas blend together for me. This is my ideal place. Literally sitting right in the middle of autumn and winter.’
‘Something else I totally agree on. Festive music in October and September to December being the best months of the year. You never know, we might start getting along at this rate.’ He nudges his shoulder into mine, and it makes me grin because we definitely seem to be getting along, despite the occasional grumpy hitch.
I pick up my cup, not quite sure how I feel about the prospect of pumpkin spice working in hot chocolate. Coffee, fair enough, but hot chocolate seems a bit of a stretch. His other pumpkin goodies have been delicious so far, so I breathe in the steam for a moment and brace myself to take a sip.
‘Oh my god, that’s incredible.’ The smooth chocolate liquid feels thicker, rounded out by the taste of pumpkin and just a hint of warming spice that only comes out after you swallow it. Chelsea and I have always had a thing for pumpkin spice lattes in the autumn, but this puts them all to shame. It’s the perfect level of sweet, warm, and chocolatey – a blend of autumn and winter. ‘You’re going to have to teach me how to make it.’
He hides his face behind his own cup. ‘With pleasure.’
I concentrate on the darkening pink sky, thinking about what would go well with hot chocolate. ‘What about roasted chestnuts?’ I speak before I even realise I’m going to say anything out loud.
He laughs. ‘You’re going to have to elaborate.’
‘I could offer food of some sort. Something festive and fun to eat while people are walking around … I went to a Christmas fair with Chelsea last year and we got little paper bags of hot roasted chestnuts from a stall selling them straight from a tabletop cooker. Do you think it’d be worth it?’
I really appreciate the amount of serious thought he gives it. ‘I can’t think of anything nicer. Or anything more Christmassy. It’s perfect.’
It’ll be yet another unexpected expense, but I can’t get the grin off my face as I sip my hot chocolate again. A bag of freshly roasted chestnuts would go down perfectly with it. Nothing has ever sounded more tempting on a cold winter’s day.
Noel stretches his legs out straight in front of him, setting the cup between his knees and leaning back on his hands. I sip my hot chocolate and try not to show I’m watching him as his eyes scan from the pumpkins, to the sun disappearing below the horizon, to the Christmas trees.
‘Do you think your parents would like it?’ he asks softly, and I know from the gentle tone in his voice that I don’t have to answer if I don’t want to.
‘They’d love the hot chocolate.’ I know full well that he meant it in a much bigger sense, but I’m not sure whether I want to talk to him about it or whether I can talk about it without crying.
‘They’d love it,’ I say eventually. ‘Running off to Scotland and buying a Christmas tree farm was exactly the crazy sort of thing my dad dreamed about doing in his retirement. He never got that far, but …’ I swallow and bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself welling up again. ‘It’s exactly what I wanted the money from their house to be spent on. It’s what I was waiting for without realising I was waiting for it.’
‘I thought you were drunk and good at buying shoes?’
‘Well, yeah, that too. But it was an answer to a question I didn’t know I’d asked. My whole life has been covered by a blanket of grief, and that auction was the first sparkle of hope I’d felt in two years.’
‘I want to ask you what happened to them, but I don’t want to pry, or push, or make you talk about something you don’t want to talk about. I’m goi
ng to leave that sentence there and if you don’t want to talk about it, just stay silent and I’ll start talking about rainbows and fluffy kittens or something.’
It makes an unexpected laugh burst out of my throat. He has a knack for making me laugh when it’s the last thing I feel like doing, and he has no idea how much I appreciate it in moments like this.
‘It was a car accident.’ I close my eyes so I don’t have to see anything. ‘Dad died at the scene, Mum died from her injuries two days later in hospital. No one’s fault. An accident. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong patch of black ice on a September evening two years ago.’
He nudges his shoulder against mine again and holds it there for a long moment. I don’t open my eyes, just let myself appreciate the silent gesture of warmth and strength.
‘I think the correct thing to say is I’m sorry, and that’s terrible, and that must’ve been so hard to cope with, but I also get the feeling that you’re sick of mindless platitudes, so I’m just going to say that life is unfair and cruel and leave it there. Because it is. Cruel things happen and somehow you have to keep standing up and carrying on, even though it doesn’t feel worth it some days, because horrible things keep happening and there’s nothing you can do to change them.’
I concentrate on my breathing. In and out. In and out. There’s something about his bluntness that’s so real, and so open and honest – I can’t stop myself pushing it. ‘You know, don’t you?’
‘I was 16 when my dad died. Cancer. Months of watching him gradually deteriorate. Being told by well-meaning family how much my mum would need me to be strong. The distance from friends because teenage boys don’t know what to say to other teenage boys whose fathers are dying. The way people don’t understand that sometimes there’s nothing to say and that’s okay. The awkward silences with relatives terrified of saying the wrong thing because they aren’t sure if you want to reminisce or if you want to pretend nothing’s different. The sheer terror that something might make you cry, and the overwhelming fear that if you start crying, you might never be able to stop.’
Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm Page 16