by Holly Miller
I was so desperate to protect it, the happy little home the bees were building. They were doing no harm—unlike their detractors, who had brick-woven their front garden and replaced all their grass with the fake stuff only days after moving in.
“Oh, yes,” I say cheerfully. “All sorted.”
“Nice one. Don’t want them hibernating over winter.”
I smile. The nest will be empty now, the bees long gone. “Actually, bees don’t—”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind.”
Ending the call, I sling my head back against the sofa. Turfed out at the age of thirty-four. Well, there’s an excuse for a full pint of ice cream if ever I heard one.
* * *
• • •
There was a hawthorn tree in the next-door garden, before the couple ripped it up to accommodate their makeshift car park. It was in full blossom at the time. The cloud of petals as they launched it into the skip they’d hired brought to my mind windy spring days from my childhood, and the sweet joy of a dash through nature’s confetti, cheered on by my dad.
It reminded me, too, of the hawthorn tree I could see from my desk at the paint-tin company where I used to work. I loved it, that solitary spur of life on the concrete boundary of the industrial estate. Perhaps it was planted by a bird, or someone as desperate as I felt back then. For years I watched it through the seasons, admired the buds of its blossom in spring, its rich commotion of greenery in summer, and autumn’s rusty splendor. I even loved it in winter, the geometry of its leafless branches as pleasing to me as a gallery sculpture.
I’d walk over to it each lunchtime, sometimes just to touch the bark or look up at its leaves. On warmer days I’d eat my sandwich beneath it, perched on the edge of the verge. By my third summer someone had clearly taken pity on me, dumping an aging wooden bench out there.
But at the start of my sixth summer, the tree was cut down to make room for a smoking shelter. It tugged at my gut in a way I couldn’t explain, to see a huddle of gray faces where leaves and branches had once stood, staring blankly into space from beneath that lifeless dome of Perspex.
* * *
• • •
I look out of my window now, down at where the neighbors’ hawthorn used to be. I should probably get online, start searching for somewhere else to live. Funny how easy it is for one person to uproot another’s life, just when they least expect it.
6.
Joel
I’m down by the river, thinking about what happened earlier. Or didn’t happen. It’s hard to say, exactly.
It was strange, when Callie set down my double espresso at the café first thing. Our eyes met, and I felt heat chase a shiver across my skin as I struggled to loosen my gaze.
Irises stippled hazel, like sunlight on sand. Long, carefree hair the color of chestnuts. A complexion of the palest vanilla. And a double-take smile that couldn’t have been for me.
But, apparently, it was.
Callie nodded at Murphy, who was up against my knee enjoying a head scratch. “I hope he’s not pestering you.”
During my now near-daily visits to the café over the past week or so, I’ve formed a pretty strong bond with her dog. “This guy? Oh, no. We have an understanding.”
“You do?”
“Sure. He keeps me company, and I throw him cake crumbs when you’re not looking.”
“Would you like some?” An affable smile. “We have a fresh batch of dream cake just in.”
“Sorry?”
“The drømmekage. It’s Danish—it means ‘dream cake.’”
I hated the name. But, let’s face it, that cake was the culinary equivalent of crack. “I would, actually. Thanks.”
She returned almost instantly, setting down an oversized slice on a plate in front of me. “Enjoy.”
Our eyes met again. Once more, I found I couldn’t look away. “Cheers.”
She lingered. Fiddled with her necklace. It was rose gold and delicate, the shape of a swallow in flight. “So, busy day? Are you off to work?”
For the first time in a long while, I felt frustrated that I couldn’t say yes. That I had not one interesting thing to tell her about myself. I’m not even sure why I wanted to, exactly. There was just something about her. The way she moved, the shine of her smile. The chime of her laugh, full and sweet like the scent of spring.
Pull yourself together, Joel.
“I have this theory about you,” she said then.
I thought fleetingly of Melissa, who’s arrived at enough theories about me to pen her own massive, meaningless thesis.
“I think you’re a writer.” Callie indicated my notebook and pen.
Again I had the urge to impress her. Captivate her somehow, say something winning. Unsurprisingly, I fell short. “Just incoherent ramblings, I’m afraid.”
She didn’t seem too disappointed. “So what do you—”
But all at once, from behind us, a customer was trying to get her attention. I turned to see Dot dashing between tables, grimacing apologetically.
Callie smiled. Tipped her head toward the counter. “Well, I’d better . . .”
It was odd, the urge I had to stretch out my hand as she walked away. To draw her gently back toward me, feel warmed by her presence again.
I trained myself a long time ago not to dwell on passing attractions. But this was solar-plexus level, a feeling I haven’t had for years. Like she’d brought back to life a part of me I thought I’d buried for good.
I left pretty soon after that. Resisted the reflex to glance at her on my way out.
* * *
• • •
“Joel! Hey, Joel!”
I’m still trying to dislodge this morning from my thoughts when I realize I’m being heckled. This isn’t usually the best way to get my attention, but I recognize the voice. It’s Steve’s, and he’s chasing me.
I’ve been avoiding him since letting down his tires last week. Now, though, I guess, my misdemeanors are quite literally about to catch up with me.
I’m half-minded to sprint for the boating lake, attempt a pedalo-based getaway with my small herd of dogs in tow. But then I remember Steve could definitely outrun me, wrestle me to the ground, and get me to submit, all in the space of about ten seconds.
Steve’s a personal trainer, holds loathsome outdoor boot-camp classes for people with masochistic tendencies. He must have just finished one, because he’s sweating as he swigs from an oversized muscle milkshake. He’s in jogging bottoms and trainers, a T-shirt that looks like it’s been sprayed to his body.
“All right, hounds,” he says to my motley crew of three, falling into step at my shoulder.
He seems relaxed. Still, that could just be the endorphins. I keep striding purposefully, guard firmly up. If he asks me about his tires, I’ll deny all knowledge.
“What’s going on, mate?”
Or I could just say nothing at all.
Steve gets straight to the point, because he’s efficient like that. “Joel, I know it was you who let down my tires last week.” His voice is low but firm, like I’m a kid he’s caught nicking cigarettes from the corner shop. “I’ve been asking around, got Rodney to check his footage. It’s all on CCTV.”
Ah, Rodney. The eyes of our street. A walking, talking citizen’s arrest. I might have known he’d be my downfall. The clues have been there for months, ever since he got broadband installed last summer just so he could tweet the police.
Self-reproach snakes through me. I want to say something but don’t know what. So I just stuff my hands deeper into my pockets, keep walking.
“You know,” Steve’s saying, “after you’d done it, you rested your head against the wheel arch. You felt bad, didn’t you?”
Of course I did, all rationale aside. Because, for so many years, Steve felt more
like family to me than a friend.
“I know you didn’t want to be doing what you did, mate. So just tell me why.”
Even the thought of that conversation feels like standing on the edge of a cliff. Racing heart, prickling skin, speech shriveling to sawdust in my mouth.
“I had to tell Hayley,” Steve says, when I fail to enlighten him.
This comes as no surprise: they function properly, the two of them. Sharing everything, withholding nothing.
“She’s not happy. Actually, she’s fuming. She can’t understand what the hell you were thinking. I mean, I had Poppy with me—”
“The tires were right down. You couldn’t have driven away, even if you’d wanted to.”
Steve grabs my arm now, pulls me to a halt. The strength of his grip renders me pretty helpless: I’m forced to meet his eyes.
“Poppy’s your goddaughter, Joel. The least you could do is tell me why.”
“It wasn’t . . . I promise I had good reason.”
He waits to hear it.
“I can’t explain. I’m sorry. But it wasn’t malicious.”
Steve sighs, releases my arm. “Look, Joel, all of this . . . It’s kind of confirmed what me and Hayley have been thinking for a while. We need more space anyway, now we’ve got Poppy, so I should tell you . . . we’re going to do it. We’re moving out.”
A breath of regret. “Sorry.” I need him to know this. “Really, I am.”
“We probably won’t sell. Not at first, anyway—we’ll get a tenant in. The mortgage is nearly paid off, so . . .” He pauses, looks at me as though he’s let slip something really offensive. “Just heard that back in my head. What a middle-class arsehole.”
Steve and Hayley were sensible, bought their flat off our landlord when prices were still reasonable. “Not at all. You work hard. Hang on to the place.”
He nods slowly. “I wish you could tell me what’s going on, mate. I’m . . . worried about you.”
“Everything’s under control.”
“Joel. I think I might be able to help. Did I ever tell you—”
“Sorry,” I say quickly, before he can finish. “Need to get going. These dogs won’t walk themselves.”
They absolutely would, of course. But right now they’re the only excuse I’ve got.
* * *
• • •
I’ve lived in Eversford my entire life, have been Steve and Hayley’s oddball downstairs neighbor for nearly a decade.
I tried to avoid them when they first moved in. But Steve’s a pretty hard man to dodge. He’s his own boss, which meant he had time to do stuff like put my bins out and take in packages and intimidate the landlord over the cavernous crack in our side wall. So that was how we went from neighbors to friends.
Vicky, my girlfriend back then, was keen to nurture the new relationship. She kept making arrangements with Hayley for the four of us: sundowners in the back garden, bank-holiday barbecues, birthday celebrations in town. She suggested Bonfire Nights at the local park, Halloweens ducking trick-or-treaters with the aid of rum, darkened windows, and horror films.
Vicky left me on her birthday, after three years together. Presented me with a list she’d made, a slim column of pros against a litany of damning cons. My emotional detachment topped the list, but no less significant were my general dysfunction and constant edginess. My reluctance to let myself go of an evening and apparent inability to sleep. The notebook I never let her look at was on there too, as was my permanent air of distraction.
None of it was new to me, nor was any of it unfair. Vicky deserved far more from a boyfriend than the lukewarmth I was offering her.
It didn’t help, I’m sure, that I kept the dreaming from her. But Vicky had always reminded me a bit of Doug, in that she wasn’t famed for her empathy. Though there was a lot about her I admired (ambition, sense of humor, inner drive), she was also the sort of person who’d shrug if she ran over a rabbit.
When she left, I succumbed to heavy drinking for a few months. I’d tried it before, in my last two years at uni, after reading about its disruptive effects on sleep. I knew it wasn’t the answer, not really. That it wouldn’t actually work. But I suppose I convinced myself things might be different this time.
They weren’t, so I shelved it. Just in time, probably, as I’d been starting to succumb to the dangerous warmth of dependency. And the thought of tackling that on top of everything else felt about as attractive as signing up to swim the Channel, or picking a fight at my local kung fu club.
In the years that followed Vicky leaving, Steve and Hayley always felt more like family to me than friends. It was almost as if they were putting their arms around my pain. And when Poppy was born this year, I think they thought that being her godfather might actually be good for me.
At the christening, I held Poppy proudly for a photograph. She was like a writhing puppy against me, warm and adorable. I looked down at her face, felt her weighty preciousness, was overwhelmed with love.
Furious with myself, I passed her back. Got drunk, smashed two wineglasses. Had to be hailed an early taxi home.
That did it. Things have been strained ever since.
7.
Callie
Toward the end of the month, Ben suggests a night at the pub, where a friend of a friend’s having a birthday do. I’m almost too tired after finishing work, but I’ve been reluctant to let Ben down of late—his progress is still so tentative, like he’s emerging from hibernation after the bitterest winter.
Joel was one of the last customers to leave tonight and, for a rash half second as he closed the door behind him, I thought I might dart into the street and invite him along. He’s by far the best thing about working at the café right now—he can sink me with just a smile, fluster me with the briefest of glances. I’ve found myself waiting each day to see him, wondering what I could say to make him laugh.
But at the last moment, I changed my mind, because I’m fairly certain asking him to the pub would be crossing a line. The poor man should be able to enjoy a coffee in peace without being harassed for a date by loitering baristas. Anyway, someone this lovely is bound to be taken—even though, as Dot points out, he’s always alone.
Really, I remind myself, we hardly know each other—just well enough for smiles and passed remarks, like stars from companion galaxies exchanging winks across swathes of limitless sky.
* * *
• • •
The birthday party’s in the beer garden where, luckily, it’s still warm enough to sit out. I spot my friend Esther and her husband, Gavin, and a bunch of people we all knew slightly better when Grace was alive. If she were here now she’d be working the patio, the earthy roll of her laugh like a snatch of familiar, well-loved music.
For a moment, I pause to listen out for it. Because, you know—just in case.
I slide onto the bench next to Esther, Murphy settling down at my feet. A waterfall of honeysuckle plunges from the pergola above our heads, vivid green and frothing with creamy blooms. “Where’s Ben?”
“Held up at work. I think he’s feeling a bit low.”
“Blue-low, or black-low?”
“Well, he’s on his way. So blue-low, I suppose.” Esther, arms bare in a butter-yellow top, pushes a pint of cider toward me.
I met Esther and Grace on our first day of primary school. I was comfortable sliding into their shadow from the off, admiring but never matching their daring. They shared an outspokenness that frequently got them turfed out of lessons, and manifested itself years later in evenings spent shouting at Question Time, in arguments across the top of my head about government policy and climate change and feminist theory. They buzzed off each other, fierce and feverish. And then Grace was taken suddenly and violently away, leaving Esther to fight solo for all their principles, their most ardent passions.
Grace was killed eightee
n months ago, by a taxi driver who was over the limit. He swerved off the road, and Grace died on the pavement where she’d been walking.
It was instant, they told us. She wouldn’t have suffered.
While we’re waiting for Ben, the conversation turns to work. “Tried my hand at your dream job today, Cal,” Gavin says to me, sipping his lager.
I smile, slightly puzzled. “How do you mean?”
Gavin’s an architect, and each year his team volunteers their time for a local good cause. He tells me he’s spent eight hours today undertaking habitat management at Waterfen—our local nature reserve, my private haven.
“You can imagine how that went.” Esther winks. She works long hours for low pay as a policy manager for a social-welfare charity. “Eight hours of outdoor graft for desk junkies.”
Inhaling the honeysuckle, I picture a day spent spellbound by meandering hedgerows and wild woodlands, tawny reed beds threaded together by a cool ribbon of river. I do occasional volunteer work down at Waterfen, submit quarterly reports. It’s piecemeal and unpaid—breeding-bird surveys, habitat monitoring—but that’s okay. It satisfies my cravings for horizons unhemmed by buildings, earth unmuddied by people, air unsullied by artifice.
I smile at Gavin. “Sounds interesting.”
He grimaces with the sort of self-loathing only unplanned exertion has the power to induce. “That’s one way of putting it. I thought I was fit. And let’s just say that restacking log piles five times my height, lugging fence posts around, and breaking my back pulling up whatever-it-was is not my idea of fun.”
I register the scratches along his forearms. There’s a faint dusting of nature, too, still visible in his hair. “Ragwort?”
“What?”
“Was that what you were pulling up?”
“Yeah, whatever,” he mutters darkly, swigging his lager. “It was hell.”
“Sounds like heaven to me.”
“Well, the warden said they’re advertising for an assistant’s role soon. Be better use of your ecology degree than serving coffee. Why don’t you—”