I feel exactly the same about that too. It’s kind of good that we’re on the same page, and I feel better if he feels even half as awkward and shocked as I felt when I saw him this morning.
‘And I’m glad you came back tonight too,’ he says, unintentionally clarifying my earlier question. ‘We couldn’t talk properly earlier, not with everyone milling about, waiting to snaffle up crumbs of gossip. And just so you know, I was grilled mercilessly after you left.’
I giggle. ‘They’re certainly an interesting bunch.’
‘That’s one way to put it.’ He laughs but the fondness in his voice is unmistakable.
‘I saw what Tonya’s been posting on Twitter,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here. I wouldn’t have come if I had.’
He stops with the fork halfway to his mouth in mid-air. ‘Why on earth not?’
Does he really not know?
‘Because of the …’ I rethink and realise that reminding him of the way things ended is not a good idea. ‘Because it’s been so long, I guess.’
‘I know. I thought you were going to come back and visit me all the time. I missed you.’
Again, I can’t help wondering if he really doesn’t know why I didn’t. Yes, we’d promised to keep in touch, but then I kissed him and he made it clear he wasn’t interested. I didn’t think he’d ever want to hear from me again.
The new job had been stressful and I was out of my depth. I’d known it was a mistake from the first day, and most nights there was nothing I wanted more than to hear Ryan’s low Welsh accent and reassuring words, but how could I breezily pick up the phone and pretend nothing had happened?
‘You knew where I lived.’ My voice comes out tetchy, but it’s almost like he’s forgotten an event that changed my life, and not for the better. ‘You had my number. You didn’t keep in touch either.’
‘I didn’t think you’d want to see me again.’
I didn’t think he’d want to see me again. Silence hangs in the air between us, until the sheep starts snoring and makes us both burst into laughter.
‘You did say she was a comedic sheep.’ I’m grateful to Baaabra Streisand for her flawless timing, a perfect cue to change the subject. ‘I can’t believe you’re sleeping here.’
‘Too uncomfy for your refined tastes these days? Used to sleeping on posh beds from Harrods? The Fee I knew would’ve loved this. A hideaway in a tree, being part of nature …’
‘Midges, spiders, woodlice, snoring sheep, rude garden gnomes … although it can’t be worse than what I’m sleeping on.’
He looks at me curiously.
‘One of those inflatable sofas that were retro in the Nineties. God knows where my dad even managed to find one in this day and age. I’ve already used two puncture repair patches, and it only came with three. I keep waking Cheryl up by deflating.’
‘Oh, the mental image.’ His eyes crinkle up as he laughs and finishes the pasta salad in the container.
‘Where do you live now?’
‘Same place I always used to. The old family house. It’s mine now.’
I loved his house, but if he’s alone there, it can only mean one thing.
Like he can tell what I’m thinking, he ducks his head. ‘My father died the year before last. He and my mum divorced years ago – she lives in Spain with a toy boy now.’
‘I’m so sorry, Ry.’ I go to reach out and touch his hand but force myself not to.
Ryan’s father ran Sullivan’s Seeds and gave me a job when I was sixteen. I didn’t have any experience, but he knew my mum had died and took pity on me. It was only as a picker at first, but the fresh sea air and the hard, outdoor work saved my sanity that summer. The monotony of harvesting their wide range of plants kept my mind welcomely blank and my brain occupied. The exhaustion at the end of every day meant I slept at night. It was only meant to be a summer job, but he kept me on through the autumn and winter months packing mail orders and wrapping plants bought as Christmas gifts, and when the spring came, he encouraged me to start growing new varieties in their greenhouses.
That year, he had a heart attack and although he survived, he could no longer work, and Ryan took over. Three years older than me, gorgeous, funny, kind, and lovely. As lost as I was. We’d connected from the first day.
‘He’d been ill for a long time. He spent the last few years of his life living here.’ He indicates over his shoulder towards the care home. ‘That’s how I got to know the residents. It’s also why I’m not going to sit back and let them put a hotel here.’
This time he points to a window on the edge of the big white building, despite the fact it’s dark, and no lights on inside make it difficult to tell one room from another. ‘That was my dad’s room. He spent the last few months of his life bed-bound, and this view and the smell of the sea breeze coming in the open windows were the only things he had to keep him going. If they put a hotel here, the residents are going to lose their view, and the only scents coming in the window are going to be from the hotel kitchens and rubbish bins. No one has given a second thought to the people who live here.’
‘So you chained yourself to a tree?’
‘For as long as someone’s chained to this tree, the police are not going to chuck us out.’ He winks at me. ‘I’ve got a buddy on the force. The police are on our side. The tree can be considered a residential property while I’m here.’
‘Right …’ I know he can hear how sceptical I sound, but I keep thinking about what Harrison said about the police in their pocket.
‘What?’ Ryan gets out the two pieces of cake I wrapped in kitchen towel and hands me the spare fork.
‘You own the campsite next door. A hotel popping up here would have a negative impact on your business.’
‘No it wouldn’t. We cater to a completely different clientele. This would be a luxury hotel with luxury prices. People who can afford to stay in places like this are never going to come to a campsite, and vice versa.’
He’s got a point, but I’ve still got Harrison’s words ringing in my ears. And it doesn’t matter what Ryan thinks – I’m going to lose my job if I don’t find a way of stopping this protest.
‘First you’re checking up on me at night and now you’re questioning my morals? Anyone would think you didn’t trust me anymore …’
‘Oh God, no, nothing like that,’ I say in a rush. I can’t be honest with him. I can’t tell him I work in an office full of hard-nosed businessmen who’d stab you in the back soon as look at you and would do just about anything off the moral scale to get their hands on a piece of land they could make a profit from.
His serious face breaks into a smile. ‘I’m kidding, Fee. Don’t worry, it always takes people a while to adjust to my weird sense of humour.’
He was always self-deprecating, but he never tried to change. I liked that about him. I never fitted in, and I tried to change myself so I would – he was proud of being himself and didn’t care whether people liked him or not. I also feel guilty because it doesn’t even cross his mind not to trust me. I’m the one whose motives we should be questioning.
I’m impressed at how quickly he scoffs his slice of the cake and then takes the two cups from the top of the flask and hands me one. He pours steaming hot tea into each of them and screws the top back on.
‘To old friends.’ He clinks his plastic cup against mine and then raises his in the direction of the care home. ‘And, y’know, old friends.’
I can’t help laughing. ‘To being old in all senses of the word.’
He takes a sip of tea and sighs, and I do the same, letting it warm me. It’s not cold tonight, but there’s something about being outside late at night that makes a warm drink welcome, even in August.
‘I know how it looks, but this genuinely isn’t about business,’ he says without being prompted. He puts the cup down on the smooth wood in front of him and pushes himself up until he can get his hand around a branch and tug it down carefully. He holds it with a hand outstretched
above his head. ‘Look at the size of these leaves. Trees don’t get any bigger or more special than this. It’s got to be one of the oldest trees in Wales – definitely the oldest sycamore. It would be criminal to cut this down for any reason, let alone for profit.’
He holds the branch by the tips of his fingers, being careful not to pull it down too far and not to damage a single leaf. The bright green leaves are huge, bigger than Ryan’s palm when he opens his hand to compare the two. Some are the size of small dinner plates. It’s a pretty spectacular sight.
‘They’re not even sure it’s all one tree. People think it might’ve combined with other smaller sycamores – probably the ones around it that grew from its own seeds in the first few years of its life, and they melded together as one and that’s why the trunk splits off like this. Three hundred years ago, it might’ve been seven or eight different trees.’ He’s looking up at the huge leaves in admiration as he speaks. ‘And where else in the world are you going to find a view like that?’
I shift around to face out to sea because I’ve been so focused on Ryan that I’ve forgotten about the view. The branches are high enough above us that the view is unobstructed and the Bristol Channel is spread out in front of me. So clear and for so many miles that I’m surprised I can’t see Devon on the horizon. The water is purple under the night sky, reflecting the twinkling of a million stars from above, and it’s absolutely motionless. There isn’t a breath of wind to disturb the water’s surface.
I hear the rustle behind me as Ryan lets the branch go and the thud of his boots against the wood as he sits and pulls the blanket around.
It’s so peaceful. Even the sheep has stopped snoring so the only sound is the gentle lap of the waves below. The tide has reached its highest point and is retreating down the beach, leaving darkened damp sand behind.
‘Bit different to your usual views, huh?’
Views. I remember them. I remember being really taken with the view across the Thames when I started my job, but now … I can’t remember the last time I had a chance to look out a window. I’m always rushing from one thing to the next. I never have time to stop and stare for a few moments.
I turn around to see he’s settled back. He’s still holding his plastic cup of tea, but he’s reclining half-upright against the junction where one of the trunks splits away and the blanket is pulled over his legs. He pats the spot next to him and smiles when he catches my eyes.
It’s a nice idea, and it’s so serene up here that it would be easy to crawl across and forget everything that’s happened between us and snuggle up beside Ryan, but I shake my head and cross my legs under me.
He throws me the other end of the furry fleece blanket and I drape it over my crossed legs and lean forward with my elbows on my knees and both hands wrapped around the plastic cup.
‘I guess we could say you’re in bed with me.’
‘My teenage self can die happy,’ I say, feeling braver than I could ever have been all those years ago.
He looks like he’s about to say something, and I wonder if my inadvertent reminder of the teenager who had a crush on him is going to prompt him to say something about the kiss. Even though I’d like to never think about it again, I can’t work out if he’s genuinely forgotten it or if he’s just being polite by not mentioning it, and it’s got to the point where I want to know one way or the other. He couldn’t have forgotten it, could he? You don’t forget your friend throwing herself at you underneath the branches of this very tree.
He smiles at me. Or maybe you do.
‘I heard the company you moved to went under …’ he says, and I can feel his eyes burning into mine.
‘Yeah. About a year later. But you knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?’
Ryan had told me not to go. When I left Sullivan’s Seeds, it was for one of those “too good to be true” opportunities that did, indeed, turn out to be exactly that. A London-based plant and seed company who’d heard about my success at Sullivan’s Seeds and wanted me to work for them as a plant finder. A job that would involve moving to London and travelling – my two biggest dreams in life. I was going to be responsible for finding new and unusual plants from across Europe, testing them for UK suitability, and working with a team of scientists to crossbreed them into hybrid versions that would suit the UK climate. Ryan tried to talk me out of it. He thought there was something dodgy about the company, and it turned out he was right. But I knew I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t take the opportunity. I reasoned that even if it fell through, I’d have got out of Lemmon Cove – and staying here, never managing to escape this tiny coastal village, was my greatest fear.
He gives me a sad smile. ‘I nearly phoned to say your old job was waiting for you a hundred times, but then I thought it might look like an “I told you so” and it wasn’t intended like that. I thought about you all the time.’
What would’ve happened if he had offered me my old job back? Would I have taken it? I’d been homesick as all hell. I hated London. It was nothing like the dream city I’d always imagined. It was crowded, stinky, noisy, and expensive. The world was not at my feet while I sang songs from musicals and lots of friendly strangers joined in as I skipped along golden-paved streets. Instead I huddled into myself while I dodged crowds and felt guilty for not helping homeless people because I didn’t have enough to get by myself.
‘But it’s a good job I didn’t because you clearly found your calling as a chef.’
I’m so lost in the past that it takes my brain a few moments to catch up to what he means. ‘Oh! Yes, right. That.’
‘Did you go to culinary school or something?’
Oh God, am I supposed to have gone to culinary school? ‘No. Er, just learnt as I went. Like an apprenticeship!’
‘Because you didn’t used to be able to cook a Pot Noodle, it must’ve been quite a discovery to realise you could cook. Like Harry Potter getting his Hogwarts letter and discovering he’d been a wizard all along.’
‘Oh yeah, there were owls delivering letters and everything.’
We smile at each other, and I have an overwhelming feeling that he knows something’s going on. I was the worst cook in the universe. I am the worst. Baaabra Streisand could cook a better meal than I can. And I had to mention the fancy restaurant that caters for celebrities, didn’t I? Only the most dis-believable place in the country for me to work.
‘What happened to Sullivan’s Seeds, Ry?’ I ask, mainly to stop him thinking about my cooking ability.
‘In a word – cucurbit poisoning.’ He thinks for a moment. ‘Technically two words.’
‘Is that when the level of cucurbitacin is too high and makes squashes inedible?’
He drops his head into his hand and nods. ‘Yep. And you don’t know there’s anything wrong with the produce until you’ve eaten it.’
My face screws up in sympathy. ‘You poisoned people?’
‘A couple of families up in the Midlands. Not seriously – I mean, a couple of days of nausea and diarrhoea, not death or anything. They’d bought my courgette seeds, grown the plants, eaten the courgettes, thought they tasted bitter, and then … yeah. I had to get in touch with everyone who’d bought any of the gourd seeds, and I didn’t have customer details for anyone who’d bought in person so had to put up big notices and issue product recalls and all that fun stuff. Then there was the compensation claims I had to settle …’
I nod because lines have creased his forehead and his voice is quiet anyway, but it’s dropped even lower.
‘It’s to do with cross-contamination from other plants, right?’
He nods. ‘I had no way of telling how it happened and no way of testing for it, so no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again. The following year, I had no way of safeguarding against it so I pulled all of our squash products from sale. A big chunk of our income, and a big chunk of our growers’ time and effort, but word gets around and mud sticks, you know? The year after, we only sold thirty per cent of our usu
al income. It seemed like everyone in the UK had heard of Sullivan’s Seeds causing toxic squash syndrome and no one would touch us with a bargepole. I haemorrhaged customers and the wholesale firms I was supplying.’
The hand not holding his cup is twisting in the blanket and I want to squeeze it, but force myself not to be so daft.
‘The year after, I met a Chinese wholesaler at a grower’s conference and he offered to invest. Wanted to take our products to China where no one would’ve heard of the poisonous squash incident … for a small fee …’ He looks up at me. ‘You already know where this is going, don’t you?’
I nod. Nothing good ever comes of businessmen who want a small fee.
‘If I’m honest with myself, I knew it was a scam before I did it. The company was on the edge and it was a last-ditch effort to save it when I already knew it was unsaveable. That investment tipped us over the edge, and unsurprisingly, there was no Chinese firm waiting to buy up all our stock. But at least when it failed, I could somehow blame that instead of my own inability to run a business.’
‘I knew my job would fall through before I went.’
He meets my eyes and his mouth tips into a half-smile. ‘I’ve never admitted that out loud before. And I’m guessing you haven’t either?’
My smile matches his as I shake my head.
‘Turns out, even fifteen years later, we still can’t lie to each other.’
The thought makes my stomach turn over. Can’t we, Ry? I swallow hard. ‘So now you’ve got the campsite?’
‘Yeah, after Sullivan’s Seeds went, I had to sell the land and most of the money went to paying off the company’s debts, but I had a little bit left over, and the farmer who owned that patch was an old friend of my dad’s, and he did me a deal. There were always people turning up and illegally pitching tents in fields around here, and I had this idea of offering somewhere cheap and legal for them to stay, and it grew summer by summer. I earned enough to buy extra land and expanded from tents to on-site caravans, and then to a camping ground for campervans and motorhomes.’
The Wishing Tree Beside the Shore: The perfect feel good romance to escape with this summer! Page 8