‘This is it,’ I say. ‘This is the key. The trunk is covered in carvings from across the centuries. How many other stories are connected to it? How many other people would be devastated by the thought of it being cut down? This is how we save the land – by saving the tree.’
‘How do we do that?’ Tonya asks.
‘We, er …’ I really need to start finishing thoughts before I say them out loud. ‘We have to share its stories. Trees this old are magical, ethereal, otherworldly things. It could be The Magic Faraway Tree with different lands coming to the top of it. Moon-Face and Silky could be living in those branches. Looking up at something like this makes you feel like a child again. Look at all those bunches of helicopter seeds ripening ahead of autumn. When I was young, I’d look up at them and feel like magic was just around the corner.’ I dodge past Ryan and walk a little further down the path between blackberry bushes, gesturing towards the towering branches as I step over the long chain attaching him to the trunk. ‘There is no one alive today who can remember it ever not being there. Landoperty Developments cannot be allowed to take something like this. It doesn’t belong to anyone. It belongs to the earth itself and cutting it down would change the landscape forever.’
‘Hear, hear.’ Ryan claps and I’m blushing when I look over and meet his eyes.
Tonya has tottered along the path behind me, and she’s reaching her hand out in my direction. I take hold of it because I think she might need assistance, but instead of gripping it like I expected, she pumps it up and down like a business deal. ‘All those in favour of Felicity being our new campaign manager?’ she yells, making me jump at the sudden volume.
A chorus of “ayes” goes through the group.
Tonya beams a toothy beam at me. ‘Congratulations, you’re officially our new campaign manager.’
‘I can’t do that,’ I say instantly. ‘I have a job to get back to.’
‘Well, for as long as you’re here, and then you can hand over to Ryan when you leave. He can be your deputy.’
Ryan meets my eyes with two raised eyebrows. ‘Oh, how the roles have reversed. I used to be Fee’s boss, you know.’
I smile at the mocking indignation in his voice and the playfulness in his eyes as he waggles his eyebrows at me.
‘A million per cent the best boss I’ve ever had,’ I tell Tonya.
‘You were the best employee I’ve ever had,’ he says quietly and then hesitates. ‘And the best friend.’
I momentarily forget how to breathe. Ryan was never like a boss to me, but to hear him say it too …
‘Wait, wait, wait.’ I snap back to reality. ‘This has all gone too far. I said I wanted to help, not be your—’
‘Well, you can help by being our campaign manager, can’t you?’ Tonya claps me on the arm. ‘There, that’s all settled.’
Harrison’s angry face appears in my head. When he said “infiltrate the protest and gain their trust” I don’t think he meant take over the running of it.
‘What’s our first task, boss?’ Cynthia shouts.
Oh God.
‘Want me to show you the ropes on your first day?’ Ryan gives me a wink that has no right to make me feel as fluttery as it does.
I remember showing him the ropes on his first day at Sullivan’s Seeds. He’d bumbled in on a typically dripping summer day, late and panting for breath from rushing, wearing welly boots he’d clearly bought that morning because they still had a tag in the back of them and he was limping from blisters within an hour, and realised he’d left the keys to the office in the car and had to go back to get them, while four drenched gruff farmers swore at him and told him his father would never make mistakes like that. I liked him from the moment I walked in on him singing “Sunshine After the Rain” to a bed of bedraggled plants that afternoon. I’m not sure random Nineties music has ever been responsible for an instant connection before, but it was one of my favourite songs and no one else thought Nineties music was cool.
Like he can tell what I’m thinking, he’s come closer again and I find myself comforted by him being nearby, stepping back into his space while I try to think of something to say to the waiting residents.
‘People will care about this tree,’ I say eventually. ‘There must be hundreds of people who are responsible for some of those carvings on the trunk. Does anyone know of anyone else who used to come here regularly, or carved something into the bark? Any of the other residents? Any of your friends?’
They all start chattering amongst themselves, and I look up at the tree. It must have so many stories to share, and there must be so many people who’d want to know them. I feel myself pulled towards it like it’s a magnet.
‘Morning, Baaabra Streisand,’ I say as the sheep gives me an annoyed look for interrupting her grass munching. She takes an inquisitive step towards me, and I stand still to see if she’s going to attack. Her furry white nose starts twitching towards my pockets, like she might be expecting food, and when I turn one out to show her only my phone, she gives an annoyed baa and goes back to the munching.
When it seems safe to turn my back, I walk around the tree, glad of the shade from the branches even this early in the morning. I reach my fingers out and run them over the trunk. The pinkish-grey bark would be as smooth as it is on the higher branches if it wasn’t for the thousands of carvings wallpapering the trunk. They cover every inch – from the tips of the lowest branches to the points where the roots spider out and burrow into the earth.
I had no idea until last night that my mum and dad’s names were on here somewhere. As my fingers trail along each dip in the bark, it’s not really their names I’m searching for. Somewhere on here is the “Ry + Fee” he carved in a love heart. It has to still be here. For as much as I’ve tried to put that day out of my mind, I can remember every second of it. How he gave me a lift home from Sullivan’s Seeds and stopped here because it was my last day and he said he didn’t want it to end. How we walked down to the tree hand in hand. It was early autumn, the beginning of September, too early for the seeds to be falling, but the very tips of the leaves on the higher branches had started to yellow. He’d jumped up into the tree and grabbed two helicopter seeds and insisted we throw them off the cliff and make a wish. We’d closed our eyes and on Ryan’s low count of three, thrown our sycamore seeds off the edge, made a wish, and opened our eyes to watch them plummet directly to the sand below, far too wet and heavy to spin that early in the season. We’d laughed. He’d pulled me closer, and I’d been sure he was about to kiss me.
I was twenty, far too old to believe in sycamore wishes, but the wish I’d made on that seed was that he’d like me in that way.
And I was so sure he did. But instead of kissing me, he’d bypassed me and started running a hand over the trunk until he found an empty space, pulled out the Swiss Army Knife that always hung on his keyring, and crouched down to carve our names, encasing them in a heart shape. I took it as a sign, and when he stood back up, I had that now-or-never feeling. I was leaving the next morning. I had to know if the years of flirtation, jokes, excuses to spend time together, and the looks he kept giving me had meant something to him like they had to me.
While he was putting the keyring back into his pocket, I’d slipped my hand around the back of his neck and pulled his head down, using the grip to push myself up too, until our lips had smashed together.
At first, he didn’t respond. He didn’t kiss me back. And then his hands were on my shoulders, pushing me away. ‘I can’t do this now, Fee …’ He’d spoken to the ground, too horrified to look me in the eyes. Cold realisation slowly dawned on me and I stumbled away from him. I’d gone from now-or-never to fight-or-flight. I had to get away. He’d called after me. A kind of hoarse ‘Fee …’ but I hadn’t stuck around. I didn’t want to hear his polite reasoning that we were just friends and he didn’t feel like that about me. I’d gathered that much.
Despite the sun, goose bumps prickle my skin at the memory of that day. Unequivocally t
he most embarrassing moment of my life. The stupidest thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve done many stupid things since. Had so many embarrassing moments that you could say I was on a one-woman mission to somehow embarrass myself so much that it erases the memory of that one awful moment with Ryan Sullivan, but nothing has. Yet.
‘You always did have a way with words,’ Ryan says softly, and I wonder how I can have been so distracted that I didn’t even hear the clang of the chain as he moved or the crunch of his footsteps over the sun-roasted ground.
He smiles when I look up and meet his eyes. There’s always been something about his smile and the way it makes dimples appear right at the corners of his mouth, which have some kind of hypnotic effect, I’m sure.
And then I realise I’m bent double looking for the spot where he carved our names. I can’t remember where it is – not exactly. It was around this side, the left of the tree, and it must be near the bottom because he’d crouched to carve it. But the trunk is so wide and there are so many carvings that it’s impossible to pick out just one.
‘Looking for your mum and dad’s name?’ He says like he can read my mind.
‘Yeah.’ It’s a lie that’s not entirely untrue. ‘It’d be nice to find it, but there are so many. It might be impossible.’
My mum and dad’s name being on here is a good enough excuse to carry on looking. Maybe he’s completely forgotten about our carving. If it’s even still here. Maybe the “Ry + Fee” is gone. Faded, like local legend says it will if the relationship isn’t meant to be, and it’s safe to say that Ryan and I definitely weren’t.
His arms are folded across his chest as he stands back and looks up at the tree. The tarpaulin to keep the rain off is flapping in the sea breeze, and I’m struggling to tear my eyes away from him. He’s got a wide and flat nose, and stubble that’s scruffier than it was yesterday. Up close, I can see the first odd grey hairs at the edges of his jaw. I force myself to look away and continue rubbing my hand over so many indentations in the bark.
‘Makes you feel small, doesn’t it?’ Ryan’s voice is quiet. His strong Welsh accent gives the words a soft lilt and he drops the middle letters of “doesn’t” so it sounds more like “dun’t”. His voice always did something to me.
I walk around the trunk to put some distance between us because standing here ogling Ryan’s arms and daydreaming about his accent is guaranteed not to end well. ‘I can’t believe the hotel company wouldn’t want to keep the tree. It’s an attraction in itself.’
‘Companies like that only care about one thing, and no one’s going to pay to come and see the tree, so it doesn’t fit into their agenda. Besides, even if they could somehow be persuaded to save it, it would lose its beauty with a multi-storey modern architecture building plonked beside it.’
I’m so distracted by Ryan that I let out a yelp when Baaabra Streisand headbutts my leg. She looks morally offended by my yelp, and I apologise profusely, going to ruffle her head like you would a dog, but I stop with my hand hovering mid-air. Do sheep even like being petted?
She answers the question for me by jolting herself up to headbutt my hand, and I stroke her woolly white head for a moment, and then she gives an annoyed huff and trots away, clearly unimpressed by my sheep-petting abilities.
When I risk a glance at her, she’s staring at me and grinding her teeth. She may be plotting to kill me. Or has got trapped wind and could do with a Rennie.
‘I hate their entire industry,’ Ryan continues. ‘They don’t care about people. It’s all about money. They hoover up every spare inch of greenery and pave it with concrete. We all know the planet is dying as we stand and watch, and people like Landoperty Developments are making it worse.’ He sighs and pushes a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry, I must sound like a real hippy-dippy tree hugger to someone who lives in a paved paradise city.’ He waves around a hand like he’s trying to draw skyscrapers in the air.
‘Plenty worse things you could be.’ Like a property developer. Someone intending to screw over their friends to get a promotion. I’m so ashamed of working for a company who destroys places like this. It makes me start wondering how many other trees Harrison has been responsible for cutting down. How many other beautiful areas he’s annihilated. How many other people has he made to feel inconsequential, like their feelings and opinions don’t matter because of their age? How many other care homes and vulnerable people have lost special areas because they didn’t have someone as dynamic as Ryan to fight for them?
‘I don’t think enough people in the area know what’s happening,’ I say. ‘The land hasn’t been sold yet, so no planning application has gone in, so there’s been no public notices or chances for the public to object. I’ve seen a lot of protests and they only work if the whole community gets involved.’
‘Are there a lot of protests in the food industry then?’ He asks with a raised eyebrow.
Oh God. ‘Oh, yeah, loads. Over, er, salmon prices mainly. They add astronomical import duties.’
He looks confused. ‘Aren’t salmon British? I thought most were caught in our rivers.’
He’s probably right. Trust me to choose import duties on a fish that, if it was any more British, would be queuing in the rain with a cup of tea and biscuits and complaining about the weather. ‘These are special salmon. From, er, Japan. Sushi, y’know? The Japanese are good at fish and add the price to prove it.’ Oh God, Fliss, shut up. I sound like I’ve never even eaten in a restaurant, never mind work in one.
‘Is Riscaldar not Italian then?’
Oh God, is it? ‘Nooo, it’s a bit of everything. Whatever customers fancy.’
‘Right … Sorry, I’m clearly a simple Welshman who doesn’t understand gourmet food. You seriously have to protest about salmon prices?’
‘Well, people will protest about anything these days, won’t they? Even fish.’ I’m a vegetarian. I don’t even eat fish – how did we get into this conversation and how quickly can we get out of it? ‘What I mean is, we need to make this protest big. This tree is forgotten about. To everyone in the area, it’s just here. It’s always been here – it will always be here, but what happens when people realise it won’t be if the hotel company get their way? Can you imagine all of these carvings – all of these stories – being lost forever? We need to find some of the people behind these markings and share their stories – locally and online with the wider world in general.’
He grins. ‘I should’ve known if anyone would know how to save this tree, it would be Fee Kerr. You always did make the unlikeliest of things seem possible.’
If I develop sunstroke later, it will be nothing to do with the burning orb in the sky and everything to do with Ryan Sullivan’s easy compliments. I never knew he thought that. To me, he always made the impossible seem reasonable. At the plant nursery, he always had complete faith in me. I liked experimenting with different varieties, cross-pollinating, cross-breeding, playing around with different ideas, and he never once doubted that they would go well, despite the various disasters I was responsible for.
‘This is brilliant.’ He sounds as young and excitable as he used to when seedlings we’d given up on popped through the compost. ‘You’re brilliant. Fee …’
I’ve somehow drifted closer to him and he goes to hug me, but the chain hooks over his foot and pulls taut and he stumbles against the tree instead.
I sidestep like it was an intentional accident. Hugging Ryan Sullivan is better avoided when I can still feel the imaginary imprint of his arms around me from where the old ’uns pushed me into him yesterday. It’s not something that needs repeating anytime soon.
‘As you can see, I’ve retained my elegance and decorum through the years.’ He pushes himself up, rubbing his bare shoulder where it hit the bark.
‘How can you be comfortable in that thing?’ I ask, to distract from the idea of him wanting to hug me.
‘What, this?’ Both his hands settle on the heavy chain clipped at his waist, drawing my eyes to what is undoub
tedly a washboard stomach underneath his vest top, like anyone needed any extra reasons to focus on Ryan’s body today, given what that blue tank top is doing for his arms. ‘It’s fine. I need to be able to move around freely, but from a legal point of view, someone has to be chained to the tree at all times. If any authority figures show up, I’ll jump back in to be on the safe side.’ He pats the bark near where my hand is resting on the tree trunk, so close that the tips of his fingers graze the tips of mine.
I expect him to yank his hand back like he’s touched a stinging nettle, but he doesn’t move. The warmth of the tips of his fingers where they’re pressing against the side of mine are like burning hotspots, making my fingers seem cold in comparison.
He stares at them too. ‘Do you believe things happen for a reason? You coming back here after so many years, right at the exact moment we need you? I always thought I’d see you again when the time was right. And I guess the universe has decided the time is right.’
I melt. If I was a snowman, I’d be a puddle by now. He always knew exactly what to say to make me feel valued.
And I can’t be feeling things like that around Ryan Sullivan.
‘We should …’ I yank my hand away and gesture vaguely towards the group of residents. I start back up the path through the brambles and go to sit on the bench occupied by Godfrey.
‘Hi.’ I hold my hand out and he takes it between both of his liver-spotted ones and gives it a shake. ‘I’m Fliss. I used to come to your strawberry patch all the time. It was my favourite place in the world when I was growing up.’
‘I remember. And your mother before you. I’ve never forgotten watching her pass the magic on to you as well.’
I bite my lip to stop myself tearing up. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your wife. Ryan told me your story. I think we could use it to save the land.’
I tell him everything I’ve just said to Ry and he thinks about it for so long that I’m almost certain he’s going to say no. He keeps to himself, and although he’s out here, he’s staying away from the board games and “Guess the Gadget” players. ‘I’d like that. I think Henrietta would like that too. Anything we can do to stop this being built on. I blame myself …’
The Wishing Tree Beside the Shore: The perfect feel good romance to escape with this summer! Page 10