Ryan grins down at me from where he’s sitting cross-legged in the tree, kept dry by the canopy of tarpaulin spread above him. ‘You’re early.’
I hadn’t even looked at the time until now, but it’s before nine. I am early. I can’t remember the last time I voluntarily got anywhere before nine a.m.
Everything feels different here though. Like I’m doing something good. Something healthy. Something that benefits the community. And it makes me think way too much about the other projects I’ve been involved with. The other land where I’ve done admin on Harrison’s acquisitions and sales, and I start thinking about the communities behind those too, and if Landoperty Developments were always as welcome as Harrison would have people believe.
‘Come up, it’s nice and dry here.’ He pats the wood beside him.
I flap my umbrella a few times to shake the water off and leave it leaning against the tree. Baaabra will probably eat it before the morning’s out.
I go around to the side of the tree where he showed me the other night, pass my backpack up to him, fit my foot against the dip in the trunk and hoist myself up. His hand closes around my forearm and he hauls me into the branches.
‘Thanks, I could’ve managed,’ I say, breathless from the exertion, or possibly from Ryan’s hand around my arm. His hands are big and warm and make me realise how cold I am. I’m only wearing a T-shirt – my usual summer attire because it’s always so hot in London, even when it rains.
‘Hi.’ He’s smiling as he shuffles backwards, giving me space to sort myself out.
‘Hi.’ I stop in the middle of moving when his bright eyes meet mine and I’m smiling almost as widely as he is.
He’s wearing trainers and short trousers today, and a charcoal grey T-shirt underneath a cobalt blue hoodie with the sleeves rolled up, showing off forearms that I really want to lick.
Where did that come from? I do not want to lick his arms. That’s just wrong. And would be really, really weird. Thank God I didn’t say that out loud.
The chain around his waist jangles as he moves, going back to sitting with his legs crossed and pulling sketchbooks into his lap to make room for me to sit down beside him.
‘Did I ever tell you I love your hair?’
I freeze mid-movement and my stomach turns over and twists itself into a pretzel. ‘You did.’
He nods. ‘Okay, well, it bears repeating. I love it. I wouldn’t have thought they’d let you have bright hair in a fancy restaurant like that. It looked very upmarket from what Tonya showed me.’
‘Oh, it’s … freethinking.’ I grasp onto a word at random. I’m not even a hundred per cent sure what freethinking means. ‘And it’s not like it’s too obvious. It’s kind of hidden.’ I wave a hand vaguely towards my hair. It’s not much lighter than black anyway and the blue ends sort of melt into it. It does nothing to ease the guilt about him thinking I work somewhere I don’t though.
He reaches out like he’s going to stroke it and then pulls back quickly. ‘Sorry. There was a llama.’
‘A llama?’
‘Yeah. Because that looked suspiciously like I was going to touch your hair, and I wasn’t. I was batting away a llama.’
‘Right.’ I push my laptop bag safely to one side and sit cross-legged beside him, my knee pressing against his.
‘Good morning.’ He meets my eyes with a smile.
‘You’ve already said that,’ I say, even though every time I look into his eyes, I’m not sure if it’s morning or three Thursdays ago in the Mayan calendar.
We’re both silent for a while. Sitting in this tree feels magical. The rain patters down on the tarpaulin above our heads, a thick protective canopy, and the drips that land bounce off the taut waterproof material. The tree protects us from the worst of the elements and makes it feel like sitting in a cave high above the ground but without the shut-in feeling. The wind on the edge of a sea cliff is strong, but in this little nook of the huge tree, it’s almost non-existent, apart from the occasional gusts that dodge the branches and blow through.
‘Can I say something that’s going to sound really stupid but you have to promise not to laugh at me?’ I blurt out before I have a chance to rethink it. Ryan was always someone who would listen to anything without prejudice or judgement.
‘Anything.’
‘Do you think the tree knows we’re trying to help it?’
I think he’s going to laugh at me for being so daft, but he reaches out a hand and runs it over the line where the smooth worn-away wood meets the cracked bark creeping up the trunk. ‘I’ve said that from the very beginning. As soon as I got here, I felt like it was welcoming me, inviting me, protecting me.’
The wind whispers through the branches and the leaves above us rustle, sending a flood of raindrops bouncing against the tarpaulin, almost like it’s answering the question too.
‘And yes, you are the first person I’ve said that to, and no, I won’t ever forgive you if you repeat it.’
I laugh. ‘You can trust me with your tree-hugging secrets, Ry.’
His knee presses harder against my knee and he leans over to nudge his shoulder against mine. ‘I know. Could always trust you with anything.’
The cold shiver that goes down my spine has nothing to do with the drizzly dampness of the day and everything to do with the deceit of why I’m here. ‘You too.’ I swallow hard. ‘Most bosses don’t treat employees like you did.’
‘You were never an employee, Fee. You were my right-hand man. Woman. Oh God, I’ve just called you a man.’ He drops his head into his hands and shakes it.
It makes me giggle. His rambling is still just as charming.
‘Sorry. I just meant you were the heart and soul of Sullivan’s Seeds. It fell apart without you.’
It makes my breath catch in my throat. I don’t think anyone’s ever considered me the heart and soul of anything before, and it melts my heart to think that Ryan ever thought that, and makes me feel about two seconds away from tears. This feels too raw, too serious. ‘Without me, it started poisoning people with toxic squashes, didn’t it?’
‘Not intentionally, I assure you.’ He lets out a peal of laughter. ‘Oh, speaking of unintentional things, when Baaabra attacked us yesterday, Tonya was recording video and she’s put it online. So now about three thousand people have seen us being knocked over by a sheep. If there’s anything more stereotypically Welsh than that, I don’t know what it is. Aren’t you glad you came back?’
Actually I am. Kind of. I think. ‘See, that’s what we need to harness. If she can get those kind of views with a daft video, think of how many we could get to know about the tree.’ I steadfastly ignore the idea of a few thousand people seeing me flailing about on top of Ryan. Concentrate on the positive, not the negative.
I reach over and flick at the pages of the sketchbooks in his lap. ‘What are these?’
‘I’ve been playing with your ideas about the sycamore leaves. Look, I thought we could hand these out to kids to colour in and hang in their windows, and then these ones, we could laminate and tie onto trees and bushes right across the Gower area.’ He hands me a sheet full of sketches of sycamore leaves. ‘Which ones do you think are best?’
‘All of them,’ I say. Ryan always had a talent for doodling. He drew the Sullivan’s Seeds logo that appeared on all our seed packages and plant labels, and was always doodling little swashes on price tickets and signboards.
There are seven variations of a sycamore leaf sketched onto the scrap bit of paper, and I point at one in the upper left corner. ‘This one would be best for colouring in with all the lines and veins, and then this one would be simpler for tying onto trees and spreading across Gower because there’s more space to put the website address.’ I let my finger drift across the page. ‘These are amazing.’
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s blushing when I glance up at him, and I have to shake myself from the urge to reach over and touch his face. The old ’uns are rubbing off on me – I’ll
be pinching his cheeks like a doting granny next. ‘I was talking to Cheryl last night. Her class are going on a nature walk next week and they’ll put a flyer through the door of every house they pass. I bet they’d love to get involved with tying laminated leaves onto bushes too …’
‘That’s not child labour, is it?’
His deadpan tone makes me burst out laughing. ‘Probably, but she seemed quite happy about it. She loved the suggestion that the kids could draw the tree, and offered to ask the headmistress if they could get every class in the infant school involved – a project to draw a picture of the tree and write a paragraph about what it means to them and how the village would be different without it. There could be a class trip here too. And I thought about how young kids these days don’t even know about the wishing aspect that our generation grew up with, so we were thinking another aspect of the project could be the kids thinking about what wish they’d make – what they’d ask the tree for if it’s still here in autumn when the seeds fall. And if you get that many kids talking about the tree, they’re going to talk to parents and grandparents who might know something about the carvings.’
He shivers, but I get the feeling it’s nothing to do with the weather. ‘Can you believe we live in a reality where we’ve even got to think that? If it’s still here in a couple of months’ time …’
I nudge my knee into his. ‘It’s stood here for three hundred years – it’s not being cut down on our watch.’
He gives me a soft smile. ‘You were always a force to be reckoned with.’
Me? Does he really think that? I don’t feel like I’m anything to be reckoned with these days. I work so much that I don’t have time to feel anything. My life is a constant rush, from my flat to the office and back again. This is the longest I’ve sat still other than waiting for Harrison’s lunch of choice to be prepared at the deli down the road from work, which he’s too busy and important to go and get himself.
‘How things change,’ I mutter. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to work with someone who treats you as an equal and makes you feel valued and important to the company.
Ryan cocks his head to the side, looking like he wants to prod for more information, but I speak again before he has a chance. ‘How about the flyers you were going to design?’
He shoves his pile of papers at me and jumps up to retrieve his laptop from a bag under the canopy and sits back down, somehow closer this time. He rests the open laptop on both our knees where they’re pressed together and leans across me to use the mouse pad. ‘What do you think of this?’
There’s a photo of the tree taken from the beach below, and a call to arms mentioning the hotel and Seaview Heights, the social media accounts and website, and how we want to hear from anyone who’s carved something into the tree and wants the world to know how special it is.
On the back, there’s an illustration he’s drawn of the sycamore tree, and a paragraph about Godfrey and Henrietta. It ends with the line ~ When Henrietta was lucid a couple of years ago, we returned here, and she threw a sycamore seed from the cliff and made a wish to see this place as it was one last time.
I’m blinking back tears again and have to turn away, and Ryan switches to his left arm supporting the laptop and drops his right one around my shoulders.
‘I’ve done nothing but cry since I came here.’
His arm tightens. ‘Proof of how much we need to share this story.’
‘These are perfect.’ I sniffle. ‘You’re the force to be reckoned with, Ry.’
‘You inspired the idea.’ He squeezes me tighter and then lets his arm drop away. ‘Do you think it’s going to do any good?’
‘What the property developers want is no one to make a fuss. They sought out Steffan because they thought it would be an easy buy, another bit of land they could spirit away when no one was watching. None of them banked on this little protest.’
‘How do you know that?’
Oh, bollocks. ‘I, er, ran into him yesterday,’ I mumble, feeling like the worst person in existence. This is getting worse with every passing second. I can’t even keep track of things I’m supposed to know and not know. ‘This looks bad for the hotel company. The heartless hotel magnates who want to take joy from care home residents and destroy this gorgeous monument to times gone by and all the people who have left their mark on it over the years … It’s bad press, and the more people who are talking about it, the worse it’s going to be.’ I lean my elbows on my knees and rest my chin in my hands, looking out across the vast expanse of land, now mostly cut brambles dotted with sprays of tangled strawberry plants, the hanging red berries creating spots of colour in the otherwise green landscape.
‘The residents want strawberry recipes to use them up.’ Ryan nods towards the plants, which will soon start ripening. ‘I was given strict instructions to ask my favourite chef what the best ones were.’
‘I didn’t realise you knew James Martin …’
He laughs. ‘Go on, Fee, what’s your best strawberry recipe? The residents are worried they’ll all ripen at once and we’ll have a glut of them. I’m more concerned that Baaabra Streisand will eat the lot and then we’ll have a glut of something far less pleasant.’
I think I’ve had enough close encounters of the sheep poo kind to last a lifetime, but strawberry recipes? Come on. ‘I think classic is best when it comes to strawberries. With cream and sugar and a glass of Pimm’s when the tennis is on. Did you know there are 28,000 kilograms of strawberries consumed at Wimbledon every year?’ I attempt to distract him with random facts rather than admit that when it comes to strawberry recipes, there is nothing but a tumbleweed blowing around my brain.
‘Nah, most of the folks here only find fruit acceptable if it’s disguised by cake. You must have something better than that. What strawberry-based dishes do you do at Riscaldar? They’d get such a kick out of having a dish prepared for them by a world-class chef.’
‘I’m not a world-class chef, Ry.’ Never has a truer word been spoken. A world-class chef would have me in prison for the kitchen-based crimes I’ve been known to commit.
‘You always were too modest, but you forget how well I know you, Fee. You’re world-class at everything you do.’
That faith in me. No one has ever believed in me the way he did, and guilt prickles at the back of my neck. I’m the worst person to believe in.
He’s still looking at me expectantly, and I can’t even think of a cake that contains strawberries. My mind is blank when it comes to recipes anyway, but now it’s as blank as a question on Blankety Blank.
‘Strawberry crumble?’ I suggest. I’ve never actually heard of a strawberry crumble, but my mum used to make apple crumbles, so surely the same principle could apply to our heart-shaped red friends?
He wrinkles his nose. ‘That’s a bit basic, isn’t it? Even I could make a strawberry crumble and the most complicated thing I do in a kitchen is chuck vegetables into the soup maker – a present from Alys after it had come up on “Guess the Gadget”. You must have something fancier than that.’
Oh God. ‘Okay, my favourite strawberry recipes are …’ I look around for divine inspiration. A cow moos in the distance. Quite fitting. I’d appear more chef-like if I sat here mooing.
Suddenly, inspiration strikes, and it has nothing to do with strawberry recipes.
Goose bumps break out across my entire body and I shiver at the possibility. I don’t want to move or even speak too loudly in case it scares the idea away. ‘Ry, I know how to save the tree.’
The thought snowballs through my brain, picking up speed and getting bigger as it moves. Like he always used to, he knows exactly what I need, and without saying a word, he holds his hand out and my fingers automatically curl around his, scrunching them as I think it through. ‘This is a wishing tree. It has to grant a wish.’
‘Any wish? I mean, I wish to save the tree – there you go, job done.’
‘No. Henrietta’s wish, the one you wrote about in the flye
r. She wished to see this place as it was again. And Godfrey was telling me yesterday that when she came here, the tree was inaccessible but she so desperately wanted to see it that one of the wardens put down boards to make a pathway for her wheelchair, so I wouldn’t mind betting that was the last ever wish made on this tree. Wouldn’t it be incredible if the tree granted the last ever wish made on one its seeds? We could do that – you and me. We could make this place like it was again.’
‘Go on …’ The tone in his voice is instantly recognisable – barely contained excitement.
‘We’re already halfway there with the strawberries,’ I say eagerly, not sure if it’s the idea or the inhalation of Ryan’s cologne that’s making me feel so giddy. He smells like sea salt and herbs today. ‘All we’d have to do is clear the rest of the brambles away …’
‘Are you talking about reopening the strawberry patch?’
‘Yes!’ Somehow, he still hasn’t let go of my hand and I squeeze his fingers again. ‘Look at all these plants. There are so many of them, more than when it was open before, and they’re smothered in fruit that’s still to ripen and flowers that are still to form berries. Strawberry season is going to run for another couple of months yet. They’re not in the neat rows they used to be, but if we clean up the ground around them and get rid of the last of the brambles, why couldn’t we let the public come in to pick their own again?’
‘It doesn’t belong to us. It’s not Godfrey’s land anymore – it belongs to the care home.’
‘So any money that’s earned goes there. Even Steffan isn’t going to complain about that. He hasn’t sold the land yet – he wanted to because it’s just dead space sitting here. If we could use it for its intended purpose and bring in a little bit of money, maybe he could be persuaded to keep it.’
‘I don’t know what the hotel have offered him, but it’s going to be slightly more than a couple of £2.50 punnets of strawberries.’
The Wishing Tree Beside the Shore: The perfect feel good romance to escape with this summer! Page 13