by Freya North
And then Vita stopped. She gasped out loud.
Suddenly, she knew why Oliver had brought her to Wynfordbury. It wasn’t for the yew or the handkerchief tree with the long Latin name. It wasn’t for the arboretum or the privilege of visiting a private estate. It wasn’t for the sublime landscaping or the lake and the bridge or the house and the wisteria. It wasn’t under the auspices of the Ancient Tree Hunt. Oliver brought her here so he could see how she’d fit. He wanted to witness how she felt. And when he knew how he felt – that’s when he’d returned. Recently. The second time the old woman had seen him, just a few days ago. And only after that, had he’d finally brought Vita to his home.
It was too much.
She backed away from the tree, overwhelmed. Turned her back on it and sat down on the grass, catching her breath. It took some time for her to turn again and approach the tree. Very slowly, she went up close to the bark, raising her eyes little by little. It was too much to take in all at once.
The carving was simple. The lettering was very neat; as shapely as Eric Gill or Emma Bridgewater.
DeeDee & Oliver
Over the years the bark beneath the letters had darkened down. She ran her fingers along them. The serpentine of the ampersand. Smooth. Steady. And then next to DeeDee & Oliver, right next to them, with identical spacings and lettering, another ampersand and another word. Exactly the same hand. Carved with equal care and confidence.
& Vita
There. New. Permanent.
Finally, she read it out as a whole, with her eyes, with her fingers. And out loud.
DeeDee & Oliver & Vita
It spoke more to her than any soliloquy he could ever give. It said more to her than any lecture from Candy, any heart-to-heart from Michelle, any kind wisdom from her mother. Here was Oliver, between his two women and happy in his position.
It explained everything to her – who he was and what had happened and where he had been and where he was now. Where he was happy to be. She was overwhelmed. Diamonds had nothing over wood.
But it wasn’t Oliver to whom Vita spoke when she finally found her voice.
She took her fingers to the letters of DeeDee’s name.
‘I vow to continue to love him for you,’ Vita said softly; as softly as the breeze that quivered the beech leaves and took Vita’s words off into the air towards autumn.
The Wynfordbury Taxicab
At first, Vita couldn’t find the doorbell. She was looking for something appropriately grand and started pressing at the carvings and corbels on the porch stonework as if the bell might be subtly contained within. And then, to her right, on the outer edge of the door jamb, she saw much the same standard modern doorbell as she herself had at Pear Tree Cottage. She could hear it, within, tinnily ringing out the dongs of Big Ben. Hers certainly couldn’t do that. This was followed by a cacophony of barking and, finally, Lord Seddon came to the door, with the Labradors and various other smaller dogs in a mercurial mess around his legs.
‘Well, good evening, my dear,’ he said. He was wearing half-moon spectacles and he looked a little like an owl. ‘Dogs! Dogs! Down!’
‘Hi.’
‘Successful?’
She nodded.
‘Jolly good. Well, goodbye then. Come again, do – at an official opening time.’
‘OK.’ Vita looked over her shoulder. ‘It’s just – you mentioned you’d drop me off at the gates?’
He gave her a look as if she was quite the most impudent girl he’d ever met – but it transpired it was just his facial expression as he wracked his brains. ‘I did? So I did. Hang on a mo’.’ He shut the door and soon enough Vita was standing on the great doorstep wondering if he’d forgotten she was there. Eventually, he reappeared and brandished keys at her. ‘Always takes a while to find where I’ve forgotten I’ve put them.’
‘Don’t you have a housekeeper? Or a chauffeur?’ Vita asked, as they walked around the outside of the house to a run of garaging that must once have been for carriages.
‘Housekeeper clocks off at six,’ he said. Vita looked at her watch. Goodness, half past seven. ‘Chauffeur? Had one of those. Nearly killed me. Literally.’
Vita liked Lord Seddon.
‘Now, which one is it?’ he said, pressing a button on a small contraption in his hand. One door swung slowly open to reveal a small hatchback in a cavernous space. ‘Not that one. That’s the granddaughter’s.’ He pressed another button, and another and soon all four doors were open. There was a pale blue Rolls Royce behind one, a battered old Land Rover behind another and a vintage something-or-other in the furthest space. It might be only a lift to the gates, but how Vita hoped he’d choose that one.
‘I was going to take the Roller,’ he said. ‘Can’t find the damned keys. Could only find these – so hop in.’ It was the clapped-out Land Rover. Seated on the torn front seat, Vita could then smell the whisky on his breath which was a fraction stronger than the whiff of wet dog. The car sputtered into life and Lord Seddon lurched and chugged it down the drive towards the gates, while Vita shouted her answers to his constant questions above the din of the engine.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said, when they climbed out and approached the gates. ‘For everything – I’m very grateful. I’m sorry if I inconvenienced you, sir.’ Do you call a lord a sir?
He looked at her quizzically. ‘A pleasure, dear.’ He looked at her again, looked at the gates, the car. ‘How about I run you home? You don’t want to be faffing with public transport on a lovely evening.’
‘I couldn’t possibly.’
‘No, me neither – buses? Dreadful.
Just dreadful.’
‘I meant – I couldn’t possibly trouble you further.’
‘Nonsense!’ He was already heading back to the Land Rover. ‘Hop in.’
He was an atrocious driver but on the public road, he stayed silent. Vita gazed out at the long great wall as they drove by. She thought of all the trees behind it; and of all the trees, her thoughts rested on the beech.
‘I found my name,’ she blurted when they just about stopped at a red light.
‘I see!’
‘On the tree,’ she said quietly.
‘And has that made a difference?’
She smiled. ‘It’s put down the roots for the rest of my life,’ she said.
‘Crescunt illae, crescant amores,’ he said. ‘As these letters grow, so may our love.’
The vehicle screeched and juddered a slow passage back to the Tree Houses.
‘You can drop me at the end of the street, if you like. Then you can do what my dad always called a “you-ee”.’
‘I can barely drive in a straight line, my dear – let alone execute a U-turn.’ And he drove her down the street until she said, Just here, just here’s fine.
Should she ask him if he’d like a cup of tea? She hadn’t hoovered yesterday, as she should have done. And there was washing hanging to dry in the sitting room. There were no biscuits, let alone a red carpet. Perhaps not, perhaps just thank him profusely again.
‘Whoever carved your name,’ Lord Seddon said, ‘is a lucky beggar. You look after him. We men – we need our women to look after us, however able we profess ourselves to be.’
Vita smiled at him.
‘That’s the beauty about love,’ he said. ‘It’s not about give-and-take – it’s all about feeling safe in one’s needs – wanting to be looked after as much as wanting to look after. You mark my words!’
And she did mark his words, as she walked thoughtfully up the path to her cottage.
And then she thought, Oliver!
And then she thought, Now!
She ran back to the street, saw the Land Rover zigzagging away.
‘Wait!’ she called, running up the middle of the road, gesticulating wildly. ‘Wait! Hey! Hey! Sir! Lord! Wait up!’
At first, Lord Seddon thought she was waving him off. He thought that all the jumping and arm flailing, though a little over-the-top, was rather touch
ing. But when he stalled near the T-junction, he could hear her yelling. Yelling at him, once more, to do as she asked.
She ran up to the car and rapped on his window.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘please could you just give me another lift?’ and before he could answer she was already running around to the passenger door.
‘What the—?’
‘It’s not far – but it will take too long to walk. I just want to be there now.’
He stared at her in disbelief.
‘Apologies,’ she said. ‘But please – drive on!’
Jonty thought this job could wait, really. It was Friday night. He’d done his homework and he just wanted to watch Friday-night shite on the TV with his dad. But his dad had put two empty boxes on the coffee table.
‘Jonty,’ he said, ‘I think, perhaps, we should put some of the photos away.’
‘The photos?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s time.’
‘Time for what?’
‘To make space – for Vita.’
Jonty wasn’t sure what he meant. Did he have photos of her? Already?
‘Metaphorically speaking,’ his dad said.
‘Oh.’
‘I just think it must be difficult for her,’ Oliver said. ‘We really do have a lot of photos of Mum around.’
‘You mustn’t hide Mum away.’
Oliver was visibly appalled. ‘I’m not hiding her away. Darling, I’ll never hide her away. I just think it would be – respectful – to both these women, to reorganize and rearrange things a bit.’
He handed Jonty an old newspaper and, between the two of them, they began the task of agreeing which photos would be wrapped and placed gently in the box.
‘Definitely that one,’ Oliver said. ‘She always said she looked like Yoda in that one.’
‘I remember,’ said Jonty, who also remembered how he and his dad would do their Yoda voices to wind his mum up.
‘At the door there is someone,’ Jonty mimicked because the bell was sounding.
‘Please young Jedi, to answer it you must go,’ Oliver mimicked back.
Jonty opened the door to find Vita, slightly wild about the eyes, standing there with red cheeks.
‘Hi,’ she said, and she gave him his half-wave.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Is your dad in?’
‘Yes – but we’re just –’
But Vita had squeezed by him and was making her way into the house.
‘Dad!’ he called.
‘Oliver!’ she called.
They arrived in the sitting room at the same time.
‘Vita?’ Oliver was stopped in his tracks.
Vita assessed what was happening in an instant. ‘No!’
She said it softly, emphatically.
‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Please.’
She went up to him, put her hands gently on his wrists for a change.
‘It’s OK,’ he said and they both looked down at a photo of DeeDee grinning back. ‘It’s time.’
‘No,’ Vita shook her head, smiling at him, touching his cheek. ‘It really is OK.’
She took a frame from the box and unwrapped it. She handed the photo to Oliver. ‘Please, please don’t. Not on my behalf.’
‘But I’m ready.’
She beamed at him. ‘And so am I.’ She held his face in her hands and kissed him extremely slowly and ever so lightly on the lips. ‘You are who you are because of that amazing woman. She’s trained you well – and I have only gratitude and respect for her.’ She kissed him again. ‘I owe her so much – you believe in love because of her, because of what you shared.’ She kissed him again. ‘I would be honoured to take the baton from her – and run this race alongside you.’
Oliver’s head dropped. Dear God, don’t let him weep. Not in front of Jonty.
Vita’s arms were around his neck and she was holding him close, swaying, whispering in his ear, I love you I love you I love you.
Oliver’s voice was hoarse. ‘I love you too, missy. I love you too.’
‘Oh, get a room, you two,’ Jonty groaned and the pair of them turned to him with elation and relief written in the same hand all over their faces.
* * *
But it wasn’t a room they moved to; they went out into the garden instead. Vita surveyed the scene – a cricket wicket had been put up, a bat lay strewn, there was no ball in sight. Two mugs were on a tray at the edge of the patio, a plate beside them with half a pack of digestive biscuits – the empty section of wrapper tied in a twist. The lawn had been mown and the shrubbery looked less straggly. The profusion of pots had been repositioned and the ones that the time before Vita had noted had just soil in or, worse, a long-dead plant, had been emptied. Good for Oliver, she thought. And she felt strangely elated.
‘You’ve been busy,’ she said.
‘Actually, I paid someone to do it.’
‘It looks nice – more of a garden. I didn’t know you played cricket.’
‘Love it – so does Jonty.’
‘Willow,’ said Vita. ‘I know that cricket bats are made of willow.’
Oliver smiled. ‘Salix alba caerulea – a straight-grained variety found in Essex and Suffolk. Ten-year-old trees can provide up to thirty bats each. And ash for the stumps. Alder for guitar necks, lime wood for piano parts, hazel for walking sticks, poplar for matches.’ He paused. ‘You want more?’ Vita grinned. ‘Did you know that willow beds are being tested as a final purification process for treated sewage before the water is returned to our rivers? Or that docetaxel – a chemotherapy drug – was first made from the needles of yew? And that recently, birch bark has been found to contain chemical compounds that can selectively kill human cancer cells with no side effects?’
‘And what’s gin without juniper!’ Vita said. She loved hearing this man talk, she loved the job he had. His knowledge, his forearms, working in the great outdoors – all equally sexy. Trees – mighty, beautiful and so important.
‘I’m a tree geek,’ he said, as if confessing.
It’s a quality, she thought. She tipped her head. ‘Tell me about the Trysting Tree?’
He motioned to the garden chairs with the lovely cushions. Yesterday’s paper was on the table, a bottle opener and a lager cap on top of it. They settled into the seats, the setting sun filtering through the leaves of the copper beech.
‘We were twenty-five,’ Oliver began. ‘Dee and I shinned over the wall one summer’s night with a bottle of wine and a chisel. And we couldn’t think what to write. So I just wrote our names. We came back, a few summers running. Then we stopped coming; life became so busy, my business was burgeoning, Jonty was born. About five years ago, I was invited to start verifying the trees at Wynfordbury. DeeDee and I thought it was amusing. Is it still there, she asked me, our graffiti? Yes, it’s still there, I told her. Of course it’s still there, I said. And I told her, It’ll still be there long after we’re gone.’
‘I met Lord Seddon.’
‘Isn’t he fantastic?’
‘Yes,’ Vita laughed, ‘he is.’ And she told Oliver all about today, how an odd elderly lady and an eccentric old man had made so much possible.
‘You must be exhausted, missy.’
‘I am.’
‘Bed?’
‘Jonty?’
‘Jonty? He has his own room.’
‘I know – silly. I mean – I feel we ought to clear it, with him.’
‘You go and speak to him. He likes you, you know. He likes you very much.’
Jonty’s room is quite a revelation. One wall is red, one is black and they are both covered with posters of bands with spiky names in both meaning and calligraphy. She’s knocked and he’s said, Come in and she’s asked if she can have a word and now she’s sitting on his bed. He’s on a stool, an electric guitar across his lap. He looks a little like an ironing board.
‘Jonty – I just wanted to say. To ask you. Oh shit! I don’t know w
hat I’m meant to say.’
‘It’s cool,’ he shrugs. ‘It’s always been cool. My dad’s happy – and that’s cool.’
‘Are you, though? Are you OK if I were to – you know – have a sleepover?’
‘A sleepover?’ Jonty laughs. ‘What – with a scary movie and a midnight feast?’
‘I mean – if I stay over,’ Vita is blushing. ‘Stay the night. With your dad. Would that be OK? In his – you know – room.’ She can hear how her inflection is suddenly like a teenager’s. She hopes Jonty doesn’t feel patronized, she hopes he still thinks she’s cool.
‘Cool,’ he shrugs.
‘Phew,’ she says.
‘Just one thing, though,’ he says.
‘Yes? Anything, Jonty – anything.’
‘Please don’t leave your lady stuff all around the bathroom.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Mum used to – I know I was younger then. But even so, I don’t want to see bras and knickers and things like that.’
Vita is laughing. ‘OK,’ she says, ‘I will make sure I don’t.’
‘Cool.’
‘Cool.’
She slumps a little, feeling utterly exhausted. She looks around his room and then she stops.
There, over there.
Jonty follows her gaze.
‘It’s from your shop, isn’t it?’ he says.
It’s a wall plaque, in plaster of Paris, made to look aged. It was stock from around four years ago. There was a whole series, carved with various maxims. Vita had always liked this one the best though.
Carpe Diem
‘I kind of carpe diem-ed it today all right,’ Vita says.
‘My mum really liked your shop,’ Jonty says. ‘If you look around, you’ll find loads of your stuff is here already.’ Jonty tips his head to one side. ‘I’m pleased my mum had your stuff in the house before you came,’ he says. ‘I suppose it’s a little like she unpacked for you, a bit, before you arrived.’