Page 25 of Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm
There’s another gate hidden in the hedgerow and Gizmo stops in front of it and wags his tail, waiting for us to catch up and let him in. He’s probably excited by the prospect of some more tree trunks to get tangled up in.
‘Peppermint fir.’ I run my fingers over the wood-burned sign. ‘Another tree name I’ve never heard of.’
‘Yeah, there’s a reason for that. Lee, wait. This field … there’s something I need to tell you …’
‘Let me guess, it’s overrun with weeds that have leeched all the nutrients from the soil, the trees have grown wild, and I haven’t got a hope in hell of getting anything back right again before Christmas?’ I unlatch the gate and Gizmo rushes through before I’ve got it fully open.
I stop in surprise and Noel crashes right into me when Gizmo reaches the end of his leash and yanks Noel with him.
‘Sorry,’ he murmurs, backing away.
This field is different. There are no weeds. Instead, the perfectly cone-shaped trees are planted in tidy rows on a bed of neat moss. Each one has a circular shape of bare earth underneath it, and the sharp, sweet and refreshing scent of Christmas trees fills the air.
‘Someone’s been taking care of these,’ I say, although it’s blatantly obvious who that is.
He bends down to unhook Gizmo’s lead and the Chihuahua bounces across the moss like he’s done it many times before. ‘This is Evergreene’s life’s work. He was attempting to create the perfect Christmas tree by making a hybrid of all the best. They’ve got the shape of a Norway spruce, the needle retention of a Fraser fir, the branch strength of a Nordmann fir, the colour of a cross between a Blue spruce and a White spruce, and the scent of a Balsam fir, the most desirable and traditional Christmas tree scent.’
‘He bred these?’ My feet press into the spongy moss as I walk across to the nearest tree and run my fingers over one of its stiff branches, surprised by the softness of the needles.
He nods. ‘From years and years of grafts, splicing seeds, and cross-pollinating.’ I feel his eyes on me as I look at the tree. ‘Strong branches for holding ornaments but needles that are soft to the touch and won’t fall out.’
I inhale the scent from the branch and close my eyes, instantly transported back to Christmas in my parents’ living room, sitting next to a tree that smelled like this, tearing wrapping paper off Barbie dolls and Polly Pockets that I’d been wanting for months. Lying on the floor beside it in the afternoon, full from Mum’s Christmas dinner, playing Monopoly with cousins while grandparents from both sides of the family dozed in front of the Queen’s speech.
‘It’s got a lot of water retained in its trunk, so it won’t die if people forget to water it. Its roots are neat so it transplants easily. It won’t grow beyond eight foot so it remains manageable. We did surveys for years asking everyone what they wanted in a Christmas tree, what annoyed them most about the ones they’d had, what they’d liked, what they hadn’t, and what they’d like to be different.’
‘They’re beautiful.’ I run my fingers over the soft needles even though I can’t take my eyes off Noel. He lights up when he talks about trees.
He walks over to the one I’m stroking, pulls a pair of secateurs from the pocket of his cargo trousers and deposits them in my hand. He nods to the tree in front of us. ‘There are a couple of strays that need to come off.’
‘What are you – an exam invigilator?’ I use my thumb to turn the metal catch on the handle and open the secateurs, snipping them in the air a few times before I attack the tree.
I surprise myself because I can actually see what he means. There are a few slim branches of fresh growth – soft, brighter green needles that have sprung out from the neat lines of the shaped tree, and I clip them off, feeling his eyes on me as I walk around the tree to ensure I haven’t missed any. ‘So is this part of the coursework and does it count towards my final grade?’
He laughs. ‘And that’s your first lesson as a Christmas tree farmer – never go anywhere without secateurs in your pocket, youwillfind strays that need to come off and you’ll never find them again if you walk away.’
I twist the two branches I snipped off with the sprigs of holly that are still in my hand. The colours are gorgeous together, the greens intertwining to make the red berries pop. It would make a perfect wreath with some pinecones and a couple of silver bells added.
‘You can keep those,’ he says when I go to hand the secateurs back to him. ‘They were Evergreene’s anyway, a long time ago. And I’m sorry about the trees. I know they weren’t mine to take care of. I’ve been trespassing onto your land for years.’ He winds his fingers in his hair and tugs at a dark lock. ‘This field backs onto one of mine so it’s been easy to slip through the hedge. I shouldn’t have, I know that, but I couldn’t sit back and watch them die when I knew how much they meant to Evergreene. He’d spent the last twenty years of his life working on them.’
His tongue must be twiddling the piercing because it’s turning in his lip, and I find that I don’t really care about anything else. Maybe it has some kind of hypnotic power. ‘You keep saying “we” – you were involved too?’
‘Just the leg work, the planting, the heavy lifting. It was his science and his knowledge of Christmas trees. I’m not that clever.’
I watch him as he chews on his lip. He’s definitely being modest there.
‘I never thought Peppermint Branches would run as a Christmas tree farm again. I was certain it would go to a property developer who would flatten it and re-use the land. I intended to make a deal with the new owner to buy this field in exchange for a good chunk of cash or a different part of my adjoining land. Anything to stop these trees being destroyed.’
‘Oh. Okay, I suppose we can still do that …’ I start, trying not to sound as disappointed as I feel.
‘No way,’ he says quickly. ‘That was only my plan if it sold to someone who was going to destroy it. You’re running this place as a tree farm, so these are yours now. I was only an interim caretaker. Just try not to kill them.’
I laugh at his offhand tone. ‘No pressure then.’
He doesn’t laugh. ‘I’m sorry about the trespassing. It’s terrible, and if anyone had known I was doing it, or caught me in here, they wouldn’t have been so understanding.’
Either I’m missing something or I just don’t get what the big deal is. ‘The land wasn’t mine then. It wasn’t anybody’s. These trees are beautiful, and obviously important, you weren’t doing anything wrong by keeping them alive.’
His shoulders drop as relief visibly floods through him, and he smiles for the first time since I opened the gate.
