Page 19 of The Wishing Tree Beside the Shor
‘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 onehas 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 withluxuryprices. 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’mthe 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,oldfriends.’
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.
