Page 23 of The Wishing Tree Beside the Shor
All the talk of willies and property developers is making me uncomfortable and reminding me that I have a job to do.
‘Right, so what are we doing today?’ I clap my hands together and try to get a combined attention span of longer than 2.5 seconds before gnomes and willies take over again.
‘We?’ Ryan says in my ear, mimicking what I said yesterday.
‘Well, I’m here, aren’t I?’ I turn around to face him. ‘I want to help.’
He smiles at me and I get lost in his light eyes for a moment.
‘Well, we’ve got the chess, Monopoly, and Scrabble out,’ Tonya is saying when I come back to myself.
‘Yahtzee!’ One of the old blokes cries, accidentally upending the chessboard and sending the pieces scattering in his excitement. The other bloke takes his cap off and thwacks him with it.
‘Guess Who!’ Mr Barley says.
The two chess players start setting out their pieces again, resigning themselves to starting the match over.
‘I meant in non-board-game-related terms,’ I say carefully, wringing my hands together. They can’t really think a protest is just sitting here playing board games … can they? ‘For the protest? To get people talking about it?’
‘We’ve all relocated our lives to spend as much time as possible outside, so it’s occupied. Andhe’schained to a tree!’ Ffion points to Ryan.
‘Well, yeah, but …’ I look between them all, wondering what right I have to barge in and tell them they’re doing this wrong. For my job, they’resupposedto be doing it wrong. Board games are Harrison’s best-case scenario. But for my heart, I want to say,For God’s sake, this is a protest and you may as well be churning butter. Three more games of Buckaroo and the builders will be along to dig the hotel’s foundations.
‘I know that look.’ Ryan smiles at me. ‘Your “I want to say something but you’re not going to like it” face hasn’t changed in fifteen years. Go on – we’re all ears.’
Somewhere, a hearing aid squeals with perfect timing.
‘You’re campaigning but you’re not campaigningforanything,’ I say in a rush. ‘You’re just … here. As far as anyone outside is concerned, you’re sitting in your garden on a summer’s day. And you.’ I turn to Ryan. ‘You’re a guy chained to a tree. With a sheep. You’re vaguely making a nuisance of yourself, but you have no case. No alternative. Nothing to fight themwith.’
‘Steffan inherited Seaview Heights from a business partner who died. He’s not interested in it – but he doesn’t want any trouble. We just have to make it so difficult for them that they don’twantto build here.’
‘But someone else will. If it’s notthishotel,thisdeveloper, there will be others. There are plenty of property developers out there who will see the potential in a patch of land like this. This protest is attracting attention in the industry. Even if you win this time, Steffan is going to get bigger and better offers, and next time they’re going to be for a high enough price that he won’t hesitate to turf you all out. He might not want trouble now, and I’m guessing he’s umm-ing and ahh-ing because of some loyalty to whoever he got the building from, but that might be a different story when he gets a high bid he can’t refuse. You don’t just have to see this particular developer off – you have tosavethe land.’
‘How do we do that?’ Mr Barley asks.
I glance at Ryan again. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Motivational speeches are not my strong point.
‘There’s nothing to make anyone take notice,’ I start. ‘Take the gate sign. It’s visible from the road, and this is one of the main routes through the Gower area, and it’s the middle of the summer holidays – there are alotof extra people driving past to the various beaches along the coast. But it doesn’tsayanything. There’s no call to arms. No explanation. Nothing to make people care. It should be lit up in red with a banner to explain what’s going on. There—’
‘We’ve got a petition! My son set it up online for us! There are thirteen signatures so far!’ Tonya says.
I count them. ‘And nine of them are yours, right?’
‘The rest are our families’ and some of the staff have signed too, but some were a bit worried about putting their names down to go against their boss.’
Yeah, imagine doing that. I shudder to think of Harrison if he could see me now. ‘A petition is … it’s something, but what’s it going to do? If you get 100,000 signatures, they’re not going to debate it in parliament. This is what I mean about not having a goal.’
‘We’re going to send it to the hotel company.’
I think about those men in business suits sitting in Harrison’s meeting rooms. ‘They won’t care. You aren’t the people who’ll be staying in their hotel. A list with a few hundred names on it won’t make a jot of difference.’
‘You think we can get a fewhundredsignatures?’ Cynthia asks, sounding awestruck.
I look at Ryan again and he grins. ‘Yes, they do always miss the point this much.’
The fact that he doesn’t think I’m mad buoys my confidence. ‘I think you could get a few hundredthousandif this is run the right way.’
Shock waves go through the group and they shuffle closer like I somehow hold the secret. I involuntarily take a step backwards and crash into Ryan and his hand closes around my arm to steady me.
