Page 37 of The Wishing Tree Beside the Shor
To distract myself from how much Ryan makes me laugh, I nod towards the elderly man sitting on the bench under his umbrella. ‘I can’t believe he still sits there in the rain.’
‘That was “their” bench,’ Ryan whispers. ‘Apparently they used to sit there every night after everyone had left and watch the sun go down with a glass of wine and some strawberries.’
‘Do you think he’ll approve of our idea? From what you’ve said, Henrietta may not ever be able to come here and see it.’
‘No, but he would. He’d know. He’d be able to tell her. Take photos. And you never know, she has good days, we could ask her nurses to see if she was up to the journey one day. It’s a long shot, but there’s always hope.’ He sighs. ‘He was supposed to go and visit her today, but they needed the ambulance for something else. He’s worried because the staff told Henrietta he was coming and now he can’t get there. Routines and following through is important to someone in the advanced stages of dementia.’
‘Can you take him?’
‘I’m a little tied up.’ He rattles the chain, sounding like Jacob Marley’s ghost clomping around Scrooge’s bedroom.
‘I’ll stay here.’
‘Seriously?’ He raises an eyebrow.
‘I don’t have a car so I’m pretty useless for the driving part, but I can sit in a tree for a while.’
‘It’s forty miles each way. It’ll be alongwhile.’
‘That’s okay. I’ll have Baaabra Streisand for company.’ I glance down at the sheep, who is indeed now taste-testing my umbrella. ‘And I need to work on the website. I’ve got my laptop and can jump on the care home’s Wi-Fi. It makes no difference if I’m sat here or at my dad’s kitchen table.’
‘You know you can’t leaveat all, right? Not even for the loo unless one of the residents comes down to cover for you, and that’s unlikely in this weather. Alys thinks the rain will make her wrinkles develop wrinkles of their own, and Tonya thinks they’ll all go pruney and they might never unscrew at their age.’
It makes me laugh out loud again, as he opens his laptop and transfers the flyer design onto a USB stick. ‘And I’ll drop these at the printer’s on the way out.’
Ryan unlocks the chain from around his waist and does what he did yesterday – crouches behind me and slips it around my middle from behind, his arms sliding around me as he blindly locks the chain into place at my front. And this time, I amdefinitelynot imagining the lingering hug.
‘He’ll be overjoyed,’ he murmurs. ‘Thanks, Fee. You’re a star.’
His lips brush against the shell of my ear and his arms tighten momentarily. It would be easy to snuggle back against him, but every nerve ending is on alert and there are flashing red lights in my head, screaming warnings about getting too close to Ryan Sullivan, and the thought makes a shiver go down my spine.
He must feel it too, because he pulls away, and I force myself not to watch as he moves around, the branches above us more than high enough to be able to stand at full height in the tree. He tucks his laptop away and unzips his blue hoodie. As I look away, he leans down again and drapes his hoodie over my shoulders. ‘In case you get cold.’ His soft Welsh accent is low in my ear and makes me shiver much more than the weather does.
His hands stay on my shoulders as he holds the jacket in place. ‘Be back as soon we can.’
Our hands brush when I reach up to take it from him and his fingers linger as they cross mine and I’m sure I imagine the little squeeze.
The material is warm from his body heat and the fresh greenery scent of his cologne fills my senses while I watch him grab his wallet and keys and climb out of the tree.
It’s impossible not to smile as he ruffles Baaabra’s head and says goodbye to her, covertly removing the shredded canvas of my umbrella from her teeth. He turns around and his eyes don’t leave mine as he walks backwards up the path, his grey T-shirt getting soaked with rain, and isn’tthata thought for another day. He salutes me with a seductive grin that suggests he knows exactly what I’m thinking, before turning again and jogging up to the bench.
He ducks under Godfrey’s large umbrella and talks to him, and then the old man turns in my direction and gives me a wave and a nod of thanks too, and Ryan helps him to his feet, lifts the umbrella, and holds it over both of them as he escorts him up to Seaview Heights to get ready.
I let out a sigh as I watch them disappear, and suddenly realise how alone I am out here. With the weather, there’s not even a brave dog walker on the beach. The waves are lashing at the cliff edges around the coast, and the wind is howling around the outside of the tree, although there’s still a microclimate in here and the worst of it is missing me, protected by the big trunks of wood that rise around me.
Baaabra doesn’t seem bothered either. She’s looking around for what she can eat next, and eventually settles on boring old grass at the base of the tree. No sheep has ever been more disappointed.
I crack open my laptop and start the website developer app. It’s up with a holding page, but it needs a real design, and soon. Tonya’s @BeachBattleaxe account is already linking to it, and there’s no time to waste in getting our story out there.
I have a good idea of what I want the website to look like. Ryan’s already drawn a picture of the sycamore to use as a background image, and we’re going to use each branch to link to different areas of the website – a page for news and updates, a page to share the tree’s plight and talk about why we need to save it, one that links to however many stories we can find out, a form where people can share their own stories and upload their photos, and a “how you can help” page. I thought of asking the residents to write a blog too, even though it will probably be filled with pictures of naughty gnomes and photos of Zimmer frames and courgettes and household gadgets. Why shouldn’t people get to know the residents, warts and all?
Oh God, warts. You can guarantee thatthosewill be the subject of at least one blog post.
I’m writing copy for Godfrey’s story when my phone rings. When I get it out of my pocket and see the name on the screen, I groan so loudly that even Baaabra Streisand looks up worriedly from her grass munching and I have to reassure her there’s nothing wrong.
‘Harrison!’ I overestimate the level of excitability needed in answering a call from your boss and overshoot it by at least six exclamation points. He’s going to know I’ve been dreading this phone call because of how falsely happy I sound to hear from him.
‘Felicity. You’re still alive then – quite a surprise given how long it’s been since our last debrief.’
