Page 40 of The Wishing Tree Beside the Shor
‘Hello, is that Edie?’ I introduce myself when she picks up and say Tonya passed on her name and thought she might be able to help.
‘Cutting it down?’ She squeals in horror when I explain what’s happening with the tree. ‘Good grief, I’m not having that! I’m mostly retired now, but I was a florist for forty years and I wouldn’t have even considered the industry if it wasn’t for that tree.’
Goose bumps break out across my skin again. ‘How come?’
‘When I was little, like all children in Lemmon Cove, I waited for the autumn to come so I could pick up the falling sycamore seeds and shout my wishes to the shore, and every year, I’d pick up broken branches of autumnal leaves to make flower displays for my mother. I liked watching my displays make people smile. When I was fired from my retail job unexpectedly, I was at a loss. I was twenty-nine, my husband had just left me, and I went back to stay with my elderly mum in Lemmon Cove. I visited the sycamore tree, picked up a seed and watched it spin off the cliff edge, and my wish was that I’d somehow know where to go with my life.’
What is it about this tree? My eyes are filling up as I listen to her talk, and I’ve already got a sixth sense about what she’s going to say.
‘While I was there, I picked up some autumn leaves and branches and as I stood in my mum’s kitchen arranging that autumn vase, I started wondering if there’d be any demand for a florist in the area. There were always lots of weddings in the summer and I mentioned the idea of setting up my own shop to my mum, and she realised there was an empty unit in town, and wrote me a cheque then and there for the deposit and first few months’ rent. I’m sure the tree had a hand in it. Well, a branch. Tree’s don’t really have hands, do they?’
I let out a wholly embarrassing sob and cover it by pretending to cough.
‘It’s all right – it always gets to me too. That tree has a way of touching people. It’s the unknown magic of it. We’re adults, weknowit doesn’t really grant wishes and it’s not really magical, but itcouldbe, couldn’t it? I never lose the sense of childhood wonder when I look up at it. There’s always a possibility that magic twinkles through its leaves.’
She puts into words what I’ve always thought. It was a fairy tale when I was young, and I loved it, but now, even though I know that magic and wish-granting trees don’t exist in the world, whenever I look up into its branches, I still get the fairy-tale feeling, and for a fleeting moment, I wonder …do they?
‘And nearly forty years later, I’ve had the best career I could ever have wished for,’ Edie continues. ‘I met my second husband through the shop. He was an event organiser for floral art competitions, and we were married for twenty glorious years before he passed away. I’ve supplied the Chelsea Flower Show and done arrangements for Buckingham Palace and fulfilled every dream I could never even have imagined all those years ago when I stood under that tree. My daughter runs the shop now, and my granddaughter helps out after school. She can’t wait to take over one day.’
‘That’s incredible,’ I murmur into the phone. The wind rustles the leaves again and I look up into the tree, convinced it can somehow hear me.
‘The day I opened, after a roaring first day, my mum and I went to visit the tree. We had a glass of champagne to toast the new beginning and I added my own carving – a little flower and the date 27/06/1983.’
‘I know where that is!’ I scramble to my feet and jump down from the tree while holding the phone between my ear and shoulder. Maybe I’m getting better at this because I’m quite impressed when neither me nor the phone end up in the sea, but then I instantly disprove the theory by falling over Baaabra and sending the phone sprawling onto the grass.
I grab it before she can eat it and shove it back against my ear.
‘It’s on the side facing the beach,’ Edie says.
‘I remember it. A little daisy. I always loved daisies and wondered what it meant.’
‘That’s rather wonderful. To know other people saw it. Somehow, a little part of me will always be in the world.’
The unspoken dread of the tree being cut down crackles over the line, and I swallow hard as I run my fingers across the trunk once more, having looked at that particular carving many times before. ‘Found it!’
‘Is it really still there?’ She sighs with what sounds like happiness. ‘I always wondered. I was going to show my granddaughter a couple of years ago, but the land was so overgrown that we turned back.’
‘Bring her,’ I say instantly. ‘We’re clearing it. Wehaveto share these stories and what this tree means to people in the area.’
‘I did the flowers for a wedding that took place there once.’
‘A weddingunderthe tree?’
She makes a noise of agreement. ‘I always kept in touch with the couple afterwards. I’ve got their phone number somewhere, shall I give them a ring?’
‘Oh, wow. Yes, please. That’ssoromantic. That’sexactlythe sort of thing we need.’
‘I’ll do anything I can to help. I might sound like a mad old bat, but I’ve always said that tree changed my life. I’ll call everyone I know. What was your website again?’
I give her the seaside-sycamore-tree.com address and tell her about the petition and the page where people can put in their own stories and upload photos, and she says she’s going to bring her granddaughter here as soon as she can.
It’s still raining by the time I hang up, and the chain rattles around behind me as I move, clinking with every step, but it’s surprisingly easy to forget after a while. The metal warms with body heat and the weight around my waist becomes like a well-worn belt.
Baaabra Streisand is following me as I walk around, and I’m glad there’s a strong barrier at the cliff edge, because she’s definitely waiting for her chance to off me. Or hoping I might have food in my pockets. I try to be brave and offer her my hand, but she turns her head away, like she knows exactly how much of a traitor I am now.
While I’m still alone out here, I take the opportunity to have another look for the carving Ryan did, because I’m half-convinced it never happened and want to prove it to myself. He hasn’t given any indication that he even remembers what happened under this tree, and if I could find that “Ry + Fee” in a heart shape, it might prove something.
I never believed the old legend that if a carving fades, the relationship is doomed, but it feels like a sign that I can’t find it. Maybe it faded or got carved over by someone else. Maybe he stood there and scrubbed it out as I ran away.
