Page 43 of The Wishing Tree Beside the Shor
The old man stops and shines his torch onto us before angling it back down to illuminate the path in front of him, like headlights on a foggy morning. He’s holding something under his arm and tottering towards us, and Ryan shoves his laptop aside and clambers out of the tree, rushing around the trunk to help him.
The movement disturbs Baaabra Streisand from her chip-induced angry slumber and she climbs to her feet and trots after Ryan to see if Godfrey’s got anything she can shred.
‘I found something for you two young folks.’ Godfrey is holding onto Ryan’s arm as they approach. ‘I knew I had them somewhere. I spent half the journey today wondering where I’d put them.’
He has a stack of what look like documents in his hand, and when he’s safe on solid ground, he takes his hand off Ryan’s arm, splits the stack of papers in two, and hands one to Ryan and one up to me.
‘What are these?’ Ryan flicks through them, squinting in the low light.
‘Old strawberry plant catalogues,’ I say in delight as I leaf through them.
‘From my great-great-grandfather’s time in the late Victorian era all the way to the last one Henrietta and I ever had printed. Of course, printed flyers were already old-fashioned by then, but it was tradition and, no matter what young and modern folks say, I think the strength of a place like this isintradition. Henrietta and I never wanted to modernise. We wanted it to invoke that sense of nostalgia in everyone who came here. There were always a lot of return visitors. People who grew up coming here would return years later with their own children. We were privileged to run it for long enough to witness that, and we wanted people to feel they were coming to thesamestrawberry patch, not one run by robots or something.’
The idea makes me giggle. Considering it closed in the late Noughties, robots hadn’tquitetaken over the world by then.
I can feel Godfrey watching me as I flip through the pages. They’re old newspaper-style print with hand-drawn images of strawberries, and the defining features and benefits of each different variety. On the front is “Lemmon Cove’s finest seaside strawberry patch” like there had ever been more than one to compete with, and inside the cover of the stapled pages, is a map showing a layout of the strawberry patch and marking out which varieties grow in which area.
‘We used to put one together every spring to showcase what varieties would be available and send them out all along the Gower coast. We had stacks of them in the tourist information office, and gardening magazines used to slip one in with each copy. We used to supply the little shop in Lemmon Cove. Tourists used to come here and pick them fresh, and then get another punnet from the shop as they drove through the village on their way out.’
He pets Baaabra Streisand as he talks, and fishes a Glacier Mint out of his pocket, unwraps it, and holds it out on his fingers for her. Something else I haven’t seen since the Nineties. It really is like stepping into some kind of time warp when you come back here.
The sheep takes it greedily and trots away, stopping to give a quick snort to Ryan – as if chastising him for giving her anything as distasteful as a chip. A sheep who turns down the best chips in South Wales but likes hard-boiled sweets. Just when I thought my hometown couldn’t have any more surprises in store.
‘These are amazing.’ I trace the outline of the hand-drawn strawberry on the page. ‘Can we hang on to these for a while? I’m sure there’s a story here somewhere.’
He reaches up to pat my hand. ‘For as long as you want.’ His hand-patting turns into a grasp as his fingers curl around mine. ‘Thank you, my dear, for letting your prince take me to see my Henrietta today.’
The idea of Ryan being a prince makes me grin, and when I look down at him, he’s blushing.
‘You’re a prince to all of us, lad.’ Godfrey lets go of my hand and reaches over to pinch Ryan’s left cheek and I have to bite the inside of mine to keep from falling out of the tree with laughter at how uncomfortable he looks.
Ryan’s eyes are twinkling when he looks at me again, and I can’t hide how much I’m smiling.
‘You’re welcome,’ I say to Godfrey. Ry was always uneasy taking compliments. ‘Ryan did the difficult part. I just sat here.’
‘It was your idea.’ Typical Ryan. Always giving credit to everyone else, unlike every boss I’ve had ever since.
‘Tonya has been showing everyone how busy you’ve been with the website you’ve put together. And everyone knows that Edie the florist is coming to visit, and we’ve had three new signatures from that man’s family.’ He looks between me up in the tree and Ryan standing next to him. ‘You two make a good team.’
‘That’s what I’ve always said,’ Ryan says. ‘She brought out the best in me. And sometimes it needed excavating from great depths.’
I tilt my head to the side at his self-deprecation. He struggled with confidence when he first took over Sullivan’s Seeds, because he was young and had no experience, but it grew as time went on. ‘It never took any finding. You were always perfect just the way you were.’ I cringe as I say it. Who do I think I am – Mark Darcy?
Ryan looks up and meets my eyes, and I blink at the sudden intensity in his. My mouth goes dry. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. I shouldnothave said that. He didn’t need the reminder that I was head over heels for him all those years ago.
He wets his lips and swallows again. ‘You were—’
‘Henrietta had a good day?’ I interrupt him by asking Godfrey. I’m sure he’s only trying to be kind, but the last thing I need is an awkward “you were just a friend” speech.
Godfrey doesn’t detect the awkwardness between us as his face breaks into a toothy smile. ‘Yes. She’s lost in time most days. She thinks I’m a resident there and asks when her husband’s coming, but for brief snatches today, she knew who I was. She always used to love a cuddle, and most of the time nowadays, she thinks I’m a stranger so I can’t go near her, but today we sat on the sofa together and held hands. Every time I go there, I always wonder if it’s going to be the last time – if she’s ever going to recognise me again. We used to say we were all each other needed, and that everything would be all right as long as we had each other.’ He shakes a finger at us in turn. ‘You two young folks remember that. You never have as much time as you think.’
I swallow hard, his words making me well up again. ‘I wish more days were like today for you.’
‘Say it a bit louder, perhaps the wishing tree will hear.’ His eyes move up towards the branches and he stares at it for a moment. ‘Maybe it hears everything anyway.’
Ryan and I look at each other and glance up at it too.
Godfrey sighs and looks away. ‘Look at me getting all sappy. How about you two? You’re old friends but nothingmore?’ His wiry eyebrows waggle.
