Page 45 of The Wishing Tree Beside the Shor
‘I, er …’
‘Please don’t leave me yet, Fee. I was hoping you’d be back for good.’
It’s an open segue into another Take That song, but neither of us do it. It doesn’t feel like the time. Whoever thought there’d be a bad time for a Take That flashback? And it’s a good job I’m sitting down because the words make me feel light-headed and everything goes a bit fuzzy.
‘I have a job to get back to,’ I mumble. Ineedto tell him the truth, and my stomach rolls more than the choppy waves below.
‘How much longer can they spare you for? Can it be offset by the lower bill from the fire brigade without you there?’ He winks at me, and although he’s teasing, it makes me feel unwell again.
‘I’ve got annual leave stacked up,’ I mumble.Come on, Fliss. Youhaveto tell him.
‘Just like the Fee I knew. Always working.’ His teeth pull his lower lip into his mouth and let it out slowly, and I can feel his eyes burning into me and I squirm under his gaze. ‘I’m glad you don’t have to go yet.’
He wouldn’t be saying that if he knew the truth about where I work. He’d never believe there was anything genuine about my involvement in this campaign, and he’d definitely never trust me again.
I realise that my body language is going to give me away faster than anything else. Unless Baaabra Streisand finds a way of telling him first. She may be a sheep, but she could spell it out in tree branches or chew up enough items to form letters from the remains. I glance down at her, currently asleep half-on and half-off her dog bed cushion, snoring loudly. Maybe I’m giving her too much credit.
I lift my chin defiantly and try to push it out of my head. Ryan’s not being entirely honest here either. How convenient that the owner of the campsite next door wants to expand, has tried to buy this land, been refused, and now become the head protestor to prevent someone else buying it. And then I feel horrible, and jaded, and cynical for thinking the worst of him. Ryan isn’t like the businessmen I deal with at work.
Like he can sense we’ve reached an impasse, he reaches out both hands for some of the old strawberry leaflets that I’ve been mindlessly flicking through but not taken in a word of since he got back. I hand him half the stack, and shift around so I’m facing the strawberry patch again. I don’t even know when I turned around to face Ryan. Or when we drifted so close that our knees are touching again.
‘These are a piece of history,’ he says.
‘Real British heirlooms. We used to grow these ones at Sullivan’s Seed’s.’ I lean across to show him a picture in a leaflet dated 1906. ‘We can take pictures of these and put them on the website. This is real history. These are the same plants – their heritage can be traced back through these catalogues. Look at this one: 1892. Victorian strawberry plants.’
‘Whoever thought fruit ancestry could be so interesting?’
It could be a plumbing course, and it would be interesting with Ryan. Back in the day, he even made a good time out of mandatory health and safety courses and risk inspection days.
I hold up one of the hand-drawn maps inside a strawberry leaflet from 1987 and try to work out where each variety of strawberry plant is likely to be, and how we’d identify them.
After a few moments, Ryan moves too, and the chain drags against the tree as he stretches out on his stomach beside me, and I quickly put the map down to hide how much my hands are shaking at the sudden closeness.
‘This okay?’ he murmurs, tipping his head to the side so it knocks against my arm.
‘Fine.’ I stutter so much, it comes out sounding more like “greebavlehowblhe”, but what it’s meant to be is: “That feels really nice actually; I like that”.
He lifts his head again, but I can feel the space where he was is burning, tingling with the imprint of his skin against mine like when someone with warm hands touches your cold ones and you can tell they’re there but you’re too numb to really feel them.
His body is warm against the side of mine, his ribs pressing against my thigh, the side of his abdomen against my hip. He pushes himself up on his elbows and spreads Godfrey’s papers in front of him. ‘You were the best thing in my life too,’ he says softly, deliberately not looking up. ‘All the overtime I put in was solely because I didn’t want to miss a day with you.’
I take in a breath so sharp that cold air hits the back of my throat and chokes me. Ryan shifts until he can snake an arm between us and rubs my back until I’ve got myself under control. His arm is underneath his hoodie that I’m still wearing, and his fingers are burning hot through my T-shirt.
He pulls his arm back and leans on his elbow again, looking ahead instead of at me or the leaflets now. ‘I always thought things would be perfect when I met you again. I’d be mature and sophisticated and not the awkward gawky nerd I was back then, but it turns out, when I do meet you again, I’m chained to a branch with a sheep, trying to save a magical tree. You must think I’m such an idiot.’
‘I think you’re amazing.’ I get the words out before I can second-guess myself. He deserves to know that. Who else would literally move into a tree in an attempt to save it? And not just that – it’s the way he treats everyone around him. The respect and banter he has with the residents here, the way he cares about everyone and everything, the way Baaabra Streisand has clearly got everything a sheep could ever wish for in life. ‘Besides, I always thought I’d be sophisticated and not an awkward grieving teenager, but when I met you again, I had a foot full of sheep poo.’
I’m not sure reminding him of that was the best idea, but I don’t even mind that when he bursts out laughing so hard that it shakes me too, making me giggle even though sheep poo is really no laughing matter.
‘Ah well, at least we can be unsophisticated adults together now.’ He hesitates. ‘I wasn’t an adult back then, Fee. If I had the chance again, there are certain things I’d do differently. You should know—’
I get a sixth sense that he’s talking about the kiss, and I really,reallydon’t want to hear it.
‘That makes two of us!’ I think even the tree jumps at the high tone in my voice that sounds like an out-of-tune violin.
Instead of saying anything, he drops his head to the side so it rests against my arm again.
‘I’m glad you came back,’ he whispers. ‘Maybe it’ll give me a chance to make up for certain things.’
