Page 7 of The Wishing Tree Beside the Shor
‘All the better for seeing you, m’dear. Both my girls home again. I’ve got your bed all set up in Cheryl’s room, and I’ve cleared out some of my wardrobe so you’ve got space to put your clothes, and there’s a free shelf in the bathroom for your toiletries. You’ve had a long journey; why don’t you go and have a shower and I’ll get some supper on?’
Same old Dad. Can never do enough for you. When Mum died, it was like he became both mother and father to us. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m not planning on staying long enough to need bathroom shelf space and anywhere to hang my clothes.
I can’t get this protest sorted out and get back to London fast enough.
Chapter 3
I wake up feeling refreshed and ready to face the day.
Okay, that’s a lie. I wake up with my spine bent in ways I didn’t know it could bend, having got about two hours of fitful sleep in total, while the “bed” slowly deflated underneath me. It’s now half the size it was when I threw a duvet onto it last night, and it’s ten o’clock, which is two hours later than the usual time I have to dash out of my flat and face the demoralising crush of rush hour on the tube.
I left my phone on Cheryl’s dressing table, and when I pick it up, there’s a text from Harrison telling me to do my best, and after I didn’t reply to that, there’s a voicemail telling me I’d better not be having a lie-in because I’ve got work to do.
I don’t think it counts as a lie-in if you’re still trying to get comfortable when the sun comes up. I send him a quick reply saying I’m purposely being late so as not to arouse suspicion, and can’t help wondering why he thinks I need reminding to do my best. Don’t I do my best every day?
Probably not, actually. Most days are a constant stream of reminding myself that pouring hot coffee down people’s necks is considered bad and hoping to get through the day relatively unscathed.
When I’ve had a shower, I throw on my best casual seaside visitor look of three-quarter-length trousers and a vest with lace roses on the straps. I need to look as un-businesslike as possible. Nothing can tip the protestors off about my real job.
Dad’s downstairs and he comes over to give me a hug. ‘You don’t look like you’re eating well enough.’
He forces me to sit at the kitchen table and puts a cup of tea and a slice of his homemade roasted peach pie in front of me.
I take this to mean that I look like I survive on shop-bought sandwiches and cereal for dinner every night, and that’s reflected in my wobbly waistline and complexion that would make a teenager cringe. But I’m not in work so I’m not making it worse by putting on make-up if I don’t have to. I’m just going to have to hope that the old folks’ eyesight is bad enough not to be able to make out every acne scar and red mark that may or may not erupt into a volcano-style spot.
Cheryl’s already gone to work. I know because she tripped over my feet where they were sticking over the edge of the “bed” as she got ready this morning, and I try to get Dad talking about what she said last night, but he constantly turns the conversation back to me and how I’m doing, and when I question him on the protest and who’s running it, he doesn’t know either.
It’s a ten-minute walk to the strawberry patch, and I try to persuade Dad to come with me, but he says something about needing to make a loaf of bread. It’s weird to step out of my dad’s house in the morning sunshine, like I’ve gone back in time fifteen years and I’m on my way to work at Sullivan’s Seeds. I did this every day for four years of my younger life, from the age of sixteen when I started to twenty when I left.
The sea air fills my lungs as I walk down the street, intermittent trees in dark green leaf for summer, birds pecking at red berries in the wild cherry trees that are interspersed with the hedgerows opposite, and I frighten off a flock of sparrows from a bird feeder as I walk past one of the neighbour’s gardens and out onto the main road. Even “main road” is a misleading term in these quiet Gower villages, as the cars are few and far between, and mostly full of families enjoying the summer holidays with bikes and colourful surfboards strapped to their roof racks as they head to the beaches further along the Welsh coastline.
The sycamore tree is on the horizon, a beacon visible for miles from its spot on the clifftop, overlooking the Lemmon Cove beach. Seaview Heights care home looms over the car park, and a big metal gate to the left lets me onto a wide cobblestone path that gently slopes towards the sea on the horizon, not giving any hint of the steep and rocky path that lies ahead. Only people with strong ankles and a high level of fitness attempt to reach the beautiful, unspoiled Lemmon Cove beach. The gate clangs as I close it behind me. There’s a slice of cardboard tied to it with “Save Our Garden” painted in big red letters, and someone’s attempted to draw a flower underneath it but it looks more like a cauliflower in the middle of a murder scene.
Ah ha, the campsite. To my left is a neatly cut hedgerow and I stand on tiptoes to see over the top to fields that stretch out for miles, some with tents pitched here and there, and further over there are campervans parked up on the lush green ground. No wonder the campsite owner is protesting. A luxury hotel across the path from his campsite is going to have a hugely detrimental effect on his business.
On the right-hand side, hidden from the coastal path by a hedge that’s so overgrown I can’t see over it, is the land that used to be the strawberry patch. I loved strawberries and I loved the seaside – what could be better than a pick-your-own strawberry patch on the way down to the beach? And with the sycamore tree on the edge overlooking the sea as well … I can’t imagine the number of hours I must’ve spent here.
There’s vague chatter and noise from behind the hedge so I walk further down the cobblestone path to a gap in the hedgerow that used to be smooth double wooden gates hooked open on summer days, a wide and welcoming entry to the strawberry patch and the sycamore tree, but now the space is filled by haphazard metal fencing, those temporary panels that builders put in place to keep people out of building sites.
A few of the care home residents are milling around in the garden area. There’s an old woman sitting on a bench, and one standing in front of her having a natter while she leans on a Zimmer frame. There’s a man walking around with a placard that reads “Make peas, not war”, but I can’t work out what pea puns have got to do with saving a strawberry patch. One old man is on his knees on a kneeling pad, doing something to a pair of garden gnomes, two men are sitting on the wall of what was once a raised flowerbed playing a board game, and one woman is sitting on a rickety-looking bench looking at her phone.
Something lets out an extended “baa”.
Another cardboard sign with “No Hotel Here” scrawled on it in brushstrokes of red paint is tied to the metal fencing, and the rusty panels are joined by a loose chain that’s hanging open. I shift one aside and squeeze through the gap, wondering what sort of protest this is if they’re sitting around playing board games. I’d expected to see them chanting and marching with their billboards and petitioning in the streets. I turn around to push the metal panel back into place, and when I turn back, there’s a walking stick pointed at my chest like a bayonet.
I gasp and take a step back in alarm, and every eye in the garden area has turned to me.
‘Who are you and what do you want?’ The man holding the walking stick brandishes it at me. God knows what he thinks he’s going to do with it. The rubber-capped end is coated in mud, so maybe stain me? He’s certainly not going to cause much bodily harm with it.
‘I’m Fel …’ My voice comes out squeaky and I have to swallow before I try again. ‘I’m here to join the protest. I’m Felicity. I’m visiting my dad and heard about what was going on, and I want to help.’ I give them the lie I’ve been practising all night, except in my head, I was self-assured and confident and my voice didn’t wobbleat all.
The white bricks of Seaview Heights reflect the sun arching across the sky from the east. There’s a neat hedge surrounding the walkway around the building, and then it opens out onto this couple of acres of land that gently slopes towards the cliff edge and the humungous tree.
‘The thought of it being ruined by a hotel is unthinkable.’ That part isn’t a lie. What is Harrisonthinkingin trying to buy this land? What are the hotel company thinking in wanting to destroy this area? It might not look like it used to when it was a strawberry patch, but it’s got to be the best view in the south of Wales. Uninterrupted panoramic views, the sea stretching all the way along the horizon, endless dunes and craggy cliffs that form the borders between different Gower beaches, soft waves lapping at long stretches of golden sand many metres below us, and in the distance, the weather-beaten wooden remains of a ship’s hull, still buried beneath the sand from an eighteenth-century shipwreck.
The walking stick is removed from my chest and the old man leans on it as he takes a step back, and the woman who was sitting on the bench with her phone gets up, a head of baby-pink curls bobbing as she comes across. ‘Who’s your father? Do we know him?’
‘Dennis Kerr.’ Everyone in this village knowseveryone. It’s the kind of place where if you’re lucky enough to live here, you don’t want to leave, so most of the residents have been here for decades.
