Page 64 of The Wishing Tree Beside the Shor
‘I would.’ I fold my arms. ‘Ryan would. I can’t volunteer any of the residents because I don’t know their physical limitations, but everyone out there has been doing everything they can to save it – they’d do what they could to maintain it too.’
‘It’s seasonal.’
‘So is everything. We can work around that. Put up polytunnels for early crops and open in the spring. Open up access to the tree and it would extend through the autumn until the sycamore seeds have fallen. In the winter, we could interplant other crops – low-growing flowers like daffodils and snowdrops. You could sell bunches of them as a drive-by … Even open as a pick-your-own daffodil plot. One of the people I’ve spoken to runs a third-generation florist shop down the coast. We could look into supplying them – I’m sure they’d be open to discussion. You have this huge amount of land and you’re throwing it away, and destroying something really important in the process.’ I stop myself because I’m getting choked up thinking about losing the tree, and I have to take a deep breath and bite the inside of my lip to stop myself crying.
I can feel his eyes burning into me and instead of instinctively turning away like I usually would, I try to muster the strength and turn the same look back at him. And I realise something.
He looks tired. He looks normal. Not like some evil money-hungry businessman, but like a man who’s probably in over his head like the rest of us. He inherited Seaview Heights from a business partner. It probably wasn’t his first choice of career, and maybe he has no idea what he’s doing either, and now he’s stuck between Harrison’s persuasion tactics and doing what’s right by his residents. His dark hair is peppered with grey streaks, and there are patches of grey at his temples. The dark circles under his eyes suggest he’s been losing sleep over this, and although I’d guess he’s only in his late fifties, his stressed face makes him look older.
‘Are you a gardener?’ he asks.
‘I used to be. I worked with Ryan.’ I watch as he considers this information. ‘How about you?’
‘Insurance claims handler. Well, Iwas. Seaview Heights was a passion project for my business partner – and best friend of thirty years – and when he died, he left it in my hands. I didn’t want to let him down.’
We look at each other for a few long moments.
‘None of us really know what to do for the best,’ I start softly. ‘We’re all out of our depth here. But surely the one thing we can all agree on is that this isnotthe place for a hotel. When this day is over, we’re going to bring you all the earnings today, and judging by how busy we’ve been, it’ll be a fair amount. If this is only about financial motivation for you, then at least let that money be an indication of what we could do here. If you sign that paperwork, you’ll be taking so much away from the area and taking the most important thing away from your residents – hope.’
His eyes narrow and I realise I’ve mentioned paperwork I’m not supposed to know about. ‘I’d best be getting back,’ I say in a rush. ‘Look how busy we are. They need all hands on deck.’
‘It was nice to talk to you,’ he calls after me.
I wish the ground would swallow me up. I hope he thinks I was just assuming about the paperwork because thinking before I speak is not one of my strong points.
Ryan’s serving a family of five with a punnet of strawberries each when I get back onto the patch. ‘Everything okay?’ he asks as they leave.
‘Fine.’ I put so much emphasis on it that he can plainly see straight through me.
‘I just had a chat with Steffan,’ I say before he has a chance to question anything. ‘Suggested polytunnels and growing other plants to maximise profit. If we could grow winter flowers, I thought Edie might be on board with using some in her shop’s bouquets …’
‘Oh! Supplying the shop!’ Ryan taps the table excitedly, making Alys and Cynthia who are on checkout duty look up from the customers they’re serving. ‘You know how the local greengrocer used to buy soft fruit from Sullivan’s Seeds because people love produce that’s grown ten minutes down the road?’
I nod.
‘I have an idea, and you’re my girl.’ He uses his finger to do the “come hither” gesture. ‘It’ll be like stepping back in time to when we worked together. We all know things were better back then. The music was definitely better.’
I roll my eyes. Trust him to think of that. ‘It didn’t exactly end well the first time, did it?’
‘It ended with Cliff Richard doing “The Millennium Prayer”.’ He makes a vomiting noise. ‘No music decade deserved to be seen out with that.’
His ability to make me laugh at inappropriate moments definitely hasn’t changed. ‘Firstly, everyone knows Cliff peaked in 1988 with “Mistletoe and Wine”, and secondly, I wasn’t talking about the music.’
He grins like he knows exactly what I was talking about. ‘You know how I always used to drag you along to meet suppliers and potential buyers in case I rambled and said something I couldn’t recover from?’
I nod again, the memories making me grin.
‘When we’re less busy here, what if we go and talk to the owner of the little shop in Lemmon Cove? If he’d be interested in selling strawberries that were grown here, we could get the promise of a contract in place for next year. It would be a guaranteed income for Steffan. We could block off a part of the strawberry patch and use a greenhouse to ensure an early crop.’ His eyes are dancing as the idea comes alive. ‘What do you think, Fee?’
I wonder why it matters what I think. ‘If anyone can do it, it’s you. You were incredible at talking bulk purchasers into buying our products.’
‘Mainly because I rambled so much, they’d agree to anything to make me shut up.’
I laugh. He’s not exactly wrong, but it was always one of the most endearing things about him.
‘Will you come? I can’t do it without you.’
I cock my head to the side, intrigued by his lack of confidence. ‘You never needed me to believe in you, Ry.’
