‘I’ll see you in a bit, my class is coming to your strawberry patch this morning,’ Cheryl calls as she leaves the bedroom the next morning, leaving me half-asleep on my mostly deflated bed, and wondering if I should see about getting something more permanent, but that would be guaranteed to jinx Harrison into calling me back to the office, and I’m not ready to face that yet.
I toss and turn for a while longer before I finally persuade myself to go downstairs, surprised to find Dad feather dusting around the living room with music on in the background.
‘You’re enthusiastic?’
‘Thought I’d get an early start. The sun’s shining, the birds are singing … well, technically the birds are pooing all over my laurel hedgerow as they queue up for the neighbour’s bird feeder, but we can’t win ’em all. Are you off to see Ryan?’
Is it that obvious? ‘Well, I thought I might get some breakfast first.’ I start heading towards the kitchen and then stop. ‘And I’m not going to see Ryan, I’m going to the strawberry patch to help the protest. There’s a difference.’
He ignores me. ‘Thought I might stop by later myself. Cynthia said she had some old photos to show me from the good ol’ days at work.’
‘You always did like her …’
‘It’s always nice to reconnect with an old friend. Isn’t it?’
‘It’s certainly been an eye-opening experience.’ I look pointedly at the corner of the curtain rail he’s dusting. This is the first time it’s had so much as a sniff of a feather duster for months. That is not the influence of an old “friend”. ‘It would be good to see you. We need all the help we can get, and you’re brilliant at gardening.’ I nod out the window towards his pristine front yard full of fancy planters bearing rainbows of flowers and not a weed in sight.
‘It would be nice to know I’m doing something to help the community. I keep our garden nice because your mother always did, but it’s only myself and random passers-by who appreciate it. I’m told you’re uncovering strawberry plants?’
‘And who would’ve told you that, I wonder …’ I leave nothing out of my voice, my tone clearly telling him I know exactly who told him that.
‘I may have had a little conversation with Cynthia on the phone last night.’ It’s really something when even your seventy-year-old dad goes the colour of a Parcelforce van.
‘It’s okay if you like her, Dad. Mum’s been gone for nearly twenty years. She wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life as alone and unhappy as you’ve been until now if there’s someone out there who you deserve a second chance with.’
‘You and your sister are just the same. I’ve already had this conversation with Cher this morning. I don’t know where you’re both getting these ideas from.’
‘And I guess that big grin you can’t get off your face wouldn’t have tipped us off at all, would it? Or the matching one Cynthia’s wearing around the strawberry patch …’
I go to the kitchen before he has a chance to respond, throw some cereal down my throat for breakfast, and pack a couple of slices of the lemon meringue pie Dad baked last night for Ryan too. I’m rushing because I can’t wait to get there.
I can’t wait to see him again.
Chaos. Chaos is what awaits me at the strawberry patch. The gate is open and there are at least forty children hanging around on the coastal path and a couple of the local primary school’s minibuses are in the car park with teachers trying to herd children into groups. Some of the children have filtered down towards the strawberry patch where Cheryl and a couple of other teachers are standing inside the gate, talking to Ryan, Tonya, Mr Barley, and Morys.
There are so many people that I seriously consider turning back, but like he’s got some kind of radar for my footsteps, Ryan looks up at that exact moment and catches sight of me. Or maybe it’s because the lower half of my hair is blue. I thought it blended in, but maybe it makes me impossible to miss.
He beams and waves, and the sight of his smile is enough to make me dodge my way through the groups of kids and teachers on the coastal path.
‘Like your hair, Miss,’ one of the little boys says, making me grin as I thank him. No matter his age, his simple compliment puts a spring in my step.
Ryan’s excused himself from the conversation and is coming over, and Cheryl waves to me, and I don’t miss the stealthy gesture as she points to him and then gives me a thumbs up.
Even though the gate’s already open, Ryan meets me there like he did the other day and before I realise what’s happening, he’s hugging me.
‘Good morning,’ he says in my ear as strong arms tighten around my body, making me feel steady despite the swirling in my head caused by his closeness.
I murmur something that might also be “Morning” as my hand drifts up his back and my fingers curl into his shoulder like a claw, involuntarily pulling him closer. He must’ve been home to change because he’s wearing ripped jeans cut off to mid-calf length, which don’t go at all with his usual black and grey hiking boots, and a navy vest tight against ample tanned shoulders that my chin is somehow resting against as I hug him.
His hair is still damp from a shower, and I know drying it in the sunlight will make the curls go mad, and he smells of shampoo and that green, herby cologne again.
This isn’t weird. He used to hug me when I got into work at Sullivan’s Seeds every day. I repeat it to myself until one of the little boys makes an “oooo-ooooooh” noise and I blush and push myself away rapidly.
Ryan rolls his eyes and looks at me with a grin, and for one second, I think he’s going to lean down and kiss my cheek, and that would be weird.
I take a step away from his arms, and then because I can’t keep my distance no matter who’s watching, I reach out and jiggle the soft fabric of his vest. ‘No chain today?’
‘Alys is on tree duty.’ He nods towards the giant sycamore where Alys is sitting in the deckchair underneath it, the chain wound around her, and Baaabra’s non-murderous head in her lap, like an overly large dog. ‘I thought I’d better handle flyer distribution to this lot.’
He looks around the sea of children. ‘Who’d have thought summer camp would be so busy?’
Even though it’s the summer holidays, the school stays open as a summer camp for children who have got nowhere else to go. All ages are mixed together, none of them are in uniform, and from what Cheryl says, it’s a lot more relaxed and fun than an ordinary school day.
Ryan takes my hand and pulls me along with him. ‘Everyone’s waiting for you. And when you get a minute, Alys wants your opinion on the latest round of “Guess the Gadget”. Her mate is winning and she knows you’ll be able to outfox her.’
I appreciate his faith in me, but it makes my stomach sink again. Lying to them all is making me feel worse every day. Ryan’s hand tightens around mine as he tugs me over to rejoin the group.
Tonya comes over for a hug and I have to let go of Ryan’s hand to hug her back, which is just as well because there is no universe in which I should ever be anywhere near his hand, never mind holding it.
I feel welcome and wanted here. It’s something I haven’t felt in a long time. Every day at work in London is a dread. I’m wanted there an equal amount to how much I want to be there.
Mr Barley hands me a flyer. ‘Look, aren’t they brilliant? The printer delivered them this morning.’
They’re as perfect as the mock-up Ryan showed me a few days ago. It contains the mention of Godfrey’s story, and I wave to the elderly man who is sitting on his regular bench and holding court with a small group of children who keep asking him for his autograph on their flyers, and he looks the brightest I’ve seen him.
‘This lot are going for a nature walk,’ Morys says. ‘They’re going to put our flyers through every door they pass. Different age groups are going in different directions, and then they’re going to meet back here for their packed lunches and they want a talk about the tree for their summer projects.’
‘Which Ryan is going to do,’ I say quickly before he can volunteer me. I’ve never been good at talking in front of people.
Tonya is handing out the sycamore leaves to colour in, and Cynthia is sitting on a flowerbed wall talking to a woman with her arms around a little girl who looks ten-ish, older than most of the kids here, and one of the nurses from Seaview Heights has come down to collect a bunch of flowers from her.
‘Is that Edie?’
‘It is. She’s waiting for you,’ Ryan says. It makes me feel important again, and like I matter here. I wave to Edie, and both she and her granddaughter give me a bright smile and a wave back.
‘If you’re looking for stories about your tree, one of the boys in my class says he was made here.’ Cheryl points out a little boy on the coastal path, currently using sticks to have a lightsabre fight with a friend.
‘Made?’ I say in confusion. ‘They built him like a robo— Oh! Oh! That kind of made!’
I blush because I’m such an idiot, and they all laugh, but it feels like they’re laughing with me, not at me.
‘His parents might’ve told him the stork who delivered him lived in the tree for all we know,’ she says.
‘Well, they might not want people knowing about the alfresco naughtiness they get up to, but pass on my email address, will you? If they’re happy for their young son to tell people that, maybe they’ll be happy to share it with the website.’
‘Will do.’ Cheryl salutes me.
There are masses of flyers all around, everyone seems to be holding a stack, and it’s the first time I realise how many Ryan must’ve ordered. If there’s a chance of getting even half of these distributed, we must be able to find more connections to the tree.
Mr Barley has gone to chat to Edie, and a couple of other teachers have taken flyers and are trying to direct restless children back towards the car park. Which is probably just as well because Mr Barley is now pointing out his latest creation to Edie – a Boris Johnson gnome wearing a bikini and having a swim in the bird bath. A goldfinch sits on the edge looking traumatised by the scantily clad interloper in his regular bathing spot. In the flowerbeds, at the edges of Mr Barley’s slug maze are a selection of rapidly deteriorating slugs in various stages of explosion that I can only hope the children didn’t see.
As Cheryl and the endless stream of kids wave goodbye and go off clutching their flyers and a stack of laminated leaves to tie onto bushes and branches, I go over to say hello to Edie and her granddaughter, earning myself a hug from both of them and Cynthia too. Everyone is so friendly here. I’ve never known anything like it.
‘Dad says he’ll pop down later,’ I tell Cynthia, thoroughly enjoying the way her face lights up almost as much as Dad’s did at the mention of her.
Edie and her granddaughter follow me down the now much wider and less treacherous path towards the tree. Baaabra Streisand lifts her head from Alys’s lap and regards us with interest.
‘Oh my God, a sheep! Can I stroke her?’ the granddaughter asks.
I go to advise against it due to her bloodthirsty tendencies, but Baaabra seems to understand and hefts herself up and trots over inquisitively. The granddaughter drops to her knees and starts stroking her neck and tickling her chin.
‘See?’ Ryan calls over. ‘She’s only scared of you if you’re scared of her.’
I turn around and poke my tongue out at him, making him laugh.
Now the kids have cleared out, it’s quiet at the top end of the strawberry patch again, and he’s already picked up a shovel and gone back to digging out rogue bramble bushes, moving full steam ahead with the plan of reopening the strawberry patch.
‘It’s a grand idea,’ Alys says, making me wonder if I said that out loud.
She’s looking pointedly between me and him, clearly having seen every second of that little exchange.
I direct Edie around the trunk, telling her to be careful of the roots that spider out from the base and the loose chain that’s draped around it.
The granddaughter has now got Baaabra’s head on her shoulder while she tickles her under the chin and the sheep looks like she’s about to fall asleep standing up. ‘Grandma, can we have a pet sheep?’
Edie laughs. ‘No, but how about we bring your mum back and visit this one? She seems to like you.’
‘She likes everyone other than Fliss,’ Alys adds helpfully. ‘Maybe she’s pre-emptively jealous of losing her owner to another woman.’
I choke on thin air. This place is hazardous for throat health. ‘I assure you, that’s not going to happen.’
‘Animals can sense these things, you know,’ Alys continues. ‘It’s been her and Ryan for years now, and look at how much he likes you.’
I follow the direction she points in and look across to Ryan, who’s leaning on his shovel and watching us with a smile on his face.
He lifts a hand and grins when he sees me looking, and then quickly looks away.
I don’t realise I’m still watching him until she clicks her fingers to get my attention back. ‘He’s lonely, Fliss. You’re the first woman he’s let in for donkey’s years. Well, of the non Ovis aries variety. Baaabra Streisand can sense it, I’m telling you.’
‘We’re just friends,’ I say assuredly, even though the words make me flush warm all over. ‘It isn’t like that between us. It never was.’
Baaabra Streisand chooses that moment to attempt to eat one of the granddaughter’s plaited bunches and the girl squeals in delight as she pulls it out of her mouth and waves it in the sheep’s face, teasing her like she’s dangling a toy mouse in front of a cat.
I’m once again grateful to the sheep for her excellent timing as it distracts the attention from anything to do with me and Ryan.
The granddaughter stands up and Baaabra trots happily behind her new friend. Edie has brought photos of her shop taken over the years, and I search out the daisy carving again and both she and the granddaughter and the sheep pose and let me snap pictures for the website, as they point at the carving and hold up the aged photos in front of the tree.
I keep glancing up at Ryan and meeting his eyes across the distance, smiling every time until one of us looks away.
‘Eager to get hot and sweaty with him?’ Edie says, ensuring I choke again.
‘There’s a lot of weed removal to be done if we want to reopen the strawberry patch,’ I say when I’ve recovered, deliberately ignoring the implication.
‘I can’t wait to come strawberry picking here,’ her granddaughter says. ‘Are you really going to reopen?’
‘As soon as we can. We’re hoping by the weekend. We need to get the rest of the ground cleared and a bit of sun on the berries, and we should be good to go.’
‘We’ll leave you to it,’ Edie says. ‘But let me know when opening day is and we’ll be here. Nothing better than a freshly picked strawberry.’
Before they go, Alys ropes us all into a game of “Guess the Gadget”, and Edie’s granddaughter wins by correctly guessing the image in question is a heated ice cream scoop and cheers like she’s won the lottery when Alys’s friend messages back to grudgingly give her the point.
Maybe “Guess the Gadget” has the potential to catch on after all.
Alys assures us that she’s quite happy to stay chained to the tree with Baaabra, so I escort Edie and her granddaughter back to the entrance, and the sheep follows until she reaches the end of her lead, and the granddaughter runs back to give her another cuddle, and she bleats forlornly as she watches them leave, then she goes to sit by Alys but turns her back to show her annoyance at not being able to keep her new friend.
Ffion goes to sit with Alys to keep her company. Tonya is at one of the picnic tables near the care home sorting colouring-in leaves, laminated leaves, and flyers into some sort of order that only she understands; Godfrey is recovering from his new-found fame by reading his newspaper and sipping a cup of tea; Mr Barley is doing … something atrocious to a gnome version of Nigel Farage; and Ryan is leaning on his shovel, his forehead glistening in the good way under the morning sunlight.
I pick up a garden fork and go over. ‘Busy morning, right?’
‘Oh, that?’ He waves a hand in the direction of the gate. ‘Just a standard day at the office.’
It takes me a while to realise he’s joking and then I overcompensate by laughing way too hard.
‘Seriously, Fee. It fills me with hope. Everyone we just saw – kids and teachers, residents, Edie – they’re all so excited about the possibilities of this place. They all said they’re going to come here to pick strawberries when it reopens.’
‘A bit of rain yesterday and the sun today and these berries are ripening. Look at that one.’ I point out a glossy red berry not far from our feet. ‘We’re going to have a glut by the weekend at this rate. Do you honestly think we’ll be able to open in time?’
‘Yes.’
‘That simple?’
‘We make a good enough team to do anything.’ He grins and I have to lean on my fork to make sure no one can tell how shaky my knees are. ‘All we have to do is clear out the last of these brambles today, and then lay weed-suppressant fabric down so they don’t regrow, and it gives people a stable surface to walk on.’
‘Did someone say something about the first strawberry?’ Godfrey is behind us even though I’ve been so swept up in Ryan’s pale blue-grey eyes that I didn’t hear him move. I’m also fairly certain that those things in their ears masquerading as hearing aids are actually some kind of radio-controlled signal amplifier that ensures they never miss a word spoken between me and Ryan.
‘What a moment!’ Tonya shouts, jumping up from the table fast enough to send her neat piles scattering again. ‘We need to record it for posterity. Someone special should eat it and we’ll take photos and put them on social media.’
‘Godfrey?’ I suggest. ‘That could be a nice “circle of life” moment? The ex-owner eating the first strawberry from the newly restored patch …’
‘No.’ Tonya sweeps both hands out to the sides. ‘You two!’
I glance at Ryan and he raises an eyebrow. ‘Us?’
‘You two are the brains behind this operation. It’s only right. Here, I can’t bend that far – you pick it and give it to me, and I’ll go and give it a nice wash while I collect my camera.’
Ryan meets my eyes doubtfully, but Tonya is a difficult woman to argue with. I bend down to do her bidding, plucking the ripe berry and dutifully handing it to her. She thrusts it into the air in victory.
‘Why don’t we all do it? I’m sure we can find a few other ripe ones.’ I look around the carpet of strawberry plants in hope, but she’s already retreating up the garden towards Seaview Heights.
‘No, no, just one will do,’ she calls back. ‘A strawberry is meant to be shared!’
Godfrey goes to talk to Mr Barley, leaving me and Ryan alone.
‘Ever get the feeling they’ve been waiting and planning for this moment?’
‘Very much so.’ I nod in agreement. ‘Although I think Baaabra Streisand’s already eaten the first ripe strawberry, but it seems cruel to spoil her fun.’
‘Judging by what I’ve had to clear up, I think Baaabra Streisand’s eaten several ripe and unripe strawberries.’
It makes me laugh out loud but he goes red and looks away. ‘I’m still an expert on ruining the moment and know just the sophisticated and refined topics to make women swoon, obviously.’
I still can’t stop laughing because he’s hilarious, no matter what topics he’s talking about.
Tonya comes back with a camera around her neck and a piece of tissue paper cradled in both her hands. She’s also got a trail of people following her like some Pied Piper jiggery-pokery is going on. Nurses from the care home and some of the other residents. I spot Steffan lurking behind the hedge as the rest of them come into the garden.
‘Here to witness such a special moment,’ Tonya trills. She’s holding the tissue-wrapped strawberry like it’s made of paper-thin glass.
In the background, there’s the tell-tale beep of someone’s phone recording video. With a bit of luck, it’ll be angled wrongly to face the ground or the corner of a flowerbed or something. I don’t fancy being on video. Again.
My dad appears in the gateway, and Cynthia makes a noise and rushes over to him so fast that she forgets all about the Zimmer frame and leaves it rocking in her wake.
‘Has some sort of alert gone out or something?’ I say to Ryan.
He shakes his head, looking bewildered. ‘I guess it’s a good sign if this many people are so interested in the first strawberry …’
‘Here, now, take it gently.’ Tonya approaches us using much the same tone you’d use when training a puppy. ‘Someone take a picture of me handing it over!’ She barks at the group and several camera flashes go off again as she holds out the strawberry on a bed of tissue paper. It’s been washed and sliced in half.
‘I’m not photo-ready,’ Ryan protests, pushing a hand through his hair self-consciously.
‘I haven’t been photo-ready since 1992.’
It makes us both giggle and a camera flash goes off.
‘At least we’re non-photo-ready together?’ I offer with a shrug, and he meets my eyes and smiles that soft understanding smile that I always felt I was the only one who got to see.
We both reach out to take our halves of the strawberry at the same time and our fingers brush. It shouldn’t be weird, not after I stroked his hair and got so close to him last night, but the touch of his fingertips still makes something spark inside me, and when I look up at him, he’s looking down at his hand like he’s feeling it too.
I pull my hand away quickly and can’t help noticing that Tonya hasn’t taken her eyes off our fingers either.
I wave the strawberry half around in front of me, and Ryan holds his half up too. ‘All this for half a strawberry.’
‘Wait, wait, let me get the perfect frame.’ Tonya moves backwards like a movie director lining up a shot. ‘Ryan, inch a bit to the right. Fliss, you step forwar— No, not that much! Now turn to face each other …’
We do as she says and all the while she’s making “hmm, hmm” noises and holding her camera up to look through the viewfinder.
‘Yes, that’s good. We’ve got the sun off to one side and the edge of the tree in the frame. Now link arms like you were taking a sip of champagne at your wedding …’
I snort. ‘Seriously?’
‘Of course.’ She looks like she doesn’t understand the problem. ‘Quickly, before the sun moves and I have to reposition you. There will only ever be one “first strawberry” – we must get this right.’
‘No one would ever know if it was the seventh or eighth strawberry.’
She puts a hand on her hip and frowns at me. ‘Some of us believe in honesty, Felicity. Now, are you helping or hindering?’ She claps her hands together and makes a shooing motion.
Ryan’s biting his lip to stop himself laughing, and failing fast. ‘Careful now or she’ll put you in detention.’
It makes me laugh again as he holds his arm up, strawberry held by the stem between thumb and forefinger, tanned forearms flexing in a way that makes me blush for no reason, and I slide my arm through his so they hook around each other’s inner elbow and aim the strawberry halves towards our own mouths.
His skin is warm against mine and I can feel every tiny flex of solid muscle that makes me feel a lot hotter than the sun beaming down on us.
‘Hold position!’ Tonya yells, and a load of shutter clicks go off from the gathered residents.
‘Do you ever find yourself in weird positions and wonder how you got there?’ I whisper.
His eyes crinkle up as he laughs, and I know we’ve both got the overwhelming urge to ram the strawberry up each other’s noses. ‘I can’t think of anyone better to be doing this with.’
It makes me go flushy all over and I’m sure my cheeks are so red that they’re going to struggle to tell them apart from the strawberry.
He untangles his arm to knock his strawberry half against mine. ‘Cheers.’
‘Happy strawberry patch reopening,’ I say, wondering what exactly people are supposed to say in these situations.
‘I’m just celebrating having my partner in crime back.’ He gives me that look again, the one that makes me feel like the only person in the universe as he winds his arm through mine again.
‘And, action!’ Tonya yells before I have a chance to get more overheated.
Ryan squeezes my arm using only his muscle power and it catapults me back to the present with the gathered crowd and Tonya doing a countdown.
On one, we both take a bite out of our respective strawberry halves, and I close my eyes as the sweetness bursts across my tongue.
‘Mmm,’ Ryan whispers. ‘I’m not sure it’s worth all the fuss, but it’s good.’
‘Let’s not use that as a marketing slogan.’
He laughs and opens his eyes. ‘Good, but not worth a fuss. Story of my life.’
I blink at him curiously. I want to know everything about his life. I know this isn’t what he had planned, but I also get the feeling he’s happy here. We spent a lot of time talking about places we wanted to go and things we wanted to see. Before, he was raring to get away, but he seems different now. Settled, secure in his own skin, which is something he never was before, and something I’ve never felt either. That sense of being happy where you are, a feeling of home … I left here to go looking for it, but never found it. It seems like Ryan found it without ever leaving.
Even though the gathered residents have started filtering away, I realise we’ve still got our arms linked and untangle them quickly. When I step back, I stumble over a strawberry plant and his hand closes around my arm and keeps me upright, pulling me against him until I crash into his left side and his arm comes up around my shoulders, holding me there.
‘Aww, I’ve always said strawberries were a romantic fruit,’ Tonya says, amid the noise of another shutter click.
‘What would you consider an un-romantic fruit?’ Ryan asks without taking his arm from around my shoulders.
She thinks about it for a long moment, and instead of letting me go, his hand drifts up and down my arm.
‘Well, pineapples have a bit of a prick, don’t they?’
I meet Ryan’s eyes and we both burst into giggles.
Tonya looks annoyed at our immaturity. ‘They have prickly bits, and you have to cut them off when you cut through that tough old skin.’
‘I reckon quite a few people around here have prickly bits,’ Ryan says in my ear, making me howl with laughter.
He always had radar for saying the funniest things at the worst possible moments. His laughter is shaking through me too and his head is pressed against mine. ‘What are we even talking about?’ he says against my ear.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I think you two have been out in the sun too long,’ Tonya says. ‘Do you need to go and sit in the shade?’
I look up and meet his eyes and the sparkle of laughter in them makes that familiar feeling of butterflies flash through my body.
‘I think that would be a very good idea,’ he murmurs, wetting his lips like he has some kind of innuendo in mind.
I’ve totally lost track of this conversation, and I extract myself from Ryan’s arm, trying to work out how just one arm can enclose me in such a tight hug. His arms are incredible.
I manage to step away without falling over anything this time, pick up the garden fork and put some space between us. ‘I’ll start over here and we’ll meet in the middle. There’s no time to lose if we want to open by Saturday.’
Which is not exactly a lie, but I’ve been getting far too close to Ryan again, too many touches, too many hugs, and it can’t continue. I’m not staying here for much longer, and that’s without the whole aspect of not having told him what I really do for a living and having been lying to everyone since the moment I got here. He thinks we’re friends, but a friend would’ve told him the truth by now.
‘Excuse me?’ It’s that afternoon when an elderly man appears at the gate. ‘Is this where the sycamore tree protest is?’
It reminds me that we need to redo all the signs. Mr Barley found some pieces of plywood and is in the process of painting them up to put out on the road to advertise the strawberry patch reopening this weekend. Ryan’s started laying down the weed-proof fabric between plants and is trying to map out some sort of path for visitors to follow, because the random popping up of plants is the opposite of how they used to be in neat rows, and we’ve had to cut through all the runners so they don’t trip anyone up.
I stand up and lean on the fork I’m still using to twist out the last of the blackberry roots. ‘It is. How can we help?’
‘Only that tree helped me once, and I had a flyer through my door this morning saying what was happening to it, and I’d like to do my bit in return. What can I do?’
‘It helped you?’ I ask.
Ryan has left the roll of weed-proof fabric and is making his way up from the other end of the strawberry patch. He stands next to me and goes to shake the man’s hand but glances down at his muddy ones and thinks better of it.
‘I’m Ellis,’ the elderly gent says. ‘When I heard you were looking for stories about it, I wanted to share mine. That tree saved my life.’
Ryan’s eyes meet mine and we both shuffle closer to hear his story.
‘I was a sailor in the Royal Navy. It was a few years after the war when we had an accident. We were somewhere in the Bristol Channel, and we collided with something under the water, hard enough to crush the fuel tanks. There was an explosion. I was thrown from the ship, dazed and concussed. I came round floating in the water, not knowing where I was. I’d lost my hearing in the blast so everything was muffled, there was blood in my eyes and I could barely see anything. I knew drowning was a real danger if I expended my energy in struggling against the tide, so I floated on my back, but I didn’t know where I was or which way I was going, I could’ve been heading into a busy shipping lane or a riptide for all I knew, and I kept looking around for a landmark or something, and out of nowhere, the sycamore appeared on the horizon. I was who knows how many miles out that way.’ He points out to the sea beyond. ‘I’d seen it many times before in passing, knew it was on the coast of Wales, so I kept my eyes on it, knowing if I kept going towards it, I’d reach land.’
‘And you did?’
He points towards the cliff to our left. ‘By the time I got near there, the coastguard were combing the beaches for survivors. They said I was lucky to be alive, but I don’t think I would be if it wasn’t for the tree. I’d got all turned around in the accident. If that tree hadn’t have been on the horizon, I’d have headed further out to sea, and that could only have ended one way.’
‘There’s an anchor carved on the tree.’ Ryan holds a hand out towards it. ‘With the initials “E.M” and the words “January 1949 ~ Thank you.” That wasn’t you, was it?’
‘Gosh, is that still there?’ He looks at the tree in wonder, blinking watery eyes in the afternoon sunlight. ‘Yes, it was me. It was my anchor. I was in hospital for months, and when they finally let me out, I wanted to pay tribute to it in some way – to let it know what it had done for me.’
I don’t know what it is about hearing these tree stories, but I’ve got a lump in my throat and if he says much more, I’m going to burst into tears again. I look over at Ryan and he meets my eyes and gives me a tiny smile, and I have absolutely no doubt that he feels the same.
‘Would you like to see it again?’ Ryan offers to escort Ellis down there.
‘I would. I wondered if it would fade. Apparently they say only the carvings of the truest love stories stay, and mine wasn’t exactly a love story.’
‘A life story,’ Ryan says, his eyes on mine. ‘The most important kind there is.’
‘I’d like to stay and help, if there’s anything I can do,’ Ellis says as he goes to grip Ryan’s outstretched arm.
‘Tonya will sort you out with something.’ I point out the pink-haired lady who’s currently talking on the phone with a notebook in one hand doing such serious negotiating that I feel quite sorry for whoever’s on the other end.
Ellis thanks us both and walks with Ryan down to the tree. Baaabra Streisand, who is still sulking about not being able to snaffle any more strawberries, gets up from her dog basket like it’s an imposition on her time, but she simply must investigate whether he has any food about his person.
Once thoroughly investigated, Ellis strokes the sheep’s head as Ryan points out the carving, and then shows him up to the picnic table to keep Mr Barley on track with the signs he’s painting.
He walks back down to where I’m pretending to still be digging out blackberry roots and not watching his every move. His hands are still covered in rapidly drying mud, but he nudges me with his elbow. ‘Told you there was a story behind that anchor.’
I can see the emotion in his eyes, and the urge to give him a hug is too strong. ‘C’mere, you.’
‘I’m all muddy.’
‘So am I.’ I let my fork drop and hold my hands out in front of me. ‘No touching, I promise.’
He steps into my arms and ducks so my head fits on his shoulder. His arms come up around me and his elbows press into my back, holding his dirty hands away from my pale yellow T-shirt, and he somehow manages to bend double enough for his head to drop onto my shoulder too.
‘Thanks, Fee.’ He breathes the words against my neck.
‘I didn’t do anything.’ I’m not a hundred per cent sure that the words come out because I’m lost in a flood of his warm body, tight hug, and cologne, but his arms tighten around me so I assume he’s heard something.
‘None of this would be happening without you.’ His lips press into my neck as he speaks, brushing against my skin, and I let my elbows press into his back too, warm through his vest top, and it’s a good job my hands are dirty or I’d not be able to stop myself sliding them over his muscular shoulders.
His lips find my neck again and his arms get even tighter when my knees go weak, and I can feel his smile against my skin, doing nothing to improve the situation.
Getting headbutted by a sheep is one thing, but Ryan Sullivan’s lips on my neck was definitely not on my agenda during this trip.