I want to ask him why he never left Lemmon Cove. All Ryan ever wanted to do was travel, but I can’t think of a way to word it that doesn’t sound demeaning.
‘Things don’t often work out for me, but the campsite turned out to be just the thing Lemmon Cove needed at exactly the right time. Now I want to expand into proper holiday lets – a more luxurious experience. I want to put up little chalets with electricity, running water, kitchens and bathrooms. The highest level of glamping. It’ll appeal to people who like the idea of camping but not the aspect of sleeping on the ground with insects crawling through their hair. I’ve got my eye on a patch of land that would be just the ticket, but I don’t know if I’m going to get it yet.’
No wonder he doesn’t want a hotel popping up here. If he’s wanting to expand into luxury holiday lets, the last thing he needs is a hotel across the way. It totally contradicts what he said earlier about appealing to a different kind of clientele.
‘I’ve not told anyone that before. Sorry, Fee, I never could stop myself talking to you.’
It makes me feel warm inside. We always shared everything and never tried to hide things between us, but something niggles at me. Even though it’s dark, I look over at the campsite and the farmer’s fields spread across the hillsides into the distance, too dark to see anything but indistinct mountainsides. ‘Where’s this patch of land?’
‘Oh, it’s near. Really near. I don’t want to say too much in case I jinx it.’
Really near. What if it’s literally here? Ryan’s a businessman. What if he’s seen an opportunity to put up his holiday lets on this patch of land? I have no idea how much more of the land surrounding the campsite he owns, but it can’t be much or it would be in use because the campsite looks pretty full.
I narrow my eyes at him and he doesn’t flinch, but his involvement in this protest is suddenly muddied, and I can’t get the thought out of my head. It’s a conflict of interests to be planning to expand into luxury holiday lets and also be involved in the protest against a luxury hotel being built right next door.
Maybe he thinks he can buy this bit of land if the hotel pulls out. Leave the tree intact, and only block the view with a few chalets. It’s all a bit too convenient.
Maybe I’m not the only one being dishonest here.
Chapter 7
Somehow, the idea of Ryan not being entirely honest makes me feel better about my job. I have to infiltrate this protest and discover what’s got Landoperty Developments so spooked. It can’t be personal. I can’t let my feelings about the ex-strawberry patch cloud my judgement. I was sent here to do a job and that’s what I have to do.
I have to admit I’m wondering what Harrison is so worried about as I push the gate open the next morning and look at the wilting cardboard sign with “Save Our Garden” written on it. It must’ve rained overnight because it’s starting to disintegrate. I did some research last night and found an article on the local newspaper website about the residents protesting the sale of their garden area, but it only had one spam comment offering free penis enlargements, so I don’t think it’s getting much attention. The garden or the penises, clearly. The residents have been at this for two weeks now, and while I agree with Harrison that it could go viral, it’s got all the potential of a damp squib at the moment.
The sign flops limply against the gate as I clang it shut behind me.
‘Good morning!’ It’s Ryan’s cheerful Welsh accent that greets me. ‘I was hoping you’d be back today.’
I look up and meet his grey-blue eyes as he lifts aside the metal fencing to let me into the strawberry patch, and my resolve to remain professionally aloof wavers.
Ryan’s lengthened the chain tethering him to the tree so he’s up this end of the overgrown land, and he’s wearing black three-quarter-length cargo trousers, solid-looking hiking boots, and a tank top, which is really unfair because his biceps are on show for all the world to see, and they’re tanned and so huge that he must live on a Popeye-style diet. He’s so distracting that I don’t realise Tonya has come over to say good morning and has got an eye on exactly where my gaze is directed.
I swallow, trying to remember my own name. Those arms are enough to make you forget everything.
Everyone else calls over a greeting too, and I wave to them all, trying to concentrate on anything other than Ryan’s presence behind me.
‘What’s this?’ Alys comes over holding her phone out.
I really should have swotted up on household gadgets and things chefs might know … for example, how to cook … last night, but I didn’t have a chance. However, the picture on the phone she shoves under my nose isn’t a household gadget. ‘Only Ryan got it so far. None of this lot did.’ She tuts.
My face screws up in confusion. ‘It’s someone holding up a … tool in a bookshop?’
‘It’s a spanner in The Works!’ She announces gleefully.
I don’t know if I’m delirious, or if she is, or if Ryan’s biceps are responsible for people losing their minds, but it’s quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever heard and I burst out laughing.
‘My friend and I compete to see who can do the best puns too,’ Alys says by way of explanation.
‘It’s tree-lly funny,’ Ryan adds.
‘Oh, don’t you start.’ I point at him and he grins. He was always the king of bad jokes.
The site is abuzz with activity this morning, and not just with the bees zipping around the white bramble flowers in search of nectar. Cynthia is hobbling up and down with her walking frame and giving said bees words of encouragement. Mr Barley is sitting on the wall of a flowerbed with a set of paints and a gnome in hand.
‘Boris Johnson!’ He calls over when he sees me looking.
At first I think he might be insulting me and I put a hand on my head in case I forgot to brush my hair this morning, but Tonya quickly clarifies. ‘He makes his own gnomes out of clay and paints them to look like people he hates. He’s already done Donald Trump. Gnome Boris and Gnome Trump are going to do a photoshoot for Twitter later.’
‘Gnomes sound like better options for world leaders than the current ones,’ Ffion calls out. ‘Can we vote for them at the next election?’
The two blokes are sitting on one of the other brick flowerbeds and playing chess, and Godfrey is on the same bench as yesterday reading a newspaper. There’s another man painting another cardboard sign, this one reading “Give peas a chance” with a picture of a green pea with a peace symbol drawn over it. Baaabra Streisand is down by the sycamore tree, happily scraping through blackberry bushes and eating whatever she uncovers.
Chaos is the word that springs to mind. As Harrison’s assistant for the past four years, I’ve dealt with a few protests, and none of them have been like this. If it weren’t for Ryan chained to the tree, it would be like a regular day in the care home garden. No one looking in would even know there was a protest going on.
Up at the care home, a middle-aged man in a baggy salmon-pink polo shirt emerges and struts past the hedge, but doesn’t come through the gateway that joins the care home to the garden. After a few paces up and down, he turns and walks away.
‘See that guy?’ Ryan’s voice is in my ear again, so close that his chin is millimetres away from my shoulder and his arm comes up to point around me.
I nod, following the direction he’s pointing in even though the man in question has long since disappeared around the front of the building.
‘That’s Steffan, the owner who’s planning to sell this land. Checking up on us again.’
‘He does that every day,’ Ffion says.
‘He expects us to give up,’ Cynthia says.
‘We’re not giving up,’ Tonya reassures her.
‘We’re never giving up,’ Ryan says. ‘Not while I’m still breathing.’
Ryan’s stood back up to his full height now, but he’s barely stepped away, and I’m wondering how much longer I’ll be breathing for, never mind this lot.
‘He n
ever comes down here. Just skulks around and looks over several times a day – hoping to catch it unoccupied so he can put his fences up and call his morally compromised property developers. They’re all lying in wait, you know.’ Ffion uses a walking stick to point towards the unkempt hedgerows like property developers might be lurking in the undergrowth.
‘But he hasn’t actually sold it yet, right?’
‘He was all set to sign on the dotted line, but I faked a heart attack to distract him,’ Tonya says.
‘And I stole the papers from his desk!’ Mr Barley shouts. ‘It really put the willies up him! I put willies on my gnomes that day in celebration!’
All the talk of willies and property developers is making me uncomfortable and reminding me that I have a job to do.
‘Right, so what are we doing today?’ I clap my hands together and try to get a combined attention span of longer than 2.5 seconds before gnomes and willies take over again.
‘We?’ Ryan says in my ear, mimicking what I said yesterday.
‘Well, I’m here, aren’t I?’ I turn around to face him. ‘I want to help.’
He smiles at me and I get lost in his light eyes for a moment.
‘Well, we’ve got the chess, Monopoly, and Scrabble out,’ Tonya is saying when I come back to myself.
‘Yahtzee!’ One of the old blokes cries, accidentally upending the chessboard and sending the pieces scattering in his excitement. The other bloke takes his cap off and thwacks him with it.
‘Guess Who!’ Mr Barley says.
The two chess players start setting out their pieces again, resigning themselves to starting the match over.
‘I meant in non-board-game-related terms,’ I say carefully, wringing my hands together. They can’t really think a protest is just sitting here playing board games … can they? ‘For the protest? To get people talking about it?’
‘We’ve all relocated our lives to spend as much time as possible outside, so it’s occupied. And he’s chained to a tree!’ Ffion points to Ryan.
‘Well, yeah, but …’ I look between them all, wondering what right I have to barge in and tell them they’re doing this wrong. For my job, they’re supposed to be doing it wrong. Board games are Harrison’s best-case scenario. But for my heart, I want to say, For God’s sake, this is a protest and you may as well be churning butter. Three more games of Buckaroo and the builders will be along to dig the hotel’s foundations.
‘I know that look.’ Ryan smiles at me. ‘Your “I want to say something but you’re not going to like it” face hasn’t changed in fifteen years. Go on – we’re all ears.’
Somewhere, a hearing aid squeals with perfect timing.
‘You’re campaigning but you’re not campaigning for anything,’ I say in a rush. ‘You’re just … here. As far as anyone outside is concerned, you’re sitting in your garden on a summer’s day. And you.’ I turn to Ryan. ‘You’re a guy chained to a tree. With a sheep. You’re vaguely making a nuisance of yourself, but you have no case. No alternative. Nothing to fight them with.’
‘Steffan inherited Seaview Heights from a business partner who died. He’s not interested in it – but he doesn’t want any trouble. We just have to make it so difficult for them that they don’t want to build here.’
‘But someone else will. If it’s not this hotel, this developer, there will be others. There are plenty of property developers out there who will see the potential in a patch of land like this. This protest is attracting attention in the industry. Even if you win this time, Steffan is going to get bigger and better offers, and next time they’re going to be for a high enough price that he won’t hesitate to turf you all out. He might not want trouble now, and I’m guessing he’s umm-ing and ahh-ing because of some loyalty to whoever he got the building from, but that might be a different story when he gets a high bid he can’t refuse. You don’t just have to see this particular developer off – you have to save the land.’
‘How do we do that?’ Mr Barley asks.
I glance at Ryan again. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Motivational speeches are not my strong point.
‘There’s nothing to make anyone take notice,’ I start. ‘Take the gate sign. It’s visible from the road, and this is one of the main routes through the Gower area, and it’s the middle of the summer holidays – there are a lot of extra people driving past to the various beaches along the coast. But it doesn’t say anything. There’s no call to arms. No explanation. Nothing to make people care. It should be lit up in red with a banner to explain what’s going on. There—’
‘We’ve got a petition! My son set it up online for us! There are thirteen signatures so far!’ Tonya says.
I count them. ‘And nine of them are yours, right?’
‘The rest are our families’ and some of the staff have signed too, but some were a bit worried about putting their names down to go against their boss.’
Yeah, imagine doing that. I shudder to think of Harrison if he could see me now. ‘A petition is … it’s something, but what’s it going to do? If you get 100,000 signatures, they’re not going to debate it in parliament. This is what I mean about not having a goal.’
‘We’re going to send it to the hotel company.’
I think about those men in business suits sitting in Harrison’s meeting rooms. ‘They won’t care. You aren’t the people who’ll be staying in their hotel. A list with a few hundred names on it won’t make a jot of difference.’
‘You think we can get a few hundred signatures?’ Cynthia asks, sounding awestruck.
I look at Ryan again and he grins. ‘Yes, they do always miss the point this much.’
The fact that he doesn’t think I’m mad buoys my confidence. ‘I think you could get a few hundred thousand if this is run the right way.’
Shock waves go through the group and they shuffle closer like I somehow hold the secret. I involuntarily take a step backwards and crash into Ryan and his hand closes around my arm to steady me.
‘We’re online.’ Tonya waves her phone in the air. ‘I’m @BeachBattleaxe on Twitter. We’ve all been learning to use it. I got nine retweets the other day.’
‘I thought retweets sounded like something you’d need a swift course of Imodium for.’ One of the chess-playing men steals the other one’s bishop and thrusts it in the air even though it wasn’t his turn.
It makes me laugh. ‘Yes, and your Twitter account is getting a bit of attention, but it’s not done right. Your bio reads “I don’t know what to put. Is this the right place? What does it want me to write?” and your profile photo is of the veins on the back of your hand.’
Ryan nudges me. ‘You’ve been doing your homework.’
‘I want this place saved.’ The shake in my voice is un-hideable. I sound like I’m lying even though I’m not. ‘You’re posting photos of your naughty gnomes, and people are enjoying little old ladies getting to grips with technology, but you’ve barely mentioned the campaign, and there’s nowhere people can go for more information.’
‘I posted the link to the petition,’ Ffion says. ‘Two people retweeted it. One of them was an escort looking for men so I blocked that one.’
I meet Ryan’s eyes again and we both start giggling.
‘I think what Fee’s trying to say is that we need a website,’ he says. ‘I’ve been intending to find someone to design one for us, but I’m not into social media and stuff like that, so I haven’t got around to it yet.’
Maybe that explains why he’s unstalkable on Facebook. And I have to be very careful not to say that out loud.
‘I’ll do it,’ I say. ‘Website repairs are part of my job. I know my way around the free hosting sites.’
‘As a chef?’ Lines crinkle around his eyes as they screw up in confusion.
Oh, for God’s sake. Think before you speak, Fliss. ‘You have to be a multi-tasker these days!’ If my tone was any breezier, I’d gust them all over the cliff’s edge.
Something’s missing here. This
place has got all the potential to go viral, but no one’s tapping into it. I look around for inspiration and my eyes fall on Godfrey. A few wisps of white hair are blowing on his otherwise bald head. He’s still sitting on the bench with his newspaper spread across his lap, but he hasn’t turned over a page since I got here, and I get the impression he’s listening in without getting involved. I think about what Ryan told me yesterday, how much this place must mean to him, how heartbroken he would be to see it destroyed, to watch someone cut down the tree where he goes to feel closer to his wife.
I was in tears when Ryan told me Godfrey’s story. Other people would be too.
‘My mum died when I was a teenager,’ I say. ‘We scattered her ashes on the beach, and I looked up at the tree from the sand below and felt like she was watching over us. As we walked back up, a robin was sitting in the branches singing. You know how they say robins appear when departed loved ones are near?’ I don’t realise I’m getting choked up until Ryan’s hand squeezes my shoulder and I have to stop myself and take a few deep breaths. ‘I always felt closer to her when I came here afterwards. You know like Cinderella with the hazel tree but no one ever turned my dress and shoes to gold. There was always, always a robin sitting in the branches.’
‘I had my first kiss with my late husband under that tree,’ Ffion says.
‘My wife and I carved our names on our first anniversary. Even though we moved away, we came back to visit the tree every year around our anniversary to make sure our carving hadn’t faded … She died a few years back, and I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather spend my final years than right here,’ Mr Barley says.
I have no idea where that old legend came from, but local people of their generation believed it wholeheartedly. The tradition of happy couples carving their names into the bark and then coming back to visit it every year to make sure their relationship wasn’t doomed … It gets the cogs in my brain working.
‘Ry told me about your carving, Godfrey,’ I call across to the elderly man on the bench.
He looks up at me, gives me a smile and a nod, but makes no other move to get involved.
The Wishing Tree Beside the Shore: The perfect feel good romance to escape with this summer! Page 9
