I can’t help laughing at how serious he is.
‘We came runner-up once, but my dream is to win. I want that trophy outside the main entrance to the campsite.’
‘Oh, how times have changed. Once upon a time, you wanted the world, Ry. Now you want to win a sandcastle competition.’
He finally looks up and meets my eyes. ‘I want to win a sandcastle competition with you, Fee. I want to put that winner’s certificate up and remember our victory together every time I walk into my office.’
My knees go weak and I tell myself it’s just delayed response to the climb down, nothing more. ‘And if we don’t win?’
‘Not winning is not an option.’
‘We just walked past a bloke building an alligator out of sand! I think not winning is very much an option. Someone over there is practising sculpting wheels for a car!’
He ignores me. ‘The strawberries will go here. Oversized, of course. I was hoping they’d allow red powder paint and real leaves, but we’ll work with what we’ve got. Can you find some branches to represent the tree?’
There’s a row of stones at the top of the beach that are always covered with debris left by the tide, and I leave Ryan still figuring out the best place to put a moat, despite the fact that Seaview Heights doesn’t have a moat, and head up there, joining a few other partners doing the same thing.
‘A mermaid.’ One woman smiles at me with a shell in her hand.
‘Tree,’ I say, picking up a few twigs.
‘Don’t you just love Lemmon Cove?’
I give her a tight smile, and it takes me until I’m halfway back down the beach with a handful of twigs and some driftwood to stop and look around. The squares are filling up and when I glance back up the cliffside, there’s a steady stream of people making their way down.
Yes. Yes, I do.
This place is wonderfully, charmingly weird. I used to think it was a bad thing. My younger self was embarrassed by the quirkiness of Lemmon Cove, but now I think everyone needs this kind of enchanting chaos in their lives. Harrison and my colleagues in London will never understand what it’s like to feel part of a community like this. They will never know the joy of seeing people take sandcastles so seriously.
It’s ten o’clock when the klaxon sounds to start building, and Ry and I leap into action. He starts digging out the moat, while I start scraping sand into a bucket and upturning it into the area he’s marked out for the care home, but most of it misses and falls into the moat so he has to dig it out again. I don’t seem to have lost the knack I had years ago of knowing which tool Ryan needs before he has a chance to ask for it, and there’s much passing of spades and sculpting tools, most of which look like they belong on a cake-baking show and Alys will almost certainly want a photo of for “Guess the Gadget”.
We are a team of well-organised, master sandcastle builders who are clearly going to win.
A couple of hours later, my confidence is somewhat waning.
Ryan’s carving out windows from a block of sand that in no way resembles Seaview Heights, and I’ve got my hands around a vaguely boob-shaped strawberry that bears absolutely no likeness to the fruit at all. Any fruit, that is, not just strawberries. To be honest, they look like some kind of amoeba you’d expect scientists to find in a horror movie about alien life forms on Mars.
‘Ry, do you ever get the feeling this isn’t going very well?’
‘No, it’s going great.’ He sits back on his knees and surveys the mess in front of him. ‘That part where half the building has fallen into the moat is exactly what I had planned, and that flood from where you threw the bucket of seawater into anywhere but the moat is just what we were going for. I’d say we’re right on target.’
I’m biting my fist in an attempt to contain my giggles. ‘I thought you said you do this every year!’
‘I …’ He pauses mid-sentence with his mouth open and his hands gesticulate as he tries to explain. ‘By “me” I meant “my company”, and by “do” I meant … supervise while my assistant does it because he’s good at this sort of thing, and I’m … not.’ He looks down at the sloppy sand with an expression of resignation. ‘As you can tell.’
The giggles get the better of me and I end up howling with laughter.
The tree looks like someone’s melted a reindeer. The twigs sticking out of the sand-trunk have a hint of “broken antler” about them, like someone’s put a chocolate reindeer in the oven.
I look around at the competition, who all seem to be faring much better than us. ‘Oh, look, that guy’s doing Mount Rushmore but with cats. Someone’s built the Pyramids in actual size.’
‘Actual size in a seven-by-seven metre square?’
‘You know what I mean. And now he’s sculpting Cleopatra to go with them.’
I meet Ryan’s eyes and we both burst into giggles again.
‘Go on, Seaside Sycamore Champions, you can do it!’ Tonya yells down from the clifftop.
‘Well, we’re not giving up. We have half an hour left to save this thing. We can still win.’
I look around at the truly magnificent pieces of sand art surrounding us. ‘If there’s one thing I always admired about you, it was your eternal optimism.’
A few squares over, there are three toddlers being encouraged by their parents to make a starfish. It looks like it’s recently been run over by a bus, and one of them is sitting in it, and it’s still better than ours. ‘Your eternal, utterly misplaced optimism.’
When the end klaxon goes, we stand back and look at our masterpiece.
The other teams all cheer and high-five and congratulate each other, taking a moment to look at all the other awe-inspiring pieces of work around them.
A child comes to look at ours and starts laughing.
Ryan drops his arm around my shoulder. ‘It is a disaster.’
I look up and narrow my eyes at him. ‘So, not winning then?’
‘I am truly impressed that we managed to create something so spectacularly awful.’
‘Still, at least we were brave enough to enter. It’s the taking part that counts, right?’
Dad and Cheryl have joined the gang standing beneath the sycamore tree now. They’re all still cheering us on, despite this disaster.
‘We’ll be brave enough to enter again next year.’ Ry drops his head to lean against mine. ‘And we’ll need to practise a lot beforehand.’
‘Next year,’ I agree with a determined nod. The thought of not being here next year makes my skin go cold despite the blazing sun. It’s the stupidest thing, but I suddenly can’t imagine not being here next year, not getting to do this again.
If I was brave, I’d tell him the truth about my job, I’d trust that he’d understand that no matter what it started off as, it changed the moment I saw him. If I was brave, I’d tell Harrison exactly where to stick his job. I wish I was brave enough to stay.
Although I’m not sure 365 days until next year will be enough time to practise our truly diabolical skills when they announce the winners.
‘We didn’t come last!’ Ryan cheers.
‘We came second to last! After a guy who seems to have based his design on a decomposing pigeon!’
‘Hurrah!’ Ryan cheers. He’s so excited that I can’t stop myself hugging him, except he goes to hug me at the exact same moment, and he ends up half-picking me up with one of my legs hooked across his arm and sort of shaking me a bit, and the awkward position makes us laugh even harder.
‘Oh my God, Ry,’ I say into his shoulder, where I’m clinging on for dear life.
He goes to spin us around, but his foot slips into the moat with a splosh and he stumbles, and we both crash down right on top of the sand version of Seaview Heights.
His whole body is shaking with laughter as the sand disperses underneath him, spraying us both and seeping into what’s left of the moat with a few sorrowful glugs, and I’m laughing so hard that I can barely hold my head up and my forehead drops onto his shoulder. I can’t
remember the last time I laughed so much or had fun like this.
‘To be fair, I think we did it a favour,’ he says as earnestly as he can muster when he’s laughing too much to fully catch his breath.
‘Not quite champions, eh?’
‘I don’t know, I would consider any day that ends with you lying on top of me to be a “win”.’
If I wasn’t melting from the sun and the exertion anyway, I would definitely have melted at that.
I lift my head. ‘Ry …’
The atmosphere snaps the moment I meet his eyes, and before I realise what’s happening, his lips are on mine.
It’s nothing more than a peck, but my eyes close for a brief few seconds, and everything drifts away apart from the press of his lips against mine. There’s no crowded beach, no sand making things unnecessarily gritty, and no wolf-whistles and cat-calls from elderly residents on the clifftop above. There’s just me and Ryan, our foreheads pressing together, breathing against each other’s mouths.
And then he groans and drops his head back, splattering more sand in every direction. ‘I’ve got a sand-strawberry the size of a turtle in my back and no idea how I’m going to get up again, and I may well have broken at least one coccyx.’
‘How many do you have?’ I ask, giggling as I push myself back onto my knees and up to my feet and hold a hand down to pull him up. He reaches out and slots his fingers around mine, but instead of pulling himself upright, he leans up on his elbows and looks over his shoulder at the sandcastle teams celebrating their wins. A woman wearing a dinosaur costume has sculpted an actual dinosaur and is now sitting astride it.
‘And you wonder why you ever wanted to leave Lemmon Cove …’
I follow his gaze, and when I look back down and meet his eyes, his mouth tips into a half-smile that looks much more serious than his jokey tone sounds.
Covered in sand, my chest feeling tight from laughing so hard, and with Ryan’s hand in mine, that’s a question I cannot answer. The only thing I know above all things is that I don’t want to do it again.
I don’t want to go back to London.
Chapter 16
I have to tell him. This can’t carry on. I feel sick as I head back towards the strawberry patch that night. I can’t stop thinking about him after today. The beach, that kiss, the feeling of having something I don’t want to lose. Whatever is happening between me and Ryan deserves a chance, and without me being honest about my job, it isn’t going to get one.
He will understand why I couldn’t say anything before. It won’t change things. And he’s kept things from me too. He doesn’t have any moral high ground to stand on when he was essentially betrothed to someone else and I never knew. Of all people, he will know that some things can’t always be shared at the ideal moment. I keep repeating it in my head, but it doesn’t alter how much I believe it.
Ryan’s at the upper end of the strawberry patch, tidying up after the tourists of earlier. He grins when he sees me, but instead of a traditional greeting, he starts singing the inimitable first bars of “Saturday Night” by Whigfield.
I laugh quietly so as not to wake the residents. ‘You never fail to impress with your ability to find a Nineties song for every occasion.’
From the beam on his face, this is surely the best compliment I could ever give him.
‘So I even get to see you on Saturday nights now?’ He comes closer and we do an awkward half-hug, half-kiss thing. We have both plainly forgotten how you greet a fellow human.
‘Today was fun. I …’ I decide to be honest. ‘I didn’t want it to end, thought I’d come back and see if you needed any help.’
His smile gets even wider. ‘You must have a sixth sense because I do. The residents were knackered so I sent them inside earlier and promised I’d do the clean-up. Tourists, good. Torn bits of cardboard punnet and squashed strawberries everywhere, not so good.’
He carries on humming “Saturday Night” and I start collecting up debris because it gives me an excuse to avoid the conversation a bit longer. Every time I think of saying, “Ryan, I need to tell you something …” a wave of nausea washes over me, and each time I go to open my mouth, my lips and tongue feel like they’re no longer working in sync.
‘Can you help me with this?’ He’s got a roll of duct tape and is poking at a piece of torn weed fabric with the toe of his shoe.
When I go over to him, he crouches down and shows me the tear. ‘If you hold this part, I’ll stick.’ He pulls the tape off the roll and leans over, his hands brushing against mine as he sticks down the parts I’m holding. ‘I can’t wait to get some proper wooden paths laid in this place.’
I appreciate his confidence that it’ll ever come to that. The fabric paths are temporary and the plants are in temporary positions. All of this was only ever meant to be temporary, and I can’t think about the implications of it being permanent.
We’re both crouched and I look up and meet his eyes and something crackles between us. The dimples right at the corners of his mouth dip as he smiles.
Come on, Fliss. Just blurt it out. You can tidy the words up later. They just need to be out there. You can’t explain anything if you haven’t said it yet.
It’s the perfect moment. I swallow and run my tongue across my teeth, trying to persuade my lips to form the words.
And then I overbalance and have to ram my hand down onto the ground to keep myself upright.
The moment is gone.
‘Ry,’ I start, quieter than an inaudible mouse, but he’s already stood up so he doesn’t hear me.
I’ll put it off for a bit longer. It’s fine. Another moment will come along in a minute and I won’t miss it next time.
He yawns loudly and stretches until something in his shoulder makes a cricking noise, and while he’s distracted, I pick up a dropped strawberry and hold it out on my palm towards Baaabra Streisand, who removes it from my hand with her teeth surprisingly delicately. When it’s swiftly devoured, she headbutts my leg looking for more.
‘Your sheep’s trying to kill me again,’ I say, but I smile as I reach down and pat her head. We’ve reached an understanding lately. She doesn’t try to headbutt me over any more cliffs, and I sneak her the odd strawberry when Ryan’s not looking.
‘My sheep’s not getting her usual amount of exercise chained up by the gate all day. Usually she does circles round the tree but she can’t with so many people visiting. Seeing as you were surprised the other day, do you want to go for a …’ He holds a finger up in a “wait for it” gesture, puts on a shrill voice and turns to Baaabra. ‘Walkies?’
Baaabra practically bounces. If she was a dog, she’d be wagging her tail and turning in circles of excitement. Even her lips have pulled back and it makes it look like she’s smiling.
‘You’re going to walk your sheep?’ I look up at the care home. The curtains of every window are shut, but lights are still glowing from inside. ‘Now?’
‘It’s late enough to leave the tree. And I think Steffan’s wavering. He came to talk to me about long-term sharing my car park yesterday – he wouldn’t have done that unless he was seriously considering keeping the strawberry patch open. I suspect he liked that box of cash from opening day, and that agreement we got from the Lemmon Cove shop owner for fifty punnets a week starting next spring.’ Ryan unhooks the chain from around him and disentangles Baaabra Streisand’s lead to slip the handle over his wrist, and picks up the torch. He holds his other hand out to me. ‘C’mon. Just down to the beach for a sheep-walk.’
‘That sounds like a ewe-phemism.’
He laughs as Baaabra Streisand rushes ahead of him, yanking us both through the open strawberry patch gate.
We head downwards in silence, our joined hands swinging between us. I thought the walk down might be harder for the second time in one day, but with my hand in Ryan’s, I can forget everything until we’re nearly at the bottom.
‘Ahh, the easy part.’
His hand falls out of mine as we rea
ch the wide-open sand dunes at the end of the narrow path, a steep incline down to the beach. He lets out a whoop and dashes off and I follow.
It’s physically impossible not to half-run, half-slip, and half-slide down a sand dune, and I end up doing a combination of all three and somehow managing not to break any bones. Ryan reaches the bottom long before I do and turns around with open arms, waiting for me to barrel straight into them, like he always used to.
His arms wrap around me and stop the momentum of running headfirst down such a steep hill, encircling me tightly and rocking us both from one foot to the other as he buries his face in my hair.
I will hate this dune when we have to walk back up it, but for now, I like it very much.
‘Always hoped I’d get to do that again one day,’ he says into my hair.
Why does he have to keep saying the perfect thing? The right thing? The thing that makes those butterflies take off again?
Instead of letting go, his arms tighten and he turns his head to the side, tilting us back with one foot so we’re looking up at the tree above us, a shadow against the night sky, and I know we’re both thinking the same thing.
‘What if we fail?’ he whispers.
‘We won’t – because of you.’
‘Because of you, Fee. I was getting nowhere until you came along. Just a guy chained to a tree. With a sheep.’ He squeezes me and I remember saying something similar to him a few weeks ago. ‘You brought the place back to life. Like you always did at Sullivan’s Seeds. I always used to say the plants were sad on your days off and only perked up when you were in.’
It once again makes my knees feel weak. ‘We should string some fairy lights around the tree. Especially in the winter when all its leaves have dropped and it’s a skeleton of branches. It would still be a destination then. Somewhere people wanted to visit. Late night picnics at the strawberry patch could be another thing to look into, or picnics on the beach … The perfect date on a moonlit winter night. It would look pretty decorated for Christmas too. Multicoloured lights, sprigs of holly and mistletoe, those oversized baubles hanging from its bare branches …’
The Wishing Tree Beside the Shore: The perfect feel good romance to escape with this summer! Page 24
