# Chances

Freya North

The stunning summer besteller from Freya North.Vita’s nursing a broken heart.Oliver’s heart belongs to the past.They should be perfect for each other.But will they chance it?Vita's gift shop would do better if she ran it as a business, not as somewhere to daydream. But she's not one to tell herself off: she leaves that to Tim, her ex.Active and outdoorsy Oliver runs his tree-surgery business as calmly as his home – but his love life is intensely private.When Vita and Oliver’s paths cross at a pear tree, there’s a chance of something blossoming. As spring turns into summer, both Vita and Oliver are given choices and chances. But will they take them – or walk away?

Freya North

Chances


Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Freya North 2011

Freya North asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007326662

Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007326679

Version: 2017-11-28

Dedication

For Mummy

Lovely, funny, beautiful – and so very very brave. A woman of worth, indeed.

With love,

Your Chief Sherpa

Epigraph

All discarded lovers should be given a second chance

– but with somebody else

MAE WEST

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph


That Shop

Oliver and Jonty

The Tree Houses

Michelle and Candy

Tinker, Spike and Boz

Something for the Weekend

The George and Dragon

The Thorpe Arms

Suzie Vs Candy

Rick

North London

Location Location Location

And So to Bed

Sting

Flower Man and Tree Fella

Tim and Vita and Rick

Helpful Unhelpful Thoughts

Suzie Vs Vita

T.P.O

The Cagoule

The Wretched Cagoule

Suzie

The Wasp Catchers

Beer and Jam

Roots

Mr Whippy

Post-Mortem

Sunday

Dermott Hogan

Day Trippers

Tim and Vita

Jamie Oliver Oliver

Jonty

The Cowgirl

Helping Hands

Tristan Tree

The Wynfordbury Taxicab

Tim and Suzie and Vita

Parenting

Elsie Mackenzie


Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading – The Way Back Home

Up close and personal with Freya

Don’t miss Freya’s other bestsellers

Acclaim for...

About the Author

Also by Freya North

About the Publisher

That Shop

Sitting in her shop, That Shop, on the stool behind the counter (an old console table which was for sale and had been since she opened three years ago), Vita kept her head down, nose buried in her book, yet managed surreptitiously to watch the elderly lady whilst wondering what she’d allow her to nick today. A fortnight ago, it had been a small jar of pastel-coloured guest soaps in the shapes of seashells. Prior to that, an ashtray, brass, in the shape of a Moroccan slipper. Vita didn’t think the old lady smoked, she thought her vice might be little more than the occasional sherry and shoplifting. Fascinating. And why had she stolen that tin of mini sparklers with ‘Wedding Wishes’ embossed on the lid? Not that Vita had minded – they were on offer anyway. The most expensive thing the lady had swiped had been the small pewter noughts and crosses set – but there again, no one had expressed any interest in it.

Sometimes, Vita could anticipate which object would be pilfered; at other times, she knew something had gone but it took her a couple of days to figure out quite what. She liked the fact that what was taken was dictated not by its value but by its desirability. Those sparklers had been cheap as chips but the little tin was so pretty.

Vita watched and tried to guess. The Gardener’s Handcream? The light-pull in the shape of a black cat? The old lady was currently admiring the candy-coloured dustpan set. Vita thought, She’ll never get that under her jacket. A couple of months ago, perhaps, when spring was late and it was still cold and the woman was swamped by a shabby old coat in Prince of Wales check. Today, she wore a light blouson a shade darker than her lilac rinse. What would she be able to squirrel away when true summer came? Did she choose her summer clothes on account of capaciousness of pockets? It was only June but the weathermen were predicting a heatwave for this summer. The shopkeepers of Wynford hoped so. Vita thought back to last summer and all that rain that had been so bad for business. It seemed such a long time ago now.

It was one of the animals! Vita detected a sudden lift in the old lady’s energy from near the rack at the back of the shop on which the plastic animals stood as if lining up waiting to board the wooden ark on the neighbouring table. Which, though? Which had gone?

Gazelle. Vita reckoned it had to be the gazelle. There were plenty of them left. In her experience, the children always made a beeline for the carnivores.

‘Nothing today, lassie,’ the woman said diplomatically as if, on some future occasion, with new stock, or just what she was looking for, she might be happy to part with her money.

When I was at school, Vita mused once the tinkle of the shop’s bell had subsided and she had the place to herself again, I stole for a little old lady just like you.

Tim thought, If she’s reading a bloody book – if she’s reading a bloody bloody book . . .

His business philosophy was that his shop, That Shop, needed to make money, notwithstanding the average item price being around £10. Vita’s personal philosophy was that her shop, That Shop, should simply be somewhere people loved to go, to be heartened by lovely things.

She is bloody reading a bloody book.

‘Hi.’

Tim jerks his head at her book and raises an eyebrow.

‘Robinson Crusoe,’ Vita says, as if it vindicates any objection. ‘I read this fantastic novel about a young girl who was obsessed with Robinson Crusoe – so when I finished it, I started this straight away. Have you read it? I can’t believe I hadn’t.’

I’m gabbling. Still nervous around him – madness. ‘It’s a classic. Did you know Daniel Defoe is credited with inventing the novel? I even wonder whether “cruise” comes from “Crusoe”.’

‘This isn’t a desert island, Vita, it’s a deserted shop.’

He approaches the till and prints off a balance. ‘Christ alive.’

‘I know,’ Vita says gravely, ‘it’s been slow.’

‘I saw that mad old woman coming out,’ he says.

‘I don’t think she’s mad – just, you know, eccentric.’

‘She’s a thief, that’s what she is,’ Tim says. ‘Watch her like a hawk.’ He had caught the woman shoplifting last Easter. A small papier mâché rabbit. Not expensive – but a key seller at a time when they were shifting loads. He’d made her put it back. He’d done it tactfully and authoritatively. As though he was talking to a child. Vita hadn’t liked that at all. It was just a little Easter bunny.

She won’t be doing that again, he’d said to Vita.

Just now, Vita muses how it wouldn’t cross Tim’s mind that the old lady had been doing precisely that, on a regular basis, ever since. With Vita’s unspoken blessing.

She glances at Tim. Experiences a pang. Wonders how that could be, after so long. After everything.

‘Hey, Tim.’ It isn’t a question and, though she says it softly, she knows she shouldn’t have said it at all. He just looks at her. There’s nothing behind his eyes. It’s the neutrality that hurts the most.

When did he buy that new shirt? It suits him, it suits his dark grey eyes, his close-cropped hair the colour of slate.

‘Be in touch,’ he says as he leaves.

He doesn’t look back.

Tim is someone who never looks back.

Six years together, now heading towards a year since she left him. Vita looks at her watch and reprimands herself for having spent a daft amount of time lost in pointless reflection. She could have been reading. Or tidying. Or engaging with customers. Now look at the time. Sorry, Robinson, school’s out and the kids will soon descend, with their exasperated mums killing time to interrupt the drag of the remainder of the day. It’s Monday, though, and good for trade usually, on account of pocket money left over from the weekend.

She slips off the stool and goes to the store cupboard at the back of the shop, which is only slightly larger than the loo. She takes out a plastic antelope and a couple of other items and carries them back into the shop. Then she writes herself a Post-it note, sticking it next to the hook on which her jacket is hanging.

Order gorillas and lions.

Think Robinson, not Tim.

Oliver and Jonty

Oliver was washing up. He’d spilled water on himself and on the floor. His shirt had been clean and now the floor was dirty. The water was too hot and his hands were red. He needed a new washing-up sponge. There was no more room on the draining board. He’d used too much Fairy but as he still hadn’t fixed the cold tap it meant the water spurted everywhere each time he rinsed something. To the right of him, the dishwasher stood empty. Top-of-the-range, still under its extended guarantee. Unused for nearly three years. His wife had loved that appliance more than any of the others.

‘I could live without TV,’ she’d said, ‘I don’t mind laundrettes. But the dishwasher? I’d sell myself, rather than part with it – it’s the apotheosis of modern invention.’

He thought about that now; how only DeeDee could refer to something as dull as a dishwasher as the Apotheosis of Modern Invention. He thought about how she liked to say she didn’t have ‘hands that do dishes’. Not from any pomposity but because her hands really had been slender and soft – pale, silky, protected. She rubbed cream in as though it was a ritual. Tubes of the stuff remained. They were still there, on windowsill and bedside table, by the basin, by the phone near the front door. Some were scented with lavender, some with rose. Some were formulated for Norwegian fishermen. One was for babies’ bottoms. It was called Butt Butter. Her cousin in the States used to send it at regular intervals. This was the last tub. Oliver looked at his hands, redder by the minute. He should have taken his watch off.

Of all the things to miss, it was the simple sight of a meticulously stacked dishwasher he longed for most these days. And yet, it had been one thing that had wound them both up at the time. DeeDee hated him stacking it because she said he didn’t do it properly. She’d physically shove him out of the way, complaining how he didn’t maximize space the way she did, even accusing him of doing this on purpose (which was true). He’d hated her tutting and huffs and the exasperation written all over her face. It had made him sling stuff in on purpose. Put a mug in the wrong way up so that it filled with the sedimenty water. How ridiculous had that been? Both of them. Life’s way too short to fall out over a stupid dishwasher.

He’d called her a fucking control freak once. She’d gone stony cold and had said, I’m doing it for us – it’s the way I keep our home and if you want to make a mockery of that you can fuck off yourself. He’d said, Stop being so bloody melodramatic. Jonty, who had been about eight or nine, had said, What’s melon-traumatic? And she’d said, Mel-o-dramatic, darling, it’s nothing, just a silly word for a silly thing. So gently, so sweetly, so patiently that this had wound up Oliver even more. He’d stropped off to the pub. And later, when guilt had made him leave before closing time and he’d returned and unloaded the dishwasher, he’d had to concede how well she’d restacked it. One beer too many had made him annoyed that she could be right over something so trivial, exasperated that her natural fastidiousness, the high standards she placed on family and home and perfection, necessitated this crazy rigidity to maintain them.

That night long ago – when was it? – if Jonty had been nine-ish, it must have been a good five years ago. The dishwasher before this one. That night, back then, Oliver had slept in the spare room. And DeeDee had crept in during the small hours. And they’d shuffled closer and closer together, cuddling and kissing and pressing and offering silent apologies. Jonty had gone into their empty bedroom in the morning and wondered whether aliens had abducted his parents.

DeeDee would die if she saw the state of the house now. Or, rather, she’d die again.

Today, Oliver can still feel the muddle of conflicting emotions – like washing up with water so hot it feels cold. He likes to justify that, these days, it’s environmentally irresponsible to use a dishwasher. Especially since there’s only him and Jonty. And mostly they eat takeaways direct from the tubs. And the food they cook at other times rarely requires many utensils. Just plates, really, for pizza or cold cuts or beans on toast. They often don’t bother with knives. They use their forks – to spear, to scoop, to sever. They go through an industrial quantity of teaspoons each day.

‘Remember how Mum used to always lay the table? Including a spoon for pudding even though she invariably said, Help yourselves to fresh fruit?’

‘Yeah,’ says Jonty.

But his father can’t tell what his son’s eyes are saying behind that lank curtain of dye-dark hair. It is one of those moments when Oliver considers how a teenager’s hair can hide a child’s eyes. And he is not sure what he’s meant to do about it.

‘You can dry.’

‘There’s only about two plates and a hundred forks, Dad. Let it all drain.’

His son is on his way out of the kitchen, to flick on the TV in front of which he’ll sit with his dad, quietly watching whatever crap might be on until they’re finally tired enough for bed.

Oliver looks at the draining board.

Only two plates. And just forks. It breaks his heart all over again.

‘Cup of tea, Jont?’

Bugger. No clean mugs again. He rinses out a couple with scalding water, using his thumbs to rub away the ring marks from previous brews.

I missed you today, DeeDee.

Is it OK to tell you that there are days now, almost three years on, when I don’t know if I’ve thought about you so I remind myself to? That one day recently I merely mentioned you in passing and didn’t pause after doing so? You were in and out of the conversation in a click. I was chatting to Adrian. Your name simply slid in and out of the conversation like a bird flying past.

Now I’m going to sit beside our son and watch TV till we’re knackered. We don’t put biscuits on a plate any more, DeeDee. We just eat them from the packet. And when Mrs Blackthorne comes – because she still comes – she has a week’s worth of crumbs to deal with. Today, though – today I miss you, darling.

The Tree Houses

Where Vita lived, officially called Mill Lane, was always referred to as the Tree Houses. Not that these were eco-savvy dwellings in lofty boughs, however, but a terrace of small, plain, Victorian two-up, two-downs in red brick. Cherry Tree Cottage, Plum Tree Cottage, Walnut Tree Cottage, Damson, Apple, Hazel, Quince and Pear Tree Cottage. Apple Tree Cottage had a small, old, wizened tree in the front garden that each spring blossomed in a half-hearted manner but rarely followed through with fruit of any quality. The only blossom at Cherry Tree Cottage was garishly painted onto an elaborate name plaque. There were no eponymous trees at Walnut, Quince or Hazel. Damson Cottage had its windows and door painted the colour of the fruit but the garden itself was laid mainly to gravel. Plum Tree Cottage was by far the prettiest with roses around the front door, a lavender-bordered path and a profusion of gay bedding plants through the summer, but no plums. Pear Tree Cottage, Vita’s house, was right at the end.

When she’d been house hunting, she’d felt sorry for the cottage as one might a mangy old dog at a rescue centre.

The exterior was drab and unkempt. Inside, it was dank and forlorn. The place smelt musty, in need of air, but many of the window frames had been painted over so often they no longer opened. Though the whole house needed decorating, it was actually the old wallpaper upstairs which had sold it to Vita. It was faded, but when she looked carefully she noted how it had been pretty once. Sprigs of flowers – mauve in one room, yellow in the other. She’d been told the late owner had been a bachelor who had lived there alone for over fifty years. But she’d stood in the back bedroom quietly considering that the lonely old bachelor must have had a lady friend who had advised on the wallpaper all those years ago. That, for a while, this shabby, stale house had been a home where the rooms had been tended to not just with floral paper. At some stage, love had been in this house.

Her mother, who was insisting on giving Vita her small inheritance early, had said, Darling, isn’t that nice all-mod-cons, ten-year-guarantee new-build apartment overlooking the canal a better investment? But Vita said no. She wasn’t looking for an investment; she was looking for a home.

What had once been Tim’s house, Vita had made into their home over the four years they lived together; softening the hard edges of his statement furniture and proliferation of gadgets with a little bit of Cath Kidston here and there; making something domestic and homely of the space. But it wasn’t hers to start with. When they’d split, Tim had given her an amount of money. Initially, she was resistant to his offer – not from any sense of pride or independence but because it was so brute. It felt as though Tim was quantifying the relationship, paying her off, throwing money at a problem to make her go away.

Vita’s friends – who constituted a tight ring rather than a wide circle – let her stay in their spare rooms and marched her up and down local streets with estate agents’ particulars in her hands. That’s how she came to find herself at the Tree Houses and the down-trodden cottage right at the end of the row. The smallest of the cottages, in that no extensions had been added over the years, nor had the loft been converted, but of all the Tree Houses, Pear Tree Cottage had the biggest tree, and it was indeed a pear, dominating the back garden.

‘I don’t like that tree,’ her mother had said. ‘It looks a bit leering – like some guardian troll of the garden.’

But Vita made light of it.

‘You can make me pear upside-down cake, Mum,’ she had breezed deliberately. Her offer had been accepted, the surveyor had been round, the mortgage granted, and she desperately needed this to work. ‘Or pear and chocolate brownies. Like you used to when I was little.’

Why doesn’t she go for the canal-side flats with the gym in the basement? her friends worried behind her back.

That blimmin’ great tree, the neighbours at the Tree Houses often remarked to each other over the garden fences.

* * *

Vita thinks she really likes the house and now that it is spring, and the blossom is stunning, she thinks she’ll really like the garden too. But she keeps any ambivalence from her friends. She tells herself she doesn’t want them to worry. Nor does she want to catch them giving each other ‘that look’ – which she reads as their frustration that she’s still not quite cock-a-hoop about her new life. Their strategy is to enthuse, to encourage her and tell her that if she can work the wonders on the exterior that she has on the interior, then Pear Tree Cottage will reap dividends for her emotionally in the short term and financially in the long term too.

Her possessions are around her; it’s her linen on the bed, her books on the shelf, her Cath Kidston oilcloth on the kitchen table. Those are her brush and roller marks on the white walls, that’s her careful satinwooding on the skirting and doors that she spent weeks rubbing down. Apart from one wall of the faded wallpaper in the front bedroom upstairs, there’s no longer any hint of the previous occupant. She bought a new seat for the loo, her mother gave her some ready-made curtains and the guy who fitted out the shop put in the Ikea kitchen units as a favour.

Despite all this, despite the black-and-white fact that it’s Vita’s name on the title deeds – the first time she’s owned property – sometimes, it still feels as though she’s squatting, as though she’s in transit, that this can’t be her destination. She’s made the house very nice – but occasionally, she still feels her real home must be elsewhere. Not Tim’s place, not now. Sometimes it simply feels that Pear Tree Cottage can’t really be the place she’s meant to live. She may well have signed the transfer papers, the mortgage, and a million other forms – but when did she sign up to living alone in her mid-thirties?

In the days just before she completed on the property, in the New Year, and just after she moved in, Vita desperately regretted the purchase. It was legal and binding and it meant that nothing could remain up in the air with Tim. He’d paid her off. She’d taken his money and invested it in the foundations of a house that in turn was apparently going to provide the foundation stone on which she’d be building her new life, or so her friends kept saying.

During those early weeks, when she was exhausted and dusty and unnerved, guilt seeped in – on paper, she had her very own place, her friends had bedecked it with hope and good wishes and lovely moving-in gifts, her mother had poured money into it. How could she feel so ambivalent when she had such good fortune? She didn’t want to record an answering machine message in the first person singular. She didn’t want to cook for friends and then clear up on her own once they’d gone. She didn’t want to stay in and watch a DVD by herself, nor, however, did she want to go out and then have to return on her own to an empty house. She was in limbo and so she didn’t quite unpack. There are still a few boxes left to do, even now. Instead, she filled her time painting. White. White everywhere, apart from that one wall of faded floral paper. Coat after coat. Litres of the stuff. It wasn’t a whitewash; Vita was providing herself with nothingness all around to contradict the emotions at loggerheads within.

Six months and two seasons on, she doesn’t quite love her little house, but she does like it very much. What she still doesn’t like is leaving and coming back during the working week. At That Shop, her link with Tim and the past remains and weekdays are comparatively unchanged. He’ll come in and print off a till balance. She’ll email him about an order. They’ll discuss takings and promotions and what’s to be done with the useless Saturday girl. The bills and statements come in, addressed to them both. There they are on paper, side by side still, in it together, partners. She doesn’t see it as a stumbling block to the steady progress of moving on, she sees it as a safety net.

But Tim’s made no secret of the fact that when business picks up, they should sell. Their only tie to each other is now financial. They remain bound to each other. And Tim has made it clear that it’s a bind.

Michelle and Candy

‘It’s the first time she’s ever missed Jakey’s birthday.’ Michelle nudged Candy that the traffic lights were on green. ‘I know she’ll be mortified when she finds out.’

‘Was Jake all right about it?’ Candy crunched gears and drove ahead. ‘Damn, I could’ve taken a crafty back-double down there.’

‘He’s ten years old. I don’t think he’ll be emotionally scarred because his godmother forgot his birthday – but he’d calculated in advance how many presents he was due and he told me tonight, before I left, that he’s going to sack Vita if she still hasn’t remembered.’

‘Scamp.’

‘Bless him.’

‘He’ll go far.’

‘He’s a boy genius.’

‘You would say that. You’re his mother.’

‘You’ll be like that about Amelia.’

‘Oh, I already am – she may be only nine months old but you do know she’s the most beautiful child ever to have been born and staggeringly gifted too.’

‘Come on, bloody traffic.’

Candy passed Michelle her phone. ‘Let her know we’re going to be late. Tell her it’ll give her time to wrap Jake’s present.’

‘V, it’s Mushroom – yes, late as always. Actually, it’s traffic this time. Honestly! We’re on our way – with wine and delectables from Marks and Sparks. See you in a mo’.’

‘Is delectables a word?’ Candy asked.

‘It’s perfect.’

‘Mrs Sherlock, don’t you think you’re too old to be called Mushroom?’

‘She couldn’t pronounce Michelle when she was little. Granted, it’s not the most beguiling of nicknames.’

‘But you like it.’

‘I do.’

‘And yet you call her V, which she hates.’

‘I know.’

‘She gave me short shrift the one and only time I tried it.’

‘I’ve known her my whole life – you’ve only known her since school, remember.’

‘Ner ner!’ Candy laughed. Then she paused. ‘I haven’t actually seen her since the Easter egg event at her shop. It’ll be good to see what else she’s done to the house – though I can’t believe there was any more minging old carpet to rip up. And there’s only so many times you can paint a wall white.’

‘She’ll put the colour back into her life when she’s ready, Candy.’

‘Or subtle shades of Farrow and Ball – I bought her a subscription to LivingEtc for Christmas.’

‘I bought her a deckchair emblazoned with “Keep Calm and Carry On”.’

For Candy and Michelle, seeing Vita barefoot was a great sight. Not that she had particularly stunning feet – just that, to her closest friends, it made her look so at home, standing on her doorstep with no shoes on. It also spoke of the warm weather, that summer was truly coming, that socks wouldn’t be needed for months, indoors or out.

Michelle and Candy waxed lyrical about the Victorian tiles on the front doorstep even though most were cracked or chipped, and as soon as they were over the threshold, they continued their assault of compliments, gushing about the floorboards as if Vita had sawn them herself instead of simply ripping up the old carpets. Both had been to the cottage many times and could see that she’d done little more to it since they were last there. Still, they cooed over her soft furnishings, ran their hands over windowsills and doors and told her the kitchen smelt amazing, even though she was merely heating up the finger food they’d brought with them.

Their enthusiasm was excessive – especially as neither saw her staying there indefinitely. They saw the cottage as a good, solid foothold on her road to independence, a good thing financially – she’d bought just at the right time – but ultimately wouldn’t the hip-and-happening canal-side development better suit a single woman in her mid-thirties?

‘Let’s eat outside,’ Vita said.

‘Have you done much to the garden?’

‘Come and see.’

Michelle and Candy brought out a kitchen chair each and Vita followed with cushions. To make room for the extra chairs, Vita scurried about moving the pots of pansies, a galvanized trough with chives and thyme doing well, a trowel and a plastic watering can. The deckchair that Michelle had bought her was positioned to catch the last of the sun that lingered on the small paved area right outside the kitchen door as if blessing it. It couldn’t really be called a patio – just as the small patch of grass couldn’t be called a lawn; nor could the bed which ran the short length to the back of the garden be called a herbaceous border. But Vita’s friends noted the planting she’d done – just busy-lizzies and geraniums but a quick colour fix to welcome the summer nonetheless.

‘I really need a table – sorry, laps’ll have to do.’

‘What’s in the shed at the back?’

‘Spiders.’

Back in midwinter, when she’d first shown them around, Vita had gone on and on about trees being the cathedrals of the natural world while Candy had described the pear tree as more like a derelict sixties tower block. The tree had seemed so dark, so overbearing and ominous with its thrust and scratch of bare branches, its dense trunk. Today, it struck Michelle and Candy as a more benign presence, like an over-the-top prop at a Hollywood wedding, billowing with blossom which wafted down gently around them like confetti, like manna, like fake snow in a department-store window display at Christmas. Soft and pretty – if you ignored the little brown bits which were surprisingly itchy. Vita, however, was grinning at it inanely.

‘Who needs acreage and fancy shrubs when you have something like that in the garden,’ she said. ‘The tree is the garden!’

‘Can you imagine the amount of pears you’re going to have,’ said Candy, with slight unease. She wasn’t entirely sure whether each flower on Vita’s tree equalled a future fruit.

‘I know!’ she said, ignoring the point. ‘I thought I might try making chutney or something, perhaps a cordial – and I could bottle it and do labels and sell it in the shop.’

‘Tim’ll love that,’ Candy said under her breath.

‘I heard that,’ Vita said.

‘How is the charming son-of-a?’ Candy asked.

The pause that ensued really should have been long enough for Candy to check in with Michelle and note a glower which said, Don’t go there. But she didn’t. She was picking petals from her wine.

‘I miss the company but I don’t miss him,’ Vita announced brightly, a mantra she’d trained herself to deliver. ‘It’s a bugger about the business – but neither of us can afford to buy the other out.’

‘You wouldn’t sell to him, would you?’

‘I’d rather have That Shop to myself. But I can’t afford it.’

‘How’s his day job?’

Vita shrugged. ‘I don’t know how much marketing consultants are wanted – or worth – in a recession.’

‘Here’s to you,’ said Candy, ‘not him.’ She chinked her glass against Vita’s.

‘And you.’

‘May a gallant knight ride by soon and sweep you off your feet.’

‘No, thanks,’ said Vita.

‘A bit of rough, then?’

Vita laughed. ‘I think I should be on my own for a while, actually.’

‘Yay! Girl power and women’s lib and all that.’

Candy always had the other two giggling.

‘It’s warm, isn’t it. I can’t believe there’s going to be a heatwave – when we’ve just raided the piggy bank to go to Florida this summer,’ said Michelle.

‘I’m going to have a staycation,’ said Vita, ‘here in my garden.’

‘Gathering pears and churning chutney?’ said Candy.

‘How delightfully Thomas Hardy,’ said Michelle.

‘Oh shit! The spring rolls!’ Vita darted back into the kitchen to rescue them.

‘Don’t tell her,’ Michelle said to Candy.

‘Don’t tell her about what?’ Candy said to Michelle.

‘About Tim,’ Michelle said to Candy as if she was dense.

‘Don’t tell me what about Tim?’ Vita said to both of them, standing there with a plate of spring rolls so over-cooked they looked like cigarillos.

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Candy. ‘I do love busy-lizzies.’

‘They’re called Impatiens,’ said Michelle.

‘Stop changing the subject,’ said Vita, hiding growing unease behind a larky tone.

‘Actually – you know what? It’s no bad thing for her to hear,’ Candy said to Michelle who turned her head and stared stubbornly at the old fence that looked as though it was staggering along at the back of the garden.

‘Candy?’ Vita gestured that she’d be ransoming nibbles for information.

‘I had lunch at the Nags Head the other day,’ Candy said. ‘I hadn’t been in there for ages – anyway, the landlady greeted me like a long-lost friend. She asked after all of us – you especially. Well, you know how she likes a gossip.’

‘And she said –?’ Vita was fixing her best carefree smile to her face.

‘Oh, she just said that Tim often goes in there. Gets plastered.’

‘That’s nothing new.’

Candy was in her stride. ‘Yes, but here’s the funny part. He tends to go in there with this girl and invariably they get drunk, have flaming rows and one or other storms off.’ *

Who is she? Who is she?

‘Anyway, last week they go in there, the pair of them,’ Candy continued, ‘they drink, they row – she flounces out the back door, he storms out the front then half an hour later, he reappears with a totally different girl! The sleaze! A couple of hours pass – then he’s suddenly ushering her out of the front door before Suzie comes in again through the back door and—’

‘Suzie?’

Candy stared aghast at her burnt spring roll as if looking directly at her faux pas. Michelle glanced at Vita, noted the goosebumps on her arms.

‘Suzie?’ Vita said again.

Candy shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

Vita gave herself a moment. ‘No,’ she said brightly, ‘not a bit. You’re right. He’s a sleaze. It’s just hard hearing she’s still on the scene. I wish he was with someone completely different.’

‘It hardly sounds like he’s gone on to forge a good relationship though, does it?’ Michelle said in a tone of voice Vita had heard her use to great effect with her children – when downplaying a fall or a bump, so they wouldn’t be alarmed. So they would feel better.

‘I’d pity her, if I was you,’ Candy said. ‘She’s now lumbered with all that you shifted.’ She touched Vita’s knee. ‘Promise you’ll think of Tim even less now – and think even less of him because of what I’ve told you?’ Candy said. ‘Me and my stupid big gob?’

‘Don’t call yourself Big Gob,’ Vita said softly. It’s what the bullies had called Candy at school. A beautiful Ugandan refugee who’d arrived in their small Hertfordshire town twenty years ago.

Vita didn’t want more details. She didn’t want to be reminded of her past or how different her present was from the future she’d taken for granted. So she encouraged Candy to run off on tangents about films she’d never get to see and frocks she still couldn’t fit into. And she gave Michelle a nod every now and then to say, I’m fine, stop worrying about me.

Vita Whitbury, way past midnight, all on her own. Not that it seems that way, with the riot of Tim thoughts filling her head. Infidelity, lies, deceit. She tried to rationalize that Tim’s life was the same but the cast around him had changed. And though his life sounded lairy, uncouth, unsavoury and diametrically opposed to all Vita hoped for in her own, a niggle remained to taunt her. Suzie was still on the scene. Of all the people – why had it to be her?

Vita wonders, Why do I still feel I could have done more to inspire him not to stray? Why do I still feel it’s a failing, an inadequacy, on my part?

And she wonders, How does his happiness graph look these days?

And she wonders, Where has my self-esteem gone?

And how am I to get it back?

She reaches to the bedside table and takes her pad of Post-its and a pen.

Phone Tim

She reads what she’s written. Then she adds DON’T at the start, scratching the letters down hard. She switches off the light and tucks down. She can see the pear tree, the blossom ethereal in the moonlight. It’s one of the things she really likes about her house – she doesn’t need to close the curtains and be surrounded by darkness at the end of the day.

Tinker, Spike and Boz

‘Can I get a lift to school?’

Oliver raised his eyebrow at his son. ‘Again, please?’

Jonty groaned and thought, Yeah, yeah, I know, Mum would make me ask again – at much the same time as his father was saying precisely that. Jonty thought, Give us a break, Dad. But he knew his father was right because his mother had been right too. He cleared his throat and gave a quick toss of his head to flick his long fringe away from his face. ‘May I have a lift to school, please?’

Oliver smiled. ‘Of course.’

‘What use is textbook grammar when we communicate more by text messages anyway?’ Jonty murmured, shuffling into his blazer and hoicking his schoolbag over one shoulder.

‘It’s not about the grammar, per se,’ said Oliver. ‘It’s about laziness, it’s about apathy. That’s why I hate all this texting business – not bothering with vowels because consonants will do because y’know wha’ I mean.’

‘Innit,’ Jonty said and they laughed together. ‘Language evolves, Dad. “Chav” is in the dictionary. L8R looks good – it’s clever.’

‘It’s a fad.’

‘You sound like an old fart.’

‘I am an old fart. Believe me – you’d rather have an old fart for a dad than some divvy trying to be cool. Far more embarrassing.’

‘Who the heck says “divvy”!’

‘I do.’

‘Don’t say it again.’

‘Pillock.’

‘That’s worse, Dad.’

‘I know. It’s my job to annoy you like it’s your job to wind me up.’

Jonty thought, Actually, my dad is cool and he doesn’t wind me up all that much.

‘Come on, kiddo, let’s go. Have you got money for lunch?’

‘Father!’ Jonty remonstrated. ‘Again, please!’

Oliver coshed him softly. ‘Do you have money for lunch?’

Watching Jonty lope off towards school with his mates, all of them in skinny trousers slung low, schoolbags as beat up as possible, hair lank and long and dyed darker than necessary, Oliver thought to himself how, had DeeDee still been here, he would probably be the one coping with their son’s teenagerisms the better, and it might well have caused a degree of antagonism between them. She’d have been much more You can’t go out looking like that at Jonty. She’d have said, Oliver! You speak to him! Oliver might have been caught in the crossfire. It gave him a lift to know he was doing all right as a dad to a teenage son. He liked to sense DeeDee’s approval. It was very odd to feel that these days Dead DeeDee possibly liked him more than DeeDee Living might have done.

Oh, but what I’d give for a little healthy real-life snippiness, Oliver thought as he headed off for his yard. What I’d give to hear her mutter, For God’s sake, Ols.

How he longed to argue over the finer points of managing a teenager, instead of muddling through it all on his own, albeit now doing things his way all the time without prior discussion. So, though he wasn’t the stickler for homework she had been, and although bed-time had become a movable feast and supper was now very movable indeed – usually in foil trays eaten off laps and sometimes left on the coffee table overnight – keeping up DeeDee’s obsession with grammar was a baton he’d gladly taken from her. He knew he and Jonty would run with it their whole lives.

At the yard, Boz and Spike, the two Aussies working for him, were loading the truck.

‘Tinker?’ Oliver asked.

‘Making a brew,’ said Spike. Oliver often reflected how he only seemed to employ youngsters from the Commonwealth – but there again, home-grown interest in arboriculture appeared to be sparse. And he did wonder why he gravitated towards those with names like Tinker and Boz and Spike – but he had to concede there were few applications arriving on his desk from Tom, Dick or Harry. He had a great team though – hardworking and sweet-natured. He enjoyed having them under his wing and his clients responded well. He felt paternal towards them – their own fathers being back home, time zones away. He also felt a keen duty to his trade – to hone their technical abilities as well as to train their eyes to feel a tree. Having a licence to use a chainsaw up a tree was one thing, but to sense innately how each individual tree ought to look was another. Two to four places on every branch where cuts could be made while balancing the resultant shape for the good of the tree – that was where art met science and technical ability met intuition. That’s where Oliver felt an aboriculturalist’s true skill lay. To make a tree look more like a tree, to return some hacked-about old giant, or some mangy neglected specimen, to the sculptural beauty that was its birthright. Every tree he’d ever worked on, Oliver aimed to leave as an archetype, as if Gainsborough or Poussin or Constable, Cézanne even, might have chosen it as the prime example of its genus to grace their art.

Just as Oliver chose his branches with care, so too did he select his workforce. Boz had a degree in Art History. Spike had exhibited as a sculptor before retraining in Arboriculture. Tinker grew up in Canada, in Jasper, surrounded by trees.

Oliver checked the diary.

‘You two – take the ash near Much Hadham we saw last week. You need to offer the wood to Mrs Cadogan first – if she doesn’t want it, don’t chip it. Bring it back and it can go on the first wood pile there – because?’

‘Because you can burn it green,’ said Boz mechanically, an answer he’d given many times.

‘Good lad. Tinker – you can come with me. It’s the cherry near Hatfield you took the call about.’

‘Laters!’ called Tinker to the other two.

And Oliver thought, Good God, kid – if DeeDee had heard that.

A village green, a single-track road all around it, cottages encircling it with swathes of grass in front of their boundaries. A gathering of oaks to one side, two grand sweet chestnuts on the other side. Small trees – apple, magnolia – in front gardens. A weeping willow in front of the cottages on the far side. And here, on the common ground by two cottages, was the tree Oliver had come to see. It was a breathtaking sight. A magnificent holly-leaved cherry still in full bloom in June.

‘When I have a garden of my own, I’ll plant every type of prunus and have flowers from November to now,’ said Tinker.

‘You’ll never have that garden on the wages I pay you,’ Oliver said with a gentle regret.

They sat in the truck and regarded the tree. People were crossing the green expressly to see it. A mother and two toddlers. An elderly couple. A youth with a fierce-looking hound. Two female pensioners. It was singing out, its blossom festooning the boughs and drifting gently down and around like sugar petals. Catching the sun, caught on the breeze, captivating. A man, with hands on hips, stood at the bottom of one of the cottage driveways.

‘Come on,’ said Oliver, striding off, followed by Tinker. ‘Mr Macintosh?’

‘Do you see?’ called the man from the driveway, long before they were near. ‘Can you see?’

‘It’s some sight,’ said Oliver, ‘Prunus ilicifolia.’

‘It’s new!’ said Mr Macintosh.

‘Sorry?’

‘My jag – it’s new. And look at it!’

Oliver glanced at the new car on the driveway. ‘Very nice,’ he said politely.

‘Look at it!’

‘I was looking at the tree,’ said Oliver.

‘But look at my Jag. Look at what that wretched tree’s done to it. Weeks now. Weeks of this – this stuff.’

Oliver and Tinker dragged their eyes from the tree to observe the car, covered with petals as if it had been decorated for a bridal couple.

‘It’s got to go.’

‘That’s a shame,’ said Tinker. ‘I’d love a Jag.’

‘Couldn’t you park it in your garage?’ Oliver asked.

‘Not the car, man – the tree! I’m not putting the car in the garage – I want to see it every time I look out of my window. I worked my whole life to have a car like that. And I want to see it in British Racing Green – not flaming white bloody mess.’

‘The blossom will only last another week,’ said Oliver, ‘a week or so.’

‘I want that tree gone – it’s a hazard, a menace. It’s dangerous. If it rained, all that blossom underfoot would be slippery. I might fall. I might do my other hip.’

Oliver looked around. Cars had parked along the green, visitors were coming into this village precisely to see the tree and the heavenly blossom. Furthermore, it was set to be a very dry July.

‘Can you take it down now?’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘Well, when can you? I’ll pay now.’

‘I’m not going to take the tree down.’

‘Well, chop off all the branches on this side, then.’

‘That’s not possible. It would damage the tree.’

‘It’s criminal damage! It’s affecting my property.’

‘It’s blossom.’

‘It’s litter – natural litter. That’s what it is. I want the damn tree down.’

DeeDee would say, I want doesn’t get.

‘It’s a healthy tree, it’s a superb specimen and it is not affecting your house.’

‘Well, I’ll tell the council, I will. It’s their bloody thing. It’s on their land. I pay my council tax. They can cut it down. I’ll sue. That’s what.’

And Oliver thought, As soon as we’re back in the car, I’ll phone Martin in planning and I’ll tell him this tree mustn’t come down. That’ll save him a journey.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m photographing the tree,’ said Oliver. ‘I don’t give permission for you to take my picture.’

‘You’re not in the picture.’

‘Why are you photographing that tree? For the council? Yes! Show it to them. They’ll see what I mean.’

‘Not for the council – for my own archives. I’m photographing it because it’s stunning,’ said Oliver. ‘Goodbye, Mr Macintosh. There’s a hand car wash on the way to Asda.’

‘Are you not going to do anything today? Can’t you give it a trim?’

‘No, I can’t, I’m afraid. Paperwork.’

‘Good God! How long will that take?’

‘Difficult to tell,’ Oliver shrugged and walked back to his truck. He and Tinker sat and marvelled a little longer.

‘What a jerk,’ said Tinker.

‘It’s not just extraordinary trees you meet in this job,’ Oliver told him.

Back at the yard later that afternoon, ash branches cut, split and added to the pile of seasoned wood, the team shared tea and anecdotes. Oliver looked around. There was a little clearing up to do, a couple of calls to make, some paperwork.

‘Call it a day, chaps,’ said Oliver. ‘See you at eight tomorrow.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure – Jonty’s playing cricket so I’ll finish off here and then collect him. It’s a strange sight, moochiness and Goth-dark hair – in cricket whites.’

‘Is he good?’

‘He’s not bad at all.’

‘Cool. How’s he doing?’

‘He’s doing well, Boz – thanks for asking.’

‘Is he going to hang out here in the vacation? He was useful last time.’

‘I hope so – though he’ll probably want to renegotiate pay and working conditions.’

‘Good on him.’

‘Don’t put ideas in his head, Spike. Go on, all of you, off you go.’

‘Cheers, boss.’

‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Laters.’

Good God.

But Oliver smiled as they walked off. He could hear them chatting and they weren’t talking about beer and birds. They were talking about cherry trees and gifts.

‘I need to send home a present for my sis. Any ideas?’

‘Go online and do the whole Amazon dot com thing.’

‘Nah. She’s going to be ten. Requires something special.’

‘Gap? Topshop?’

‘I can’t go in there on my own.’

‘Twat.’

‘Cheers, mate.’

‘Try that shop in town? You know the one – That Shop? All the trinketty things in the window?’ Tinker was often teased for the way he made every sentence a question.

‘Oh yeah.’

‘We can go past that way – come on.’

* * *

To Vita, the three young men with a good day’s manual work written all over their tired faces, dusty boots and forearms, were far more incongruous customers than her notorious little old lady, currently rifling through the fruit-shaped scented soaps. When she started the business, Vita swore never to utter the four words sure to dampen the ardour of any unsure shopper, May I help you? She’d researched it – listening in other shops, trying it herself. May I help you? Nine times out of ten, four words sprang an automatic reply. No thanks, just looking. Vita, therefore, devised other techniques, discovering how casual asides worked best. She assessed the posse and tried to work out which one was buying. The tallest one, she reckoned, the one with the curly dark hair and the smudge of something or other on his neck. Yes, the other two appeared to be looking on his behalf while he stood still and scanned the wares as a whole. She put down her book as if it was high time she had a little tidy of the table with the notecards and scented lip balms. As she neared, one of them – the one with the closely cropped hair and goatee – picked up the linen-and-patchwork beanbag mouse.

‘Lovely for a baby,’ she mentioned as she passed by. ‘Organic cotton – and nothing that can be pulled off or swallowed.’

The lad looked at her, jiggled the mouse, put it back down. ‘Oh, it’s not for a baby?’ he said. ‘It’s for his kid sister?’

Aha!

‘How old is his kid sister?’ Vita asked.

‘Boz – she’s ten, isn’t she? Ten, ma’am?’

Vita, who’d never been called ma’am before, was suddenly quite taken with it. ‘Ten, hey? Ten-year-old girls have secrets – and they need places to hide them.’

The other two had gravitated towards her and their mate.

‘Well – I don’t sell secrets, I’m afraid,’ said Vita. They all laughed. ‘But I do have – these.’ She guided them towards the back of the shop, smiling sweetly at the old lady who was pocketing something. ‘Here.’

She showed them the balsa-wood boxes made to look like miniature wardrobes. Each had a drawer under a door, with a proper keyhole and brass key that was ornate and looked old. They were about the size of a shoebox, deceptively light, in paint washes that suggested they’d been found on a sand dune.

‘Yeah!’ said the brother of the birthday girl who she thought was called Bruiser or something. ‘That’ll hit the spot.’ Australian, Vita thought.

‘Ma’am?’ said the American or Canadian who’d first spoken to her. He was talking quietly but urgently. ‘That old woman? She’s – I think – well, she’s kinda taken something? I don’t know what. Would you like me to – you know?’

Vita brushed the air quickly. ‘No, no – she’s fine. I know her.’ She was much more interested in matchmaking a ten-year-old with a gift.

The three young men looked towards the door where the old lady was headed – and then earnestly back at Vita.

‘But she’s—?’

‘Please,’ Vita said, ‘it’s fine. Honestly. Now – about your sister?’

‘It’s awesome, miss,’ said the Bruiser brother. Vita thought she preferred miss to ma’am. ‘I’ll take it. The bluish one, I reckon. What do you think, Tink?’

‘If I was your sis? I’d think you were damn cool, Boz.’

‘Boz,’ said Vita, to herself but out loud.

‘Yeah?’

Vita reddened. ‘It’s just the male customers I usually have are mostly called Felix and Ted and Blaise – names like that. And they’re usually holding their mums’ hands.’

‘It’s short for Robert,’ Boz told her, which he could hear didn’t make any sense so he chuckled.

‘Spike’s short for Michael,’ Boz continued, motioning to the one who had yet to speak. ‘And Tinker – what the fuck is your name, mate?’

Vita thought, I’ll let the swearing go – there’s no one else in the shop and the boxes are quite pricey.

‘Taylor,’ said Tinker and everyone simply nodded.

‘When do you need this for?’ Vita asked. ‘It’s just that I could put your sister’s name on it – hand stencil it – look, like the one in the window.’

The boys murmured their approval.

‘I could have it ready for tomorrow morning And I could gift-wrap it too. After you’ve seen it, of course.’

‘Thanks, miss, that would be awesome.’

‘Excellent. What’s her name?’ And Vita hoped it was something pretty and not a daft nickname.

‘Megan.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Shall I pay now?’

‘Would you mind?’

Boz looked at her as if she was mad. ‘Of course I don’t mind. This is awesome.’

‘See you tomorrow,’ Vita said as she handed back his credit card and receipt.

‘I’ve read that book,’ said Spike, the quiet one, another Aussie, motioning towards Robinson Crusoe. ‘Couldn’t get to grips with Moll Flanders, though.’

After they’d gone, and once the school rush had abated, Vita started stencilling Megan’s name. She’d felt so disorientated after that night recently with Candy and Michelle – but today she felt as though she’d been sent three rugged guardian angels, one of whom was paying her to do something other than think about Tim and Suzie. She rifled through her stencil collection.

‘I’ll add a pattern,’ she said. ‘Free of charge.’ Her evening was sorted. She was relieved. She wrote on a Post-it and stuck it to the box.

Megan

Butterflies?

Vines?