Chances

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?’