Chances (14 page)

‘Steady there,’ said Oliver. ‘Come and sit down.’

He guided her a pace or so away to a section of tree-trunk that had had a large wedge cut out of it to make a chair. They all gathered round.

‘You made that beautiful box for my sister – do you remember?’ But she couldn’t see who was talking. Oliver had eased her head forwards and down to her knees, his hand still between her shoulder blades.

‘Yes,’ she managed to mumble, relating the Aussie accent, the rugged work boots that she could see in front of her, to the item sold. ‘Megan,’ she said.

‘You got it!’ He sounded thrilled.

‘Stencils,’ she whispered.

They let her sit there, Oliver now talking to them quietly about the day’s workload, going through a checklist, asking someone to answer the phone which had started to ring. ‘Can you fetch a glass of water, Jonty darling?’

That sounded odd to Vita. Gay tree surgeons, or lovey lumberjacks or something. But she didn’t dwell on it. Just then she really did want a drink of water.

‘Here you go, Miss,’ said Jonty darling, pushing the glass into her hands. ‘Here you go, Dad.’

Ah. A son, not a lover.

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled, not daring to look up just yet. She still felt discombobulated. Focusing on the sets of boots was steadying. She didn’t want anyone to move.

‘Guys – you head off. I’ll just –’ Oliver thought about it. Mad Miss Maybridge to phone back, and mad Miss Whitbury right here in his yard. ‘I’ll just – tidy up here. Jonty, go with Tinker. Boz and Spike – you know where you’re going. I’ll follow on in a little while.’

Vita felt revived enough to feel riled again. Oliver had shown her into his office where she’d been sitting quietly sipping water, while he made a phone call to a woman whose voice came through the telephone tinny and irate. Perhaps he does this daily, she thought, imagining the caller to have a killer pear tree too. She looked around her. The office itself was just a prefab though from the interior it was well disguised. Two of the walls were given to shelves crammed with books and files on trees. The third wall was papered almost entirely with a giant map of the immediate region and neighbouring counties. A large window took up most of the fourth wall, looking out over the yard. Oliver’s desk, spanning almost the entire width, was a mighty slab of some wood or other – a longitudinal slice of what appeared to be an entire trunk. The surface undulated subtly and conveniently, providing a flat area where the computer sat stable while another section dipped and rose providing an ergonomic angle for writing or reading. There were two circular dints just the right depth and diameter to keep mugs steady; also a long slim furrow in which various pens and pencils nestled. As Oliver spoke on the phone, he subconsciously stroked the wood. It was amber in colour, with striations and whorls the colour of burnt toffee. It was perfectly balanced on four chunks of tree, of varying heights and breadths. It was beautiful. But Vita stopped herself being seduced, thinking instead, Well, here’s a tree he was certainly happy to chop down. The room was quiet and she realized with a jolt that the phone call had already ended and Oliver was observing her thoughtfully.

‘Well, Miss Whitbury, how are you feeling now?’

With Oliver being genuinely friendly, it was difficult for Vita to sharpen the edge she’d intended for her voice.

‘I’m cooler,’ she said, ‘thank you.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Can I give you a lift anywhere? I need to set off.’

‘No, thank you.’

He stood and stretched. ‘Well, thanks for dropping by – I’m glad you’re OK.’ And then he was ushering her out of the office. Hang on a tick, she thought, I might have come here to say what I wanted – but where’s my answer? Oliver, however, was already locking the office door.

‘Excuse me!’ she said. ‘Thank you for the water and the sit-down and everything – but I came here to ask about my tree.’ She felt suddenly tired. A little defeated. Her voice wasn’t as strong as she’d’ve liked.

He turned and faced her and looked directly at her and, without warning, Vita felt as though she was being lifted by a wave. It was instant, beautiful, unnerving, confusing. In a split second she had to think, Don’t look at his face. And then she had to think, Don’t look at his arms. And then she had to think, Not the eyes. Concentrate on the logo on his T-shirt instead.

What just happened? What
was
that?

Hate him, remember! Get angry!

‘What would you like to know?’

Do. Not. Look. At. His. Face.

Remember why you’re here!

She pressed down on the sting on her thumb, as if it was a trigger point.

‘My tree,’ she said. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘I was doing my job,’ he shrugged. ‘I was doing the right thing.’

‘But why did you make it seem that you were on my side? When you came to my house and did all that chatting and ate my biscuits and seemed sorry for my wasp stings and told me about wallabies and parrots and God knows what?’ She’d intended to sound justifiably indignant but she could hear she sounded feeble, even whiny.

‘I sympathized,’ he said carefully, ‘but I have a duty. And I had to advise the council as I see best, according to my expertise. I have an obligation – professional, legal, moral. I’m sorry. I know it’s not the outcome you were looking for – but I hope you might find a way to tolerate the seasonal inconveniences that come with the tree.’

‘You sound like you’re reading from a script.’

He laughed, though he could see Vita didn’t think it remotely funny. ‘I’ve been protecting trees all my working life – some phrases just trip off the tongue.’

‘Then it was a load of old bullshit you delivered at mine the other week.’

‘I’m sorry you see it that way.’

‘What
can
I do?’

‘When it’s the right time, I’ll come and prune it for you.’

‘And what if I get someone else?’

‘With a TPO on the tree, there are restrictions and procedures.’

‘And what if I ignore them? What if, accidentally on purpose, the tree is chopped down by someone else?’

‘I know someone who was taken to court – and fined twenty thousand pounds. Good God, woman – you sound faintly ridiculous. It’s a tree. For a couple of months a year, you’ll have parrots and pears and pests.’

In the time she’d been in the yard, she’d been called a lady, a miss and a woman. And yet there was something in Oliver’s inflection –
Good God, woman
. It was exasperation, certainly, but what else? Was it amusement? No. His tone was softened by something else, by a tiny hint of tenderness. Just then, Oliver was unaware of it and, just then, Vita couldn’t countenance it so she swiftly reinterpreted it as patronizing.

‘And do you have a pear tree in your garden?’ she asked.

He looked at her as if it was a stupid question.

‘And if you did, I’ll bet your back garden is so huge you wouldn’t notice.’

What a ridiculous thing to say.

‘The size of my back garden is somewhat irrelevant,’ Oliver said, wondering where on earth this conversation was going and why he was choosing to have it instead of going directly to where he was late for already. What was it with this woman that was keeping him standing here, arguing the toss over goodness knows what? The pear tree stays! Get over it!

‘It’s ruining my life!’

‘That’s a little melodramatic,’ he said, thankful she wasn’t wearing her tent as, with her temper rising, he really didn’t have time for her to wilt again.

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Vita said. ‘You haven’t had the year I’ve had – I didn’t want to live there in the first place, I was perfectly happy in the home I shared with my ex-boyfriend. Before it all went pear-shaped.’ She paused. Of all the inappropriate puns to choose. ‘I had to ask my mum for money – at the age of thirty-three.’ That sounded pathetic. ‘I’ve been sleep deprived and stung to death and now I am going to be a prisoner in my home all sodding summer.’ That was downright histrionic, but she was past caring.

Sounds a breeze – my wife died. I’ve rarely been out in our garden since her funeral almost three years ago.

But Oliver said nothing. He just looked at Vita levelly before walking to his Land Rover and climbing in. He started the engine, moved off slowly, stopping just near her. The window was down and he leant out to speak to her.

‘Poison it,’ he said nonchalantly.

‘What?’

‘A hefty dose of sodium chlorate should do it. Or bank up a heap of sharp sand against it – it’ll take longer, but it’ll kill it. Alternatively, saw right through the bark all the way around the base of the trunk – that will stop the tree being able to absorb enough water. Certain death.’

She couldn’t answer, partly because she was ashamed that, in the first instance, she had actually embraced his advice as plausible; initially deaf to the tone in which it had been said.

He watched her in his rear-view mirror as she stropped away from the yard in the opposite direction from him. Madwoman, he thought. But he started smiling too. And when he then said,
Madwoman
out loud, he laughed a little.

He didn’t comment much when the others later joshed about the antics at the yard that morning. He just told them that the world was full of peculiar people – and most of them appeared to live in the vicinity. But he did think about Vita that afternoon; she came into his mind without invitation yet he didn’t see her off. They weren’t thoughts, really. Just images and replay which drifted into his mind and floated out again so he didn’t have to catch them and take a closer look.

‘Thanks Jodie,’ Vita said. It was after lunch by the time she made it in to the shop.

‘You’re really late – do I get overtime for these hours then?’

‘No, you don’t!’ Vita said. ‘You can come in an hour late on Saturday or leave an hour early. I don’t care.’

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Jodie always jumped narkily to the defensive.

‘I’ve had a shit morning, all right? Go, just go.’

‘Stroppy,’ Jodie said under her breath. She’d always been faintly disrespectful to Vita yet rather obsequious to Tim and just today Vita wondered why she put up with it. Jodie went without another word. Vita checked the till. Jodie had sold two candles and a packet of paper napkins. And she hadn’t bloody tidied the back bloody shelves that Vita had reminded her about this morning, having first asked her to do it last Saturday. And there were crumbs on the table. And the paper coffee cup was in the bin with a dribble of liquid seeping out into the wicker. And when the door opened half an hour later, the customer who came in was the septuagenarian kleptomaniac.

Vita watched her surreptitiously for a few moments but the woman seemed slower today, a little distracted, so while she stared at the silk flowers, Vita returned to her book. She’d never read Evelyn Waugh but she was loving
A Handful of Dust
, finding it so involving that, when her phone rang, she answered it without seeing who was calling.

‘Vita.’

Oh God, Tim. Not Tim. Not today.

‘Vita?’

‘Yes.’

‘How are things?’

‘Fine.’

‘At the shop?’

‘Yes, I’m at the shop. Checking up on me?’

‘Sorry – I meant how are things
at the shop
.’

Tim? Saying sorry?

‘The shop’s fine.’

‘Cool.’ He sounded out of sorts. Nervous, almost.

‘It’s busy – I should go.’

‘And you?’

‘Me what?’

‘Are you fine?’

‘What? I’m fine, I’m fine. Everything’s fine, Tim. I should go.’

‘Wait! I just – Vita. Just a moment.’

She waited. It was a heavy moment. ‘Look – what are you doing – tonight? Or tomorrow? Or whenever?’

Vita was now very unsettled. ‘Sorry?’

‘I just wondered – whether we could meet. For a drink. Or a meal. Or a walk.’

A walk?
Tim?

‘Why?’ It had to be a trick question. ‘I just want to talk?’

‘To talk?’ Oh shit. She anticipated the dreaded declaration about Suzie. ‘What about? Say it now.’ What’s a bit more shit shovelled onto the pile of it that’s been my day so far.

‘I wanted to talk. To you. I’ve been thinking about you recently.’

Just a couple of months ago, such words would have filled Vita’s heart and swelled her head with hope. Now she was bemused and she let him know it. With the residual anger from the morning still spiking her blood, she found her voice. ‘Well, you shouldn’t be thinking about me – you should be thinking about your girlfriend. You shouldn’t be thinking about me at all – Suzie should be in your head if she’s the one in your bed. Suzie’s your girlfriend, not me. Think about
her
.’ There. She’d said the name out loud.

‘Suzie?’ It was unnerving, hearing her name spoken by Vita.

‘Yes,’ said Vita, ‘Suzie. The same Suzie, Tim. The one with the job promotion from secret shag to girlfriend. The one who answers your phone and gives me a bollocking.’

‘Who – she did
what
?’

Oh shit, Vita thought. Bang goes my healthy deposit in Candy’s Bank of Karma.

‘Fuck Suzie!’

‘It was precisely that,’ Vita said darkly, ‘which made me leave you.’

‘OK, OK,’ he said, ‘enough.’ He paused. Started again with the soft and tender voice. A little hoarse – a paleness she hadn’t heard before. ‘Vita. Vita.’ He paused again. ‘I just want to talk. Babes, I miss you.’

And that was when Vita saw the old woman pocketing the bird.

‘Oh for God’s sake will you just stop it!’

For a moment, Tim thought this was directed at him. The old woman had no reason to believe it was directed at her – not after the years in which she’d been all but invited to filch. ‘Tim, I have to go.’

Vita leapt down from the stool. ‘You! Yes,
you
!’ She marched over to the old woman. ‘I’m having a horrible day and this just about takes the biscuit. Just put it back. Put it back – now.’ She held out her hand. The woman turned away but Vita caught her arm. God, it felt thin, brittle, under the blouse.

‘Lassie – I haven’t a thing.’

Vita rarely heard her voice. It was soft, light. There was an accent. But she wasn’t going to let it fool her.

‘You have plenty of my things,’ Vita said, ‘and you’ve just put one in your bag.’

‘I haven’t a thing,’ the woman sounded bereft.

‘I turn a blind eye,’ Vita said, loosening her grip but not letting go. ‘I let you pilfer and purloin and you don’t just take and take my stuff, you take
me
totally for granted. Now put the bloody thing back and just buzz off.’

The old woman looked shocked, as if there’d been some terrible mistake, but Vita wasn’t having it. ‘It’s in your bag,’ she said. ‘I saw you put it there.’

Slowly, meekly, the woman opened her bag and held it out towards Vita. ‘It’s so pretty,’ she said sorrowfully, by way of an explanation.

Amongst scrunched-up paper tissues, opened tubes of Polo mints with the foil in long frayed twists, tattered shop receipts, an old pair of spectacles with black-winged frames and a bulging purse, nestled one of the hand-painted stoneware blue tits. They were expensive; so delicately sculpted, such attention to detail and more popular than the chaffinches and sparrows in the series.

‘Dear little thing,’ the lady said, placing it gently in the centre of Vita’s palm, stroking the head with her forefinger, her skin so papery it seemed semi-transparent. And then she left the shop a little more stooped than when she’d entered; smaller than Vita had thought.