Chapter 2
TWO
Present Day
It’s a beautiful summer’s day, and Mother Nature is having a full-on dance party.
The sky is alive with twittering birdsong and insects humming and buzzing, and bright sunlight is dappling through the canopy in slabs and stripes of vivid gold.
The forest floor is awash with the bright yellow sheen of buttercups, the dense undergrowth scattered with swathes of majestic foxgloves and the creamy-pink trumpets of honeysuckle.
The sea is a sparkling turquoise stretching to infinity, the lapping waves are a background lullaby, and all is well with the world.
Or at least, all would be well with the world if I wasn’t stuck up this stupid tree.
Has it got bigger since I was last here?
Or have I just got smaller? Is it possible that both could be true?
Is this even the same tree? Am I even the same person?
Did someone spike my camomile tea last night, because everything is feeling a little bit wonky… ?
I experimentally poke my foot downwards, wondering if my Converse will reach the branch below if I just stretch a little bit more.
If I will my legs to be just a few inches longer…
My backside slips abruptly, sending a pretty intoxicating rush of adrenalin through my body.
Yikes. I used to like those surges, but I could really do without it right now.
My stomach is already churning for so many different reasons.
I grab hold of the tree trunk and give it a hug. ‘Nice tree,’ I say to it soothingly. ‘Good tree. Don’t let me fall to my death, okay?’
I stay silent for a few seconds, but the tree doesn’t answer.
Which is probably a good thing. It’s been many years since my more experimental days, the ones that included hippie music festivals and gatherings on beaches in far-flung corners of the world.
Back in that era, a talking tree really wouldn’t have been that out of the ordinary.
Now, though? It would be alarming, I think.
I manage to carefully and gingerly lower myself to the next bough, though there is a moment of utter terror where I’m holding on by my arms but my feet are floating in space.
Okay, I tell myself. I can do this. One step at a time, I can do this.
This tree and me are old friends, even if I have neglected it for a while.
I haven’t called, I haven’t written, I haven’t popped in for a coffee…
in fact that last time I was up here was on the day of my mum’s funeral. Sixteen years ago.
I sat up here after the service with a hip flask of brandy and said my very own farewell to the woman who gave me life, gave me freedom, and gave me unconditional love. Who gave me so much I simply couldn’t imagine a life without her in it.
A few days later, I was gone. Dad was a mess, but he had Sandy and Simon, and Connie and the kids.
He had the whole of Starshine to look out for him, they all did.
The communal hive mind always stepped up a gear in times of need, and frankly it scared the living daylights out of me.
I know it was supposed to be comforting, and for most people it would be – but for me, it felt like being back in that box that didn’t fit, the air being squeezed out of my lungs.
Without my mum here, I had no reason to stay.
Besides, I’d promised her. I promised her it wouldn’t break me, that I’d carry on with my adventures.
I did my best. I certainly had more adventures, ones I still used to chat to her about long after she was gone.
I’d find a tree like this to sit in, or a wildflower meadow to lie in, or a secluded beach topped with a blanket of stars, and I’d share my stories and tell my anecdotes and imagine that she was up there somewhere, laughing along with me.
I did my very best not to be broken, but I’m really not sure I managed it.
I’m definitely a bit cracked at the very least. Is being back here going to help, or make it worse?
I have no idea. I might not even make it out of this tree in one piece, which could work.
Maybe if I fall, and end up in a coma, I could have a fresh start – a nice convenient dose of amnesia so I wouldn’t have to face up to everything that I know lies a few minutes ahead of me, in the village where I was born.
I wriggle down one more branch, scraping some skin off my back as I go.
Okay. So I’m only about ten feet off the floor now.
I could probably jump that if I need to, though I’d be risking a jarred ankle.
I take a little breather, remembering that time she joined me up here during my Great Millennium Sulk.
She was older than I am now, but scampered right on up to be close.
To listen to me complain. To be the best mum in the world.
I shut my eyes, wishing I could conjure her up – that she was sitting on the other side of the trunk, so I could reach out and hold her hand.
I start to sing – ‘1999’ by Prince – and smile at the memory. I didn’t have her for long enough, but at least I had her. Not everybody is quite so lucky, I know.
‘Right,’ I say out loud. ‘Time to get down now. I got up here, so I can get back down.’
Except, as anybody who has ever climbed a tree can testify, it never works out quite that simply for some reason.
The gaps between these boughs and branches most definitely seems to have widened in the last hour, and I don’t seem quite able to use that logic or bluster my way down with any ease at all.
I’m dangling from one of the branches, feet scurrying for a decent hold beneath me, praying to the god of the Forest, when I hear footsteps crunching over the twig-laden ground below.
It scares me so much I almost lose my grip because, back in my day, hardly anybody was ever in these woods.
They were still super quiet when I first got here, and I assumed that nothing had changed.
Which was, I guess, a bit arrogant of me – to assume they were still my woods, that this was still my tree, after all these years away.
‘Are you okay?’ comes a voice, floating up towards me. I can’t risk looking down, because I’m already pretty much gravity’s bitch right now, and any extra movement might knock me off balance.
‘Oh yes. I’m fine, thank you!’ I shout back. ‘Just, uh, hanging out!’
A pause, and I desperately try to shuffle my fingers a little tighter around the branch, feeling a splinter slide beneath my skin. I hate splinters. They’re stupidly distressing for such tiny things.
‘If you swing your feet to the left, there’s an upward curve to the branch you should be able to catch hold of. Or, you know, just jump, and I’ll catch you?’
I feel like an idiot, truthfully. I’m a forty-three-year-old woman dangling from an oak tree pretending I’m doing it on purpose, when it’s blatantly obvious that I’m stuck. Ah, well. I’ve done far more idiotic things than this in my life. No point trying to change now.
‘Okay. Uh, thanks – I’ll get back to you on that!’
I take a deep breath and build up a little careful momentum, then swing to the left as he suggested.
I feel a surge of triumph as the soles of my shoes finally make contact, and then edge my hands along to run parallel so I’m not twisted up like a pretzel.
I carefully lower myself down to sitting, seeing when I let my legs dangle that I genuinely could just drop down now.
I can also see my tree-climbing guardian angel from this position and, I can’t lie, it’s not an unappealing view.
He’s standing down on the path that runs alongside the woods, looking up at me with a confused frown on his face.
This is often the effect I have on people and I don’t let it faze me.
One of the biggest gifts my mum ever gave me was that one sentence: you don’t have to be normal, you just have to be you.
‘You all right now?’ he asks, taking in my swinging legs and messy red hair and the graphic T-shirt that says Capricorn Girl on it. Ha! Little does he know I’m actually an Aquarius, and this was just something I picked up at a vintage fair because I liked the illustration.
‘I think so,’ I reply slowly, returning his inspection with some added interest. He’s tall, broad-shouldered but lean in the way of a man who uses his body rather than sculpts it in the gym.
His face is striking, with high cheekbones and a strong nose, wide lips, and cool green eyes that match the forest around us.
His hair is cropped short, fair and sun-streaked as though he’s spent a lot of time in hot places.
My sort of age, give or take five years either side.
He looks slightly mysterious, not the kind of guy you’d normally encounter in a little village in Dorset.
‘Are you going to jump the rest of the way?’ he asks, gesturing to the ground with a nod. He looks more curious than concerned. ‘Because if I have to catch you, I’ll need some warning.’
‘Rude! I’m not that big!’
Amusement flashes across his face for a second but doesn’t quite result in him cracking a smile.
‘I meant so I could put my rucksack down.’
‘Ah. I see. I forgive you then.’
His rucksack is very large. It would probably technically described as ‘bloody ginormous’ in fact, and I see a bedroll and a tent as part of the trappings.
He’s one of those snail people who carry their whole lives around on their backs.
As opposed to me – mine is in my almost clapped-out VW Beetle, which I abandoned at the edge of the woods.
She’s called Bettina and dates back to 1978.
We met in Morocco five years ago, and I only bought her as some kind of homage to my mum.
She’s done some hard miles with me in the last few years.