‘You bought a Christmas tree farm like it was a pair of shoes?’
‘No, I used my experience of buying shoes to win an auction. Not that it has anything to do with you, obviously.’
His eyebrows rise and he has the decency to look a bit guilty. ‘No, of course it doesn’t. I was only trying to figure out how insane my new neighbour might be.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t accost a complete stranger on the road and start telling them what they’re allowed to do with their money and make judgements about how they intend to run their property.’
‘People around here are going to comment, you may as well get used to it.’ He lets out an annoyed huff. ‘You bought a Christmas tree farm, with no experience of the industry, because you were drunk? What did you expect? Did you think you could stand back and watch the trees fell themselves, net themselves, and toddle off to market on their own?’
‘Maybe. Well, apart from the toddling bit. If Christmas trees were going to move independently, it would be more of a leaping sprint, don’t you think?’
I can tell he’s trying not to smile. His piercing shifts as his lip twitches. And then he shakes himself and frowns again. ‘This could be someone’s life, someone’s livelihood. Peppermint Branches was important once, it really mattered to the community of Elffield, and you think you can snap it up on a drunken whim and lark about here until, what, the heels of your designer boots sink into the first cowpat, and then you can sell it on to the next idiot who comes along?’
‘These are Primark, not designer.’
He looks down at my feet. ‘I don’t know what that means.’
I go to start explaining but stop myself. I don’t think a Scottish pumpkin farmer is interested in the pros and cons of high-street brands. ‘I don’t want to sell it on,’ I say instead. All right, it’s not what I expected, but I wanted to do something that made me stop feeling like I was standing still waiting for the grief of my parents death to dissipate. ‘Why can’t I learn how to run a Christmas tree farm? When I started data inputting, I had no idea what I was doing, but I learnt. No one starts a job knowing exactly what’s what. This is a job like any other.’
‘This isn’t just a job. This is a life. Living and working on a place like this is all-consuming. This isn’t an office that you leave behind at 5 p.m. every night. You live it, day in, day out, 365 days a year, and no, you don’t get Christmas off. You don’t get holidays and pensions and medical insurance. You spend every day trying to keep these trees alive. You don’t look like the kind of person who’d be very good at keeping things alive.’
‘I think a séance might be the only way to help these. They’re already dead, look at them.’
He glances towards the area of dead branches on the opposite side of the road. ‘I wouldn’t worry about those, they’re the windbreaker fields. The northern fields are healthier. Marginally.’
‘Northern fields?’
‘Oh, for god’s sake.’ He gives me a withering look. ‘You don’t even know what you’ve bought, do you? You have a northern and southern patch of land. South.’ He throws a hand out towards the patch of dead-to-dying trees in front of us like I’m an imbecile. ‘Road.’ He stamps his foot on the tarmac like I don’t know what a road is. ‘House. Beyond house, trees. Yours.’
‘You Tarzan, me Jane?’ I say in an attempt at humour.
It goes down like a lead brick with an elephant tied to it. Probably just as well. The image of him in nothing but a loincloth is a bit too much for me.
‘You don’t know the first thing about trees, do you?’
‘Well, I …’
He points to a large green thing behind me, one of the only green trees in sight. ‘What type of tree is that?’
I squint at it. Is this a trick question? I pluck a species name out of thin air and hope for the best. ‘Fir?’
‘Cedar.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘Cedrus Libani, actually. But I’m sure you knew that.’
‘Oh, right. Of course. I knew that, I was just making sure that you weren’t bluffing.’
‘And what’s that tree dying of?’ He points in the opposite direction towards a sad looking spindly thing that probably had leaves on both sides once.
It’s another trick question. It doesn’t look like there’s any dying about it, it’s almost certainly already completed the process. ‘Creeping brown deadness?’
‘Aye.’ He gives me a scathing smile. ‘Otherwise known as windburn. It happens when the wind pulls water out of the needles faster than the roots can replace it. I can see this is going to go really well.’
‘But I can learn this stuff. You weren’t born knowing this, you learnt it.’
‘Over years of living here. I grew up on a farm. From the age of ten, I came over here every weekend to help Mr Evergreene. You’re not going to pick it up after five minutes with a How to Identify Trees book. It takes more than Trees For Dummies.’
I make a mental note to check whether he’s being sarcastic or if this book actually exists. Trees For Dummies sounds like just the ticket.
Also, Mr Evergreene – seriously? ‘There’s no way that was the previous owner’s name. You’re making that up. Who runs the local garage – Mr Petrol? How about the manager of the nearest supermarket – Mr Tesco, is it? If there’s a bakery owned by Mr Croissant, I want to go there.’
‘Peppermint Branches is an amazing place,’ he continues, ignoring me. ‘A special place, a beautiful tree farm that was once famous and could be again if it had someone to take care of it and restore it to its former glory.’
His green-blue eyes are fiery with passion. He must really love this place. ‘I could do that. Why couldn’t I do that?’
‘You know what, rather than answering that question, I’m starting to think I should go home and let you figure it out for yourself. I predict it’s going to be fun to watch.’
‘You could give me some advice rather than trying to make me feel stupid,’ I snap. ‘I want to restore it to its former glory. I want to make it a functioning Christmas tree farm again. You seem to know so much about it, tell me where I need to go to learn how. Tell me what books I need to read, what websites I should visit. Tell me what its former glory was like and how I can restore it.’
‘Why? So you can do two weeks here, realise it’s too difficult, and swan off back to London?’
‘I’m not going to do that. I’m committed to this. I want to make a go of it.’
‘I’ve heard that before. It lasts until you spoilt city women get bored of not having the luxuries of designer shops and posh restaurants at your fingertips.’
I want to ask him where he’s heard that before and why he sounds so bitter, but I get the feeling he doesn’t like me very much and would tell me to mind my own business. ‘Have you seen some of the
