Summer At Willow Tree Farm. Heidi Rice
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didn’t want to bother you with it,’ Dee said easily enough. ‘After all, you and Pam didn’t care for each other.’ The words were said without any censure, but Ellie’s chest tightened.
Pam had tried to get on with her. It was she who had refused point blank to get on with Pam.
She headed round the table, and laid a palm on her mother’s arm. ‘Yes, but you cared about Pam.’ While Ellie might once have managed to convince herself her mother’s affair with another woman was nothing more than a juvenile mid-life crisis, it was hard to escape the fact the two of them had lived together for fifteen years. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
Her mother’s skin felt soft and cool. And the gesture felt awkward, and insincere. Especially when Dee said: ‘Thank you, Ellie. You know, it was Pam who begged me to contact you, to re-establish a relationship with you before she died,’ she added, confirming Ellie’s suspicions. ‘And I’m glad I did. It’s wonderful to finally have you here.’ Dee’s hopeful expression did nothing to ease Ellie’s guilt or her discomfort. Exactly what was her mother expecting from this visit? ‘And I’m so looking forward to getting to know Josh.’ Dee patted her fingers. ‘He seems like a lovely boy. So open and so very American.’
The mention of Josh gave Ellie a jolt. In the shock of seeing Art and the new improved farm and hearing about Laura’s Lib-Dem love shock and Pam’s untimely death, she’d completely forgotten about her son.
‘I’m sure he will. But who was that boy he went off with?’ she asked, her protective-mother instinct charging to the fore.
Actually, it was a bit surprising Josh hadn’t returned already. He wasn’t usually confident with strangers. Especially strange kids. And the boy who had led him off had reminded Ellie of the wild kids who had roamed the commune before. Skinny with a smudge of something on his chin, his short dark hair sticking up, wearing torn jeans and a grubby T-shirt, his eyes too big for his freckled face, the boy had looked decidedly feral.
‘Toto, you mean?’ Her mother smiled as if enjoying a private joke.
‘Yes, Toto, that was it. He said he was taking Josh to their clubhouse. Is it safe?’ She should have asked this before. Josh wasn’t the most agile of children. And she didn’t want him to feel awkward. Or worse, end up in some hideous initiation ceremony. Like she had. ‘Isn’t Toto a dog’s name?’ Why would anyone give their child a name like that?
‘Toto’s short for Antonia.’
‘That boy’s a girl?’ The obese gymnasts relaxed. Surely a tomboy would be less feral than an actual boy.
‘Yes, she’s Art’s daughter.’
The obese gymnasts began doing backflips in Ellie’s stomach.
Less feral, my arse.
‘Dad, Dad, Dad, you’ve gotta come quick.’
‘Damn it!’ Art wheeled back the axe to stop himself from nearly hacking off his foot a second time in one afternoon. ‘Toto, what is wrong with you? Don’t run up and shout at me when I’m chopping.’
But Toto already had her hand buried in his overalls to drag him who knew where. ‘You’ve got to come. Josh is stuck up a tree and he’s going to die if you don’t rescue him.’
He placed the axe by the tree stump and gripped his daughter’s shoulders to stop them shaking, from either exertion or terror, it was hard to tell.
‘Calm down. Who’s Josh and what tree is he stuck up?’ They’d deal with the dying bit in a minute.
‘Josh is the new kid.’ Toto gasped between breaths. ‘Dee’s grandson.’
Crap. Just what he needed, Ellie’s kid breaking his neck after they’d been here exactly half an hour. She was just the type to sue them into the ground for child endangerment.
‘What tree’s he stuck up?’
Toto tried to drag him towards the woods. ‘The Clubhouse tree.’
‘Can’t he just climb down again?’ he said. ‘There’s a ladder. I built the thing myself.’
‘No, it’s the ladder he’s stuck on.’
‘How can he be stuck on the ladder?’ Had the thing broken? The cost of the lawsuit spiralled up.
‘I don’t know,’ Toto wailed. ‘He just did. And now he can’t get down and he’s afraid and he could fall. And he’s way way up, right near the top. If he falls, it’s gonna hurt.’
She yanked his overalls. Grasping her wrist, he lifted her fingers off. ‘Stop tugging me. I’ll go sort it out.’
Toto tried to shoot off ahead of him, but he grabbed her arm.
‘Dad! Don’t hold me. I need to run back; he’ll be scared without me.’
‘I’ll go. You need to go tell his mum what’s going on.’ He’d be more than happy never to have Ellie know about this, but just in case her son did end up injuring himself, it was the only responsible thing to do. ‘And show her where the tree is.’
Toto nodded. ‘Oh, OK.’ But, as she tried to dart off towards the farmhouse, he yanked her to a halt again.
‘But do me a favour.’
‘Yes, Dad?’ She waited for his instructions, total and utter trust radiating from her.
And he got light-headed.
He knew Toto’s complete faith in him was unlikely to last much longer, but it was still a heady feeling for a man who had spent the first twenty-one years of his life convinced he could never do anything right. He’d strived for the last thirteen years never to abuse Toto’s trust, but he was going to have to blur the lines a bit today, to ward off a punitive lawsuit.
‘Take your time getting Josh’s mum to the Clubhouse,’ he said. ‘I want to have Josh down before she gets there.’
‘OK, Dad.’ Toto nodded, her acceptance of the instruction unquestioning as she sped off to find Ellie.
He jogged off towards the forest, hoping like hell the boy hadn’t already fallen off the tree and broken his bloody neck.
It took him less than five minutes to get to the Clubhouse. A simple A-frame design he’d built two summers ago in a hundred-year-old horse chestnut near the edge of the coppice woods with Toto’s help – or rather hindrance. He hadn’t given much thought at the time to the access. Toto could climb like a monkey and would probably have been able to get up the damn tree without the aid of the boards he’d nailed into the trunk. And as the thing had been built precisely so she’d have a refuge from the younger kids when she needed it, the ladder, such as it was, had been an afterthought.
He regretted that decision big time when he spotted Ellie’s son stapled to the trunk – a good twenty-five feet off the ground.
How had he got up that high before he froze?
And how was he going to get the kid down? Although the boy wasn’t exactly light for his age – he looked about twice as wide as Toto – Art would probably still have been able to sling him over his shoulder. But no way would those boards take the weight of both of them, assuming of course the kid would let him carry him. From the death grip he had on the board, Art figured he was going to have a hell of a time even getting the boy to let go.
Which left only one solution. He would have to talk him down.
Wonderful. Because he was so good at conversation.
‘Hey!’ he shouted up and then winced, as the boy nodded, butting his forehead into the trunk with a hollow smack. ‘It’s Josh’ isn’t it?’
‘Yes,