Love Among the Treetops: A feel good holiday read for summer 2018

‘So I have a friend who’s spearheading a “Get Hart’s End Fit!” campaign. I assume you live around here?’ She includes me in this query.

I nod. ‘My parents live in Hart’s End.’

‘Lake Heath,’ says Theo, naming a neighbouring village a few miles from Hart’s End, further along the track.

‘Well, my friend wants as many people as possible to take part in a 10k run she’s organising for charity.’ She gives Theo a coy look. ‘And you’re obviously very fit.’

‘Well … I don’t know about that.’

‘Oh, but you must be. Running all those marathons.’

‘I suppose …’

‘And those lovely, hard muscles must be the result of an awful lot of weight training,’ she says, gazing admiringly at his arms.

I want to snicker, she says it so flirtatiously. But Mr Needlepoint seems to be lapping it up.

‘So will you do it?’ she asks.

He smiles. ‘Sure. When is it?’

She gets up. ‘I’ve got some leaflets in my bag.’ Returning, she hands him one, then looks doubtfully at me. ‘Would you be interested?’ Her icy gaze slides over me then lingers on my arms and their distinct lack, in my short-sleeved top, of any obvious muscle definition.

I almost laugh out loud. ‘Er, I don’t think so.’ I mean, I’m all for charity fund-raising, but running when you don’t have to? Isn’t that a bit perverse? No, the only exercise I get these days is transporting tins of cake mix from the bench to the oven, and that’s quite enough for me, thank you very much!

Her eyes are full of disapproval so I lean closer and murmur in a confidential manner: ‘Mind you, I did get on the exercise bike the other day. For a whole forty-five minutes!’ I smile modestly. ‘Next time, though, I’m going to try making the pedals go round.’

There’s an awkward silence as Olivia stares at me in a bemused fashion, not getting the joke at all, and I feel an embarrassed heat washing up my neck. Thankfully Mr Needlepoint lets out a burst of laughter. At which point Olivia, presumably taking her cue from him, makes her mouth smile as if she’s terribly amused, too. Which she quite clearly isn’t.

‘But listen, Dawn, exercise is extremely important to overall fitness,’ she says, eyeballing me urgently, as if I’m in danger of keeling over from ill health at any second.

‘It’s Twilight. And I have got stamina,’ I tell her confidently.

‘Oh?’ She frowns, clearly thrown by this unexpected nugget.

‘Yes, tons of it.’ I once heard my dad telling a neighbour that while my running technique might not be the best, I did at least have great stamina. Admittedly, I was only seven at the time and the race in question was a modest egg and spoon. But for some reason, this idea stuck and has since become part of family folklore. (I imagine my descendants, years from now, being impressed to learn of their great-great-grandmother’s quite astonishing reserves of stamina.)

‘Right. Good.’ Olivia moves swiftly on. ‘And obviously clean eating is also absolutely vital to good health. Do you eat clean food?’

I’m a bit taken aback. What on earth is she suggesting? ‘Well, I always wash my strawberries.’

Theo laughs, obviously thinking I’m cracking another joke.

Olivia shakes her head. ‘No, no, no. I’m talking about a clean diet. No processed junk. Just fresh food and preferably raw, whenever possible. Actually, it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle. I never touch sugar these days. Or gluten. Or dairy. Ugh!’ She gives a little shiver of disgust. ‘Clean eating is absolutely the way forward for a healthy mind, body and soul. Wouldn’t you agree?’ She addresses Mr Needlepoint. Obviously. Because why would a chunky, doughnut-scoffing no-hoper like me have anything interesting to say on the matter?

Theo clears his throat. ‘Well, I’m not convinced cutting out whole food groups is necessarily a good idea, but you can’t go wrong with plenty of exercise and your five-a-day.’ He glances at me for confirmation.

Obligingly, I nod and say the first thing that comes into my head. ‘Five-a-day. Absolutely. Wouldn’t touch cake with a bargepole.’

There’s a flicker of approval in Olivia’s eyes – then she lights on my open notebook. ‘What’s this?’ Picking it up, she reads aloud from my list. ‘Sultana scones with raspberry jam and whipped cream (extra thick).’ She gazes at me in mild alarm then goes back to the list, reading each item in a tone of increasing disbelief. ‘Traditional butter cake, layered with white icing and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. Buttery cherry and coconut cake. Gooey double chocolate fudge cake with a topping of milk chocolate ganache, decorated with chocolate buttons.’ She looks as if she’s about to faint.

Theo is trying not to grin but failing miserably. I wish this Olivia person would just bugger off. I’m feeling about three inches tall and very guilty, which is ridiculous. It’s a café menu, for goodness’ sake. Not what I’m planning to have for my dinner later.

‘Right, well, each to his own, I suppose.’ She drops the notebook as if it’s contaminated and stands up, brushing imaginary fluff from her impossibly neat rear end. ‘Personally, I always carry an emergency salad,’ she confides, reaching into her handbag with a satisfied smile. She draws out a small Tupperware box and snaps it open. ‘Celery anyone?’

It seems only polite to take some. ‘Nice.’ I nod, crunching my bite-sized stick. Actually, I’m not joking. It tastes deliciously fresh.

‘Organic,’ she says, offering the box to Theo, who declines with a polite smile.

As she leaves, she glances over her shoulder (obviously not at me) and purrs, ‘Do phone if you’ve any questions about the 10k. My number’s on the back of the leaflet.’

Theo assures her he certainly will and even gives her a cheerful little wink. I conclude he probably fancies her. And let’s face it, it would be a bit rude not to. Olivia is blonde, willowy slim and very pretty. She could be a model.

I bet Theo gets in touch with Olivia, 10k or not. I stare out of the window, wondering why I feel deflated.

The fields and houses rattle past and I think about Mum and Dad in London, facing the biggest hurdle of their lives.

‘The trouble with celery,’ murmurs Theo suddenly, ‘is that it’s ninety-five per cent water and one hundred per cent not pizza.’ I look over and he bestows a wink on me, too, which cheers me up no end.

He gets back to his adventures with crochet and I apply myself with renewed enthusiasm to expanding the list of mouth-watering carbs in my notebook.

But the gentle rocking of the train is dangerously soporific. The words in blue Biro keep blurring into one – ‘chocolate honeycomb slice’ merging with ‘buttery cherry and coconut cake’.

I haven’t slept properly for weeks. I’ve been waking monotonously regularly at some ghastly pre-dawn hour, my brain leaping instantly into worry mode. If I were to close my eyes now, I’d probably end up in Lake Heath, which is the end of the line. I need to stay awake.

In less than half an hour, I’ll be alighting at Hart’s End Station and walking back into the old family home, with all its familiar nooks and crannies and memories. But with one big difference.

There’ll be no Mum to fuss over me and put the kettle on. And no Dad to greet me with one of his big, comforting bear hugs.

A pang of grief hits me.

I wanted to be with them at my aunt’s house in London. That’s where they’re staying while Dad has the pioneering medical treatment that we desperately hope will improve his quality of life. (I try not to dwell on the very best scenario – that the treatment could actually halt the cancer in its tracks and send Dad into remission. I tell myself it would be enough just to have him back to his old, energetic self, able to go fishing and do his wood carving in the man-cave.)

My plan to open a café in Dad’s old shop premises means I can’t join them in London. Instead, I’m coming home to Hart’s End to put my last year in Manchester – training as a pastry chef – to good use.

The advantage of using Dad’s empty shop is that it already has planning permission for a café – so that’s the plan! Hopefully, if it goes well (and to be honest, that’s an ‘if’ the size of a small continent), I might be able to earn enough money to save my parents having to put Honey Cottage up for sale. It all sounds fairly logical in my calmer moments. But waking in the middle of the night, frantic over my family’s uncertain future, the idea just seems pie-in-the-sky ridiculous.

Do people really open cafés and make a living from them? I mean, clearly, they do. There are café owners all over the UK who can attest to it – but my worry is this: Am I deluding myself, imagining I can be one of them?

Honestly, I haven’t a clue.

But since I can’t think of a better idea, then I’m just going to have to go with it. Because Mum and Dad have got quite enough to worry about – in just a few days, Dad starts his treatment – without thinking they’re going to lose their lovely home as well. They’ve lived at Honey Cottage all their married lives and it would break their hearts to leave. Plus, it’s always been a secret dream of mine to open a café and spend my days up to my elbows in flour.

It was my love of baking that led to me giving up my public relations job in London a year ago – at the age of thirty-one – and enrolling at catering college in Manchester, with the intention of becoming a pastry chef. And it’s also why I’ve now decided to change direction again and put those baking skills to practical use.

We will not lose the family home!

I lean back my head, my shoulders slumping, finally giving in to exhaustion. I’ll close my eyes for just five minutes …