Snowflakes at the Little Christmas Tree Farm

His mouth twitches and I can tell that he’s trying not to smile. I’m entranced by the little silver ball again as we stand there staring at each other.

‘So, what do you grow?’ I ask when I suddenly realise it’s a bit weird to stand on the roadside with a stranger’s dog under your arm while you stare at said stranger’s upper lip. I tear my eyes away from his piercing and nod towards the field he came from. ‘Pumpkins?’

‘No, Brussels sprouts.’

I look over at the field and lift my hand to shade my eyes from a sun that isn’t there in case it’s distorting my vision. ‘Those round orange things trailing along the ground? They’re pumpkins … aren’t they?’

He throws his hands up in despair. ‘The fact you even had to question that …’

‘Obviously I know they’re pumpkins. I was being polite. It could’ve been a new variety or something.’

‘When have there ever been round, orange, giant sprouts that grow along the ground on vines?’ He sounds exasperated.

‘That’s not fair. That’s like me showing you a designer handbag and expecting you to guess the designer and then laughing at you for not knowing.’

‘But I haven’t bought a business selling designer handbags. Forgive me for my mistaken assumption that someone who’s just entered the Christmas tree farming business might know something about growing things.’

‘I know plenty of things about Christmas trees.’

‘What, that they’re green and look pretty with lights and a fairy on top?’

‘No,’ I huff, racking my brains for something I might actually know about trees. Any tree would do at this point, not even a festive tree. Come on, Leah, there are trees in London. ‘Antarctica is the only continent where trees don’t grow.’ Hah. That’ll show him. And prove to my Year 7 geography teacher that I was paying attention in class all those years ago.

His dark eyebrow quirks at the perfect angle to show exactly how unimpressed he is. ‘Oh, there you go then. My concerns are unfounded. I’m sure you’ll be wowing hordes of early customers before the week is out. So dazzled will they be by your intrinsic knowledge of Christmas trees that they’ll be queuing up to buy them six weeks early.’

‘I’m glad you think so,’ I mutter. I know he’s being sarcastic, but I can’t let him get to me, even though if I’m completely honest, he’s kind of got a point. Meeting a real farmer who knows this land and thinks I’m a lunatic for taking it on … I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t got me worried.

‘Let me ask you something,’ he says. ‘I know how long this place has been up for sale and I know how much the price has dropped and I know they were trying of offload it in an auction as a last resort, so I’ve got a good idea of how much you paid – very, very cheap. Did that not start any alarm bells ringing?’

‘I didn’t know how much they cost. I’ve never bought one before. There’s no price comparison site for Christmas tree farms.’

‘No, but there’s this weird, and obviously miniscule in your case, thing called common sense. I see it’s a completely foreign concept to you, but did it not cross your mind that fifty grand was cheap for twenty-five acres? Have you not heard of the phrase “too good to be true”?’

I huff in annoyance. He might be gorgeous, but I’m starting to really dislike this bloke. He speaks sense that I should’ve realised before I ploughed all my money into a failing Christmas tree farm. ‘Just how desperate were they to sell it?’

‘It’s been on the market for over four years. There must’ve been a couple of hundred viewings over those years, but it’s worthless land because you can’t do anything with it. The trees have gone wild. Pruning them back into shape and selling them is an almost impossible job, and cutting them all down and replanting means any potential buyer has got roughly ten years to wait for them to grow to a saleable size. No wonder no one’s bought it, but an idiot had to come along sooner or later. It’s the law of averages.’

I don’t even bother to be offended. I haven’t seen much further than the driveway so far and I’m inclined to believe that he’s not being totally unfair in that description. ‘Am I unreasonable to want something that even vaguely resembled the pictures on the auction site?’

‘No, but you’re unreasonable to buy a property without looking at it, without hiring a surveyor, doing any background research, or using the common sense that would tell most people that if they’re getting something so big for such a ridiculously cheap price, it’s probably not that much of a bargain after all.’

‘I don’t call fifty grand cheap.’

He does another sarcastic laugh. ‘Cheap in relation to size. Thinking you were going to get a working, functional Christmas tree farm that you could simply step into and start raking in money for that kind of price.’

‘I knew there would be work involved,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Did you see the auction listing?’

He scratches the back of his neck. ‘No.’

‘There were pictures of living trees on it. So far, that seems to be a complete misrepresentation.’

‘This land hasn’t been maintained in four years. It would resemble the pictures. If it had been maintained, which it hasn’t. For four years. That’s more than half a Christmas tree’s lifespan to average selling age. It’s a lot of work to get them back into shape if any of them are salvageable, but they’re not all dead. Yet.’

I look at the brown to browner shades of the trees behind me. ‘No, what are they then? Dressed up in their Halloween costumes? Performing a horticultural re-enactment of Night of the Living Dead?’

His lip twitches again. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about these ones. These are your windbreaker fields.’ He sighs at my blank look. ‘They’re to protect the Christmas trees from the worst of the Scottish weather. Strong winds can distort branches and desiccate needles, and that’s if you get lucky and the wind doesn’t take the trees down altogether. Good farmers plant windbreaker fields to take the full force of it instead of the Christmas trees.’

I look around for some sign of these Christmas trees, and he waves towards the land behind the farmhouse like he knows exactly what I’m looking for. ‘They’re that way.’

‘Oh, brilliant,’ I say, genuinely overjoyed by this news. Gizmo licks my chin in approval and his tail wagging amps up. ‘When I was growing up, my mum and dad had a houseplant in the corner of the room, and once a month, my mum would drown the poor thing, and every time I’d fish it out, drain it off, and nurse it back to health. If anything on this farm is alive, it’s better than I expected when I drove in. I’m going to go and have a look around.’

He doesn’t say anything, but he turns his head upwards and looks pointedly at the darkening sky. It’s gone 4 p.m. and it’s well on the way to getting dark. I can’t make sense of the estate agent’s map in the daylight, never mind the dark, and the unseen forest of trees at the end of the lane beyond the farmhouse looks intimidating, but I don’t want to let him know I’m bothered because he thinks I’m an idiot anyway, it’d make his day if he thought I was afraid of the dark too.

I decide to be brave and point towards the gate closed across the lane. ‘There’s not going to be anything out there, right?’

‘Like what?’ He’s got that smug eyebrow quirked up again, waiting for me to say something stupid. ‘Worried you might run into another big, scary squirrel?’

‘No.’ I wish I hadn’t said anything now, but it looks remote and scary. Apart from him, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around for miles. If no one’s been on this land for years, anything could be lurking out there and no one would know. ‘Didn’t someone float an idea of reintroducing wolves to Scotland once? And what if I put my foot in a bear trap or something? I’ve seen wilderness films – there’s always a bear trap when you least expect one.’

‘Wolves and bear traps? Seriously?’ He pushes a hand through his hair and shakes his head in despair. ‘You do know that this is the United Kingdom, right? You may have driven a long way but you haven’t actually left Great Britain. There are no wolves and no bears to require the use of a bear trap. Have you mistaken Scotland for northern Alaska?’ He’s using a saccharinely sweet voice and it kind of makes me want to punch him. And I’d had such high hopes given the gorgeous dog and love of Gremlins.

‘Well, thanks for the warm welcome,’ I snap, and spin on my heel to walk away. ‘It was a joy to meet you.’

‘Leah?’ He calls after me.

Hah. One well-placed sarcastic comment is all you need to make someone realise what a miserable twat they are. He’ll try to backtrack and apologise now, no doubt.

‘Can I have my dog back?’

Oh. Bugger. I forgot I’ve still got Gizmo in my arms.

I pull my head back so I can look into Gizmo’s big brown eyes. Would it be petty to say no? ‘You’d come home with me, wouldn’t you, lovely?’ I murmur to him, pressing my mouth against the brown side of his head.

His tail wags against my side in agreement, but I stomp back towards Noel guiltily. Even though I think this lovely animal deserves a much nicer owner, I didn’t mean to dognap him.

Noel holds his big, dirty hands out and I somehow manage to transfer the wagging, licky dog into his arms, my skin brushing the surprisingly soft sleeve of his red plaid shirt as Gizmo pushes himself up to start licking the dark scruff of Noel’s neck, excited at being reunited with his owner. The dog must see a nicer side than I do. I’ve only known Noel for ten minutes and I’d happily never be reunited with him again.

‘Thanks,’ he mumbles, his voice muffled behind the dog trying to give him a facial. ‘Feel free to give me a shout if you need anything. Cup of sugar, a pumpkin to carve for Halloween, help building a bonfire which is probably the best use you’ll get out of most of the trees, the address of some local demolition companies …’

‘Yes, thanks for the sterling, solicited advice you’ve given me so far,’ I mutter, even though he’s been more helpful than the estate agent was. ‘I’m going to go and look around my farm now and figure out what’s best to do with my Christmas trees for myself. Goodbye.’

I only get a few steps before he calls my name again. ‘I wouldn’t go out there in the dark.’

‘Why not?’ I say to the empty road, not giving him the satisfaction of turning around. I will retain the moral high ground here.

‘Mountain lions.’

‘What?’ I turn to look at him in shock, all pretences of the moral high ground or any form of dignity disappearing, although I think the dignity was already lost when a Chihuahua came to rescue me from a squirrel.