Phaedra Patrick - Wishes Under The Willow Tree

Benedict was surprised to find that a lump had risen in his throat and he cast his eyes over this teenager who reminded him so much of his long-lost brother. He’d planned, one day, to show the journal to his own children but that was unlikely to ever happen.

And everyone seemed to leave this house. Benedict’s parents died. Charlie moved to America, and Estelle was staying at Veronica’s. He was tired of being the one who watched everyone go. Gemma was the only one who’d actually arrived.

Even though he hardly knew his niece, the thought of her too moving on made his gut twist. Also, familiar feelings of responsibility, which he’d once had for Charlie, were beginning to edge back, like ivy creeping around a gatepost.

He couldn’t allow her to leave without her purse, phone and passport, and with so few belongings. Whether he liked it or not, he was responsible for her. He mused on the word she had used. Empty . He hated it.

‘Okay,’ he said eventually. ‘We can go into the attic later, but I need to open up my jewellery shop.’

Gemma cocked her head to one side. ‘Yeah?’ she said brightly. ‘So that means I can stay, right?’

Benedict’s spine stiffened and he felt the need to cough. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You can stay.’ Though as he said it, he wondered if he’d live to regret it.

4. Malachite

transforming, absorbing, soothing

Benedict walked briskly along the canal towpath towards the village and Gemma struggled to keep up with him. Her limbs weren’t coordinated and her boots waggled on her ankles, reminding him of a newborn calf. Watching her made him feel motion-sick.

‘You’re going too fast,’ she complained.

‘Sorry,’ he said and carried on, just as quickly.

Gossip in Noon Sun could spread like oil on water. If anyone spied him and Gemma together, the villagers might pounce like foxes on an injured rabbit. He didn’t want the arrival of his niece to be the new topic of conversation in Bake My Day, the Deserted Dogs charity shop, or the Pig and Whistle pub. He bet that Veg Out greengrocers, Floribunda florists and the Soap’n’Suds launderette were hotbeds for tittle-tattle.

‘Do you have nice customers in your shop, or are they crazy?’

Benedict shook his head at her bizarre question. ‘I don’t actually have that many customers, to categorise them.’

As Gemma pointed and asked what a canal lock was, and he took a moment to explain, Benedict couldn’t help thinking of walking with Estelle, each Sunday. Not having children, they had slipped towards middle age quickly, embracing strolls along the canal and enjoying the scenery. They admired the horses in the fields, a flock of geese, or a kingfisher swooping down to the water. Sometimes they ended up back in bed, in the late afternoon, but it was difficult to be spontaneous, when the pressure of trying for a child weighed down on them.

‘There are hills everywhere,’ Gemma exclaimed, spinning around.

‘If you climb to the top, you’re on the Yorkshire moors.’

The moors made him feel uneasy. They were too wild, too deserted and too vast. The earth shifted, and the colour of the grass and sods of earth morphed from black to violet, emerald to mustard, so the landscape was never the same. One minute the air could be still and calm, and then black clouds descended and a storm could sail over the hills. Estelle said that the moors lured her to paint them, but Benedict shuddered at the thought of her walking up there, with her paints and drawing pad, without him.

‘There’s an interesting old quarry up there,’ he told Gemma. ‘They used to mine a gemstone called Blue Jack in the nineteenth century. It’s indigenous to Noon Sun. Anyway, how did you get to my house last night?’

‘I hitched a ride from a lady at the airport. I told her I’d lost my purse.’

‘That’s pretty lucky.’ Benedict frowned. ‘But you shouldn’t accept lifts from strangers.’

‘She looked nice.’

‘Is this the first time you’ve travelled on your own?’

She shook her head. ‘I went to Paris once, to see the Eiffel Tower.’

Benedict was amazed that Charlie allowed her to do this. ‘I took Estelle there a few years ago, and it was lovely. What else did you see?’

Gemma stopped dead on the towpath and her teal blue eyes flashed angrily. ‘Why are you asking me questions? Stop prying all the time.’

Benedict held up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay, don’t get mad,’ he said. ‘I only asked.’

She tutted and tossed her head.

Benedict sighed and carried on, looking up to see his friends Ryan and Nigel setting up their fold-up chairs on the canal bank. Two fishing rods stretched into the water. A pile of sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil sat between the chairs.

Benedict wondered if he could climb over the wall and take the longer route through the field, to avoid them, though he didn’t fancy his chances in trying to clamber over.

But it was too late. Ryan raised his hand. ‘All right, Benedict? Do you want to join us?’

‘Not today, lads. I’ve got to get into work.’

Ryan was happy to share every detail of his marital problems with his wife, Diane, who had asked him for a divorce. He lamented how sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the spare room gave him a sweaty back. Ryan always smelled strongly of the floral washing powder from Soap’n’Suds, and he ironed pin-sharp creases down the front of his black jeans.

‘We’re going to be here all day,’ Nigel added. He worked at the newsagent’s shop in the village and teamed his faded black Guns N’ Roses T-shirt with a leather biker’s jacket. His long, thinning strawberry-blond hair looked like strings of spaghetti escaping through a colander. Nigel’s latest crush was Josie, the barmaid at the Pig and Whistle, though he didn’t have enough confidence to speak to her. Instead, he bought far too many bags of crisps at the bar in a bid to get closer.

Ryan and Nigel sat back in their canvas chairs and stared at Gemma, as if she was an exotic zoo creature they’d never seen before. Benedict could see they were waiting for an introduction and he wasn’t going to offer it.

‘Maybe, I’ll see you later, lads,’ he said and placed his hand lightly on the small of Gemma’s back, to usher her onward.

When they were out of earshot, Gemma scraped her feet. Benedict slowed down to allow her to catch up to him.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Are you ashamed of me, Uncle Ben?’

‘No. Of course not.’

Her eyes told him that she didn’t believe him.

‘Look,’ he sighed. ‘Not much happens around here so, when it does, the villagers can latch onto it like leeches.’

‘So you’re happy I’m here?’

‘Happy’ was too strong a word, but he said yes anyway.

‘So,’ she said, ‘I can have a job in your shop then, huh?’

Benedict held his fist to his mouth and coughed in surprise. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Let’s not rush things, eh?’

When Benedict and Gemma reached the high street, they neared Crags and Cakes. The café had undergone several refurbishments and now had an Alice in Wonderland theme, complete with a six-foot-tall angry-looking white rabbit on the pavement. The villagers said he looked so cross because of the cost of the cakes. Three pounds ninety-nine for a slice of Victoria sponge was extortionate.

Benedict’s footsteps slowed down.

‘Is this your shop?’ Gemma asked.

‘No,’ he said quietly. He touched his wedding ring. ‘It’s where I met Estelle.’

‘Yeah?’ Gemma pressed a hand to her chest. ‘Was it romantic?’

Benedict gave a quick grin. ‘Kind of.’ He told Gemma that each Sunday morning, the Noon Sun Walkers met outside Crags and Cakes for a quick coffee before going for a hike on the moors. ‘My doctor told me to get more exercise and I thought walking would be easy. I bought some boots and a padded coat and off I went, thinking that I’d be like David Beckham within no time. And I saw this woman outside the café. She had hair like Cleopatra and she wore a purple coat and matching hairband. I couldn’t look away.’ He swallowed as he thought of Estelle’s cobalt eyes and full lips.