Catherine Ferguson - Love Among the Treetops - A feel good holiday read for summer 2018

‘Oh, right. Olivia will be impressed.’

He laughs. ‘But you’re not.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that. Anyone who can run a marathon then go straight in to work afterwards deserves a medal in my book.’

He shrugs his big shoulders. ‘I’ve just got one client then I’m off home for a soak.’ He grins. ‘Five hours in a hot bath should see to the aching muscles.’

‘True.’ I do a little mini jog to keep up with his long stride, doing my very best not to think about Theo Steel stretched out in the bath. What’s wrong with me? I definitely need a lie-down! ‘Epsom salts are good in the bath. Or so I’ve heard, never having run a marathon.’

‘You should come along to the gym. I could put you through your paces.’

‘Er … ooh, I don’t think so. Me in a gym would be like a giraffe in Sainsbury’s. Just not normal.’

‘No?’

‘No. It’s all those mirrors. Ugh! I mean, I know what I look like. I don’t need my nose rubbed in it.’ I’m wittering on, but I can’t seem to help it.

‘You look all right to me.’

I glance up and Theo Steel is assessing me with an approving look on his face. I blush as red as a letterbox and can’t think of a thing to say. He’s just being kind, obviously. We walk along in silence for a moment.

The fact is, I have been in a gym. Hasn’t everyone? I joined one January along with about twenty-five thousand others determined to make this their year to adopt a healthier lifestyle. I went three times then gave up, mainly because it was winter and far too cold to venture outdoors after work. Which is a pretty pathetic reason, I know.

I give Theo a sneaky sidelong glance. I can’t imagine him letting the temperature put him off working out.

Finally, we catch up with Olivia, despite my very best efforts not to. (I’ve already stopped to rummage around for my ticket – which I knew was safely in my jeans pocket – then wasted more time checking that my backpack was zipped up properly.)

She dazzles Theo with a smile. ‘Don’t forget the 10k.’

He smiles back. ‘I won’t.’

She turns to me. ‘I could email you the clean diet sheet if you like? And send you some muscle-toning exercises.’

‘Er, no, you’re all right, thanks,’ I say perfectly calmly, while inside I’m literally growling.

Theo is walking along as if he hasn’t heard a thing.

‘Always remember,’ says Olivia, as if she’s addressing a classroom of five-year-olds, ‘that what you eat in private, you wear in public.’ She grips my upper arm and squeezes hard enough to make me yelp. Then she leans closer and says in a loud stage whisper, ‘Banish those bingo wings before they really take a hold, Dawn.’

‘Twilight,’ murmurs Theo and I swing round in surprise and gratitude.

‘Right, I’m off to do some courgette shopping,’ says Olivia. ‘I’ve just bought this incredibly clever machine that turns them into courgetti!’ She gives a mad laugh that would put Mary from Coronation Street in the shade. ‘Just like spaghetti but none of the horrible gluten . And it’s so tasty, you’d hardly know!’

She gives a cheery wave and disappears into the supermarket.

‘ I’d know,’ I mutter darkly, and Theo Steel grins.

Walking along the road from the station to Honey Cottage, after saying goodbye to Theo Steel, I’m feeling a confusion of mixed emotions.

On the one hand, this picturesque little village is the place I associate with all the love, happiness and support of growing up with two wonderful parents. I’m an only child and Mum had three miscarriages before she had me, so it was probably inevitable we’d be a really close-knit family unit.

But passing the schools and the shops, jarring memories from schooldays keep punching their way into my head, making me feel queasy.

Like the time Lucy Slater dragged me into the school toilets one break time, with two of her mates, and told me they thought my hairstyle was weird so they were going to flush my head down the loo. I must have been about eight. They did it silently, I suppose thinking they might get caught if they made a noise. I can still recall Lucy’s hand forcing me down and the dirty water rushing up my nose and stinging my eyes. And the blind panic I felt, thinking I was going to be drowned. I threw up afterwards, over my shoes, and they all thought this was hilarious.

Usually, the marks didn’t show but this time, with my streaming hair and eyes, it must have been clear to the teachers that something punishable had gone on. But I knew that if I snitched on Lucy, the misery she inflicted would only get far, far worse, so I pretended I’d ducked under the tap for a bet.

The head was obviously concerned enough to phone my parents, though, because I remember when I got home, Mum wanted to know exactly what had happened. I managed to convince her and Dad it was all just a joke. I dreaded them finding out what was going on and marching down to the school, mistakenly thinking they were making life better for me, demanding the bullies be punished.

I thought going to the high school might change things – that Lucy Slater would find other people to pick on. But the sly digs and nasty remarks continued unabated, for a while at least.

And then a boy called Jason Findlay finally turned things around for me.

Jason was a boy in my year, who I’d worshipped from afar for a while, and I finally got talking to him in the library one day. We found we were both huge fans of The X-Files and when he told me he thought I looked like Gillian Anderson’s Scully, I was floating on air for days afterwards.

He found out about the bullying and he basically told Lucy and her mates to stop tormenting me. And, unbelievably, they did. I couldn’t understand it at the time. It seemed amazing that they’d bullied me for so long and then one stern word from Jason and their active dislike turned instantly to indifference.

It was only later that I realised Lucy had a crush on Jason herself and would have done anything he asked her to do.

Anyway, overnight, my life changed. I was dizzily, ecstatically in love for the first time and Jason felt the same way. At fifteen, I was happy and confident at school for the very first time and my grades improved in leaps and bounds – enough to make university a possibility.

I thought Jason and I would be together forever …

I’ve tried hard over the years to play down the bullying and put the taunts and the painful attacks behind me. But coming back to Hart’s End always makes the dark days of my past loom a hundred times more vividly.

Sometimes I wonder if that will ever really change.

*****

The house feels shivery and bleak without Mum and Dad, so I go around turning on table lamps and radiators to make it cosy – even though it’s the middle of May and it won’t be dark for a few hours yet.

Then I make a cup of tea and sit in Dad’s old armchair, smoothing the arm and trying to look on the bright side. It’s going to be fine. The café will be a success and I’ll be able to pay off the mortgage arrears so we won’t have to sell the house. They don’t have a big mortgage, but the illness forced Dad to stop working and close down the business. They lived off savings for a while but for the past few months, they’ve been sliding slowly into debt.

The treatment he’s about to undergo sounds horribly invasive but my dad has always been strong – in body and in spirit. He’ll take the discomfort in his stride – I know he will. I try to ignore the nagging little whisper in my head that says, What if the treatment doesn’t work?

We have to be positive. The doctors wouldn’t have recommended Dad for the trial if they didn’t think he stood a big chance of benefiting from it, would they?