I make a mental note to check whether he’s being sarcastic or if this book actually exists. Trees For Dummies sounds like just the ticket.
Also, Mr Evergreene – seriously? ‘There’s no way that was the previous owner’s name. You’re making that up. Who runs the local garage – Mr Petrol? How about the manager of the nearest supermarket – Mr Tesco, is it? If there’s a bakery owned by Mr Croissant, I want to go there.’
‘Peppermint Branches is an amazing place,’ he continues, ignoring me. ‘A special place, a beautiful tree farm that was once famous and could be again if it had someone to take care of it and restore it to its former glory.’
His green-blue eyes are fiery with passion. He must really love this place. ‘I could do that. Why couldn’t I do that?’
‘You know what, rather than answering that question, I’m starting to think I should go home and let you figure it out for yourself. I predict it’s going to be fun to watch.’
‘You could give me some advice rather than trying to make me feel stupid,’ I snap. ‘I want to restore it to its former glory. I want to make it a functioning Christmas tree farm again. You seem to know so much about it, tell me where I need to go to learn how. Tell me what books I need to read, what websites I should visit. Tell me what its former glory was like and how I can restore it.’
‘Why? So you can do two weeks here, realise it’s too difficult, and swan off back to London?’
‘I’m not going to do that. I’m committed to this. I want to make a go of it.’
‘I’ve heard that before. It lasts until you spoilt city women get bored of not having the luxuries of designer shops and posh restaurants at your fingertips.’
I want to ask him where he’s heard that before and why he sounds so bitter, but I get the feeling he doesn’t like me very much and would tell me to mind my own business. ‘Have you seen some of the things those posh restaurants serve up? The contents of a vacuum cleaner bag look more appetising. And given the amount of money I’ve spent on this place, even Primark will be out of my designer shopping budget for the next thirty years.’
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.