Josh smiled back at her and his gaze drifted down the garden. It was a good-sized plot for a semi-detached house of this size, stretching back more than a hundred feet. A big garden, in London suburb terms. It looked lighter, somehow. The bottom of the garden had always seemed so shady in his childhood memories.
And then he realised something was missing.
‘Mum? What happened to the old apple tree?’
She wiped her hands on the front of her old gardening jeans and walked over to stand by his side. ‘We had some heavy winds this spring. Eighty mile an hour gusts at times.’ She shrugged. ‘Woke up the next morning to find most of the apple tree in next door’s garden.’
He instantly set off walking towards where the apple tree had once been. Only a stump was left. Suddenly he felt angry. That tree had been a huge part of his childhood. He and Ryan, the boy next door and his best friend, had spent more time in its branches during the summer months than they had with their feet on the earth. If he’d known the last time he’d been here that it would be the last time he’d see it, he would have…dunno…said a prayer or something.
He didn’t like graveyards. They were way too permanent. And he hadn’t been to visit the small marble headstone in St Mark’s churchyard, not even on the day of Ryan’s funeral. Instead, he’d come here to the apple tree. He’d climbed up into the highest branches and sat silently with his legs swinging. If only…
If only he’d realised that summer, when he’d been thirteen and Ryan had been fourteen, that it would be their last one together. He would have made sure they finished the tree-house they’d been planning to build in those old branches, not just left it as a few planks nailed in strategic places.
A cold, dark feeling swirled inside his stomach. It threatened to bubble up and overwhelm him. Suddenly his legs were moving and he was striding back towards the house.
His mother, as she always was in his thoughts of her when he was half a world away, was putting the kettle on for a cup of tea. Once back inside the kitchen, he shut the back door, even though the gentle breeze and the warm, buzzing sound of the bees in the lavender below the window would have been pleasant.
‘You still miss him, don’t you?’
He shrugged with just one shoulder, then looked at his feet. Mum would scold him for not using the doormat on his way in. He went back and rectified the situation. When he looked up, she was giving him one of those don’t-think-you-can-fool-me looks.
What good would it do to tell her that, on one level, he still expected Ryan to barge in through the back door and charm his mother into giving him a slice of her famous Victoria sponge? He looked out of the window into the Chambers’s garden next door.
‘I haven’t seen Fern since I’ve been back.’
His mother reached into a cupboard and pulled out the teapot. ‘Her mother says she’s very busy at work.’
He nodded. That was Fern. Dedicated, hard-working, loyal to a fault. ‘I hope she’s not overdoing it.’
His mother laughed. ‘You’re as bad as Jim and Helen! The poor girl gets nagged and smothered at every turn. No wonder she moved out.’
Ah, but Mum didn’t know about the promise. The day of Ryan’s funeral, hidden up in the old apple tree, he’d adopted the girl next door as his honorary little sister and vowed to watch out for her. Oh, he’d teased and tormented her just as Ryan would have done, but he’d protected her too. To his own cost sometimes.
Mum reached for the tea caddy. ‘Don’t think much of her flatmate, though. A bit of a wild thing.’
His features hardened. Fern had a flatmate? Male or female?
‘Is…is she seeing anyone?’
His mother shook her head. ‘Not that I know of. There was someone serious last year. I was sure they were on the verge of settling down but then he upped and disappeared.’
‘Am I allowed to find him, then punch him?’
Billowing steam poured from the kettle, matching his mood nicely. A shrill whistle announced it was at boiling point and he automatically turned the gas off. The kitchen was silent again.
‘She’s not nine any more, you know,’ his mother said.
He knew. It was just easier to think of her that way.
‘Like I said, you’re as bad as her parents. You all want to wrap her up in cotton wool. She puts up with it for their sake, because of Ryan, but mark my words, she’s not going to thank you for joining in.’
Nonsense. Fern loved seeing him. He was her favourite honorary big brother.
Mum reached forward and ruffled his hair.
‘Mu-um!’
‘Not that I could ever pin you down long enough to wrap you up in anything.’ She walked over to the back door and opened it, letting the warm sunshine in. ‘But I’m scared to death half the time when you’re off doing those extreme sports. I can sympathise with the desire to keep your only child safe.’
‘I’ve told you before; I can look after myself.’
Time to change the subject.
‘Are you sure you won’t let me pay for that holiday, Mum? You and Dad have wanted to go back to Loch Lomond for years. It’d be five-star luxury all the way, no expense spared. Dad would get the break he needs and so would you.’
‘Tempting, but no. I’m standing firm on what I said last year. Your father and I don’t want any more of your money; we’d rather see more of you.’
‘You’re not still sticking to that stupid agreement, are you?’
‘I certainly am. For every hundred pounds you want to give us, I want an hour of your time in return. I heard that’s a pretty good deal for a major player like you.’ She winked at him. Actually winked at him.
‘Yes, Mum, but I’m supposed to get the money, not the other way round and, anyway, you’ve seen plenty of me recently.’
‘The amount you’ve been away the last few years, I reckon you still owe me plenty.’
Not for the first time, Josh regretted that he’d got his stubborn streak from his mother. He was just going to have to find a loophole.
She gave him another one of those looks. ‘Go and check on your father and see if he wants a cup of tea.’ Josh started out of the kitchen but she called him back. ‘And puts this back where it belongs!’
He grinned and took the cordless phone from her, then tiptoed back into the living room to place it in its cradle. Dad was snoring now. The paper was fluttering madly with every exhalation and Josh lifted it off him. Better to leave him. Dad needed his rest.
But there was only so much rest Josh could take. He was used to excitement. Action. Adventure. Yes, he wanted to be home and help Mum out while Dad recovered, but the biggest thrill he’d had in his six weeks here had been the rumour of a burglary at number forty-three. He needed something to do before he went insane. Something he could do in London for a few days, just to stop himself going stark raving bonkers.
Funnily enough, it was as he was folding Dad’s paper up to put it in the recycling bin that he noticed the advert, tucked away at the back. His adrenaline levels rose just reading it.
It was Tuesday already and she was still alive. Not only that, but she was starting to enjoy herself. Okay, she’d had a couple of meals she’d rather forget and had hidden behind her hands at a horror movie but, on the flip side, she’d unearthed a talent for salsa dancing. Who would have known her hips could swish and swirl like that? Even after one lesson she could feel the difference in the way she walked.
She