Beneath the Treetops

By Rosemary Gemmell

Fourteen heart-warming short stories about family relationships, romance, and heart-tugging decisions, from a prize-winning author. Each story has been previously published in magazines or placed in competitions and includes a woman confronting her past in Beneath the Clock Tower, a teenager hoping for her complete family again in Washed Up and a boy who makes the wrong choices in Missing Mark.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rosemary Gemmell
• Release date: Jan 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781739858537

Book preview

Beneath the Treetops

and other stories

––––––––

Rosemary Gemmell

Updated 2023 © Rosemary Gemmell

www.rosemarygemmell.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Beneath the Treetops is a collection of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Contents

Beneath the Treetops

Hide and Seek

Gloria

Missing Mark

Washed Up

Waiting

Daddy’s Girl

Beneath the Old Clock Tower

Bubbles

Being a Stepdaughter

Making Choices

Portrait of Love

Return Journey

Reshaping the Past

Beneath the Treetops

––––––––

It is one of those crisp autumn days that makes this my favourite time of year in this part of Scotland; such a sense of hope in the air. In the midst of fear and uncertainty about the future, I’m content right now in this garden.

The sweet fragrance of late roses mingles with the slight dampness of drying leaves after a few days of rain. The air is cool with a light breeze filtering through the trees in a whispering dance as the low afternoon sun plays on my closed eyelids. I snuggle further into my long coat, luxuriating in the shielding warmth that allows me to sit here a while longer.

Yesterday they made a pie for pudding, with Bramley apples and the brambles ripening to a juicy black on the bushes down by the fence. The pie tasted well enough, with the right amount of sweetness, but the pastry wasn’t as good as I used to make - not quite the same crisp texture, probably made by warm hands. I’ve always had a cool touch with pastry, although all my other baking has been well appreciated over the years.

You must taste Jenny’s cakes, Mrs McGregor used to tell everyone whenever we had coffee mornings in the town hall, or at the numerous church socials. Don’t know what we would do without all your lovely baking, she told me in advance, making sure of her order.

I’d prepare for weeks, getting everything packaged and labelled to go in the big freezer, making sure it was out of sight before eight-year-old Katie and six-year-old Ben arrived home from school or they’d scoff the lot.

Not much home baking here, apart from the pie - seems to be the shop bought kind that never tastes of anything in particular. You know the sort, with the most unlikely coloured icing that shouts ‘artificial colouring’. Not the kind I’d let Ben touch, with his allergies and food intolerance. Everything in my house was natural and fresh. No fast food. Caused a bit of a rush sometimes, with working at the solicitor’s office four days a week until the children got home.

The day off was for baking, along with a thorough clean of the house, and my elderly mother needed me a couple of times a week. She had a home help but liked me to take her out to do the shopping, then go for a coffee before we went back to her flat to put it all away. I made sure the kitchen and bathroom were properly cleaned while I was there.

It’s amazing how much less tired I feel today. I come alive in the autumn and winter, I used to tell Graham, after being lethargic in the heat of summer. I loved to walk along the cliff paths at this time of year and marvel at the landscape, imagining the Vikings crossing the North Sea in all their glory. I miss my regular swim and keep-fit classes and have definitely put on weight. How did I ever fit into a size eight clothes? Now I’m more like a 14 or 16, yet don’t look too bad as I’m quite tall so can get away with it.

Old Mrs Ferguson was telling me the other day how healthy I look. She seems to have taken a liking to me and is like a mother hen sometimes. Poor soul, I don’t think she has anyone left in the world to care for so we often chat together. I’ve learned a lot about the war years.

She doesn’t approve of all this idealisation of the thin ‘body beautiful’ and never tires of talking about Marilyn Monroe’s curvy figure that would be the equivalent of today’s size sixteen. Mrs Ferguson makes sure I eat every bit of my meal now I’m back on my food, and I’m grateful for her help.

You looked like a skeleton covered in a thin layer of skin the day you came here, she said the other day. We were all frightened to touch you in case you fell over.

Graham was a bit scared to touch me too, now I think about it. He’d started leaving me alone at night for quite some time.

Have you gone off me, Graham? I asked him once or twice, half-heartedly, when I managed to stay awake for a bit longer than usual.

No, love, I’m just worried about you. He’d smile and smooth my long fair straggly hair, almost like a father with a child. I think you should try and take things a bit slower, Jen, you’re always on the go and then get so tired you just fall asleep.

He was right of course.

A blackbird calls to its mate nearby, reminding me of the day we took Katie and Ben to Edinburgh Zoo. The birds in the aviary enchanted Katie, then she stood spellbound by the pink flamingos at the small lake.

Oh, mum, look, aren’t they pretty. Why are they all pink? she asked, while Graham was showing Ben the seals.

I don’t know Katie, they were just born that way, I snapped and tugged her arm impatiently to move her along, as we still had so much to see and time was getting on. We’d already admired the penguins, felt sorry for the lions in their cage and laughed at the antics of the monkeys who, disconcertingly, seemed to watch us as much as we watched them.

I don’t really like zoos, unless it’s the kind more concerned with conservation than captivity. And I especially hate to see animals or birds enclosed in an inadequate space; I can imagine how they must feel. The type of claustrophobia that sends me into a panic is not so much to do with being trapped in a small space like a lift, but has everything to do with being in any place where there is no immediate escape.

Anyway, the day at the zoo seemed to go on forever and my head was a whirl of animal names and colours and smells. I’ve tried to ensure the children don’t inherit my hang-ups but I felt sick by the time we managed to drag Katie and Ben out through the gate.

Relax, Jenny, we’ve got all evening ahead of us, when the kids go off to bed. Graham had been telling me to relax all day while I’d been getting even more