The Apple Tree

Annabel Harper grew up in a narrow puritanical household ruled by her ferocious grandmother. And then she went to Art School.
She recounts her alarming journey from the strict female dominated world to one of rock and roll, sex, wild parties, friendship, hilarity and anarchy in the England of the late fifties where conflict between the old order and the new raged and memories of the war still clung.
On a hot summers day the attractive but frightening painting teacher, Mr Cox, takes the unruly first year students to his isolated cottage, hidden in the beautiful countryside. Although the outing is a disaster a fragile relationship between Annabel and the troubled artist gradually begins to emerge. Then suddenly, without any explanation, Mr Cox abandons the Art School, and the country, leaving Annabel the keys to his cottage to escape to if she needs. For not only is she struggling to find her personal and artistic identity, she has troubles at home.
For a long time Annabel resists the urge to go to the cottage but when at last she does, she learns the reasons for Mr Coxs strange behaviour and flees in distress. However the memory of the cottage and the peace that it offers is too strong to resist, and eventually she goes back, persuaded by the kindly local farmer, who knows Mr Coxs history, but is also his friend. Lulled into a state of tranquility she spends day after day painting the old apple tree in the garden as it comes into full bloom. The place at last becomes her refuge and her home. But then, without warning, Mr Cox returns.

The Apple Tree was first published in the UK by W H Allen