Maple leaves swirling along the side

Sixty years ago, on a wet quay in Newfoundland, a girl called Nessa Corrigan stood with a paper twist of seeds in her coat pocket. Her mother had told her that the maple behind the chapel had stood there since before the fishermen came, and that whoever carried a seed across the water would never be lost on the far side. Nessa did not believe a word of it. She believed the tea tin and the boat ticket, so she packed the seeds in with the tea to keep the damp off them.

She planted them in a Kent garden that had no business growing anything so proud. The first tree came up crooked and stubborn, and every October its leaves turned the colour of a kettle just before it boils. Nessa swore they swirled down the lane in a line, like someone had drawn them on the air with a dark pen. Her neighbours said it was the wind. Nessa said it was the wind that had carried her home, and she never once asked it to stop.

So tonight, when you catch a red leaf in the bouquet, don't go pinching it for the pressed book. Mind the stem. It's the thin dark bit that holds on, and the rest of the leaf only goes where the stem lets it. Now, pass that bottle, and somebody fetch my grandson a chair before he falls down dancing.