The Tree (9 page)

The house was disintegrating and so were we, but not without a party, Uncle Jack had said when he came to stay from up north where it was hot with snakes. He was tall and lean like a stick of sugar cane with a merry smile and hands like wooden pallets.

‘The house is falling down around you,' he said. He'd come down to see a doctor about a crook knee. ‘Drag them over. ‘I want to see all the old girls. This may be my last chance. They can't have that many years left in them.' So my mother went to the phone to ring all the old aunts.

When Jack saw what was going on under the house he called out to Mum. He sat her down and told her they had to call someone immediately. She shook her head.

‘We just need a little rain,' she tried nervously. ‘That would shift things a bit.'

‘Shift things,' he said. ‘What are you looking for, Dawn? A bloody miracle?'

‘I don't know.' Her voice was breathy.

Jack took all ten fingers and scratched his scalp with the irritation of it.

‘I can't make any decisions about anything, right now,' she said.

‘I will if you don't,' he said. ‘Dawn.' He leant forward. ‘Let me do this.'

‘No,' she said. ‘Give me another day.'

‘What for?' he demanded.

‘I need it.' She looked him straight in the eye.

‘You swear to me tomorrow you'll get someone out here or I'll cut that ruddy tree down myself.'

She curled forward in her deck chair and dragged her knees up like a child. The rest of us breathed a sigh of relief, Uncle Jack was our Saviour. When the drain man had tried to be assertive it had never worked, but he was too close and he was part of the problem. Jack could push in a different way and we were so grateful. We were tipsy with his playful energy, light headed with the relief that he seemed to have replaced the drain man who hadn't been near the house since Jack arrived.

He pulled her out of the chair and pointed to where the floor had begun to sag by the back door. It wasn't difficult to imagine the weight of a foot forming a valley in the linoleum that could collapse into a deeper ravine and create a chasm that would fall through to the world outside.

‘I know.' My mother sounded apologetic.

‘I'm going to the timber yard tomorrow.'

‘Thanks, Jack,' she said. And he did. He went to the mill the next day with Edward and they brought back a pile of wood and they nailed and sawed all day until the steps were braced and the floor at the back door reinforced.

Then in the late afternoon just as the breeze began to blow in from the bay, scattering the smell of the newly sawn wood fixed to the back stairs, a taxi pulled up outside. They were on schedule, all the old aunts. They stepped across the footpath gingerly as if the blades of grass had been sharpened specifically to pierce the soles of their shoes. Then we noticed the reason for their caution, they were all wearing heels, high heels! High heels for Uncle Jack. They were all in their seventies.

Auntie Mary, brittle boned and wily, who slept on a board, like Uncle Fester I always imagined, but without the nails. Aunt Cath who wore a black eyepatch and had her hair pulled back so tight in a silver bun I thought it would tear away from her scalp. Auntie Flo, an old trade unionist, and her husband Uncle Val, the drunk.

They took up their seats at the kitchen table and remained there for hours, squashed together in the middle of the tremendous heat, drinking tea laced with slivers of brandy.

‘How are you feeling at the moment?' They all took mother to one side to ask her.

She bit back the tears for each of them and accepted a lacy hanky from Flo.

‘The place is falling down,' Uncle Jack reiterated as he took his cold beer out to the screen door at the top of the back steps.

‘It's that tree,' said Cath, looking over the top of her teacup across the oval pond of murky brew lapping at her lips. ‘Chop it down, you'd get that much more light in here.' Forever practical, Aunt Cath.

‘She's right. It's that dark in here I can't think,' said Mary.

‘Can't think?' scoffed Flo.

‘I can't see your lips, so I can't hear what you're saying.'

‘Put your hearing aid in,' Flo teased her younger sister.

‘I will if you put yours in.'

‘It shades the house, the tree does,' said Flo. ‘It'd be hotter than hell in here without it.'

‘It'll pull the house over,' said Cath, joining cup and saucer together. ‘You've got to do something, Dawn.'

We all waited for mother's reaction. She deflected confrontation by refilling the teapot. The steam hit her face and she pulled back.

‘I can't,' she said, grinding the lid on to the pot. ‘It's where he is, in my mind. He's in the tree.'

There was a beautiful silence, not awkward or uncomfortable, filled with minute sounds from the air that joined us, for they were all Irish, all Catholic and all cursed with superstitious minds. They believed in ghosts and if there was one in the tree, in their niece's back yard, so be it.

‘I didn't think he'd go off to the other side that happily,' said Cath, leaning over to the sink to toss the dregs of her tea out.

‘He's not ready yet,' said Mary. ‘And why should he be, I'm not either and I'm almost twice his age.'

That was all for a few moments because they understood the dilemma utterly. On the one hand they were all of them perfectly pragmatic, not a sentimental bit of bone between them, so I thought surely house would win over tree. But then again this was their niece's dead husband lingering on in an ancient tree. They shuffled their feet and downed their drinks. It was tricky.

Now that Jack understood the puzzle, he moseyed back to the screen door to take a fresh look at the problem. He stared for a few moments then pointed down the twenty-two back steps into the back garden. ‘Who's that?'

‘Who's what?' the old aunts chorused.

‘There's some OAPs hovering in your back yard, Dawn.'

They were on their feet, all the old girls, tottering around the edge of the kitchen table to take a look. The shuffling and the commotion, so we could all fit at the back door and see what Jack was talking about, it was like a bunch of teenagers vying for the front row at a pop concert. I was being suspended in the middle of the scrum between the front row, my three Aunts, and the back row, my mother, Uncle Jack and the rest of the boys. It wasn't until I begged for some air that I was passed to the front and found myself pinned to the fly screen, somehow supported by the weight of them pushing from behind. Then I saw what they were all looking at – a group of strangers fanned around the base of the back steps.

Once my eyes refocused from the mesh of the fly screen a millimetre in front of me to the bottom of the steps, I realized it was the Neighbourhood Watch women, headed by Gladys. They were taking turns to peek under the house to see the site of the potential destruction. The next thing Mum pulled the door open, capturing me and the three aunts in one decisive movement, and squashing us against the wall as she flung the door back so she could fly down the back stairs, flapping her arms like a mad bird about to attack. On seeing the approach of my insane mother the women parted, revealing for the first time that two official-looking men were inspecting the tree. One was bent over an electronic device pointed at the tree while the other measured the large tap root that ran in the direction of the house.

Uncle Jack took that as his cue to get involved. He opted, however, not to take any chances with the back steps and he rushed through the house and down the front stairs.

What my mother couldn't believe was that they had assembled on the back lawn without permission. ‘You should have knocked,' she said.

‘We were just about to.' Gladys spoke up.

‘You weren't, you were snooping.' My mother's neck and chin jutted forward like she was straining for an imaginary finishing line.

‘Well, this affects all of us.' Another of the Neighbourhood Watch women stepped up beside Gladys.

‘I'm sorry, madam, we didn't think anyone was home.' It was one of the council men trying to explain their predicament.

‘Well, we've been here all day. You should have knocked.' Mum spoke straight back. The sparks were flying from her tongue. Ages they were arguing at the bottom of the steps before we all, one by one, made our way down. It took so long to move all the aunts to the back yard using the front steps. We had to find their walking sticks and guide them through the house, down the front steps, along the drive, over the cement block that led out of the garage and finally into the back garden.

It was pensioners' showdown when we arrived. The two lines of old women faced each other. My mother was trapped in the centre of it and she ranted and raved and spun about angrily. The Neighbourhood Watch women brayed and backed away and left the two council men to deal with my mother.

They stood for a long time, the two men taking turns to lean on one leg then the other. It was true the house was falling down. That much they could verify, but there was nothing they could do they reported to the assemblage. If the tree were on council land then things would be different, but it wasn't, so maybe there was a case for health and safety. They could refer it on, that was all.

And the relief at not hearing the ultimatum she was expecting had an odd effect on my mother. I could tell that she was devastated. The decision had almost been taken out of her hands, but not quite. Her eyes looked empty. She must have imagined this showdown with the neigh-bours, but this wasn't the outcome she was anticipating. She would have expected to be told that the tree would have to go, then she'd be forced to cut it down and she could blame everyone but herself.

‘Help,' I wanted to yell as the two council men packed up and left.

‘I didn't hear what they said.' Mrs Drummond looked bewildered.

‘They can't make her cut it down.' Mrs Layton mouthed the words out to her, over emphasizing the shape of each sound so Mrs Drummond could hear.

Uncle Jack returned down the drive having escorted the council men to their van. He dared to place himself between the files of opposing pensioners. My mother was dazed like a coconut had just landed on her head. She only had a gram of energy left and with it she whispered to Jack. ‘Sort it out, Jack.'

Not that it seemed Uncle Jack was waiting for her permission.

‘You know how we sort out a dispute like this up north?' Jack presented his rhetorical question with a lazy grin. They waited for the answer, the gathering of old women, curving around Jack like an awakening smile.

‘Get a pack of cards,' he said to Mum.

Jack had taken centre stage and he was loving it.

‘Choose your game,' he challenged Gladys. His voice was as dry and flat as a northern riverbed.

I hoped he knew what he was doing. The column of rheumy eyes before him belonged to women with few passions other than cards and gossip.

‘Bridge,' said Gladys.

‘Bridge it is,' nodded Jack.

So our fate was to be decided by a deck of cards and a bottle of brandy.

‘The winner is the winner,' Jack said outlining the rules. ‘And that'll be the end of it. If you lose, Dawn,' he threatened Mother with his bushy eyebrows, ‘you lose the tree.'

My mother took a moment to accept the fact that the method of arbitration over this long running dispute was to be a card game. She nodded, why not. It seemed fair. What other process could there be that was as just as a game of bridge?

‘But if you lose,' he turned on Gladys, his mono-brow signalling an equal warning, ‘you're to leave Dawn to decide her own fate. I know you'll keep your word.'

‘Of course,' said Gladys, feigning offence but at the same time trying to find a loop that might give her a second chance if she lost. I watched her mind work – best of three, she was thinking, but she didn't say it, I knew she was storing it.

‘And that'll be the end of it,' said Jack.

And so they shook on it. Jack, representing the interests of our family, and Gladys, heading the case for the neighbourhood.

‘Pair up then,' said Jack. The family closed in around him ready to discuss tactics, but this wasn't going to be a democratic process.

‘Cath and Flo,' said Jack, and he wrote their names down on the blackboard he'd sent Edward off to get from our room. I saw a necklace of flesh around Aunt Cath's throat tighten. She and Flo had fought for years over the subdivision of a block of land they'd inherited together. Jack was clever. He wasn't making this easy for anyone.

‘Mary and Val,' he wrote next. They hated each other. They had been childhood sweethearts, but when Mary outgrew Val and moved on to her next boyfriend, Val only swapped sisters. He took up with Flo and Mary had never forgiven him for the lazy trade, and Val had never forgiven Mary for dumping him in the first place.

That left Jack and Mum, and their names were chalked up. Mum was lousy at cards and could never sit still long enough to finish a hand of poker. Jack on the other hand was an artful player. He loved to play and he played to win. He handed the chalk to Gladys.

Gladys claimed her long-term bridge partner, Daisy Sanders. Mrs Drummond, poker-backed and poker-faced, was coupled with the crumpled Mrs Layton, and Mrs Johnson, with her electric-shock hair, twirls of white that stood on end, remained unmatched. They were short a dowager. Who in the neighbourhood could make up the other pair? Vonnie's clothes trolley thundered down the cement path on its way to the clothes line. All eyes swivelled towards the back fence.

‘Vonnie.' They all spoke at once.

‘Vonnie.' A second later they were advancing down the yard in a frightening flank.

‘Vonnie,' they called over the grey stump that connected the four gardens, the Kings', the Johnsons', Vonnie and us.

‘Fancy a game of bridge?' they said and Vonnie, who was hanging her clothes on the line, had no idea what she was saying yes to.

Her face fell when Gladys informed her of the intention of the game, but it was too late, Vonnie's name wason the board beside her good neighbour, Mrs Johnson, and Vonnie knew where not to look. My mother's eyes were pleading with her to find an excuse to back out of the game. There was nothing she could do. Jack named the two teams, Us and Them.

‘The devil himself'd break into a sweat on a day like this,' he said. ‘We'll play right here.' And with a flick of the wrist he popped the four legs of the card table open.

Then there was a thought, I saw it pass between my mother and Vonnie. If Vonnie could sabotage her game . . . And that was that. A different demeanour engulfed my mother and she flew about arranging chairs for the old aunts and finding stools for drinks.

‘What if there is a gust of wind?' said Gladys, finding her own way of objecting to the location. ‘The cards could blow away. The game will be null and void and we'll have to start again.'

‘But shouldn't we play under the trophy, the very thing we're fighting for.' Jack's arm arched up towards the tree dramatically.

‘Yes,' our family, Us, all said.

If the tree could see our cards, everyone's cards, we must have thought collectively, surely it could intervene.

‘No,' said Them.

They were just as superstitious as Us. The tree was alive, it was an entity with a presence, not even a nihilist would contest that. And in their hatred of the tree they had also given it a persona and they felt guilt at the tree having to witness its fate.

‘All right,' said Jack. ‘As you're the guests,' he finally conceded. ‘You choose.'

‘House,' said Gladys and we began the long slow haul back inside, leading the aunts through the garage and up the drive on their spiky heels.

‘You know they came out on a boat the size of a mattress,' said Gladys, poking her nose in the direction of the Lus' back yard. ‘Had to fight off pirates. Missers told me. They had to eat all their jewellery.'

‘Gee, they've had a rotten time,' Mrs Johnson chipped in.

‘Bob had two of his toes off the other day,' I heard Mrs Drummond confide in Mrs Sanders as I led my charge up the step into the garage.

‘Is that from the diabetes?' Mrs Sanders replied.

‘No, just fell off. No circulation.' Mrs Drummond seemed quite pleased.

The neighbourhood women were wary when they came to crossing our threshold, they must have been imagining victory, then the sticky issue of being surrounded by Us. We wouldn't make their entrance easy, but Jack's presence must have assured Gladys fair play would prevail, because after her initial hesitation she stepped eagerly into the house. The rest of them were like sheep being herded through a gate, once one of them decided to go the rest of them followed without thinking.

Things got off to a nervy start. Mum was drunk immediately on a lid full of sherry as the tables were being set up. Jack drew up the seating plan on the blackboard and the kettle was on.

The first four sat at the card table under the ceiling fan (turned off at Gladys's request so as not to upset the cards). Another four sat around one end of the dining-room table, and the last four sat in the kitchen under the harrowed and limp body of Jesus nailed to the cross.

Jack set the alarm of the cooker to ring every seven minutes, that was to be the time limit for each game. It was decided because we were the home team that Us would move in a clockwise direction after each game and Them would stay where they were. Mum protested, our team was older and we were providing the booze and the venue, so we should stay put. A compromise was reached, after half time they would change and Them would move and Us wouldn't. There would be twenty-four hands. Eighteen before the break, and the remaining six afterwards. All drinks other than water were banned until half time, when they would stop to check the scores and have a toilet break. They were all under strict instructions from Jack to hold their bladders until then. So the drinking eased and the cards took over. No one was going to know until the end which side had won. The points would be counted and that would be that.

We watched sitting on the carpet in the centre of the room, intrigued for a few minutes, then thoroughly bored. We made the mistake of switching on the television and we were yelled at by ten women and two men.

‘Off!' they yelled in unison.

It wasn't a great start for Us, the first four, under the fan in the lounge room, were Cath and Flo against Gladys and Daisy. Cath and Flo had barely spoken for thirty years but in a way that you would never know unless you knew. They were at every family do, they were sisters and an outsider would assume they got on, but their relationship had been tarnished by a block of land that had been left to both sisters. Neither would agree to sell to the other or to cut the block in such a way that both had sea frontage. So the land had remained unused for thirty years and their dreams of an island retreat shattered by their own pigheadedness.

After losing the first hand to Gladys and Daisy Sanders, I saw them mumbling to each other. From that moment they were united, their iron jaws jutted from the rings of flesh on their necks. They wouldn't be beaten again. To see the two of them bonded over a common cause was uplifting.

I watched Vonnie win and win and win. She was desperate I could see. I noticed from where I now sat sulking in the armchair beside her table that she was always dealt the best cards. Unlike the others. I sneaked a look at their hands too, they varied, but Vonnie's were always superior. There was a streak of concern that divided her face. As good bridge players they all knew who held every card in the deck. So for Vonnie to try to cheat would be impossible.

There was the silence and the shuffling, the cards being fanned and sorted, then the calls, dead pan, three diamonds, four spades, no eye contact, just these flat claims. It was a strange language and it was deciding our future.

Jack rang the bell, we were halfway through.

‘Time ladies and gentlemen,' he said, and we thrust open the doors and windows and turned the ceiling fan to maximum. The sun was boring on to the front wall of the house and roasting us alive.

‘Not a breath of air,' said Aunt Cath. ‘We've got to get a storm soon.'

‘Not tonight,' said Aunt Mary, as she pushed her chair out and headed for the loo. ‘Time to say a little prayer for Ireland.'

The queue at the toilet was long and boisterous. The ice had been broken and it didn't feel like Us and Them, scores and hands were being discussed, tactics and the luck of the cards. It felt like there was deep affection between the teams. Jack was checking everyone was happy and Uncle Val was in his element topping up the brandy glasses for those that were partaking and offering tea to those who weren't.

Then Uncle Jack turned his attention to the scores. Everything changed on the pronouncement of the totals. Them was winning by a few hundred points. Vonnie had the highest individual score, my mother the lowest, the challenge became real again and they took their seats arms folded, tying in their strength ready for the last half.

Inside the house was an oven. It was agreed the fan could be kept on low as long as it didn't unsettle the cards. The heat was taking its toll on all of them.

Then something altered in the second half, Vonnie started losing. I noticed she stopped being dealt good cards and the tension rose in the Them team. Us could feel the slip and the gap that opened up. It was like they had stepped outside the game, they were no longer reacting to it, they were dictating it.

They could see the finish line and they wanted to decide how they were going to cross it. They didn't need much, in fact it might as well be close, I could see them thinking. If they only won by a point they would still win. And in some ways the closer the finish the more irritating that would be for Gladys and her team.

It was some time during the last game that we realized Gerard was missing. No one saw him drift off. The drama before us was suddenly riveting as the result became more imminent.

The heat in the room was easing as the last hand was dealt. The sun was dropping and the sky behind Gladys's soulless green hedge was a variegated cocktail of orange and red.

The last cards were on the table and the timer on the oven rang for the final time.

‘Time,' said Jack, and he set about tallying the scores.

The room went quiet as my mother sighed and looked about her, something was wrong. And it was just as Uncle Jack announced that Us had won, that my mother said, ‘Where's Gerard?'

‘Best of three,' said Gladys immediately.

‘You agreed the rules,' said Jack. ‘And you agreed to abide by them.'

‘I think we should play on,' said Gladys, trying to muster support from her team-mates.

They shook their heads. ‘I'm happy with the result,' said Mrs Drummond. ‘We all played our best.'

‘Not everyone,' said Gladys, turning to Vonnie. ‘You were in the wrong team,' she accused Vonnie with her tarnished eyes.

‘Where's Gerard?' said my mother again, ignoring Gladys.

No one knew.

‘It's not a fair result.' Gladys wasn't going to let it lie.

‘Would you shut up,' said Mum. ‘Where is Gerard?'

We found the back door open and didn't think anything of it. Gerard would be downstairs playing on his scooter or up in the dirt under the house or in the yard rolling over in the grass. Or maybe he'd snuck through the Johnsons' fence to watch Mr Lu digging his garden. No one expected to find anything else.