The Kicking Tree

by Trevor Stubbs

  “So, Parmanda Park wasn’t safe at all today after all.” This was Jack who had his protective arms around his beloved girlfriend.

  “It seems not,” replied the policeman, “but with you all around with your vigilance and mobile phone it’s currently probably the safest place on the planet!”

  *

  Later that day the inspector called round to take statements and to thank them once again for their contribution towards solving the case. It was looking increasingly likely that, through the actions of this enterprising family, Parmanda Park was free at last from its notorious predator.

  “I’ve learned a few things today,” said Jalli as she stood with Jack against the low veranda fence of the suburban house that had been her home for so long.

  “And not just about parmandas,” ventured Jack.

  “Not just parmandas! To think I actually saw a display on my first visit! You should see one. It was fantastic…”

  “So what else have you learned?”

  “To listen when people want to keep you safe. You know, Jack, we all made mistakes. I should have suggested you came to the park and patrolled the path. What Mr. Bandi was doing was quite sensible but I hadn’t thought about it. And he didn’t tell me what he intended because he suspected I would be too stubborn to let him. And, you know, he would have been right.”

  “Stubborn’s the word!”

  “Oh. Don’t rub it in.”

  “I was thinking. Suppose that Maik fellow hadn’t come along, your Mr. Bandi would have been the chief suspect. After all, you know what your grandma said about how well you knew him. He was the one who knew exactly where you were and he was lurking, even stalking you!”

  “That is probably what he meant by saying that he was trying to right his mistake with another mistake,” said Jalli.

  “Well, all’s well that ends well,” sighed Jack.

  “And I’ve learned something else,” continued Jalli. “Did you hear what your mother called me to Musula as she had him pinned down with her needles?”

  “Yes, I did,” said Jack, “daughter-in-law.” He glanced back through the veranda door where Mrs. Rarga and Mrs. Smith were engaged in animated conversation while they were engaged in their knitting and crocheting. “They have us married off, it seems.”

  Their eyes met. Jalli’s eyes were so beautiful, Jack thought. For him they were far more than “interesting”. They were pools of endless delight, a source of a world every bit as wonderful as the cottage garden.

  “Do you think we should get married?” whispered Jack.

  “What sort of a question is that?” teased Jalli, “You make it sound like a dull duty!”

  Jack sunk to his knees. “Jallaxanya Rarga. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes! A thousand times yes!” Jalli was dragging him to his feet and kissing him. Kissing his lips, his face, his eyes. Jack held her tight and squeezed her to him. “Jalli you have brought so many blessings you cannot imagine! You have taught me the true meaning of love.”

  “Not I. We are simply the channels of that astounding love that our creator has bestowed upon us… forever!”

  “And I thank God who has brought us together across the universe!” Jack declared.

  “But, Jack, I think…”

  “You think?”

  “I think we should… we should not rush to get married. I do want to marry you. I will never change my mind. But I want to go to university, and to enjoy being… well, not fully ‘grown up’ for a bit.”

  “Jalli. I do so love you. You are so sensible. We don’t have to be married to be together, or go on adventures. I agree I want to marry you, from the bottom of my heart. But I can wait. And there are things to sort out about my life too.”

  “But we’ll be engaged. Betrothed like they used to say.” Jalli danced with joy at the thought and Jack picked her up and swung her round.

  The excitement on the veranda had caught the attention of the ladies inside. The chatting, the knitting and the crocheting paused. They turned to one another and smiled.

  21

  The following day, Momori was looking forward to being able to take her whole new household to her worship centre.

  “I haven’t been to church for a long time,” stated Matilda as she got ready. “They always seem so remote and pompous, and I could never have afforded the collection.”

  “I expect some churches are,” replied Momori.

  “What?”

  “Remote and pompous. After all they only consist of people, and some people are like that.”

  “But God isn’t.”

  “No. But not everyone that goes to church, goes for God. They don’t all have God in their hearts. We have had our moments in our worship centre, but there have been enough people with a relationship with God to make it worthwhile.”

  Matilda mused. “I suppose if you are close to God, if He’s with you everywhere, you don’t really need to go to a church.”

  “That’s true. But we are social beings and we share faith and stories about Him that encourage us when life gets difficult. I nearly always feel better for going. In fact, if I haven’t been for a couple of weeks I notice it.” Momori turned to the door. “Come on you two, or we’ll be late! We really have romance on our hands now, Matilda.”

  “He’s never been a quarter as happy as this in his whole life,” observed Matilda, “And, come to that, neither have I.”

  Jalli emerged with Jack in tow. She was wearing a pale smoky pink dress with white lace trimmings. It was generously flared from below the bust and she looked really feminine. Normally it had been a pair of blue jeans for the church just like any other day – with the exception that they were always her newest pair. But she had taken to wearing the clothes in the wardrobe at the cottage which were a collection of dresses and skirts that she had never thought of as being her style before. Jack liked them, and she had taken to liking the way she looked in them herself – especially as it seemed to please Grandma. This time in Wanulka she had brought this one especially to go to the worship centre. Her grandmother had rarely seen her looking so lovely.

  So all were walking on air as they entered the church. Every head was turned and Momori was so proud to introduce Jack (Jalli’s young man) and Matilda. Mrs. Rarga was growing a family around her. The pastor was in good form, and his sermon about sharing God’s love among them seemed highly appropriate in the circumstances. “No matter what befell us, whether we are sinful or good, whether we are kind or cruel, God never gives up loving us. We are always his children and he is utterly devoted to every one of us. God did not count the cost of love. He hurts with us, weeps with us, rejoices with us and celebrates with us.”

  Jack and Jalli sat close together in this place where Jalli had sat for many a sermon. Bringing Jack here was bringing him into one of the dearest parts of her life. She smiled as he struggled with the hymns, but admired him for his efforts. He would have felt like a duck out of water had it not been for Jalli’s hand in his pulling him up and down for the hymns, prayers and sermon at the appropriate places. But it turned out to be as friendly as the chapel in Newcastle. None of these people were judgemental – just welcoming and pleased to meet him. It had crossed his mind that some would not approve of Jalli’s choice of someone who had not worshipped anywhere before. But instead they were so pleased she had brought him to meet them. “My, how you’ve suddenly grown up,” they marvelled. “Look what finding a young man has done to you! Where did you find him?”

  “In a beautiful secret garden,” replied Jalli truthfully.

  After church, they discussed how to spend the afternoon. It was an absolutely glorious day. “Let’s go back to Parmanda Park,” declared Jalli. “I want to take you all with me this time so you can see the displays too.”

  “I think I would rather rest this afternoon,” sighed Matilda. “After yesterday’s excitement and meeting everyone this morning I think I would prefer just to sit quietly.”

  “A good idea!” agreed M
omori. “Why don’t you two go out and enjoy yourselves without us two getting in your way!”

  After a quick cold lunch, and having changed into the ubiquitous jeans again, the young people set off for the bus-stop. “If you hurry you should just catch one,” shouted Momori. She was never to forget the carefree way the lovers ran to the bus-stop, hand-in-hand, laughing. The next time she would see them, things would be very different.

  Jalli and Jack got to the park in good time. They looked at the map and decided to stalk a couple of hives not too far from each other on the other side of the wooded area. On the map, Jalli traced her finger along the path they should take, and where they should part.

  “I’ll be lonely without you!” he had replied.

  “You won’t. Not when you’re watching the parmandas. You’ll be totally absorbed! And, besides I’ll be in easy hearing distance if you need me.”

  “But not kissing distance!”

  “We can kiss on the way! You do want to see a display?”

  Jack assured her that he did. In fact, the nearer he got to the hives, the more excited he got. Jalli had taken a little map from the visitors’ centre. “This is it, I think,” she studied. “Just behind that tree there. We’re coming in from the east already. You take that one and I’ll be right across there.”

  “That’s at least a hundred metres!”

  “Thirteen seconds if I need you, Jack.” Jack recalled that was her aim in the sports, and she wasn’t far off it!

  “You’ll be hard pressed to do a personal best across this scrub,” laughed Jack.

  “Now shhh! Off you go. And be very still remember.” Jalli kissed him on the cheek and continued off behind some bushes. Jack carefully made his way forward until he saw the top of a hive. He found a good view and positioned himself on a little stump. The parmandas had spotted him before he spotted them and they were behaving erratically.

  He resolved to be very still. How quiet it was, but he knew he was not alone because Jalli was in earshot. After an hour and twenty minutes or so he noticed a change in the insects. They were now behaving more normally. There was a pattern about the way they came and went. Watching parmandas was far from boring. Time passed quicker than you imagined it would. Then slowly the pattern began to change. All the insects hovered and gathered. More and more joined them. They were swirling around the hive and forming a display that Jack could scarcely believe. They were forming up to enter the hive in the dramatic way Jalli had described.

  But they never did, because over to the left, the peace was shattered by a loud scream. Jalli was screaming.

  “You just shut that mouth of yours,” uttered a man with a gruff voice, “or I’ll shut it for you and you’ll never open it again!”

  “What do you want?” Jalli wailed.

  “You just do as you’re told and no-one’s going to get hurt!”

  Whatever Jack’s personal best had been over the short distance that lay between them, he bettered it that day despite the bushes and uneven ground. Within just a few seconds he burst through a screen of bushes to witness a huge masked man with his hand over Jalli’s mouth, tearing at her clothing. Jack was straight into him as he had been to Mr. Bandi only the day before, but this man was of a totally different build and he was hunched over Jalli. Jack simply bounced off him and sprawled onto his back. Before he could recover, the bear of a man lunged at him with what, later, he knew was a baton. The blow caught Jack across the shoulder knocking him back to the ground. The last he saw, he ever saw, was the huge boot of the assailant crashing into his head, over and over again. And the last he heard before he passed out was Jalli shouting at him to stop. Jalli pulled out her mobile. It was turned off!

  She pressed the start button and it sang its little start up tune. The monster turned away from Jack and snatched the phone from Jalli’s hand, threw it to the grounded and stamped on it twice before kicking it into the bushes.

  “Now you do as you’re told, unless you want to end up like him!” All Jalli wanted was for this man to be gone as quickly as possible so she could look after Jack. She did not fight. It would have been useless anyway.

  *

  “Pathetic! Fucking pathetic!” croaked the monster when he had finished with her, “That bloody fellow fucked it all up!” He turned, kicked the unconscious Jack in the side and departed angrily beating down at the hive Jalli had been stalking with the baton, and then stomped off, slashing out at shrubs left and right as he went.

  Jalli dragged herself up and over to Jack. He was still alive. “Oh! Thank God, he’s alive,” she whispered. She had feared the worst such was the punishment he had received. But he was completely unconscious. Blood was seeping from both eyes and his nose, which was swollen beyond recognition. His mouth was just a mess of blood. His upper arm was twisted out of shape and Jalli suspected it had been broken.

  Then suddenly Jalli was aware of a deep howling sound, as if all the world were wailing. Was it her? Was she weeping so deep she filled the whole world? No. It was the parmandas, gathering around their broken hive, forming a pattern they rarely made and issuing a sound that very few people had ever heard. Later Jalli was to learn that they would rarely do that with anyone around. But this time it was as if they were mourning with Jalli. For that moment she had become one of them.

  Jalli dressed herself as best she could with what was left of her clothes. The bright yellow sun on the front of her T-shirt was now stained red with blood, both hers and Jack’s.

  She tried to shout but could not find the strength. She thought of pulling Jack back to the path but soon thought better of it. He was too broken to move. And then she became aware that she was losing blood herself. She would have to go for help. She got back to the path, but then at the edge of the wood, through a combination of shock and loss of blood, she fainted and collapsed in the grass.

  She was fortunate. A little boy saw her fall. He pulled at his mother’s arm saying, “Lady, lady! There!” His mother looked but saw nothing. “No lady there,” she said, “I see no lady!” But the little fellow was not to be so easily put off and continued to shout and point.

  Then the mother spotted Jalli on the ground. She was a nurse from the local hospital and it didn’t take her long to work out what had happened. Jalli came to a little and mumbled Jack’s name.

  “Did Jack do this to you?”

  “No! No, he’s my boyfriend. He’s hurt…”

  The woman understood that Jalli was not the only victim of this assault. She quickly led her son over to a group of people passing by and raised the alarm.

  Jalli had found the strength to do just enough, or they may both have died that day. That day! It had begun rich with promise and had ended in wretched darkness.

  22

  “How could God have let it happen?” challenged Matilda. The anger was welling up inside her.

  “I don’t know how it works,” replied Momori. “I’ve asked that question over and over again in my life. But all I know is that God does not leave us, or stop loving us. I am sure God is hurting too.”

  “But if he’s God why doesn’t He put a stop to it?”

  “I think He is trying to.”

  “Trying to! Surely God can do anything he wants!” said Matilda crossly.

  “I’m not sure he wants what the world would be like if he just took over everything, stopping and starting things happening, interfering all the time. He seems to come into his world when people ask him, or when they love, or seek goodness. I don’t know why there is so much pain, but I do know God is always there to heal.”

  “I wish I could believe like you. I was just coming out of darkness and beginning to believe, and now my son is in hospital mutilated, and your lovely granddaughter raped…” Matilda never finished her sentence because she was overcome by another wave of anguish; her anger was now giving way to deep sadness. Huge sobs welled up from the depths of her being.

  Momori too was shattered. Her faith and spirit were strong – something learne
d by hard experience – but her heart was broken. Her beautiful, bright Jalli violated by an evil monster. He might be sick, but that did not lessen the foulness of this. Some girls of her age, she knew, would rather be dead than living so defiled.

  But Jalli had been brave at first. Brave because she did not live just for herself. Just as Momori had sunk her whole life into looking after her granddaughter, so Jalli had seen it as her job to make Grandma happy. (She had liked it when she made her smile or clap her hands in joy.)

  Jalli’s first word when she had come to in the ambulance as it had pulled away from the park was “Jack!”. After having been assured that he was on his way to hospital too, she had relaxed. Then she had thought of Grandma. Grandma, who had protected her from evil things for so much of her life, and how she had been stupid and had let her down. She had thought of Grandma’s pain.

  When she had got to hospital she had asked for her. She was “OK” she had told them. She didn’t need any treatment. But she had had no choice. The doctor had been very kind but very insistent. She was bleeding. There had been damage that needed attention. And the police needed a report, and samples had to go to forensics.

  “Look,” the doctor had insisted, “this man has to be caught. He will almost certainly try this again.”

  It had not been nice, any of this. The police had wanted to interview her as soon as the doctor had finished. They had wanted a full “blow by blow” account. The last thing Jalli had wanted to do was to recount the details of her ordeal, she had wanted to go home. But the police had needed to know everything. When she thought about Jack she had demanded to see him immediately. The policewoman had said she would inquire when she had finished the questions.

  “No!” Jalli had remonstrated. “I want to see him now!” and she had refused to answer any more questions until the policewoman had left the room to ask.