The Kicking Tree

by Trevor Stubbs

  They drank the tea and Jalli shared with Jack some of the details of her ordeal. But it would take many months and many more tears before they could talk about everything.

  After a while Jack said that he wanted to do something. His brain had had enough thinking for one day.

  “Come on,” he said, “Mum and your grandma are inside. Let’s go and join them. And I want you to put on that cotton dress we so admired, the one you haven’t dared to before. I think that whatever we may have felt, the older generation have adopted the cottage. They seem so at home.”

  “Strange that,” mused Jalli. “They have taken to it very quickly indeed.”

  “And found the food,” sniffed Jack, who had caught a whiff of something edible. “That’s Mum’s cooking.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Mum has her favourites. That’s a crumble.”

  Jalli led Jack by the hand to the door. He stumbled on the step. “You have to tell me about steps,” he explained. “How many, how big.”

  “OK. The next one’s a little one. Then two paces across to the right and we’ve got the stairs.” Jack met the stairs half way through his second pace and sprawled up them. He laughed.

  “Should have thought – Jalli-sized paces!” Then Jalli laughed too.

  “You shouldn’t be so lanky!”

  “But without longer legs I could never keep up with you! How’s the training?”

  “Haven’t done any.” Jack said it as she did! “How am I not surprised! Get back to your running girl!”

  “You’re bossy!”

  “Well, it seems I need to be!”

  “Boss me too much and I won’t tell you where to put your big feet.”

  “OK. Deal. We need each other.”

  “A real partnership!”

  “Jalli, my eyes may not work, but you’ve helped me to see so many other things. Things that last forever. I love you!”

  “And I you! Oh, how stupid we’ve been! Come on, now let’s concentrate. I’ll tell you when we get to the top.” She put her arms around him and guided him up the stairs. “One more,” she said.

  “Fourteen,” he commented. She guided him round into the front bedroom on the left – her room. She led him across to the bed and he sat on the edge. Then she began pulling off her T-shirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Changing into that dress you said you liked.”

  “Don’t forget, I may not be able to see but I can hear – and I can still see inside my head.”

  “Then listen to the beating of my heart,” she said, as she got out of her trousers and threw them across his lap. She found the dress she thought Jack meant. “Is this it?” she asked, momentarily forgetting Jack couldn’t see.

  “Bring it here.” He hadn’t seemed to notice. She held it out for him and he stroked his hand across it and felt the fullness of the skirt. “What colour is it?” he asked.

  “It’s green, with red and blue splashes.”

  “That’s it.” Jalli put it on and stood in front of him as he felt it up and down on her body.

  “You’re quite enjoying this ‘having to feel’ bit aren’t you?”

  “I assure you, madam, I don’t ‘see’ everybody this way.”

  “I’m glad you don’t! I’d be jealous.”

  “But I want to know what you look like. And, yes, you are very delicious to touch.” He grabbed her waist and pulled her onto the bed beside him. He found her mouth with his and kissed her with such passion and tenderness that Jalli wondered why she ever thought he wouldn’t want her. Then he felt her tighten. Her body, he thought, was as expressive as her face.

  “What’s wrong? Jalli have I hurt you?”

  “No. No. I…” she sighed and began to cry again.

  “Listen, I… I think I know what you’re thinking. Tell me if I’ve got this wrong. It’s to do with what happened in the park isn’t it?”

  Jalli sighed an assent.

  “That monster may have abused your body, Jalli, but never reached your heart, your being. That can only happen if you are open, willingly inviting and giving. He knew nothing of the Jalli I love.”

  Their tears flowed again, wetting the pillow. “I do want you Jack. Touch my heart. Touch my body. It’s yours. I give it to you!”

  “Now, no more weeping, Jalli Rarga.” And he held her tight to him. “I love you! And I assure you, you’ll have to put up with me ‘seeing you’ with my hands every day.” And he patted her playfully. They lay there silently in each other’s arms and kissing each other for some time. They were roused at last by Matilda shouting up the stairs.

  “Do you two want any dinner?”

  “Just getting some different clothes for Jack,” reacted Jalli.

  “Of course! I’m hungry!” replied Jack.

  Jalli led him out of “her” bedroom and they went to the bathroom to wash their tear-stained faces. Then Jalli took Jack into “his” room. “Now what have we here? A T-shirt that says in large letters, ‘I love Jalli Rarga’. That’ll do.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Actually, this one’s rather nice. It is a deep red with two green stripes down the left side. One paler than the other. And these shorts are perfect – pale beige.” Jack felt the clothes, and then began to pull off those he was wearing.

  “Just a minute,” he said, “you can see me!”

  “Saw a lot more of you on the beach,” she responded.

  “Dare say. That seems so long ago.”

  “Too long. But let’s not dwell on our silliness again or we’ll start to cry, and I’ll have to wash my face yet again!”

  Actually Jack had not worn tailored shorts since he was little, but Jalli assured him they suited him. She traced on his chest where the green lines went.

  “You know all these things are perfect,” he said.

  “They were made for us,” said Jalli. “I should have realised that whatever happened, you were meant for me!”

  Downstairs the couple were duly admired, and ushered into the dining room. Jalli hadn’t realised how hungry she had been as they tucked into a mixture of Momori’s and Matilda’s cooking.

  “Don’t forget to leave room for the crumble,” said Jack.

  “So you two have decided that you’ll do for each other after all,” commented Matilda as they ate.

  “We’ve both been rather foolish,” acknowledged Jack.

  “You certainly have!” exclaimed Momori.

  “Grandma?” said Jalli inquisitively.

  “Yes dear?”

  “Have you been here before? I mean without us – after the ‘park thing’. (The ‘park thing’ soon became the accepted short hand for the horrors they were trying to put behind them.)

  “Well, yes. But only once.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday. Before Mr. Bandi came. It was because… well, I wanted to see if the white gate was still here. I thought I could have persuaded you to go through it. But Mr. Bandi managed to achieve that very well.”

  “Why did Mr. Bandi come? I didn’t ask to see him. And he had written saying he would only come if I wanted to see him.”

  “Well, if you must know, I asked him to call.”

  “So you went to see Mr. Bandi?”

  “… and then went on to see if I could find the white gate.”

  Jack interrupted this exchange with, “Mum, what were you doing out so long yesterday? Did you come here too?”

  “Well, yes, I did. I was really fed up of seeing you so depressed I thought I had to do something about it. I reckoned that, if I knew anything about Jalli here, she wouldn’t reject you for being blind – which was what you kept saying. If she really loved you, she wouldn’t do that. Anyway, I felt I had to make sure. So I took the Wanulka phone with me and went to look for the white gate. I thought, if I could just step into the street in Wanulka I could ring Momori and talk to her. But when I got into the street I bumped straight into her! So we came back inside…”

 
“… and made ourselves comfortable,” declared Momori. We quickly learned that what we suspected was true. You were both keeping yourselves from the other because you were too young, too inexperienced – and too impetuous – to know the true power of love.”

  “But what we hadn’t bargained with was that very evening you both would come to the same conclusion,” added Matilda.

  “Just a minute,” Jack was putting all this together, “how come that man from the church came round again when he did? You asked him to call, didn’t you Mum?”

  “Well, in a way, yes. I met him in the church, on Sunday, and he asked how you were, and I told him how worried I was.”

  “You went to church?”

  “I’ve been three times now,” admitted Matilda. “But you were too wrapped up in your troubles to notice what day it was, let alone how long I was gone. The last time you were still in bed when I got back.”

  “And you didn’t ask me to go with you?”

  “Was there any point?”

  “No. I don’t suppose there was.”

  “So,” pronounced Jalli. “You’ve both been plotting?”

  “Well, not exactly plotting,” said Momori. “We just felt we had to do something. Because we love you. Both of us love both of you. Yesterday, when we met, we just prayed that you would somehow discover that you could still have something together.”

  “And here we are today!” concluded Matilda. “I have to acknowledge that praying seems to work sometimes!”

  25

  Everyone appeared to assume that they would spend the night in the cottage. Matilda had found the room that Jack had known was hers from the first day he entered it, and Momori took the one at the end of the corridor. Jalli found the nightdress with the Jallaxa on it that she had discovered in one of the drawers two months previously on her first visit. Although this was their first night in the cottage everyone felt at home as they knew they would.

  *

  Jalli had woken at dawn and gone straight into Jack’s room. They had talked about Jack’s mum going to church.

  “Jalli, how do you talk to God about things when the hurt is really, really deep? I mean, it is not easy for me to pray at the best of times.” Jalli admitted that she had not said anything to God since the “park thing”.

  “Why not? You were so good at praying.”

  “I felt too awful. So empty. The truth is, I just felt cut off from Him.”

  “Like you felt cut off from me?”

  “Yes, but not in the same way. I knew why, I thought I knew why. I believed, like the silly girl I am, that you wouldn’t want me. But, I just couldn’t face God. I felt… I feel… so ashamed. I was so angry – why did he let that happen – to me… to you… to us!? Then, I blamed myself too. Perhaps it was all my fault. I was so mixed up. I suppose I froze him out.”

  “But, surely, God would always want you, no matter what had happened – even if you were to blame. Didn’t you say he loved you right or wrong, good or bad?”

  “I know I believed that. But after the ‘park thing’ it didn’t feel like that. I just felt so dreadful. And I couldn’t go to church either. I couldn’t face anybody asking me questions – or volunteering to pray for me. I felt like… so foul, Jack.”

  “I’m beginning to understand. I hadn’t realised just how this affects a girl – because it all happened to you against your will. You had no part in it. The Jalli I know is as pure and good as the day I met her!”

  “Oh, Jack, you do say the nicest things. You might not always feel like that.”

  “I wish you could ‘see’ yourself from where I’m sitting! Your whole presence is like the sunshine to me. Jalli, I couldn’t live without you! So no more feeling bad. Jalli will you do something for me?”

  “Yes. Jack. Anything – if I can.”

  “Will you pray now. Pray for us?”

  “But Jack, I haven’t prayed for weeks, I…”

  “But you know how. You’ve done it for years.”

  “Yes. I know. I just felt OK with it. I felt OK with God. But, what can I say to him. I feel so ashamed now of not praying!”

  “Does God love you? We’ve made it up because we love each other.”

  “You’re right, Jack. But I’m nervous. Not now.”

  Then something marvellous happened. Jack suddenly found himself holding Jalli and praying, “Oh God, please help Jalli to talk to you again. Help her to know you still love her, that you’ve never stopped loving her. Help her to know she’s a wonderful, lovely, fantastic and pure girl.”

  “Yes Jack, yes. You pray for me. Oh, God I have been so stupid. Thank you for sending me Jack. Thank you for sending me this wonderful, fabulous, super boy!”

  *

  The next day the sun shone brightly, the birds sang and Jack and Jalli wandered around the garden, exploring nooks and plants they had not had time to really notice before. Jack was more keenly aware of scents and sounds than he had been when he could see.

  “If you see something first,” he explained, “then the smell is kind of expected, but when you can’t see it is the smell that catches you unawares, and if it is a nice one, like in this garden you can just… well, feel like rejoicing!”

  They circled the garden until they turned back to the white gates and Jalli stood still. Jack felt Jalli’s hand, which he had been holding all the time, tense up.

  “What’s wrong, Jalli? What’s the matter?” And it then occurred to him when he thought about where they were in garden. Before she could say anything, Jack added, “It’s another white gate isn’t it? I’m registering something. I can sort of ‘see’ it, but it’s not like the usual kind of seeing.” Jalli nodded and Jack felt her assent. She stood motionless holding Jack’s hand very firmly.

  “What are you thinking, Jalli? You’re not sure if you’re ready for this are you?”

  “No, Jack. I’m not. Look, every other time, you’ve been there to look out for me. This time… well, you’re going to need me to… to guide you. And, I’m still sore, Jack… I mean in my heart.”

  “I know, Jalli. Look let’s sit down on the bench and think.”

  They walked over to their little bench and sat quietly together.

  “Jalli, if a white gate is there, we’re meant to go through it aren’t we? We’ve always said that.”

  “Yes, but Jack, I’m not ready for another adventure.”

  “Who says?”

  “I do.”

  “But what about God. He has always looked after us in the past when we’ve gone through his white gates.”

  “But he didn’t protect us from that… that man…”

  “I agree that’s a hard one. But would you say he ever stopped loving you?”

  “Well, no. Of course not.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think he always protects us, Jalli. He just promises to be with us and love us… he hasn’t left us, has he?”

  “No, he hasn’t. It’s me, I know it’s me, Jack. It’s just that I don’t feel so brave any more.”

  “So, it may be he wants us to go through that gate so he can heal us.”

  “Do you mean, wants to make you see again, Jack?

  “Well. I hadn’t thought of that. I was thinking about you, and your sore heart.”

  “But you can help cure that, Jack!”

  “Maybe, but…”

  Jalli leapt to her feet. God might be offering Jack a cure for his blindness. She was suddenly full of energy. “Come on Jack. We’re going through that gate!”

  “Whoa,” said Jack. “That’s a sudden change of heart. I don’t know what’s behind it, but I think we should go through it. But we have to tell Mum and Grandma what’s up first. Are there any special clothes?”

  “No. Just a gate.” Jalli led Jack over to it and laid his hand on the top bar.

  “What can you see?”

  “It’s like a garden. Not unlike this one. There’s a tree with fruit on it.”

  “OK. Let’s go in and tell the ladies. They migh
t not be happy.”

  But they needn’t have worried. The sight of a new lively Jalli, more like the Jalli of old, was such a blessing to Momori. She smiled. When Matilda saw the smile, she felt that she shouldn’t raise any objections either. After all, it was good to see her son growing in confidence. She simply said, “You won’t be long will you?”

  “Mum. You know we don’t have any idea how long it will be.”

  “No I suppose not. But don’t be long all the same!”

  Jalli smiled, “I’ll look after him. I promise. I won’t leave him.”

  Fifteen minutes later they pushed open the new white gate. Four steps took them into a garden with a hedge. The first thing Jack became aware of was birdsong.

  “That’s a blackbird. Or it is very much like one,” he noted.

  Another pace and the top of Jack’s head struck something round and hard that seemed to be suspended above him. He stopped and reached up and felt a small round fruit hanging from a branch. As he did so another fell on his shoulder.

  “Oh, sorry Jack. I didn’t think. You’re taller than me.”

  “This is an apple tree I think,” whispered Jack.

  Jalli bent and picked up the fallen fruit and put it into his hand. Jack smelt it.

  “Yes, this is an apple. It’s not ripe yet. It’s too early. This feels and smells like home… I mean like Britain. Is there anyone there? I thought I heard someone.”

  “No, I can’t see anyone.”

  “It’s over there. There it is again!”

  Jalli looked in the direction Jack was indicating. There was a garden shed, and down on the ground round the other side was a foot.

  “Hello,” Jalli said quietly. There was no movement and she approached nearer so she could see the back of a girl with long, fair hair sitting on the grass and leaning against the shed.

  “Hello,” said Jalli again. “Are you OK?”

  The girl turned sharply. There was panic in her face. “Who are you? How’d you get in here?”

  “My name’s Jalli. We came through… over there.”

  “What do you want? You’re not from the police are you?” said the girl getting to her feet.

  “No. No. We’re… we’ve come to help,” Jalli found herself saying. She had stepped through the gate thinking, hoping, that it would lead somewhere where Jack could be cured, but, of course, now they were here it was someone else that needed their help.