Beneath the Old Oak

by Lisa Shambrook

  “It’s okay, I’m fine doing it.”

  Her mum shook her head. “You’ve done plenty, I’m tired, but I feel like cooking, so the kitchen’s mine now.”

  Meg dropped the potato peeler. “You’re sure?”

  Mum nodded. “I’m sure.” She took the peeler and sent Meg packing. “Go do homework or something. I don’t need babysitting!”

  Meg backed warily out of the kitchen, leaving her mother in charge of dinner. She opened her book and stared at the page, listening to the noises in the kitchen. Her ears pricked at cutlery clattering to the floor, but she remained seated, straining only her hearing. She did not read a word of the book before her.

  Meg relaxed after dinner’s success, and as Mum washed up, singing as she did, both her husband and Meg shared smiles.

  The house sparkled, cupboards restocked and Mum began showing interest in the world beyond home and scheduled naps. She asked about her husband’s day at work and smiled in all the right places and even probed Meg about school. Meg lied, of course; school was never fun.

  Mum continued to improve and even talked about getting out of the house more, maybe even looking for a job, now Meg was old enough to look after herself. Meg laughed inwardly; she’d been looking after herself for years.

  Every morning when she woke, Meg felt the stabbing thorn in her side, but she dressed, ate breakfast and left for the school bus. She braved the frigid atmosphere and flitted around the school like a ghost, doing just what she needed to do to remain anonymous, and that suited her just fine.

  Mum needed no more information than a nod that school was good and Meg gave her that courtesy.

  Mum was often asleep when Meg got home, but she set an alarm and was always up in time to do dinner. Meg helped and Mum reciprocated with their favourite desserts.

  Dad was so overjoyed that his wife finally showed signs of being the woman he once married that he forgave everything. When she forgot to buy shaving gel, he kissed her and went without shaving for a couple of days. When she didn’t pay the credit card bill, he took the late charge in his stride and paid it himself. When she ran out of petrol and couldn’t start the car, he took an hour off work to buy a can of fuel and take it to her. He didn’t mind when their blue towels dyed his best white shirts lavender, and he wasn’t bothered when she broke his favourite pen, so raised voices surprised Meg late one evening.

  “I don’t need them!” Her mother’s voice snapped.

  “I think you do.” Dad spoke softly, but firmly.

  “I know I don’t!”

  “You need them for as long as the doctor prescribes them,” said Dad.

  “Paul! I think I know how long I need them for, and right now I’m done.”

  “You don’t know that…”

  “I do, so stop worrying!”

  “I worry because I love you, Martha. Listen, the doctor gave you tablets to make you better…”

  “And they have!” Mum’s voice rose again. “Don’t you see? Can’t you see I’m different now? I’m not my mother. You don’t need to worry about that!”

  “Of course they’re helping!” he insisted. “But you have to keep taking them. And you’ll never be your mother!”

  “I’ll leave before I become like her!” She rattled a packet. “Look! Empty! I’ve finished them!”

  “Did you wean off them?” Dad’s voice broke.

  “Paul, I’m better, and if you can’t see that, then I don’t know what to say. I’m done with them and this discussion.”

  Meg quickly turned the television back up and stared at the screen as her mother stomped into the room. She threw a medication box into the bin and sat on the sofa. Meg didn’t look up from the television, but could see her mother’s foot bouncing up and down at the end of her crossed leg, a sure sign of irritation. She wanted to see what Dad was doing, but knew he’d be sitting at the dining room table with his head in his hands. Meg stayed curled up in her chair, unable to counter the wobble in her stomach.

  It was ten minutes before Dad stood nervously by the door. It was three more minutes before he spoke. They were tentative words.

  “Martha. I don’t think we’ve…

  Mum exploded. “I think we are! I think we’re finished on this subject!” She shook her head refusing to look at him. “I feel really good, really good, the best I’ve felt in ages, but I’m tired, so tired. I’m exhausted actually, and I don’t want to be so tired. I don’t want to sleep, to have to take naps during the day. I’m not a child! And it’s the tablets that make me tired! So I’m done with them, they’ve done their job.”

  Meg tried to sink deeper into her chair, and her dad stood quietly at the back of the room. He stood for a full three minutes more then took his laptop off the desk and disappeared back into the dining room.

  “Why, Meg? Why doesn’t he get it?” Meg’s eyes widened. “Why doesn’t he get it? They’ve done their job, and I’m pretty good now, so I don’t need them anymore, I really don’t!”

  Meg wondered who she was trying to convince.

  Late afternoon sun tickled Meg’s arms, and she enjoyed the hint of breeze that made the midsummer months bearable. As she got closer to home she could see their neighbour standing in the window. Today, the net curtains fluttered across the open window. Meg smiled broadly and called out. “Hello, isn’t it beautiful?”

  The old lady smiled back and waved. “Hello dear,” she replied with a bright smile.

  Meg turned up her path and shrugged off her backpack. Her mouth watered at the thought of ice lollies in the freezer.

  “Mum?” she called, wandering into the kitchen.

  No answer and she called again. She opened the freezer and watermelon ice lollies stared at her. “Mum!”

  She grabbed a lolly and settled back into the sofa, appreciating the blissful cool. A bang on the floor upstairs made Meg jump, almost dropping the lolly. She bit a chunk, considering how fast she could finish it before Mum walked in

  It was Indy who moseyed into the lounge and leaped up onto Meg’s lap, and she slouched again. She stroked Indy, whispering into his ear. “Is Mum asleep then?”

  He meowed and Meg took his response as affirmation. She giggled as he nuzzled into her shoulder, and she reached around his head to bite her lolly. He purred, pushing his head up against her chin. Meg finished the lolly and he settled on her lap. For the next hour she lost herself in a TV show, until her stomach began to grumble. Since the cat had sauntered downstairs, there had been no further noise from above.

  “Okay, it’s time to get her up then.” Meg placed Indy on the floor and got up.

  She hesitated at the foot of the stairs, braced herself and ran up them, two at a time. The bed was perfectly made and definitely not slept in. She frowned. She hurried to Mum’s window and gazed at Mum’s little blue car still parked outside. She shook her head and dashed downstairs.

  “So where is she?” she asked the cat.

  Indy meowed, but was no help at all.

  Mum had vanished, again, but her car still sat outside and it was the car which worried her. Whenever she disappeared, her car vanished too.

  Meg and her father prepared dinner and ate in silence after they’d decided she wasn’t going to turn up with fish and chips.

  By seven o’clock, Meg worried and Dad delivered reasons why she might have turned off her phone. The battery was probably dead, or maybe she’d run out of credit. He ignored Meg’s argument that having no credit wouldn’t prevent her from answering her phone. The battery was probably dead.

  At eight o’clock, even Dad had to admit this was out of the ordinary and neither had any idea where she might be.

  It was twenty past eight when she sauntered through the front door. They stared at her as she grinned and dropped down onto the sofa.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked.

  “Just out,” she said. “Nowhere special.”

  “Nowhere special…” He could barely speak he was trying so hard to hold back emotio
ns of both anger and relief. “What do you mean ‘nowhere special’? It must have been pretty special to stay out this long.”

  “D’you know what?” She sat forward on the sofa, her eyes lighting up as she looked at them both. “Do you know what? We should get a dog!”

  “A dog!” Dad’s eyebrows almost leaped off his face.

  “Yes! A dog! I’ve just had the most amazing walk, down by the railway, the old one, you know the one. The weather’s so gorgeous, who could resist the pull of an afternoon walk? Well, I couldn’t! So I did! I upped and went, down to the railway. You can’t go on the actual railway, but as it’s unused it doesn’t matter…” Meg and her father exchanged glances. “It was hot and sunny, and the river runs down there too. We should have a dog, it would swim in the river and have fun!”

  “We’re not getting a dog,” said Dad flatly. “No dog.”

  “Oh, spoilsport!” Mum giggled. “Then if we don’t get a dog, we should walk more, it’s fun down there, so quiet and beautiful. I sat by the river just taking in the nature—the sun shining down on me, the river gurgling away—I threw stones in the water! Meg, you should come with me! And I’m not tired anymore, just happy, things are good!”

  Meg shook her head. “We didn’t know where you were!”

  “Oh, pish! You don’t need to know where I am all the time. You were at school and Dad was at work, why would I need to tell you where I was? Can’t I go out on my own and have some fun? Why shouldn’t I go out, I’m not a prisoner here, am I?” Mum’s smile faded.

  “Of course not, honey,” said her husband, his voice softening as she bristled. “Of course you can go out…”

  “And so I should, why should I be locked up here?”

  “It’s just that we didn’t know where you were and you’re very late home. We’ve had dinner,” said Dad.

  “You’ve had dinner?”

  “Yes, it’s late, it’s eight thirty!” he replied.

  “But it’s still sunny, it doesn’t look late?”

  Dad cast another look of concern at his daughter. “That’s because it’s summer…”

  “I know that!” snapped his wife.

  “It’s late, that’s all.” Dad didn’t know what else to say.

  “So, I have a curfew?”

  “Inasmuch as we all do, we’d all like to have dinner together, not gallivant out like a teenager!” His frustration surfaced.

  “I wasn’t gallivanting.”

  “We’re just glad you’re home now, Mum. Maybe check your watch next time you go for a walk. We miss you when you’re not here for dinner.”

  “Miss my cooking for you, more like!” she retorted.

  Meg tried not to react, but her mother’s words stung. Just once, she’d like her mum to appreciate what she did, but, she shook her head, that wasn’t happening any time soon.

  There were a few moments of quiet then Mum got to her feet. “So, did you keep me any dinner?”

  “Of course,” said Meg.

  “Then I’d better eat something before I starve.” She flounced out of the room, leaving Meg and her father staring at each other.

  Meg frowned and her father shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  The oak’s thick canopy rustled and Meg’s hair blew across her face. She wondered if the tree would dispense its strange wisdom today. Meg flopped quietly at its foot, pushing her hair out of her face again and waited.

  She stared at the tree in quiet contemplation, trying to sort the memories the tree had given her. She chewed on a fingernail, trying to understand the scenes—the young boy climbing the oak, a lost little girl, and the distressing image of the noose.

  Then at the close of February, the oak had gone quiet, refusing to play. Meg had thought it was over, a freak occurrence in her increasingly disturbed world, but in April she discovered the carved heart, and the tree couldn’t hold back as Meg’s fingers lingered on the initials. A week later, when things began to look up, the tree offered her the girl on the swing, and she wondered if the tree mirrored her emotions, empathising in the only way it could.

  There had been nothing since, but now as her mother became more and more erratic, Meg returned.

  Now she stood inside its penumbra, beginning to understand the years of burdens and joys the tree had embraced, and she stared up into its arms, tilting her neck to take in the bright green canopy stretching over her head.

  It stood, a sentinel at the back of the field, surrounded by hedgerow and grass, but still alone. At the field’s perimeter, hawthorn and hazel grew short and stubby beside elder and crab apples. Beech trees grew huge, hugged by ash and elm. Princely horse chestnuts spanned the group, and tall larch and prickly Scots pine poked through the canopy. Only the oak stood alone, set apart.

  Meg was nothing like the other trees. Meg stood reserved and lonely, but unlike the oak, she still had no idea of her strength.

  Today, Meg struggled not to cry.

  Mum said she felt good, but Meg and her father knew different. Ten weeks of antidepressants might help, but Mum’s temper frayed, her shoulders hunched and she had a strange air of wildness. Meg and her father were back to living on an ice rink.

  Tears choked her throat and blurred her eyes. Her head pounded like a hammer on an anvil, and resentment massed. She leaped back up into the tree and climbed with vigour, ignoring scratching twigs and grazes as she scaled the oak. She reached the second-highest fork and grabbed, trying to go higher, but she wasn’t tall enough to reach and collapsed against the trunk, her breath catching in her burning throat.

  The wind whistled, and the leaves danced and Meg wept.

  The oak sang as the wind picked up and curled around the tree. Gusts twisted through branches, cooling her fiery skin and drying the tears on her cheeks. She balanced and gave a shuddery sigh. She wasn’t alone in the branches. Little brown sparrows twittered and fluttered from one spray of leaves to another, just out of her reach.

  She didn’t want to think about Mum. She slid down the fork and carefully sat on the branch, with one leg hanging either side, and leaned back against it. Dappled sunshine played softly through the swishing leaves and Meg relaxed.

  She heard voices and froze.

  Foliage obscured her view, and she couldn’t even see across the field for all the leaves. She clutched the branch and leaned as far forward as she dared, but it didn’t help. Voices carried on the wind across the field, and she still couldn’t see anything. Meg strained her ears, but the whistling wind and rustling leaves filled them. Then all of a sudden the wind vanished and the tree’s foliage turned, and the leaves dropped in a flurry of green and brown and red and gold. The sun weakened, but its bronze rays danced across the field in the late evening that the tree now inhabited.

  Meg panicked and tried to swing her legs together, ready to climb down, but she realised she was immovable. The voices got closer, and all Meg could do was sit and wait, and ignore her pounding heart.

  The summer heat cooled to mid-autumn crisp, and the falling leaves opened up Meg’s view across the field. A girl skipped through the grass, followed not far behind by a young man. Meg watched as the girl, who was much less a girl and much more a woman, ran ahead, pausing to glance over her shoulder at her pursuer before sashaying up to the oak. The girl leaned back on the trunk, and Meg gazed down at the top of her head. The early evening sun bronzed her blonde hair and she propped herself on one foot, the other flat against the trunk.

  The man meandered amiably while she waited.

  Meg felt the frisson in the air; it danced around the couple like twinkling stars.

  The girl coiled her finger in her hair and grinned as he pushed his glasses up on his nose. He walked closer, and Meg’s view became obscured as he disappeared behind a clump of burnished-bronze oak leaves. Meg reached out to move the branch and a summer leaf dropped at her touch. She drew in a breath and watched the leaf spiral down out of the tree. The leaf vanished, fading into noth
ing before reaching the girl below.

  She giggled again as he hesitated. She shifted position against the tree and threw him an object. He caught it and held up a small camera. “Take a picture of the moment,” she said.

  He paused and framed a photograph.

  “So, you coming any closer?” she asked.

  “If you want me to.”

  “If you want more than a picture, you’ll have to,” she said.

  He ambled closer with a dopey grin, and the setting sun enhanced the ruddy flush already caressing his cheeks.

  Meg watched as he moved into the oak’s long shadow, and he was soon at the girl’s side.

  “So?” She lifted her head, but Meg couldn’t see her face.

  He smiled. “So what?”

  “Well, you’re here now,” said the girl.

  He reached out his fingers, lightly brushing her hand by her side. “Can I…kiss you?” he stammered as she curled her fingers around his.

  She nodded and he gently pulled her into a soft kiss. Then she stepped back and let go of his hand. His face was open and vulnerable, and Meg was entranced by the beauty of love’s dance.

  “I didn’t think you were ever going to ask,” she confided as she reached for his hand again.

  They stood, leaning against the rough trunk, and Meg knew they had no idea of the glittered, sparkling air that swirled around them. Meg leaned forward again, to listen as he spoke softly. “Martha, I’ve adored you for months, you know that.”

  Meg’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, and her heart raced as voices became familiar and Meg realised that the couple now sitting at the foot of the tree, her tree, were her parents.

  Shock reverberated and Meg, still immobilised in the tree, broke her boundaries, and the setting crimson sun vanished, replaced by blinding summer sun and the autumn foliage was gone, and Meg was back in the oak on her own.

  The couple were no longer naïve, flirting strangers, and the romance of the moment was shattered.

  Staring at her bickering parents, Meg couldn’t believe they’d ever been young enough to get up to no good beneath the old oak. Her mother’s coolness and her father’s hurt made for an icy home in the middle of a July heat wave.