Beneath the Old Oak

by Lisa Shambrook

  Meg’s face paled as she stared into Joan’s eyes. “My grandma tried to kill herself?”

  Joan nodded. “Your mother found her in the garden, hanging from the tree.”

  “The laburnum?”

  Joan nodded.

  “And she saved her life?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t that easy. Her mother never forgave her for saving her.”

  “She didn’t want to be saved?” Meg’s hands tightly balled in her lap, and Ophelia woke to stretch and nuzzle Meg’s fists. Hot tears stung, but Meg refused to let them fall. She ignored the cat, and the Persian stalked away, seeking refuge on Joan’s lap. “She wanted to die?”

  Joan nodded.

  “And nobody thought to tell me?”

  “It’s not something your mother ever wanted to talk about,” said Joan.

  Meg flinched as Joan leaned towards her. “I can’t stay here.”

  Meg leaped off the sofa and lunged past Mrs Hillman. The front door slammed behind her and Meg didn’t even look back to see if the net curtains twitched.

  Meg clutched her arms tightly to her chest as she blustered into the lounge. Her eyes flicked across the bookshelves. Family photo albums lay piled, three on top of each other, on the bottom shelf. She crumpled to the floor, running her finger across a faux-leather album cover. She opened the album, tilting her head to gaze at the photographs.

  Her baby photographs held no interest. The next album began with her school photographs, and the last was her parent’s wedding album. She leaned against the wall, staring at the volumes.

  A flash of silver caught her eye. Reaching behind a couple of novels, Meg pulled out a burnished silver picture frame. As she turned the frame in her hands, the front door clicked, and her father’s shouts filled the house.

  “Meg! Meg! Meg, where are you?”

  Meg dropped the picture and rushed into the hall. He stood, his face red and teary, but relief and smiles erupted as he grabbed her in a bear hug. “They’ve found her, she’s okay! They’ve found her! It’s okay, we’ve found her!”

  Meg gripped her father, unable to decipher the emotions screaming through her head.

  “Where is she, when’s she coming home?” Her voice and her hands both shook.

  Dad buried his face in her hair and replied in a muffled voice. “She’s not coming home, not yet.”

  “What?” Meg thought she’d misheard. “Not coming home? But they’ve found her, and you said she’s okay!”

  “She is okay, she’s not hurt or anything…”

  “Then?”

  “Oh, Meg.” His tone was so despondent that Meg pulled away and stared up at him.

  “Dad, what’s wrong? Why can’t she come home? Where is she?”

  Dad swallowed. “She’s not hurt, no one hurt her, but she’s in Longbridge General. She turned up in A&E last night, just walked in. I don’t know much more. I need to go and find out.”

  “How long will it take us to get there?”

  “Sweetheart…I’m really sorry, but I need to go alone…”

  “Alone?” Meg’s face fell.

  Dad nodded. “I’m so sorry, the police said they think she’s been transferred to the mental health ward, and they don’t allow children…”

  “I’m not a child!” Meg objected. “I’ve never been a child…” she muttered.

  Dad grasped his daughter’s hands and squeezed. “I’m really sorry, and I came straight here to tell you first, but you have to be over sixteen or something.”

  “It’s nothing I haven’t already seen…” she protested. “Mum’s been crazy for a while.”

  “Meg! Mum’s not crazy.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said, pulling her hands from his. Pain lit up his eyes, and Meg immediately wished she could retract her words. “I’m sorry, Dad. It’s hard and I want to go with you…”

  “I know.” His eyes softened. “I’ll find out if I can bring you next time.”

  Meg nodded as both remorse and relief washed over her. “You go, you need to go now, go and find out what happened.”

  He hugged Meg tight. “I’ll find out everything.”

  Meg tried to smile and leaned into her father as tears pricked her eyelids. Then Dad pulled away. “I’d better go then.”

  Meg nodded and let go. He kissed her cheek and dug his car keys out of his pocket. “Call me if you need me.” He wavered at the door. “I’m so sorry…” She shook her head and bit her lip. “But I’ll tell her, tell her we miss her.”

  Meg nodded. “Yes, Dad, tell her we miss her.”

  He nodded firmly, opening the front door with one last glance at his daughter sitting on the stairs. Then he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him.

  Meg clasped her hands tightly in her lap as tears fell. “Yes, Dad, tell her you miss her.”

  Meg remained on the stair, gazing at nothing but dust motes for twenty minutes. Finally she got to her feet. She moved back into the lounge and flopped onto the sofa. There on the floor sat the silver photo frame.

  She dropped down and picked it up. The tabs were dislodged, and the back loose. She twisted her wrist and gazed at the mounted photograph of her mother. The bride stared back with a wide smile and coils of honey-blonde curls escaping the gauzy veil framing her face. Her fingers slipped, and the back slid out of her grasp. The glass moved, and she grabbed at the picture as the back hit the floor. Something else drifted to the carpet.

  She picked up the back and two loose photographs. She recognised one as an old black and white wedding photograph. She’d seen it before and knew it was her mother’s parents. Her grandfather’s posture was rigid, and his bride’s arm rested on his in a traditional pose. Her grandmother gazed at the camera with a solemn but happy expression as she clutched a bouquet of roses.

  The second photo held mother and daughter. The little girl stood awkwardly twirling a long blonde plait in one hand and gripping tightly to her mother’s hand with the other. Pale blue ribbons tied in perfect bows at the end of her plaits, and her socks were pulled right up over her knees.

  Tears blurred her vision as she recognised the little girl at the oak tree. The girl, Meg’s mother, gazed out at her.

  Dropping the first picture, Meg got to her feet and hurried up the stairs. In front of her mother’s mirror, she stared at her reflection then looked at the photograph still clutched in her hand. She blinked.

  She stared at her grandmother’s stiff pose, the unforgiving bearing and sad eyes, then gazed at her mother, a lost child, with those same sad eyes. She lifted her face and looked at her own reflection. Her mother’s, and her grandmother’s, eyes stared back.

  A breeze carried through the open bedroom window, and pale blue ribbons, tied to the mirror, fluttered in acquiescence.

  Meg’s eyelids flickered, and her fingers curled as her name echoed through her dream. She groggily pushed hair off her face as her eyes fluttered open. “Dad?” His face blurred as she blinked. “Dad?”

  “I’m here, Meg.”

  She rubbed her puffy eyes, gazing at her father, a silhouette in the dark outlined in streetlight orange. She swallowed as yesterday’s events returned with the force of a punch in the stomach.

  “Meg, can we talk?” Meg’s heart tumbled into her stomach as she nodded, gathered her legs beneath her and sat up in the middle of her parents’ bed. She leaned into her dad and noticed the photograph glinting in his hand. Meg gently touched the picture.

  “Did my grandmother try to kill herself?” she asked.

  Dad gazed at the photograph and gave a small nod. “Where did you find this?”

  “Behind a picture. Why did she try?”

  Dad shrugged. “She suffered chronic depression like your mum.”

  “But Granddad was a doctor, why didn’t she get treated?”

  “Maybe she did.” Dad sighed.

  “Did Mum try…” she began.

  “No!” Dad interrupted. “Mum’s never tried that, she never would!”

  “Beca
use she found her mum?”

  Dad pulled Meg closer. “Because she could never do to us what her mother did to her.”

  “But she still ran away and left us!” said Meg, staring into her father’s eyes.

  His eyes glistened, but he had no answer.

  “Is that why she tried to cut down the tree in the garden?” asked Meg.

  He sighed and broke eye contact. “Yes, because it reminded her.”

  For a moment neither said anything, then her father sniffed. Meg glanced up at him as he stared across her head.

  “Are you okay, Dad? Is Mum okay?”

  He squeezed her shoulders and nodded, but it took a moment before he could speak. “She’s lost weight. When I got there, doctors told me of a wild, incomprehensible woman, and I thought it couldn’t possibly be Martha.” He kissed her hair. “But when I saw her...” He paused. “They were right. I’ve never seen her like this…”

  Meg gazed at his moist eyes. “Not ever?”

  Dad shook away his quizzical expression. “No, not ever. Not even when she had other breakdowns.”

  “Tell me about the other breakdowns.”

  “It was awful. She had to stay strong to cope with looking after you, because you needed her, but she got so low. She cried all the time. You began going a little crazy too.”

  Meg raised her eyebrows. “Me?”

  He nodded. “You were a baby. Suddenly she was scared they’d say she was crazy and that she’d lose you. She refused to go out, wouldn’t take you anywhere, and you went stir crazy. There were times I’d come home and you’d be sitting on her lap screaming, and her crying too. She wouldn’t let you go, and I’d have to pry you out of her arms so you could calm down. Then I’d try and calm her.” He sighed. “I had no idea what to do. I was at work, I couldn’t stay home, but I knew it was bad.”

  “Did she get help?”

  He shook his head. “Not enough, they just said it was postnatal depression and put her on antidepressants.”

  “What happened?”

  “She ended up in hospital, at Meadow Hill. I think that’s where they’re going to transfer her in a few days.”

  “The mental hospital?”

  He nodded. “There wasn’t a choice. She was overprotective to the point of suffocating you, then all of a sudden it changed and she was the complete opposite. She left you here on your own a couple of times, not for long, but enough to be a worry. My sister came to stay when you were three, when Mum was in Meadow Hill.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police about Meadow Hill when they asked?”

  “I did later. I didn’t want you to worry. They got the TV appeal out fast, even though I was worried if Martha saw we were searching for her there was a possibility she might disappear for good.”’

  “Did she run away before, when I was small?” asked Meg.

  He nodded. “But only for a few hours at a time! You were a strong enough hook to bring her home.”

  “But not now.” Meg glanced away, and her father hugged her harder.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Meg, it’s not your fault.”

  She sighed. “So how is she now?”

  “Sedated. They’ve got her on Lorazepam, or something that sounds like that.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “There’s not much to see. She sleeps.”

  “What about you?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll get her into Meadow Hill, and we’ll see what happens from there. I doubt they’ll keep her long, I think she’ll get a team to help at home…”

  “She’ll come home?”

  Meg’s tension made Dad glance at her. “Yes, she’ll come home and probably have most things dealt with here, or at outpatients. Are you okay with that?”

  Meg’s tooth pierced her lip and blood’s metallic taste seeped into her mouth. She tensed and Dad held her tighter. Sobs fought Meg’s body for release, but she kept them chained and buried.

  “Meg?”

  Her hands gripped her father’s arms, her fingers pinching his skin, and he let the picture fall from his hands as he embraced his daughter. Her sobs finally escaped, and he buried his face in her hair as the morning sun began to peep over the horizon.

  She remained curled beside her father, knees tucked against his side, his arm hooked around her, and she didn’t want to move. The sun drifted across the window, bathing them in warm tendrils of light. As it moved across the room, Meg gently unfurled, sliding off the bed. Almost immediately her father snorted, snored and turned over. With his back to her, Meg felt alone and stood for a moment wondering what to do.

  The sun teased as it danced across the wall, and she chased it out into the garden.

  Meg stood and stared up into the laburnum’s straggly August foliage. She stared at its trunk, passing her fingers across its scars.

  Meg imagined her mother’s axe, bark flying and wood splintering. She saw her mother kicking and slashing at the poor laburnum, her eyes wild and knuckles white. She heard Mum’s screeches of anger and frustration, and her fury and strength as she wielded her weapon. Then she glanced up into the boughs, following the strongest branches…and Meg shied. She jumped as silence interrupted her reverie.

  She didn’t want to be in the garden, and she didn’t want to disturb Dad, so she ran.

  It was a familiar route, trodden into her heart, and without thinking, she sprinted through the streets into the narrow lane and down the path to the field. Her hands brushed the daisies as she ran until she reached the broken fence. She paused, leaning against the fence post, catching her breath.

  Her legs shook and her eyes blurred as she stared up at the oak. She ducked beneath the fence, scuffing her trainers, almost tripping over a loose lace, but then she was on her feet and running up the hill through the overgrown field to the remains of her oak.

  Splinters in her heart pierced deep as she stood a few feet away. Bark still lay strewn across the earth, but in windswept mounds. Twigs and dead, curled, brittle leaves littered the ground. A couple of the largest broken boughs were missing and their paths, along with thick tyre tracks, trailed across the field through the flattened grass. Other discarded branches lay piled together behind the tree. The only surviving branch still hung precariously, but comforted Meg as she approached.

  Meg’s heart punched through her chest as she gazed at the mutilated tree. Her eyes followed the single bough from its tip and its only green leaves, teasing the soil, back to its shattered trunk. Her eyes moved up its torso to its splintered heart. She followed the absent boughs and branches up into the sky, its imaginary canopy spreading far and wide above, and the glare of summer dazzled her.

  All of a sudden she laughed, and her eyes flickered across the void above her. Her safe place, her solace, her shelter was gone, just as her mother had disappeared, and her laugh echoed across the field.

  “Gone!” she called, throwing out her arms, encapsulating the sky in her wild embrace. She giggled, almost maniacally, and addressed the tree. “Now you’re gone, she’s gone, what now? What do I have left?” Meg bit her lip. “What do I have left?” she whispered, collapsing at the foot of the tree.

  For ten minutes, Meg rested her forehead against the oak, then she got to her feet and followed the branch until she could wrap her arms around it. She hugged the bough and glanced sideways at the trunk. Though it had been blown apart, it still stood, still rooted and strong, and the branch, though weaker, was still attached and still part of the tree.

  Meg didn’t think the branch would survive, but right now it hung on, its leaves still green and alive. Meg stroked its bark, and the tingle that ran through her, this time, had nothing to do with the tree.

  “I’m not broken,” she whispered.

  She leapt away from the oak, staring at it. She grinned. “You can hit me with lightning, with anything, but I’m not broken.”

  A deluge flooded her and she recalled images of a happy mother, with flushed cheeks, a mother who left, but would return. “I’m not my
mother! I’m not my mother and she’s not hers, and I’m not broken!”

  The sun threw its rays in Meg’s direction as she whirled round and round, like a spinning top. Above her, an imaginary canopy stretched across the sky and Meg danced beneath the oak.

  Meg’s name echoed across the meadow, and she turned to see her father running down the track at the bottom of the field. “Meg?”

  “Up here!” she called, waving her hands.

  He clambered over the broken fence, clumsily running up the grassy hill, like he couldn’t reach his daughter fast enough. For a moment, Meg worried, but the grin on his face calmed her. His shirt was untucked, and his hair was damp from running in the early summer heat.

  “You okay?” she called.

  He nodded. “Are you?”

  She answered by galloping down the slope and throwing herself into his arms. “I’m fine,” she whispered into his cotton shirt. “Daddy, I’m fine!”

  “When I woke up you were gone…I couldn’t find you!” Anguish clouded his eyes. “But Mrs Hillman said you’d be here.”

  “Mrs Hillman?” Meg raised her eyebrows.

  “No idea how she knew, but when I ran out of the house looking frantic, she called out the window, ‘Try the old oak!’ So here I am!”

  “Well, she’s the fount of all knowledge then, isn’t she?” Meg laughed.

  “A regular sage!” He put his hands on his daughter’s shoulders. “Are you sure you’re okay? I’m not stupid, you know. I know you’re not keen on Mum coming home, and yes, I know you love her, but I also know what you’ve been dealing with, especially lately.” He looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you like I was for her.”

  Meg shook her head. “You told me not to blame myself, so don’t you do it! Mum coming home scares me. I want her here with us more than anything, but not like she is.”

  “She’s getting help. This time, we’ll all be there as much as we can. Her crisis team wants us involved too.”

  Meg couldn’t speak, and they held each other close until Meg pulled away. “I’m really sorry for not leaving a note, after Mum, you know…”