The Elephant Tree

by R. D. Ronald

  Climbing into the familiar sweaty menthol atmosphere of the cab, Scott saw the driver was Reg, greeted him with a quick hello and told him their destination. Reg nodded and eased the car back out onto the road.

  ‘No call the other night, so I guess you had a good time,’ Reg said, grinning at Scott through the rear view mirror.

  ‘You got it Reg,’ Scott said, and smiled hoping this would suffice. He knew by trying to deny Reg’s suspicions he’d be caught up in a cat and mouse conversation for the whole trip that he really couldn’t be bothered with. This way he could just sit back and give the occasional nod or grin to whatever playful interrogation the old man threw his way. More concerned with wheedling details of Scott’s love life, the inquisitive driver missed the opportunity to ask the reason for his visit to the hospital.

  By the time they pulled up in front of the hospital, Reg’s curiosity had seemingly been satiated, and he even turned away Scott’s offer of a tip.

  ‘You keep it for your lady friend, Scott. Get her a nice bunch of flowers.’

  ‘OK, thanks Reg,’ Scott said, and climbed out of the cab.

  Inadvertently taking Reg’s advice, Scott stopped off in the hospital gift shop and bought flowers to hand in at Stephanie’s room. The gift shop, it would appear, like the rest of the hospital was decorated sparsely with what attempted to be tasteful but inoffensive Christmas decorations. To Scott they seemed to say ‘Try to smile and enjoy the season, but let’s not take the piss now, people are still dying in here.’ He smiled cynically while waiting in line at the checkout and wondered if Angela had shared a similar thought. Probably not, after all, until a few hours ago her friend may have been one of the ones dying. Having no idea what to get, he had selected a moderately priced bunch of varied colours, and asked for a couple of packs of cigarettes while he was at the checkout. The woman gave him the generic thank you come again smile and handed Scott his change.

  Scott strode towards the lifts wielding the flowers like a sword. The third floor, ward nine, Angela had told him. He squeezed into the first available lift along with a blur of white coats and other visitors. Somebody pressed for his floor so Scott just waited, doing his best to protect the already partly squashed flowers he held on to.

  At the third floor, he extricated himself from the lift as best he could and began reading the directions on the sign opposite when he heard his name called. Turning, he saw Angela drinking a vending machine coffee and made his way over. She was still here, keeping watch over a friend whom she had hardly been in touch with for years. Scott wondered if there was anyone in his life that would bring out such devoted conviction in him.

  ‘How is she now?’

  ‘Better, the Doctors say she’s stable and they’re just monitoring her now. She hasn’t said anything about the attack though, just that someone must have jumped her from behind and that’s all she knows.’

  ‘Will they be keeping her in much longer?’

  ‘If she continues to recover without any complications they say she should be out in three days.’

  ‘Christmas Eve.’

  ‘Yeah, I didn’t expect you to be keeping track though,’ Angela said, grinning.

  ‘One is without transport, so one needs to keep tabs on the bus schedules,’ he said in mock indignance, broadening Angela’s grin into a smile.

  ‘She’s awake if you’d like to go in,’ Angela said, and swept her hair back over her shoulder. Scott caught a glimpse of her right ear which now held a third silver hoop.

  For a second Scott wasn’t sure what she meant until her eyes drifted from his face to the flowers he was still holding.

  ‘Right – yeah, OK.’

  Angela led the way back onto the ward. Scott followed, avoiding looking through any of the windows onto the rooms they passed. Sick people made him uncomfortable. He never knew how he should act around them and found it difficult to shake the mocking guilt of his own good health.

  ‘The new earring is nice, you just get it done?’

  ‘Oh, yeah just recently.’

  ‘How many more do you plan on getting?’

  ‘I’m really hoping this will be my last one.’

  Pushing open a door Angela stepped into a small room with only one bed; most of the others in the ward had been six beds to a room. The curtains were partially closed restricting the amount of light inside. Walking in, Scott was overwhelmed by the smell of antiseptic and bandages.

  ‘You want me to open these now?’ Angela asked in an upbeat tone, walking towards the window.

  ‘No, leave them,’ Stephanie said, through swollen lips. Her mouth and one bruised and swollen eye were all that was visible of her face, the rest wrapped tightly in fresh white bandages.

  ‘Ahh, are you OK then Steph?’ Scott asked. A stupid question he thought, but didn’t know what else he should say. He passed the bunch of flowers from hand to hand, uneasily. Her attention shifted from Angela by the window and she turned her one uncovered eye in his direction.

  ‘I’ll just peachy.’ She said stiffly.

  Angela came and took the flowers from Scott and busied herself filling a vase with water from a tap over the sink and arranging them.

  ‘Good to hear you’ll be out for Christmas then,’ he said, trying to adopt the same upbeat tone Angela had used when they’d first entered.

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘OK well I might go and leave you both to talk. Nice to see you, Steph,’ he said and backed out of the room. Angela caught up with him halfway down the corridor.

  ‘She’s still pretty messed up by it all,’ Angela said almost apologetically, as she pulled on Scott’s sleeve to make him turn around.

  ‘Yeah of course. I just stopped by to say hello, anyway. Call me later?’

  She nodded and smiled.

  After getting home and discovering he still couldn’t focus on any work, Scott made more sandwiches, wrapped them and threw them and a Coke into a bag. Slinging the bag over his shoulder he whistled for the dog and left by the back door. The afternoon was grey but not too cold. Scott zipped up his coat as a precaution against a breeze that made the patches of wild grass nod as if in agreement.

  Having watched as the sandwiches were made and then placed in the bag, Boris wasn’t straying too far ahead this time. He was following his usual sniff then urinate routine, but kept trotting back to see if anything tasty was yet on offer.

  Cupping a hand to shield the flame from another gust of wind, Scott lit up a cigarette, then as an afterthought decided to turn off his phone. Maybe all he needed was some uninterrupted pressure free time and some fresh air to get his head together. Thoughts of Twinkle’s impending call haunted both his days and nights giving him little rest. This afternoon he would push all of that to one side. If he called then so what? Let him call back later.

  Right now Scott felt directionless. He’d had the bus dream again last night, memories of it returned to him now as he walked. Although he didn’t dream too often, or at least didn’t remember them if he did, Scott tried to pay attention to anything he remembered the following morning. This was a recurring dream he’d had from time to time over the years. The location would often change but the main elements remained the same. He’d be riding a bus, always sat on the upstairs deck, and to begin with everything would be fine. After a while it would become clear that the bus was increasingly travelling too fast. When he would try to alert the driver, the bus would accelerate even more, tipping dangerously as it attempted to turn corners, further heightening Scott’s anxiety. Sometimes the scenery passing by would be familiar: his old school bus journey, a route he’d travelled years before to an old girlfriend’s house. But mostly it was just generic dream landscape, the feeling of familiarity without actually recognising the setting. Sometimes there’d be other people on the bus that he knew. They would look at him but never speak. Paige travelled with him on occasion, often sat next to one or another of his regular customers. No matter how hard he would try, Scott would never be
able to get off the bus, make it slow down, or even see the face of the driver.

  Trying to push it all out of his mind again, he looked up to locate Boris and found the dog had led them on their usual route and was now already stationed by the Elephant Tree waiting for Scott to catch up.

  Sitting down on the fallen trunk Scott took out the sandwiches. The crinkle of cellophane and the smell of the freshly cut sandwiches unearthed memories of his mother. A day when they were children, Scott, Jack and their mother picnicking here, perhaps. Memories of his parents, his mother especially, came as fleetingly as dream fragments, like the sudden flight of a bird at the end of a long corridor, by the time he turned to look it was gone. Sometimes it got hard to distinguish memory from fantasy. When he was still a child, Scott would often lie awake at night imagining them all still together as a family, visiting places they had never been. Happy. He knew not all returning memories could be trusted, but fictional or not he would savour whatever he could.

  Taking a sandwich from the pile he tore it and tossed one half to Boris. The dog caught it in mid air and devoured it greedily, almost as if Scott might realise he had made a mistake and take it away from him. Chewing thoughtfully on his half, Scott looked up into the thicker grey clouds now gathering like dense flocks of migrating birds. The temperature had begun to drop and there was probably only around an hour of light left in the day.

  So far he’d avoided looking at the face in the tree. His uncle had looked to it for wisdom and guidance, but often all Scott felt was judgement and malice. He knew this was more down to his own mood at the time, but some days it was harder to convince himself than others. He felt watched, like the eyes of a painting that would follow you around the room. Eventually he gave in and looked up at the face and was met with the unshakable feeling of making eye contact with a stranger. He shivered. From the angle he sat at, it was mostly the elephant side he could see. Scott stood and slowly walked around watching the face change. The appearance of deep lines in its apparent skin caused by the formation and growth of tree bark. The deep recess of an eye socket. The trunk, one of many large branches to have been cut off long before Scott’s time here. He kept moving around. The ridge slanted away on the far side of the trunk then curved upwards into a lump that looked like the definition of a human cheekbone. Below that a slight rise before dropping away into a hollow shaped distinctly like a mouth. Minimal light now with the amalgamation of large rain clouds overhead. The more Scott moved around the tree, the more the mouth appeared to be twisted into a vicious sneer, the eye above the cheekbone pulled back into a squinted look of contempt. Scott took a step back. The unmistakable feeling of scorn, bitterness and loathing ran through him. A sudden rumble of thunder overhead took him by surprise and he barely stifled a cry. Boris, equally alarmed, began a succession of panicked barking. Raindrops began to fall all around them as the blanket covering of clouds commenced a shedding of their load. The rainwater released a fresh green scent as it permeated the surrounding fir trees. The feeling that had previously inhabited Scott had now passed.

  He halved the last sandwich with Boris and picked up his bag, cursing the weather for ruining what he’d hoped would have been a peaceful afternoon out, and started back towards the house.

  Having resigned himself to a soaking, Scott plodded back with little urgency. As he climbed over the wooden stile at the bottom of the land he was reminded of his phone as it pressed insistently against his ribs from his inside jacket pocket. Scott reached for it and turned it back on. No messages.

  The last Friday before Christmas, Scott had been told by Jack years before, was known in the industry as Black Eye Friday. The office blocks and other businesses generally broke up for the holidays at midday, their staff spilling out onto the streets and inevitably into the bars like excited children who have a whole summer of no school to look forward to. They generally tended to be the folk who would enjoy the odd weekend night out, not the kind of people accustomed to all day drinking benders. So when alcohol consumption started at twelve noon instead of eight at night, the consequences tended to be fairly predictable and often disastrous.

  For Scott and Neil it had become something of a ritual for them to hit the town early and enjoy, for Scott at least, what was probably the best part of the holiday season seeing alcohol-crazed white-collar workers beat the shit out of each other, or even being thrown down a flight of stairs by overly stressed doormen, in the past had been enough to put a smile on his face. But this year because of the party they’d thrown last weekend, half the population of the bars they frequented had heard about it and subsequently all wanted invites to this week’s event. Having repeated the same thing dozens of times already, that the party was a one off and no, there wasn’t a repeat this weekend, Scott was quickly tiring of the whole affair. Keeping the customers placated was bad enough, but Neil was still convinced that laying on a regular venue could be the future for them, and no amount of dissuasive comments from Scott were about to change his mind.

  After giving explicit instructions to Neil to continue fending off party requests and to sell as much gear as he could before they hit the club, Scott decided he would have a few drinks in a more sedate environment and meet back up inside Blitz later.

  John Henry’s was a depressing place most of the time, but Scott at least knew he wouldn’t be plagued by the customers like he had been at every stop on their usual route. Right now a few quiet drinks and to blend into the background was what Scott felt he needed.

  The bar looked pretty much exactly as he’d left it on his last visit. There were more bodies now, but he recognised many of same faces in the same seats from earlier in the week. Scott went to the bar, he didn’t see Joanne so ordered a pint from the first barmaid he could flag down, and lit a cigarette while he waited.

  ‘I’ll get that for you,’ a voice he didn’t immediately recognise said from behind him. Scott looked over his shoulder and was surprised to see Twinkle.

  ‘Twink,’ Scott said with a thin smile. He hadn’t heard anything since the job so didn’t know of any possible developments either good or bad, and naturally felt a little suspicious. ‘I didn’t realise it was you.’

  Twinkle pushed in beside him at the bar and catching the barmaid’s attention got her to pull another pint to go with Scott’s, then paid for both.

  Picking up their drinks, they saw a table just being vacated by three old men, and went to sit down.

  ‘There been any word yet then?’ Scott asked.

  ‘No, nothing yet but I expect the call will come through tomorrow.’

  Scott stubbed out his cigarette and swallowed a mouthful from his pint. After the mood Twinkle had been in following the job, Scott had expected a more low profile approach and for him to avoid the city and stay drinking locally. Watching Twinkle over the rim of his glass though, he seemed to have recovered from the crisis of confidence he’d suffered during the job and everything that followed after.

  ‘You stay out for long after I dropped you off last night?’ Scott asked tentatively.

  ‘Yeah, I was in there ‘till closing, then on the cans back home after that. I must’ve fallen over trying to get upstairs or something,’ he said, lifting a handful of hair away from his temple revealing an angry purple bruise the size of a tomato.

  Scott took another drink from his glass and looked at the wound, allowing Twinkle time to continue with his story. This was pretty much what he’d expected to hear, but was more concerned with what might have been said in the bar rather than any injuries Twinkle had sustained through the subsequent drunkenness.

  Twinkle took a drink also, and moved his hand up to reflectively run fingers over the damaged flesh, leaving his story hanging.

  ‘Did you bump into anyone or talk to anyone while you were out then?’ Scott asked, prompting him.

  Twinkle snapped back from whatever drunken nostalgia he’d been reliving and his hand fell from his temple sharply onto the table. ‘No Scott, I didn’t talk to anyone. J
esus, is that why you’re here now? To see if I’ve been saying shit that could put you at risk?’

  ‘No, that’s not it,’ Scott said, trying to regain control of the conversation, as he glanced cautiously around. ‘I didn’t even know you’d be in here, I just came in for a change of scene.’

  Twinkle appeared to relax and gave a shrug. ‘I know I was a bit out of it then, Scott, but I didn’t talk to anyone that night. After I woke up this morning at the bottom of the stairs like that, and then remembering everything from yesterday I knew it was time to at least try and make a change.’

  ‘So you what, joined the Red Cross?’ Scott asked sarcastically.

  ‘No, fuck off. I phoned Sharon.’

  Scott was more surprised by this than if Twinkle had taken on voluntary work for a charity organisation. Any time her name was mentioned Twinkle would curse at any involvement they’d ever had together and reiterate his vow never to speak to that bitch ever again.

  ‘What happened then, did it go OK?’

  ‘Yeah it did. I told her that I wanted to kick the drink and to start over, fresh, hopefully with her and the kids.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Well no, not right away or anything, she doubted I meant any of it which is understandable, but I kept going and must have said some stuff that hit home ‘cause eventually she started to listen to me. She said I could come and see them on weekends and stuff to begin with, see how we go. Probably to make sure I’m really not gonna be drinking and taking shit at clubs, that’ll be why she said weekends, but that’s fair enough. I reckon I have a chance to start again now Scott, I have to do this.’

  ‘You know where they are then?’

  ‘Yeah I always knew. I stayed in touch every once in a while, birthdays for the kids and that.’

  This surprised Scott as well. Twinkle had always claimed to maintain a zero contact policy since she had taken the kids and moved out. At least that’s what he had always had his friends believe.