The Tree

Withering away, not as sprightly as it once was, the tree sits atop the hill at the bottom of the Carnwath farm. Scars are running along the trunk and the blistered bark invested with a mustard tint. The crispy auburn leaves cling to the wrinkled, twisting branches. Skinny, creeping branches collect at the bottom of the trunk, trying to reach for any opportunity to sprout new life. Signs of old ones are left. Chipped pink and blue paint. Four tiny scratches itched out. A carving of old lovers’ names. The tree’s birth itself. Claire Crawford is leading Lenore, a trained arborist, towards the tree.

‘Yeah, there’s no way. This tree’s a goner. We’re going to have to get someone to come cut this down for you’, Lenore mumbles through her mask.

Claire bites her lip, looking up at the tree. All she saw when she looked at it was the predecessor of paper or a nicely varnished table, but she understood the significance of it to her grandfather.

***

Growing up around the farm, James and I were destined to fall into each other’s arms. We would panic our mothers as we peered down from the hill at the bottom of my father’s farm. Our favourite leisurely activity was collecting as many acorns as we could possibly find, there was not much to do in the countryside, and we would see who could throw them the furthest, exclaiming with joy if we managed to throw them off the Cliffside. Much to my father’s dismay and mother’s delight, we eloped as soon as we left school. I could not wait to build a life with him and finally get to leave this farm. I loved growing up here, but the city is an ever-growing place filled with so many opportunities and we can always move back to Carnwath when we want to build a family. I’m sure my mother cannot wait for that and I’m sure my father would be pleased if I give him grandsons. In the summer of 1932, James found an opening as a miner at Cardowan. It was a while away, but he would get two pounds a day and he managed to convince one of his rich friends to drive him there for some of his father’s crops. He was least pleased, but eager to get rid of James and I so he complied. It’s November now and we have nearly saved up enough to be able to rent out a room in the outskirts of Edinburgh. James comes up to me and kisses me on the cheek as he does every day before he goes to work.

‘Don’t daddle too much after work, sweetheart. Your mother and I are going to be serving her special homemade beef casserole’.

‘Oh,’ James smirks, ‘she finally let you learn the recipe?’

‘I know!’ I squeal with excitement, ‘we are becoming a proper family’.

‘I cannot wait for us to be our own family and to eat your own special recipes’, he whispers into my ear, ‘I love you’.

He smiles as he leaves, our eyes locked until the last moment, and I watch the car disappear under the horizon.

I found out that evening. I was helping James’ mother; I was peeling the carrots as she chopped them when the phone started to thunder and screech for our attention. I continued to peel, humming along. She let out a piercing shrill. She dropped to the floor, bringing the whole phone with her. I rushed over to her.

‘Mrs Crawford!’

I picked up the phone. I found out. A colliery explosion. He was gone.

I had found out not much later that I was pregnant. God can be cruel sometimes. He did not give me the pleasure of telling my husband about our baby. He did not let James meet his son. He did not let you mature past nineteen. I am now solely responsible for carrying the Crawford legacy and I will carry it for you, James. You were my first and my last love. The only exception to that will be our baby. It is spring now and I am living back on my parents’ farm. I have been wandering the acres reminiscing about my life with you, telling the growing baby in my belly all about his father and me. Like a miracle from the skies, when I was laughing about our childhood games, I found an acorn sitting on the ground like it was waiting for us.

I rub my belly and whisper, ‘James Jr, I think I’ve found a way to honour your father in a way he deserved’.

Thus, here I am, acorn in hand, ready to build a new life for James like the one in my belly. I use my foot to uncover the ground, drop the acorn into the hole and I re-cover it with the soil. My father walks toward me, looking down at my newly planted acorn.

‘I can help you grow and look after it, Isabelle’.

‘Thank you, pops,’ I manage to say through my tears, ‘it’s for James’.

‘I know, I know,’ my father says gently as he wraps his arms around my shoulder.

As I had the pleasure of watching James Jr. grow, the tree grew with him. It was always hard to be a widow and having had lost my soulmate, but at least James Jr. still had a piece of his father to guide him through life.

***

In the spring of 1952, my family moved to Glasgow and I met the love of my life at my new school. I was sitting alone in the lunch hall when we met. She came and sat down in front of me, presenting her right hand.

‘You’re meant to greet me. I’m a lady’, she stated, after an uncomfortable pause.

I took her hand promptly and shook it deplorably hasty. Her eyebrows sprung up.

‘I said I’m a lady. You’re meant to kiss it,’ she said between giggles, taking her hand away, ‘what’s your name?’

‘Louis’.

‘Pretty’, she smirked, ‘I’m Agnes, but everyone calls me Aggie’.

I was devastated when I found out that she was dating belligerent Andrew Drummond from the year above.

‘He’s a bit annoying, but no one wants to be the single girl. Plus, his family is rich and marrying rich is the only chance a girl’s got, right?’, she asked with one eyebrow raised.

It felt like a test.

I cleared my throat and muttered as eloquently as I could muster, ‘well, not as much after the war, I guess’.

She smiled and then leant in, whispering, ‘have you got a lady, Louis?’

I shook my head swiftly, looking down trying to hide my embarrassment.

‘Don’t worry. You will,’ she smirked and then left, rushing over to join another table and kisses a scowling Andrew Drummond on the cheek.

These friendly introductions would happen occasionally over the next few weeks. It became more interesting when the spring turned to summer.

‘Hi, Louis,’ Aggie said as she sat down across from me.

‘No pudding?’ I asked looking down at her tray.

‘They didn’t have any’, she mumbled.

I, without hesitation, put mine on her tray.

‘Are you sure, Louis?’ she asked, with her eyebrow raised.

I nodded, smiling at her. She smiled back. After a few awkward seconds passed, we both looked down to giggle.

‘Be careful, Louis, people might think we are dating’, she whispered.

I smiled, biting my lip, and then brought up Andrew.

‘We’re done. Jeannie caught him kissing Babs in the gym’, she stated, sneering looking off into space.

‘I’m sorry’, I softly said, placing my hand gently on her arm.

She looked down at my hand on her arm and smiled. I noticed Andrew glaring at me from across the lunch hall.

‘You free to come back with me after school? My parents are strict, but we can hang around the neighbouring farms if you want?’

I frowned and raised one eyebrow, asking, ‘Farms? You don’t live in Glasgow?’

‘No, Carnwath. It’s a boring place, but it’s pretty so I think you would like it. It’s a long commute just to go to school, but there is always better education in the cities… according to my mother’.

Once in Carnwath, we walked around for so long that my legs became engulfed in agony. However, I did not care. All I could see and focus on was the beautiful girl who I was sure I was going to marry one day. Eventually, at one point, she stopped at an oak tree heaving with luscious green leaves and dropped her books down.

‘I don’t know about you, but I’m parched. I don’t think the bastard at Crawford farm will mind if we sit down at his tree’.

We sat at the bottom of the trunk sharing the orange juice her mother had squeezed for her for school. We sat in silence, the long branches looming over us, casting beautiful patches of shadows. I looked down at her hand and almost lost the ability to breathe.

‘I want you to’, she stated.

We held hands and gazed out over the hillside. It was not long after this first date that we became exclusive. We would often go to that tree after school. It became an important landmark in our relationship. It was during that summer that we decided to carve our names, Louis Haggan and Aggie Brodie, in a cliché fashion surrounded by a heart on that very tree. My parents were astounded as to why I, a teenage boy, was so ecstatic when they decided to move further into the countryside and, therefore, closer to Carnwath. This only made us meet up at that tree even more. Summer became autumn and our love only grew stronger.

On that day, I was waiting for Aggie to show for one of our dates, when I heard someone approaching from behind me. I turned around and instantly my heart dropped.

‘Um, Andrew Drummond?’

‘So, we finally meet then’.

I looked down at my feet and then back up at him, ‘Why are you here?’

‘I saw Aggie meet up with you here a few times, so I thought I’d come visit you and ask you why you have been meeting up with my girl?’ he asks through his teeth, while his fist squeezes down at his side.

I step slightly closer to the tree, hoping for some resemblance of comfort.

‘Andrew, you and Aggie broke up months ago. We are dating now’.

‘Yeah, but she is still mine’, he shouted and started storming towards me.

This moment is all a blur. All I know is that he lunged at me and somehow I managed to pin him down. I only had enough time to be afraid of how close we had gotten to the edge of the hill before he grabbed me and flipped me.

By the grace of God, I managed to save myself by grabbing hold of a branch. I pleaded frantically for Andrew to help me, but he was only backing away with his mouth hanging open. I managed to pull myself up, reaching for the tree for some stability, accidentally scratching grooves into the trunk in my endeavour.

Suddenly, Andrew gasped. He rushed towards me. He stomped on my arm. He kicked at my head. I fell. I was gone.

Aggie sat waiting for me at that tree for a long time, but I never came.

She never found out about those four little scratches.

***

It was the summer of 1976, when I lost her.

We were sitting down by the tree at the end of Crawford farm. Our studded leather coats laying down on the grass next to us.

‘Kathy,’ I accidentally whispered, running my fingertips along the rough bark of the tree.

‘Damn, kids,’ Kathy muttered, looking up at some sickly sweet carving, and then utters while laughing, ‘reminds me of when we used to date. Gross’.

The shadow of the tree’s canopy was surrounding us. It was suffocating. I have to talk to her about it.

‘Ka-Kathy,’ I stuttered as my voice uncontrollably raised.

‘Did you tell your parents?’

My voice barely managed to say, ‘Yes’.

I looked down at the bottom of the trunk. I examined the curves of the bark. The weird little scratches out of the bottom. Anything but her face.

‘They didn’t take it well’.

‘Never liked them, the abusive arseholes’, Kathy muttered through her teeth.

She sighed and put her hand on mine. The wind changed, the shadows danced, and I suddenly knew I was in safe hands. I wasn’t sure if she understood, but neither did I.

She smiled, squeezing my hand and said softly, ‘I mean, I don’t get it, but if you don’t feel like something… Then you don’t feel like it, you know?’

We lay on the grass looking up at the leaves swaying above us.

‘So, you’re a straight man now?’

‘Maybe,’ I said firmly and then quickly correcting myself, ‘no’.

I sat up and she followed, laying her arm over my shoulder.

‘You don’t have to know’.

We smiled at each other for a while.

‘So, are you renaming yourself?’

I smiled, looking up at the skies. I did not even consider this a possibility. But, I also never considered I could not be a girl either. She instantly recognised the joy on my face and pulled out a baby-naming book from her backpack.

‘I came prepared’, she smirked.

We spent a while looking through it. She would open a page and pick out one at random, claiming how it would be unfair for me to be able to pick my own name when the rest of the world gets stuck with one. However, either it was a shockingly old-fashioned name or it would be a female one.

‘Hmm, I wonder if that’s how they decide your gender at birth. It feels as random’.

I also had an irking feeling that I wanted the name to mean something. After a while, we both lay on our backs again staring at the sea of green above, wondering hopelessly how we were going to pick a name. The book was tossed to the side in a fit of frustration.

‘You want it to have a meaning in your life? Then why not something from pop culture? Like… Rocky… or Bullwinkle?’ she asked, giggling.

I playfully hit her arm as we both laughed.

‘Good idea though, so what?’

My mind zapped from one important piece of media to the next, scanning for any resemblance of meaning.

‘What about a Queen inspired name like Mercury? There’s always been something about that Bohemian song ever since I heard it on the radio for the first time. I feel like it… heard me’.

Kathy laughs, ‘Yeah, sure! Like you’re the one person who can understand that nonsensical genius! Also Mercury Drummond? I’m not too sure about that’.

We ran through multiple names of different characters, celebrities and artists, most of which I cannot remember, before I made the most important joke in my life.

‘Hey, I love the Sex Pistols. Why not Rotten like Johnny Rotten? I could be Rotten Drummond. I think my dad would think it suits me’, I exclaimed chuckling.

Kathy sat up and looked down at me with the widest smile she had ever dawned, ‘Johnny!’

I giggled at the suggestion at first, trying to avoid eye contact with the very eager Kathy. However, as much as I tried to hide it, I couldn’t help but know that was my name. Johnny Drummond. That was my name and it always was. We decided later to mark this special occasion by using Kathy’s nail polish to paint on the tree. She used the pink for girl and I used the blue for boy. Who knows if that’s who I am, but at least for now… It’s what feels the most right and that’s as close as we can get sometimes.

It was the summer of 1976, when I lost her: my old identity. Now, I live as myself: Johnny.

***

As the crispy winter air surrounds her, Claire strokes the tree as she considers the vast history it must have experienced. Chipped pink and blue paint. Four tiny scratches. A carving of old lovers’ names. The tree’s birth itself. Most likely many more. She reminisces about all the times she spent with her grandfather as a child and how she felt a great loss when he died. However, she knew that he would be happy to be buried next to his father’s spirit: next to the tree stump at the top of the hill at the end of the Carnwath farm.