The Oak Tree

You get used to change, living in the city. What with the old warehouses transforming into polished apartments and offices, and the sudden replacement of your favourite clothes shop for yet another coffee bar. So, when I came over the brow of Barrow Hill and started my descent along the single-track lane towards Crickham, my breath caught in my throat. Huge fields of shimmering yellow rolled together, pot marked by farm houses, and where the hills formed a natural bowl, the village sat, bathed in sunlight: three lines of whitewashed cottages spreading out from an immaculately kept village square, where the squat frumpy Anglo-Saxon church presided like a maiden aunt. Our house was a little outside the village centre, a dark brick box that looked like it once was part of a row of Georgian town houses until it was whipped away on a whirlwind and dumped here, in the middle of this unchanging nowhere.

They must have heard the car coming up the road and assumed it was me, because the front door was already open as I pulled up onto the gravel and Anne was standing in the shadow of the arbour, her arms folded. Seconds later, my mother's voice pitched over the dying rattle of the engine and she appeared out of the darkness of the hallway wincing back the light.
"What on god's earth have you gone and got yourself there? she said, waving her walking stick the bonnet of my battered blue Beetle.
I said nothing, slammed the car door shut and waited there as she strode steadily over to me.
"I'd have thought you could have gone and got yourself a better vehicle on the money you're earning.
There was no denying it. My mother had shrunk. In the fourteen years since I'd last seen her, she'd lost a good foot and was now two feet shorter than me at least, I was sure of it. I gave her an awkward hug, feeling her bones under my arms. All fight had gone out of her and she submitted to the embrace for a moment ' bodily contact and affection were not among my mother's favourite things.
"I've put the kettle on, she said. "You'll be wanting tea I suppose. And with that she turned and hobbled her way back across the gravel and into the house.
Then it was Anne's turn to step forward. She squared up to me as I retrieved my suitcase from the back seat. "You came then, she said, arms folded and staring at me with the same green eyes of our mother, her hair the same raven black as hers used to be. She was her mother's child to be sure. And we couldn't look more different: me in my torn jeans with my bleached blond hair and eyebrow piercing, she in her gingham dress, (could still buy gingham?), her hands pale from being too long inside the yellow rubber gloves pocking out of her apron pocket and the smell of disinfectant hanging about her. She was thirty-six, but she looked fifty, her face drawn with deep furrowed lines. We were parodies of ourselves. Her: wife, mother and carer, whose spent the last ten years scrubbing bed sheets and cleaning nappies. And me: the Manchester Queer, who'd spent too many years hanging around the village, drawing together the look that I had now ' the only identity I had to cling on to.
"She's a lot worse, you know, Anne said as we walked towards the house.
"I can see that, I replied.
"Can you? Well that's amazing Gabe, considering you haven't seen her for nearly fifteen years¦
"Fourteen.
"I'm surprised you even remember what she looks like.
"Don't start, I'm not here to fight.
"Then why are you here? She turned to me and took my arm.
"I'm here because she asked me to be here, I said.
"No she didn't.
"As good as. She'd called me at home and asked if I was all right. And since my mother never enquired about my, or indeed anyone else's welfare, I knew something was wrong.
"And that's why you're here, is it? For her good? Her eyes squeezed at the corners, another familiar look, as she tired to pierce my soul and see all the dark and twisted thoughts I harboured.
"Maybe we should go inside, I said.

There was never enough light in this house, no matter how bright the sunshine was outside. The hallway was the same dark green it had been the day I'd bundled my hastily packed rucksack out of the door vowing never to return. So many shadows here and that smell: medicine and over-cooked food lingering in the thick, dark air. The clatter of crockery from the kitchen where my mother was preparing the tea.
"You're in your old room, said Anne. "You remember the way I suppose? She turned and strode down the hallway to the kitchen, saying, "Let me get the tea, mother, you sit down.
I stood on the spot, still gripping my suitcase. The pictures hadn't changed either: Jesus at the last supper, Jesus on the cross, Jesus on the mount with his arms outstretched. I couldn't help but think of Michael, with his bedraggled sandy blond hair, wispy goatee beard, and bright, piercing eyes. When I first met him in a bar on Canal Street, I remember thinking that I'd seen him somewhere before but couldn't place where. Now I knew. He was the spitting image of Our Lord and Saviour in these eerie silver foil pictures hanging on my mother's hallway wall.
My bedroom hadn't been touched in the intervening years, of course, and there was nothing in the freshly polished austere harshness of this cell which indicated my absence. The same multi-coloured blanket lay across the single bed, a parting gift from my grandmother who'd managed to create the world's most uncomfortable bed blanket in history by using wire wool to knit with. I'd hated it as a child, and often slept shivering under the thin single sheet beneath rather than suffer the burning irritation as it scrapped across my skin. The walls were bear but for the crucifix still hanging above my bed. Not just a little wooden cross, oh no, carved of dark rose wood, a blood-soaked resting place for the twisted iron figure of Christ writhing in agony, skin torn and bleeding, ribs exposed, even the sinus on his neck standing out ' such detail ' I have no idea where she got it from. Next to it, any posters would have looked positively comical and insignificant, even if I been allowed to up them up ' which of course I wasn't ' no Whitney or Madonna for me.
I closed the bedroom door and hesitated as I considered taking the cross down off the wall, as I used to do most bedtimes, stowing it under the bed and making sure I was up early enough to put it back again before sunrise. The airing cupboard was in this room and mother often had the habit of storming in unannounced on account of wanting to "sort the washing out ' thereby ensuring I wasn't engaging in any "silent sin. Better that the cross stayed where it was then, I didn't want to start a fight just yet ' not when we had the whole weekend to argue in.
I placed my bag on the bed And went to the window, putting my hand on the wooden window frame and smiling as I looked out into the garden and saw that it was there. Towering over the battered panelled fence at the back of the garden ' the oak tree, stretching into the blue sky, its shadow long now across the lawn, the bright red sun of another perfect August day burning down the sky beyond. My tree. Uncle Bill used to call it that. Gabriel's tree. And there, still just about intact among the heavy foliage on the lower branches, the tree house.

All Saturday there was hammering and sawing from the back garden. My mother, who took little notice of things beyond church walls, and certainly not out there in the garden, muttered to herself about the house getting all mucky and tutted whenever the two men went in or out of the kitchen. "What ever are you up to out there? She sniped.
Of course, Uncle Bill would always charm her. "Don't worry Marge, he replied. "It's just a special treat for the kids.
Uncle Bill wasn't my real Uncle. He'd served with my dad and moved down to our house after his own wife died, which was a year or two before I was born. I think of all the people from my childhood: the colossal force that was my mother, my silent father, my moaning older sister and all the people in our little village and there's Bill ' towering above them. He had taught me how to ride a bike. He had taught me how to swim. Had rescued me from my mother's tumultuous rages on more than one occasion. And of course, he had been designer and master builder of the tree house.
And finally Sunday came. The day of the unveiling. Before that though there was the mandatory trip to church. It wasn't a "good church, not a "proper one by mother's standards, but it was the only place in the village and my mother thought it unholy to use a car on the Sabbath so we went there anyway. "As long as you remember our lady in your prayers, she'd often say as we walked down the road towards the village centre, "you'll probably be saved.
The church was always hot and stuffy inside, whatever season it was. The vicar had something of an obsession with the then newly installed central heating and in high summer people were known to pass out in the heat. The day of the unveiling was particularly hot, and before the service had even begun my shirt was sticking to my back. I had to sit on my hands, mother's orders, because I was fidgeting so much while the vicar was droning on about the needy in Eritrea. He'd tried to persuade my mother to let me attend Sunday School instead, which was held in the small building next door where the other children of the village were treated to stories about animals in the Ark, sang songs and were given sweets for the privilege, but she'd refused, saying that God's message was intended for everyone, young and old, and didn't need to be mollycoddled for her children. Through the long and stifling service I kept looking at Uncle Bill, who, aware of my excitement, kept winking back at me and smiling, until mother caught him and shot him one of her medusa stares. And then at last, freedom. I raced out of the church ahead of everyone and ran all the way home, my mother calling out behind me that if I fell over and scuffed my Sunday Best there'd be hell to pay.
And so there we were, Anne and I, in the back garden, even mother attended the grand unveiling, though she stood by the back door, not on the grass. We stood under the tree, staring up into the fluttering leaves as sparks of sunlight flared across our faces. "I hope that's not one of my bed sheets, my mother cried.
"Don't worry Marge, Uncle Bill called from above, "I'll replace it myself.
He had hold of one end of the sheet, and threw the other end to my father below. Then with a vocal flourish like an amateur magician producing a rabbit from a hat, Uncle Bill dropped his end of the sheet. A whole two rooms made from brand new wood, varnished too, with a roof and everything. There was a stepladder leading up to it and even a swing underneath. My sister and I screamed with glee then promptly argued who should be first up. My sister, being older, was allowed up the ladder first, but I had the advantage, as father picked me up in his frail little arms and proffered me up to Uncle Bill, meaning I made it up to the tree house way before she did and claimed it as my own.
Of course, mother didn't approve. Over dinner she talked about us breaking our necks, or worse, tearing our clothes. But Bill worked his magic, and the tree house stayed. And after a few weeks my sister grew tired of having to climb up its thick trunk and busied herself back on the ground, and so the tree house became mine, my little sanctuary from the house, from the itchy bed cover, from the scary pictures in the hallway and the large wooden crucifix above my bed. From seven until twelve (by which time the ladder and the floor of the tree house had had to be strengthened a number of times to take my weight), I lived my life in that tree house up above the world. I decorated its walls (finally having somewhere to hang that Madonna poster ' what bliss!), filled it with my toys and games, and scrawled my name across the walls. And then everything changed.

Dan arrived with the children that evening and we all gathered around the dinning room table for a family dinner. Molly and Jake, the niece and nephew I'd never met, entertained themselves by showing each other what a mess they could make by throwing vegetables over the side of their plates while casting the odd sideways glances my way in puzzled curiosity.
"Why's his hair that colour? Molly asked when we were first introduced. Typical of Anne I thought, shielding her daughter from the temptations of peroxide.
Mother presided over family gathering at dinner, sitting at the top of the table like a Victorian matriarch, regarding her grandchildren with the same look of disgust and disdain she used to use on us. Anne ran back and forth between the kitchen and the table, refusing all offers of help from both myself and Dan, who was fiddling with his cutlery and telling his children to "cool it every now and then.
All was going as well as could be expected. I kept starting conversations I couldn't finish, "So how are you¦? You¦umm¦OK? And mother would cough into her handkerchief and then tell me she was fine. After the soup, Anne took me to one side in the kitchen and said flatly, "She's been given a month at the most ' the cancer's in her blood. Then she left to make the gravy.
The evening was almost done with, Molly had hit Jake over the head with a desert spoon and sent him into a tearful rage, and while that was going on Dan tried to talk to me, asking things like, "How's Manchester? (I wasn't sure if he meant the city or the football team) and "That's a bit of a banger you're driving, you keep it running yourself? Well, at least he was trying. Then the doorbell rang.
Mother lifted herself from her chair and heaved herself out of the room on her walking stick, just as Jake's tears began to subside. "I hope it's not that old busy body from down the road, she'll have seen the cars in the drive and wondered what was going on, I'll bet. And we, freed for a second from the scrutiny of our host, all breathed out and a silence dropped over the table for a moment as the front door opened. There were muffled voices from the hallway. My hands gripped the table cloth.
Mother came back into the room, her face stony, her eyes blazing as I struggled to get up and all eyes around the table came to rest first on me, and then on the tall, Christ-like, and deeply embarrassed figure of Michael, my now ex-boyfriend, who stood in the dining room doorway, clenching and unclenching his fists and smiling meekly.

"What the hell are you doing here? I stood by the bed, my hands on the bedposts and shaking furiously, having bundled him out of the dinning room as casually as possible, muttering something about him being an old friend who just happened to be in the area. Now he stood by the window, hands still knotted, tears standing out in his eyes.
"I'm leaving for Italy tomorrow, he said. "I'll be gone for over a month. I didn't want to leave things as they are.
"What's that mean?
"I just want to know why," he said. Exactly the same words he'd said over and over again the day I'd left the flat, while he sat at the kitchen table, chain smoking and looking at a patch of grey sky through the window.
"We've been through all this, I said.
"Not properly we haven't.
"This isn't the time ' and it certainly isn't the place.
And just then, on cue, my sister knocked on the bedroom door.
"She wants to know if your friend'll be wanting desert, she said, staring at me blankly.
"No, I'll¦ he started from behind me.
"Tell her yes, I said and shut the door again.
"Look, I'm sorry, he said, going over to the bed and sitting down, looking utterly defeated.
I sighed and took his place at the window, looking out in the garden where the last light of the day was drawing across the grass.
"You may as well stay, I said. "The spare room's all fixed up and it's getting late.
"I don't want to cause any bother.
I laughed under my breath,. "Too late. And you'd cause even more of a scene if you left, so¦
"I don't think I can.
"Just do it, OK? Then we'll talk in the morning.
He nodded, even managed a smile and looked around. "This was your room?
"Yeah.
"Love that crucifix.

Back at the table, Molly and Jake were sniffling after Anne had reprimanded them both for 'messing about'. Mother, still coughing every so often into her grey handkerchief, eyed Michael over the trifle, while Dan, ever the wanting hero, tried to breathe life into the icy atmosphere with the odd question to Michael which actually only made things worse:
"So how long have you known Gabriel?
"Oh, about seven years in all, he said.
"And where do you come from?
"Near Yorkshire.
"And are you married? Damn that ring he wore, which I'd given him on our fifth anniversary and he'd worn faithfully ever since.
"No, he replied.
Anne glared at me as she passed around the coffee pot. As if I'd asked him to come down in the first place and make my life even more complicated than it already was.
After coffee, the wine started flowing, and both Michael and I managed a few glassfuls while Dan and Anne discussed holiday plans for the winter break. I was just beginning to relax, thinking that mother would go to bed any moment, and shortly after that the whole disastrous night would come to end, when Michael, always a sissy when it came to booze, suddenly found the courage to launch into conversation.
"So, uh¦ Mr McKay. Is that him? He was looking at a black and white photo of their wedding day, on the mantel above the fireplace.
Mother's eyes grew wide, she placed her hands on the table cloth.
Anne shifted nervously in her seat. "Yes, she said, "that's dad.
Then he turned to me and asked, "And who's that other bloke you were always talking about?
"Bill, I muttered, and poured him more wine in the hope it would send him into a coma and shut him up.
"Oh yeah, Uncle Bill, is there a picture of him?
And then mother started having a coughing fit. She put her handkerchief to her mouth and bellowed into it as her face went bright red, and her dinner suddenly errupted through her hands.
"Mum! Anne was out of her chair and to her side while the children stared horrified as the bile ran over the edge of the tablecloth and dripped into a pool at mother's feet.

Later, after mother had been put to bed, Anne cornered me in the hallway, grabbing my elbow and hissing, "I can't believe you.
"What was I supposed to do? Send him packing at the door?
I could hear the TV in the living room where Michael and Dan were watching some daft blockbuster sci-fi with the sound right up in an attempt to mask the silence.
"Just make sure you're out of here first thing in the morning. I'll tell her you had to rush back to Manchester for work.
"Who died and made you queen bitch?
Her mouth dropped open. "How dare you¦
"Why are you trying to protect her?
"She's a dying woman!
"She a manipulative old witch.
"She's your mother. Have some compassion.
"I know who she is. And what she is, too.
"And what's that supposed to mean?
"I suppose that scene at the dining table had nothing to do with the mention of Bill's name?
"What are you talking about?
"Oh come on, Anne. You're not that fucking naïve. She's a hypocrite and a fraud. You know that as well as I do. And with that I started up the stairs, suddenly so tired I could hardly speak.
"Is that why you came back? she asked, her voice chocking with tears. "To expose her?
"No, I said, without stopping. "I came to find out the truth.

I had a dream that night, curled up under a bed sheet with the wire-wool blanket pushed onto the floor. It was autumn and I'd just watched Uncle Bill take his last suitcase to his battered old Ford Anglia and hug my mother goodbye. I watched this from the landing window, my hands pressed against the glass. At the door of his car he looked up and saw me looking down, he lifted up a hand and gave a weary smile. Then he drove away into the rain.
After that, I went out into the garden to my place of sanctuary. Only as I came near, I saw that there was someone else bundled up in the tree house. I climbed the ladder cautiously, already drenched through to the skin with the slick dark rain which was pulling the leaves off the tree down around me. I peered over the floor of the tree house and I saw my father, hardly discernable in the gloom, creased up in a ball in the far corner, his pale hands clasped tightly over his eyes. That was the last I saw of Uncle Bill. He left when I was twelve without an explanation and was never seen or heard from again.

Out in the early sunshine, I walked through local fields, the village at my back, until I'd gone over the brow of one hill and could no longer see our house. Here in this field, a small cluster of trees huddled together surrounded by corn. Bill used to call it "our little fairy ring. We'd come here a lot, Anne and I, with dad and Bill, a bag of food carried on Bill's back, a blanket under dad's arm, and my sister and I clutching toys and our favourite books. It was another country, this island in the field, a world away from home.
I stepped up into the buzzing shade of the trees, and there we were under this high canopy of fluttering leaves. I leant against the ivy covered bark of a beach tree and looked down at the red and black checked blanket laid across the ground; father with his paper, glasses perched on the end of his nose; Anne playing hide and seek with her dolls; me and Bill, tearing in and out of the brambles and tress, playing tag. I wanted to reach out, push my hand back through time and catch him as he raced past. I wanted to grab his arm, and ask him questions that had been burning me up since my childhood. But his ghost evaporated as my fingers closed around it and I was left alone in the overgrowth, as the church bell began to toll out, calling its congregation to attention.
One day, a year after Bill had left, I came home from school to find my mother lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, and Mrs Potter dishing out our dinner. No sign of dad anywhere. I spent the night in the tree house, expecting any moment to hear his footsteps on the ladder and to see his sad, small face peer at me through the darkness. But he never came home. Funny how you really only notice someone after they've gone.

Back at the house, Molly and Jake had been allowed into the tree house under the vigilant guard of Dan, who stood at the bottom waiting for either of them to drop from the branches. I hesitated at the garden's edge, watching them at play and suppressing a childish urge to shoo them off my territory.
Michael was waiting upstairs for me, awake, washed and changed into some clothes which I'd never seen before, his beard clipped and hair tied back. "Look, he said when I closed the bedroom door. "I really am sorry I came down, Gabe. It was stupid.
"Don't be, I said.
"Hope you don't mind, but I'd rather not stick around. I'll go while your mum's still asleep.
"Too late, " I said, "I've just seen her getting the washing in.
Jake's wailing voice cut in through the birdsong and Anne cried out. I went to the window and looked down, saw her bending down, shouting at Dan for not catching him. Mother stood with her arms folded, and I'm sure I could see a flicker of a smile on her face.
"Is he alright? Michael asked.
"Oh yeah. Jesus, the number of times I feel out that tree¦
"Good. Well¦ anyway¦
"Wait. I turned away from the window. "Don't you want to talk?
"Is there anything to say?
"I've been a prick. How's that for starters?
"What's that supposed to mean? He sat back on the bed and looked up at me.
"I know it sounds crazy, I said, "but it really isn't you.
"What is it then?
I sighed and dumped myself next to him. "When we met¦ I'd been living alone for years, just, getting by. Then you turn up and a few years later we're buying toothpaste together.
"You left me because you didn't like my choice of toothpaste?
I gave him a weak smile.
"No, I said. "Yes. Sort of. I just ' I have no idea. Of anything.
"You stupid bastard, he muttered and he pulled me in, his mouth brushing mine, the sun catching us from the window. Jake was laughing again. Then the bedroom door opened and my mother came in to put the washing in the airing cupboard.

She was pulling up plants from the borders when I emerged into the back garden. Anne, Dan and the children, probably sensing something was up, had disappeared back inside the house. Well, mother gardening. That was certainly a sign that things weren't right.
I dropped down to my knees beside her and watched her dig at the earth with her trowel and wrench up another plant. I didn't have the heart to tell her that they weren't weeds she was destroying. She probably knew anyway.
"About what happened upstairs," I said.
She tugged at another poor defenceless victim and sprayed us both with dirt.
"I suppose you'll be off back to Manchester this afternoon, she said, not looking my way.
"We need to talk," I pressed.
Her voice dropped low as she spat our thick words, "No we don't need to talk."
"There are things we both need to hear.
She dropped her trowel onto the grass and turned to me, wiping her hands across her skirt. "Why?" she said. "What have we got to say to one another after all this time?
I went to touch her shoulder, but she flinched away. Then got to her feet, groaning with effort.
"You should get going, you don't want to be driving in the dark.
"Mother, I followed her across the grass back towards the house. "It's time we were honest about things, don't you think?
"You want me to approve, is that it? Want me to tell you it's OK? Whatever, I don't care anymore.
"You hypocritical bitch.
She stopped. Twisted her head around. She was panting was effort and her face was red. "How dare you, she hissed.
"I suppose you've found a way to justify it have you? So you can still go around feeling superior, no matter what you did?
"What in God's name are you talking about?
"You know what I'm talking about, I advanced on her and breathed the name into her face, "Bill.
Her hands went to her chest and she started coughing.
"You have no idea, she croaked.
"I've spent my whole life wondering who I am. And now you're going to tell me.
"Tell you what!
"Who my father is.
But she didn't answer. She bent double before me, coughing harder, and then tumbled sideways. Anne came running from the backdoor, dropped to her side, and wiped the blood coming from her mouth.
"Get an ambulance, she said.
I looked at her lying there, chocking on the floor as my rage burned inside me the same colour of her flushed face. I wanted to push Anne out of the way, pin her to the ground and make her tell me everything she knew.
"Gabe! Anne screamed.
The old woman was turning blue, her fingers clawing at her throat, her frail twisted legs were twitching, her whole body trembling. I took two steps back, turned, and then ran into the house.

The doctor said there was nothing we, or they, could have done. My mother died on the lawn in the shadow the oak tree and under a clear blue sky. They took her body away in an ambulance with the sirens off. And as soon as they drove away, I felt it: like a rush of air through the house, as if every shutter had blown open and every window smashed, flooding the dark corridors with light. She was gone.
Anne sat alone in the kitchen, not crying, just staring at the sink where some dirty plates and cups had already begun to gather. Dan had taken the children home and Michael had emerged from hiding in the bedroom and come out in the garden, hugged me once and then driven away to catch his plane to Italy.
So I was alone all of a sudden. I looked back into the kitchen and locked eyes with Anne for an airless moment. And for the first time that weekend I saw the girl I remembered, who used to press cold bandages onto the wounds my mother had inflicted with the whip of her belt while muttering words of comfort as she plotted the day when she and I would run away with Bill and leave this dark house forever.
Then I turned away. Looked back at my tree standing tall and proud under the blue sky, its thick arms thrusting up triumphantly before me. I walked up to it and stared up through the glistening leaves. Reached up and took hold of the lowest branch, pulled myself up, throwing my feet against the trunk for support. A bit of a struggle and then I was up there. I swung sideways. Reached up again, tested my weight on the floor of the tree house. It creaked and groaned but held there. The wood was rotting away in places, the paint pealing all over. But I could still make things out as I bent down and pulled myself beneath the roof. My name over and over again. Little messages about my sister like "Anne smells and "Anne's tits are tiny. I put my hand to my mouth and laughed. I could remember the exact day I wrote that, we'd had a fight because I'd wanted to play with her dolls and she wouldn't let me. And tacked to the roof was a photograph, washed and faded, but still discernable in the brown and yellow tones: dad and Bill, standing on the pier at Brighton with me and my sister stood between them. They were beaming into the camera. I took the picture down and held it under the fluttering sunlight. I had always loved this picture. Four years, after I'd left, it was the one thing I'd regretted not taking from the house. And here it still was. The wood creaked and something snapped.
The four of us on our picnicking adventures in the cornfield. Dad and Bill walking and talking behind us, their laugher lifting up at our backs and chasing us though the trees. Dad proffering me up through the branches and the leaves, up to Bill's waiting arms. Dad, here, curled up in the dark and weeping that night Bill had left.
More wood cracked. The tree house tilted sideways and the floor gave way as rusty nails pinged across the room. I grabbed onto the doorframe as the whole thing twisted from the branch, the world a swirl of light and colour, no up or down. And then, with one final crack, the tree house, with me still inside it, hit the grass and smashed into a hundred pieces around me.
Anne came running out of the house.
"Gabe! She screamed. "Are you OK?
But I couldn't answer. I was lying with my back on the wood splintered ground, still gripping the photograph and staring up at the tree trunk and a bare patch of wood which the tree house had rested against. And I was laughing. Looking up at the tree where two names had been scrawled: Bill and Andy. My father's name. Scrawled and then hidden behind the tree house. Two names. Side by side. No space between them.