The Tree Read Online Free PDF Page A

mother saw the grey heads first, bobbing up and down through the Venetian blinds, like a line of yachts seesawing towards a finish line. It was a trickle of grey-haired women stepping down the path towards our front door.
    â€˜What are they doing?’ she said, watching the women. Like a determined flank of soldier ants they marched closer.
    â€˜What do they want?’ She jogged nervously on the spot.
    The inevitable knock on the door sent my mother into a spin, zig-zagging across the cool wooden floorboards. We dived for cover. It struck the same chord of recognition in all of us. They resembled so completely the grey stream of women who came to our house the afternoon after our father’s funeral. It brought back the pots of tea, the muffled voices, the sniffling, the occasional howl, then the sound of tissues being plucked.
    It was a terrible return to that fearful hot day. The heat in the church had been unbearable, even with all the doors open. That much black cloth on a February day in a church in the sub-tropics with only the ceiling fans to churn up the air can push the temperature beyond the tolerable.
    It was too much for the old folk. Aunt Kit folded at the knees ten minutes in and the rest of the church swivelled to watch as she drifted to the pew, so convinced they were that she was going to drop dead and upstage the service and the untimely death of her niece’s husband. Waiting in the wings for such an event, Uncle Jack in the seat behind extracted the smelling salts from his chest pocket. Once Aunt Kit had come round and her hat, a flat, black saucer darted with a purple feather, was rearranged on her white tufts of hair, Uncle Jack offered her his hip flask of brandy. When it became clear Aunt Kit was revivable and she’d had more than a few nips of brandy, the congregation returned to their ruminations. They bowed their heads to the power of their Creator, they thanked him again that it hadn’t been their turn this time.
    I could see from my seat beside my mother, through the wall of louvred glass, my class lined up outside the church. The blood-red glass was difficult to see through, but the yellow and orange panes were less opaque though they distorted their faces giving them all monstrous chins and shallow foreheads.
    The heavy box in the aisle beside us seemed too black for my father. I wished it was decorated, painted with some swirls and messages.
    Now, as the women, the busy beavers who had supplied the tea and sandwiches at our house for the mourners, came down our path, we scattered in fear, leaving our mother to open the door.
    â€˜Yes?’ Her bare feet and thin legs greeted the women. Gladys Havelock led the way holding up her Neighbourhood Watch folder. ‘Dawn, the rota! It’s your turn.’
    Mrs Sanders patted my mother on the arm on her way into the house.
    â€˜I thought you were going to remind her,’ she whispered to Gladys.
    â€˜Didn’t I?’ Gladys looked at my mother who shook her head.
    â€˜Too late, the gang’s all here.’ Gladys clamped a clipboard to her side.
    The mass of grey-haired widows pushed into the lounge, pressing elbows into each other’s sides and exchanging worried glances. The unspoken consensus seemed to be it would be good for everyone to continue as normal.
    My mother watched the stream of women take up their seats in her front room. They shuffled and sighed and waited to be offered tea. But mother didn’t drink tea, so she didn’t offer.
    â€˜Anyone have anything to report?’ Gladys started.
    â€˜It’s been dark, this last week, at night,’ said Mrs Sanders.
    â€˜I’ve seen someone dark,’ Mrs Drummond, old and deaf, chipped in.
    â€˜Were they black?’ Mrs Layton was on the edge of her seat trying to choke back her fear.
    â€˜Very . . .’ Mrs Drummond hesitated. ‘Black as the night. I couldn’t really see they were so black.’
    â€˜I saw you