The Tree Read Online Free PDF

looking at something the other night,’ said Mrs Sanders.
    â€˜I was watching Sandra.’ She nodded towards Mrs Layton.
    â€˜I was watching, Daisy.’ Mrs Drummond referred to the woman sitting next to her.
    â€˜I was watching Gladys.’ The old woman spoke gruffly, not sure what she was being accused of.
    â€˜What were you watching, Gladys?’ Mrs Layton sucked in her lips and the skin of her chin shrivelled.
    â€˜I thought I saw you, Dawn.’ Gladys leant over to my mother. ‘Up your tree.’
    Lying on the cold tiles in the hall, I slid an inch closer to see how my mother would respond. There was a pause and it felt to me like the ceiling was starting to lower. They’d seen my mother up the tree. They might try and take her away from us, that was my first thought.
    I noticed though she didn’t comment. I saw her perfect non-reaction. Mrs Layton tried again. ‘There has been a lot of noise coming from up there, the last week.’
    â€˜Maybe it was the fruit bats.’ My mother spoke without a hint of sarcasm.
    Her face had tensed slightly, but no more than it was already from being confronted in her own home by a group of uninvited pensioners.
    It was true my mother had made very little effort to cover her tracks. The Johnsons who lived directly beside us were old and the Kings behind had a noisy house full of children, so she was safe from the nearest neighbours. But she had made no attempt to conceal her tree climbs or to disguise the noise they made. Especially the night the drain man called. After he left she was so loud I was sure the entire suburb must have heard. Vonnie, who lived next to Megan’s house and directly behind the Johnsons, saw my mother struggling for another excuse. She cut in.
    â€˜All the kids were up there again. I noticed the other evening.’ She sounded as if she was displeased, but there was a playful tone in her voice.
    â€˜After what happened, you’d think you’d be a little more careful.’ Gladys challenged my mother with a look of scorn.
    â€˜I see the roots have got in the drains again,’ she continued.
    â€˜Not badly,’ said my mother.
    â€˜Not what the Johnsons said.’ Gladys sounded very pleased with her private knowledge.
    â€˜It’s been worse,’ Mum countered.
    â€˜Have you got any plans’ – Gladys hadn’t finished yet – ‘for the future, assuming present root growth continues. Not that it affects our side of the road, but I would have thought your immediate neighbours may be interested.’
    â€˜Doesn’t bother me,’ said Vonnie. ‘And the Johnson’s back yard is so full of gum trees. It’s questionable which tree is doing the most damage.’
    Mum was off the hook for the minute, thanks to Vonnie, and the old girls huffed and puffed and waited for the cups of tea my mother had no intention of offering them.

8
    Mother’s trips to the tree stopped that night – squashed like a jack-in-a-box waiting to have its lid lifted, she waited inside the house. I could hear her pacing in her room and I knew she felt trapped there by the eyes of the old women of the suburb. I had continued to eavesdrop on the old women’s conversation from the cold tile floor as they left the house that evening, clopping down the front steps with their bunioned hoofs stuffed into mis-shapen sandals.
    â€˜We all have dead husbands,’ I heard Gladys hiss into the ear of another of the old girls.
    â€˜She may have been a bit younger when she lost him, but so what,’ another one said.
    My mother heard them too and she was furious. Then I saw her decide not to brew on it and she broadened her thoughts. The next afternoon I discovered why. She must have decided that the only way to beat the enemy was to employ them. So during the cicadas five o’clock chorus I was marched across the road with my first communion dress that had sat for weeks