Liverpool Revisited

by Michael White

  I reached the southernmost extent of the lake and started heading back north once again. The wind felt slightly less fierce as it was now behind me, and this in turn gave me a spring in my step. I was now headed towards the woodland that covers the northern extremity of the lake which then runs off to the Palm House further across the way, even more woodland being to the east. This was more than half way through the beat and I was beginning to look forward to warming myself before the fire back at the lodge once again. Despite wearing regulation gloves I had to continually swap the torch in my hand as my fingers were so cold. Still the rain continued to fall.

  The woods were off on my right now so I paused beneath a large tree to have a not so crafty fag. Sod it! Nobody would notice and it may give me a rise in my spirits. I wouldn’t normally do this if there were two of us on the beat. I’d just wait until we got back to the lodge, but as I was on my own I thought what the hell!

  I was just smoking my cigarette in the shelter of the trees when I heard what I thought was the sound of the wind blowing through the branches behind me. I turned to flash the torch and then, just out of the reach of the light I heard a loud, deep, thump! I’ll tell you here and now my bloody heart nearly stopped there and then. I dropped my half smoked cigarette and crushed it with my leaking boot and slowly made my way forward to investigate. To the left of where I thought I heard the first commotion I then heard another one! It was a deep, loud sound, and reminded me of a noise that resembled something very heavy and perhaps very big being dropped onto wet grass from a small height. The last sound had been even louder than the first, and nearer too. Whatever it was, it was getting closer!

  I shouted some stupid challenge in to the dark that I cannot quite remember now but got no reply of course, and so I unholstered my baton and advanced forward once again, now quite a way into the trees. As I held the truncheon before me to push the branches to one side I entered a small clearing, in the centre of which stood a large elm tree. Having worked in various parks over the years, I feel that I am quite adept at identifying one tree from another, even in the dark, and this was definitely an elm. Tall and elegant are elms, short serrated leaves. Very distinctive. This particular one had a large long mark on its trunk that was almost the same size as I was. I stood there in the clearing as the wind and rain swept about me, trying to find the source of the noise with my torch. Yet I could see nothing. I considered that whatever the source of the noises was may be hiding behind the large elm tree and so I moved slightly to my right to try and look behind the trunk. Unlike most elms this one was quite wide and tall with it too.

  I was trying to do this when the top branches of the tree began to shake even more violently than the wind could be held responsible for. I focused my torch on the tree itself, considering for a moment that it may be about to fall! I moved forward a little bit, now almost crouching, moving forward cautiously.

  Which is when the tree moved.

  Now get this right. As I have already stated I am not a man for flights of imagination or strange fancies. I had not been drinking. Yet as I watched the tree uprooted, or almost tore itself out of the ground, and strode on long thick limbs or roots - I couldn’t really tell which - and moved what must have been some six feet to my left. With a huge thump that shook the ground it settled down as before, as if nothing had happened. I found myself crouching on the floor of the woods, my mind racing, when the tree did it again, moving another six feet in the same direction, and then it stopped once more, with another loud thump!

  I cannot say to this day what was going through my mind at this moment, though the concept of some person playing a practical joke was one thing that did come into my head. Yet surely it was beyond the ability of anyone to move a tree like that, even for a joke? And why would they bother in the first place the middle of a miserable night such as this? As the tree moved the second time I had tried to force myself backwards and had fallen to the ground, pushing myself away from the direction of the elm whilst very, very carefully keeping the beam of my torch full on it. It just stood there as if nothing had happened. The way trees normally do. Yet somehow I could not shake the feeling that it was somehow watching me.

  I must have sat there not daring to move for some thirty minutes, the wet leaves beneath me, and the rain falling down still. Yet the tree stayed exactly where it was. No movement or anything otherworldly at all. I slowly began to back out of the clearing and as I edged up against the trunk of another tree I stood back up and slowly tried to hide in the darkness. I still could not shake the feeling that I was being watched however, so I turned off my torch and almost spinning on the spot sprinted through the dark and rain back to the lodge at full pelt. I will say here and now that I probably bested some form of athletic record that night, so quick was my passage back to what I considered to be safety. Once back at the lodge I unlocked the door and let myself in and began to warm myself in front of the welcoming fire. What the hell had happened out there I did not know, and I am not ashamed to say that I had locked the lodge door behind me when I had entered, which was of course against regulations, but to hell with that!

  There I sat until dawn and the opening of the gates. I had been due another patrol before my shift ended that night, but I never shifted from the fire. I was too shaken and sat waiting for daylight before I dared venture from the lodge again. With my duties over I slowly made my way home and after placing my boots in the cobblers retired to my bed. I must say however, that sleep was terribly difficult to find. It kept racing through my mind. Trees can’t move. They really can’t.

  And yet this one had.

  I had indeed seen it with my own eyes move not once, but twice. I could think of plenty of excuses to explain what had happened. Try to make sense out of what had happened. Perhaps the eggs in my sandwiches were perhaps off or maybe I had been taken with a chill, but none of them made sense. The tree had moved. I had seen it do so with my own eyes.

  ***

  “I placed the notebook down and took another sip of my drink. Now this story had taken a turn in a direction I had not thought of! How strange! I paused to think what I had just read and smiled to myself. I did not have any more time to read this evening, but I would return to it tomorrow. However, I set myself thinking, my great, great grandfather had been relatively precise in his directions. I knew more or less exactly where he was referring to, for it was my job after all, though I had never wandered amongst the trees before as such. Like everyone except perhaps children, I had always kept to the paths. As I was considering this I busied myself with various chores and the potential arrival of my husband a little later.

  The next day I resolved to leave for work a little earlier, and upon arriving at the park I attempted to follow the route my ancestor had taken. It was somewhat difficult at first, yet after a while I felt I was more or less on the right track and so wandered into the trees, garnering a few strange looks from a couple of people behind me who were following the path through the park. I ignored them. It really is quite a strange sensation when you wander into the woods as I did now. It seems as if you are leaving civilisation behind you. It was a glorious and bright sunny day but only thin beams of sunlight made it through to the forest floor through the canopy of leaves high above. Yet I would not say that it was gloomy or frightening. Quite beautiful, really, the sound of bird song echoing all around me.

  Then a clearing opened up. It was exactly as my great, great grandfather had described it. Yet there was no elm tree here. Of that there was no doubt. I am, and have to be, something of an expert on these matters as during the course of my talks I am frequently asked. There was no elm tree in this clearing, or indeed anywhere near it as far as I could see. Nor should there be, for Dutch elm disease had seen to that some years previously, though I did know that they could regrow from roots left in the earth, but even then they could still fall to this terrible disease once again. I continued in vain to edge around the space in the forest attempting to find a similar clearing perhaps, or
a stray elm tree. Nothing.

  I glanced at my watch. I had nearly half an hour to spare before I had to commence work, and so I took the journal out of my handbag and finding a large root to sit on, found my place and began to read.

  ***

  “After a day’s restless sleep I returned to the cobbler and collected my work boots, which he had seemed to make a good job of. I do not care to say how greatly my mind was in turmoil, but as the day began to turn towards evening, and the start of the night shift, I began to think about how odd my experience in the woods had been. I must admit that the obvious thing was to completely disregard what had happened as some form of dream, or hallucination. A fancy, nothing more. Yet as my wife prepared my sandwiches I waited until she was out of the kitchen and sniffed the eggs she was preparing. They were okay. Smelled perfectly normal. Not off at all.

  Not that then.

  Perhaps I was finally going mad! Apart from that, as I had spent the day tossing and turning in my attempts at sleep. I did feel rather tired, but that was not unusual for the night shift, and beyond that I felt perfectly fit and ready for work.

  I had decided to make an investigation into the previous night’s strange events and so left for work almost a full hour earlier than I usually did, making an excuse to my wife about some meeting with the Sergeant or the like. I cannot remember exactly what I said. I dislike lying to her, but I feared that the truth would be perhaps more disquieting! With my newly cobbled boots in a bag I made my way to the park by the nearest entrance to the lake and proceeded to the edge of the woods. I gingerly made my way into the trees and continued forwards in what I considered to be the general direction I had taken the night before and eventually found myself in the clearing, which I edged towards very nervously, I can tell you!

  I was greatly surprised however, for the elm tree was not there! I could recall exactly where it had been, even what it looked like, what with the large mark on its trunk. It was gone. I began to search around in confusion, thinking perhaps I was in the wrong place, but this was it for certain. I stood in the clearing for some time but there was no elm. I made a few incursions into the woods looking for it whilst at the same time feeling something of a fool, but I could not find it. It was gone. I was now running out of time and so reluctantly I left the woods and made my way to the lodge, and to work.

  As I dressed in my uniform Tom arrived and it was very apparent that he was still as ill as he had been the night before. Despite my attempts to get him to retire home to his bed however he said that he thought to do so would be pushing his luck and he would therefore remain on the job, as it were. I suspect perhaps that his missus had given him some grief about going home the night before. Regular employment was very scarce, and so I could not really blame him. He was terribly poorly though, coughing and sneezing almost constantly. I wondered in passing if I were to be next! Perhaps I already had it! That would explain my experience the night before, for sure! Perhaps a fever or the like? Yet I felt perfectly healthy. No symptoms of a cold at all.

  So night fell and our first patrol approached. To my relief I managed to persuade poor Tom to stay at the fire shivering whilst I undertook the beat alone. I had several reasons for this, of course, and it is with a little shame that I shall freely admit that Tom’s on-going health had very little to do with any of them! I wanted him to keep his distance, of course, so I would not catch his infernal cold, but I also wanted to continue my search for the strange elm tree. To this end I left Tom shivering in front of the lodge fire, wrapped in what appeared to be several blankets whilst I closed the lodge door behind me and turned on my torch. The weather this evening was much milder, though there was quite a stiff, cold wind blowing across the park. Mercifully no rain, though. And so off I went.”

  ***

  So that was why I could not find any traces of the tree, I thought. Not that it was likely that I would, of course. However, I now had to scurry from the woods and be off to work. I had just one talk to give today, concerning the statue of Peter Pan in the park and its history, and so I made my way to the information office. I must say that my mind was not entirely on the job at hand. I wanted to get it over and done with as quickly as I could so I could return to my reading. It was an unfortunate point to leave the tale, or story, or whatever it was. It had certainly got me intrigued!

  Some hours later I returned home and as it was yet another sunny day I retired to the garden and took the journal out of my bag. It was time to get reading again. There only seemed to be a little bit of it left, I noted sadly. Yet I also felt a strange tingle of excitement as I picked up the book.”

  ***

  “As I made my way around the lake in the dark once again the sky cleared somewhat, stars beginning to show overhead. As I may have said before, it really is a quite beautiful place and there probably isn’t a day goes by without me counting my blessings. Pulling my collar up against the wind I turned the end of the lake and began my way back towards the woodlands once again. I set my pace to be quite quick for I was determined to locate the strange tree I had encountered the previous evening. In my mind I was quite confused about it. I had obviously been delusional or the like about what I thought I had seen. A tree can’t move now, can it, for God’s sake! I therefore needed to find it if only so I could prove to myself that I had been mistaken. And so I quickly crossed the park ahead of me and entered the trees.

  I ploughed on through the woods but had to slow my pace accordingly as the trees became thicker, and the ground more tangled with roots and leaves. I swept the torch all about me as I went, though I found nothing out of the ordinary as I headed deeper into the woodland. Eventually I reached the clearing where I had seen the tree the night before. At least I considered this to be the case. It certainly looked familiar, yet it was after all just a small gap in the thickly planted woods, and I could not be exactly sure. The elm was not there. It had as I described earlier some quite distinctive marking about its trunk and was of a certain size and aspect. It most definitely was not there. I therefore moved further into the trees swinging the torch about me as I went. There were elm trees here, of course. Quite a few of them. None however as large as the tree I had encountered the night before. Eventually I caught sight of the Palm House framed by the beam from my torch across the grass, and so resolved to head south once again, where the trees were thicker. Turning around I made off to my left so I was not covering the same ground I already had. After some five minutes or so I came to halt and decided to light a cigarette whilst I considered my options.

  I leaned against the trunk of a large oak tree and peered up through the leaves. Overhead the sky had cleared sufficiently for me to just make out through the branches a few stars shining high above me. Just then the clouds blew clear, revealing a nearly full moon. All around me beams of moonlight fell through the trees onto the ground. To say that it was beautiful was an understatement. I think I shall take the memory of that vista to my grave. It really was that magnificent. Peaceful, beautiful and yet also humbling at the same time. I finished my cigarette and decided that I was wasting my time. Obviously what had occurred the previous evening must have been some form of daydream or illusion. It did not make much sense, but as I stood there attempting to rationalise it I found that I could draw a line under what had happened by thinking of it no longer.

  I decided there and then to continue with my patrol and head back to the lodge, for if I left it much longer Tom may have begun to wonder what had become of me. Enough nonsense was enough. I was not overdue as of yet, but by the time I got back there I may very well be. Ensuring my cigarette was completely extinguished I headed west and began to trudge back to the path which was some way off in that direction. This coincided exactly with a loud, deep thump some way off to the south. My heart seemed to almost slow to a stop as I registered that the sound was exactly the same one I had heard the night before! It was almost as loud as the previous time that I had heard it too!

  Rushing from the clearing I began t
o rapidly pick my way across the forest floor in the direction I had heard the noise. As I gathered my pace I heard it again. A low, deep thump that seemed to shake the earth, as if something extremely heavy had placed a lot of weight onto the ground with considerable force. Then once again. Thump! I rushed onwards, eventually reaching a small rise that fell down gently before me into a little circular dell. From this vantage point my torch flashed across the trees that rose on the other side of the dip. As I swept the beam backwards and forwards I noticed a large set of branches behind the foremost trees suddenly lurch and move what must have been some six to eight feet to my right. This was followed by a further loud thump as the move was completed. Then some seconds later, exactly the same thing. I concentrated the light from the torch in that direction now, and as I did so there came a further thudding sound from that way. It was definitely nearer this time! Whatever it was, it was approaching the edge of the trees on the other side of the dell that fell down in front of me.

  There came another deep boom from the trees ahead of me across the way, and then another. Then there was a disturbance from the trees massed around the dell and the elm tree I had seen the night before burst through the woods, paused, and then strode once, then twice into the centre of the sunken clearing. That it was the same tree there could be no doubt. The long man sized markings on the trunk, the sheer size of it. Apart from that, I remember thinking in my now totally befuddled mind that it was the only tree that I had ever seen walking before! Yet it was not moving now. It stood alone in the precise centre of the dell, moonlight glancing down across its form. Then it seemed to shake itself, and turned slowly to face me. Or at least that is the impression that I got.

  Unfortunately, it was at precisely that moment that my torch went out.

  Yet I was not plunged into total darkness. The moonlight above the dell seemed to become much brighter as the elm tree stood there, almost as if it was watching me. No. That is not what I mean at all. That it was watching me I had no doubt. It was more the feeling that it was waiting for me more than anything. Waiting, not watching.