The Quivering Tree

by S. T. Haymon

  I put the tablet on my tongue out of curiosity, but was immediately aware that if I followed instructions I would soon smell like Mrs Benyon, something which did not appeal; so I swallowed it despite having been warned, trusting that my father – whose fault it was after all, in a way, that I found myself in such a situation in the first place – would fix it with God so that the awful pong I had just generated inside me did not turn my liver forever against my lights or vice versa. Mrs Benyon settled back on the bus seat and informed me that there also existed other tablets called Phul-Nana which were equally available in reputable sweetshops for the convenience of people who had been smoking or eating onions or garlic – (or drinking, I added mentally, when she didn’t) – but for her money there was nothing like Shem-el-Nessims for sweetening the breath.

  In Madame Sadie’s home in Trinity Street, Arabian Nights influences were also evident – no veiled houris, but bead curtains, a good deal of beaten brasswork and a hookah perched among the family photographs on the mantelpiece. Three other customers – clients, petitioners – were already present, sitting round the table which took up most of the room. Two of them were obviously husband and wife, young and pale and looking terribly bereaved. From the look of their clothes, they couldn’t have found it easy to come up with the Ios 6d admission money. Out of sheer nervousness, because I did not want to think about why I was there myself, I worked myself into one of my familiar worries wondering if Madame Sadie allowed them both in for the same half-guinea, or did they have to pay Ios 6d each? At the very least, she should, in justice, have made a reduction for quantity, the way they did with oranges on the Market Place.

  The third seeker after comfort looked as if she had already found it – materially, anyhow. She had on a fashionable coat-frock, a powdered face, and, although it was much too warm for furs, a narrow scarf made up of two stone martens, the two tails dangling down the middle of her back, and in front, two little animal heads glaring bad-temperedly at each other across a short length of silver chain. Her black hat had a red rose on it.

  Madame Sadie would have looked very Arabian Nights herself in her long loose gown of some shimmering green stuff sewn with diamanté and at least six bangles on each wrist, if the body underneath and the face above had not been so comfortably Norfolk, padded out, at a guess, with a good few years of Norfolk dumplings. She appeared a friendly soul, dispensing tea and strips of toast smeared with Salancho with a generous hand, solicitous of the young couple who were looking as if they were sorry they had come. Madame Sadie was nice to me too, in her way, saying that she hoped I would go away comforted. I wanted to say that I didn’t need comforting; that comforting was not what you needed when you lost a father. What you needed was – but as I could not possibly have put into words what it was you needed, I said nothing.

  Being me, I would probably have said nothing anyway.

  Once the tea things were cleared away, Madame Sadie drew dark-blue curtains over the bay window. The daylight was not entirely cut off because the curtains, though heavy, were unlined; but the room took on a mysterious, underwater aspect. Here and there a muted reflection from a brass tray or vase hinted at pirate treasure wrecked on the floor of some shallow sea.

  Madame Sadie ordered us all to join hands round the table. ‘Gloves off!’ she commanded sharply to the customer with the fur scarf. She warned us that the completion of the circle would set up an area of force sufficiently powerful to wrench our dear ones out of the celestial orbit they now inhabited and bring them back to the world they had left behind. Only one thing could make them feel that their journey was worthwhile, and that was our love; so that we must concentrate all our thoughts on the dear departed, willing them to sense how much we missed them, how much we grieved that they had passed over to the other side: how much, just the same, we unselfishly hoped that they were happy in their new existence beyond the stars.

  ‘Don’t go upsetting them just because you’re upset yourself,’ Madame Sadie instructed severely. ‘Making them discontented won’t do anybody any good.’

  Madame Sadie went on to explain that it was not actually herself who would be making contact with the dear departed, but her spirit guide, a wonderful person called Zalbaran who in the flesh, long ago, had been a Red Indian, but one who had never scalped a paleface in his whole life. If the day were propitious – and here Madame Sadie made it plain that she could promise nothing: though nothing specific was said on the subject it was made clear that in the event of the spirit guide drawing a blank no half-guineas would be refunded under any circumstances – the dear departed would speak to Zalbaran and Zalbaran in turn would speak to her, so that she could then pass their words on in language the listeners could understand.

  ‘They still speak English, don’t they?’ Fur Scarf wanted to know. ‘Why can’t we hear ourselves what they have to say?’

  The answer was that we could not – the dear departed, as was only to be expected once we thought about it, having left their vocal apparatus in the grave along with all their other physical bits and pieces. They had become all spirit, which was why they could now only communicate with others of their kind.

  ‘So, now – all join hands. Hold tightly and, whatever you do, don’t let go till I say so, not even to blow your nose.’ Madame Sadie did not say what would happen to us if we broke the circle, but we could tell by the expression on her face that it would be something serious.

  I sat between Mrs Benyon and the young wife, whose hand trembled so much that I squeezed it with mine, in what I hoped felt like reassurance. On the other side, Mrs Benyon’s solid flesh anchored mine as in a vice. I wondered fleetingly what she was doing round the table at all. Was she there just because she had brought me, and that earned her a place, or was there a Mr Benyon out there among those who had passed over? If there was a dead Mr Benyon and he had any sense he would know that today was not the day for hobnobbing with Red Indians.

  We sat. We sat in a silence which was only deepened, not fractured, by Madame Sadie’s increasingly heavy breathing: a silence which pressed down on us as if tangible until, to a general gasp of astonishment and relief, it was broken by the voice of a young girl issuing from the plump middle-aged throat of Madame Sadie.

  ‘Zalbaran, where are you, my lovely? Are you there, my darling?’

  There was no response, and no further sound save an imploring ‘Zalbaran! Zalbaran!’ It was unsettling to be forced to witness what could only be interpreted as a rejection of love. Zalbaran might be Madame Sadie’s darling, but was she his? Who could say the Red Indian might not, at that very moment, be promenading the fields of heaven with some Minnehaha on his arm, paying no attention whatsoever to the circle of force concentrating like mad in Trinity Street, Norwich, Norfolk, England, the British Isles, the British Empire, the World?

  ‘Zalbaran!’ Madame Sadie cried aloud, this time in greeting, the joyful young voice soaring through the ceiling. And now there began a curious humming, as of a distant swarm of bees. The humming did not seem to come from Madame Sadie or from any particular quarter of the room. It simply grew louder and louder, closer and closer, until it filled every inch of space there was, even insinuating itself – or so it seemed to me – into the tiny pockets of air enclosed in our clasped hands. With it all, and though the noise grew and grew – this is the hardest part to convey without exciting incredulity if not derision – the silence remained unbroken.

  Madame Sadie, who had been leaning forward in an attitude of listening, straightened up and announced in her normal voice: ‘A message from little Clara to her mum and dad to say they mustn’t cry for her any longer because she is very happy among all the flowers. They have such lovely colours, all the colours of the rainbow. She never saw such lovely colours. She wishes she could pick a bunch to give them, so they could see for themselves how lovely they are.’

  Some of the tears which were running down the face of the young woman fell on to the back of my hand. After what Madame Sadie had said about not
breaking the circle neither of us could take out a handkerchief to wipe them away. The young woman said with a kind of groan: ‘I hope they don’t bring on her hay fever.’

  Madame Sadie spoke with confidence. ‘There is no hay fever across the divide.’

  The young woman’s husband ventured apologetically: ‘I hope she’s got some other kids to play with. I wouldn’t like to think of her out there all on her own.’

  The strange humming noise recommenced. Madame Sadie listened, then began to sing in a child’s voice, younger than the girl’s voice which had come out of her before.

  ‘Ring-a-ring o’ rosies,

  A pocket full o’ posies –’

  When the humming faded away with the song’s end, she reported in her normal voice: ‘Dozens of children. Hundreds! As many as there are flowers. Your little Clara is so happy!’

  The husband and the wife looked at each other as if there were nobody else in the room but themselves.

  ‘She is so happy!’ they said, speaking together. The young wife’s hand that was joined with mine did not tremble any longer. On my other side, Mrs Benyon’s hand still felt like a slab of solidified lard.

  ‘Zalbaran ducky –’ Madame Sadie was the young girl again. ‘Have you got Henry there with you?’ The woman with the fur scarf frowned. ‘Last time you couldn’t find him for us. He did not come. And here is his heartbroken Muriel longing to know if he has settled down comfortably on the other side.’

  ‘Ask him about –’ the woman with the fur scarf began.

  ‘I know what to ask him!’ Madame Sadie cut her off tartly. ‘You’ve told me often enough. Let’s make sure he’s there to ask first, shall we?’ She listened to what the humming had to say, then looked up, pleased. ‘He’s here. Henry is here. He says he’s feeling fine. He says look after yourself, old girl.’ Shaking her head to discourage a further interruption from the disconsolate widow: ‘He also says to say there aren’t any more share certificates, that’s why you haven’t come across any. He turned them in years ago for cash and gave the money to you know who. He says you’ve no cause to grumble, you’re well provided for.’

  ‘Oh!’ The woman with the fur scarf let out a cry and would have broken the circle then and there if Madame Sadie had not called out in alarm, ‘Don’t let go!’ A grunt came from my left side. I turned my head and there was Mrs Benyon smiling as I had never seen her smiling before. I couldn’t help hoping that if there was a dead Mr Benyon wandering about on the other side who had owned share certificates, he too had given them away to you know who, just like Henry.

  At last it was my – or rather, my father’s – turn. When the humming had once more dwindled away, Madame Sadie said: ‘There’s a daddy here who hopes his darling Sylvia is being a good girl.’

  My skin crawled. If I hadn’t been too shy I would have cried out in protest, stood up and ruined the circle once and for all. I had never in my life called my father daddy, any more than he had ever called me darling. It simply wasn’t the way we communicated. As for being a good girl, it was only my mother who invariably, whenever I came home from having been out somewhere, would ask, sweetly but in a way that drove me up the wall, ‘Have you been a good girl?’ Often I said ‘No,’ even though I had in fact been as good as gold, just to register what I thought of such a demeaning question; one that, alive or dead, my father, who knew my feelings on the subject, would never have dreamed of asking of me.

  ‘Many a time these last few weeks,’ Madame Sadie went on, ‘your daddy has peeped in at the window to watch over you sleeping peacefully in your new little room.’

  Certain now that the whole thing was a fake, that Madame Sadie had been primed by her pal Mrs Benyon with what to say, I demanded, laying on all the sarcasm I could muster: ‘Please ask my daddy what kind of tree it is growing outside the window.’

  The humming went on for a long time before Madame Sadie reported back. ‘He says the kind of tree isn’t important.’

  ‘But he always said trees were very important! That we’d have deserts if we didn’t have trees. We had a tree book and he knew all their names –’

  I stopped because Madame Sadie had begun to breathe heavily again and because Mrs Benyon was bearing down on my hand so that it really hurt. The humming had died away completely. Madame Sadie said in her girlish voice: ‘Are you very tired, Zalbaran, lovey? Are you being called away? Do you really have to go, taking our loved ones with you? See that they take our love back with them, do you hear? – Our fondest love, to cherish across the great divide and to the end of time. And come again, come again, darlings all, when those who love you call –’

  I sat on my bed listening to the leaves quivering against the window, my lips curled at the very suggestion that my father could not recognize an aspen tree when he saw one; worried sick all the same that perhaps it was true after all, and that after you were dead there were things you no longer remembered, like the name of a tree and whether you did or did not call your daughter darling. After all, with all the changes to your way of life (though that didn’t sound right) you must have a lot on your mind. Assuming you still had one, that was. And what did you remember with, anyway, your brain being left behind in your coffin, decaying to dust along with the rest of your body? What if it was only the living who remembered, the dead who forgot, or – worse – couldn’t be bothered?

  Suddenly, I wanted desperately for the séance to be genuine. Madame Sadie had said that the dead were all spirit. What did that mean exactly? I tried hard to puzzle it out and only came up with my father, looking the same as he always had looked – dark hair, blue eyes, moustache a little yellow at the edges from too much smoking – except transparent. You could see clear through him, which would, if you thought about it, have made it impossible to be sure how he looked, what with beds and chests of drawers and goodness only knew what else getting in the way all the time. Perhaps it meant invisible, which was even worse. With transparent you might at least catch a glimpse.

  Only hunger saved me from utter despair, conjuring up a picture of Mrs Benyon – nothing transparent about her! – sitting down to tea with Madame Sadie and her husband Bert, a meat tea with warmed-up casserole, probably accompanied by the rest of the redcurrant jelly we had had at lunch. Chandos House was empty. Miss Gosse and Miss Locke were out somewhere and I wouldn’t have minded betting that nothing whatever had been done about my tea. I ran downstairs to the dining-room. Sure enough, the plush cloth was in place on the table. Nothing in the kitchen either. There was a lovely new loaf in the bread crock in the larder, but I didn’t dare to cut into it. If it had been started, that would have been another matter.

  I went out into the garden, down to my store in the bothy, and there was Mr Betts sitting on the wooden bench reading his sports paper and eating one of my whipped cream walnuts. Even though it could be said he had a perfect right, since it was his money which had paid for it, it was too much. Everything and everybody was against me. I began to bawl in a childish way I hadn’t used for years.

  Mr Betts popped the last of the whipped cream walnut into his mouth, folded his paper and put it away in his jacket pocket.

  ‘I jest lost meself thirty bob on the gee-gees,’ he informed me, not sounding too put out about it. ‘Wha’s your excuse?’

  As ever, the knobby little man made me feel instantly better, an improvement compounded by the whipped cream walnut I fetched from the nest of drawers in the bothy. Sitting close to him on the bench, the smell of chocolate blending amicably with the sweaty earthiness of his clothes, I told him what I and the housekeeper had been doing since lunchtime: whereupon he turned his eyes up comically to the heavens and exclaimed ‘Women! Ain’t they got nothing better to do of an arternoon?’

  When I corrected him to the extent of pointing out that a man had been among the company forming a circle in Trinity Street, to say nothing of Madame Sadie’s husband Bert, who was presumably somewhere on the premises although I personally had not laid eyes on him, the gardener
commented offhandedly, but in a tone that carried absolute conviction: ‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? He was the one doing the humming.’

  I gaped at Mr Betts in wide-eyed admiration. Of course!

  ‘Comin’ up the road,’ Mr Betts said, ‘I saw you an’ the Bunion waiting fer the bus. I’d ’a known where you was off to, wild horses wouldn’t have stopped me comin’ along.’

  I inquired delicately, since except for what he had told me about his parents, I had no idea of his family circumstances, whether there was anybody on the other side he would have wanted to get in touch with.

  ‘On the other side o’ the fence, you mean! All them horses what refused once they heard it were my money they was carrying on their bloody noses! Your Madame What’s-her-name call them up fer me, I’d’ve had a few choice words to say!’

  Somehow I found myself leaning against the man’s sleeve, feeling strangely tired. Close by, on a tin tray on the ground, were two bunches of asparagus neatly tied with strands of raffia. They explained why the gardener was in on a Saturday afternoon. If I hadn’t been so tired I might have asked how his mate with the white van was getting on.

  I liked the taste of asparagus and would ordinarily have been quite interested to know if we were going to have it with Sunday dinner, or had Mr Betts other plans for its disposal? Unfortunately, in the mood I was in, I took against the inoffensive vegetable. The waxen stalks, faintly flushed with purple and green, looked so very dead.

  Mr Betts was going on, something about it not being important whether the séance was a fraud or whether it wasn’t. Being dead or being alive was what mattered – being alive, anyhow. ‘When you come down to it, all you’re on about is how your pa in’t around any more fer you to drive him potty with your takin’ ways, ain’t I right?’