by Ana Salote
There was Sperrin: on a warm night, all togged up in a boiler suit and mask, spraying poison from a gun. He'd fixed himself up with three different canisters attached to his suit, so that he could plug into the right poison for the job. Apparently he was after anything that crawls or flies, he was after weeds and he was after any plant that dared to cross the border between his garden and ours. Empty canisters were thrown aside as he strapped on new ones. After a few minutes every plant around was choking and wheezing as the poisons drifted over us.
But there was worse to come: creaking and cracking; my friends, Birch, Sycamore and Spruce, groaning; branches whirling over the fence; Sperrin in a frenzy. I saw flashes of his purple face between the dark green pine fronds. He was twisting and thrashing about with the branches; not breaking them with a quick clean cut, but twisting them off, torturing Spruce and leaving ugly jagged ends. I couldn’t watch; instead I took a look at Charlie’s face. He was watching with big, still eyes that narrowed every time Spruce groaned. After he’d done with Spruce, Sperrin turned his frenzy against Sycamore and then Yew. When the sounds of splitting and cracking had finally stopped I took another look down the garden. Sperrin had pulled off his mask. Sweat poured down his face as he threw the last of the broken branches back into the Jungle. Then he did a victory spray of poison up into the air and strode back to his house.
Charlie slid down his rope and ran to the bottom of the Jungle. There, he went along, talking to the trees, climbing up where he could and inspecting the splintered stumps of branches.
Eva came out of the house to inhale just as Charlie burst out of the Jungle with twigs in his hair and that faint green tinge to his skin that I’ve noticed sometimes when he’s been thinking like a tree thinks. He told Eva what had happened.
‘Why did Mr Sperrin do that? Is it because I annoyed him the other day?’
‘No,’ said Eva, her eyes flashing angrily ‘it’s not you, it’s me. I found this in the recycling bin yesterday.’ She opened out some crumpled paper. ‘It’s a memo from Sperrin to my boss: I have some confidential information re: E.Slater. Cannot disclose details but I advise that she is considered for the next round of job cuts. I went straight down to Sperrin’s office like I’d got a rocket up my behind. I burst in, slammed the memo on his desk. ‘You liar,’ I said.
“I was acting on instructions from higher up,’ he said. ‘Actually I’ve been trying to protect you. Trust me, and you’ll never have to worry about money again.’I almost believed him, then I looked into his eyes.’
‘You saw what I saw,’ Charlie said.
‘Yes, I knocked his hand off my shoulder. ‘You’re a liar and a creep,’ I said, Well guess what, you can kiss goodbye to any hopes you had of getting your hands on me or my land.’
‘Yes!’ said Charlie, punching the air.
‘Job or no job,’ Eva said quietly.
They sat down together against my trunk. I hung closely over them.
‘We must be able to stop him doing things like that? Isn’t it criminal damage or something?’ Charlie asked.
‘He has a right to cut off overhanging branches,’ Eva said.
‘But his face was like a madman’s. Why is he so angry? It’s only a few branches.’
‘It’s frustration I suppose; he knows he’ll never get me to sell now.’
‘It’s like he feels threatened by the Jungle,’ Charlie said.
‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘that’s the top and bottom of it. That’s the inside and outside of it. Unfettered life scares him. He wants to control everything.’
Charlie’s hand stole around and patted me.
I had seen it in Sperrin’s face, a hatred of life: for him there was something terrible about the Jungle with its wild drifting seeds, its blowing leaves, its overhanging branches, invasive roots, scurryings, buzzings and flappings. That’s why he hated children too I thought; it was the uncontrolled life in them.
They sat, quietly thoughtful. After a while Charlie asked: ‘Will they sack you now?’
‘They will if he has a say in it, unless I can get something on him. Information’s what I need, because information is power,’ and for a moment her eyes clouded and she looked quite scary. I was beginning to think that even the nicest of humans have a dark side to them. ‘Come on let’s treat ourselves to some telly before lights out,’ she said.
It wasn’t the best night on TV. They watched a music programme called Vintage Top of the Pops because it showed Pete’s moment of fame. Half his face appeared under a curtain of hair for a few seconds as he played guitar on one of the tracks. The programme changed to Top of the Chops in my mind because I was still thinking about my wounded friends. I drifted away to talk to them and only came back for the news, which was the same old story of who bombed what, and an interview with an ancient man. “It’s worse than the last war,’ he said, ‘people like me with no savings will be eating cats and dogs soon.’
I pictured the Sperrin’s moggy, Adolf, being basted slowly on a spit, and heard Violet putting her cat, Maisie out. ‘Go on, go on; out you go.’ Light ran down the garden as she opened the door; there was a yeowl as she chucked her out. Looked like she was feeling nervous too.
I listened to the best bit of the news, the ‘now cheer up’ spot.
‘And finally,’ said the news reader, ‘reports are coming in from around the country of bizarre behaviour in the animal kingdom. At a Kent zoo, a keeper was held hostage by an orang utan, while dozens of other primates made their way to freedom. This report from nearby Rotham Woods:
‘I was out walking, when my dogs surrounded a tree and started barking like mad. I looked up and thought I was hallucinating: monkeys, lounging around in the branches, looking down with round, insolent eyes. One dropped down in front of us - swinging by one arm it was, right in my face. My dogs jumped up snapping but it just swung away, chattering and laughing.’
‘Elsewhere, battery hens in Pontypridd went on strike, refusing to lay eggs. Donkeys on a Blackpool beach formed a circle and kicked up clouds of sand, causing rides to be abandoned for the day. And perhaps strangest of all were the dozens of children taken to casualty today with their pet hamsters clamped firmly to their fingers.
‘An animal behaviourist was mystified. ‘The whole world is unsettled,’ she said, maybe the animals feel it too.’’
Odd. All very odd. Animals with attitude, and it was an attitude I thought I recognised.
Next day was Saturday. I like Saturday because Charlie’s usually around and it’s often a gardening day. That Saturday was extra good because it was also manure day. Fortunately the pigs were still behaving like pigs, doing what they do best, in my eyes: producing lots of lovely manure.
Humans have to work for food. It doesn’t come in on a sunray or rise through their veins from the soil, and because there was no oil, the food cost a lot to move around so people started growing their own. Nearly all the gardens had vegetables, many had chickens, and Brigid had pigs.
Eva swaps some of her veg for pig’s manure every few months. On a manure day we can all smell it coming, I feel my roots spreading in anticipation. Eva comes along the alley and through the gate with a great, heaped, steaming barrow load of the stuff. Did anything ever smell so divine? The scent hangs in warm folds: rich, sweet and earthy. How humans resist it I don’t know. You would think they’d pile their plates high with it, but they give it all to us and treat themselves with little squares of hard brown stuff: chocolate.
I think that at some time in human history they knew better because of the saying ‘manna from heaven’ which means delightful food stuff falling from the skies, clearly a corruption of ‘manure from heaven’ which does fall on us plants from above.
I must admit that most of the manure goes to the veg, but Charlie always brings a forkful up to me. This makes Eva smile, ‘You and that tree she says, anyone would think it was a pet. Do you know that most people would chop it down. It’s too close to the house; the roots could damage the foundat
ions.’
Eva can be a little insensitive at times. There is no way I would damage the house. I’m very careful with my roots. Charlie came to stand by me like a little guard.
‘You sound like Sperrin,’ he said.
Eva laughed, ‘OK, I’m sorry tree,’ she said, bowing to me, ‘no offence intended.’
‘None taken,’ I said, and Charlie giggled.
‘Speaking of Mr S, I think I’d better go down and inspect the damage.’
Charlie ran off ahead and I stuck with his mind the best I could. As he neared the border I could feel the sick stupor of the smaller plants as they struggled for life. Charlie stepped over the tangle of broken branches under the old wall and started clearing them aside urgently.
‘Dead, dead, dead,’ he said.
‘What are?’ Eva asked.
‘All the plants on the wall. There were fourteen species and Junglus slaterii.’
‘What’s that.’
‘A rare plant I was specially looking after.’
He ran to the corner of the wall and pushed some ferns aside. ‘This one’s OK I think, and I’ve got seeds. I’ll have to try and raise them all again.’
Eva glared over the fence. Sperrin was going round his house, slamming all the windows shut. Then he came outside, and, with a handkerchief over his nose and mouth, set two big fans whirring on his patio. Seeing Eva boldly staring him down, he made to go back into the house, but changed his mind and marched purposefully over.
‘I suppose this is you,’ he said, letting his handkerchief down far enough to speak, then clamping it back over his nose.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Eva.
‘I suppose this is you again; this vile stink.’
Eva’s eyes had started to sparkle. She couldn’t help it, she lifted her arm and sniffed her armpit. ‘No, I’m not getting anything,’ she said and she looked at Charlie for confirmation. He shrugged.
‘You know what I’m talking about – this dreadful mess you will keep spreading on your garden. It belongs in a farmyard not in residential areas; there should be by-laws against it. We are not medieval peasants living among pig sties.’
Up went the handkerchief again.
Eva looked into Sperrin’s eyes, ‘Speak for yourself,’ she said and laughed in his face.
‘Oh you’ve got nothing to laugh about Mrs Slater, I can assure you.’
‘Oh please,’ said Eva, ‘you can’t intimidate me,’ and she turned to walk away.
Charlie followed her but felt his eyes drawn back. Sperrin was staring after them, and once again he flashed Charlie that look of undisguised malice.
‘Was that childish of me? Would you say that was childish of me?’ Eva said as the two of them broke out of the orchard.
‘Yes,’ said Charlie, ‘What did he call us?’
‘Medieval peasants,’ Eva grabbed Charlie and swung him around, ‘the old misery is quite right, we’re the new peasants and we like it.’
‘And we like pigs,’ chanted Charlie.
‘And sties,’ said Eva.
‘And we lu-urve manure,’ Charlie sang defiantly.
‘Here, here,’ the entire garden rustled.
Chapt er 12 Three Spies and Two Guys
For once, Charlie beat Eva to the post. He handed her a red envelope. It looked like a greetings card. Eva held it suspiciously; it was nowhere near her birthday.
‘Sorry you’re leaving’ the card said above a cartoon of people standing round a computer weeping very large tears. Inside was scrawled NOT.
‘Sperrin?’ Charlie said.
‘Who else?’
‘He can’t sack you can he?’
‘No, but he’s very friendly with people who can.’ She folded her lips and shook her head. ‘He’s not going to beat me.’
It was easy for Eva to say that, but from where I was standing it looked like Sperrin had all the power. My imagination was getting better all the time, and like Charlie said, if you can imagine you can worry. So I did. Vividly. And at length. What if Eva did lose her job? What if they had to sell up and move, and someone else moved in? What if Sperrin, to be certain of getting the Jungle, bought everything, me included. ‘Most people would chop it down,’ Eva’s words echoed up and down my trunk. I could almost hear the whine of the saw, the long crack as I keeled over and the rustle as my fallen branches settled round the broken treehouse.
But worse than this was the fear that I would never see Charlie again. I needed advice. Where was Wilfred when you needed him? It was weeks since I’d seen him. I watched Charlie and Eva leave and fell to moping.
It was a greezy day (low grey sky, everything greased with a mist that wasn’t quite rain). Hilda and Gilda were deep in straw, popping out their warm globes; the garden lay in long quietness.
The magpies arrived one by one until there were four strangers sitting in the shelter of my branches, monochrome like the day, but for a blue sheen on their backs. As they were newcomers I paid them some attention. They were very large for magpies; heavy as gulls, they felt. They sat up high above the treehouse. One of them, deliberately I thought, let out a dropping which fell on Charlie’s note book. Gradually I became aware of a power and a wisdom descending around me in veils. The birds hopped around, changing positions, then I looked at their eyes: great dark spacious things, and I knew them.
‘You’re the, er… the birds with the family gnosis.’
The largest magpie replied:
‘We are they. Know of you. The rat has told. We seek him now.’
‘I haven’t seen him in a long time; it must be five weeks,’ I said, running through the number of Brooke Farms since I last saw him. ‘He said that he was going on one of his trips.’
‘Coming to council. He was not there.’
Then their thoughts started to flurry and flap, zagging from one to the other. These are the bits I understood:
‘No, no – I see him underground.’
‘He waits to heal.’
‘The smell of blood is on him. Shadows above.’
‘He suffers.’
By then I was seriously agitated.
‘Blood, suffering; what are you talking about?’
They all aimed the black points of their beaks at my trunk and the dark net of their calm drifted down on me. ‘First know this,’ they said, and they let me into their world.
Oh, what I saw. I know the mind of man; this was like the dreams of man, because I flew. The freedom, and then the sights: I’ve seen the ocean on TV of course, but the real ocean is terrifying in its mile-beyond-mile, swallowing vastness and it sways like one great skirt with a planetary power. And I saw trees which stretch like seas. These immense forests drew me; the song of life from them was like a billion bees humming in layers of harmony. And I saw mountains and the cities of men made small, and new rivers which only birds know, rivers of force, of magnetism which they can follow like highways from one land to another. Then came the message:
The garden flattened around me as though a tornado had passed, it opened out into a white vastness; the whiteness was ice. There were great movements and cracking in the ice, blue rumblings and now it comes, now it comes like damp-crusted sugar into deep blue tea and the tea cup overflows into the saucer and then over the table and it keeps on coming and overflowing and there’s a horrid mess.
And from these great symbolic thoughts I returned to my own small ones which were a kind of helpless desire to mop up the mess. The magpies launched themselves above me, I felt a warmth from the underside of their wings and then they disappeared into the North.
I forgot about the greezy day then and mulled over the sights I had seen. If these were the things that Wilfred knew, no wonder he mocked me and my small interests. But where was Wilfred? The Pica had seen him in some sort of danger. Surely Wilfred could get out of any spot.
I spent the rest of the day worrying alternately about Wilfred and Charlie. By the time Charlie got home, I had persuaded myself that Wilfred was de
ad and that the ‘For Sale’ sign was already up in front of the house.
Charlie came straight up, and rummaged in his scran box for an apple.‘We’ve got to stop it,’ I said straight away.
‘What?’ he said, with a cheek full of apple.
‘The sale.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve seen it. The house gets sold. Sperrin buys it. You go away forever. I get chopped down.’
‘Calm down,’ crunch, ‘I’m not going to let it happen. Information is power, and that’s what I’m going to get.’
He took one of his scale plans of the garden and tacked a plan of Sperrin’s land to the bottom. I watched as he drew in a dotted red path which followed the wooden steps through the orchard, mosied down through the Jungle, climbed Sycamore, dropped over Sperrin’s wire fence, rolled down his bank, drew breath behind his garage, made a low run across his carpet lawn and stopped outside his kitchen window in full view of anyone looking out, and then - then the little red dashes went into the house. Oh no, what had I started?
At least the news that night reassured me:
‘Reports are just coming in of turkeys flying at a Norfolk farmer and disabling him. A vet who examined one of the injured birds, had this to say:
‘The domestic turkey is a flightless bird, yet these birds somehow managed to stay in the air for several seconds. If you look at the muscles on this turkey you’d swear it had been in training. Most peculiar.’’
I made a hopeful guess at the identity of the trainer. The next night I was sure.
‘An army of rats attacked a bakery at Sawton Mill in Wiltshire. An estimated four thousand poured into the building spoiling several tons of flour, bread and cakes. One shocked worker said that the attack was spearheaded by a different animal – yes, it’s those hamsters again.’
But Charlie’s plans remained a worry. I had never seen an aura as dark as Sperrin’s on any plant or animal. You may not know this but air is not dead, neither is rock nor earth. Sperrin’s aura sucked the life sparkle from the air around him; it smoked out from him as from a dirty chimney. I had to stop Charlie from carrying out his spying mission. The only way I could think of to do this was to recruit some spies of my own.