By night they came, six masked figures armed with chainsaws and handsaws, spreading through the garden like a poked ants\u2019 nest. Their targets were eleven apple trees, two pears, one plum, one morello cherry, one gage and two damsons. The ground was arid, the grass yellowed by the August drought. The leaves gleamed silver in the moonlight and the aroma of trodden plums filled the night air. They clambered up and sawed off branches, then beheaded the trees with the chainsaws. For three hours they laboured to the tune of squeaking and crunching and the high-pitched whine of petrol engines. There were no nearby houses with curtain twitchers, only the giant supermarket in the shadows beyond. The loose phalanx trickled between the waist-high stumps, moving on to the next tree as each one was finished. They stapled a sheet of blood-red paper with the word \u2018Pigeons\u2019 in bold printed letters to the gate and left triumphant.<\/p>\n
When ninety-year-old Lionel came out of hospital after a fall and saw the devastation, he wept. The police sympathised and took photographs and fingerprints.
\n \u2018Who would do this?\u2019 said the bison-shouldered detective sergeant. He removed the notice with gloved hands and slipped it into a plastic bag.
\n \u2018The supermarket.\u2019
\n Lionel jabbed a finger at the scowling redbrick brute. His neighbours\u2019 homes were all razed and replaced by tarmac. Between his house and the droning bypass, warehouses and factories had sprung up higgledy-piggledy in Nunnery Field, where once were meadows, hedgerows and woods all the way across to Grimbleby Crag. They said the farmer had scattered dock and thistle seeds to make the land fit for neither beast nor crop. Beyond, the sea of blazing yellow rape had gone green. They thought he\u2019d give in, couldn\u2019t manage on his own. Friends thought so too, and his son and daughter harassed him, when they bothered to communicate.
\n The detective scribbled, stroked his chin and promised to explore every possibility.
\n \u2018We do take it very seriously, Mr Darley,\u2019 he said, adding, \u2018Mind you don\u2019t slip on those fallen plums, now,\u2019 as he left.
\n Lionel poured himself a sup of whisky, lit a Lambert and Butler and surveyed the unbridled tarmac of the supermarket car park, and in the midst of it his haven, now shrunk to ugly stubs, headless dolmens, their crowns in pieces on the ground. Only the bird table stood proud. The sun sank in an orange blur below a thick slate mass of cloud.
\n He tore half a loaf into thumbnail-sized pieces. They heaped up on the oval silver platter etched with the words in italics \u2018To Lionel and Dorothy on this Joyful Day. 23rd of August 1946.\u2019 This would have been their seventieth anniversary. Platinum. On the fence pigeons slapped their wings.
\n He took the platter out, filled the bird table, then picked his way over the broken limbs to the Bramley apple with pocked and corrugated trunk planted by his grandfather in 1887. Dorothy\u2019s favourite. She made the best apple crumble in Yorkshire. He folded himself over the stump and stayed like that for an age.<\/p>\n
The goateed lad hired by Lionel at the end of his forty hours\u2019 community service was piled high with cardboard boxes from the supermarket checkouts.
\n \u2018Now then. Cup of tea and a Jammie Dodger before you start?\u2019
\n The lad grinned. \u2018I know someone can lend a chainsaw,\u201d he said.
\n \u2018No!\u2019
\n The boy flinched at the vehemence of the reply.
\n Painstakingly he set to, saving unsquashed plums and Early Worcester apples into boxes to go on the front wall for passing shoppers. He sawed up the branches with a hand saw and stacked them. It took all day and filled a quarter of the space. It would have broken Dorothy\u2019s heart. It nearly broke Lionel\u2019s. The garden was swimming in sunshine. Pigeons gathered on the fence for their tea.<\/p>\n
That evening the doorbell rang. Lionel\u2019s sharp-suited son David thrust red carnations at his father. Twice a week Lionel took the bus to the next town. Only one corner shop remained in his own town, which delivered his weekly groceries including half a litre of Bell\u2019s, but he refused to enter the supermarket. If he wanted more whisky, and he did, then he must go further afield. Friends said he couldn\u2019t go on. He was falling all over the place. If he forgot what he\u2019d bought fifteen miles away, he always heard it later: not two, but three litres of whisky last Wednesday, tut tut. <\/p>\n \u2018Lying toad,\u2019 he said, and the Cookes murmured agreement. One day he didn\u2019t kill himself. He slipped on an oil patch crossing the road and broke his wrist. The clouds marched on and so did Lionel. He tried rolling cigarettes to cut costs, but the wrist was no better. The grip was like a dying crab\u2019s. He flung tobacco, Rizlas and filter tips in the bin in a tantrum, but later fished them back out. Still, he had his groceries delivered, his bus rides and his Friday Monopoly. Lionel was sitting in the gloom, smoke curling from a cigarette, when his long-lost daughter rang from Norrk\u00f6ping. She had spoken to her brother. Lionel would rather she had stayed long-lost. Joan would pester like a cold-caller now. Lionel shuffled into the garden, scattering pigeons. Car doors slammed and engines throbbed beyond the fence, and lorries thundered along the bypass. The clouds looked like a blanket to wallow in, like Dorothy\u2019s favourite chair with the down-filled cushions, which he never touched. He crunched the littered twigs underfoot to reach the decapitated Bramley. He ran a finger along the saw grooves which oozed resin. Then he hugged its gnarled trunk with its rot-holes and caverns, knobs and warts, the moss on the north side. The rugged, furrowed bark stroked his cheek. Beside him, next to the crushed stems of the delphiniums, her favourite flower, was where she had lain, the ladder she\u2019d been holding toppled over, the chainsaw lodged in her neck, motionless and silent. The pool of blood. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By night they came, six masked figures armed with chainsaws and handsaws, spreading through the garden like a poked ants\u2019 nest. Their targets were eleven apple trees, two pears, one plum, one morello cherry, one gage and two damsons. The ground was arid, the grass yellowed by the August drought. The leaves gleamed silver in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":239,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[347,346],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n \u2018I can\u2019t stay long. Sorry I didn\u2019t visit you in hospital. Susan kept me tied up.\u2019 He swiped a hand over his sun-glazed crown.
\n Lionel put the flowers in a cut-glass vase.
\n \u2018Good God, what have you done to the garden? Have you lost your mind?\u2019 David stepped out the back, then swivelled round to face his father. \u2018You\u2019re not planning to pave it over, are you? Squandering your money?\u2019
\n Lionel bit his lip. \u2018Vandals, according to the police.\u2019
\n \u2018Why on earth…?\u2019
\n He wasn\u2019t going to tell his son and daughter, vultures the pair of them. But grief will out. \u2018It was the supermarket paid them. Paid<\/em> vandals. Trying to buy me out.\u2019
\n His son\u2019s jaw dropped. \u2018You never said.\u2019
\n \u2018You never came.\u2019
\n \u2018For God\u2019s sake, Dad, take the money and run. They\u2019ll never offer as much once you\u2019re gone. It\u2019ll be worthless. What are they offering?\u2019
\n \u2018Wouldn\u2019t you like to know?\u2019
\n David\u2019s face grew redder than the carnations. \u2018Look, I could help you here. I\u2019m good at negotiating.\u2019
\n \u2018I wouldn\u2019t sell for a million.\u2019
\n \u2018So how much have they offered?\u2019
\n Lionel turned to look out at the garden. \u2018A hundred and twenty thousand.\u2019
\n \u2018No way! Let me handle this. I\u2019ll squeeze more out of them.\u2019
\n The pigeons were waiting. His son wasn\u2019t listening. How did he produce such callous offspring? He and his evangelistic sister in Sweden. Their mother would have been aghast. \u2018I thought you were in a rush,\u2019 he said.
\n \u2018This is important. I\u2019ll talk to them now.\u2019 He headed for the door.
\n Lionel continued to look out of the back window. On a hill before the bypass stood the old fever hospital. The traffic hummed as ever.
\n \u2018I won\u2019t sell.\u2019
\n David spun round. \u2018You\u2019re throwing away our inheritance,\u2019 he screeched. \u2018Just accept. For Mum\u2019s sake.\u2019
\n Lionel turned, grim-faced. \u2018Your mother would have died rather than sell to them.\u2019
\n David strode out, got into a gleaming BMW and did a U-turn with squealing brakes.<\/p>\n
\n On Friday nights he played Monopoly with the Cookes, a couple on the other side of town. He put on his black-gone-grey tee-shirt and white trainers with loosely woven uppers and cushioned soles. Running shoes, but his running days were over. He padded through the car park which had been his neighbours\u2019 homes. Endless grey with a rim of ugly spotted laurels. The shiny red and black and silver cars glinted in the late sun.
\n With trembling hand he read out to the Cookes the letter hand-delivered by a minion from the supermarket, with a ribboned bouquet of flowers which he had thrown back over the fence.<\/p>\n
\nWe are extremely sorry to hear of the vandalisation of your property. We hope the police find the culprits, though of course this will be little consolation to you. We offer you our greatest sympathies. We would add that our offer still stands, regardless of the condition of the garden.
\nYours sincerely,
\nBill James,
\nManager.\u2019<\/div>\n
\n \u2018You could sleep in the spare room,\u2019 the apple-cheeked Ellen always said at the end of Monopoly night.
\n \u2018Move into town, Lionel,\u2019 said Humphrey. \u2018You\u2019re not getting any younger.\u2019
\n \u2018They\u2019ll have to carry me out in a box.\u2019
\n Ellen drove him home.
\n She moaned to neighbours (it got back) that Lionel was a liability, walking round with pints of whisky inside him, and the extra couple of brandies he always coaxed out of Humphrey.
\n \u2018Keeps him happy,\u2019 said Humphrey.
\n \u2018He\u2019ll kill himself one day.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\n \u2018Blasted cars,\u2019 he said, struggling to his feet, then wailed, \u2018My shopping.\u2019 Whisky seeped from the rucksack lying in the road.
\n He waited sixty hours for surgery. Whisky gave way to fluorescent pain. A twice-daily carer helped him to dress with the disobedient arm and a girl cleaned once a week. She wiped smoke-tar off the walls as far as she could reach, leaving an odd cream and brown effect. She opened the sideboard and out rolled a dozen empty bottles stacked horizontally on top of papers.
\n \u2018That\u2019s a few years\u2019 worth, there\u2019s no doorstep glass collection,\u2019 Lionel snapped and sacked her.
\n The carer was dispatched too, though socks and lace-ups were impossible. The Cookes fetched and carried him, and Ellen made him steak pies and Battenberg cake.
\n Every day with his teeth he tore up bread for the clamouring pigeons and opened the whisky bottle. He poured himself a sup and left the bottle open, sucked a cigarette from the packet and lit it with a match against the matchbox clamped between his jaws. Drink and tobacco might have creased his skin and scoured his brain and everyone said he couldn\u2019t manage, but his proud stature was uncrumpled. No corporation would drive him from his home.<\/p>\n
\n On his birthday he walked to the Cookes under an umbrella. Mammoth raindrops ricocheted off the pavement.
\n \u2018Who needs two hands?\u2019 he crowed, blowing out the candles on Ellen\u2019s cake.
\n Humphrey laughed. \u2018Plenty of life in the old boy yet.\u2019
\n They ate, they drank, they played two rounds of Monopoly. Lionel landed on Chance.
\n \u2018Street repairs,\u2019 he said with dismay. \u2018The ultimate insult.\u2019
\n Humphrey counted his stack of five-hundred-pound notes while Lionel\u2019s had shrunk to nothing.
\n \u2018It\u2019s only a game,\u2019 said Lionel.
\n A blur of contentment settled on the company. Lionel was rambling and drunk. He almost agreed to sleep in the spare room. Ellen kissed him on both cheeks and Humphrey clamped his good hand. They were such good friends, nothing too much trouble. Salt of the earth. \u2018You just mend that poorly wrist,\u2019 they said, dropping him home.
\n A month later, in the car outside his home after a lavish evening, there was an awkward silence. Lionel was in the back.
\n Ellen said, \u2018Lionel, we\u2019ve got a buyer for the house.\u2019
\n He stared. \u2018You never told me you were moving.\u2019
\n \u2018We told you on your birthday.\u2019
\n They looked at their laps. Humphrey fiddled with the keys. And he thought they were his friends. His throat knotted.
\n \u2018How will you manage?\u2019
\n \u2018It\u2019ll take more than that to knock me down.\u2019
\n He got out and slammed the door. How could they do this to him? If they had mentioned it on his birthday, they certainly had not done so since. Traitors. Well, he didn\u2019t need them.<\/p>\n
\n \u2018Come and live with me,\u2019 she said.
\n \u2018I am not moving,\u2019 he said, steeling himself.
\n But he couldn\u2019t tell her not to come. Joan was coming, full stop. To help. It\u2019ll make more work, he thought, having to clear up before she comes. The dripping laundry on the clothes horse, walking two miles to get into town \u2012 Joan would hate all that. She never came to stay, and Lionel never wanted her to. But a wily voice told him to suffer the moans and allow some shopping trips. And Joan would bring pickled herrings and ginger snaps.
\n Joan blasted in and blasted out again. It was tiring to watch. She left lickety-split, earlier than planned because of the rat. Lionel settled into the sofa with a glass and a Lambert and Butler. Whisky was thicker than water. <\/p>\n