The Savage. Part 5 of 8.

Merle’s daughter was born in January, her sister-in-law stayed until March. During that time the young mango tree remained in its juice tin on the corner of the veranda. By then the tin was rusting and its label sun-faded and torn.  On the day Merle’s sister-in-law left the two women conspired to plant the mango.



They waited til Bob had left for work and the baby was sleeping. Then they found a spot at the side of the house and a yard or two from the BBQ. They found a mattock and shovel and set to work, taking turns to cut into the heavy soil. They cut the tin with snips and banged it against the BBQ to loosen the root ball.

Finally they pulled the plant from the tin and placed it in the hole. They piled soil round it and stood together arm in arm laughing and dancing on the mounded. Bob must have noticed the plant was missing from the veranda. He must have noticed the rust ring on the floorboards but said nothing. The next weekend he must have seen that the young tree was planted but he remained silent. The mango tree was not mentioned for the next three years, and in a way it was not mentioned even then.

The soil was rich and those first few seasons had been good. The tree grew straight and high as the floor of the house. Merle’s family grew too and by then her daughter had been joined by twin boys. They were a few months old the day Merle saved the tree. That morning a sleep deprived Merle was woken by the rhythmic ‘thwacking’. She snatched up her crying daughter and headed outside; she knew what was happening before she got to the veranda. Bob was down there at the tree, hacking away at its roots with the mattock. He paused when he saw his wife standing above him, her daughter slung on her hip like a six-gun. Then he raised the mattock again above his shoulder and was about to bring it down when two things happened: Merle shouted ‘no’; and the two sons she had given Bob began to wail. He stopped mid-swing and stood there looking at her with the heavy iron blade hovering above his shoulder. His chest heaved. Merle adopted what she hoped was a most frightening look. Their daughter sniffled and rubbed her eyes with the back of her fist. The boys continued to wail in the nursery. Neither adult spoke but something unspeakable passed between husband and wife. There was wailing and silence.

Merle would never know if it was her look, or the something, or her girl’s tears or the twins’ howls that did it. But whatever it was the tree survived. Bob stood in the howling silence, sweat-stained and dirty, before burying the mattock blade deep in the earth. Then he strode up the side of the house. Husband and wife didn’t speak for the day. Merle busied herself with the children and Bob satisfied his murderous intent savaging shrubs at the front of the house.

As she recalled the day, Merle allowed herself a smile. The smile was not about the confrontation - that retained the power to unsettle. The smile was for another thought: how ironic it was, that the very tree Bob would destroy would become his source of ammunition during his long war with the chickens.

To be continued: Next time, Bob’s war with the chickens begins. There is death and devastation.