6 February 2012
It was an ornamental cherry tree, apparently. It lived at the bottom of the front garden, on the lawn side of the wall, by the road. Every spring, after it had coaxed it's leathery leaves from their buds, it produced great swaying clumps of pendulous blossoms that shivered and shushed in the chilly breezes of the warming year. The flowers and the foliage conspired to give the tree the appearance of a great mottled ball, balanced on a twist of silver green trunks. In the pale sun of a cloudless March morning, the tree, looked very handsome indeed. Like all beauty, though, it constantly sought attention and in tree terms was high maintenance.
When the tree had finished making its self look attractive to the local pollinators, it dispensed with its hard grown display in short order and coated the garden, pavement and road with drifts of pale pink, petal snow. Squally April showers blew the flower fall around, carrying it deep into houses, soiling the valeted interiors of cars, contaminating hair, and stowing away in pockets and bags for surprise delivery at distant venues.
The shed blooms turned to brown mush in the wet and required brushing and shovelling to remove to the appropriate wheely bin. The final blossoms blew out of it in late May, whereafter it stood station rustling restlessly through the summer.
As soon as autumn looked remotely on the the horizon, the tree jettisoned its vast reservoir of large, tuff leaves without a seconds thought. They quickly scattered far and wide, blanketing the lawn and driveway. They blocked the drains, and filled every nook and cranny with gently rotting, rust brown spear head shapes. Each year I would rake and scrape the mouldering mass, diligently clearing the garden only to find more leaves appearing, seemingly, out of the clear ether.
A couple of years ago we noticed splits in the bark of the trunks and branches. This last spring only half the tree blossomed. By late summer there were no leaves on the side that failed to flower and the other half was looking quite raggedy. I took a saw to one of the bare branches and found the wood spongy in the centre. The ornamental cherry was rotten to the core.
It was time to call Dave.
All friendships have a moment when they click, when there is something deeper than just acquaintanceship. This moment is not always apparent to those involved. Our wives have been best friends since they were 16, but they don't know what drew them together or why their friendship became so strong. Dave and I have been friends, independent of the bond of our spouces, since we got drunk on cider and repurposed some furniture with my collection of power tools. Also, Dave and I have chainsaws.
He says that preparing a chainsaw for use is all part of the experience, I agree, spilling 2 stroke mix and oil all over the saw, rushing to get the beast started. His chainsaw wisdom calms me and I take my time with the rest of the prep, even cleaning the casing beyond just mopping up the spillage.
With the chain tensioned and sharpened I attempt the start the saw. The run switch is set to start, the choke is set to, um, choke, I pin it down on the driveway and give the rip chord a couple of pulls, nothing. A bit more fiddling and switch throwing elicits a promising cough from the motor. Two more pulls and it bursts into life. The roar of the tiny motor is exciting, I squeeze the throttle, the chain spins and the saw squirms in my hands. The exhaust runs blue before clearing, its burnt plastic smell reminds of motorbikes I rode when I was a teenager. Dave's chainsaw starts first time, that's as it should be, I'm the creative, he's the engineer.
We start on the tree, taking our time, carefully assessing each cut, safety being our top concern for our selves and the work area. The red haze comes down we tear at the tree, sawing, pulling, pushing, cracking and felling. The air fills with the smell of hot wood and engine. The first big trunk falls exactly where we want it to. We make fists and push them together, exactly like white middle aged blokes shouldn't. We recharge the saws, fuel is everywhere, this no time for caution. We're at the tree again, Dave is sawing, I'm covered in wood chip dandruff, I start laughing and spitting and try to brush the cuttings from face and body. The largest of the trunks falls, again, in exactly the right spot. Unexpectedly though, it's sawn base rears up between us, we both feel the breeze of its femur shattering bulk pass over us. It thuds down the lawn, heavy and final. We blink at each other, then laugh. We laugh the kind of laugh that people laugh when they say they've been in need of a really good laugh.
'You're crazy!" a little voice calls from the from the safety of the camper van, parked near the house. Middle daughter is playing there, creating other worlds. She is right, we are crazy, Dave and I are lost in some murderous sap lust. I am eyeing the other trees in the garden, their saviour is the lack of day. We put some order into the pile of ex-tree, so that tomorrows task of chopping and chipping has a easy start.
We stand back and admire our handy work. An old feeling comes over me, like an addiction's vestigial limb; I need a cigarette. It's 11 years since my last, but the need to celebrate the completion of a task with ciggy never really goes away. Except that it does go away, I forget the thought as quickly I'd though it.
With the days last light at our backs, we pack away the chainsaws and attended to another addiction - wine.
The Cherry Tree • Opuss № I