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I heard a crack. It sent me slipping down reaching for branches, sticks poking into my soft body. Then I thudded into the bitumen leaking blood, a sticky round fig squashed against my face. I lay on the warm road too scared to go inside and tell my mother I'd been climbing in the fig again. In the end a neighbour drove by and took me inside. That, of course, tempered my mother's reaction, but she still managed to throw me a glassy eye before tending to the oozing blood of my ruptured head. That's the first memory that reaches me as I stand there looking up at the big groping fig. But the fig is a tinder box of memories; just seeing it uncoils them for me. It was even bigger than I remembered. It was too sturdy to sway, even in the late August breeze, although at the very tip of its branches there was the slightest tremble. Growing up, the rumour about the fig was that its creeping roots had broken through a sewage pipe. That was why it thrived and dwarfed the other plants on the street. Its regal body towered above the terraces that have long since become unfaithful to their federation colours. In inner city suburbs a tree this size becomes an aberration and a marvel. This monument overlooked our street until I left home. A median strip used to cut down the centre of our street, separating odd from even with a tough stretch of stout green grass, the kind that is rough against your feet. If you were on good terms with the neighbours over the road, you'd work out an unspoken roster to mow your stretch of the strip. Most Saturdays there'd be someone heaving a mower across the strip, leaving a wake of shredded grass. In my family, I pushed the mower for pocket money. I was the oldest and the others' legs were far too delicate to stand behind the rotating blade of the mower. There were a few stretches on the median strip that were left to grow into a ragged wilderness of grass. The kids on the street loved to flop amongst the long green tendrils. In summer, feathery aniseed plants would grow out from the grass, you could taste liquorice if you crunched a piece between your teeth. One of my sisters was allergic to grass, though. She'd stand on the side of the road jealously watching us disappear into the quivering green mass. In summer the median strip was ravaged by bindies. They were worse in the dry and stuck to your feet like tacks, through even the thickest callous. Eventually, the median strip went-it was tarred to widen the road to allow for street parking. The residents were divided: those that always lived there were outraged at the prospect of losing the strip, but the new owners were frustrated by the lack of parking and demanded the council take action. There was no uprooting the fig though. It stayed there at the end of the street calmly surveying the neighbourhood as the tar trucks moved in with their flaming combustion chambers melting the tar. They were there for most of the week, covering the median strip and stoking the cauldron. That's why I'm so surprised to see that the fig has been condemned. Other trees in the street have had their notices taped to their trunks but the fig's girth is too wide, so a nail has been driven into its flesh to declare its fate. Its date for destruction: one week from today. Beneath it, a green printed leaflet demands 'SAVE THE FIG!' It calls for community action against the destruction of the fig. 'Join the rally, stop the destruction! They want to turn this into a faceless, paved city!' There are figs littering the road. I look at the sole of my shoe: there are fig seeds, like caviar, stuck in its grid. Roots are breaking through the road like engorged veins. My eyes and my sinuses are burning with bleach. Everything I breathe smells sour. I've been cleaning mum and dad's old place, ready for sale. It's been rented for years; the executors couldn't agree to sell it. There had been a long and bitter stand-off. We were all siblings, yet fought fiercely about the sale. Most of us wanted it to be sold but one of my sisters was against it, saying she couldn't bear to let the old place go. She accused us of wanting to get it off our hands cheap. It had virtually torn the family apart. The tarred road changes the whole perspective of the street. I try to remember which house my old friend Jason lived in. For a while we were together every afternoon, playing in the fig. Sometimes one of us would sit in the branches and the other would ride beneath, and try to collect the other on the bike as he swung down. It was a recipe for disaster, and maybe that was the attraction of it. I'd only managed to catch Jason once: he'd plopped onto the handle-bars squealing with pain, the bike wobbled, and we rode off hooting down the street. Sometimes we'd stand together at the base of the tree, drawing up battle plans. Mostly our reign of the fig went unchallenged. But once or twice there were a couple of girls from up the street who'd climb in the tree with us. Their hair was unbrushed, and their clothes were dirty and ragged. Jason and I would climb higher than them, flinging down cold, narrow stares, to let them know they had invaded our territory. But sharing the fig despite its size was never ideal, and Jason and I would generally leave the two unkempt sisters to have the tree to themselves. On summer nights our family went walking, our clothes clinging to us with sweat and our bellies so full we could hardly feel our legs beneath us, and bats clung to the fig, gorging on the fruit. On the way past my dad would pick up a fig from the ground and cast it into the tree. It would send a chattering black shadow of bats swarming above it, as if the tree's soul were being released. Those nights, we'd toss and turn in our bed from the heat, and hear the traffic buzz and sirens scream down the street in a sorrowful harmony. Once, in the school holidays, Jason and I decided to make a flying fox in the fig. Jason had brought some thin orange rope from his dad's garage. It was brittle but slippery, made from three strands of nylon twisted together. First we knotted it to the fig up high. We looped it around, tying it to itself. We tested it, pulling our own weight against it to make sure it was fastened tight. There was a seriousness to this, like we were managing a great feat of engineering. We both knew we were taking our lives into our own hands. At first, we tried to tie the end of the flying fox to a telegraph pole. But there was too much slack in the rope; we couldn't get it tight enough around the pole to keep it from slipping. So we went for the next tree, which was twenty metres away. We fixed the rope to the trunk, where a branch came out so that it couldn't slip down. We yanked at the rope until the line was taught. Then we cut another length of rope which we tied in a loop. This was for us to hang on to, as we slid down the flying fox. We sat up in the fig, contemplating the distance. It looked a long way down, and suddenly I was worried. I'd already cracked my head falling from the fig, which I was reminded of daily by the waxy scar on my forehead. We pulled at the line; it felt sturdy, there wasn't much give in it. Finally, Jason volunteered to go first. I sat behind him as he assumed the right position. He shifted his weight off the branch and swung out into the air. For ten metres things ran smoothly; then I saw the rope starting to fray. I gripped at the branch I was sitting on, hoping the rope would hold out. But it didn't. The rope unfurled, and Jason's arms flapped about his body as he dropped to the ground. I sat there for a moment, contemplating the trouble that would be unleashed on me; the flying fox was my idea. I scrambled down from the fig so fast that its bark grazed my skin. Miraculously, Jason stood up clutching his tail bone. When I reached him, he was laughing fit to burst. 'Man that hurt,' he said. 'I thought I broke my back!' We rolled with laughter. Then we untied the flying fox and destroyed the evidence. I walk over to the gutter next to the fig, in front of an old terrace that's been painted mauve. I remember writing my name on freshly laid concrete here as a child. Our dad marched us down the street after the cement trucks had driven away, armed with sticks. I'd left a hand-print there too. But when I dislodge the leaves and rotting fruit from the gutter, there's nothing. They use pre fabricated guttering now. It's getting dark. I've cleaning the house for over four hours. The tenants left it in a sorry state. It had been years since I'd walked back into that house. In fact, the last time had been the day after my mother's funeral. We'd all gone there to divvy up the furniture. I didn't really need any of it but I could not bear the thought of selling it, for fear of the pitiful sum we would receive in return. Most of us were sure it was better to keep the stuff in the family. But one sister who turned up late, wearing an expression that suggested everyone had wronged her. She sat there on the kitchen chair, staring at us all, shaking her head. 'I can't believe this,' she snarled. 'The lot of you, you're like scavengers, laying claim to the furniture, like you are going to miss out on something. Why don't we do something novel for a change, and distribute the furniture fairly? Sell the furniture and put the profits into the estate?' Her face was surly and bitter. She was expecting us to disagree with her. She was inviting it. It was hard to know where things had gone wrong with my sister. She was the youngest, and she'd stayed in the house long after we'd all left. She'd started studying psychology at university, but she gave up in her second year, taking a job in administration. By that stage, my mum just shrugged her shoulders. When I went through, she was strict about study and if there was even a hint of me slacking, she'd badger me with: 'You know, not everyone is lucky enough to get into university'. When I'd walked into the house this afternoon, the sunroom still stank of the choking scent of cigarettes. My father had sat there when he'd retired, his cigarettes smouldering down to his lips as he sat assessing the activities on the street. Then I'd walked into the bathroom; I still smelt the baby powder tickle my nose-my mother had always thrown baby powder over her body in there. If you weren't careful and you went in after her, you could slip on the loose powder. She'd spend hours in the bathroom with the door closed. I didn't blame her though, it was the only time she had alone from a house full of arguing kids. The bathroom was a custard yellow colour; we hadn't bothered to change it. When the agent had walked me through the house, she'd said, 'you know, this place needs a bit of work'. I imagined the round of arguments that would ensue about renovations and quickly shook my head. When I walked into the kitchen today, the lino floor stuck to the soles of my shoes. I looked at the cavity where the fridge had been. Before she died, my mother had stuck a verse to the door of the fridge-Footsteps. The one where the writer says she looks back at the footprints of her life, and there are two sets of prints, but during the most difficult periods of life, there's only one, and the writer reproaches the Lord for leaving during the hard times but it turns out he carried her. My mother had never been religious. I had resolved to see her more often after I read it. But it was hard. I'd just started working, I finished work past her bedtime, and on weekends I was too exhausted to move. She only survived my father by a few years. In the afternoons as kids, the bus would drop us off at the top of the street, and roared away as we walked down the median strip. Jason and I would walk together, our bags slung over one shoulder. By that stage of the day, we'd untucked our shirts. Jason and I had been in the same class every year, until high school when Jason started private school. We'd rarely seen each other after that. Jason got home much later in the afternoon from school because he had to catch the train; he wore a heavy blue blazer and long grey pants, creased at the front. I remembered one day, near the end of the school year, when there was a sense that order was unwinding and people were bracing for Christmas, one of the older kids had gotten off the bus with us. He was much bigger than we were. He even towered above everyone in his own year. His uniform was faded from blue to grey, and his school shirt was creased and unironed. He'd called Jason by his last name. I kept walking, but I was aware of the movement of bodies behind me. I turned around and saw Jason cowering under the older boy. I kept walking, picking up my pace. He'd thumped Jason in the ear. After he'd gone I turned around and ran to Jason, there was blood trickling from his ear. 'Are you alright?'
I'd asked. I'd only seen him once since I left home, at university. I didn't even know we went to the same uni. He studied economics. I saw him in the quad, walking away from the library, and I raced after him. He was willowy and his hair was gelled to his head. He was shifting on his feet, like he was uncomfortable. I had to remind him of my name. He didn't tell me much and his eyes were diverted behind my head. I ended the conversation by telling him that we should have a beer some time. He nodded his head and walked away. It's getting late, so I back away from the tree to my car. Figs are clinging to my windscreen. As I drive home, I think about the last executors meeting we'd had, my sisters and me. It was at the solicitor's office. The solicitor sat behind the leather membrane that covered his desk, papers neatly stacked in piles, and smiled at us cautiously. I'm sure he was sick of our estate, he'd been urging us to sell it all along, stressing that liquidated assets were far more 'manageable'. My sister, the one who'd always been opposed to the sale, stood up, cleared her throat and made a speech there in the solicitor's office. The solicitor's face contorted in anguish, and we all had our eyes diverted to the carpet. I felt that, as the oldest, I should say something, but my interruption was met with hostility. 'You,' she said,
'you were always the favourite, the carpet was always rolled
out for you, even though you never visited them.' The next Saturday, I wake up to my son jumping on the bed. I try to doze through it, but his cry is shrill. He hardly sees his dad during the week, and on weekends he knows he has leverage to bargain for my time. I remember the fig. Its day of destruction is today. Its twisting branches and breaching roots have occupied my thoughts for a week. I'm sad that it's been condemned. But I'm almost fascinated by how they propose to destroy it-to bring it tumbling down could destroy a few houses. I don't tell my wife I'm going down to the old neighbourhood again, she's uncomfortable about it. She's not from the city, and the inner west is far more gentrified now than it was when I lived there. Back then it was relatively humble. We live in a three bedroom new brick creation out in the suburbs, and she thinks my old neighbourhood is a sign of my family's wealth. I pull up on the old street; it's taken me some time to find a park. My son and I walk up behind a growing crowd. The bodies are packed close and fanning out from the fig's trunk. They stand beneath the outstretched limbs that drip with bark. Their body language is hostile. Arms are folded, faces are frowning, and for a crowd this size they are unsettlingly quiet. People stand huddled in clusters. A few stony faces evaluate me as we approach. On the side of the road, there's a white cherry picker, and a few confused men are hovering around it in orange shirts. I can feel the tension, and my son grips my hand tighter as we walk closer. 'Where are we dad?' my son asks. He's never been to my old street before. My mother died three months before he was born. I point my old house out to him. 'Wow,' he says. 'It's tall. Was your room at the top?' 'No,' I say. 'I was on the second floor. I was lucky, I got a room to myself, but my sisters had to share.' He screws up his nose. 'Did you have a yard?' he asks. 'Not really. There was a courtyard out the back, no grass though. We mainly played out here,' I say. He looks confused, and I try to explain the median strip to him. Somehow the idea of a communal yard on the street is incomprehensible to him. Then I notice a man in the crowd, my age. His hair is cropped, and he's wearing a polo shirt and jeans that end just below the knees. He's standing with another pale man, whose face is obscured by a cap. It's Jason. I hesitate, and then walk over to him. I approach him cautiously. He looks up and smiles at me, recognising me immediately. I introduce my son. Jason smiles at him, and offers his hand but my son hides behind my leg, unsure of what to do with the outstretched palm. He introduces his partner to me. We shake hands, and his squeaky voice tells me its nice to meet me, saying Jason always talked about the old street. Underneath his hat, his face is sallow, he's unshaven he is covered in fine white hair. It looks as if this is the first time he has stepped out into the sun in years. I ask Jason how he found out about the fig. He says his mother lives up the road, she told him it was being torn down. 'We didn't have anything better to do. We probably would have been out furniture shopping, or something,' he laughs nervously, turning to his partner. Jason tells me he works for an investment bank. 'Do you like it?' I ask. 'Yes and no…It's fairly stressful…' he trails off. There's another face I recognise in the crowd. It's old Mr Pavic, the Croatian from down the road. The Pavics could never really speak much English, and they were already old when I lived in the street. He's up the front of the crowd, throwing his arms around looking fierce, despite his age and crippled form. My parents always sent me up to his house with the lawnmower. Mrs Pavic would give me some lemonade from a fresh bottle that hissed and bubbled as she opened it and leave some cool mints out on a plate for me. I never sat down. I was too sweaty and dirty from pushing the mower around. She couldn't speak much English, but she'd always say a thick thank you, and bow her little body after me as I backed out of the door. Mrs Pavic died of cancer the year I went to high school. After that, Mr Pavic would push his own rusted mower, and turned me away if I showed up to help him. Apart from Mr Pavic, the rest of the residents seem fairly young. I wonder how they afford their exorbitant mortgages. Still, it doesn't seem as if they're struggling, their pearly cars line the street and most of the houses appear to be renovated. Our house, Jason's and Mr Pavic's, are almost the only three whose dated facades scar the street. I ask my son to stay with Jason for a moment, he obeys reluctantly, cowering by the gutter as I navigate my way through the crowd. I am surprised at the turn-out. There's more people here than could live in the street. I accidentally tread on someone's shoe as I walk through and I turn around grimacing with an apology, until I hear 'watch out' hissed beneath a breath. When I reach the front of the crowd, there seems to be an argument developing. Mr Pavic is participating in his own grunting and incommunicative way. I wave to him, but his neck stiffens and he returns a blank stare at me. A man dressed in an orange shirt and a white hard had stands at the front of the crowd. He looks bewildered, the chainsaw in his hand idles and the teeth of the saw click around hungrily as he contemplates the crowd. He's like an executioner ready and willing to do his job, but awaiting the outcome of a final appeal. There's a man engaged in an argument with three or four others standing next to the fig. He's a curdle-faced man, wearing pants pulled above his waist. His glasses are tinted brown, they give the impression he has something to hide. There are veins breaking over his face. He starts to address the crowd, his voice is firm, projecting over the crowd and he nestles one hand behind his back. 'While we all love the fig, the street can no longer accommodate it,' his cadence is measured and his voice steady. 'Its root system is sucking water from my garden-I can't grow anything. Besides, you can see for yourselves, it is breaking through the road and it is littering the street with rotting fruit. While it was once appropriate urban greenery, it has grown too big. I'm told by my friends at the council,' he turns rasing the palm of his hand, acknowledging the council workers, 'that this type of fig is ubiquitous in the city-it's not as if we are dealing with an endangered species!' The crowd is silent, listening to him. I look around at faces to gauge their reaction, but they are inert, registering neither support nor disdain. He continues. 'There are places for a tree like this-the botanical garden, parks. But there is no room here. Surely you will agree with me that it is a nuisance, I know those of you who live down this end of the street must be fed up with it scratching your roofs and filling your gutters with its wretched leaves. One can barely walk down the street without a fig gluing one's shoe to the pavement. It really is time it went. I am sure the Council will put something far more suitable in its place.' When he finishes his speech, I can tell from the look on his face that he expects to have convinced the crowd. Finally a disembodied
voice resonates through the crowd: 'Where's your humanity?' When the crowd yell back at him viciously, raising their fists, he steps back, indignant. The man next to me leans his body towards me and whispers, 'he's a judge you know,' his eyes widen and he nods his head. The judge searches around him, looking for allies, but the crowd are yelling insults at him now. I cringe, I get the feeling that if this had been a few centuries earlier, he'd be ripped from limb to limb by now. It's a stand-off. It seems the council workers won't do a thing with the crowd there, and the crowd, despite their numbers, can't achieve their goal without an official vindication. Finally, a white utility pulls up and another man with a hard hat steps out, talking on his mobile phone. He descends into the throng. He wears a white shirt decrying the council's logo and a hush envelopes the crowd. He walks to the centre of the crowd, looking around him. When he gets off the phone, he walks over to the judge and they have a muted conversation, their bodies turned from the crowd, towards the fig. When they finish, I see the judge roll his eyes, and by the time the council officer makes his announcement, the judge is walking away shaking his head. 'The cutting
of the fig has been postponed until further notice,' he tells
the crowd. Mr Pavic stands
his ground, looking bewildered. I walk up to him and say, 'they
won't cut the tree down today.' He looks uncertainly at me for
a while, and then yanks the notice from the tree, leaving the
head of the silver nail poking out from the green bark. 'It'd be nice to see you again some time'. 'Yeah, I'd like that,' I say. I take my son's hand and we walk back to the car. Do you have a comment about this piece?email your thoughts to Harbinger. |
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I
remember that summer there was a dirty black row of knots running
across my forehead parallel to my brow, highlighted by a pink
Mercurochrome smear. I'd been in the fig. Just straddling a branch
swinging my legs, feeling the blood in my toes. But I was looking
for some new territory higher up. As I shimmied higher, the finer
branches slapped my face; the newer leaves were supple, not like
the leathery foliage beneath.