h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi,

Yes you've guessed it...

I've changed it again.

But THAT'S IT.





=============

His rage was tangible, it was an insanity that was about to break in an orgasm of violence. His breathing was coming in convulsive gasps; his unblinking glare never left my face. “Who is it?” he snarled again.

Suddenly I realised he was going to kill me. I edged back towards the door. As I retreated Stan advanced, step by step we moved like synchronised dancers. He stooped to reach into his tool kit and I saw the glint of metal in his hand. I turned and ran, I ran to the only friend I had, I ran to The Beech.

I could sense Stanley getting nearer, and I had one overwhelming wish, that was to reach my tree. Just as my hands touched his trunk I heard a collage of sounds, there was a cracking whip, a rusty hinge, the howl of the wind and a gasp from Stan. When I turned round he was lying on his back with the handle of a chisel sticking from his chest. He had tripped and stabbed himself when he fell. You can still see the twist of root which snagged his foot.

The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death. Then twenty years ago Daniel emigrated to Australia, leaving me and The Beech alone. I think he blames me for his father’s death. So now we’re reduced to exchanging Christmas and birthday cards. That’s why I arranged to transfer this corner of our garden to the botanical society; I thought it would be safer for The Beech; in case anything happens to me.

*****

The rain had stopped and I watched as she packed her things. While she’d been talking I couldn’t help but feel simultaneously embarrassed and mesmerised, I felt like an accidental voyeur who’s stumbled on a love scene. But at the same time there’d been an under current of empathy in what Josephine said. There was a sense of shared troubles in our unspoken conversation.

“Now you know my story”, she said, crinkling her eyes in a smile, “may I know your name, mine’s Josephine Clark?”

“Laura Walcott”, I told her.

“Laura Walcott, and you live near by?”

“Yes, in the old vicarage.”

“Well it’s been wonderful talking to you Laura.”, and with that she left.

*****

The next time I went to the gardens it was with baby Chloe and I was eager to show her off Josephine, but her bench was uncharacteristically empty. Her absence left me feeling oddly flat, but I put it down as just a postnatal emotion. Over the following months her seat remained empty and the memory of that wet afternoon dissolved like last year’s fallen leaves.

Six years passed and I had all but forgotten Josephine, when a solicitor’s letter arrived. I learnt that soon after our meeting she had suffered a massive stroke, and since then she’d been confined to nursing home. I felt my heart rend whenever I imagined her imprisoned mind dreaming of her Beech. To my great surprise I read that she had bequeathed me her drawings. There are ten boxes of them, every one meticulously dated, some with poignant notes such as, “Today he looked happy”. David calls them junk, but to me they are priceless, they’re a pictorial love story lasting fifty years.

The letter arrived too late for me to attend the funeral, but I was in time to see her ashes interred. And life had two more cruelties to inflict on Josephine; her last request was that her ashes should be spread under her tree, but due to a by-law, invented by some neutered bureaucrat, this was denied her, and as the priest droned his ritual I saw they had chosen a wooden casket.

Six months later, while I was sitting by The Beech, I noticed some fallen twigs and on a whim decided to take them to Josephine’s grave. I knew which niche was hers by the named plaques to either side. It infuriated me to see Josephine condemned to lay under an anonymous concrete slab, with a just a few scattered twigs for company. There was no cause, other than caprice, for fates to be so vindictive.

The spitefulness of this wrong just wouldn’t go away; it festered like a bacteria taking over my thoughts until I could stand it no longer. So a week later I returned to the cemetery armed with a trowel and a Tupperware box. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, and my heart raced at a thousand beats a minute. When I was sure no one was around I levered up the cover and took the casket. Then I emptied the ashes into the box and put everything back in place. That evening I went to The Beech and dug a hole amongst his roots to receive her remains. I would have liked to have marked the spot with a stone, but as that wasn’t possible I arranged for a metal bench to replace the old wooden one.

It’s been fifteen years since my Burke and Hare escapade, and it won’t be long before Jodie, my darling second daughter, will be off to university. Soon I’ll have the big question to answer, the one I've postponed since that rainy afternoon. Should I stay in my comfortable marriage, for that’s what it’s become; comfortable, a marriage of convenience; or should I choose freedom? It’s not that David’s been a bad husband; he’s provided and cared for us in his way, but what would freedom mean? Would it mean years of madness then oblivion in a forgotten grave? Is madness the price of freedom? Or was Josephine’s and The Beech’s love real and might there be a life of passion and purpose waiting for me?

Recently I've taken to visiting The Beech to see if I can read his words as Josephine did. I don’t know what I expected; perhaps branches shaping words, or an ethereal sense of communication. Whatever it was I didn’t find it.

Since I could find no solution in the gardens maybe the answer lay in Josephine’s drawings. I spent a month studying the pictures; they’re exquisitely images. Like a master class in life drawing with every loving line Josephine had captured the exterior beauty while revealing the strength beneath. But I’d begun to doubt what happened between her and The Beech was genuine, and if it wasn’t, would freedom lead me to the same folly? Then, just as I was about to give up I spotted something.

Nine a.m. the next morning I was outside the library, impatient to unearth copies of our local paper. Eventually I found the article I was searching for in the 2nd of September 1939 edition. The first pages were full of Germany’s invasion of Poland, but in a paragraph on page five was the report of the tragic death of a local carpenter, who fell and accidentally stabbed himself.

I didn’t need to re-examine the pictures, I already new that date. The evidence was incontrovertible, only on the drawings after Mr Clark’s death was the knot of roots where he tripped visible, on the drawings prior to that, the ground was flat.