Sweet Chestnut

A young man sits on the ground and leans back onto the thick twisting tree trunk. It has been years since he has been to a zoo or a circus, but the trunk of this sweet chestnut reminds him of an elephant’s foot. Fat, solid and unmoveable, its bark is scored with natural deep grooves, the type any of us might develop if we, like the tree, were to live for centuries. It is August and the tree is in full leaf. Its leaves are nothing like those of the horse chestnut at the end of his street, the one he used to plunder as a boy, foraging around its base for fat conkers in autumn.

This is where he first met her, this is where they would come with a blanket, lie down, look up into the dark green ceiling of leaves, feel safe and protected by its bulk. It was she who told him what type of tree it was. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing to the leaves, ‘they grow from the stem one by one, like they’re standing in a queue.’ She told him the pale, green spiky balls – ‘fluffier than a conker’ – were what people broke open to roast at Christmas. She said if they were still going out then, maybe they could go to the Christmas market together and buy roasted chestnuts, drink hot wine, ride the big wheel. He’d been thrilled at the idea, and how she had dropped it in so nonchalantly. ‘If we are still going out then…’ Of course they would! That was the day they’d carved their initials into the trunk inside a misshapen heart. Below, someone had made a much better job of carving the name: ‘Gretta’. He’d felt sorry for Gretta not having any name beside hers. Now he was no better off than Gretta. ‘Dry your eyes, mate,’ Danny had said when he told him he missed her. Then Danny seemed to notice that he really was cut up because he patted him on the shoulder and added, ‘her loss.’ But that was as far as it went for sympathy. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. If anyone knew he came up here to cry, if anyone found out, he would be mortified.

He is so caught up thinking about her that he has not heard the chanting. The sound is coming from nearby. He pushes himself up onto one arm, leans over, and peers around the trunk. Dressed all in white, a woman with short red hair, closed eyes and a beaming smile, stands with outstretched arms singing. He feels he ought to recoil against her oddness, instead he is becalmed by her. The rolling notes of her fine contralto voice reverberate in his chest and the heartbreak that he has tended so assiduously for months is momentarily gone.

A black Labrador comes lolloping up the hill. The dog does not bark, it is too old to bark, too old to run. It makes its way steadily towards the singing woman.

‘Otto! Otto! Come back Otto!’

Otto pays no attention to the disembodied voice, instead Otto makes straight for the woman and sits by her feet, head cocked, ears pinned back, tongue hanging lopsidedly. Before he can stop himself, the young man gets to his feet and walks the few paces to join them. The woman stops singing. She opens her eyes, nods to acknowledge the young man’s presence, and she places her hand on the dog’s head. Otto wheezes and lies down.

‘There you are!’ A man with worn corduroys, a lead in his hand, a stooped walk, comes over the brown of the hill. ‘I should have guessed Dawn was up here casting a spell on you.’

Dawn smiles, then resumes singing. The older man shakes his head, indulgently. ‘Has she got you to join her coven?’ he asks the younger man. ‘Otto loves the druids, don’t you Otto?’ He reaches down to tickle the dog who, expecting a tummy rub, has rolled over to expose his belly. ‘Otto’s mother is buried under this tree,’ he says, matter of fact. ‘Around the other side.’

‘Was she Gretta?’ asks the younger man.

Otto barks at the mention of Gretta’s name, then flops his head back onto the grass. The old man pulls a pale blue cotton handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wipes his brow. Dawn steps towards the tree, places her palms on the trunk, and sings. The young man, out of habit, thinks about the girl, and for the first time since she left him, he does not feel sorrow. He stops thinking about her and reaches down to stroke the old dog’s ear.