By the time Grandma Daisy made it upstairs with dinner these days, it was already dark.
Eddy and Reagan had a routine. When Eddy heard Grandma Daisy heading upstairs, he’d simply say ‘playtime’s up’ and Reagan would slip away from her window until the mean old lady that looked after Eddy had gone again. As she explained to Eddy, it wasn’t that she didn’t mind talking to Grandma Daisy, but if she didn’t have to, then it was easier not to. ‘She says one thing with her mouth and another thing with her eyes’ is the way Reagan put it and Eddy wasn’t in a position to disagree.
So when his mother’s mother backed herself into his bedroom, dinner tray in hand, Eddy was reading a book about aeroplanes on his bed and Reagan was listening to music on hers.
As was tradition, she placed the tray down on the desk and turned to survey the room. What it really was, Eddy had come to understand, was a chance for her to complain about something. Anything she could find, absolutely anything even slightly as it shouldn’t be in her estimation, was up for a one-way discussion. And, these days, there was always one subject at the very top of her hit list. Mr Tree.
If Eddy had been some other kid, he might just have rebuked her by saying, ‘If you don’t like it, do something about it then’, but then again Eddy wasn’t that dumb. Not when it came to Grandma Daisy anyway. She wasn’t someone you could bluff and get away with it.
Yep, there it was, that big sigh. But that’s as far as she got.
Clack!
The sound rocketed through the bedroom, amplified by the silence created by Grandma Daisy’s arrival. Both she and Eddy flinched like they’d been shot.
It was the front window. Something had hit the front window.
It wasn’t broken but it must’ve been a close thing. Grandma Daisy stepped over to it to see what in the devil’s name was going on. Eddy stayed put. Better to do what you were told before you were told to do it. He watched with quiet expectation as she leaned against the window itself, then obviously seeing something that annoyed her, she undid the latch.
‘Hey!’ she shouted down to the street. ‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’
‘Sorry,’ spoke a diminutive voice from somewhere out there. It was Nathan.
Grandma shot Eddy the death look and then returned her attention out the window.
‘If you throw things at this house one more time, young lad, I’ll call the police.’ She gave the window the full once over. ‘And if this window’s damaged, you’ll be paying for it.’
There was a mumble-mumble from out on the street and then Nathan was gone.
‘What does he want with you?’ interrogated Grandma Daisy as she closed the window.
‘I d-don’t know.’
‘I tell you what, Eddy Sullivan, I’m sick of this.’
Eddy put the book down and reined in his arms and legs. This wasn’t going to be good.
‘I don’t know what’s got into you recently. Sometimes I don’t think you really appreciate what I do for you. I didn’t have to take you in, you know. I could have left you there in that horrid hospital just like your trollop of a mother did. But no, I had to have a conscience, didn’t I? I had to put my whole life on hold for the handicapped kid.
‘And look what I get in return.’ Grandma Daisy tossed her hand in the direction of the front window. ‘People throwing stones at us. What’s it going to be next, Eddy? Bricks? Molotov cocktails? Are they going to barge in here and beat an old lady up?
‘And don’t look at me like you don’t know what’s going on. I’m not an idiot!’ Eddy didn’t know for the life of him what expression he was wearing to make her even angrier and even if he did, he didn’t know how to change it. Right now, scared was all he had.
‘You . . . this damned tree . . . it’s not right, Eddy. And I know about Mrs Elsdon, thank you very much! I see her on the lawn. And don’t even get me started about that girl next door. I am not a laughing stock, Eddy. I’m not something to be stared at and talked about by the whole town! These people come and look at you, look at us, like we’re a circus act!’ Eddy just knew she’d spoken that as loud as she did on purpose. ‘I didn’t ask for things to be this way, Eddy, but you don’t exactly help yourself, do you? My life got put on hold when you came along, and now I can’t even enjoy being in my own house without feeling under attack! I have damned well . . . had . . . enough!’
Grandma Daisy tore across the room, her whole body triggered with rage. For a moment Eddy thought she was coming for him and he brought his hands up over his face to protect himself. But when her shadow crossed him and still the blows didn’t connect he peeked out and, compared to what greeted him, he dearly wished he had been the target of her wrath. Boiling in a fit of fury like he’d never witnessed before, Grandma Daisy was tearing at his precious Mr Tree. Her arms were a flurry of manic activity as she stripped the beautiful leaves from their beds and snapped any branch that got in her way. Floral flesh and blood flew everywhere and her crazed effort meant that as she wrenched each new handful away, she grunted and groaned like a madwoman.
‘No . . . G-Grandma Daisy. Pleeeeease!’ Hardly thinking twice, Eddy pounced up and tried to grab at one of her flying arms but she was so engrossed in her spasms of destruction that he had no effect on her whatsoever. She was a bull on the loose.
‘Get away from me, you evil, evil boy!’ Flinging him off as though he were half the size, she continued her demolition of his beloved friend and the room was quickly becoming littered with the casualties.
Eddy couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It hurt to watch. Not just his eyes . . . his entire body. He was viewing the execution of the very thing that had turned his life around and it ached . . . it ached so bad.
Reduced to tears in the corner of the room, he was a haunted witness. He didn’t want to see this but at the same time he couldn’t turn away. And so it was, right up until Grandma Daisy’s frenetic energy waned and her anger diluted. Eventually she gave up altogether and that was probably just a reflection of the fact she’d ravaged the tree all the way down to the branches she couldn’t snap.
When she was done, she turned and looked at him, her chest heaving up and down with the physical effort.
‘This tree is has nothing to do with your grand-father. Do you understand me?’
Eddy remained silent.
‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?’
Eddy nodded his head and looked away from her, a second wave of tears beginning to sting his eyes.
He didn’t see her leave. He didn’t need to.