Out of Acorns

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Even when his sight was failing, his hands had weakened and he could barely hobble to his work shop they still said what a fine carpenter Great Uncle Arthur was.

 

‘Morning Arthur,’ his neighbours would call as he crept along the lane. ‘How are you today?’

‘Very fine, thank you,’ he’d reply as he leant on his stick to get some breath.

 

He’d made his own stock of walking sticks. Like he’d made the candle snuffer for the vicar, the cradle and the animals for the nativity play the village school put on each year. They were all ‘very fine’ Arthur insisted as, indeed, they were.

 

Everyone called him Old Arthur. From the time when he was a rotund and jolly 40 year old, when he used to keep the village amused with his antics on bonfire night and his archetypal Father Christmas, when he used to dress up as a donkey at the midsummer fare, he was always Old Arthur. Then it was ‘good old Arthur’ or ‘funny old Arthur’ but over the years the word had melded from the wrapping it gave to love and friendship to its more literal meaning conveying the passage of time. Old Arthur was well into his nineties when he finally went.

 

A few years earlier he’d made his own coffin and stuck it on its end in the corner, a fine oak moulded piece with traditional brass handles. He’d carved ornate flourishes along its edges and the words ‘Old Arthur’ into the side, in gothic script so that no one could be mistaken about its purpose. Inside he’d carved a wooden pillow and along the sides were arm rests to ensure his hands would be touching wood for eternity. 

 

His mother and father seemed fond of a joke as well. They’d called their daughter Martha, born when Arthur was a young lad. Neither of them married and Arthur and Martha set up home together and became business partners. He looked after the carpentry and she looked after everything else, including Arthur. I would spend as much of the summer holidays with my great aunt and uncle as I could until I was in my teens and no longer able to risk the loss of street cred amongst my pals.

 

I got all the stories about Old Arthur from my great aunt. She looked as frail as he looked rudely healthy but her petite body held enormous strength and stamina. She lived her life to enable her brother to enjoy his.

 

‘Arthur is going to live beyond his years,’ she confided to me one day.

 

She had sat me down at the kitchen table when, now in my twenties, I had come round just to see how they were getting along. Arthur was now no longer fit and rotund. He had lost much of his weight and we all knew that, at 93, his time was running out.

 

‘Wood is his life and it’s going to remain so,’ she said, ‘even after he’s gone.’

‘What do you mean? You’re not going to commission a statue?’

‘Oh nothing as crass as that my dear. Arthur is arranging it himself.’ She cupped her hands over mine. ‘I want you to ensure it remains for all to see.’

‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ I said.

 

It was many years later, after I’d married, had kids and lived much of my life abroad that I returned to the village to visit my great aunt and uncle’s graves. The village had of course been spoilt by modernity. Now there were a couple of new estates, one of which had necessitated the removal of Arthur’s workshop, shouting architectural abuse over mellow roof tops. Roads had been widened, resurfaced and decorated with white and yellow lines. My great aunt and uncle’s house was still there and had been given a face lift and extension by later residents. It looked smart but it wasn’t the same.

 

The church and its graveyard, however, were. The flint stone cladding and its little bell tower, the rusting clock that never worked, were all still in their perfect places. I could see a few new graves in the surrounding grave yard and towards the gate where a small car park had been constructed I could see Great Uncle Arthur’s grave. Or, more particularly, I could see the oak trees. There were six in two lines of three, strong young trees neatly covering his grave but twisting grotesquely against each other in their fight for air and supremacy. I smiled then laughed. They looked ridiculous. Six oak trees on a patch of ground that eventually wouldn’t be sufficient for one.

 

I went up to them and stared.

 

‘Strange isn’t it?’

 

I turned sharply to see the vicar standing by me.

 

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’

 

The vicar was a woman. They usually are these days.

 

‘It’s okay. I was deep in thought.’

‘They’ve got a bit of local fame, you know. Six oak trees in a neat bunch like that. I’ve never seen anything like it myself.’

‘I doubt you ever will again. It has to be well organised.’

‘Sounds like you know something about it.’

‘He was my great uncle.’

‘Who was?’

 

Just two words but they cut through my gut like knives. She didn’t know, had never known of my Great Uncle Arthur, that he was lying here beneath these trees. Thirty years and communal memory had vanished with the stone that had been placed over his body.

 

‘These aren’t simply oak trees. This is the grave of Arthur Timms. Don’t you have records of these things?’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sure the villagers know all about your uncle. I’ve only been here a few months. Still learning. In any case our records only show whose buried here, not where they are.’

‘He was important to me,’ I said quietly. ‘I guess there’s no reason why he should be important to anyone else.’

 

I studied the gnarled groove between the oaks and noticed pieces of masonry. It appeared the oaks had simply grown around and over it and were in the process of swallowing it in pieces.

 

‘What did you mean,’ asked the vicar, ‘when you said it had to be well organised?’

‘My great aunt, his sister, told me what he’d arranged. That’s her grave beside his. A bit lopsided. The trees will take that as well one day. He built his own coffin. In the top edge he planted six acorns and concealed them so that no one would notice. He was a fantastic joiner. Looks like they all grew.’

‘Goodness me,’ said the vicar. ‘I’m surprised any of them grew, locked up in a casket.’

‘Like I say, he arranged it carefully. The acorns were beginning to shoot when he planted them. He knew he was on his way out but managed to struggle to his workshop until the last week to make sure they were all in place.’

‘I must admit there’s been talk off pulling them down. They could take over the graveyard.’

‘Name your price not to and I’ll pay. These oaks are my uncle. They’ve fed from him. He’s converted himself into trees. He deserves his new life.’

 

The vicar looked at me then nodded.

 

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think he does.’ She shook my hand. ‘I must go. I’m very pleased to have met you.’

 

I turned back to the oaks. The leaves shook slightly in the cool breeze. I patted their trunks, now losing the smooth flesh of youth.

 

‘Hello Uncle,’ I said.