The Lubetkin Legacy

Violet: Chainsaw

Violet is woken earlier than usual on Monday morning by a strange sound, a persistent whining rather like a dentist’s drill; only it isn’t inside her head, it’s definitely coming from outside. She lies in the semi-dark and listens, trying to work out what it could be but feeling too lazy to get up and find out. Then a nearer, more familiar sound startles her. It’s Pidgie tapping on her window, not the usual friendly ‘Hey, let’s have breakfast’ kind of tapping, but an urgent, wild hammering with his beak, beating with his wings against the glass. She draws back the blue sari and looks out.

There he is on the balcony. She throws a bit of bread down for him, but he ignores it, and hops on and off the parapet with his one foot, flapping his wings dementedly. Then the whining sound starts up again and she sees to her horror that a man with a chainsaw is sitting in the cradle of a cherry-picker truck backed up close to Pidgie’s tree.

‘Stop! Stop!’ she screams, but her voice doesn’t carry, or the man ignores it.

Still in her pyjamas, she runs to the next-door flat and hammers on the door. The old lady, Inna, opens it, and behind her, peering over her shoulder and wearing only the bottom half of a pair of paisley pyjamas, stands Berthold. He looks startled.

‘Come in. Please.’

‘The cherry trees! They’re cutting them down! We’ve got to get everyone out there!’

He runs back into the flat to look out of the front window. She follows. Down there in the cherry grove two men in hard hats are waving chainsaws; a bulldozer with a raised platform on the front is positioned directly under Pidgie’s tree. But what are those three large mushroomy-looking things that seem to have sprouted up overnight on the grass between the trees? They look a bit like tents.

‘Excuse me; I’d better get some clothes on.’ She races back next door and pulls on her jeans and T-shirt.

By the time she gets down to the grove, Berthold is already there. He is still wearing just the bottom half of his pyjamas, and around his bare waist is a bicycle chain, locked securely on to the trunk of Pidgie’s tree. The sawing has stopped.

‘Oh, Berthold!’ She flings her arms around him. ‘You’re a hero!’

By now it’s eight o’clock and half the population of Madeley Court has gathered in the garden. They are jeering and shouting and banging tambourines, and Mrs Cracey is waving her umbrella. A half-naked man from one of the tents is shouting at the chainsaw men in some foreign language.

Suddenly everyone stops and stares as a girl emerges from the tent wearing a skimpy shift that is open to the waist, with a plump naked baby clamped to her breast covered only by a veil of dark hair. She sits down on a bench under a tree, cradling the baby in her arms. It is a moment of pure magic amidst the pandemonium: the baby’s eyes are shut, his jaws are moving rhythmically, a milky leak dribbles down her breast and the baby stretches out tiny fingers to stroke his mother while she gazes down at him with a faraway look in her eyes. Then the baby stirs, whimpers and burps up a big gob of curds; the spell is broken.

At about eight fifteen she catches sight of Greg Smith striding towards them in his suit, his mobile phone pressed to his ear and a peeved expression on his face.

‘Hi!’ He breaks into a smile when he sees her. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘They’ve started cutting down the cherry trees! Can’t you do anything to stop them, Greg?’

‘Probably.’ He puts his phone back into his pocket, and marches up to the workmen. ‘Where’s your permit?’ he barks.

‘We don’t need a permit,’ says the one driving the bulldozer.

‘Of course we have a permit, don’t we, Dez? We’re not cowboys,’ says the younger one, who has taken off his hard hat to reveal an auburn pigtail.

‘Not cowboys, not gyppos,’ adds Dez, looking pointedly at Berthold.

She knows ‘gyppos’ is a racist term for travellers, but she cannot see why it would apply to Berthold in his paisley-pattern, M&S-style pyjamas.

The two men rummage through their pockets for a permit. ‘I’ll have a look in the van.’ The one with the pigtail sprints across the grass and comes back a moment later with a printed form.

Greg takes it out of the man’s hands and unfolds it. She cranes over his shoulder.

‘I think the date’s wrong,’ she says. ‘The council meeting isn’t until next week.’

‘Well spotted, Violet. I’ll take a copy and check whether this is valid. Thanks.’ Greg folds it into his breast pocket. ‘If it’s not valid, you realise you’ll be personally liable for any damage to council property. That includes parks and gardens. Sorry — must rush!’ he winks at her, and strides off.

The workmen look put out. They pack up their tools and amble away towards their van.

She feels a bit sorry for them. She glances across at Berthold, still chained to the tree in his pyjama bottoms, and feels a bit sorry for him too.

‘Why don’t you get your clothes on and come for a coffee, Berthold?’

‘I can’t. I left the key upstairs. Can you go and get it off Inna?’