Selwyn's Story

Selwyn slumped onto the park bench, under the sporadic shade of the aging Fig Tree, and stared blankly, mutely, at the red and white warning sign condemning it to share his fate; while the doctor’s words echoed on, over and over,

“There’s nothing we can do. You’ve about seven days; get your affairs in order.”

Seven days. What a joke, an absolute joke. Uncle Ed’s will had been read on Friday and he’d left Selwyn twenty grand. That was enough to finally get a house deposit together, finally going to own a place after years of scratching together post-rent savings, finally somewhere to put down roots. He could get serious with Liz, look at starting a family like she so desperately wanted. And now this. Seven days. What a joke.

Oh hell. Liz…he’d have to break this to her; tonight.

The yellow and black caution tape sequestering the Fig Tree fretted and tugged in the breeze. One end came loose from the plastic bollard; it flapped erratically, flailing at Selwyn’s head with its own plastic death rattle.

“You an’ me both,” he muttered and tied the tape off to the seat back.

Around him the surreal world of normality paced on; a sweating cyclist pulled up in the shade to drink from a squeezie bottle, then pushed on with vital determination. An aging couple paused to share a kiss and a laugh – “remember when we stopped by this tree on the way home that night?” A mother steering an infant in a pram, and with a toddler in tow, gave a relieved sigh to be out from the sun.

“Mummy, why has that tree got all yellow string?”

“It’s caution tape sweetie; it’s to stop people going near the tree.”

“Why?”

“Because the tree got old and sick and they’re going to cut it down.”

“But what will Jojo climb?”

“I don’t know sweetie. Just give Mummy a minute to catch her breath.”

They trudged on, trailing a stream of endless toddler questions.

“That’s just how Lizzie would be as a mother,” Selwyn thought, he sighed and rubbed a hand across his eyes.

As his blurred vision cleared, he became aware of a figure in front him; a man, quite tall, lean, wearing well-worn jeans and a light blue shirt, with the sleeves rolled to show ropy, browned forearms. Short cropped grey hair matched a neat beard, and sky-blue eyes whose gaze had always made Selwyn feel slightly confessional. He cocked an eyebrow at the seat and Selwyn shuffled up to make room.

“Thanks for coming David.”

David shrugged, “Got your text, came soon’s I could.” He sat and stretched a leg out, and leaned to massage his knee, “Uhg, knee’s playin’ up.”

“Well that’s one problem I’ll never have,” muttered Selwyn.

David stopped, his eyes flicked up to Selwyn’s. “As bad as that?”

“The doctors think a week.”

“Bugger,” said David quietly, as he digested the news, “you told Eric and Daph yet?”

“No. No, I can’t face Mum and Dad, not yet. It’s just too much. I needed to talk it out with you first, try and get my head straight.”

“Fair enough. Not sure what I can tell you though.”

“Nothing. I mean, not nothing, it’s just that they said – the doctors said – that it will be fast and I won’t feel much. I won’t feel much… as if that’s… I dunno, I kind of, well… I feel it should hurt, shouldn’t it?”

“Why’d that be?”

“Well it doesn’t seem right; it’s just not right losing all this and it not feeling of anything. Especially now with the money from Uncle Ed, and everything me and Liz could do. Could have done.”

David nodded in quiet in contemplation.

“Maybe it’d help if you did somethin’ with the money, somethin’ you think’s right.”

“Well that’s easy enough, I’ll just give it to Liz.”

“Why? What’ll she do with it that you can’t?”

“She’ll get to live to enjoy it is what!”

“So, you need to do something in seven days that you want – living longer doesn’t mean enjoying the money more.”

Selwyn slammed his fist on the seat, “What would you suggest? It’s not like I’ve got options! Go on, what!”

David scratched at his beard in thought.

“I think, we should consult the good book.” It was an old joke, almost worn through with telling, but even now it gave Selwyn a brief smile, as David pulled the small, black, Moleskine notebook from his shirt pocket. Selwyn knew it well, David always carried one and kept pulling it out to scribble a brief note, a thought, an observation, or even a bit of verse. This one was almost a year old, battered and scarred from good use, with a dark stain on the top corner where Selwyn had spilt coffee on it once while they shared lunch at the Fig Leaf Café. But today at the sight of it, Selwyn smelt, or thought he smelt, the slightly inky scent of velvet pages in a musty study, and with that an almost electric thrill, and a torrent of childhood memory suddenly swept him up.

He was back in Uncle Ed’s study, a boy perusing the row of black Moleskine notebooks that filled a whole shelf; each book a rich record of nightly storytelling. Every evening, for years, Uncle Ed made up stories for his plethora of nephews and nieces, tales of adventure and tragedy, cunning heroes and ruthless villains. And every morning he diligently wrote them down in his thin, careful script, so each child could choose one to read out on occasion. It was the third book from the left that held Selwyn’s favorite; the story of the Wenderkind children who discovered that the Norse World Tree was real, and saved it from the witch’s curse.

“David, do you remember Uncle Ed’s stories? That pile of books, all unpublished and just boxed up when he died. We each had our favorite – do you remember mine?”

“Yep, you read it to me enough times.”

“Well, I know now what to do with the money.”

David peered gravely at him, then smiled slightly as Selwyn jumped to his feet.

“I’ve gotta get going; oh hang it, I caught a cab here today. How far’s your car? Or maybe it’d be faster if I just get a taxi?”

“Car’s just round the corner. And I brought the McLaren, not the truck.”

“Well come on, I’ve got things to do; and I have a real deadline.”

“Dad jokes Selwyn? Now?”

“Come on!”

The memorial service was simple, but crowded. Dozens of people, certainly more than a hundred by David’s reckoning, gathered around the Fig Tree. He leaned in to shake Eric’s hand and then hugged Daphne tightly before they moved on to the front row of seats, in the shade. Liz was out the front, naturally, speaking kindly and gravely with fellow mourners and sympathetic well-wishers. David could see her pain in the poignant tilt to her chin, the slight tightening in her shoulders and her stance. She remained though, as always, elegant and poised, one of the most resilient people David had ever met.

Liz moved to the podium and the crowd settled.

“Good morning, and thank you all for coming today, to remember Selwyn together. People have occasionally commented that Selwyn and I are so very different, a bit of an odd couple. And I suppose that’s true. When I first took Selwyn to meet my parents, their reaction was, well, not unexpected. Liz, they said, are you sure about this guy? He’s got his head in the clouds, said Mum. Dad was a bit more blunt. And they were both right. Selwyn could be vague, unfocused, terrible with money, and sometimes just outright foolish.”

David saw more than a few heads nodding in mute agreement.

“And I told them what I tell everyone, yes, that’s true, he is all that, but how could I not love him? He’s just so wonderfully, amazingly passionate, and even more so, compassionate. We’re not gathered here today because we were touched by his foolishness, but by his compassion; I know every person here has experienced his amazing ability to see into their heart and share his kindness.”

“And yet Selwyn never understood how his compassion affected so many others. So often, he’d say or do just the right thing at just the right time, something so small you wouldn’t even think of it, a few quiet words, picking up someone’s hat – once it was just a thumbs up to a random soccer kid on his nephew’s team,” Liz shook her head in disbelief.

“And a week later someone I never even knew would come up and tell me how much it had helped them… And I’d ask Selwyn, how did you know to do that? Then he’d give me that Selwyn look – you know, the one like a puzzled puppy,” a brief chuckle rippled through the crowd, “and he’d say something like; do what Liz? It’s like he threw a pebble in the ocean, and the ripples became a tidal wave of good.” She paused and looked down briefly.

“But at least, for once, Selwyn did get to see how many people his ripples of compassion reached. When he used his Uncle’s inheritance money to start the campaign to save this tree,” she gestured to the Fig Tree behind her, “only three weeks ago now… there was a tsunami of public response. You all know about the financial pledges from the community to get the specialist tree surgeon, you all know about the letters to the mayor and council. But you may not know about the personal letters to Selwyn, thanking him, from so many people. During his last days in hospital…” Liz stepped back from the podium blinking hard, and swallowed. After several deep breaths she stepped up again and continued, her voice tight and high.

“During his last days, he received so many letters saying how much this tree meant to people, how he showed them they weren’t alone wanting it saved. Letters saying he had saved a part of their lives when he saved it. And he sat there reading all those letters…sitting up in that damned hospital bed…a tube stuck up his nose…” she turned her head and cleared her eyes with a forefinger, “wearing those horrible paisley pyjamas of his, just to drive me mad, and smiling like an idiot. I don’t think… I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so damned happy.”

The crowd dispersed slowly, gradually, diffusing from around the Fig Tree back into the busy world. People steered by Brownian motion stopped and spoke in pairs and small clusters of catharsis, then drifted on, away from the epicenter of mourning. David and Liz stood at the memorial plaque erected the previous day.

“Had to tell ‘em three times for the wording,” said David, “they kept wantin’ to write ‘In memory of’.”

Liz gave a small laugh, “It’s not surprising, the wording’s a bit unusual for a memorial. But they did a good job of it.” She clasped David’s hand and re-read the plaque: ‘This tree stands thanks to the memory of Selwyn Hollis.’