Plane Tales...

            Another gorgeous day.  Sunny, clear skies.  An unseasonal warmth.  Even the birds sound happier.  The plane trees in the street were all pollarded recently, so much more light pours into my room now.  The ones outside my window look like a pair of gnarled hands, poking at the sky.  I miss their intricate criss-cross of branches, and the shade they brought.  And the birds.  Sometimes, I've stood by the window for ages watching them.  Collared doves, starlings, thrushes, wrens, sparrows, blackbirds, pigeons.  An occasional crow. 

            I miss the leaves, too.

            Some of the leaf-fall from last autumn still lies in the entry-way below, by the wheelie bins.  I should pick them up.  But I like looking at them - like a pile of oversized wheat flakes down there. 

            They make me think of my childhood.  At my primary school, in London, there were 4 huge London planes in the playground, separating the infants area from the larger square, where the older kids played football or skipped.  In the autumn, at play time, a favourite game was to stand under those trees and watch for falling leaves, then rush to catch them before they settled on the ground.  The one who caught the most was the winner. 

            I remember those afternoon breaks, and the catching game.  A teacher - Mr Stinson, perhaps - would be keeping an eye, leaning against the flagpole by the fence, drinking tea, having a smoke (it was the '60s - such things were allowed!).  One day, he had an argument with the school caretaker, old Mr Fuige.  We watched in amazement as Mr Fuige chased him around the playground, wielding a broom.  It was like a scene from the comedy films I loved.  We all stood laughing as the chase continued, until the older man stopped from exhaustion.  It was funny at the time.  But not long afterwards, the caretaker's house - a small cottage by the school gate, with a neat front garden - stood empty.

            Sometimes the playtime teacher would be Miss Newland - the one who taught me to read.  She was young and pretty, with blonde bobbed hair.  I'm sure she wore other colours, but I always see her in a red skirt and jacket.  The big smile on her red lips.  Just as she was that day in class, when I finally finished the last of our reading primers - the first pupil in the class to do so.  I remember that moment - standing beside her at her desk, the book there in front of us with the back cover closed for the final time.  She was so happy she gave me a quick hug.  It was the kind of hug my mum gave me.  An innocent thing - full of pride at my achievement, and hers.  My cheek briefly touched her hair.  It was crisp where she sprayed it - like mum's.  The significance of that moment is always with me, though I didn't fully understand it at the time.  Reading.  This woman had taught me to read.  I knew it was a special thing, and she was pleased, and so was I.  I didn't know what it would all mean for me, though.  It was just something I was supposed to do.

            I can see her clearly again one particular afternoon, a few years later - perhaps in my final year, as I was playing on the other side of the trees.  I was no longer in her class - she only taught the infants.  She was married by then (I can't remember her married name), and was soon to be leaving to have a baby.  I can hear that afternoon, too - those moments.  The wind rushing in the branches above us.  An aeroplane going over.  The high piping of our young voices.  The first note of the bell as she rang it to call us in.  A few of us pretended not to hear, and carried on with our game.  She came across and shouted at us.  I remember the look on her face, her finger pointing to the classroom doors, her angry words.  She glared at me, showing no recognition.  I must have smiled and she mistook it for petulance.  She took my arm and marched me to the headmaster's office.  No hugs this time, from this woman who'd passed on such a precious gift.

            'I'll teach you to ignore me.'

            She failed in that.

            For me, there was something special about those plane leaves.  A mystery in them - these tiny gifts from the trees.  Sometimes, in art, we'd stick them on sheets of paper and hang them on the wall.  Or paint them all over to make prints.  I was always fascinated by the symmetry, the web of veins, the shape.  Especially the shape.  So close to that of their distant cousin, the maple.  It always makes me think of Canada now, where I so nearly went to live a few years ago - and where I could so easily have been born anyway, if my maternal grandmother hadn't returned home to England for a short holiday. 

            I remember, when I was growing up, listening to her stories of life on the prairies.   She'd gone out there alone, having been invited by a visiting friend of the woman she was in service with.  It was a brave thing for a girl of just 19, from a tiny Sussex village, in 1912.  She spoke of it longingly - the biggest adventure of her life, all 3 years of it.  The type of adventure she'd never have again.  She talked about the policemen on horseback - the Mounties.  The native Indians, like in the films, who lived on a nearby reservation (except they were friendly, she said, and the films always got it wrong).  The harsh winters that went on for months.  The buggy rides to the nearest neighbours, many miles distant, for summer hog-roasts and hoe-downs.  The ranch-hand who was sweet on her, but a little too ardent - which led her to decide on the return 'holiday', to give his passion time to cool down.  What was it about him that she wasn't taking to, I often wonder?  Perhaps she was just too young, and wasn't ready for what he was offering.  Perhaps she didn't want it at all.  Or perhaps she was simply home-sick, and wanted to see her parents again before they grew old. 

            One afternoon during her return (a Sunday, I would guess, though she never said), whilst out for a walk by the Thames in Putney, she watched a sculler row ashore, get out of his boat and lift it onto the trestles.  He was a rowing champion, so she found out later.  At that moment, though, they just spoke briefly.  Polite words, I'm sure.  A beautiful young woman, a healthy and handsome young man.  This is how such things begin.

            In time, they got married, then settled in Fulham to raise their family: my uncle, my aunt, and mum.  Canada left its mark on her, though.  She always wanted to go back.  She never did.  I'll always remember her voice - the slight Canadian twang she never lost.  The flattened 'ou' sound she always used, so about became aboot - something I didn't even realise was Canadian until I first visited there a few years ago.  I took mum with me.  It was a pilgrimage, of sorts.  We went to the site of the homestead where nan had worked, almost a hundred years earlier.  It's gone now.  A highway runs over the spot where it was.  But either side, it's still open prairie - so vast and flat, you can almost believe the old Canadian joke: if your dog runs away on Tuesday, you can still see it on Friday.

            We met a woman out there - a niece of the woman nan worked for.  She'd lived in the same small house all her life.  78 then and partly disabled, but still catching the bus to the nearest town - half-an-hour away - for shopping once a week.  Still clearing the snows each winter.  Still alive now and doing it, too, well up in her 80s.  They're adjusted to it.  They take it in their stride.

            Nan was always a tough woman.  Maybe that's where it came from, that experience.  I'm sure she always wondered What if?

            Just as we all do, in our own ways.

            Just as I did, this morning, looking down at that pile of leaves.

            What if?