WordSmith: A hair-raising experience with the chestnut twins
So let me tell you my story of the chestnut twins. They’ve lived in the same spot outside the library in Cavan Town, forever. Yet, we all know there’s no such thing as forever; when forever finishes we’re left feeling a little sad.
Saturday morning, while approaching town, I heard the hum of chainsaws; I thought it unusual for the last weekend in November. When I reached the end of the street my heart sank at the sight I saw – tree surgeons operating on one of the twins. I’d heard on the grapevine that this tree was sick; a man told me earlier in the Summer he saw signs of distress in its branches. But I didn’t think it was sick enough to warrant such invasive surgery.
I loved the chestnut twins – the sight of them springing to life instilled hope; and the excited kids playing with autumnal conkers brought light and laughter to the impending darker days. The twins spring budding, flourish and fall, topped and tailed my year. So, I watched wistfully from the library as men on a cherry-picker sawed branches, and as they fell away, so did the years. I fell back to seven, a pivotal age when a child begins to question their world; and what their adults tell them in it.
That seventh Summer I heard the hum of bird song as I approached town; I thought I was rich because my pocket was full of fifty pence in change. I knew where I was going to spend it and I walked with a sweet-full stride. But I stopped on the road opposite the trees and stared at them with a horror filled familiarity; for their bushing foliage reminded me of my hair. I hated my hair, and I suppose by extension, myself. I’d had my head-hedge pruned at the barbers a few weeks before arrival in Ireland; but it grew as fast and invasively as Japanese knotweed, by August it resembled the unruly flamboyance of the chestnut twins. I paused and tried to flatten it (a futile act); before heading off to splurge some of my fortune in Hickey’s sweetshop.
The magnificent Betty Hickey greeted me with gusto, “Gerard, lovely to see you.” Her cheerful manner lifted me. “What can I get for you?” she asked, moving aside to give full view of the glass sweet-jars filled with treats as colourful as Betty herself. “Can I have this much worth of strawberry bonbons, please,” I said, placing five pence on the counter. Betty duly delivered my bag of bonbons with that single word that says a multitude, “Now.”
Turning to leave, Betty called out, “Gerard, come here to me.” She put her arms on the counter and leant towards me, and with her head level with mine she said, “A wee birdy tells me you don’t like your hair.” Then she stood and said with a sure authority, “Well, I’m telling you it’s beautiful – don’t ever cut it too short.” Gobsmacked, I said nothing in return. Instead, I soared and rose high above my low-self-esteem.
Afterwards, I chewed on a bonbon and looked at the chestnut twins with a new appreciation. The fabulous Betty loved my hair and in telling me so I learned a valuable life lesson for which I didn’t yet have these words, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” But in that moment I was alone with two trees, basking in the warm revelation that there was beauty to be seen in all three of us, because Betty Hickey told me so.
Now, I didn’t know this autumn was one twin’s final fall. But he didn’t disappoint, his conkers fell in abundance, picked up by kids of every colour and creed to be used for: footballs, handballs, cricket balls, and many other ball-based sports.
The kid in me wants to believe that he knew this was his last hurrah and thus dropped a stadium full of conkers for his community. Likewise, as the council men circled him with their leaf-blowers I want to think he whispered, “Thanks for everything lads, this is my last rodeo.”
To borrow the words of playwright Willy Russell, ‘So that’s my story of the chestnut twins, as like each other as two new pins; how one was kept and the other passed away…’
I shall respectfully raise my cap and show my hair-less head to what remains of the branch-less chestnut twin – and when I do, I’ll probably feel a little sad.
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