running his hand along its underside.
The garden at No. 8 was the same as all the other gardens on the executive side of Pollards Close: approximately one hundred and forty-four squares of turf that had grown into 144m2 of lawn infested with a strain of clover that not even Flymos were able to eradicate (Linda was convinced the clover was Irish), and bald patches where paddling pools stood during photogenic summers. The whole thing was framed with puddles of buddleia, lilac, viburnum and hebe. The gardens arrived on the back of contractors’ trucks and were left pretty much as they were delivered. The world in which people who moved there found themselves was too new for them to contemplate changing.
Wayne Spalding counted the paces between the spot where the branch touched the lawn and the house. He walked past Linda, his flat eyes on the patio doors.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Just checking something.’ He paused, watching the TV through the double glazing. ‘Anyone in there? Anyone watching that?’
‘My dog, Ferdinand. He likes TV.’
‘You’ve got the TV on for your dog?’
‘He’s a dachshund.’
He turned and stared at Linda for a moment then walked back up the lawn, counting his paces again. ‘Waste of electricity.’
Linda didn’t say anything. She wanted to, but couldn’t think of anything, so she put her hands in her coat pockets instead.
‘You’ve got a lot of space between the house and the tree. A lot of space,’ he said to her, adding, ‘This is a big garden’ – making it sound like excess rather than achievement.
Linda began to get the feeling that her time was being wasted. ‘So what are you saying?’
‘I mean, even if there was a storm and the tree got hit by lightning – even if that happened and we determined that the tree would fall into your garden and not into the field, even then –’
‘Even then, what?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t hit the house.’
‘Hit the house?’ Linda shouted. ‘I was just talking about leaves.’
Wayne stared at her.
‘So I’d have four hundred years’ worth of oak lying across my lawn, but it wouldn’t hit the house? What then?’
‘You’d have to call a tree surgeon.’
‘And how much would that cost?’
‘Look,’ Wayne moved his hands slowly up and down, pressing the thick, cold air downwards with his palms. ‘Look,’ he said again, louder, as if Linda was already hysterical and not just showing signs of it, ‘I’ve done the risk assessment.’
‘You’ve done it? That’s it? That’s your risk assessment?’
‘That’s my risk assessment, and I can safely say that there is no risk. That tree poses no threat to your property, none whatsoever – not even in the event of an act of God.’
‘Wait. Wait. Wait.’ Despite the heavy cold, she could feel angel wings of sweat growing across her back. ‘That’s all there is to it? You walk across my lawn and that’s it? What if … what if we’re out here in the garden in the summer having a barbecue … and the tree falls down? What about that?’
Wayne thought about this, his face going grey now with the cold. ‘The wind would have to be gale force to bring that tree down – why would you be barbecuing in the middle of a storm like that?’
‘Listen, I phoned your department and talked to somebody about leaves, not lightning and … and storms, and oh, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Do not take the Saviour’s name in vain. I won’t have that,’ Wayne said quietly, pointing his thick mitten at her.
‘I’m not having this,’ Linda said after a while. ‘You walk across my lawn … you’ve got no equipment with you or anything, no tape measure or … or machinery. You don’t even have a clipboard. I want a second opinion.’
‘I can put it in writing.’
‘I don’t want your opinion. I want someone more senior.’
‘You want someone older or someone more important?’
Linda swung nervously from side to side not knowing what to say again, and this wasn’t like her. She had to be herself tonight; she had to be wholly herself because the Niemans were coming to dinner.
‘We can’t just go round cutting down all deciduous trees on the estate,’ he said.
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Deciduous means that a tree sheds its leaves in autumn.’
‘I know that,’ Linda snapped.
‘No you didn’t.’
‘I did.’
‘You didn’t. You should be more honest.’
‘I don’t accept this,’ she said loudly, trying to fold her arms, which was difficult with so much fake fur encasing them.
Linda followed Wayne Spalding back across her lawn, through her garage, and onto the road outside her house where he’d parked his car. ‘I really don’t accept this.’
Wayne got into the car and wound his window down. His trousers were wet to the knee. He flipped the sun lenses down over his spectacles again and two discs of tinted glass stared up at her so that she was looking back at herself, twice over.
‘Do you get hot in the summer?’ he asked her suddenly.
She checked to see if there was anybody around who might have heard this: only Mrs Kline, lumbering down the pavement towards them in the tracksuit she’d worn to aerobics that morning. ‘Do you get hot in the summer?’ he asked her again, his voice as flat as his eyes. She stared at his hands, loosely gripping the steering wheel. The oversize mittens were on the seat next to him and the backs of his hands were covered in freckles. She didn’t like freckles on men. Was Wayne Spalding hitting on her?
‘He planted trees to provide shelter from the heat.’
Linda hung back, lost. ‘Who did?’
The streetlights came on, making everything seem much darker.
‘God did – and you should think about that. You should think about that a lot.’ He turned the ignition on. ‘Do you have children?’
‘Just one daughter.’ Why was she telling him this?
‘Then you should think hard about trying not to take the Lord’s name in vain. For your own sake. For the sake of your daughter.’ He looked up at her. ‘I can help you, Mrs Palmer.’
‘I don’t need your help.’
‘People
