The Treehouse
A short story by Martin David Edwards

 

 

Theodore stopped outside Oliver’s house. His hair was grey and combed back behind his ears. He was wearing a faded black and white pinstripe suit. Dabs of black paint disguised scuff marks on his shoes.

The corners of his mouth puckered downwards as he looked up at the house. Then he rocked on his shoes, forwards and backwards like a bowling pin.

Theodore pressed the doorbell and waited. Inside the house, he could hear a two-tone chime like an off-pitch trombone.

The door opened and the mouth puckers deepened.

Oliver stood in front of Theodore in the doorway. His hair was white and sprang from his head like a hedgehog. His hands scratched at a dressing gown belt, revealing a pair of tattered brown pajamas.

“Disappointing,” Theodore said to Oliver.

“I’m not dressed for late visitors. I gave up waiting,” Oliver replied.

“I was talking about the door chime. You haven’t changed it since Mummy and Daddy died.”

“Your rudeness hasn’t changed either.”

Theodore poked his nose around the doorframe. “Seeing as neither of us are changing, do you have time for tea?” he asked Oliver.

“Milk’s off.” Oliver’s mouth puckered downwards.

“I’m not fussy. I take my tea natural, like my brother,” Theodore said.

“You better come in instead of pestering me on the doorstep. I’ll catch a cold.”

The door opened wider with a creak. Theodore brushed past Oliver down a darkened hallway.

“You didn’t consider ringing before you decided to come?” Oliver asked, following his brother.

“I didn’t think you would answer,” Theodore replied.

“One of us hasn’t forgotten their younger sibling complex.”

“The other is carrying on pretending that being older is wiser.”

“Humbug.”

Theodore stopped at a door on the side of the hallway. A pink blur shimmered through its glass pane. “Kitchen unchanged too?” he asked.

“Nothing changes without a reason. Why did you come, if it wasn’t for a house inspection?” Oliver replied.

“I wanted to check up on how you were after the divorce. I thought you might need a younger brother’s wisdom.”

“I got divorced a decade ago. You haven’t come round since.”

“Being on time was never my strong point.” Theodore opened the door, revealing a pink kitchen table on the other side. “You haven’t changed Mummy’s color scheme,” he said.

“Pink is my favorite color.”

“There’s no need to get argumentative again.” Theodore lifted the lid of an orange kettle and peered inside. “A little more water to make a pot of tea would be helpful.”

“Is it money you’re after?” Oliver asked. He took the kettle from his brother and filled it up with water from the sink. “You’ve wasted your journey. I haven’t got any.”

“I accept payment in Earl Grey instead.” Theodore took the kettle from his brother and turned a socket on at the wall.

“You should have said at the funeral if you wanted the house. I wouldn’t have objected then. I was too upset,” Oliver said.

“I’m not objecting now either.”

The kettle started hissing between the brothers.

“You’re too late if you expect me to sell the house. There won’t be anything left. I’m mortgaged up to the hilt.” Oliver added two teabags into a pair of chipped purple mugs. “I had a shortfall with the pension after the Stock Exchange crashed.”

“I didn’t come to ask you to sell the house either.” Theodore poured the water from the kettle into the mugs. “It happens that I came for a social visit.”

“Breaking the habit of a lifetime.”

The hissing reached a peak. With a ping, the kettle switched off.

Oliver stirred the teabags in the two mugs, one after the other.

“We’re never too old to change,” Theodore said, taking the first mug.

“I’ll take that as an apology.”

The brothers sipped at their tea. They sighed in unison.

“Lovely without milk, as I promised,” Theodore said.

“I find Earl Grey too bitter.” Oliver put down his mug on the table and looked at his watch. “I’m not going to rush your visit, but I’ve got errands to run.”

“Need a hand?” Theodore’s mouth puckered downwards.

“Not if I don’t delay.”

“You should get dressed if you’re going to the supermarket. They might mistake you for a flasher.”

Oliver rocked on his feet. “I’m rebuilding the treehouse, if you must know.”

“The treehouse?” Theodore spluttered his tea with a cough. “As in that ramshackle construction we played in when we were growing up?”

“It’s not so ramshackle now. The tree is alive and kicking at the back of the garden,” Oliver replied.

“You’re mad.”

“I’m being adventurous.”

“I’ll chaperone you.”

“If you insist.”

“Better finish our tea first.”

“Don’t slurp.”

“I’m not the one who Daddy told off for dribbling his milk.”

The brothers emptied their mugs into the sink. Then they returned to the hallway. At the end, Oliver opened a door and beckoned Theodore outside.

They blinked in the sunlight. Planks of wood were piled like a crossword puzzle on the overgrown grass. An overgrown tree loomed over the back of the garden. A solitary plank peered down from the tree’s crown, half-buried between the branches.

“Time doesn’t pass so much after all,” Theodore said, shading his eyes. “I’m surprised that anything’s left of our old treehouse.”

“I thought it best to start the treehouse again from scratch.” Oliver walked over to the pile of planks. “I’m planning for longevity.”

“You didn’t say you were thinking of reconciliation with the ex,” Theodore replied.

“The time zone in Australia doesn’t work for peace offerings. I’m leaving the treehouse as a keepsake.”

“Don’t be so gloomy. There’s always the Internet to talk to her.”

“So I keep saying in my emails.”

“Perhaps she regards the divorce as final.”

“Maybe I should too.” Oliver picked up a plank. “I’m out of practice building treehouses.”

“I could stay to help to repay you for the tea.”

Oliver’s mouth puckered downwards. “I wouldn’t want to make a fuss. I’m sure you’ve got other business to attend to.”

“I insist on young brother grounds.”

“On older brother grounds, I will be forced to accept.”

The brothers rocked on their toes, inspecting the remnants of their old treehouse in the tree. Then they carried the planks down the garden, Oliver in his dressing gown and Theodore in his pinstripe suit.

“We must make a sight, the two of us walking together,” Theodore said.

“Nobody will notice.” Oliver glanced at the houses neighboring the garden. “I’m surrounded by strangers.”

“Nobody notices me either.”

The brothers reached the tree at the end of the garden. Oliver leant the planks against the tree.

Theodore looked up at the branches and ran his fingers through his grey hair. “Any ladders lurking about?” he asked.

“Dressing gowns have their uses.” Oliver untied the belt from his dressing gown and strung it up on the lowest branch of the tree. Gripping the belt in his hand, he tested his foot on the tree trunk with his dressing gown flapping open.

“You should wear boxer shorts, not Y-fronts. They get less wrinkly in the wash,” Theodore said, watching his brother.

“I prefer the comforting and familiar,” Oliver replied.

“I thought the same about my shoes.” Theodore nodded at his feet.

Olivier waved at his brother to hand him the plank. Theodore steered the plank towards him.

With a ripping sound, Oliver fell to the ground in a pile of branches and leaves. He held up his torn dressing gown belt to his brother. “I appear to have become clumsy since we were children,” he said.

“You were clumsy when we were children too.” Theodore offered Oliver his hand.

“You can only gain from failure by learning.” Oliver took his brother’s hand and stood up. He tiptoed over to the fence bordering the garden. “Our neighbors won’t mind if we borrow their ladder, seeing as I’m invisible to them,” he said. He reached over the fence and pulled a ladder over its top.

“Like being kids when we stole a bicycle,” Theodore said, holding onto the ladder.

The brothers returned to the tree, carrying the ladder between them. They propped the ladder against the tree.

Oliver put his foot on the first rung and looked up. “We need a saw too,” he said.

“And a power drill,” Theodore added.

“I haven’t got anything.” Oliver scratched his white hair. “I haven’t got anything at all.”

“Younger brothers have the answer, as usual.” Theodore took a smartphone from his suit pocket and tapped on its screen. “I’ve gone for broke. Power drill and saw coming via express courier,” he said, rocking on his feet.

“And what are we going to do until your delivery comes?” Oliver asked, mimicking his brother’s rocking.

Theodore patted his stomach over his pin-striped suit. “Slap-up meal? Reminisce over old times, seeing as I now can’t afford to eat for a week?”

“I’m not very good at reminiscing.” Oliver tried to do up his dressing gown by knotting the sleeves together. “Forgetting is an occupational hazard at my age.” He let the sleeves hang down by his side.

“Life is an occupational hazard.” Theodore pulled out his belt from the trousers and gave it to his older brother. “My suit belt is only for show. Being short of cash has an impact on my waistline.”

“Nonsense. You’re still as round as a balloon.” Oliver tied the belt around the dressing gown’s waist. “Will you complain about having egg, beans and chips for dinner?”

Theodore rubbed his hands together. “Hardly. This talk of forgetting is exaggerated. You’re fine at remembering our favorite childhood meal.”

“It’s all I’ve got in the fridge.”

The brothers went into the kitchen. Theodore opened the fridge door and took out two eggs and a bag of frozen chips.

Theodore started opening cupboard doors. “Nice to see the color scheme isn’t the only thing that hasn’t changed,” he said, taking a battered frying pan from a purple cupboard below the sink.

“Old things have their uses, perhaps,” Oliver replied. He bent down over the oven and lit the gas.

The gas flame turned blue with a whoosh.

“Mummy and Daddy had a knack of making the best from their circumstances,” Theodore said. He cracked the eggs into the frying pan. “I wish their ability could have rubbed off on me.”

“Life isn’t so bad for you.” Oliver sprinkled chips onto a baking tray. “You’ve got a career and a future to look forward to.”

“I’m glad you think so.” Theodore poked the eggs sizzling in the frying pan with a fork. “I was laid off last year and now I’m in forced retirement. Nobody wants to employ a man in their sixties.”

“Think of the freedom you have, not having to work every day.” Oliver opened a can of baked beans with a rusty can opener.

“More time for making resolutions.”

Theodore shuffled the frying pan. The eggs sizzled.

Oliver stirred the beans into a pan. “You could have come to me for advice when you were laid off,” he said. “I’m still your brother.”

Theodore took two green plates out from a cupboard next to the oven. “What advice would you have given me?”

“Whatever Daddy would have said when he fell on hard times.” Oliver paused. “But I can’t remember.”

“You worry too much about your memory. Forgetting happens to everyone who grows old.”

“Not to my younger brother.” Oliver stirred opened the oven door to inspect the chips, blasting them with a rush of hot air.

“That’s the first time you’ve admitted I have an advantage. Ironically, you’re incorrect,” Theodore said.

“I wouldn’t know if you were wrong.”

The brothers sat down to eat at the pink kitchen table.

Oliver raised a chip. “Here’s to the treehouse,” he toasted Theodore.

His brother stared into his baked beans without replying.

“Lost your appetite?” Oliver asked, spearing his egg with the chip.

“I was thinking about our meals as a family.” Theodore clenched his fork so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “Looking backwards is all I can do since I lost my job.”

“You’ve got a ladder to climb yet.” Oliver offered him a red bottle. “Have a squirt of ketchup to cheer you up.”

“Daddy would have said that too,” he said with a squirt of the ketchup on his plate.

“You’re humoring me to please me. But continue,” Oliver replied. “Nobody else flatters me.”

The doorbell rang.

Oliver rose from the table. “Your delivery must be early. Nobody else would be visiting,” he said. He left the kitchen to answer the doorbell and returned with a brown cardboard box.

“Like Christmas when we were younger, except that we were never great on presents.” Theodore unwrapped the box and took out an electric drill, a saw, a hammer and a bag of nails. “Best get to work.” He gestured at the empty green plates on the table. “I finished your dinner when you were answering the doorbell. You did say that I was too thin.”

“You were greedy when you were a child too.” Oliver smiled. “I remember something at last,” he said, tapping his head.

“Best get back to work before we get into another fight.”

“Are you referring to when we were children or today?” Oliver asked.

“Both.”

The brothers returned to the garden with the tools.

“I’ll saw. You bang,” Theodore said underneath the tree.

“Typical of a younger brother. Always expecting the older brother to do the hard work.”

Theodore hoisted up his pinstripe suit and sawed, grunting with each stroke of the saw on the wood.

Oliver watched him, dangling his hammer.

“Do you remember our old treehouse?” Oliver asked.

“More than I should.” Theodore looked up at the remaining plank of the old treehouse, hanging off a branch. “We spent the night together up there one summer. We must have been eleven, before you lost interest in boys’ adventures.”

“Why did that happen?”

You turned your attention to chasing girls instead.”

“I didn’t succeed.” Oliver tested the hammer on his thumb and winced.

“We pretended we were on a safari in Africa.”

“Africa? Did we travel there on holiday?” Oliver asked.

“Only in our dreams. Mummy and Daddy preferred Bognor Regis.” Theodore looked up at the sky. “We could see the stars.”

“I can only remember clouds.” Oliver hit his thumb with the hammer. “My memory’s failing me again,” he cried. His thumb turned red.

Theodore inspected his brother’s thumb. “Do you need a bandage?”

Oliver sucked the tip of his thumb. “Certainty would be better.”

“Let’s set the foundations. They’ll give us certainty. Otherwise we’ll sink.”

“I’m doing that anyway.”

“Nonsense. You’re not in a wheelchair yet.”

The brothers worked together to complete the treehouse, plank by plank. As they progressed into the evening, the sky darkened. They stopped and wiped the sweat from their foreheads.

“All done. Nearly, almost,” Oliver panted.

“Brotherly work is tiring,” Theodore replied.

“I’m knackered, as we used to say.”

“We should rest.”

“Mummy said that.”

“I wish she were here now.”

“So do I.”

“Don’t forget Daddy either.”

They sat in the newly completed treehouse, their feet dangling over the edge.

“In my capacity as younger brother, I suggest we sleep in the treehouse tonight,” Theodore said. “We should check for structural integrity in case it rains.”

“A sensible precaution,” Oliver nodded. “I’m already dressed for bed anyhow.”

Theodore unbuttoned his suit jacket and handed it to his brother. “You better keep yourself warm. I’m going to give you a tour.”

“Visitors don’t give tours,” Theodore said.

“This time they do.” Oliver nodded at the darkening sky. “I thought you might like to see the stars again.”

“Me? What about you?” Oliver placed his hand on his brother’s arm. “Have you decided to leave after all?”

“Not a chance. I’m looking at the stars already,” his brother replied.

 

 

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