UNDER THE TREE

A short story by Stephanie Butland

- Stephanie Butland

Lucy watches Robbie lope towards her. He's 27-years-old and 6ft 3in, but he still has his schoolboy gait: shoulders tilted forward, stride long. His hair curls and his eyes shine. He grins when he sees her. Her heart both aches and swells.

"Hey mum," he says, and he rubs his knuckles against her head.

Lucy laughs and shakes her bob back into order. "Hey, kid," she says. "What's this about?"

"I want you to meet someone."

They set off along the pathway onto Wimbledon Common. It's been a few years since they made this trip, but the ground underfoot is as familiar as ever.

The landscape is all the shades of green it ever was.

And although the dogs, the children, the couples might be different, there's the same feeling of this being a place where it's good to breathe deep, shake off the working week, to be glad.

Lucy and Robbie stop when they come to the tree. He puts his arm around his mother. She leans against her son.

He says, "I'm writing an article. The importance of nature being accessible for kids like me. Parks, playgrounds, libraries."

"Kids like you?"

Robbie laughs. "Kids with the best mothers in the world," he says. Then, more seriously, "I wanted to make sure. It was your life, too. Is it OK? To write about... about struggling?"

"Of course it is, love."

They had lived in a bedsit in Balham when Robbie was at school, and on most Saturdays Lucy had bundled them on to the bus with a picnic and a football and they spent the afternoon here.

Their flat didn't have a garden, and the local park was fine, but watched over by houses and crowded with people.

She had wanted Robbie to grow up with a sense of the sky. They sit on the bench under the tree.

"Ah, here she is," Robbie says. He sounds nervous.

A young woman comes up to them. She's smiling; she looks both fierce and clever.