Gerry's Chair

Gerry's armchair was getting uncomfortable.

He had been sitting in it for the best part of thirty years, ever since he retired from being a beat cop, and for some reason today it was digging into his back in a way that it hadn't before. At least, he didn't think it had. He couldn't recall.

"Enid! Enid, fetch us another cushion, would you love? This ruddy chair's doing me back in today," he bellowed towards the sitting room door. His voice had roughened since his youth. It took some extra wallop to get it to reach where he needed it to these days.

"D'you want the long one with the daffodils on it, or the round one with the button in the middle?" came a shrill, quiet voice from the top of the stairs.

"The daffs, I think," shouted Gerry.

There was a shuffling and soon Enid tottered her lopsided way down the stairs and into the living room.

"Oh dear, it's getting 'arder and 'arder to get up and down 'em these days, Ger," she muttered.

"Ta, love," he said, shoving the cushion behind is back. It propped him forward and gave his overly familiar view of the sitting room a slightly different tilt.

"Enid! Enid there's a lump in the carpet right by me feet, come and sort it out would you, love?"

"Just give it a tug, straighten it out yerself, Ger," came Enid's voice from halfway up the upstairs.

"Blimey, 'ave to do the lot meself, these days," Gerry thought out loud.

Gerry leaned forward in his chair, which was rather difficult. His large, rotund pot belly kept him from being able to reach his toes. But, with a great effort and much huffing and puffing and panting, Gerry leaned all the way forwards and grasped the edge of the rug in between his thick, podgy fingertips. He gave it a little succession of tugs, as much as he could manage with so little grip and still leaning forward against the natural balance of his overly rotund midsection, but the rug did not flatten: the pea-sized mound remained, almost imperceptible to all but the eyes most familiar with its usual contours.

"I shall 'ave to get on me 'ands and knees to do it, then," Gerry thought out loud.

After much more huffing and puffing and panting and a crunch behind each of the old knee caps, he got down on all fours on the wooden floor next to the rug. The rug refused to be flattened.

"What the devil are you up to, you blighter? Go flat!" he exclaimed at the stubborn weave work.

"What's 'appening, Ger? You done the rug?" came Enid's voice from upstairs.

"I'm trying, the bugger won't flatten!" Gerry shouted between puffs.

"Maybe there's something under 'im?"

Gerry flipped the carpet back. Indeed, underneath the rug was a gnarled, twisting, angry-looking tree root sticking up, arrogant and inconvenient and unwanted. Gerry was riled.

"It's a bloody tree root! A tree root, Enid! In the middle of the bloody sitting room! A bloody tree's got inside the 'ouse!" Gerry bellowed towards the door.

"Are you sure?" came the voice from upstairs.

"D'you think I'm daft? I've seen a tree root before, Enid, and the bugger's sticking right out from between the floorboards!"

"Best pull 'im out then, Ger, before 'e 'as the whole 'ouse down around our ears! Oh dear, that's not good."

"I'll get the bugger," Gerry thought out loud.

Gerry pulled the root. It fractured the side of the floorboard but it pulled up and up and up, winding its way further under the rug, tenting it up and irritating Gerry. Eventually it protruded from the floorboards at the edge of the wall, then disappeared under it.

"Quick, Enid, get me tools!" Gerry bellowed, struggling back upright and using his chair as a crutch.

"Why, what's 'appened?"

"There's more of the bugger, a lot more!"

"Oh, dear. Alright then, where are they, Ger?" came the voice again.

"Under the kitchen sink, bring them quick, it's going under the wall!" he bellowed towards the door.

Toolbox in hand and knee pads donned, Gerry started to chisel a small hole at the base of the wall. The root disappeared upwards, into the wall itself. Triumph of discovery! Gerry pulled the root. The wall crumbled as it pulled free from under the plaster work, veering to the right and around the room; suddenly the root joined in a fork. There was another one!

"Ho ho, Enid, there are roots everywhere! We've got to get this bugger before it 'as the whole 'ouse down around our ears!"

"Oh dear, that's not good," Enid muttered, bumbling her way down the stairs and sitting in Gerry's chair. She spent a moment arranging the cushion on her lap.

Pulling a plug socket from the wall, Gerry saw the roots maze behind them.

"Look Enid, it goes on and on! I've got to get these buggers out," he said and continued to prise the roots free from the wall.

"'Ang on a sec, Ger, let me get the tarp."

Enid returned and spread a large plastic tarpaulin over the floor: quickly it filled with plaster that had come loose from the walls, and now the ceiling, and now the walls again, and shards of wood from between the floorboards where the roots dislodged and shredded them.

"Look at that, that's a biggun," marvelled Gerry, holding out a six foot long piece. "That would 'ave done untold damage, that would 'ave," and Enid nodded in approval.

"It won't crumble this 'ouse from under us, Ger," she assured him.

Two days later, each and every wall had been stripped of plaster. The ceilings were hollowed right up until the floorboards upstairs, who themselves had been pulled up in turn to expose the underside of the roof through the loft. The carpets were ripped up and rolled at the sides of the rooms. Water pipes bare. Electrics exposed. Appliances removed to outside. Wall cavities now port-holes. Even the lawn had been excavated until every inch of the root had been pulled up and laid bare in lines across the raw earth to answer for their crimes.

"So, what d'you think?" Gerry asked the tree surgeon. They were standing on the edge of what used to be the lawn and surveying the house from a distance. "We dug every root out of the place but we 'aven't found the tree responsible, the bugger. Avoided detection, 'e did! So, what d'you reckon?"

"I couldn't say, mate. Never seen anything like it," the tree surgeon said, scratching his head and looking dismayed. "Remind me, how did it start again?"

"Under the rug, it did," said Gerry. "It made a nasty lump. Nasty. I thought it would 'ave the whole 'ouse down one of these days, you know what kind of damage roots can do to a place, don't you lad?"

"Yeah... I suppose..." said the tree surgeon, surveying the house again.

"But we got 'im in the end, no roots left now," Gerry chuckled to himself. "Enid, put the kettle on, will you love? That's a job well done, that is," he said, and toddled back into the shell of his house.

The tree surgeon walked back to his van.

Strange folk, these days.