‘But without the leaves it’s not going to look particularly attractive though, is it?’ Aidan said. ‘It will just be a dead tree. No one is going to come and see that.’
Maybe he had a point. Although the famous shape would be preserved, without the life would it lose its appeal?
They were all silent for a moment while they thought.
‘Luke could carve the trunk of the tree with patterns or pictures,’ Flick said, looking at him hopefully and he smiled. He loved how hard she was fighting for this place and how she kept coming up with different ways to save it. Carving the tree was a great idea and quite honestly he would give her the world if it kept that smile on her face.
‘I can do that,’ Luke said, giving her hand a squeeze.
‘I can embroider or quilt some leaves that we can add to it,’ Ethel said.
‘I could mosaic some glass beads into any of the cracks,’ Katherine offered.
‘I could paint some rocks to go round the base or inlaid into the concrete,’ Rose said.
They all looked at Aidan to see what he would offer and he sighed. ‘I could make some flowers out of clay.’
‘All of that will be gorgeous additions to the tree,’ Flick said. ‘And will showcase the art from the studios brilliantly.’
‘And if we are doing a big reopening, maybe we need to launch with a new name too,’ Ethel said. ‘Maybe it could be called the Wonky Tree Studios instead.’
Flick smiled. ‘I like that. I’d have to check with Audrey of course, but maybe a new name would really help the relaunch.’
Luke was quite confident that it would be her passion and drive that would help the relaunch, but a new name couldn’t hurt and it might help the people of the town get behind it too.
Nick, the arborist, shook his head. ‘Sadly I think this is beyond even my capabilities.’ He ran his hand over the thinner, spindly parts of the roots. ‘Ninety percent of the roots are long dead and even the best care and supplements or plant food aren’t going to bring them back.’
‘But these leaves have grown so there’s still life in there,’ Flick said, clinging to hope with her fingernails.
‘A healthy tree this size would have thousands of leaves, or tens of thousands. But there’s probably nomore than a hundred leaves and they don’t look good. They’re dry, curling and turning brown long before autumn is here. Plus if there was the slightest chance the tree could be saved, which there isn’t, it would need to go back in the ground now and we would need a JCB or a crane to lift it back in and that would take a few days to organise, which would be too late. The best thing I can do is take cuttings and plant them now and hope for the best. Hopefully we might have wonky saplings this time next year.’
Flick smiled at the thought of baby wonky trees.
‘What about our plan to at least try and save the structure of the tree, raise it up somehow and set it in concrete? Would that work?’ Luke asked.
Nick shrugged. ‘It should be OK. That’s not my area of expertise. But I know wooden sculptures, chainsaw carvings, things like that, have been set in concrete to stop them falling over or from being stolen so it should be fine. With my health and safety cap on, you’ll need a lot more chains and supports to secure it. You don’t want any visitors up here to get squashed if the supports break like they did last night.’
‘No, I’m sure we can make it safer,’ Luke said.
‘Right, I’ll crack on and get those cuttings planted. Anywhere in particular you’d like them?’ Nick said.
Luke deferred to Flick.
‘Umm, along the driveway would be great,’ Flick said.
Nick nodded and started work.
Flick let out a sigh of disappointment. She felt sadthat the tree was dead and there was nothing they could do to save its life but it had clearly been dying for many years. But at least they could still preserve it as a landmark and with the artists’ help they could bring it back to life, at least visually.
They wandered over to Ethel who was tapping away at her tablet.
‘I’m just letting our followers know the latest update,’ Ethel said.
Flick was surprised that she had set up a Facebook group to save the tree and in a few hours it already had seventeen thousand members. She hadn’t known Ethel held such sway with the town. The tree obviously meant something to a lot of people.
‘Everyone loves our idea to resurrect the tree and then bring it back to life with our art,’ Ethel said. ‘I’ve set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for a JCB and driver or a crane. Hopefully a JCB would be enough to lift it. I’ve asked a company to come up here and quote for it and see if it’s something they could do. If not it will have to be a crane which will be somewhere between eight and ten thousand pounds. But if everyone in the group donates a pound, we’ll easily have enough money for that. We’ll also need a concrete lorry with enough concrete to fill that hole and support the tree so that will come out of the funds raised too.’
‘Wow, thanks for doing that, Ethel,’ Luke said.
