The Island of Missing Trees(95)

She stepped out into the corridor. A sliver of light was seeping from under her father’s door. He must be staying up late – again. In the past her parents would regularly burn the midnight oil together, hunched at each end of the table, their heads buried in their books, the ghost of Duke Ellington singing in the background.

She knocked on the door, pushed it open. She found her father by his computer, his forehead caught up in its glow, his eyes shut, his head cocked to one side, a cup of tea cooling on the table.

‘Dad?’

For a moment she feared he might be dead, that crawling terror of losing him, too, and only when she saw his chest rise and fall could she relax a little.

She shifted on her feet, setting the floorboard creaking.

‘Ada?’ Kostas jolted awake, rubbing his eyes. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’ Putting on his glasses, he smiled at her. ‘Sweetheart, why are you not sleeping? Is everything okay?’

‘Yeah, it’s just … you used to make me toasties, why don’t you any more?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Our fridge is full of your aunt’s endless leftovers and you missed my toasties?’

‘That’s different,’ said Ada. ‘Like we used to do.’

It was one of their guilty secrets. Despite Defne’s objections, the two of them would tuck into toasties in front of the TV late at night, knowing it wasn’t the healthiest thing to do but enjoying themselves anyway.

‘Actually, I fancy one myself,’ said Kostas.



The kitchen, bathed in the light of the moon, smelled vaguely of vinegar and baking soda. Ada grated cheese while Kostas buttered slices of bread and placed them on the pan.

The words tumbled out before Ada could stop them. ‘I’m fully aware that one day you might want to date someone … and I think I’ll be okay with that.’

He turned towards her, his gaze searching.

‘It’ll happen,’ Ada said. ‘I just need you to know I’ll be fine if you start dating again. I want you to be happy. Mum would have wanted you to be happy. When I go to uni, you’re going to be lonely otherwise.’

‘How about we make a deal?’ said Kostas. ‘I keep making you toasties and you stop worrying about me.’

When the food was ready, they sat opposite each other at the kitchen table, the night air condensing itself into droplets of water on the windowpane.

‘I loved your mother. She was the love of my life.’ His voice didn’t sound tired any more. There was a brightness to it, like a golden thread unspooling.

Ada stared down at her hands. ‘I never understood why she did that. If she’d cared about me … cared about you … she wouldn’t have.’

They had never talked openly about Defne’s death. It was a burning coal in the centre of their lives, impossible to touch.

‘Your mother loved you very much.’

‘Then why … She was drinking a lot, you know that. She took so many pills when you were away, even though she must have realized it could be dangerous. You said it wasn’t suicide. The coroner said it wasn’t suicide. But what was it, then?’

‘It wasn’t in her control, Aditsa.’

‘I’m sorry, I find that hard to believe. She chose this, didn’t she, though she knew what it would do to us? It was totally selfish. I can’t forgive her. You weren’t here, I was the only one at home with her. All day long she stayed in her room. I thought she must be sleeping or something. I tried not to make any noise. You remember how she could get sometimes … so closed off. The whole afternoon went by and still no sign of her. I knocked on the door – not a sound. I walked in and she wasn’t in her bed … she must have gone, I thought stupidly. Maybe she climbed through the window and left me … Then I saw her, lying on the carpet like a broken doll, clasping her knees tightly together.’ Ada blinked furiously. ‘She must have fallen off the bed.’

Kostas looked down, tracing the lines inside his palm with the edge of his thumb. When he lifted his eyes, they were full of pain, but also something akin to peace.

‘When I was a young botanist, an academic in Oxfordshire gave me a call. He was an erudite man, a professor in classical languages and literature, but he had no knowledge of trees and there was this Spanish chestnut in his garden that wasn’t doing well. He couldn’t understand what was wrong, so he asked me to help. I examined the branches, the leaves. I took samples of the bark, checked the quality of the soil. All the tests came back fine. But the more I observed, the more I was convinced that the professor was right. The tree was dying. I couldn’t understand why. In the end, I grabbed a shovel and I began to dig. That is when I learned a lesson I have never forgotten. You see, the tree’s roots were encircling the base of its trunk, choking off the flow of water and nutrients. Nobody had realized because it was invisible, below the soil surface …’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Ada.

‘It’s called girdling. There can be many reasons behind it. In this case, the chestnut was grown in a circular container before being planted out as a sapling. My point is, the tree was being strangled by its own roots. Because it was happening under the earth, it was undetectable. If the encircling roots are not found in time, they start putting pressure on the tree and it just becomes too much to bear.’