The Rose Tree
A photo of a section of a tree trunk with a yellow rose protruding out of it.
This reportage goes out to all the lovers in the world, united and aspiring, one and all. Behold the beauty of the Rose Tree. The Rose Tree can be found in Coles Copse, near Effingham Forest, in the Surrey Hills. It has been a site of pilgrimage for the denizens of north Surrey since at least 1967. History buffs will be familiar with that year as the ‘Summer of Love’, wherein north Surrey residents undertook their own restrained and demur version of free love in solidarity with the citizens of San Francisco.
Rupert and Tarquin first discovered the power of the Rose Tree. Rupert was a soppy sort with short back and sides, and despite his boarding school background and emotionless parental environment, he had managed to cultivate a soft heart and romantic dream-life. Thus, when he met Tarquin, all wild haired and unique in his stripy blazer and monkey boots, Rupert fell into a deep and reverential swoon.
It was late June, and Rupert and Tarquin were walking the Surrey Hills, hand in hand, reciting the Greeks and other such things as one learns in boarding school. They were reliving the halcyon days of their various schools wherein boys would be boys at night and under the covers with flashlights and a macaroon.
Rupert had been gently twirling the stem of a white rose he had plucked from a garden. The rose had yet to bloom, and he saw in its tightly packed bud a metaphor for their love and Tarquin’s majestic butt cheeks. As they approached the tree, which henceforth would be known as the Rose Tree, Rupert giddily cantered over to it and placed the stem of the rose into a notch on the tree’s trunk.
‘Tree’, he said, ‘will The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 ever end, so that Tarquin and I may marry and live happily ever after?’
‘Oh you are a silly sort!’, said Tarquin, ‘don’t you remember that Uncle Arthur promised to sort that out this year? My love, ’tis a matter of weeks until we shall be free to openly romance on the streets of this fair isle.’
‘Oh super!’, said Rupert as the two spread out their picnic blanket beneath the tree and settled down for some cucumber sandwiches, champagne, and sausage rolls of more than one variety.
Eventually, as they were packing up to leave, Rupert noticed that the rose he had offered to the Tree had unfurled into a full and beautiful bloom and changed colour to a deep magenta. Gasping with delight, he plucked the metamorphosed rose from the Tree and handed it to his beloved, whilst surmising that the Tree’s sap must have interacted with chemistry of the rose to produce this profound and lovely change.
‘To Uncle Arthur!’, they said as they both sniffed the rose hoping it symbolised the societal change they desired. To Uncle Arthur indeed, as he and Godfather Leo got the Sexual Offences Act 1967 passed a month later.
Whilst, in fact, Rupert was right and it was the Tree’s sap which had such a transformative effect on the proffered rose, you should not understand this as accidental. The colour the Tree turned the rose, plus the exact shape and size of the bloom, were actually a highly accurate and calculated message from the Tree to Rupert and Tarquin. However, it wasn’t until Fiona and Lisbet’s offering in September of that year, that people began to figure out what those messages meant.
I am getting ahead of myself! When Rupert and Tarquin got back to town, they started telling friends and loved ones about how the tree sap changed their tight, white bud into a fragrant, open, magenta bloom. Friends told friends, and soon many lovers visited the Tree to see if they could also have a transformed rose, and many of them did.
It turns out that to make it work effectively, you 1) have to ask the Rose Tree a question about your beloved, intended or actual, and 2) the rose offered must be a white bud. Once the question has been asked, and the rose inserted, you may need to wait a while to get your answer. This is because the Tree sometimes has to travel quite far into the future to in order to see the ending of your love story. That said, just because the Tree responds quickly does not mean you should not pursue your love, for the small crimson rose obtained by Lisbet preceded the most perfect four months of love, before Fiona died tragically in a motorbike crash.
As you might have guessed, the size and colour the rose changes into is the message in respect of your beloved. The full, magenta bloom for Rupert and Tarquin signified their long and happy marriage. Lisbet’s smaller crimson rose signified the intense passion and short end to their love affair. In general, the larger the bloom, the longer the romance; the deeper the pink-red, the more intense the passion. If it remains white, then you should accept your fate as a nun, hermit, or monk, I’m afraid.
As you can see, my colour was yellow and my bloom hearty but not enormous. The size reflects that I didn’t come to know my true love until I was already mid-life. A yellow rose means ‘calm and non-eventful’, like one of those perfect sunny days where you sit around under a tree in a park, watching the leaves flutter in the breeze, listening to the birds, and being grateful for the dappled shade. On those days, you don’t get much done. You might read a page or two, write a line or three, but mainly you just sit about existing. And what an existence it is! What a day! What a life! What a love! On those days, you always go home feeling grateful. And I am all right; I am grateful every day of this ever loving life.
Listen to me read The Rose Tree: