All night, Gerald listened to the wind raging outside. Even the bedroom curtains lifted a little. Darkness creaked around him as Norah snored, her deafness protecting her from the noise of the storm.

He could hear the Plane Tree’s boughs swishing back and forth as it’s leaves swept against the red tiles on the bungalow’s roof. ‘Get rid of it,’ Norah’s constant pleas came to Gerald during those wakeful, troubling hours.

‘No,’ he’d always resisted. ‘My father brought Augustine Henry’s seed back from France.’

He’d always marvelled that the Plane Tree, his father had planted weeks after the Second World War had come to an end, had survived both his parents and many others of their generation but continued to appear healthy and robust.

He recalled Norah’s reaction to the tree not long after they’d moved into the bungalow inherited after his father’s death. ‘That damn tree casts too much shade and those stiff hairs on its leaves makes my asthma worse.’

‘A member of The Resistance gave my father the seed,’ he’d argue back. ‘That tree is a symbol of victory and freedom.’ Then he’d usually add with a smile, ‘and your beloved finches enjoy its benefits.’

During summer months, Norah complained as she wheezed and coughed but, when winter came, the fate of Augustine Henry was forgotten but, on this stormy Autumn night, Gerald lay there thinking about the dark purple canker he’d spotted. It had got worse during a rather damp summer and he knew his beloved tree was dying.

Sadness engulfed him. Past childhood memories of a swing, picnics and playing beneath its shade, invaded Gerald’s mind after he made the decision to call a Tree Surgeon, the following morning.

No sooner than he’d reached that decision, the creaking outside suddenly stopped. Then Gerald heard another more worrying, whooshing sound before the trunk and branches of the Plane Tree came crashing down through the roof and into their bedroom.

Trapped beneath it’s weight, seeing a jagged gaping hole above his head, he closed his eyes against the pain and, opening them again, managed to turn his head towards his sleeping wife.

Norah’s eyes were open. ‘Norah,’ he gasped but those unblinking eyes kept staring at him as if in silent recrimination while torrential rain pounded down onto her lifeless face.