The War of the Fences
A tale of suburban warfare.
It was held up by a symbiotic relationship with a grape vine and an ivy. In a certain sense, it was only half of itself. The other half devoted to the cultivation of the lives which would keep it standing in its later years. It had been there for the vast majority of my life. Like many things, I only noticed how nice it was when it was gone.
Gone is the beautiful grape vine, the pretty criss-cross shadows on the lawn in the late afternoon, the scenic ivy. In their place we have… a fence. Well, part of a fence. We have new neighbours, you see. They were new at least, but I’m deducting the time in lockdown since it precluded them from acting on their most tasteless instincts. They have a daughter and a dislike for cats. This means they can justify their entitlement under the cloak of their child’s welfare. I was certain that, underneath the usual suburban back-and-forth, they were lovely people. In the heat of battle I’m not so sure.
I live in the same house in which I grew up. But with only half of the people. I moved back in as an adult after my parents got divorced. So it’s me and my mother and we get on better than we ever did before. So that’s obviously not the problem.
The “builders” the neighbours hired to replace a fence that didn’t belong to them — without the permission of the people to which it did belong — are very obviously racist. They have no respect for my mother and I. There’s no man in the house and no one white. This appears to be offensive to them. They shout at us, pretend we’re not there when we’re speaking to them, kick holes in our property. That might not be the root of the problem, but it very much has served to exacerbate it. We had no say in selecting them, of course. We’ve had no say in any of this. That is the root of the problem.
The neighbours don’t care about the nature aspect of a garden. I think of all the friends I left behind in London and in Paris. Who have to go to a park to see a tree. The neighbours cut a beautiful and old one down for their hideous border. They put a birdhouse in the stump. It remains un-investigated.
There are, in theory, two fences now. They didn’t own the one they tore down. They wanted an edifice. Aspirations to privacy. Vertical planks of wood, slapdash and aesthetically unpleasing. On our side, the worse, they had their pet racists hammer some planks together, balanced on nothing. If infirmity stemming from age was their problem with the previous setup, I am perplexed by this. Where what remains of the vine is standing, no longer supported, they have put nothing. A statement, I am certain, to the injustice I’m sure they’re indulging in imagining.
My mother was very upset by the whole thing. She has the right to be. It’s a sensible reaction. I was forced into mediation as I, a lawyer by trade, often am. But whatever they promise seems to ensure the opposite will happen. There is no reasoning. I freely admit to my temper being misplaced as I prepare for yet another battle in this endless, endless war. Our beautiful fence lives only in recollection, not even memorialised in portrait, as it was unrecognised in life.
I am brought low by suburbia. It was, I suppose, inevitable.
