Experiencing some fruity karma in the suburbs
Chance for redemption better than childhood’s bittersweet lemonade
This is a story about lemons and feijoas. I just bought a house, my first home. About a month before I moved in, I stayed in O¯ hope for a short holiday and, on a walk, came across a bin full of feijoas outside a beachside home with a cardboard sign that read “FREE — take a few”.
That I did. They were delicious — the generosity and neighbourliness made them eversweeter.
My new house has the most wonderful lemon tree.
It’s abundant, with huge lemons. So huge, in fact, I thought the lemons might have a dull, watery flavour. Not so.
I almost don’t feel like I deserve the tree, karmicallyspeaking. When I was 8, I took the liberty of pillaging a lemon tree at the family home to make lemonade. Distraught it didn’t taste like the store-bought stuff, I took lemon after lemon until there were none left on the tree.
The tree never produced lemons again. I felt guilty every time I looked at it after that, all spindly and miserable and naked. The tree, I mean.
In a twist of the universe’s cogs, I’ve been offered a chance at lemony redemption. My lemons are premium lemons, almost worth the cost of the deposit alone. They are precious lemons, and I have a responsibility to them after my past shame.
But there are only so many lemons one man can consume, and I couldn’t have them go to waste.
So I thought I’d copy the O¯ hope gesture. Chuffed with myself, I arranged a box outside my home overflowing with my beautiful lemons, marked it with a sign — “FREE LEMONS!” — and sat it outside my property.
Later that day I heard some kids come along. “Ooh, free!” one said. I felt even more chuffed as I heard them take some. I looked down the street and saw one taking a bite — an unorthodox approach to lemons, sure, but I was pleased they were enjoying them.
On a walk a bit later, I saw the kid had taken one bite and then stamped on this lemon — once so full of sugary-sour potential — into the footpath. And so my heart, a little bit.
In a twist of the universe’s cogs, I’ve been offered a chance at lemony redemption.
Undeterred, I left the box out in case someone were to walk by and feel the same gratitude I felt about the feijoas. I left them out overnight, and went out in the morning.
When I came home, all remaining nine lemons were scattered all over the street. Some thrown up neighbours’ driveways. Several squashed on the road.
I felt devastated, na¨ıve and plain stupid. Not everyone lives in the same fruity Pollyanna world as me, and it hurt.
About a week later, I got a text message from one of my new neighbours.
“Felix — just to let you know, this week is just rubbish, not rubbish and recycling.”
So kind to let me know. I trudged the bin back up the driveway and text back: “Thank you so much. Would you like some lemons?” “Yes please,” came the reply. I passed them over the fence in a container.
A text message. “They’re lovely.” A few days later I get a text to meet me at the fence again. In my container, a warm piece of fruit cake, fresh out of the oven.
Challenge accepted, I think. That weekend, I concoct a decadent brownie.
“Meet me at the fence.”
I pass the brownie to my neighbour. A squeal of delight for the chocolatey treat. A few more days pass. The container is to be returned. In it this time is another freshly baked slice of cake, and — of all things — feijoas, in syrup.
■ Felix Desmarais is a journalist and mostly-former stand-up comedian who sold out very cheaply. He’s old before his time.