I was pressing the button at the crossing by the traffic lights, when someone made a little noise behind me — a nervous, excuse me sort of noise. A noise that sounded in need of a bit of help. I turned round and nearly barged him with my basket, he was so close.
"What's that?" he said, pointing beyond me. I looked in the direction of his hand, and saw the green man freshly lit up on the sign across the road.
"It's the green man," I said. "We can cross now."
He was small, and rather shabby, and he didn't look like he knew much about anything. He gazed at the green man with puzzled keenness.
"It means we can cross?" he said. "Why?"
"It makes the cars stop." I said. "We can go now. No, stop. It's started to flash. We won't have time."
"That's different," said the little man. He looked around him. "Where are the trees?"
"In the park across the road," I said. The cars revved up and started to pour over the crossing, car after car. He flinched.
"It's been a very long while," he said to himself. "So the green man stops them."
"Yes," I said, "just for a little while, so people can walk across."
"Stops cars so people can walk. And they pay attention," he said, slowly. "I can work with that, I think. The park's over there, you say?"
"Just down the road."
He leaned around me and pressed the button himself. The lights changed instantly, cars jerking to a halt in a squeal of brakes, and he smiled to himself as he strode out eagerly across the tarmac. His tatty mackintosh billowed around him, his olive cords caked with mud to the knee. You could have sown cress on them.
I scurried, but I couldn't keep up.
"Plant it," he called back to me, turning towards the park. I glanced down at my basket and an impossible thing had happened. One of the wicker strands at the rim was dark and pliant to the touch. At every node a small new bud was straining, the russet of willows in spring.
I think he's going to find a lot to do.
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