Mystical Rose (12 page)

Harriet, dear, you must —

No, look!

Surprising complexity inside the box, black and silver nestled in blue velvet. Machinery or jewellery, it was hard to say.

It’s an oboe, Mother. The music teacher chose me to play it. Me!

Her first term at Royal Park Collegiate. My little girl was growing up fast. Not many friends yet, but she’d never been much of a mixer. No boys, of course. If only she had let me do something with her hair, but she was always busy, and she didn’t mind what she looked like. She worked so hard. So hard.

See Mother, you put it together like this. And you stick the reed in the end. See?

I nodded, not really paying attention.

And then you blow like this. I mean, like this.

Fingers clamped down, cheeks puffed out, she looked ridiculous. No sound came out. The end of the instrument quivered like a — like something. She took the reed out of her mouth to gasp for air.

Your father just called from Halifax, I said. He’s got a week’s leave. He’ll be home tomorrow.

Hurray! Then she gasped some more. Will he be home for dinner? she asked.

I think so, I said.

Can we have macaroni and cheese?

I think so.

Good.

Her cheeks puffed again.

Is Harriet’s father here? asked another tea-drinking professor, a younger man than the last one, in an older gown.

Harriet’s father — that is, my husband was killed. During the war, I said.

Funny way to put it: during the war, rather than in the war. Made Robbie seem like a conscientious objector or something. He was in the navy, I said.

The young man in the gown frowned sympathetically. How brave of you, he said.

Me? I choked on a sip of tea. Brave of me?

He took my hand. Alone, in wartime, he said. Just you and your daughter. Both of you wondering where your husband was. Wondering how he died.

Oh, we knew that, I said. We buried him out of the home.

Mother? Mother? Harriet running up. She ran smoothly, good wind — maybe from all that oboe playing. Not like me. I used to run with a curious knock-kneed grace, melting hearts and losing footraces. I can’t run at all now, of course, with my broadloom. Damn it, what is it called? It aches like a train going up and down your leg. Mother? called Harriet.

I open my eyes. Are you still here? I say. She doesn’t say anything. Or is this another visit? I say. I can’t remember her saying goodbye.

Are you all right, Mother? You were moaning.

The pain in my leg, I say.

What was that? she says. She can’t hear me.

The pain, I say.

Poor Mother.

Harriet has a scarf on her head. She didn’t have a scarf last time, did she? Maybe it’s another visit.

And your father, I say. I was remembering the time the staircase came down and we were stranded at the top. And your father rescued us with a ladder from the house next door with the two widow ladies.

She isn’t paying attention.

I try to swallow and can’t. My throat sucks together like the inside of a bag with no air. I fumble for a drink. Harriet holds it for me, and I sip. Actually, I don’t. I don’t seem to get anything at all. But I feel wet. I look down.

Oh, Mother, she says.

I’m wet down my front. Isn’t that drinking, when you do that with your mouth? Damn it all, you’d think a skill like drinking would be there whenever you wanted it.

Sorry, I say. She brings the drink back. Concentrate, concentrate. Got it. That’s not bad. A word drifts across my memory, like the clouds that used to drift past my apartment window. Orange.

Good for you, she says, taking my glass. Then she says something else.

I beg your pardon, I say.

She bends down. Don’t worry, she says. They’ll come for us soon.

She’s very close to me. I can smell orange on her breath too. The bells are loud, she says. Aren’t they?

You can hear them? I say.

Of course, she says. Can’t you?

That’s a relief, I say.

She sits up.

There aren’t always bells. This must be the same visit.

Will you be going soon? I ask.

What? Sorry, Mother, I can’t hear.

I repeat my question. I speak slowly and loudly, so she will understand.

A bran muffin, she says. And juice. You had some Jell-O.

I lie back against the propped pillows.

I was talking to Dr. Wilson today, said Robbie.

Oh yes?

Odd topic to bring up, I thought, and an odd time too. Ten o’clock at night, the two of us lying on my bed in the dark. Oh yes? I said.

I talked about us wanting to have a child. Another one, I mean. The doctor was very understanding. He talked about cycles — that is, uh, your cycles.

I didn’t say anything.

And then the doctor said a lot of couples have this problem, but we had one child, and we were just to keep trying. And I made a joke — you know, about …

His voice trailed off. I looked down towards the bottom of the bed. My bare knee was very white, almost ghostlike, against the dark-coloured cotton of my nightdress. I turned my head and peered down at my other knee. It looked ghostlike too, only the nightdress was hiked farther up on that side. Robbie’s face inches from mine. His body on mine, between my outspread knees. He peered down at me. Are you okay, Rose? Am I hurting you?

Oh no, I said.

When I was leaving the doctor’s I made a joke about … well, about this, what we’re doing, said Robbie, moving against me. The bed groaned, and my nightdress rode up a little more.

He stopped moving. His face inches from mine.

We’re doing it wrong, Rose, he said.

The automatic doors of Warden Grace Villa opened slowly. The lobby was bright, with lots of windows and a white floor with little coloured chips in the smooth stone. Everyone seemed to be in a wheelchair. I felt athletic, leaning on my walker.

The door swished shut behind me, leaving me in a pleasantly warm atmosphere, a nice change. Lots of places were making me cold. I smiled at the man nearest me. Staring at nothing through the thickest lenses I’ve ever seen. With lenses like that a normal person would be able to see Pluto, or angels dancing. An old man in a cardigan and slippers. Hello, there, I said, giving him my very best smile. He ignored me. Maybe I wasn’t far enough away.

Come on, Mother, said Harriet.

I’m coming, dear, I said.

My room — the first room I had — was painted green. The curtains were filmy. They fluttered in the draft from the heat vent. I watched them fluttering all night long, and in the morning Dr. Sylvester had forgotten my name.

Mrs. — he said, and then stopped, his fresh smiling face momentarily clouded by an unusual doubt. Well, I know how he felt. I’m like that all the time. How are you, he said, sincerely. He was really interested.

The nurse with him was the evil one — black hair and marks all over her face. She held a fresh yellow folder with me inside it.

She was crying, said the nurse. All through the night.

I’m so sorry, said the doctor, and he meant it. Didn’t he? The folder was in his hand now, and he looked at it for a moment and called me by name. Rose, he said, sitting beside me, taking my hand in his. Cold hands they were, I remember.

Where’s my daughter? I said.

You mustn’t cry, Rose. You’re here for a while, you might as well get used to it. Joan here wants you to be happy. She’s your friend.

I wondered what he meant by a while.

Will I go home, I asked, and then forgot the word for the day after this day. Will I go home … Wednesday?

The doctor stood up with a long flowing movement, and the curtains followed him, swirling. Behind them the sun was bright and there were those mare’s-tail clouds swishing across the sky. Oh, Robbie, I thought, as I always do when I see them. Take warning, my dear. Which didn’t make much sense in 1941, when he was a thousand miles away from me, and even less sense now that he was dead.

Who sleeps there? I asked, pointing across the room.

No one, just yet. Someone new will be coming in tomorrow, said Joan. Smiling at the doctor. Then at me. Just think, you’ll have a roommate, dear.

They think you’re blind.

Then whose slippers are those? I asked. Pointing at the floor under the other bed.

Joan picked them up hurriedly.

Would you like something to drink? asked Dr. Sylvester.

Then I heard the announcement.
Good morning. Today is Thursday, June the seventh
, a pause, and the voice continued,
1997. Exercise classes begin in ten minutes in the lounge
.

Mornings were the worst. Cold and tired from the night, with a day to get through before I could be cold and tired again. Daddy snoring in the other bedroom, Uncle Brian snoring on the daybed. I haven’t thought about that daybed in a long time. It was a nightbed too. My uncle lived with us for years and never had a proper place to sleep. I wonder where he put his clothes. And Mama and I tiptoeing around, careful not to wake the men, lighting the stove, shivering while the wood caught, coughing into our sleeves. I seemed always to have a dripping nose and soiled handkerchiefs. Usually I would get out of the house before Daddy woke up, groaning and retching and moving slowly through the kitchen, waiting for Mama to find him a bowl to throw up in. He never shivered; I don’t know if he even felt the cold. His feet would be bare, sometimes, the toenails thick and yellow and curling. Gert’s house was only a mile away. They had hot water. By the time the two of us left for school I would be feeling cleaner.

I don’t open my eyes. They’re open all the time. But I see Harriet now. Hello, I say.

Mother, how are you feeling?

Mornings are the worst, I say. She smiles that smile that says I’ve got it wrong again. I guess it isn’t morning. Not that I give a shit.

Where were you that night? I ask.

Which night, Mother?

When I first came to this land. I mean this place. Warden Grace Villa. I cried all night long. When I first came to this land — that’s a song, isn’t it. When I … damn.

There there, Mother.

I close my mouth. Didn’t realize I was talking out loud. So much of my life seems to take place inside my head these days. I must have really said the words then, instead of just thinking them. Sorry. Unshit. Undamn.

I was all alone, I say, in a strange place with a dead person. No wonder I was crying.

Mother?

The doctor was nice, but he didn’t come until the next morning. All night by myself, left like an old drunk at the luggage office.

There there, Mother.

I mean trunk, I say. Not drunk.

Yes, Mother dear.

You don’t know what I’m talking about do you?

Yes, Mother. That’s right.

Poor Harriet.

Hey, I want some roses, she said. I’d seen her around the neighbourhood.

What colour? I asked.

Red — what other colours are there?

Some people are so ignorant. This was a grown woman, just about my height, well dressed, long hair wound uncomfortably around her head, with a little hat perched on top.

I was just starting out in the business, so I started to explain. The difference between full red and deep red and burgundy, between buds and blooms and pink and yellow and Marechal niel and Montiflora. She listened hard. Her face was a good one for listening, didn’t move around much. Little pointed chin and hard eyes.

Which one would you pick as a gift for me? she said.

For you? A musk rose, I said, without hesitating. See? I showed her some. In the language of flowers, a musk rose signifies
capricious beauty
, I said. Her little closed face opened wide suddenly, and she laughed out loud. I found myself smiling. I’d been open a week and hadn’t had a lot of smiles.

Capricious beauty? I’ll take a dozen, she said. Hey, do you smoke?

She offered a pack. I shook my head. She lit one, stared around the store.

How long you been open? Not long, right?

I nodded. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

How many different kinds of rose you got?

I answered truthfully. Two kinds, I said.

Capricious Beauty and what else?

I’m the other — my name is Rose, I said.

She laughed and laughed. And stuck out her hand.

I’m Ruby. She blew smoke at me, laughing.

Robbie hardly drank at all. He’d shake his head when I offered him some more wine at dinner. I nearly fell off my park bench when he slid down beside me and said, Let’s go for a drink.

I have never known much about the places I’ve lived. I hardly knew Cobourg at all, even though I lived right outside it. The only part of Toronto I ever knew was the eastern Beaches, where our house was, and my store. And, much later, my apartment. I heard about other parts of the city: Rosedale, Sunnyside, Hogg’s Hollow. They weren’t too far away — a tram ride or two, an hour or two — but I never visited. They might as well have been movie places, Babylon or Shangri-La. I remember frowning into the darkness of the movie theatre, watching Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn
in Philadelphia. I’d been there too — in fact I’d worked in a house a lot like the one in the movie, only downtown instead of out in the country. But I didn’t know the city well. I lived there for two winters and I don’t think I ever went farther north than New Street, where the butcher Lady Margaret used — the one whose lamb wasn’t as good as Cobourg’s — had his shop. On my half-day off I walked to the Independence Hall bus depot, paid a nickel to ride the Number 4 tram to Harbor Park. I watched the boats, then rode the bus back. I didn’t expect to see anyone I knew, and I never did. Not until Robbie, anyway.