Mystical Rose (14 page)

The nearer one calls me dear, tells me not to worry. She looks like a beet, round dark face, sprigs of hair at the top of her head.

The nurses take hold of the screaming lady’s sheets, top and bottom, and make a hammock out of them. She stops screaming. They carry her away.

I call for Harriet. She’s nearby. Doesn’t reply.

The nurses return, move to the next bed as the doctor comes in. Not Dr. Sylvester, the other doctor. You know, he’s handsome when he’s worried, not unlike Dr. Kildare. A little darker, perhaps. What are you doing? he asks.

Transferring these patients, says the beet-headed nurse.

What’s your name again? I ask the doctor. He flashes me a quick smile.

I’m Sanjay, he says. Well I guess he must be. He’s got a million things to do. We’ve got to hurry, he says, if we’re going to find room for them all on the bus.

Harriet steps forward, frowning. Taps the doctor on the shoulder. Enough room where? she asks.

What are you doing here? The doctor stares at her, like it was the first time. Almost a romantic stare, despite the wedding ring. And I suppose she is a bit too old for him. Harriet isn’t used to romantic stares. I hope she knows what to do.

You should leave the building at once, he tells her. By the gate at the south end of the parking lot.

So this isn’t a drill, she says.

He shakes his head. There is a small problem, he says.

Then a monster comes into the room, and Harriet screams.

Bluestone, I said into the telephone. What’s this man Bluestone got to do with you?

Oh, Mother, if you only knew.

Well, tell me. I’m at Ruby’s. Come on over for dinner. You can tell us both all about it.

My daughter’s voice shook over the phone. She wasn’t still trying to be a lawyer, was she? No, they’d changed the rules by then. She was working for the court of last resort — the office that sounded like it was from Holland. Come on over, I said. Ruby’s making beans and back bacon. You always used to love that. We’re trying a new ice cream flavour for dessert.

Early fall, that would have been. A lovely time of year. Windows open and the breeze blowing, still hot from the tops of the cars it had bounced off before coming through the apartment windows. Ruby’s hat shop downstairs was shut. In the background I had the radio playing — I can’t remember what it was playing. One of those songs that everyone sang all summer long and then forgot about.

Oh, Mother, I’d like to but I’m going out.

Someone new? I asked, and then, Sorry, none of my business. You’re welcome to come by afterwards if you like. Both of you, I added.

Thanks, Mother. We probably won’t — it’ll be too late.

The radio switched songs.

The funeral service was well attended — several people from Maple Leaf, including an old man who made a point of telling me how much they’d all esteemed Robbie. That was his word. I thanked him. And Dr. Wilson, who sat at the back with the old ladies who live there — at least they’ve been there at every funeral I’ve ever gone to.
And Sam, in his sub-lieutenant’s uniform. He sat beside us, young and respectable and pressed for time. He was on his way to Halifax right after the service. Harriet held his hand, sobbing mechanically.

It would have been just four of us at the graveside, me and Harriet, the preacher and the man from the funeral home. Windy and damp, but not raining. I remember the smell of the freshly turned earth. I turned around to look at the lake and saw him at once. How long would he have been there, I wonder. He wore an old black suit that fluttered and flapped against his thin straight body like a flag against a pole. He moved slowly forward as we went through the ashes and the dust and the committing of the body. His head was bare; top hat in his hand.

He stood beside the gaping mouth of earth and I saw suddenly how old he was, how old he must always have been. He did not speak. A shock of white hair blew off his forehead. His skin was translucent. His gaze was hard and searching, a blue-white predator’s look. He peered through me, as if reading over the badly glued fragments of thought and feeling, the scrapbook of my mind, searching for — what? I don’t know; I never could tell what he was thinking about. But I felt comforted. He put out a hand towards Harriet, who was sobbing at my side. She wore a beret, and her hair ruffled up around it as if the pale hand were a gust of wind. She looked up for a moment, her eyes bright and shiny with grief, then turned back to the coffin.

Amen, said the preacher. Amen, said Harriet. I threw a handful of mud into the hole. Goodbye, Robbie, I said.

A hideous misshapen head, eyes the size of saucers, and a coil coming out of its mouth, the monster reminds me of something. A human fly? I can’t remember. It’s not frightening, though. It’s a
comforting feeling. The rest of the monster is dressed like a doctor, white coat over an expensive suit. Familiar hands, soft, expressive, chilly. Dr. Sylvester’s hands.

I smile up at him, but he beckons the other doctor out into the hall and starts talking about contingency plans. What does the institutional protocol say? he asks. What does it say about
triage?

Sounds like a kind of hobby craft, doesn’t it? With needles and sticks and special
triage
scissors.

All the downtown hospitals have protocols, says Dr. Sylvester behind his monster mask. To determine which patients get saved in the event of an emergency, and which patients are deemed to be …

I strain, but I can’t hear any more. Harriet, I say.

Don’t worry, she says. Her eyes are narrow and she seems suddenly much bigger than me. Usually I have to remind myself that she’s not still thirteen and scared; for weeks after the funeral she wouldn’t cross the street, and who can blame her? Don’t worry, Mother, she says. If I have to, I’ll carry you out myself.

I got the tea habit from Lady Margaret and Mr. Rolyoke. They had it every afternoon, together as often as not. I got used to the smell, and then of course there’d be cups of it in the kitchen for us, together with wedges of bread and butter and jam. I liked the berry jams we had in the summers in Cobourg. The berries were local, and the jams had a lovely taste, so rich it was almost bitter.

Would you like some more tea? I asked the embarrassed police officer. He hadn’t touched the cup I’d poured for him.

No, ma’am. Thank you.

You’re sure?

Yes, ma’am. Twisting his uniform cap into a pretzel shape.

Very well. Go on, I said, with commendable firmness, only I
spoiled it by knocking over the sugar bowl, and then staring at the mess, my hand shaking like a loose window frame in a high wind.

He didn’t see it, his eyes were on the floor.

And then, ma’am, the deceased — Lieutenant Rolyoke — your husband, ma’am — he found his coat was caught in the car door, and he couldn’t get it off very easily. But he succeeded, ma’am. We have the other officer’s — Lieutenant Howe’s — evidence, and then the coat itself was located a bit further down Queen Street — still attached to the car door, ma’am, he added, his voice low.

Yes, I said.

Lieutenant Howe said that after running most of a block and wrestling his coat off like a … a contortionist, your husband stepped safely away from the vehicle, which proceeded in a very erratic manner for a further fifty yards, finally climbing the curb and smashing into one of the large display windows of the Eaton’s department store. Your husband had stopped, perhaps to catch his breath, and he was run over by another vehicle going the other way. I’m sorry, ma’am. Please accept my … condolences on your tragic loss.

The poor officer wouldn’t look at me. He stood up, said again that he was sorry, put on his cap, and walked out the front door.

My husband died during the war, I told Ruby. I wonder what she would have thought if I’d showed her the plot in the Woodbine Cemetery, halfway up the hill, facing south. From his grave I had a view of the lake, mind you I was standing up. I wonder if he could see it? Robert Rolyoke, 1910–1944. Around the stone I planted black mulberry — I
shall not survive you
.

I didn’t know what to say when Ruby mentioned a cruise. Probably said nothing right away. I would have been too surprised. Then I said, No, pretty firmly.

I’ve never been on a cruise, I said. Not that I remember, that is. I came over from England when I was a baby, but I don’t think I’ve even been in a rowboat since then. And whenever I used to think about Robbie, in that huge ocean, all by himself in the …

I wouldn’t have broken down, he’d been dead long enough, but I must have looked a little distraught. Ruby put her hand on my arm. Hey, she said. She was always a great Hey-sayer.

Hey, Rose, come on.

What about Harriet? I said.

I’ve already talked to Harriet. She thinks it’s a great idea.

I don’t know.

It’ll be fun, she said. The Great Lakes in fall. Drifting through the Thousand Islands while the sun sets and the band plays — and you know these boats are always full of men.

Ruby!

Well, they are. You should be getting out more, Rose. You may be a widow with a daughter in university, but you’re still a beautiful woman. You shouldn’t be hanging around a dingy old flower shop all day long.

It’s not dingy, I said.

Or waiting for Geoff Zimmerman, the baker. You looking for a bun in the oven? Hey?

Ruby!

She chuckled.

Geoff is kind, I said. He used to let Harriet and her friends go over there to practise. Poor people love him. You remember how he helped them out during the Depression, I said.

Sure, he’s a saint, but he’s sixty years old, and hairy. He’d look much better on a medallion, don’t you think?

My shop is not dingy, I said. It’s bright, and full of colour. And I see men all day long.

Men who are buying flowers for someone else. On a cruise you meet men who want to buy flowers for you! Men who love a good time.

Ruby! Are you serious?

Jump out of the frame, girl. Grow up and have fun!

But … what about you? You’re engaged, I said. Aren’t you? What about Montgomery?

Whose picture I saw every time I went over, a very dashing near-likeness in a silver frame, young man in a flying jacket and moustache, smoking a cigarette. Movie-actor looks, except for a nose which quested strongly to the left. Very obvious in person, not so much in the picture, which was taken at an angle.

Ruby’s mouth closed into a thin red line. She looked away.

Monty and I aren’t … that is, we had a big argument last night.

I’m sorry, I said.

He yelled and I yelled and he stomped out of my place, and I broke a dish. Last thing he said was that he was going on a cruise. Without me. So I said that I’d go on a cruise without him, she said.

I’m sorry, I said.

For what? He’s a bum. Monty Belinski. Could you see me as Ruby Belinski?

I never knew his last name, I said.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, said Harriet.

We were eating lunch at a little restaurant on Bloor, around the corner from the museum. Harriet was letting the switchboard hold her calls and I was letting a hopeless young man look after my shop for a couple of hours. Hopeless in the business sense, not anything You’d be interested in. He was a long way from despair but he wouldn’t add on the sales tax no matter how often I told him. It’s only a few percent, I’d say, but it makes a difference. Yes, Ms. Rolyoke, he’d say, brushing the hair away from his face. His hair was longer than mine.

I owe Mr. Sherman some loyalty, said Harriet. I’ve worked there for a long time, and he did try to help me with my stupid law exams. But the firm downtown is offering a lot more money. And I’d have my own office. Law clerks don’t usually get their own office, she said.

Is Mr. Sherman’s wife still bothering you? I asked.

She made a face. Yes.

I chewed carefully. Tuna, it would have been. We were in an old-style diner that still served sandwiches with a side of slaw and a pickle. Harriet had a western sandwich, with ketchup. The sun
shining through the big dusty restaurant window made a corner of the ketchup bottle sparkle like a diamond.

She calls my apartment at least once a week, wanting to know if Mr. Sherman is there, said Harriet. I don’t know how she got my number. It’s unlisted. I’ll have to change it again, I guess. Last night she called, and Brian answered the phone. Mrs. Sherman told him to get out of the place now, and come home.

Who’s Brian? I asked.

Oh, he’s a friend.

That’s nice, I said.

Forgive me, I was interested. At Harriet’s age — what would she have been then, thirty-six? Not exactly a spring lamb. At her age I had a daughter in a wind band.

What do you think I should do, Mother?

I don’t know, I said. I’ve never met Brian. What does he do for a living?

Oh, Mother! I wasn’t talking about Brian. I’m not going to do anything about Brian. We’re just friends.

She never paid any attention to me. No point in my saying, Leave Sherman and his crazy wife and go downtown and have an office of your own. Harriet would have done what she wanted to anyway. What can any mother do about her child’s destiny? What did Your mother do? She worried, right? And suffered. And she cried over Your dead body. That’s what mothers do.