Mystical Rose Read online

  I’d like to let you go, Rosie, but we need the money.

  But it’s my money, I said.

  You want a big-game rifle, said Uncle Brian, pouring wine. That popgun of yours won’t do the trick. A moose’d just laugh at your old buckshot loads. Now John Habemayer over the other side of Burnham Road, he’s got a proper rifle. Used to hunt a lot — you’ve seen the heads on his wall, haven’t you? I wonder if he’d let us borrow it for a few days. There’s moose in the Ganaraska Woods.

  Daddy didn’t say anything.

  It’s my money in the sugar can, I said.

  Mama frowned. It won’t cost but a quarter, I said. There’s still more than a dollar left over from my flowers.

  I remember weeding, hunched over a row of newly planted greens, digging and pulling until my back ached. Every year the same, as far back as I could remember. As soon as I was old enough to stand, I was old enough to pull weeds. Hawkweed and chickweed mostly: quicksighted and assignation. And nettle: slander. I thought of them as tough stinkers and evil creepers.

  And then, shuffling forward like an old woman, my back bent, I came upon an unexpected — You know the flower I mean, the white wildflower, what’s it called, Angelica, no, dammit, I mean undammit. Why can’t I remember the name? Anyway, there it was in the middle of a row of peas, and I couldn’t bear to pull it up by the roots. So beautiful, with its white petal wings and golden face, smiling up at me, and there were a couple more nearby, crowding the shoots in the next row. I came back that evening, and carried the flowers to a bed I had dug along the border of the east field, far out of the way. The soil was thin, mostly gravel. I cleared a space for the daisies — I don’t know why I couldn’t think of the name before — and transplanted them. All that summer I collected wildflowers from among the wormeaten vegetables, and replanted them in my little garden.

  I wonder if after all that was the main attraction of it — it was mine. I’d have been twelve or thirteen, and there wasn’t much I could call my own. The miracle a few years back was a warm memory, flowers appearing like magic on our front steps, but they weren’t my flowers. Poor Mama had had half a mind to dig them up and take them back to Mr. Cuyler.

  But this was charity from the land itself, from You, I suppose, and Mama actually smiled when she saw the garden. Doesn’t that look nice, she said. She made a point of collecting samples for me, and by the end of the summer my flowers made a border all down the eastern fence — almost half a mile. I had enough of a patch to be noticed by the neighbours on that side of us, the ones related to the McAllisters.

  Mrs. McAllister mentioned to me and Mama in the summer, when our corn was being ground and we were in the parlour drinking tea and Daddy and Uncle Brian were up at the mill drinking whisky, that cut flowers were fetching a penny a bunch in town.

  Cut flowers. What if they don’t come back? I asked Mama. What if they die and don’t come back? She hugged me. They will, she said. So I dragged myself out to the east field in the morning, and stood at the edge of the garden as the wind came up and bowed the white heads, and the purple, and the pink and yellow. And I took the old scythe with a new cutting edge I’d put on it, and went to work killing my garden.

  I made nine dollars that first year, selling bunches of flowers from the back of Gert’s daddy’s cart. Her mama would have remarried by then, and Gert’s new daddy had a livery business in town, which, and he was a very generous man, is how come we could get our corn to the mill without Victor. Gert still sat next to me in school, and liked me even if the boys mostly ignored her. She did, didn’t she? I’d hate to be wrong about that. I liked her too. Nine dollars was two weeks’ wages at the furniture factory or tannery. I gave the money to Mama and went out to my garden and cried, because it was just part of the east field now, bare and brown, and winter was coming.

  Please let me go to the movies, I said to my mama, the year my daddy died.

  A full-grown moose can derail a train, said Uncle Brian. I remember being on a sleeper from Sudbury to someplace and all of a sudden in the middle of the night — Bam! — like the end of the world. Throws me right out of the bunk. I’m thinking we’re caught in a landslide, and then I see the porter shaking his fists out the window. Fucking moose, he says, means we’re stuck here until they can send another engine. Timiskaming, that’s where we were going. Only we’re not. And then a huge shape lumbers past the window. I see it against the snow — a moose. It’s walking, and the train is derailed.

  Daddy poured a drink for each of them.

  Don’t go to the movies, whispered Mama. Don’t leave me here alone, Rose.

  Robbie wasn’t there the first summer I worked for the Rolyokes, the summer when Admiral Byrd flew over the Pole, and Gert’s mom went crazy because Rudolph Valentino was found dead, and Houdini — the scariest thing I heard that summer — Houdini stayed underwater in a coffin for an hour and a half. I almost fainted when Mr. Davey read me the story from the newspaper. Robbie was off in Europe learning French, or shooting, or sailing.

  I didn’t even know there was a young Rolyoke. No one spoke of him. It wasn’t until we were sitting alone with the world beneath us that I realized who he was.

  I say, there! he called to me, a nicely dressed young man, squinting up. What are you doing? It’s too early for chestnuts, and besides, this is a private —

  His voice broke off. He stared harder. I should say we were about forty feet apart, vertically. I was halfway up a big chestnut tree with a coil of rope over my shoulder.

  You’re a girl, he declared in surprise. I suppose it was the workman’s trousers that hung on my skinny hips. They’d had to find a pair from the boy who polished boots and silver. Not that a lot of girls wear dresses to climb trees. Did I blush? I didn’t like to be mistaken for a boy.

  He wasn’t local, I could tell by his accent, and because I didn’t know him. I took him for a guest at the big log house. I edged out along my branch, keeping a good handhold, and reached up to tie one end of the rope to the middle of the rotten bough above me. The air around me was heavy with dust and mould. A squirrel, scolding from a nearby tree, sounded very loud. I wiped cobweb out of my eyes.

  Careful, he said. Oh, be careful.

  Now it would have been my turn to be surprised. Concern was not something I was used to hearing in the voices of guests. Not concern for me. Guests belonged to a different world. Rich, seasonal transient, foreign, they looked and talked and acted in a way that would have been impossible for me and my friends. Horse shows and polo matches and car rallies through the town. My friends would line King Street East to stare at the fashions and jewels on their way to the Arlington Hotel for the Saturday Grand Hop. Imagine a party with guests filling the whole lawn, and electric lights strung out along the hedges, and a dance band playing in the middle of the swimming pool filled with orchids! Mr. Davey told me about it; he’d driven the Rolyokes. A swimming pool filled with flowers and music — I still think it’s a beautiful idea.

  Oh, be careful! He watched closely, never moving from where he stood but never quite still. His hands fluttered about on their own. He jigged up and down, as if he had springs inside his clothes, while I looped the rope over a sturdy upper bough and threw the coil down to Adam, the head gardener.

  Excuse me, Mr. Robbie, he said.

  Oh, hello, Adam, said the young man.

  Ready, Rose? called Adam. I turned around carefully on my branch, reaching into the crotch of the tree where I’d left the saw.

  Rose? said the young man. Rose?

  Straddling my branch, I took a quick look down through the criss-cross of leaves before starting to saw.

  Rose? he said to Adam.

  Better stay out of the way, Mr. Robbie. That branch is going to come down.

  And that’s how you met? Wow! Talk about romance! Ruby exclaimed. You a servant girl and he a son of the manse. You had it all, Rosie, she said. Her face was flushed. Of course she’d had a bit to drink by then.

  Wait, there’s more, I
said. It gets better.

  I must have had a bit too. And yet it wouldn’t have been too late in the day, would it? We were upstairs, above Ruby’s hat shop. I could see the lake through her front window, which looked down Glen Manor Road. Late summer afternoon, Sunday, and quiet. You wouldn’t believe how quiet Toronto could be on summer Sundays in the forties. I wonder where Harriet was. Movies? Band practice?

  What’s a manse? I asked.

  Nothing like that ever happens to me, said Ruby. Her hair hung down like a curtain in front of her face.

  What about Montgomery? I said. I’d have met him by then.

  What about him? He’s a good-for-nothing, a salesman. A great guy to have around if you want to buy a knife, but not romantic.

  Yes he is, I said. He can be. Anybody can be romantic. Romance is about you, not about circumstances, I said.

  She tried to digest this, but it wouldn’t go down. Bullshit, she said. And upended her glass. Rum, I think. That went down. She usually drank rum. Her father had been in the merchant marine.

  I sawed through the big rotten bough, but it didn’t move. Adam shouted at me to hurry up. I pushed and pulled, but I couldn’t free the rotten branch from the surrounding network of leaves and interlocking smaller branches. I cursed the stickiness and the bugs, cursed the loyalty of little fingers clutching the healthy parent tree which was no longer attached to it. Finally I climbed up, wedged myself against the rippled trunk and kicked at the fresh-cut end of the rotten branch, a gleaming white oval. It wouldn’t budge.

  The branch is stuck! I called down to Adam.

  I felt a vibration against the trunk of the tree.

  What should I do? I can’t get it to move. Are you climbing up? I called. I felt the vibration again. The rotten branch slid downwards, and then stopped. I couldn’t reach to kick it now. Then I heard the young man calling my name.

  Midsummer day, 1927, and choking hot. It was very close up there, surrounded by leaves.

  Hello? Rose?

  The young man’s voice came from nearby.

  Where’s Adam? I asked.

  On the ground. I say, where are you?

  I climbed down a few feet and peered through the leafy curtain that hung between us. He looked excited.

  Why did you climb up, sir? I said. He was standing on the top rung of the big wooden ladder that I had climbed up an hour previously.

  Is your name Rose? he asked me.

  Yes, sir, I said. Then, louder, Adam, the branch is going to fall! I called. He waved his end of the rope from down below. He was a local man, middle-aged, consumptive, with a big moustache and belly, too thickabout, as he put it, to be climbing around like a monkey.

  Please be careful, sir, I said.

  My name’s Robbie, he told me, with a nervous smile, extending his hand. I held out my own hand. Stretching towards me he overbalanced. The ladder teetered, then came back upright. Instead of resting against the trunk of the tree, the top of the ladder lay against one of the horizontal branches. As we shook hands, the ladder began to slide along the branch.

  Adam shouted and lumbered forward, but he was too far away to reach the ladder in time. It was going to topple.

  And then, with a noise like tearing cotton jersey, the rotten branch slipped through the tangle of foliage. Adam had let go of his end of the rope, so that, instead of being lowered gently, the branch fell heavily to the ground, the rope streaming after it like a banner.

  Robbie gave no sign of being in danger. He smiled charmingly — an amazing full-mouthed smile — and kept hold of my hand. My indrawn breath stuck in my throat. I choked in admiration. Nice to meet you, Rose; I’m Robbie Rolyoke, he said. Using my hand to guide him, he leapt nimbly onto the branch as the ladder, twenty-five feet of solid hardwood, slid away from us and dropped with a twisting crack right on top of the fallen branch.

  Rolyoke? I said. I mean, Mr. Rolyoke, sir?

  My dad’s Mr. Rolyoke, he told me. I’m just Robbie.

  I watched the wreckage from above, peering down through the hole in my refuge, fascinated, distanced, safe.

  Harriet’s smile is not charming. There there, Mother, she says.

  Feeling better then now, dear? asks the woman on the other side of the bed. What do you call her. Suitcase?

  Hello, I say.

  Where were you, Mother?

  I look around the room. Four beds, including mine. My daughter. A … not suitcase. Nurse. What d’you mean, where was I? I say. I was here. Wasn’t I?

  I look at my hands. Sometimes I can tell where I’ve been from them.

  I’ve been here all along, I say.

  I wonder, says Harriet. You seemed a long way away.

  We’re back, though, aren’t we? says the … nurse.

  I smile up at her, a motherly woman with an accent from Scotland. I was never motherly enough. And I’ve never been to Scotland. I start to cry. I’m crying because I’ve never been to Scotland.

  Now, now, says the nurse. That’ll not help us, will it, dear?

  I try to tell them.

  I’m sorry, I say to Harriet.

  There there, she says.

  So, do you play cards? he asked me.

  No, I said.

  Do you ride?

  Not really, I said. We had a horse but he died.

  Any beaux?

  I looked away.

  Forgive me, he said. I didn’t mean to pry. I just … what do you do for fun, then, Rose?

  I stared at him, Robbie Rolyoke, Lady Margaret’s son, a nervous excited young man sitting next to me in midair. Our hands on the branch above were very close together.

  I don’t know, I said.

  He understood, I think. He nodded. His face was red. Sweat trickled down into his collar.

  It was sunny, the first time Harriet took me to the doctor’s office. The first time it was sunny. The next few times it was rainy. The first time the sun made my eyes hurt. She helped me up the steps. Why are we here? I asked. I’d been asking all morning. I’m not sick, I said. For the first time in months I wasn’t sick. I was all better. I’d had a bad cold, at least I think it was a cold, lots of coughing. No one thought to take me to the doctor when I was coughing. Not me, not Harriet. Not Robbie. Well, Robbie was dead. Mama was dead too. Doctors are busy people — no point in bothering them, she always said. But I was better now, finally, and now Harriet was taking me to the doctor.

  Why are we here? I asked again. This time we were in the feather duster — I mean the waiting room. Harriet made a face and told me to shush. I looked around the room and saw a roomful of long faces and trembly limbs.

  Harriet looked angry. Don’t do that, Mother, she told me. What was I doing, I wonder. My hands were clean, but she wiped them anyway. The sun was making me blink. I got up to close the curtains. Harriet was talking to another lady, whose mom was fidgeting and crying. Poor thing, sitting in the … I swallowed. Come back, Harriet called.

  I frowned back at her from the hallway. Wonder what I was doing there. Just getting a drink, I told her.

  She came to get me. Wiped my hands. They were a little dirty now. Don’t do that, she told me. The sno-cone called Harriet’s name.

  That’s what she looked like — white uniform, tapered down from the shoulders, cherry-coloured hair. Harriet Rolyoke? And Rose? The doctor will see you now.

  I stood up and walked all by myself. You look just like a sno-cone, I told her, beaming. She didn’t say anything. Probably used to that. I’m eighty-six years old, I told her. Proudly. And I don’t know why I’m here.

  The doctor couldn’t see me. Hello, I told him, waving, but he kept talking to Harriet. When did your mother start to forget things? he asked.

  Now that’s a stupid question, isn’t it? I’ve been forgetting things for years, ever since I can remember. And why ask Harriet? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t live with me. She comes over to turn off things I’ve left on and read me the news. I’m the one forgetting things. Why not ask me. Hello, doctor, I said.
He pointed his teeth at me but kept looking at Harriet. All those years I tried to get men interested in her, to no avail. It’s finally worked. The doctor is infatuated. A good-looking man too, soft curly hair and dark skin. Too bad Harriet’s over sixty. And bossy. And, please forgive a mother’s honesty, not really beautiful.

  Are you Jewish? I asked the doctor. He looked through me, nodded to Harriet. I guess he was saying yes.

  Harriet was embarrassed. Please be quiet, Mother. You asked that the last time you came here, she said.

  Oh, I said. Thinking, So this isn’t my first visit to Dr. Sylvester — there, I remembered the name at last. Does that sound Jewish? All I remember of the Old Testament is what we had to learn in Sunday School, and I don’t remember any Sylvester.

  It was sunny, that day. I’m sure.

  He gave me a test. Harriet left the room and I was all alone with the handsome doctor. Not a pinprick, pee-into-this, breathe-into-that kind of test; this was question and answer. I had to smile, the questions were so silly. In what way are an egg and a seed alike? He stared at me as he asked this, so concerned.

  Eat them both for breakfast, I told him.

  He wanted more. Why are dark-coloured clothes warmer than light-coloured clothes?

  Seriously, like this had an answer. Do I look like a fashion designer? I said to him.

  Or, What should you do if while in the movies you were the first to see smoke and fire?

  Depends, I said.

  On what?

  On whether it’s a tragedy or a comedy, I told him. If it’s a comedy, you can laugh. The doctor, now I’ve forgotten his name again, got a bit upset. This is serious, he said. If it’s a serious movie, I guess you can worry, I said.

  I was getting hungry but he didn’t offer me anything to eat. What he did was start saying numbers. 5, 9, 4, he said. I smiled politely. He waited. You’re supposed to repeat them, he said.

  Repeat what, I asked.