Mystical Rose Read online

  Yes, miss, she did.

  The policeman was smiling too. He enjoyed answering my daughter’s questions. He liked her as much as the judge did.

  Harriet was on her feet. She always wandered around as she talked. Her hands were in the pockets of her skirt. Her hair was plaited, and hung below her shoulders. The braided brown strands swung back and forth as she walked.

  Tell me, officer, were you on time for your date?

  The policeman’s smile broadened. To tell the truth, miss, I was late.

  I guess you didn’t check your watch, officer. Hmm?

  With smiles and handshakes, on grounds that the evidence was inconclusive, the case was dismissed. The judge got down off his chair and held open the door at the back of the room for Harriet. Buy this young lady a treat, he ordered me. And get yourself a clock.

  You stride through time like Your living room, but it’s dark, and I’m scared. Sick people go in the middle watches, they say. Two, three o’clock in the morning — a busy time for You. It’s so dark. I’m glad I’m in my mama’s arms.

  2

  Christmas

  A cold bed in a cold house. Even in summer, even at the height of summer when the sweat ran off our bodies and into the ground, into our clothes, into the coarse sack sheets we put on the beds — even then it was a cold house. I shivered, getting out of my sweat-crusted bed. Shivered, on my way to give Victor a big hug. Climbing up on the side of his stall to put my arms around his great shaggy neck. Smell of a hot barn in summer, old hay and wood floor, mice and flies and hot horse.

  And I so cold.

  Daddy scared me, with his talk that didn’t make sense. Mama tried, I think, but she had no time for me. A wan sometimes-smile would live on the surface of her lips for a second or two, a troubled shadow when I wanted a bright blaze of love. Poor Mama. Poor Daddy. Poor me.

  And then David came. A sunny youth, a soldier from Daddy’s battalion. He was younger than Daddy, of course, a young man with crinkled dark hair and a dimple near the corner of his mouth. Hello, there, he said, rising from the middle of the row of rusty lettuces I was trying to care for. Hello. That was the first time I saw him. His uniform was tattered but somehow clean. I knew it was clean. He was such a clean young man. What is your name? he asked me. I told him, mentioning that my father had been in The War.

  We didn’t have to wonder which war, back then. There was only one war. Nowadays I hear people saying, Which war do you mean? As if it matters, which one.

  Nice to meet you, Rose, David told me. Dusting the knees of his ragged battledress trousers, tucking in the puttees that were always coming unwound.

  You are beautiful, I told him. He ducked his head shyly, no doubt used to being told. And let me lead him into the house.

  It made me warm, to think of him in the same place as me. Walking out in the fields with me, cleaning out Victor’s stall, weeding that damned — sorry, undamned — vegetable patch. Are there weeds in heaven? Flowers I think of, but a weed is only a flower with no admirers, a pretty girl perhaps, but unmoneyed, unknown, and so she sits at the edge of the dance floor, waiting to be asked. Shepherd’s parsley, cudweed, ox-eye daisies — I’d like to see them in heaven. But not the creepers and stinkers in our vegetable patch. How I hated them.

  David didn’t say much. I didn’t let him. But he was sunburnt and helpful, and he had a crooked smile. And while the rake and hoe fell with dull strokes on the hard earth, he told me about machine-gun nests and barbed wire and trench rats. He let me give him water from our well, in a sweating pitcher. He let me sponge his aching back, sitting in a kitchen dapple of sunshine. He let me take him with me, to school, to work, to bed. He was my warmth, David Lawrence Godwin.

  I borrowed his last name from the side of a van that clattered slowly through Precious Corners in the spring of that year, 1919 I guess it would have been, selling coffin wood that was to have been shipped off to France if The War hadn’t ended. Genuine Patriot Wood by Jack Godwin. I don’t think too many people bought the elm planks, even though they were cheaper than firewood. I stared at the van clattering by — an event, all right — and the next day in school when I thought about my hero, his name — David Lawrence, his friends in the platoon had always called him Dave, but he liked it that I called him David — became David Lawrence Godwin.

  The smudged white pages of my exercise book filled up with our doings. We went riding; David’s prowess in the saddle was astonishing. We went fishing; David caught a salmon longer than my arm. And then we went into town. He was admired by all the other women for his looks and his bravery, but he never let go of my arm, the one the salmon was longer than, because deep down he was very shy. And everyone said how lucky I was.

  I never thought about his family. At the back of my mind I knew that he had run away to be a soldier. His voice was soft and lilting.

  Sometimes I would look up from my plate of stewed pork and greens, into Daddy’s empty face, or Mama’s anxious one. And feel the cold of the house, as if we were all in the frozen desert huddled around a long-dead fire.

  I tried to love them. I tried and tried. But Daddy wouldn’t even look at me. His eyes were empty, unless he woke up in the middle of the night screaming, which he did from time to time. And Mama was worried all the time. Sometimes I thought she loved me. Sometimes I thought she would have loved me, but couldn’t.

  Was I like that? With Harriet, was I like that? I remember her crying in her crib. Running to her, picking her up, and being unable to soothe her. I remember saying, I must love her now. Right now, when I want her to shut up. I must love her.

  I tried so hard. Sometimes I think, Love shouldn’t be so hard. Love should be easy. But it’s not, is it? It’s hard. You know.

  I wonder if she found it difficult to love me. It must be difficult now. I have difficulty loving me now.

  What do You mean, shaking Your head. Why are You looking at me like that? You look like You’re about to slap my face the way those stooges do. Am I that stupid? Of course You’d be three stooges in one, wouldn’t you. I see the Holy Ghost as Curly. Whoo Whoo Whoo. Now You’re smiling.

  I couldn’t love my parents. I tried, like a dog on a chain, flinging myself against the limit of self. Over and over. And they wouldn’t let me come near them. Caring was too dangerous. They might lose — I don’t know what they might lose. I wonder why I tried so hard. I wouldn’t have been imitating anyone I knew.

  They didn’t hate me. That came later, from Parker and Lady Margaret. I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t even know how Lady Margaret felt until that morning in her sitting room. I was so surprised, I stood with my head down, like a silly schoolgirl being bawled out for misconstruing. Which I practically was. A schoolgirl, I mean. I wasn’t construing anything at all, so I don’t see how I could have been misconstruing.

  Parker broke the news with a smile peeking from under her arched eyebrows. Lady M. wanted to see me in the small library. I wonder why, I said. But Parky only waggled her eyebrows and said I’d soon see. And when I got there she was sitting behind the leather-topped table, staring at a glittering object. I stared too, wondering what it was.

  You recognize this then, Rose.

  What do you mean?

  This. Touching it with the end of her fingernail, as if it might stain.

  A cufflink. One of Mr. Robbie’s? I said.

  When did you see it last?

  I don’t know, I said.

  When?

  Don’t know.

  You lying ignorant strumpet, it was found in your bedroom. It was in your bedroom this morning. He was in your room last night, wasn’t he?

  My mouth open wide enough to swallow Jonah.

  Mr. Robbie? I asked. But how?

  Wasn’t he?

  Mother? The voice changes, still harsh and strident, but without a British accent.

  No, I say. Of course he wasn’t in my room.

  Mother! The voice is shocked. I open my eyes. Harriet, I say. How nice to see you.
You lying ignorant strumpet.

  Mother, you should rest now.

  As opposed to what, I wonder.

  The room is not pretty. The walls are the colour of yellow jasmine. What does that mean, now — sorrow or passion, isn’t it? And I can hear the sorrow. Outside of my little curtained world, on the other side of the movable cell wall, is distress. Ladies wailing for their demon lovers? No. Sad little ladies like me, crying while they wait.

  But who’s this? An elegant young thing, doesn’t look more than sixty-five, with just-cut hair and a just-bought suit, smiling professionally. I know her. I wonder who she is. She pulls my curtain shut and stands still, letting me get used to her. I hope she doesn’t have a booming voice.

  Hello, again, she says.

  Oh well.

  I’m fine, I say, as quickly as I can. She smiles at me.

  The lady across the room is moaning again. Something about her liver. Very nourishing stuff, liver. A bit rich, but good for the blood. No yellow jasmine for her. Barberry — sharpness of temper. And laurestine — I die if neglected. Silly bitch.

  The professional woman pulls a chair up and sits beside me. I know her from somewhere. She takes my hand in hers. Hers is dry and firm, the nails long and well tended. A faint shine to them, like just-dusted furniture. My nails are almost gone, tiny little half moons. Perfectly formed, mind you, smooth-edged blossoms on the end of spidery blue stems.

  Hello, there, I tell her. She pats my hand.

  Do I know you? I ask.

  She keeps patting. She nods her head. Oh dear. Tears trickle down her face.

  You’re not Ruby, are you? I ask. Or Gert? She shakes her head. Of course not. Gert’s exactly my age, our birthdays in the same month. The teacher used to pin flowers to the calendar to mark our birthdays. Primrose, usually, youth and sadness, very appropriate. I haven’t seen Gert in a long time. And Ruby, my friend from middle age, is dead. I remember now.

  Silly me.

  That’s what Gert used to call me — Silly Rose, she’d say. Dreaming again.

  Gert had her family and other friends besides me. She was busy and happy. Even when her sister died of influenza she was happy. Not right away, but soon. She had three more sisters, and a brother. She loved them so much. She didn’t spend any time dreaming about warmth. She had it at home.

  David Lawrence Godwin was necessary to me. I needed someone to love. So I poured all the love I had — a young girl’s love, rich and pure and silly — into him. Even now the picture of his puffed and bruised ankle is enough to draw tears from my eyes. He twisted it, falling off his spirited charger, Destiny.

  I don’t know where Destiny was supposed to come from. He wasn’t there all the time, only when David and I went riding together. I rode Victor, our only horse, neither spirited nor a charger.

  David let me take off his boots — you know I don’t think he ever changed clothes — and he leaned on me. We walked home slowly together. I have no idea what happened to the horses. I suppose they wandered off. I forgot about them until next time.

  I never showed my notebook to anyone.

  The pleasant loud-voiced professional woman is still sitting beside my bed, still holding my hand. A patient lady. Are you a nurse? I ask her.

  She shakes her head. I try to smile.

  Oh, Mother, she says, and turns away.

  I knew I’d seen her before.

  Miss Parker, round and red-faced, hard-skinned as a nutshell, with a shrivelled rotten soul rattling around inside that starched shirt-front of hers. Miss Parker, who smirked at Lady Margaret and stormed at the rest of us. Parky, we called her, meaning cold, and she was. Even Mr. Davey treated her carefully. Now, Miss Parker, he would say. Try to give Miss Rose a chance.

  This after I’d walked into the kitchen with a fork in my mouth. I’d been clearing the great dining room and the stack of dessert plates was slipping and both hands were busy, so I bent instinctively forward — like a dog, Parky said. Actually, she didn’t say dog.

  I started at Rittenhouse Square as kitchen help, meaning washing up. When there was a specially big party I got to carry into the dining room. Mr. Rolyoke liked me in the dining room. He said I added a splash of grace and beauty. He smiled when I offered him vegetables. Once I didn’t take him boiled beets and he called me down the table. I almost burst with confusion.

  You didn’t offer the dish to me, Rose, he said.

  That’s because I know you don’t like them, sir, I said. I didn’t want to embarrass you.

  He laughed. It’s nice to be able to say no to a pretty girl like you, he told me. The guest on his left, another old man, laughed too.

  Lady Margaret didn’t seem to hear, but when I offered her some pudding later on she waved it away. Are you not aware, Rose, that I dislike lemon pudding? she asked.

  I had to shake my head. No, ma’am, I said, and then blushed again because I knew she liked us to call her milady. Parker always did. I mean no, milady, I murmured, head down, sweat dripping off my nose. Winter outside but warm in the kitchen, with all the ovens going, and I was working hard. Lady Margaret liked the heat on. The radiators used to pop all the time.

  I’d been taught to clear properly, right hand into left, but I must have been thinking of something else because the whole stack of dessert plates — mostly empty, Parky made a lovely lemon pudding, one of the few things she understood — slid to one side and I barely caught it in time. Still a dozen steps to the kitchen door. I walked carefully, but a fork was slipping from the top of the stack so I bent down and grabbed it in my teeth, showing up in the kitchen looking like a retriever bitch, as Parky put it.

  Mr. Davey was drinking cocoa at the kitchen table, waiting in case one of the guests had trouble with their cars. Not everyone knew how to drive back then. Give Miss Rose a chance, he said, trying to sound calm.

  How many more chances does the clumsy cow need? That’s not me talking, that was Parky, never circuitous, she always called a spade that bloody thing, as in Get that bloody thing out of my kitchen. She also called me that bloody thing. Go upstairs now, she told me in a throaty whisper so they wouldn’t hear in the dining room. You great galoot. You hulking farm girl. I’ll pour the coffee myself. Go up to the bedroom — that’s where you belong, you — well, You know what she said. With such a glittering leer in her face, a hurt angry jealous passion I couldn’t begin to understand.

  What did she mean by it? I wasn’t that kind of girl. I never was. I knew about sex of course, you can’t live a spring in the country and not know what goes on. I remember watching with Gert — not more than seven or eight years old, and we knew what men — I mean horses — were like. In fact, I remember being relieved when I saw Robbie for the first time, not quite a stallion thank heavens. Not a fair comparison, I know.

  Poor Robbie.

  I don’t know why Parky called me a hussy, which she did, or a slat. I’m not. I wasn’t. She had less shame than I did, often had her door partway open while she was unbuttoning herself, or in the bathroom. Her bedroom was beside mine. She used to come in without knocking all the time. I wonder what she suspected. Do You think it could have been because she —

  Harriet, I say.

  Where did my daughter come from? She sits straight in her chair, and her face lights up. Isn’t it nice when someone’s face lights up at you — I can see the little girl she was in her eyes.

  Mother.

  How have you been, Harriet?

  Since when? she asks. Her usual concerned look is back. She’s an old woman again.

  I don’t say anything. How am I supposed to know? Since I went away, I guess. Whenever that was.

  I stare at her hands, clasped together in her lap. Old woman’s hands, spotted and lined. No rings. A little gloss on the short nails, no polish.

  The nurse, I tell my daughter, staring at her hands.

  Do you want the nurse?

  I shake my head. I don’t know how to put it. I don’t know how to ask for what I want. The nurse knew
. The nurse knew what I wanted. I want to tell my daughter but I can’t. Dammit.

  She held my hand, I say.

  My daughter leans over and takes my shrivelled old hand in her shrivelled old hand. She squeezes my hand gently, and strokes it. Her hands are bigger than mine, but they move lightly and delicately. It feels really nice. Thank you, I say.

  She’s not looking at me. She has her head up. There’s noise of bells outside the room. A voice says something over the loudspeaker. More noise. Shouts and running up and down. What does it mean? I start to panic. What’s wrong? I ask.

  Harriet is so calm. How can she be so calm? There there, Mother, she says. She keeps stroking my hand. It’s a fire drill, Mother. Don’t worry.

  Bells.

  It’s just a test, Mother. There’s no danger, she says. How can she say that?

  The smell of smoke hanging in the air over the harbour. The twisted blackened hull lying on its side with the water lapping against it. Crowds of people staring, crying. Ruby clutching my arm. She’d have known by then about Montgomery. First time I remember her crying. Not the last. Harriet away at university with her trunk full of clothes. Me, all in a guilty glow. Did they ever find Montgomery’s body?

  I’ve always been drawn to water; I stare into it the way other people stare into fire. I like to lose myself in the rise and fall of the warm bosom of the world. We all come from water, don’t we. Ruby said once it was because I was born under Cancer, a water sign. My preoccupation with water was part of my future. I was going to die in the water, she said. It was a prevision of my own death. Ruby was full of weird shit like that — sorry, unshit. Sorry, Ruby. You know Ruby, don’t You? Course You do.

  Ruby was an air sign. I think that was it. She told me, smiling, that she was going to go out flying through the air. We laughed over that idea, Ruby flapping imaginary wings and crowing like a bird. That was before the fire, before she fell apart. Before I deserted her.

  Her ladyship wants to see you — right now.

  How to convey the venom in those words? She just spat them out at me. I was always at a loss in the face of genuine emotion. I stared at her. Yes, Miss Parker, I said, putting down my dustcloth.