Upon a Time

by R. L. Stedman

  Part Two

  Death and Roses

  Chapter One

  Dear Diary

  From the diary of Miss Daphne Possett, curator:

  Dear Diary

  Yesterday the museum took possession of a traditional cloak made from – and I know this sounds disgusting, but really it isn’t – dog skin. Actually, this cloak is an astonishingly rare item, not only because of its age, but also because the breed of dog from which it was made is now extinct. So the museum is fortunate to have it. But this particular cloak is even more interesting, because it once saved a man.

  This is what happened. Many years ago, Waitahi, the daughter of a local chief, put this very cloak about the shoulders of one Arthur Brighton, a man her father was about to kill. In doing so, Waitahi not only saved Brighton’s life, she claimed him for her own. She rescued him, and she took him. Later she married her man, and they had a long and happy life together.

  “Happy ever after” – always the best ending.

  Of course, Waitahi’s cloak reminded me of the garment Pania gave me, all those years ago. Although there is a difference: Waitahi’s was a talisman of happiness, while Pania’s has always been one of sorrow.

  Waitahi and Arthur had hundreds of descendants, and yesterday many visited our small museum. They sang traditional songs and told traditional stories. I stayed for hours, just listening. It’s surprising how stories are the same, wherever they are told: our stories celebrate love and death and rebirth.

  After they left, I realized the moment had come. Pania said it would, although for the longest time I did not believe her. But she was right. It is better to celebrate the living than to mourn the lost.

  So here, diary, is my final task: to make an ending. Let’s hope it’s a happy one.

  A long time ago, Fatima told me that there could be no end unless there was first a beginning. For good or for ill, she said, the story must start.

  So here we are, diary, at the beginning. “Once upon a time …”

  Chapter Two

  Once Upon a Time

  Aroha unfolded the paper carefully. It seemed to be a letter, addressed to her. The handwriting was spidery and faint, the script of a sick man. Why had it been tucked at the back of her mother’s old writing desk? Beside it, wrapped in a white handkerchief, lay the rose Dad had given her, years ago. The scent of cinnamon and damask lingered in the air and caught in Aroha’s throat.

  “Dear Beauty,

  Oh my dear, if you are reading this than the worst has happened and I am already dead.”

  Aroha sniffed. No! She wasn’t going to cry. But it had been such a long time since she’d heard that nickname. Beauty. Only Dad called her that. The tradition had begun after a teacher told Aroha that her name was “unsuitable”.

  “What! She can’t be serious,” Dad had said.

  “She says I should be called Mary.” Aroha had felt like crying. “Or Jane. Something short and easy to pronounce.”

  “Mary! Jane! If you must have an English name, make it something that suits you. How about Beauty?”

  She pushed him away.

  “I’m quite serious. You are beautiful. Not everyone has realized it yet.” He touched her nose and smiled. “But one day they will.”

  After that, all his letters had been written to “Beauty”. Eventually she became used to it, although her friends thought it kind of weird.

  “It’s strange to sit here and know I’ll never see you reading these words,” whispered her father’s fragile handwriting. “I’m writing this to tell you (perhaps this is greedy, my dear) just how much I love you. I don’t think I have told you that enough, over the years. You and your mother were the delights of my life. And also this letter is to tell you a story. It will take some time to tell it, and I beg your forgiveness that it comes so late. But some things are perhaps better left unsaid, Beauty, and once you have read this you may understand why I kept silent all these years.”

  The grandfather clock, a wedding gift from Dad’s grandmother, (“To Charles and Pania, On the Occasion of Your Marriage”) struck four. School would be finishing soon. Best to be gone before Becky arrived. Aroha had learnt, through long experience, to avoid her stepmother when she was angry, and right now, Becky was definitely angry. Aroha folded the letter into neat squares, tucked the handkerchief-wrapped rose into a pocket and rummaged in her bag for the door key. She was locking the house as Becky’s car drove up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Picking up my things.” Aroha tried to keep her voice level.

  “The house is mine. Mine! You are trespassing.”

  It was a shock to realize that Becky was probably right. This old wooden building was no longer Aroha’s home. “I was checking my mother’s belongings. They pass to me.”

  “I know that. I was there when the will was read, wasn’t I? Next time you visit, make an appointment.”

  Aroha stepped off the porch and into the rain-soaked afternoon. “I won’t be visiting.” She was surprised to find this was true. “I’ll send removers to pick up my mother’s things. I’ll email you a list and a time.”

  “And if I’m not home?”

  “Then I’ll talk to the cops.” Aroha smiled pleasantly. “And charge you with theft.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  Aroha looked at Becky, at the tight gray bun and face so devoid of compassion. “I could have loved you,” she said slowly. “If you’d allowed me to.”

  Becky blinked.

  “Anyway. I’ll see you later.” Aroha walked toward the road, where her car was parked.

  “You and your damn father!” Becky called. “You two, always so close – you shut me out! What choice did I have? What choice, tell me? I was always the outsider.” She raised her voice. “But I won! I won! I got the house!”

  Aroha swung around. “You won? It wasn’t a competition.”

  “Everything’s a competition. There’s always a winner and a loser. And you, girl – you’re the loser.”

  Aroha’s world went red. Get away, Aroha. Walk away. So she continued down the drive, breathing in the damp autumn air. Behind she heard Becky sobbing, but Aroha wasn’t turning, no, she wasn’t looking back. Instead she pushed her hand into her pocket, touched the withered petals of the dead flower. The scent of roses was suddenly strong.

  That night, sitting up in bed – a camp bed, she hadn’t really settled in yet – Aroha opened her father’s letter. It was written in black ink. Dad had liked old-fashioned things, like fountain pens. The dead rose, still in its linen shroud, lay on the table beside the bed.

  “Do you remember how one morning, a long time ago, I was late getting home? You were so annoyed! Leah told me that you had slept all night on the window seat, waiting for me. I gave you a present, as I always did. A strange present, this time; a rose. Do you remember, Beauty? I couldn’t bear to throw it out, so instead I wrapped it up for you. Smell the rose, my dear, and you’ll remember.”

  Obediently, Aroha lifted the flower to her face. The scent from the dry black petals (they had once been blood-red) washed over her. Such a strong fragrance, after all these years! And, as her father predicted, she remembered.

  A time before Becky. Aroha is six. Leah lives with them, looks after Aroha when Daddy is away for work. He is away a lot. But today Daddy has returned home from wherever-he-has-been. New York, maybe, or Philadelphia. He wears a woolen overcoat and smells of cigarette smoke. He looks tired.

  “Aroha!” Daddy studies her mock-seriously. “And have you been good?”

  She nods, although this isn’t quite true, she isn’t always as good as she should be. Aunt Leah puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes as if to say it’s okay, Aroha, I won’t tell.

  “She has been very good, Charles,” says Aunt Leah.

  Aroha is grateful for these momentary kindnesses, because she doesn’t always deserve them. And then comes the presents! None of the other girls at school have things like these: a doll, a book full of bri
ght pictures, a video game.

  Leah shakes her head. “You’ll spoil her.”

  “Ah, Leah.” Dad touches Aroha’s hair. “Look at her! Just like her mother. How can I not?”

  Aroha sniffed the flower again and the rich scent washed over her. She remembered when he’d given it to her.

  She is eight and curled up on the window seat, looking out at the evening. Daddy is late. Rain patters on the glass and it’s growing dark outside. Aunt Leah places a rug around her shoulders and presses a mug of steaming chocolate into her hands. Aroha cups her hands around its warmth.

  “Don’t worry, Aroha. Likely his plane’s been delayed.”

  Aroha shakes her head. No, that couldn’t be; Daddy is never late. Besides, he would have phoned. Drafts whistle from the edges of the windows, stroke cold fingers across Aroha’s skin. Leah goes to pull the curtains.

  “Leave them open. Please? Just a little longer?”

  Leah looks at her and for a moment Aroha sees herself through the older woman’s eyes; a child curled up on a seat, draped in a blanket, dark hair, dark skin.

  Leah smiles and tousles Aroha’s hair. “Don’t worry, girl. He’ll come. He promised you, didn’t he? Me and mine, we don’t forget our promises.”

  Later, Aroha blinks awake. She must have fallen asleep on the window seat! Outside, the rain has stopped and the sun is rising. Steam lifts from the damp roadway. When she hears a thud outside she jumps. Daddy! But no, it’s just the paperboy.

  Aroha stares out the window at the water droplets, sparkling like jewels. She watches the light and so at first doesn’t notice Daddy; it’s as though he’s appeared from nowhere. He’s staring up at the house with such a strange look on his face that for a moment she’s scared. Where has he been? And his coat is torn – is that blood on his face?

  She throws off the blanket. “Dad!”

  Aroha runs down the stairs, nearly colliding with Leah, whose arms are full of breakfast tray. Aunt Leah drops the tray and it skids down the steps, orange juice falling and dripping like molten gold, toast scattering, the pot of jelly tumbling. Crash!

  “Girl! What are you doing?”

  But Aroha doesn’t stop; she jumps up and over the fallen breakfast things.

  “It’s Dad! He’s home!” She tugs the door open. “Dad!” On the doorstep she pauses. “Dad?”

  He stares at her with a stricken look in his eyes. What has she done, that he would look at her so?

  “Aroha.” He puts out a hand as if to stop her coming toward him, but it’s too late, because she’s launched herself over the step and into his arms. They close around her and she’s in those safe arms that will keep out all the monsters and all the horrible people that say nasty things about her. His coat looks as though he’s walked through a thorn bush and his face is cut, but he’s her own Daddy and the world is all right again. Aroha presses her head into his damaged coat, listening to his heart and feeling his breath tickle her hair. He smells of sweat and dirt and smoke.

  “We thought you weren’t coming home.”

  He laughs shakily. “Aroha. I will always come home to you.”

  Aunt comes to the door. Pauses. “Charles? What’s wrong? Your coat! What happened to your face?”

  “It’s nothing.” His voice is strange.

  “Daddy?”

  “Ah, my Beauty.” His speaks heartily, but there’s something different about him, although Aroha doesn’t know what it is. “Aroha, my heart. You want to see what I brought you?”

  “I don’t care about presents.” Suddenly she’s angry with him. “You said you’d be home by three. Where were you?”

  “She waited up for you all night, Charles,” says Leah.

  Dad’s voice sounds tired, so tired. “Aroha, please. I’m sorry”.

  “Let your father inside, child,” says Aunt Leah gently.

  His present to her on that trip was beautiful, but so unusual Aroha never showed it to anyone. A single rose, with petals so red they were almost black. She hid it in her closet where it filled her dresses with a deep, pervasive fragrance. Over the years it lay on the shelf, only its perfume reminding her it was there. Eventually she forgot about it. He must have found it and wrapped it in this handkerchief for her.

  Something happened to Daddy that night, but he never told her what it was, and she never found out why he was a day late returning home. He never told her where the rose came from, either, but after then he looked at her differently. And after the rose, Becky entered their lives and Leah disappeared. So in some strange way, Aroha felt the rose, her stepmother, and her aunt were related.

  Chapter Three

  The Letter

  Dad might have left the house to Becky, but the rose-breeding business was Aroha’s. Blooms of Beauty, established in 1946 by Bradley Charles Cuttriss. Exhausted by the war in the Pacific, Aroha’s great-grandfather had decided to deal only in beauty. And what, he reasoned, could be more beautiful than a rose?

  The rose-breeding business was still in existence (barely) today, with Aroha as its sole owner. Two glasshouses, a field of rose bushes, an office, and Jamie. And an awful lot of debt.

  Aroha needed to decide what to do with the business – her bank manager suggested selling; with the demand for land in Manterory she could cover all her commitments and then some. But Jamie thought otherwise, and Jamie had been with the business far longer than the bank had. Besides, selling involved a mountain of paperwork and her brain just wasn’t ready for that yet, not so soon after Dad … So, for now, Aroha would live in the office. Why pay rent when she owned a fifty-year-old building, just sitting empty at nights? Sure, it was hardly spacious, but it did have electricity and running water and because (in theory, anyway) she was the boss, no one could throw her out.

  Unfortunately, the accommodation was hardly comfortable. Aroha, nearly six feet tall, didn’t fit easily on a camp bed. And the office, with its piles of unregarded paper (Aroha and Jamie both hated bookwork), felt cramped. Still, at least it was familiar. And right now, familiar was what Aroha needed.

  Why had Dad left her the business? She would have preferred the house. Perhaps. Kind of. But for some reason he’d thought Aroha wanted the flower business. And she did love being outside, feeling the earth in her hands, smelling the fresh scent of roses in the early sunlight. It was only the debts she objected to.

  “Nothing wrong with this business that a little cash won’t fix,” Jamie said optimistically. “Just need to find the right breed. Then things will pick up, you’ll see.”

  But that was always the problem. A little cash. And new rose breeds were hard to find.

  Aroha flicked on the desk lamp (now doubling as her bedside light) and continued reading Dad’s letter. As she read, the words seemed to change, to gradually fall into her father’s familiar cadences (part Southern, part Californian, like he could never make up his mind where he lived), until it began to feel less like a letter and more as if the pages in front of her were part of a book, and that Dad was reading it to her. Almost as if she could hear his voice. Which was kind of nice, in a bittersweet way.

  The letter continued:

  “In those days my life felt like a blur of airports. I was still grieving for your mother, and it was easier to get away rather than stay at home, because no matter how hard I wished, she would never be coming through the door. So I traveled about from place to place, promoting the business and never really stopped to think about you, Beauty.

  I guess I knew you were in good hands, because Leah was looking after you. You’re probably too young to remember Leah – or maybe not, hard to know what kids take in – but the way she arrived, just out of the blue, like a good fairy had magicked her up for us, felt pretty much like a miracle. Most days I think about Leah. The way she vanished, overnight, almost as quickly as she’d arrived.

  Anyway, as I was saying, although I traveled about a lot, I knew I didn’t have to worry about you.

  The day of the rose (sounds like a book title, doe
sn’t it?), my flight had been held up by a storm or something, so we landed late. By the time I hit the highway (it was the 101, back then, before the freeway was built) the light was just about gone. Pretty soon it began to rain, and then to hail. At one point I had to stop the car and wait it out. Strange feeling, sitting there, listening to hail bang on your roof like the fist of Almighty God.

  I pulled out my map – this was well before the days of GPS – and saw that a side road cut right through the backcountry. Never seen it before, but if the map was right, it might cut near twenty miles off my drive home. I decided to try it out. I knew you’d be worried if I was late.

  I found the turning and left the 101. I must have driven for, oh I don’t know, nearly fifteen miles, up one hill and then another. By now it was real late and I was getting mighty tired. I stopped at the crest of the next hill. All the land about seemed dark and the only sound was the wind. When I got out of the car, that wind near took my breath away, it was that cold. That’s when I saw the light, half-hidden by trees at the bottom of the valley.

  So I hopped back in the car and drove down the hill toward the light. At the bottom of the valley was a narrow stone bridge (which wasn’t on the map) and I crossed it mighty carefully, because from what I could make out, that river was pretty high. Just on the right lay the entrance to what looked like an old estate. I remember seeing an old metal gate, half-fallen from its hinges, two stone pillars and a carriageway, leading into some woods. I turned into the carriageway, crossing my fingers as I did so, for it was mighty forbidding-looking. The moon was high, half-hidden by clouds, so I could see something of the forest.