by Robbi Neal
The rose bush that Edie had planted in the Cottingham front yard was not nearly as large but it had the reddest roses you ever saw. They were the colour of heart’s blood.
She remembered Maud Blackmarsh, who claimed to be the rose expert, saying to her that Edie’s rose bush had the reddest roses because it was watered with tears and love. But no, that wasn’t Maud, she wouldn’t say something as lovely as that. No, it was the man who had visited her yesterday. Maybe he had said that. He said something else too, something about her rose bush growing into a tree because a bush wasn’t big enough to hold a mother’s love. Then her mind wandered again and she remembered other things Maud had said. When Beth had married Theo, Maud had said, ‘Oh that Beth is much more suitable for Theo than the Cottingham girl would ever be.’ When Beth went to Melbourne, Maud had leant on the fence and said, ‘I tell you, Lilly, Beth only married Theo in the first place to spite Edie, not because she loved him. It’s all very well for the rich to have staff,’ she said, ‘but they can never trust them. Staff are the bane of their lives. That’s why the Cottinghams never employed anyone after Beth. And that’s why Edie’s rose bush has the superior flower.’ But Lilly thought Maud talked a lot of rubbish about things she knew nothing about and one day soon she would tell her so.
Lilly was hot and she wished someone would bring her some water. The man who came yesterday had, he had gently held the cup against her dry cracked lips so she could sip at it. He had placed one hand behind her head, supporting her as she drank, and she had felt his strong hand holding her and she felt safe.
She really wanted some water now. The rose bush outside the window needed water too, its leaves were dry and cracking. Lilly’s rose tree never wanted for water. She knew it had grown so large because it was watered with a mother’s love, which covers a child to the ends of the earth, just like the man had said. And she hadn’t just watered her rose bush, she had fed it tea for nitrogen and phosphorus, and scones for sugar, and leftover lamb stew for protein. In fact she had fed that tree everything she would have fed Theo if he had been home. Maud Blackmarsh had laughed at her feeding the rose tree all those things, but she only laughed until the tree grew strong and tall and far greater than any rose bush should be. It was Theo’s rose tree.
As she thought of Theo tears filled the corners of her eyes. The man who had visited her yesterday had said he was Theo, but she knew he couldn’t be because her Theo had died at the war. She had the telegram and the cloth badge they gave to war widows and mothers. The man had held her hands gently like Theo used to do at the kitchen table. He’d said, ‘I’m back, Mum, and I’m so sorry I haven’t come sooner.’
She wanted him to be her Theo, so she had patted his hand and said, ‘It’s okay love — you’re here now.’
Then he had said, ‘I never gave you roses, Mum, but I know you loved me with a love that is too big to be contained in a single bloom. You loved me in every meal you cooked, every cake you baked, every shirt you ironed. I knew your love in every mouthful of Irish stew, in every bite of cinnamon cake, in every starched and ironed handkerchief.’
She forced her tired eyes open and looked and saw that it wasn’t yesterday the man visited her, it was today, now, and ghost or not he was indeed her Theo. Her tears fell and ran in streams through the creases of the pillows. He carefully lifted her up and held her and they stayed like that until the doctor came and interrupted them.
‘Don’t go,’ she said as he got up.
‘I won’t go far — I promise,’ he said.
Edie, Paul and Gracie were visiting later than they intended because Edie had been longer than normal getting back from her weekly drive with Virgil. Paul and Gracie were ready to go when she walked in the front door.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said. ‘I forgot the time,’ and she thought of how she had spent the afternoon wrapped in Virgil’s arms on the rug in front of the fireplace in his lounge room. She got the motor vehicle keys and drove them to the hospital in their lovely Morris Crowley. It was sky blue, like Virgil’s, and when it had just been polished you could see the stars in the night sky in its reflection and during the day it looked like it had been painted with clouds reflected from the sky. Paul sat in the front seat and held tight to the glove box in front of him. He didn’t like being in the car when she was driving. No matter how many times she told him that she’d never intentionally hit anything, he always sat braced for an accident and said, ‘There’s always a first time.’
They walked through the front doors of the hospital. Edie nodded to the nurse at the nurses’ station and headed down the corridor to Lilly’s room. Young Doctor Appleby stepped out of nowhere into the corridor, giving them all a bit of a start.
‘Can you follow me, please?’ he asked.
‘All of us?’ asked Edie, thinking he might want only Paul.
‘Yes, all of you would be best.’
He held a door wide and Edie followed Paul and Gracie into an empty consulting room. The room was stark, with just an empty wooden desk and two chairs. The only other furniture was the examination gurney covered in a white sheet. It’s an omen of what is to come, Edie thought, and hoped Paul was prepared. Doctors don’t take you into a quiet room for good news. They all waited politely while Paul used his umbrella to ease himself down into one of the chairs. When Paul was settled Edie looked at Young Doctor Appleby to let him know Paul was ready for him to begin. The doctor leant back against the gurney and it moved, making him lose his balance. He righted himself and folded his arms over his chest.
‘She’s not improving. We think her heart has been damaged too severely. It’s most likely time to say goodbye.’
‘Goodbye,’ repeated Paul.
There was silence. The doctor didn’t offer anything further and Paul got up out of the chair. His face was set. Edie could see he was making it clear he didn’t need to hear any more.
‘I’d be just as happy to see the real Doctor Appleby, you know. I’m sure he would be just as good as you, it’s only the mind not the body that matters,’ Paul said as he made his way out the door. Young Doctor Appleby looked at Edie for help and she shrugged. He was her father and everyone knew that when Paul Cottingham was set on something there was no use arguing. If he thought Young Doctor Appleby wasn’t a patch on his father, then what could she do? Every time they saw Young Doctor Appleby her father said this to him. But the real Doctor Appleby had been retired for a good ten years and only went into the practice to make sure his son hadn’t moved anything and get a cup of tea from the nurses. Gracie was smothering a smile and Edie looked at her severely. She better not break into a giggle. Gracie thought it was hilarious that the man was called Young Doctor Appleby given he was bald, fat and forty.
Paul was already several paces down the corridor when Edie and the others emerged from the room. Paul turned and walked back to them. He put his finger against Young Doctor Appleby’s chest and said, ‘You should know her heart has survived far worse than this.’
Edie thought he said it as if he was reprimanding a six-year-old. Young Doctor Appleby must have felt it because he blushed. Paul then turned to Gracie and said, ‘His father, the real Doctor Appleby, said you wouldn’t survive, you know,’ and she looked at Edie.
‘It’s true,’ said Edie. ‘He said you were too weak to survive. But you were stronger than he thought and you proved him wrong.’
‘You can’t trust them. They’re all quacks.’ Paul turned his back on Young Doctor Appleby and stalked off to Lilly’s room. Edie took Gracie’s hand and followed her father. Young Doctor Appleby had said Lilly had suffered a heart attack and there was nothing to be done, but Edie didn’t believe that for a moment and read everything she could find about healing the heart. She scoured the chemist for the latest treatments and she finally came across belladonna. She read that nothing regulated the heart like belladonna.
She had already been treating Lilly for a number of years with coca-wine, a wonderful mix of cocaine and wine with the alcohol cle
verly removed so as not to cause drunkenness. Without it, who knew, Lilly might have been in worse shape than she was. Goodness, she might not have even lasted this long. One dose a week she’d told Lilly, but she knew that when the pain in Lilly’s heart was too great Lilly sometimes snuck an extra dose or two. But how could she not when her heart was cracked in two and both halves were filled with pain? One half for Theo and the other for her husband. But now Lilly needed something stronger. Yes, she would get Lilly some belladonna tomorrow. Lilly looked lost among the clouds of white sheets and pillows on her bed and the brutal greys and whites of the walls around her. She was asleep and Edie thought that was probably best, to let her body rest. They wouldn’t wake her, they would let her be. Edie kissed her forehead, then she gazed out the window at the dying rose bush and perched on the low windowsill. Paul sat in the only chair, which he pulled up close to the bed, and took Lilly’s hand and gently stroked it. Gracie sat on the end of the bed. Edie took out her notebook and wrote:
Third August Twenty-Four
Plan — Buy belladonna extract and heal Lilly’s heart.
She tucked her notebook away in her pocket. Lilly opened her eyes and looked at Paul and Edie saw the quiet love pass between them. They had a calm knowledge of each other; they never tried to be anything other than who they were and loved each other for it. Edie felt a pang in her heart and the emptiness that had been in her as a young girl cracked open just a little further. She wasn’t a modern girl, she wasn’t being who she wanted to be with Virgil. She took out her notebook again and turned to an earlier page:
Seventh May Twenty-Two
Plan – Virgil Ainsworth: we are companions.
She had written that after the day at Mount Buninyong when he had made his proposal and she had accepted. But she had never made any other plans about Virgil. How could she make plans when he had made it clear that plans were the one thing he really didn’t want? He said he couldn’t live with another person and she had never spent a night with him. He said inside he would always be the lonely soldier and she was his only comfort. Edie told herself it was a good thing they were opposites and opposites are good in a relationship to balance each other out. Edie thought about all the plans she had made in her life. Sometimes a good plan took time but once made, once written in her book, it happened. Well, it had all happened except that very first plan — the plan to marry Theo.
Edie looked up from her notebook. Lilly was properly awake now and whispering something to Paul. He leant in close, putting his ear against her lips to hear her, then he sat back, obviously shocked.
‘What’s the matter?’ Edie moved over to sit next to Gracie.
‘Papa, what did she say?’
‘She said Theo came to see her,’ said Paul.
‘You don’t believe it?’ said Edie. She whispered, ‘It’s what her heart wants to be true.’
‘Of course I do,’ said Gracie. ‘I believe her. Lilly’s never once told a fib.’
Edie didn’t know why but she suddenly reached for Gracie’s hand and held it tight.
Forty-Four
The Stranger
Sunday, 10 August 1924, when Virgil sees a menace out of the corner of his eye.
Edie wet her finger and ran it along her eyebrows that she’d had plucked that week in the new fashion, thin and rounded, and wished she hadn’t because it had hurt so much when the woman at the salon had said it wouldn’t hurt at all. She ran her finger along the outline of her mouth and saw the fine lines appearing at the edges of her lips. Acknowledging that there was nothing she could do about her lines and she just had to live with them, she unleashed her hair from its clip and it fell around her face in a delicate halo and rested on her shoulders. She put on her favourite green cloche hat, even though it was starting to get worn, and pulled it down tight, forcing her hair into obedience. Her light silk coat was hand-painted with Japanese ibis and matched her silk skirt; both were light and completely wrong for a cold day in August but they were Virgil’s favourites on her. Then she waited for his knock.
When she opened the door he was wearing his blue vest, her favourite on him. He held it out from his body and said, ‘I’ll have to throw this old thing out one day, you know.’
‘But it matches the car,’ she said.
‘Yes, well, that’s going to have to be replaced one day too. They don’t last forever, you know.’
‘For goodness sake don’t tell Papa that.’
Virgil drove to the Arch of Victory at Edie’s request. He thought it was a dismal place. All those trees struggling in the Australian weather reminded him of the war and death. A spindly tree with a name plaque seemed poor consolation to the mothers who had lost their sons and daughters. He knew there must be a tree with his name plaque but he had no wish to see it. But Edie wanted to go, so he went. They got out and walked through the trees, winding in and out of them, reading out the soldiers’ names on the plaques. The trees were different heights and ages. Some of the trees were dying, the foreign species that couldn’t cope with Australian heat or the winter frosts, and they were being replaced with elms and poplars.
Edie stopped at one tree and suddenly he felt she’d gone far away. He looked at the soldier’s name. It wasn’t anyone either of them knew, as far as he could remember.
‘I’m glad it isn’t one of the dying ones,’ she said quietly.
‘Who is it?’ he asked.
‘Lilly’s son,’ she said and the words hung between them like a wall and he had no idea why.
‘You never mentioned Lilly had a son.’
‘No.’
Virgil could sense she was moving away from him and he had no idea how to bring her back. ‘What’s up?’ he said.
‘Nothing,’ she said, but he knew it wasn’t.
Virgil put his arm around her and tried to dance her up through the trees, taking her in his arms and twirling her. He would dance her out of her melancholy mood. But she wouldn’t join in and pulled away.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘my mind is with Lilly. She said some strange things in the hospital. I expect she was just a bit delusional.’
‘Would you like me to take you home?’ he asked.
She shaded her eyes against the winter sun to look up at him. ‘No,’ she said, ‘kiss me instead.’
‘I’ll do more than kiss you, Miss Cottingham.’
‘Oh, that wicked glint in your eyes makes me forget everything.’
He kissed her and left his lips glued to hers as they walked awkwardly back to the car and she giggled more than kissed. They only parted when they got to the car and he held the door open for her and she got in the passenger seat. He drove to Windermere Street. He kissed her again and kept kissing her all the way up the path and out of the corner of his eye he saw a man watching them from the corner of Urquhart Street, his features hidden by the shade his hat cast over his face. Virgil suddenly felt the need to keep Edie become more urgent. He fumbled with the lock and pushed the door open, rushing her inside and up against the wall. Without waiting till they got to the bedroom, he struggled with her clothing, desperately undressing her, doing it as quickly as he could before she vanished and he never had another chance. He made love to her up against the wall in the hallway, the pictures rattling on their hooks and the floorboards vibrating beneath them and at the end they both collapsed on the floor and laughed and he nearly had her back with him.
He took her hand and took her into the bathroom, lit the water heater and ran the warm water and then he got in and pulled her in on top of him. They lay like that as the water rose around them and when they were completely immersed Virgil made love to her again.
‘I’m glad I found you, I’m glad I have love in my life,’ she said, kissing him, but he still didn’t feel safe.
When the water turned cold they got out and got dressed and he drove her back to Webster Street. He knew as soon as he pulled into her driveway that the man sitting on her verandah was the same man he had seen in the street and he fel
t he had just lost something he hadn’t quite ever possessed.
Forty-Five
The Bovril
When Edie is in a quandry.
Her father was sitting next to him, a glass of water in his hand. Gracie sat on the other side of him.
Edie recognised Theo instantly and put her hand to her heart. She couldn’t feel it. Her heart had stopped beating; it had frozen.
‘It can’t be,’ she said.
She turned to Virgil. ‘I’m sorry but I have to go and I can’t invite you in. I’m sorry.’
Virgil looked at the man on the verandah and back at her and she saw his eyes fill with worry — or was it sorrow?
‘I have to go,’ she said urgently and got out of the car. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. She watched as Virgil backed out and drove away and when the last speck of the brilliant blue of his car had disappeared she turned and walked towards the verandah, forcing one foot in front of the other when she really just wanted to collapse.
‘Look Edie,’ her father called out. ‘Your Bovril saved him after all.’
Edie looked at her sister, her lovely face poking up above her scarf and under her wide-brimmed felt hat. Even though it was winter Gracie looked like spring. Gracie turned and smiled at Theo and he put his hand on his heart and thumped it on his chest in time to his heartbeat and Edie remembered him doing that when Gracie was little.
‘Where were you?’ she asked him.
‘I was saved, Edie, by your Bovril and an Englishman.’
‘Hah,’ said Gracie. ‘Those brave Englishmen. It’s always the brave Englishmen.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t even know his name,’ said Theo, speaking slowly and quietly, ‘but he did save me. I remember his voice, it was gentle like a song and I remember him pouring hot liquid down my throat and later they told me it was Bovril that some Australian woman was sending to the troops. The only thing was, I lost my dog tags at some point, and so when they were found lying on the beach they assumed the rest of me was dead and washed away in the sea. So they sent the telegram. But I woke up on a hospital ship bound for England and it took an awfully long time for me to become well. Then they sent me out to East Africa with the English soldiers, and army efficiency being what it is, no one bothered to list me as now being alive or to send a new telegram. When I told them I was dead they laughed and said, “Some days, mate, we all wish we were dead and with this war we may well get our wish.” I just couldn’t tell anyone back home I was still alive in case I didn’t make it out of Africa; I couldn’t make you and my mother go through it all again, so I thought I would wait and see if I survived, which I did, and I got a job working on a farm, which it turned out I was quite good at, and I kept meaning to write but I just couldn’t face what I had created here at home. I had to wait for the right time to sort it all out.’