Things a Map Won't Show You

by Pam Macintyre

  He seemed to have trouble talking. It was as if he was being strangled by invisible hands but finally he managed to gasp out the word ‘flowers’.

  I grabbed his arm firmly and led him in to the shop counter. ‘Here,’ I said, giving a wink to Jenny. ‘This gentleman wants flowers.’

  Jenny turned on her fatal smile and said in her sweetest voice, ‘What sort of flowers, sir?’

  I grinned to myself. She always called the shy ones ‘sir’. It made them feel better when they were embarrassed about buying flowers. The poor kid went even redder and looked around wildly. He obviously didn’t know a kangaroo paw from a carnation. ‘Roses,’ he blurted out, pointing to our most expensive line.

  I should tell you here what I found out later, at the funeral. This poor boy had twenty-six dollars in his pocket. Twenty of it was the change from his grandmother’s pension cheque and six of it was his own. His grandmother needed this money badly to buy her week’s groceries. Jenny looked at the roses. ‘A good choice,’ she said. ‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they? How many would you like?’

  Once again he struggled for words. ‘How much, er, well, I, you see.’ Boy, he was the shyest person I had ever seen. He just couldn’t seem to get anything out. Finally the words ‘one dozen’ managed to escape from his frozen mouth.

  Jenny started to wrap up the roses. She always goes to a lot of trouble to make them look good. She wraps the stems up in pretty paper and then she gets a long length of ribbon and ties a bow. Next she runs one of her long slender fingernails along the ends of the ribbon and they curl up like magic. I have tried to do this myself many times but it never works. Probably because I bite my fingernails.

  ‘Are they for your girlfriend?’ asked Jenny. She is a bit on the nosy side, is Jenny. The red-faced boy shook his head and looked at his shoes.

  ‘They are for a girl though, aren’t they?’

  He nodded unhappily.

  ‘Is this the first time you have given flowers to a girl?’ she asked gently.

  He nodded again and made a gurgling noise in his throat.

  ‘What shall I write on the card?’ I could see that Jenny felt sorry for this kid. She was trying to help him all she could. The poor thing couldn’t seem to talk at all. ‘What about your name?’ she suggested. ‘You will have to put who they are from.’

  ‘Gerald,’ he aswered at last. ‘My … my name’s Gerald.’

  Jenny smiled. ‘And who are they for?’ she asked kindly.

  He didn’t know which leg to stand on. He was really embarrassed. He looked at me as if he wished I wasn’t there.

  ‘Go away,’ said Jenny. ‘You are embarrassing a customer.’

  She was the boss so I went up to the back of the shop and started stacking up some heavy concrete pots.

  Jenny wrote something on the card and tied it on to the ribbon. I snuck along behind a row of daffodils so that I could hear what happened. I really hoped that things would work out well for this shy boy.

  Jenny put the finishing touches to the bunch and passed over the flowers. ‘Now,’ she went on. ‘They are two dollars each. That will be twenty-four dollars.’

  Forget about Gerald being red in the face before. That was nothing compared to what happened next. He went as red as the dozen bloomin’ roses he had just bought. This great wave of redness swept down from his ears, down his neck, and for all I know, right down to his toes.

  Jenny and I didn’t know what was the matter. It was only later I found out that he thought flowers were about two dollars a bunch at the most. He had got Jenny to wrap up the flowers and now he couldn’t ask her to take them back. He was too embarrassed. He pulled his grandmother’s pension money out of his pocket, looked at it frantically, then thrust it into Jenny’s hand. For a minute I thought he was going to say something to me. I tried to look as if I hadn’t been listening. He took a few steps towards me, then changing his mind, grabbed his change and fled out of the shop.

  ‘What a strange bloke,’ I said. ‘I bet we never see him again.’

  I was wrong. Half an hour later he got into the same carriage as me on the train.

  I groaned. Not because of Gerald and his flowers but because Scouse the skinhead was in my carriage. He was a great big hulk of a bloke and he was real mean into the bargain. He liked nothing better than picking on anyone weak and giving them a hard time. He always caught the same train as me but usually I managed to get into another carriage. He looked at Gerald, gave a twisted sneer and then spat on the floor.

  Gerald was as red as ever and he stood with his back to the door, holding the flowers behind his back. He was trying to hide them from the other passengers. He didn’t want to be seen carrying flowers in the train. Every now and then he looked over at me in an agitated fashion.

  The train was one of those silver ones where the two doors slide automatically into the middle when they close. As the train lurched off they shut with a bang. Right on Gerald’s roses. He just stood there shivering and twitching and holding onto the stems with his hands behind his back as if nothing had happened. The stems were on the inside of the train and the flowers were on the outside.

  Everyone on the train started to grin. I bit my tongue like mad to stop myself from smiling but I have to admit that it really was funny. Gerald just looked at a spot on the roof and stood there with his hands behind his back, pretending that nothing had happened.

  A few people started twittering and giggling. The poor kid just didn’t know what to do so he just kept on pretending that everything was all right. Gerald looked around desperately. I’m sure that if the door had been open he would have jumped out of the moving train just to escape from the mirth.

  The only person in the train who hadn’t noticed the flowers was Scouse. He was too busy scratching his shaved head and taking swigs out of a tinny. Every now and then he would give a loud burp.

  The train plunged into a tunnel and everything went black. I stopped biting my tongue and allowed myself a big grin. I just couldn’t help it. Anyway, Gerald couldn’t see me smiling in the dark. Right at that moment the lights switched on and Gerald looked into my eyes.

  He had seen me grinning. His bewildered eyes seemed to say, ‘Not you too.’ It was at this moment that I realised I had betrayed him. I forced the smile from my face and opened my mouth to speak but he looked away just as the train stopped at an underground station.

  The doors slid apart and Gerald stared at what was left of his twenty-four-dollar bunch of flowers. They had gone. He stood there lamely holding twelve broken stems wrapped in pink paper. There was not one petal left. They had all been ripped off in the tunnel. Now he had lost his grandmother’s money and his flowers. And even worse, he had made a fool of himself in front of a whole carriage full of people including me.

  With a strangled cry he jumped off onto the platform. Scouse jumped after him. ‘Look at the little fairy clutching his invisible flowers,’ sneered Scouse.

  I stepped off the train too and stood aside as it sped past me.

  Scouse snatched the rose stems from Gerald’s hand gleefully. ‘Look at this,’ he mocked as he read the card that Jenny had written:

  TO SAMANTHA WITH LOVE FROM GERALD.

  ‘I’ll bet she likes getting these.’ He shoved the prickly stems into Gerald’s face.

  Gerald grabbed the broken stalks and looked around like a hunted rabbit. He looked straight at me, red with shame. He wanted to escape but Scouse was blocking his way. Without a sound, Gerald jumped off the platform onto the tracks and ran up the tunnel.

  ‘Come back!’ I shouted. ‘Trains come through the loop every five minutes.’

  He made no reply and I heard his clattering feet disappear into the tunnel.

  ‘Let the fairy go,’ said Scouse, showing his yellow teeth in a leer. Then he spat into my face and walked off laughing.

  I ran screaming down the platform to find a porter. ‘There’s a boy in the tunnel!’ I yelled. ‘Stop the trains.’

  The ground
began to tremble gently and a rush of cold air came out of the tunnel. There was a low rumble and then a scream.

  The train rushed out of the tunnel. As it slowed I noticed a bunch of broken flower stems wedged on one of the buffers.

  There were not many people at Gerald’s funeral. Apart from the priest and the undertakers there was just me and Gerald’s grandmother. After the coffin had been lowered into the ground we walked slowly back to the gate. I told the old lady about what happened in the flower shop. She already knew the rest from the police. She smiled sadly and explained about her pension money that he had spent. ‘Not that I care about that,’ she said. ‘If only I had Gerald back I would give everything I have.’

  I watched with tears in my eyes as the bent old lady slowly walked off. I had told her about that ratbag Scouse but I didn’t mention that I had smiled in the train when the roses got caught in the door. I felt too ashamed.

  That night I had terrible dreams about roses and thorns. I kept seeing a dark tunnel from which a lonely voice sadly called my name.

  It was no better at work. I kept dropping things and breaking them. And the palm of my hand was itchy. I kept scratching it but nothing would stop the itch.

  I was glad when it was time to knock off. I went out into the potting shed to get my parka. A terrible feeling of sadness suddenly swept over me. It seemed to flow out into my body from the palm of my left hand.

  And then it happened. From the palm of my left hand a blood-red rose erupted from my flesh. Slowly it unfolded, budded and bloomed. A magnificent flower nodding gently on the end of a graceful stem. I tried to scream but nothing came out. I shook my head wildly and my rose fell to the ground.

  I fell in a chair, dazed, and watched with horror. No, not horror: awe, as eleven more perfect blooms grew from the palm of my hand.

  I knew after the third one that there would be a dozen. A dozen bloomin’ roses. Blood-red and each with two dots on each perfect petal. And under the dots a downturned line.

  I stared at the dots. They were eyes. Unhappy eyes. And underneath, a sad little suggestion of a mouth. Each petal of each rose held a portrait of the dead boy’s face. I knew that Gerald had sent me a message from behind the grave.

  I collected the roses in a daze and took them into the shop. Then I wrapped them in pink paper and tied them up with a bow. I ran a chewed fingernail along the ends and curled them up. After that I wrote on a small card and attached it to the ribbon.

  Then I set off for home.

  Scouse was on the train.

  He leered as soon as he saw me. I stood with my back to the sliding doors and as they slid closed I let the roses become trapped in the door. I stood there, saying nothing as the train lurched off.

  There was no one in the carriage except Scouse. ‘Another little person with flowers in the door,’ he mocked. He stood up and poked me in the stomach. It hurt. ‘Another sap. Another creep who buys flowers.’

  I grabbed his wrist with my one free hand and tried to stop him jabbing me.

  Just at that moment the train plunged into the tunnel and Scouse broke my hold in the blackness. I felt his powerful arms on my neck and I fought desperately for breath. I was choking. He was strangling me.

  I felt my life ebbing away but I just couldn’t bring myself to let go of those roses, and so I only had one free hand and couldn’t stop him.

  Without warning the doors burst apart as if opened by giant arms. A roaring and rushing filled the carriage. A sweet smell of roses engulfed us. The hands released my neck and Scouse screamed with terror. As the light flicked on I saw that the compartment was filled with rambling roses. They twisted and climbed at astonishing speed. They covered the luggage racks and the safety rails. They twisted along the seats and completely filled the compartment. I couldn’t move. Then I saw that the long tendrils wound around Scouse’s legs and arms. And neck.

  Tighter and tighter they drew around the hapless man’s throat until at last he lay still on the floor. I knew that he was dead.

  And then, as quickly as they had come, the creeping roses snaked out of the door and vanished into the black tunnel. There was not a sign that they had ever been there. Except the one dozen roses that I had started with. They were perfectly intact. Not damaged a bit by their exposure to the tunnel. I smoothed down my dress and then picked up the bunch of roses as the train stopped at the station.

  I looked again at the label I had written. It said:

  TO GERALD WITH LOVE FROM SAMANTHA.

  When I got home Mum was amazed by the roses. ‘Why Samantha,’ she said. ‘They are beautiful. And look, each petal has two little dots that look like eyes and a little line like a mouth. They are faces.’

  I could feel tears forming in my eyes. ‘Yes,’ I said, examining them closely. ‘And each little face is smiling.’

  When I was a girl of about twelve, I used to stay in a village in north Karnataka with my grandparents. Those days, the transport system was not very good, so we used to get the morning paper only in the afternoon. The weekly magazine used to come one day late. All of us would wait eagerly for the bus, which used to come with the papers, weekly magazines and the post.

  At that time, Triveni was a very popular writer in the Kannada language. She was a wonderful writer. Her style was easy to read and very convincing. Her stories usually dealt with complex psychological problems in the lives of ordinary people and were always very interesting. Unfortunately for Kannada literature, she died very young. Even now, after forty years, people continue to appreciate her novels.

  One of her novels, called Kashi Yatre, was appearing as a serial in the Kannada weekly Karmaveera then. It is the story of an old lady and her ardent desire to go to Kashi or Varanasi. Most Hindus believe that going to Kashi and worshipping Lord Vishweshwara is the ultimate punya. This old lady also believed in this, and her struggle to go there was described in that novel. In the story there was also a young orphan girl who falls in love but there was no money for the wedding. In the end, the old lady gives away all her savings without going to Kashi. She says, ‘The happiness of this orphan girl is more important than worshipping Lord Vishweshwara at Kashi.’

  My grandmother, Krishtakka, never went to school, so she could not read. Every Wednesday the magazine would come and I would read the next episode of this story to her. During that time she would forget all her work and listen with the greatest concentration. Later, she could repeat the entire text by heart. My grandmother too never went to Kashi, and she identified herself with the novel’s protagonist. So, more than anybody else, she was the one most interested in knowing what happened next in the story and used to insist that I read the serial out to her.

  After hearing what happened next in Kashi Yatre, she would join her friends at the temple courtyard where we children would also gather to play hide and seek. She would discuss the latest episode with her friends. At that time, I never understood why there was so much debate about the story.

  Once I went for a wedding with my cousins to the neighbouring village. In those days, a wedding was a great event. We children enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We would eat and play endlessly, savouring the freedom because all the elders were busy. I went for a couple of days but ended up staying there for a week.

  When I came back to my village, I saw my grandmother in tears. I was surprised, for I had never seen her cry even in the most difficult situations. What had happened? I was worried.

  ‘Avva, is everything all right? Are you okay?’

  I used to call her Avva, which means ‘mother’ in the Kannada spoken in north Karnataka.

  She nodded but did not reply. I did not understand and forgot about it. In the night, after dinner, we were sleeping in the open terrace of the house. It was a summer night and there was a full moon. Avva came and sat next to me. Her affectionate hands touched my forehead. I realised she wanted to speak. I asked her, ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘When I was a young girl I lost my mother. There was nobody to look a
fter and guide me. My father was a busy man and got married again. In those days people never considered education essential for girls, so I never went to school. I got married very young and had children. I became very busy. Later I had grandchildren and always felt so much happiness in cooking and feeding all of you. At times I used to regret not going to school, so I made sure that my children and grandchildren studied well …’

  I could not understand why my 62-year-old grandmother was telling me, a twelve-year-old, the story of her life in the middle of the night. But I knew I loved her immensely and there had to be some reason why she was talking to me. I looked at her face. It was unhappy and her eyes were filled with tears. She was a good-looking lady who was usually always smiling. Even today I cannot forget the worried expression on her face. I leaned forward and held her hand.

  ‘Avva, don’t cry. What is the matter? Can I help you in any way?’

  ‘Yes, I need your help. You know when you were away, Karmaveera came as usual. I opened the magazine. I saw the picture that accompanies the story of Kashi Yatre and I could not understand anything that was written. Many times I rubbed my hands over the pages wishing they could understand what was written. But I knew it was not possible. If only I was educated enough. I waited eagerly for you to return. I felt you would come early and read for me. I even thought of going to the village and asking you to read for me. I could have asked somebody in this village but I was too embarrassed to do so. I felt so very dependent and helpless. We are well-off, but what use is money when I cannot be independent?’

  I did not know what to answer. Avva continued.

  ‘I have decided I want to learn the Kannada alphabets from tomorrow onwards. I will work very hard. I will keep Saraswati Pooja day during Dasara as the deadline. That day I should be able to read a novel on my own. I want to be independent.’