Mystical Rose

by Richard Scrimger

  Robbie was nervous, distracted by the memory of his own mother’s anger, eager to please but unsure of what was expected of him. Of course, Mama kept saying, Philadelphia is more metropolitan than Cobourg. How happy we were to see you and your father there, at the wedding.

  Robbie smiled mechanically, nodded, ate his meat with every appearence of enjoyment.

  Of course this lamb is local — and yet I wonder if you can boast of such tenderness in Philadelphia high society, she said.

  Robbie reminded her that we lived in Toronto now. But I do remember, he admitted, that the spring lamb we used to eat in Rittenhouse Square was not as fresh as what we got in Cobourg in the summer.

  It was odd to hear him call Mama Mrs. Scanlon.

  There, you see, dear. Mama flashed a wide smile down the table at me. I tried to return it. I was talking to one of Bill’s brothers. I can’t remember which. There were three brothers, and they had the habit of referring to each other by Christian name and nickname interchangeably. It was difficult to keep track of Moe and Peter and, was it Arthur? And Dog Face and Flat Top and, what was the other one, The Gord. Actually, poor Dog Face was easy to remember because he looked it. And he didn’t mind. Call me Dog Face, he told me, when I stumbled.

  They called my stepfather Red. Of course by now he wasn’t Red any more, he was grey. But no one gets a nickname late in life. One moment on the playground you’re Frank, or whatever, and the next you’re Dog Face, and that’s it. Goodbye Board of Directors. Goodbye politics. No one’s going to elect Senator Dog Face, or Premier Dog Face. Even Commissioner Dog Face is going to be an uphill battle. Get into business for yourself, or move out of town as soon as you can. Live among strangers and start over.

  So there we were around a hastily improvised festive board, Mama and Robbie and me, and the variously named brothers Scanlon. I felt like I was in the middle of a Russian novel — which is farther than I’ve ever got.

  Bill was the youngest in his family, the only one who’d gone to university, gone into a profession instead of the family business, left the Maritimes. His brothers made all sorts of jokes about him, but there was affection too. They liked visiting the black sheep. Imagine baby Red having a granddaughter, they said, laughing heartily. Bill didn’t seem to mind. Looking back at Bill, dead I don’t know how long now, I don’t think he ever minded anything. His first words to me at my mother’s funeral were, How nice to see you, Rose. Isn’t it a lovely day? It’s not that he was oblivious, like poor Daddy, preoccupied with an insupportable evil. More stoic, determined to appreciate the present and bear the past without comment. Blind to complication, maybe, wearing glasses that filtered out the subtle shades of life. My mother looked queenly, slow moving and studied, ordering dessert as if she was opening parliament. The servant — yes, she had a servant, Bill said she shouldn’t have to be doing any heavy work at her time of life, and anyway they could afford it — was a local girl I remembered from years before. I tried to strike up a conversation with her but she got all reserved and shy.

  They’re very good to me here, she said, very fast, head bent down to the floor. I get all I want to eat, can even take home some to my family.

  How is the family, Janet? I asked. She had a brother and sister, a mother who worked hard and a dad who didn’t.

  They’re fine, um, she said, unable to think what to call me.

  All three of the visiting brothers — they were something to do with importing and exporting, had done very well at it until recently, nothing moving into or out of Halifax without them taking a cut, though trade was so slow these days — were nice to me. And why not? I was young and pretty, and it was spring. When Harriet started to cry, one of them — Arthur or Moe, I can’t remember which one — came along. Kootchie kootchie, he called to the baby, tickling her under her chin. Harriet stopped crying and pulled his finger back and forth. Moe — I think that’s who it was — looked pleased.

  She’s so tiny, he said.

  So tiny. The hand in front of me is so tiny. Pale pink crescents, tiny wrinkles, soft smooth skin, dimpled at the knuckles. Whose is it? Is it mine? Can this waving amorphous thing, this palely floating blob of movement and feeling, can this be me too?

  “Come on,” says the voice from the dazzling above. “Come on.”

  “No,” says Mama.

  And the sound of water, rushing.

  Robbie was feeling more wakeful than I that night. Old Dog Face is an interesting fellow, he told me, as we were getting ready for bed.

  I didn’t say anything.

  You know, the Scanlons have done well for themselves. Dog Face and his brothers pretty much control the warehousing in the eastern provinces, he said.

  Harriet was in a little crib beside the bed. She was still sleeping. Such tiny hands.

  The hotel room was small. Robbie’s eyes followed me as I got undressed.

  How are you feeling, Rose? he asked.

  I was tired, and a little irritable. I don’t apologize for it; I’ll bet Your mother was irritable when You were being weaned. Wasn’t she? Come on now.

  Twin beds in the room. Robbie in a nightshirt, sitting on my bed. His bed untouched. Lights out but it was as bright as morning inside, thanks to the new electric streetlighting outside the window.

  You know, Rose, he said. I was talking to Dr. Wilson.

  What about Dr. Wilson? I asked.

  Robbie looked embarrassed. Well, the doctor said that we’ve been … that you and I have been doing …

  And he stopped. What have we been doing? I asked. Harriet would be hungry in a couple of hours and I wanted to get some sleep.

  No, wait. That would have been later, wouldn’t it? When we wanted another child, and we tried and couldn’t and Robbie went to the doctor, and he said —

  A lot later.

  That night in the Arlington Hotel Robbie looked so sweet and excited that my bad mood broke like a soap bubble, and I smiled and pulled him into my bed. His large, white hands were trembling, and there was tobacco on his breath, and sherry from the trifle we’d had for dessert. He was so gentle — but then he always was.

  When Harriet woke up and cried, he didn’t move for a minute. Tastes funny, he said, sitting up. I pushed him away.

  Bright lights in a dark bedroom. I remember a night with the moon low on the horizon, the shape and colour of a snowball. Nice idea, a snowball, the night was so hot I could feel sweat rolling off me. I stood at my window, staring out at the moon, and the barn, and the hard earth, and the failing crop. I heard a kitchen chair fall over as my daddy stood up. I heard a mosquito in my ear, brushed it away angrily. I was listening for silence. The springs in the mattress next door creaked and complained to each other as he lay down. A minute later he began slowly, powerfully, regularly, to snore. I relaxed, and hopped up onto my windowsill, and whispered into the fertile summer silence. I love you, I whispered. I love you I love you I love you so much.

  I love you too, Rose, he said. No, that wasn’t it.

  You’re too good to me, Rose, he said.

  No, I’m not.

  Do you mind if I call you Rose? I think he asked in his quiet, educated voice. Sometimes he sounded like a radio announcer, and sometimes like the teacher at Precious Corners’ School, only with a hint of an accent because of course he was from abroad.

  Of course not. I call you David, don’t I? Let me look after you, Lieutenant David Godwin. You’re wounded, aren’t you? Here, lean on me, I said.

  My arm held out to the warm and empty air, I walked slowly across the bare boards to my lonely bed, supporting my invisible beloved.

  I’m burning up. That’s what it feels like. So hot. So dry. My eyes flutter open and shut, and all I see is a desert of light. I’m lying down. Figures hovering over me, like vultures. Go away, I say. Love is a vanished dream, a memory of nothing. Poor Jack, the lover I never had. And poor David, the lover that never was.

  The vultures are weeping. Not the way they look on the nature shows. I’m thirsty
.

  Here, Mother.

  I open my eyes. Harriet holds out a glass of water. Her hand is trembling. Poor Harriet — she isn’t as young as she once was. I take the water.

  How is the binding going? I ask her.

  She frowns. Mother?

  You know — oh I’ve forgotten the word again — the thing you do. How’s the Bluestone case going? I asked.

  What about the Bluestone case?

  How’s it going? I ask.

  Mother, the Bluestone case was a long time ago.

  I’m thirsty, I say.

  She gestures. Then drink your water.

  Thank you.

  She smiles at me. How can she smile at me? I’m a stupid and forgetful old woman. Clumsy too. Sorry, I say, wiping myself with my free hand.

  That’s okay, Mother.

  Yes it is, isn’t it? We smile at each other. We’ve fallen out of the habit, but it’s easy to pick up again.

  Investigating, I say. That’s the word I was trying to remember. Investigating.

  Her face clouds over. Is she thinking back to the Bluestone case? Reporting on it, one of the magazines called her a miracle worker.

  I used to be an investigator, Mother, she says calmly. I gave it up — remember?

  Yes of course, I say.

  Dog Face! I cried, loud enough for everyone in the hotel lobby to hear. He blushed. Flat Top! The Gord! What are these? I asked.

  They smiled and held out their hands, like three swells inviting the same chorus girl to dinner. But the presents weren’t for me.

  Happy birthday to you, they sang together, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Harriet — lingering over the word, eyes down at the pram — happy birthday to you.

  Robbie came back from the booking office with our train tickets. He shook hands with the Scanlon brothers. You shouldn’t have, fellows, he said.

  She already had her birthday. Weeks and weeks ago, I said.

  The Silly Symphony clock from Mama and Bill had arrived right on the day.

  So we’re a bit late, said Dog Face. She won’t care.

  I lifted Harriet out of the pram to say thank you to her sort-of uncles, and she got three kisses and started to cry.

  We opened the gifts at home. There was a wooden ship, and a pillow with a picture of King George embroidered on it. We kept them for a long time. Harriet used to take down the ship when Robbie was away at sea, fighting. I can’t remember the third present.

  3

  Presentation

  I was so proud of Harriet, marching away from me in her hat and cape. So grown up she looked, so mature. Hard to believe she was just a little girl. Bye, Mother, she said. Over her shoulder, tugging herself away from my restraining hand, eager to be off and playing with her friends before the bell rang. Bye, Harriet. Play carefully. You know, she’s always been well-behaved, I told her teacher. So polite and gentle. I tried to teach her how to be a real lady.

  Her teacher was a girl, just out of school herself, with an overbite. No, it was a bald man in a gown. I wonder what the little kids made of him. Your daughter is a hard worker, Mrs. Rolyoke, he said. You must be so proud of her.

  Oh, I am. I am. She’s so grown up.

  Cake and coffee on a lawn, with cannons and bells, noisy things when they went off — not the cannons. The bells were going off though, from the clock tower. Oh God Our Help in Ages Past. I wondered what time that made it.

  I understand she wants to be a lawyer. Is that right?

  I nodded and bit into my cake. A lawyer. When she was a little girl, she and I played school at home, I told the bald man. I was never a very good student. She used to threaten me with the strap.

  Now that’s odd, isn’t it? She did used to threaten me, funny plain little girl she was, with her flashing eyes. And her hand poised in the air. I would pretend to cower and promise to do my work better next time, and she would let me off. That was her, wasn’t it? Not Parker, with a wooden spoon in her hand. Funny the way the pictures blur. I can still feel the bite of that spoon on my rear end. Parky used to like to hit me there. Not just me, the other girls too. The pretty ones. I suppose it was the most obvious spot. Bend over the table, she’d say in her grating voice. And I — well, at least once I said no.

  Robbie was proud of her too — look at my great big girl, he would say, coming home from Accounts Receivable to hear all about kindergarten. What pretty numbers you write, so neat, he would say. She probably got it from him; I was never a neat writer. But Harriet always put things in rows. I was so proud of her. And so was — funny, I was going to say Robbie but he was dead by then — so was Geoff.

  You must be Harriet’s father, said the bald man in the gown. Sipping his tea, looking over our shoulders. And Geoff smiled and shook his head. Just a family friend, he said.

  What a friend. He’d driven me all the way to Kingston, more than three hours, just because I asked. And he looked good in a conservatively tailored dark suit. A little hairy, but presentable.

  That’s eglantine, isn’t it, I said, pointing at the border of the garden. The man in the gown didn’t know. Very appropriate to graduation exercises, I told him. It signifies genius and poetry. A pretty colour too, I said. I walked closer to examine it. Geoff took a bite of his sandwich. The man in the gown turned away to talk to someone else’s parents. The bells started to play one of the Silly Symphonies.

  No, I said, no no no.

  And Harriet giggled and put down her hand. What is nine times twelve? she asked in her high but stern voice. Would either of us have known? I don’t think so. You are a funny mother, she said. And then the stairs fell down.

  We were safe of course, safe in the bedroom turned schoolroom on the second floor. At the top of the stairwell we peered down, on our stomachs, as the dust rose in the hole that had been our staircase.

  Harriet giggled. Eight years old and safe with her mom. I smelled dusty summer foliage, saw a ladder twisted on the ground. Don’t worry, I said. Your father will get us down.

  Who’s worried? Now, Mother, what is the capital of Asia?

  I don’t know, I said.

  I heard the sound from Parky’s room, muffled but regular, knocked and opened the door because I’d read a story in a magazine about a man in despair hanging himself and all they could hear was his heels pounding on the wall and then the sound disappeared and they found him and it was too late.

  No no no, I said, and Parky looked up. It wasn’t me she was spanking this time, but a new girl, pretty as a doll, fine bones and features, and fragile. I’m surprised she could get a job in service. She looked sick and beautiful, not long for this world.

  You know her. You must see her kind in droves.

  Don’t tell, she said. Please don’t tell.

  Parker was swearing to herself, wouldn’t look at me, her face as red as amaryllis, timid and proud. Hands clenching and opening like the muscles of her heart.

  Don’t tell, the new girl whispered again, pulling down her petticoat, or I’ll lose my place.

  She broke off, covered her mouth and coughed, hard. Poor thing.

  Oh, I said. And left.

  Well, what would You have done?

  Through the rising dust I could just see the front hall. The telephone was in the kitchen. There was nothing to do but wait. Harriet and I tried pounding on the walls like the hanging man in the story. We shared one bedroom wall with the house south of us. Number 115 Waverley, two widows and a cat.

  No one answered. I didn’t even know if they were home. Mother, look. There’s our living room. Doesn’t it look funny from up here?

  Yes it does, I said. Cut off from the world with nothing but a bed and a portable blackboard, I felt neither hunger nor thirst, nor the panic of an animal in a trap. I was safe. My daughter was safe. I leaned over, put my arms around her, and hugged her hard.

  The phone rang in the kitchen.

  You want to stare down the hole some more, I asked, or do you want to play school?

  Harriet
crawled back up onto her knees. School, she said. The phone kept ringing.

  Hanging up, I could still hear Robbie’s voice inside my ear, like a train away in the distance. Then Harriet came home from school, letting the screen door bang. Look, Mother! she cried, dropping her satchel and sweater, showing off a small black box with metal clasps.

  Harriet, dear, you must —

  No, look!

  Surprising complexity inside the box, black and silver nestled in blue velvet. Machinery or jewellery, it was hard to say.

  It’s an oboe, Mother. The music teacher chose me to play it. Me!

  Her first term at Royal Park Collegiate. My little girl was growing up fast. Not many friends yet, but she’d never been much of a mixer. No boys, of course. If only she had let me do something with her hair, but she was always busy, and she didn’t mind what she looked like. She worked so hard. So hard.

  See Mother, you put it together like this. And you stick the reed in the end. See?

  I nodded, not really paying attention.

  And then you blow like this. I mean, like this.

  Fingers clamped down, cheeks puffed out, she looked ridiculous. No sound came out. The end of the instrument quivered like a — like something. She took the reed out of her mouth to gasp for air.

  Your father just called from Halifax, I said. He’s got a week’s leave. He’ll be home tomorrow.

  Hurray! Then she gasped some more. Will he be home for dinner? she asked.

  I think so, I said.

  Can we have macaroni and cheese?

  I think so.

  Good.

  Her cheeks puffed again.

  Is Harriet’s father here? asked another tea-drinking professor, a younger man than the last one, in an older gown.

  Harriet’s father — that is, my husband was killed. During the war, I said.

  Funny way to put it: during the war, rather than in the war. Made Robbie seem like a conscientious objector or something. He was in the navy, I said.