Mystical Rose

by Richard Scrimger

  I think about this sad lady a lot. Every time she finds out about her son’s death she collapses. Every time it’s like the first time, and let me tell you it’s awful finding out that someone you love is dead — listen to me telling You what it’s like. You know, don’t You?

  I wonder why they keep telling her.

  Robbie was getting a promotion, and the life insurance went with it. That’s why he was seeing Dr. Wilson in the first place. It’s Maple Leaf company policy, he told me, smiling at supper over a bouquet he’d bought on the way home. Yellow irises and begonia, I can still see the primary colours — sorrow and passion and dark thoughts.

  Where did you buy these flowers, I asked, and how much did you pay?

  It’s a celebration, he told me, and pulled a bottle of legal whisky out of a brown paper bag. People are buying more Maple Leaf products than they have for years, he said. The company has made a profit for the last three quarters. The Depression is over, he said.

  That’s what the radio and newspapers were saying. Mind you, they’d been saying that for years and years and there still seemed to be hungry people hanging around outside the Zimmerman Bakery. Harriet liked waiting with the shabby men and women, sniffing the smell of fresh baking, and always seemed disappointed when we couldn’t stay for the handouts. The women still smiled at her; the men still looked embarrassed.

  Robbie’s promotion had to do with him finding a new way to organize the Accounts Receivable, which when he explained it sounded a lot like Paid and Unpaid to me, but I’m no businessman. My accounts receivable at the flower shop were an embarrassment.

  What about Harriet? I asked.

  She can’t hear us. She’s asleep.

  No, no, I mean — what about her birth? We couldn’t have been doing it wrong.

  I asked the doctor about that too. He said that there have been pregnancies that resulted from — what we do. But not too many. He said that this kind of — Robbie whispered the word in my ear, his breath heavy with the whisky — sex would explain the blood. Usually the blood comes when you … when a woman … does it the first time.

  Oh.

  Not during labour.

  Oh.

  Can you feel this? he asked.

  I can’t tell you how I felt when he crept out of the little upstairs room, my bedroom, closing the door so that it didn’t click, creeping silently away. I lay in a kind of golden glow. The closest I can come would be to describe it as if I’d spent the time in Captain David Godwin’s arms. His physical arms, I mean, not the imaginary ones I had used to feel all warm and girlish about. Mystical and perfect, of course, but … at a loss too. There was so much to understand. Bewildered and transcended, I felt part of a larger whole. I had no desire to do it again. I could not walk around at the top of Mount Everest, or in the middle of a shower of falling stars. It was not a repeatable experience, and to tell the truth I do not know if we ever did repeat it. Were we doing it right? How would I know? I tell you we can’t have been doing it wrong. I’ve never felt better. Scared, confused, but right.

  That would have been when the baby was made. Must have been. On my birthday. And that must have been when the cufflink was left. Must have been then. I don’t remember it, but that’s natural, isn’t it? Who would have noticed a man’s shirt at a time like that?

  A loud knock at the door in the middle of the night. Not Robbie’s knock, and besides, he had a key.

  Mrs. Rolyoke?

  An official voice, hard to understand through the fog of sleep. Flashing lights from the street outside the house. It’s dark.

  Mrs. Robert Rolyoke?

  Yes? I said, clutching my housecoat, peering out.

  Was that my voice? It sounded more like Mama’s. Yes?

  Something terrible has happened, said the impersonal voice, from a long way off. A lot farther than the other side of the front door.

  What happened? Is it Robbie — my husband? Is he all right?

  My voice.

  You must prepare yourself for the worst, ma’am. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.

  Soldiers die away from the field of battle. Traffic accidents happen in wartime. Soldiers on leave are still subject to the laws of chance and human nature. They die at the hands of careless drivers and jealous husbands and stick-up artists. They slip in bathrooms, get bitten by mad dogs, and succumb to fatal diseases. They get caught in machinery, burn to death, and fall out of things from great heights or at high speeds.

  A policeman with a round red face sat on the chesterfield in our living room, holding his cap in his hands while he told me what had happened to Robbie. An embarrassed policeman. I would have been in shock, I suppose, worrying about whether I should offer him tea or a drink. Wondering about the correct reaction to tragic news.

  This is what the policeman told me.

  Robbie and young Sam were crossing Queen Street in front of City Hall around ten o’clock that Thursday night. Sam had been here to dinner — he was a shipmate of Robbie’s, another sub-lieutenant. A nice young man from a small prairie town who wanted to see a bit of Toronto before going back to the ship. He had eaten an extra portion of macaroni and cheese, and an extra slice of canned meat. Harriet had eyed him all through dinner, fourteen years old she would have been, swooning with everyone else over James Mason and Lew Ayres. I suppose Sam did look a little bit like young Dr. Kildare.

  Queen Street was empty at ten o’clock at night, except for a car with a very drunk man at the wheel. The car was stopped, and the man was trying to close a door that didn’t want to stay closed. He tried with the window down and the window up, and every time he slammed the door shut it opened again, and he fell out of the car. Robbie and Sam — his full name was Sam Howe, he ended the war as a captain with a medal for valour — were waiting for an eastbound streetcar. They watched from the corner stop, applauding, as Sam told it later, at Robbie’s funeral, when this unnamed drunk man finally got the door closed from outside the car. Realizing his situation, he ran around, but the door on the other side of the car — the only other door — was locked. He swore cheerfully, ran back, opened the driver-side door, got in, closed the door after him, and fell out when it banged open. The man lay on the pavement, his sides convulsing as he laughed.

  Robbie and his friend decided to help. Sam got into the car and started the engine. Then he got out, and together he and Robbie bundled the man into the driver’s seat. Then they slammed the door and stood back as the car lurched forward. A successful operation, only Robbie’s coat was caught in the locked door. And as the car went forward so did he, knocking on the window to attract the man’s attention. Which he couldn’t. So he tried to take off his coat, still running beside the weaving backfiring car, slowly and then faster, my poor Robbie, while Sam stood open-mouthed in the middle of the street.

  I can’t smell smoke, I tell the nurses. Two of them, moving fast.

  The nearer one calls me dear, tells me not to worry. She looks like a beet, round dark face, sprigs of hair at the top of her head.

  The nurses take hold of the screaming lady’s sheets, top and bottom, and make a hammock out of them. She stops screaming. They carry her away.

  I call for Harriet. She’s nearby. Doesn’t reply.

  The nurses return, move to the next bed as the doctor comes in. Not Dr. Sylvester, the other doctor. You know, he’s handsome when he’s worried, not unlike Dr. Kildare. A little darker, perhaps. What are you doing? he asks.

  Transferring these patients, says the beet-headed nurse.

  What’s your name again? I ask the doctor. He flashes me a quick smile.

  I’m Sanjay, he says. Well I guess he must be. He’s got a million things to do. We’ve got to hurry, he says, if we’re going to find room for them all on the bus.

  Harriet steps forward, frowning. Taps the doctor on the shoulder. Enough room where? she asks.

  What are you doing here? The doctor stares at her, like it was the first time. Almost a romantic stare, despite the wedding rin
g. And I suppose she is a bit too old for him. Harriet isn’t used to romantic stares. I hope she knows what to do.

  You should leave the building at once, he tells her. By the gate at the south end of the parking lot.

  So this isn’t a drill, she says.

  He shakes his head. There is a small problem, he says.

  Then a monster comes into the room, and Harriet screams.

  Bluestone, I said into the telephone. What’s this man Bluestone got to do with you?

  Oh, Mother, if you only knew.

  Well, tell me. I’m at Ruby’s. Come on over for dinner. You can tell us both all about it.

  My daughter’s voice shook over the phone. She wasn’t still trying to be a lawyer, was she? No, they’d changed the rules by then. She was working for the court of last resort — the office that sounded like it was from Holland. Come on over, I said. Ruby’s making beans and back bacon. You always used to love that. We’re trying a new ice cream flavour for dessert.

  Early fall, that would have been. A lovely time of year. Windows open and the breeze blowing, still hot from the tops of the cars it had bounced off before coming through the apartment windows. Ruby’s hat shop downstairs was shut. In the background I had the radio playing — I can’t remember what it was playing. One of those songs that everyone sang all summer long and then forgot about.

  Oh, Mother, I’d like to but I’m going out.

  Someone new? I asked, and then, Sorry, none of my business. You’re welcome to come by afterwards if you like. Both of you, I added.

  Thanks, Mother. We probably won’t — it’ll be too late.

  The radio switched songs.

  The funeral service was well attended — several people from Maple Leaf, including an old man who made a point of telling me how much they’d all esteemed Robbie. That was his word. I thanked him. And Dr. Wilson, who sat at the back with the old ladies who live there — at least they’ve been there at every funeral I’ve ever gone to. And Sam, in his sub-lieutenant’s uniform. He sat beside us, young and respectable and pressed for time. He was on his way to Halifax right after the service. Harriet held his hand, sobbing mechanically.

  It would have been just four of us at the graveside, me and Harriet, the preacher and the man from the funeral home. Windy and damp, but not raining. I remember the smell of the freshly turned earth. I turned around to look at the lake and saw him at once. How long would he have been there, I wonder. He wore an old black suit that fluttered and flapped against his thin straight body like a flag against a pole. He moved slowly forward as we went through the ashes and the dust and the committing of the body. His head was bare; top hat in his hand.

  He stood beside the gaping mouth of earth and I saw suddenly how old he was, how old he must always have been. He did not speak. A shock of white hair blew off his forehead. His skin was translucent. His gaze was hard and searching, a blue-white predator’s look. He peered through me, as if reading over the badly glued fragments of thought and feeling, the scrapbook of my mind, searching for — what? I don’t know; I never could tell what he was thinking about. But I felt comforted. He put out a hand towards Harriet, who was sobbing at my side. She wore a beret, and her hair ruffled up around it as if the pale hand were a gust of wind. She looked up for a moment, her eyes bright and shiny with grief, then turned back to the coffin.

  Amen, said the preacher. Amen, said Harriet. I threw a handful of mud into the hole. Goodbye, Robbie, I said.

  A hideous misshapen head, eyes the size of saucers, and a coil coming out of its mouth, the monster reminds me of something. A human fly? I can’t remember. It’s not frightening, though. It’s a comforting feeling. The rest of the monster is dressed like a doctor, white coat over an expensive suit. Familiar hands, soft, expressive, chilly. Dr. Sylvester’s hands.

  I smile up at him, but he beckons the other doctor out into the hall and starts talking about contingency plans. What does the institutional protocol say? he asks. What does it say about triage?

  Sounds like a kind of hobby craft, doesn’t it? With needles and sticks and special triage scissors.

  All the downtown hospitals have protocols, says Dr. Sylvester behind his monster mask. To determine which patients get saved in the event of an emergency, and which patients are deemed to be …

  I strain, but I can’t hear any more. Harriet, I say.

  Don’t worry, she says. Her eyes are narrow and she seems suddenly much bigger than me. Usually I have to remind myself that she’s not still thirteen and scared; for weeks after the funeral she wouldn’t cross the street, and who can blame her? Don’t worry, Mother, she says. If I have to, I’ll carry you out myself.

  I got the tea habit from Lady Margaret and Mr. Rolyoke. They had it every afternoon, together as often as not. I got used to the smell, and then of course there’d be cups of it in the kitchen for us, together with wedges of bread and butter and jam. I liked the berry jams we had in the summers in Cobourg. The berries were local, and the jams had a lovely taste, so rich it was almost bitter.

  Would you like some more tea? I asked the embarrassed police officer. He hadn’t touched the cup I’d poured for him.

  No, ma’am. Thank you.

  You’re sure?

  Yes, ma’am. Twisting his uniform cap into a pretzel shape.

  Very well. Go on, I said, with commendable firmness, only I spoiled it by knocking over the sugar bowl, and then staring at the mess, my hand shaking like a loose window frame in a high wind.

  He didn’t see it, his eyes were on the floor.

  And then, ma’am, the deceased — Lieutenant Rolyoke — your husband, ma’am — he found his coat was caught in the car door, and he couldn’t get it off very easily. But he succeeded, ma’am. We have the other officer’s — Lieutenant Howe’s — evidence, and then the coat itself was located a bit further down Queen Street — still attached to the car door, ma’am, he added, his voice low.

  Yes, I said.

  Lieutenant Howe said that after running most of a block and wrestling his coat off like a … a contortionist, your husband stepped safely away from the vehicle, which proceeded in a very erratic manner for a further fifty yards, finally climbing the curb and smashing into one of the large display windows of the Eaton’s department store. Your husband had stopped, perhaps to catch his breath, and he was run over by another vehicle going the other way. I’m sorry, ma’am. Please accept my … condolences on your tragic loss.

  The poor officer wouldn’t look at me. He stood up, said again that he was sorry, put on his cap, and walked out the front door.

  My husband died during the war, I told Ruby. I wonder what she would have thought if I’d showed her the plot in the Woodbine Cemetery, halfway up the hill, facing south. From his grave I had a view of the lake, mind you I was standing up. I wonder if he could see it? Robert Rolyoke, 1910–1944. Around the stone I planted black mulberry — I shall not survive you.

  I didn’t know what to say when Ruby mentioned a cruise. Probably said nothing right away. I would have been too surprised. Then I said, No, pretty firmly.

  I’ve never been on a cruise, I said. Not that I remember, that is. I came over from England when I was a baby, but I don’t think I’ve even been in a rowboat since then. And whenever I used to think about Robbie, in that huge ocean, all by himself in the …

  I wouldn’t have broken down, he’d been dead long enough, but I must have looked a little distraught. Ruby put her hand on my arm. Hey, she said. She was always a great Hey-sayer.

  Hey, Rose, come on.

  What about Harriet? I said.

  I’ve already talked to Harriet. She thinks it’s a great idea.

  I don’t know.

  It’ll be fun, she said. The Great Lakes in fall. Drifting through the Thousand Islands while the sun sets and the band plays — and you know these boats are always full of men.

  Ruby!

  Well, they are. You should be getting out more, Rose. You may be a widow with a daughter in university,
but you’re still a beautiful woman. You shouldn’t be hanging around a dingy old flower shop all day long.

  It’s not dingy, I said.

  Or waiting for Geoff Zimmerman, the baker. You looking for a bun in the oven? Hey?

  Ruby!

  She chuckled.

  Geoff is kind, I said. He used to let Harriet and her friends go over there to practise. Poor people love him. You remember how he helped them out during the Depression, I said.

  Sure, he’s a saint, but he’s sixty years old, and hairy. He’d look much better on a medallion, don’t you think?

  My shop is not dingy, I said. It’s bright, and full of colour. And I see men all day long.

  Men who are buying flowers for someone else. On a cruise you meet men who want to buy flowers for you! Men who love a good time.

  Ruby! Are you serious?

  Jump out of the frame, girl. Grow up and have fun!

  But … what about you? You’re engaged, I said. Aren’t you? What about Montgomery?

  Whose picture I saw every time I went over, a very dashing near-likeness in a silver frame, young man in a flying jacket and moustache, smoking a cigarette. Movie-actor looks, except for a nose which quested strongly to the left. Very obvious in person, not so much in the picture, which was taken at an angle.

  Ruby’s mouth closed into a thin red line. She looked away.

  Monty and I aren’t … that is, we had a big argument last night.

  I’m sorry, I said.

  He yelled and I yelled and he stomped out of my place, and I broke a dish. Last thing he said was that he was going on a cruise. Without me. So I said that I’d go on a cruise without him, she said.

  I’m sorry, I said.

  For what? He’s a bum. Monty Belinski. Could you see me as Ruby Belinski?