Mystical Rose

by Richard Scrimger

  Make yourselves at home, I said.

  I hadn’t seen Ruby in months. She looked awful, hair plastered down, eyes large, collar open to show a raddled and unwashed neck.

  How are you doing, dear? I said to Harriet. I went over to kiss her on the cheek. She smiled. I wasn’t used to seeing her drink. It didn’t make me feel good.

  I had liquor in the house, but I hardly ever touched it. Did I? Well, Harriet didn’t. I can’t tell You how I felt, seeing my daughter and my — I suppose she was still my best friend, even though I didn’t see much of her any more — my best friend tipping the bottle for each other, a pretty pair of tavern cronies.

  You should feel sorry for your daughter, said Ruby, speaking very distinctly so as not to slur the words. I asked why.

  Because she’s never going to get what she wants, said Ruby.

  Is that so, Harriet? I asked, and Harriet gave me that scary smile of hers.

  That’s right, Mother.

  Don’t worry, sweetheart. There are plenty of men out there, I said.

  Ruby laughed, harshly. Like glass breaking.

  That’s my lie, she said. My line, I mean. She laughed some more. Tell me that one. Tell Harriet some other lie.

  I knew better than to try to take the bottle away. I sat down with the two of them in the kitchen. What is it? I said to Harriet. What happened?

  I never failed any examinations. Not one. Harriet failed a lot, for such a hard-working girl. I passed all my grades in school. She failed her driver’s test too, the first time she took it: The instructor said she was concentrating too hard. I never learned to drive — not even a horse and cart. Billy Burnham gave me the reins, and I slapped the mare’s back with them, but you can’t call that driving. The mare knew where she was going anyway.

  Harriet wrote brilliant essays, but her examination work was always poor. The teachers encouraged her to keep taking the tests, and after a few tries she always succeeded. She even matriculated in mathematics. When she failed the law examinations she sat right down to studying so she could write them again. But then it was too late. They changed the law, so that you couldn’t be a lawyer without going to law school first. Harriet would have been — what did I say, 1957? — she would have been twenty-seven. Doesn’t seem old, does it? But it was too old to go to school.

  So Harriet would never be a lawyer.

  She let herself into my apartment, dragging a big suitcase after her. I couldn’t remember giving her a key. We’d just said goodbye — Harriet still tearful — a few hours ago. I couldn’t remember inviting her back.

  Isn’t that nice, I said. But what about your job?

  I’m taking a couple of weeks off, she said. Harriet was a law clerk with a big firm now. Lots of lawyers telling her what to do. She didn’t seem to mind. I’ll stay here with you until we can straighten out where you’ll be living, she said.

  Do I have to move? I said. I don’t want to move. I’m comfortable here, staring out the window at clouds, I said.

  Mother, you’re eighty-six years old. I can’t look after you. I can’t afford to hire a nurse.

  Maybe I’ll die before there’s a room for me, I said.

  Harriet sighed. And then I fell and broke my ankle. No, that’s not it. What happened is I broke my ankle, and fell. They took X-rays and went Tsk tsk. Sorry, I told them.

  I moved into Warden Grace Villa when I got out of the hospital. Cane and all.

  I’m surrounded by fog, drifting through the present like an abandoned ship, the wreck of the Rose Rolyoke. Chilling thought. I’m propped up in my bed in the bus, staring through the window at familiar trees and parking spaces. Through the fog I can see the concerned expression on Harriet’s face. I can hear the conversation around me. I can feel my chest rising and falling, feel my diaphragm working convulsively to force fluid from my lungs. I can feel my heart beating.

  I am tired.

  They are carrying bodies off the bus. First off is Mike’s mom with her face covered. I know her, knew her I should say, though I suppose I am getting to the point where I can know her again. Too bad I never liked her. Next off the bus is Dr. Sylvester on a stretcher. My head is killing me, he says. Poor man, not so handsome in his bandage. The orderly drops one end of the stretcher. Dr. Sylvester swears. Next off is the card player with the hearing aid.

  You like him, don’t You? I can tell. You reach out and pat him with Your poor hand. Why? He’s a sad and sorry dog, isn’t he? He whines and weeps and forgets what suit is trump. He bosses the nurses and insults the rest of us. No one likes him, not even the volunteers in the gift shop. His card partners make fun of him when he’s not looking at them, or when his hearing aid isn’t working. So why are You so fond of him? I know You like all of us: Dr. Sylvester, the dead woman, me. It’s Your job, after all. But I do wonder why Your face lights up so for Mr. Nathan — there, I remembered his name. Maybe I’ll get better after all.

  I see and hear and feel through a fog, a curtain of fatigue which makes everything shadowy. I don’t mind. I cough. I don’t mind. Harriet is bending over me. Her face is close. I can see the pores in her skin. I go inside the pores, inside my daughter, feel her skin sweating, her heart beating. Feel her sorrow. I don’t mind. She sighs, and I come out of her and back into me.

  You’re shadowy too. That’s odd, You were so clear a minute ago. A time ago. Am I drifting away from You? I don’t mind. I ought to, I know, but I don’t.

  I am tired.

  Harriet is so worried. I try to tell her not to worry. I try to tell her that it is all right, that everything will be all right. I try to comfort my daughter. I cannot make the words come. Something comes but I don’t know what it is. I don’t mind.

  Mother? Mother?

  That’s Harriet.

  Can you hear me, Mother? Mother, do you know me?

  Yes, dear. Yes, my darling. I know you. I love you. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I don’t mind.

  Doctor! Doctor Berman! Come quick!

  I stare up into the doctor’s intent face. Luxuriant growth of hair all over: eyebrows, eyelashes, side whiskers. I look past his face, and see the peeling paint on the top of the ambulance bus. And the sign: in case of emergency. When else do you use this vehicle? Oh well, this isn’t an emergency. An emergency is unexpected.

  I’m cold.

  Harriet would never be a lawyer.

  And Ruby would never be a wife and mother.

  And I would never be a —

  My teeth are chattering. I can’t understand it. Mama, Mama, help me. What is this feeling? My life, flashing before my eyes?

  “Last chance, ma’am.” A dignified voice, like Daddy’s. A white uniform, like a doctor’s.

  “She’s sinking fast now,” says the white uniform.

  Overhead, the birds flutter against the bars of their cage. No emergency exit for them.

  Almost ninety years; lots to look back on. But there are still questions. My life is passing before me in pain and shadow, and there’s so much I don’t understand. Maybe You could — would You mind? — answer some niggling questions. For clarification and peace of mind. I’ll try not to ask about anything that isn’t my business. It’s my life, though. I’m entitled to know about me, aren’t I?

  First off, I guess I want to make sure. Tonight, quietly in my sleep? I guess that’s the way most people want to go. Except for those idiots who want a blaze of glory or a beautiful body next to theirs. Quietly, in her sleep. That’s what the obituary will say. Am I right? At Warden Grace Villa, from complications arising from pneumonia — or maybe they won’t bother with that part. When you’re almost ninety it doesn’t really matter. Flowers in lieu of donations. Zinnia: I mourn your absence. That’d be nice. Or persimmon blossoms: bury me amid nature’s beauty, for I shall surprise you by and by.

  The last time I saw Ruby was in front of Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. A weekend afternoon in the sixties. A rally, is that right? Black and white together, we shall overcome. Proud of themselves
for doing the right thing. Sounds silly, doesn’t it, but it wasn’t silly. Now, why would I have been there? Not to march. I wouldn’t have cared, would I?

  Oh. Are You sure? I would? And my sign said the same thing?

  I don’t know what to think. I’m pleased. It’s not like me to care about people I don’t know. I suppose Harriet must have told me. She’d have cared all right. Still does. People from places I can’t credit: Bosnia, cardboard boxes, the Philistines … She cared about everyone but herself, like, well, like You. Yes, I am pleased that I’d have been there.

  And marching down Yonge Street to City Hall — that would be the new City Hall, wouldn’t it? — I saw Ruby. She was sitting at a counter in a small restaurant, watching the demonstration go by and drinking. Hair in a kerchief, which I’d never have seen her wear before. She was alone, and for a moment our eyes met through the pane of glass and the crowd of singing people. And I thought, I used to know this woman well. Not a day went by but she’d be in the shop, talking about a new hat design she was trying out. Or a new boyfriend. Or she’d be full of a magazine story on the secrets of the ancient Egyptians or how to tell what your perfect mate looked like. I knew her better than anyone in my life then, except my own daughter.

  I raised my hand to sketch a little wave, and Ruby looked over my head. And the crowd passed by and me with it. And I wondered — I wonder — did she see me?

  I could have crossed the sidewalk, dropped my sign, and gone into the restaurant and talked to her; but Harriet was with me and we were in the middle of … No, that’s not it. I kept marching, and singing about Michael rowing the boat ashore, because I was afraid. I didn’t go into the restaurant because I was afraid of what I’d find. Afraid of what she would have become. I didn’t want to know.

  Did she die by accident a few years later? Was that her body at the bottom of the unsafe fire escape? The newspaper article gave her name but not her address. I went to the funeral wondering if it could be the same Ruby Wellesley. I never found out because the casket was closed. There were no other mourners. The landlord paid for the funeral.

  I wonder if she saw me that afternoon in the crowd of marchers. Did she recognize me? Perhaps she was scared too. And I wish. Oh I wish. I wish I could have the chance again. Poor Ruby. I’d run into the restaurant and take her by both hands, the way she used to greet me. I’d invite her back to the shop to live. I’d give her flowers. Hazel and Star of Bethlehem: reunion, reconciliation. And yew: I am sorry.

  Lady Margaret was not a mother-in-law out of the music halls or TV situation comedy. She did not interfere, did not appear in our lives at all, Robbie’s and mine. That morning in Cobourg, in front of the summer place, with Harriet in my arms and the horse waiting behind us, was the last time any of us ever saw her.

  Did she know about the regular payments into our bank account, I wonder? She must have, if she stopped them.

  Isn’t it odd that Mr. Rolyoke died without a will. The lawyer in Philadelphia was so embarrassed. I used to wonder if … if maybe there was a will, leaving something to Harriet, if not to me. I suppose not. That sort of thing happens in movies.

  Lady Margaret lived a long time, didn’t she. Even longer than I’m going to. I’m surprised she didn’t move back to England after Mr. Rolyoke died, but she preferred to hang around Rittenhouse Square with the dust sheets and the mice and her disappointments.

  I wonder how she knew Harriet? You’re not going to tell me, are You — not my story. She did know her, though. How else to explain the clippings? Her niece Estelle found them after she died, and phoned me because my number was written across the bottom of the one from the Canadian news magazine. A Miracle? was the headline. The story was all about the Bluestone case. There was a photograph of Stephen Bluestone shaking hands with Harriet. Lady Margaret would have got the phone number from the Toronto book, I guess; Harriet’s number would have been unlisted.

  I still don’t understand the reason for the other clipping in the file folder. A Wild West show from the turn of the century, complete with war paint and snake oil and knives thrown at a spinning girl. And in front of a crowd of people, sporting, said Estelle, a pair of sideburns like the prophet Amos in her Bible at home, was Mr. Rolyoke. Uncle Rolyoke she called him. He had his hands on an old woman’s forehead. Except for there not being a question mark at the end, the headline was the same as Harriet’s. Quite a coincidence.

  Funny that Lady Margaret would keep that shot of Mr. Rolyoke; you’d think she’d want to hush up her husband’s dubious beginnings.

  What? Is it humankind You’re smiling at, or just me and my stupidity?

  Anyway, Estelle asked did I want the photo, because otherwise she would just throw it out. I said no thanks. I already had a copy of the A Miracle? article. I thanked her for her trouble. I didn’t really know the Rolyokes very well, I said.

  If he had left everything to Harriet it would have made a difference, wouldn’t it? She’d have been a lawyer. Don’t think I’m complaining; he didn’t owe us anything. He’d been more than kind to me and Harriet both. I think well of him — better than well, really. Kind of — don’t laugh. Kind of the way I think about You.

  You’re welcome.

  Anyway, a legacy from Mr. Rolyoke would have made a real difference to Harriet. And to me, I suppose.

  What was that? Stephen Bluestone? Yes, You’re right of course. It would have made a difference to him too. He’d have been a cripple.

  All these would-have-beens.

  Rise, my love, my fair one, and come away. He used to say that to me, sitting with me in my empty window frame, staring up at the moonlit night. He always spoke so beautifully, David Lawrence Godwin did. I loved him so much; it was an honour to love a man like that. But I’d like to know one thing, I told him. Do you … love me back? Just a little?

  Of course if he’d answered, Yes, a little, then I’d have hated it. And if he’d answered, No, not at all, I’d have ordered him away. But he always gave the correct answer — My love, he’d say, I do not love you a little. How could I love you a little? I love you more than the stars and moon, more than the grains of sand in the beach, more than the leaves on the trees. David was big on enumerating the size of his love, the number of bakery trucks he owned, the volume of dough — cubic tons, I think, I pictured rooms full of the gooey stuff — that his employees turned, every day, into bread and rolls. Did I say David? Geoff. I meant Geoff. Geoff the charitable baker, not David the fictional soldier, wounded in The War.

  How could I ever have got them confused? I must be worse than I thought. I’m reminded of the time Harriet and I discussed my memory problem, back before I broke my ankle. We were up in the apartment, drinking tea and staring out at the grey clouds that looked close enough to touch. Would it have been the only time we spoke of it? Maybe. Just because I don’t remember any other times doesn’t mean there weren’t any.

  You’re going to have to take me to the doctor’s, Harriet, I said. I’m starting to forget things.

  Like what? she said.

  How should I know what? I said. I’m the one forgetting. You should be telling me what, I said. You’re the competent one.

  She turned away as if she couldn’t look at my face. We’ve already been to the doctor, she said. We were there this morning. You forgot the visit.

  I thought back, but couldn’t make a picture. Not that one anyway. What did we talk about at the doctor’s office? I asked.

  Forgetting things, she said.

  Good, I said, and she nodded Mm hmm. We drank tea for a moment. It began to rain. Did the doctor cure me? I said.

  She snorted. I’ve always been able to make her laugh. Evidently not, she said.

  Geoff was a good man, a hairy man who said he loved me. And not just me. Harriet is such a nice girl, he said. So talented. Do you remember her wind band meeting in my shop, Rose? My first shop, he added. I remembered.

  Such a smart girl, he said. Arguing your case in front of the judge — and just a chi
ld at the time. When you told me that story, Rose, I was so proud of her. Proud the way a father is proud of his daughter. I was honoured to attend her graduation. And I would be honoured to be a second father to her now.

  It was summer, but it must have been late because the front room was dark. We were alone, me at the window, Geoff on one knee in front of the fireplace. I turned on our new floor lamp. Geoff squinted up at me, shading his eyes from the trilight bulb. Say yes, Rose, he begged. Make me the happiest of men.

  Oh, Geoff, I said. This is so sudden.

  Not for me, Rose. He smiled, stretching his face flat so that two quiffs of nostril hair poked out, like a pair of rabbits peering from neighbouring burrows. When his face relaxed they receded again. It was a phenomenon I’d noticed before.

  I’m not poor, he said. The baking business has done well. Do you know how many trucks I have at my beck and call? he asked.

  I said I didn’t know. Guess, he said.

  Why didn’t I love him? Why? A good man, hard working and never mean, he’d earned his success. He deserved a chance to show off to the woman he loved. I didn’t resent his delivery trucks or his manicure. He wasn’t ugly, and anyway I’d have been forty years old — forty-two, if that was the year Harriet graduated. Who was I to pick and choose? It’s not as though John Gilbert was hanging around our back door.

  It was a bit of a shock seeing him for the first time on screen. Arabian Love, wasn’t it? He reminded me of my imagined portrait of Lieutenant David Godwin. I gaped all the way through the movie, and made sure I got to see While Paris Sleeps and Truxten King and Cameo Kirby when they came to the Arlington Cinema. It was as if I’d drawn a picture of a flower never before seen, and then found it in a meadow. Anyway, by the time I might have married into the bakery business he was out of pictures, Hollywood’s and mine. 1952? Would that be right? I didn’t have George Brent hanging around the door either.

  Come on, guess how many trucks I have, Geoff demanded. Guess high.