The Scent of Apples

by Jacquie McRae

  Her high heels click as she moves across the wooden floors in the foyer.

  Through the weave of the grey blanket, I stare at the ceiling. When I close my eyes, all I see is Poppa. His smiling, laughing face has been replaced with a pale dead version. It hurts too much to think about him, and yet my mind keeps dragging me to that place I don’t want to go.

  A commotion downstairs interrupts my thoughts.

  ‘Don’t bring the urns of flowers inside – for God’s sake, I’ll sort it out myself.’ Mum barely draws a breath before switching her target.

  ‘Where’ve you been, John?’ Before Dad has a chance to answer, she’s off again. ‘We have one hour to be at the funeral parlour and I’ve got a thousand things to do. You need to go talk to your daughter.’

  Dad will know from her tone that she means right now. Mum’s face will be flushed and her lips stretched tightly closed. I feel sorry for him as I hear him trudge up the stairs to my room.

  I pull the blanket down a little, and notice his pale face and bloodshot eyes as he leans heavily on my door frame.

  ‘Come on, Libby.’ His words come out in a sigh. ‘The last thing we need today is your mum in a state. I have to go check on your nan.’

  I don’t give a shit about Mum’s state, but the thought of Nan makes me sit up and move my legs towards the side of my bed. Dad hesitates in my doorway, and we both hear the sound of glass breaking and Mum yelling at someone in the kitchen. Dad sprints back down the stairs. I take big gulps of air, hoping to calm myself down, as my brain screams at me Poppa’s funeral! Poppa’s funeral!

  A new black dress hangs like a shroud at the front of my wardrobe. I push it aside and see my calico pants crumpled on the floor. I’d painted red roses on them after spending a day in the orchard planting a Dublin Bay rose at the start of each row. I ignore the frayed hem, and struggle to get them on. My legs and arms feel like they have lead weights strapped to them. I force myself to get dressed and go downstairs.

  Mum stands at the foot of the stairs. Her gloved hand rests on the banister. ‘Elizabeth. You are not wearing those pants.’

  I ignore her.

  Mum’s hair is scraped back into a tight bun. On top of this she has clipped a lace veil. The black dress she has on is identical to the one in my wardrobe.

  Dad places his hand on her arm.

  ‘She won’t have time to change: we’re going to be late.’

  She screws her face up, but the word ‘late’ makes her forget my pants and hurry towards the door. This is one of the kindest acts Dad has ever done for me.

  Toby drives the car around to the front door. The world moves in slow motion as Dad helps Nan into the back seat and I slide in beside her. I hold her delicate hand and rub my thumb back and forth across her fingers, searching her eyes for any sign of recognition.

  From the moment Poppa’s body was carried into the house, and the doctors came and said it was probably a massive heart attack that had killed him, Nan stopped speaking, and – apart from breathing – stopped living as well. The same doctors raced in and out of our house for several days, running all sorts of tests on her, but they couldn’t find anything medically wrong. I don’t know if there’s a test for a broken heart, but I figure that’s what she has.

  The vacant look in her eyes as we sit in the car and speed towards her husband’s funeral tells me that not only have I lost my poppa, but I’ve lost my nan as well.

  I was surprised and then angry when I was told that Poppa had written down some plans for his funeral. It hadn’t occurred to me that Poppa wouldn’t be in my life forever. It was his face I imagined smiling up at me from the front seats at the university amphitheatre. Beaming as the professor handed me my degree in horticulture. And it was him and Nan I heard clapping the loudest, when I accepted the gold award for our latest cider.

  As we drive between an avenue of elders, larch and oak trees lining the driveway to the funeral parlour, I understand why Poppa chose this place. Our car crunches to a halt outside a grey stone chapel. My heart is like a piece of the granite rock the church is made of. I’ve forgotten how to breathe. My mouth is dry and my tongue races around it, searching for saliva. I want to lie down on the gravel and not go inside.

  Dad whacks his head on the roof of the car, and mutters something as he coaxes Nan from the back seat. Mum clamps hold of my elbow and walks me into the cool of the chapel.

  ‘You look a bit pale, Elizabeth – sit here until I get back.’ Mum shows me a chair and then whisks off, leaving a trail of her over-spiced perfume.

  I turn, and through the door I see Nan leaning on Dad as he and Toby talk to an elderly couple. The woman is Nan’s bridge partner and best friend for thirty years. She kisses Nan on the cheek, and I feel a whole new wave of sadness as Nan flinches and backs away.

  My tongue feels like sandpaper. I have to find some water. I wander down one corridor and it branches off into another. I find myself standing outside two viewing rooms. They have numbered signs above each door. Both rooms are papered in red and gold stripes, with identical vases of fake flowers, on matching tables.

  A shiver escapes me as I push open the door to one of the rooms. It has a coffin in the centre of it. I drag my feet towards the casket and stare at the figure lying there on burgundy silk. I don’t feel anything. It’s like I’m looking at someone else’s poppa. His features are still the same, but with the colour drained from his face and his mouth set into a straight line, it’s hard to recognise him.

  This isn’t my poppa. This is just a body.

  I want to reach down and pry his eyes open. I know that if I could see his blue eyes, I’d be closer to finding him.

  A door creaks open behind me, and an old man comes into the room. The sides of his pinstripe suit are in a tug of war across his belly. The badge on his lapel tells me his name is Nigel.

  ‘Sorry to frighten you, love. I’m afraid it’s time to go, but I can give you a moment longer if you want to say goodbye.’

  I shake my head. What an idiot. As if any amount of time will ever be enough. I walk away as he takes the coffin lid from the wall.

  *

  You would think that on such a big day, every detail would etch itself onto my brain. But as Dad takes my elbow and leads me to a seat up the front of the church, I block out the hungry eyes and faces that turn to stare at me. I concentrate instead on the wood grain of the church pews. The butter and honey colours swirl together, creating a golden glow. Kauri? maybe rimu.

  An image of Poppa leaning against a railing at a racetrack, a huge grin on his face and a trilby hat in his hands, pops up on a screen next to the pulpit. I quickly turn my head and stare at the memorial windows at the back of the church.

  Prisms of light shine through the mosaic bits of coloured glass that make up the pictures. In one, a nurse with wings on her back sits on a rock with raging sea all around her. She cradles an anchor in her arms. I squint to read the words at the bottom of the window; they tell me that this is the angel of hope. Life would be a lot more hopeful if she ditched the anchor and used her wings.

  As the minister takes his place at the pulpit and welcomes everyone, I find I can look right through him. Through his ugly dark penguin suit and through the mound of white roses that should only be in gardens, not churches. I concentrate hard and fade out his voice.

  A song pops into my head. I hum the lyrics to a song that I used to listen to on children’s radio. It’s about a little fire engine that vowed one day to be big and strong. Dad squeezes my hand and I realise that I’m not just singing in my head. I press my lips shut but let the words play over in my mind. When I was little, I used to sing it to myself in the middle of the night. It comforted me when everything around me was black.

  I stand when everyone stands to sing a hymn, but keep my head bowed and just move my lips up and down. I have no idea what’s being sung. As the service continues, I don’t let a sliver of what people are saying about Poppa get inside my head. It would only start
up the slide show of how I couldn’t save him.

  Houses and people streak past the car window on the ride home – flashing images, too fast for me to work out what they are. I press my forehead against the cold glass. I’m not sure if we’re driving too fast or my brain’s going too slow. I notice a cut between my thumb and my forefinger. It looks like a fingernail has made it, but I don’t remember doing that.

  Our front doors are open, and our foyer is so crowded with people that some of them spill onto the porch. I want to push them all aside, climb up the banister and yell at them, Go home, the show’s over! I don’t have the energy. I keep my head low and excuse my way through all the faces.

  It doesn’t seem possible that only a week ago, I was pushing my way through a crowd similar to this. Poppa had driven Nan and I into Hamilton to watch a film, New Moon. I wore my new skinny jeans, and Nan, who didn’t often wear trousers, put on a black pair and matched her purple boots with a cropped jacket of a similar colour. Poppa winked at her as she got into the back seat of the car.

  ‘So where are you two sisters off to?’ Poppa joked, as he looked at us in the rear-vision mirror.

  ‘I’ve got a date with Jacob, and my friend Bella here is off to see Edward.’

  I giggled. I liked that Nan remembered the characters from the Twilight books I’d told her about. She was fascinated by how a vampire could fall in love with a girl and not bite her. She thought that showed true love. It was Nan who had suggested we should go to the movie.

  I want that day back. I want to rewind all of the last week until I come to the bit where I’m sitting in the car with the two people I love most in the world. And when Poppa asks, ‘So, where can I take you girls?’ I want to be able to lock the car doors and say, ‘Just keep driving, Poppa.’ I’ll look out the back window and, as the orchard fades, I’ll smile, and we’ll drive fast, as far away as possible from trees that people can fall from and be killed.

  But there’s no rewinding: just a sea of black coats, some smelling of moth balls, and the scent from the arum lilies, which spills from vases around the foyer. I feel nauseous. The pain just under my ribcage feels like someone is squeezing my heart.

  ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ I say.

  I bump straight into Mr Lancaster, our neighbour. He tilts his head to one side as he speaks.

  ‘Sorry about your poppa, Libby. You’ll miss him dreadfully.’

  I glare at him. I’m about to say ‘Thanks for the reminder,’ when I see tears in his eyes. I clamp my mouth shut. I recognise pain. I remember that it’s only been two months since his wife died.

  Every night since, I’ve seen him out in the garden watering her roses. I worry that he might drown them. He stands in one spot, the hose gushing water as he stares into nothing.

  Mrs Lancaster didn’t just have green fingers; I think her toes must have been green as well. Her begonias had blooms twice the size of ours, and her blueberry bushes had the fattest and sweetest fruit I’d ever tasted. I’d see her working in her garden most days, an old straw hat pulled low on her brow. She had a thing about roses. She had some that climbed fences and some that scrambled over arbours, and the ones she was most proud of were the white Iceberg roses that stood tall and proud along their driveway. It never crossed my mind until now how lonely Mr Lancaster must be.

  ‘Thank you,’ I mumble, and move away. The pain in my chest tightens.

  I nearly make it to the stairs, but Meryl Dryberg catches my arm as I try and slip past. She’s the founding member and president of the Neighbourhood Watch. I’m sure she formed the group so she had an excuse to nose around people’s houses. Poppa would run for the back door as soon as he heard or saw her coming. Her nasal voice carries through walls, so we can all hear what we should and shouldn’t be doing. Even today, I see her take a quick inventory of my clothes. She leans in towards me, and I think she’s going to kiss me, but she whispers in my ear ‘Your bra strap’s showing,’ and then moves in closer and tucks it in.

  I made my first bra last year. I’d cut two triangles out of a skirt, and pulled some stuffing out of the lounge cushions to use as padding. I didn’t really need one to hold my boobs up, but I hated the way my nipples stuck out. I might as well have had a sign on my chest that said watch this space.

  A blush rises to my cheeks. Meryl smiles like she’s just saved me from falling over a cliff.

  ‘You poor thing.’ She looks at me like I’m some dumb stray that’s wandered in looking for food. ‘It’s awful that you had to lose your grandfather.’

  I clench my jaw shut. The urge to scream at her I didn’t lose him, you stupid bitch; I know exactly where he is! makes me bite the sides of my mouth. I turn and walk away quickly.

  Please God, beam me up. I can’t do this. I stare at my shoe laces. I stop bleating ‘excuse me’ and just shove through the people. Blood thumps in my ears, which is good because it drowns out the voices. At the end of the hall, I duck in to the broom cupboard and crouch down in the dark and hide with the vacuum cleaner, dusters and brooms. I push the mop head away from me, but there’s not room for both of us. It keeps falling down and banging me on the head. I push open the door and sneak along the hall into the laundry.

  The black and white chequered lino is cold to sit on, but I’m happy to be away from all the chatter. The pole we use to hook down the stairs that lead to the attic, is propped up against the back door. I want to grab it and hook down the stairs that lead to heaven. I’d march right up them and demand to know why Poppa left me behind.

  When I was about four, Poppa told me we were linked by an invisible cord. He pulled up his shirt and showed me his belly button where he said the link started, and then his hands pulled on that invisible cord all the way back to me. I wasn’t sure if everyone had a cord linking them to someone, but I always felt special that mine was tied to his. He said that no matter where I went in the world, and especially if I felt frightened or alone, I just needed to think about the link and follow it with my mind. At the end of the cord, he’d be waiting. Cold seeps into me from the laundry floor. I wonder if the cord can stretch as far as heaven.

  In a wicker basket by the washing machine is a pair of Poppa’s blue overalls. I scramble over and grab them, crushing them to my chest. The unmistakable smell of earth and wool mixed in with something that resembles violets wafts up. I bury my face in the cotton, hoping to plug up the hollow spaces inside me. Instead, my seams split open and all my stuffing oozes out.

  The pain and sadness I’ve held in all week tumbles over a wall. It floods out like a dam bursting through its stop banks, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  ‘How could you?’ I scream. ‘How could you?’ I rip at his overalls, but the fabric won’t budge. I know I have to calm down so I can breathe, but I can’t control my sobbing. ‘I hate you, Poppa.’

  I hear a high-pitched wailing sound. I bang my head on the wall to try and block out the sound, and then I realise that it’s coming out of my mouth. The beat of my head against the wall soothes me.

  Someone places their hand on my shoulder. I turn and see Dad’s frightened eyes staring at me.

  ‘It’s OK baby; it’s OK. Let’s get you upstairs.’ I don’t resist as he picks me up. I see blood but I don’t know whose it is. My head rests on his chest and I listen to his heart beat as he carries me up the stairs.

  He tucks me into bed as Mum rushes in.

  ‘Oh my God, Elizabeth. What happened? Did you fall on something?’

  I don’t have any energy to answer.

  She starts wiping at the blood on my face with the corner of my sheet. Dad disappears and returns a moment later with a flannel, but after that things are hazy.

  The last thing I remember before falling asleep is Dad telling Mum that I was whacking my head on the wall, and Mum saying that we’d better keep that bit to ourselves.

  *

  Sometimes I notice a light playing on pink walls, and then blackness chases it away. There seems to be a pattern to the
light and the dark but I can’t work it out. I want to dive into the black that spreads along the wall, but something holds me back. Over and over, I climb the ladder to the springboard so I can dive into the dark. Just when I think I’m brave enough to take the plunge, it’s illuminated with light.

  The distorted faces come into focus and one of the garbled voices becomes familiar. I smell disinfectant and recognise Doctor Wren. He’s the only doctor at the medical centre that you can get a same-day appointment with, and also the only one who has enough time to make house calls. Without so much as a ‘Hi,’ or a ‘Welcome back to the world,’ he touches me with his cold hands. He flips me around like I’m a piece of dough.

  Dad perches on the end of my bed. Worry lines are squiggled across his forehead. I want to reach out and rub them away. I manage a weak smile, and it’s enough to erase some of the lines. Mum stands at the head of my bed.

  ‘You sure know how to add to a crisis, Elizabeth,’ Mum says. ‘So, what is it, doctor?’

  ‘The leg wound caused the problem – the infection spread through her body, which caused the delirium. A few more days of antibiotics and she’ll be good as new.’

  I brace myself for the slap on the back that must go with that statement.

  ‘Well, thank goodness. I couldn’t cope with any more drama,’ Mum says.

  As Mum shows the doctor out, I lean back on my pillow and release a sigh I didn’t know I was holding onto. As they walk down the stairs, I hear Mum offering him some of the leftover food from the funeral.

  ‘Gorgeous little puff pastries and sweet bites. They’ll have to be thrown out unless they’re eaten today.’

  Dad moves up to the side of my bed. ‘Do you want anything?’ he asks.

  My stomach does a flip-flop as the leftover food pops into my mind.

  ‘No thanks.’

  Dad has dark rings under his eyes, and what little hair he has needs a wash. I want to reach out a hand to him and ask if he wants to rest his head on my pillow for a while. But I don’t. It just seems wrong to blurt out something so intimate.