Flowers in the Morning

by Irene Davidson

  “Look Matthew, a moon globe...” he turned the globe until he found what he was looking for, “See, here’s the Sea of Tranquillity where the first moon landing was made in nineteen sixty nine, long before you were born. You know, I’ve wanted one of these for ages, but there was never enough space for stuff like this in my London studio ...maybe I’ll get it now, then we can both look at it properly at home.” He picked up a boxed globe and took it to the counter, tucking a new star chart under his arm as well. After he had paid, he handed the star chart to Matthew, saying, “I thought you might like one of these for your own. There are lots of stars and constellations that you can see without the telescope and you could use it at your house.”

  Matthew was pleased with the gift and walked jauntily along beside Hamish, showing it to Sara as soon as they met up. She had completed everything on her list so Hamish suggested stowing their purchases in his car and walking the short distance downhill for a pub lunch down in the colonnaded Pantiles before they went shopping for his groceries. Fifteen minutes later they were seated and ordering a hot lunch at The Ragged Trousers. Hamish’s roast lamb arrived served inside a huge Yorkshire pudding, and was perfect. Sara’s baked Camembert looked good and tasted better, as did the croque monsieur that Matthew speedily devoured. Thinking that a post-lunch walk back up the hill was more than anyone wanted, they opted instead for taking the bus on the return trip.

  At the supermarket, Hamish bought as much as he dared fit in the small car. They filled the boot with supplies, and Matthew rode home, his small figure almost engulfed in the back seat by bags of groceries and new clothes. It was with some difficultly that Hamish extricated him from the mass of carrier bags when he dropped Sara and Matthew back at their own place before driving home himself.

  ***

  Laden with bags of groceries, Hamish let himself into the cottage and called Liana’s name but was met with silence. He continued unloading more shopping before checking upstairs for her ...after all, he chided himself, he couldn’t go on worrying every time she was out of his sight. Like the morning before, there was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for her absence. He was rounding the top of the stairs when the silence was broken by a loud sneeze. See ...she was upstairs and just hadn’t heard him call. Still, it was hard to contain his relief. The sound had emanated from behind the closed curtains of the tester and he headed there to greet her. She was lying on the bed, supported by pillows. Hamish was about to say a cheery “hello”, when he noticed that she didn’t look at all well. Her eyes were red and puffy, she had a box of tissues beside her and she appeared to be having some difficulty breathing.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, dropping to sit on the bed at her side, immediately concerned.

  “I... don...dhow,” she replied, with some effort. She looked feverish and when he put a hand to her brow it was unnaturally hot. Her breath was coming in short, wheezy gasps like an asthmatic struggling for air. Making a quick trip to the bathroom cabinet, he came back with a digital thermometer. A minute later he knew for sure that her temperature was dangerously high.

  “Has anything like this ever happened to you before?” For someone who was ageless, she seemed to have a disturbing propensity for becoming unwell, he thought.

  “Dhow ...dhnever.” She had difficulty even forming the words between gasps.

  “Never? As in Never. Ever?” he asked, horrified. She shook her head and tried to sit up but even that small movement seemed to pain her and she subsided back into the pillows. This was definitely not good. “I’m going to get you some paracetamol for the fever,” He raced back to the bathroom and was back in moments with two tablets, a tumbler of water and a cool damp cloth. She swallowed the pills then lay back exhausted. Hamish placed the compress on her forehead and she looked grateful for the small cool patch. “I think it might be time I called our friendly neighbourhood doctor again,” he said. “If you’ve never been sick before, I’ve no idea how much worse you’re going to get. You need professional help.” At his words, she frowned, and was about to try and speak. “Its O.K., I’ll make sure he understands that you can’t leave White Briars, no matter what,” he reassured her, turning from the bed to find his phone. “Though how I’m going to do that if the doctor insists you need to go to hospital is more than I can work out right now,” he muttered under his breath.

  Fortunately, Doctor McLean was in, and able to make an immediate house call. He spent several minutes checking Liana’s pulse, temperature, lungs, ears and throat before turning to Hamish. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that this young lady simply has a very bad cold, complicated by a raging throat infection and incipient lung problems ...she shows all the classic symptoms ...only, much worse than I’ve ever seen in all my years of practice here. It reminds me of natives in New Guinea, when I was a young man practising out there,...they hadn’t been exposed to many western diseases and some of the things we take for granted can kill if you’ve no immunity. Is there any chance that she’s never been exposed to a cold before?” he asked Hamish.

  “Could be,” Hamish replied, not wanting to say too much.

  “Well,” mused the doctor, “strange as that may seem, let’s make that assumption for now and I’ll treat her accordingly.” He looked back at Liana, “And I assume that you still have this hospital phobia that I was told of last time.” She nodded, barely moving her head.

  “She’s petrified of hospitals,” added Hamish, “It’s all I can do to get her to see you.” He hoped he wouldn’t burn in hell for that white lie.

  The doctor looked unconvinced. He spoke to Liana. “In that case, I’m going to give you some antibiotics, the old-fashioned way. He dug in his bag for a syringe and needle. You might want to leave Mr McAllister,” he said as he filled the syringe, gently tapping the barrel to remove air bubbles.

  Hamish left the room promptly. After a few minutes the doctor came downstairs to join him. “She’s sleeping,” he said, “I’ve given her a hefty dose of antibiotic and left her with an inhaler to help her breathing, but you’ll need to keep a close eye on her,...don’t make any mistake about this,...colds can kill, if they strike the wrong person at the wrong time. She’s going to need more antibiotics, so I’ll check in on her again tomorrow ...but, if she starts to go downhill from where she is now, phobia, or no phobia, I want you to get her to a hospital, pronto. And she’ll require round-the-clock watching. Do you understand?”

  “Absolutely,” said Hamish, wishing it was that easy.

  “I’m glad to see that she’s put on some weight since I last saw her. That’s in her favour. She young and looks fairly healthy, apart from this set-back, so if there are no further complications, it should be fairly plain sailing.” He gave Hamish a few more instructions concerning Liana’s care, then left, saying that he could see himself out. Hamish went back to the room ...Liana was sleeping upright, supported by the pillows. The doctor had covered her with a light quilt so Hamish left her just long enough to go and unpack the remaining shopping. For the rest of the evening he checked on her frequently, but aside from taking some tiny sips of water, she wanted nothing else. She protested at having to take more medication, but Hamish insisted and she relented, too weak to object.

  ***

  Liana’s recovery took the better part of three weeks. During the early days of her illness, while she was at her weakest, David came over daily to assist Hamish with her care. On his first visit he had listened, open mouthed to Hamish’s confirmation of Liana’s background and history. Hamish recounted the tale of his discovery of the diaries and some of Liana’s own story that she had revealed the night she had returned.

  “It is one thing to acknowledge that someone like this might exist,” David pronounced apologetically, after Hamish had finished speaking, “but quite another to have the irrefutable evidence in front of your own eyes. Now I know what Thomas felt like when Our Lord showed him his wounds from Calvary and insisted on him placing his fingers in the wound to allay hi
s doubts. I will admit now that I did have some serious reservations that she was who you said.” He brightened. “There are hand-written diaries, you say? I’d very much like to see those accounts sometime, if ... Liana you say her name is? ...If Liana will permit me.”

  “That’s O.K.,” Hamish replied magnanimously. “Your scepticism was quite understandable. I still find it hard to believe myself. What I don’t understand, is why she should be so ill, now, when she has lived for centuries without any apparent physical weakness.”

  “You say that she could wander around, with very little in the way of clothing, and she didn’t feel cold or heat previously? And she only ate when she felt like it? Nor was she ever ill?” said David, “Goodness me ... then something has changed pretty radically for her, hasn’t it? If she’s only just, as you said, awakened again, and she’s already suffered near-starvation from lack of food, hypothermia from the cold and now this. Well, on the surface, there doesn’t appear to be too much difference between her and us, does there?”

  “That’s what I’ve been wondering,” The two were lounging in front of the sitting room fire, and Hamish lifted his whiskey glass to his lips, sipping thoughtfully before continuing, “You know, David, she told me that it’s the garden that is the source of her immortality, ...and that’s why she insists that she can’t ever leave here. What if something has altered that has affected, or even taken away that immortality? That would certainly be a game-changer and leave her open to the kinds of things that trouble the rest of us mere mortals.”

  “For what reason?” David questioned. “I mean, why should her state change now? Is there anything that you know, that I don’t?”

  “No. At least, nothing concrete. Only that she as much as admitted to me that this time she’d tried to sleep in a way that she’d never wake up again. She wasn’t able take her own life ...she says that the garden wouldn’t allow her to …but she came as close to death as she dared. Maybe that was too close, and it’s resulted in her becoming vulnerable?”

  “Let’s get her well again,” David spoke in the practical tones of one who was accustomed to dealing with the day-to-day crises within his parish, “and once we’ve achieved that, I have a suggestion as to how you might test your theory. In the meantime, I think it’s high time that I beat you at chess again. Now, where’s that board?” David rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation.

  ***

  David was not the only one feeling glee.

  Outside the sitting room window Jack was euphoric with elation. She was sick! Oh how wonderful. He did a little happy dance, prancing around on his stick-like limbs in a parody of joy. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone of the garden folk had succumbed to illness or death –himself excluded of course.

  But then his demise had hardly been of natural origins and was something that he held the garden entirely to blame for. If he could get rid of Liana, the Garden’s favourite, he might at last get his own back for that indignity.

  There be none of beauty’s daughters

  With a magic like thee;

  Lord Byron

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ironically, it was Liana’s illness and enforced bed-rest that gave Hamish the incentive to restart painting. In the first days after she fell ill, he couldn’t go far from her side so it seemed a good time to begin a new canvas. He set the easel up in the light from the big oriel windows near the stairwell, far enough from her bed to let her sleep while still allowing him to keep a close eye on her. After digging out his painting equipment from the studio store cupboard where he had stashed it after moving house he went in search for subjects to paint. Thanks to Liana’s bounty, there was no shortage of flowers to choose from. He decided to use those that she had most recently brought inside, thinking that they would be freshest, but when he went downstairs to find them, it occurred to him that any of the bouquets that she had left for him would have done just as well, ...they were now dotted around the house, the first in the study, with subsequent bunches in the sitting room and kitchen, not including the white lilies that he had taken to David’s on Christmas day and the wreath which was still hanging on the front door. None showed any signs of aging or wilting …the petals all looked as vibrant and beautiful as they had been when he had first discovered them and the downstairs rooms of the cottage were filled with their delightful scent.

  He was reminded of Liana’s floral bower in the dovecote with its cascade of flowers and thinking that she might like to have flowers nearby her bed, carried one of the bouquets upstairs and sat them on a low table next to the tester. Their presence was short lived, though; as soon as the doctor laid eyes on the flowers he ordered them out of the room, saying that his patient was having enough trouble breathing without adding pollen to her already overworked lungs.

  Not quite following the doctor’s orders, Hamish took the massive bouquet and set it atop the stone newel at the head of the stair...he rearranged the flowers until he was happy with the composition then began sketching out an enormous canvas that featured the flowers as a sort of still-life, ...not of the Old Masters variety of darkened flowers, dead fowl and bowls of fruit; these flowers were bright, bold and proud of it. As he started to apply paint, he could feel the power of creation flowing between his brush and the canvas, until it seemed as if the flowers were painting themselves. It was all he could do just to keep some level of control over the whole process,... he made decisions quickly, working wet-on-wet with a palette knife and brushes, adding here, taking away there, until he was completely absorbed in his work, ceasing to be aware of his surroundings, ...the world could have ended, and still he would have painted on. The first canvas was complete within an hour, …setting it aside he reached for another … by the end of day he had multiple canvases of hugely exuberant work that celebrated life and beauty in a way that only great art can. He had taken short breaks to minister to Liana and consume a hastily made sandwich and cup of coffee, drinking so quickly that he had scalded himself ...now as he stood back to contemplate the final completed canvas a wave of tiredness and hunger hit him, ....time, he thought, to go and find some real food and rest.

  ***

  Over the next days, Hamish continued to paint at a feverish rate.... so that by the end of the first week he had completed ten huge canvases, all in the same vein as the first, using the flowers, leaves and vines that Liana had provided and working upstairs. He set up the compositions each morning and dragged himself, spent but contented, to bed, each evening.

  One fine morning in the third week he took the easel down to the garden and set himself up outside to start a smaller painting, laying the Christmas wreath on the ground near the front portico of White Briars. The snow had disappeared with the warming weather, but he wanted a winter scene so used a little artistic licence to include the snow drifts he remembered into his painting. Hamish was applying the last touches to this smaller canvas when Liana emerged from the house ..., so absorbed in completing the details of the wreath that he didn’t hear her footsteps as she crept up behind him to look over his shoulder at the painting. The first he was aware of her presence was a movement in his painting, ...as he applied the last daubs of paint with the brush he could have sworn the white petals of the hellebores undulated, almost as if, he thought, a slight breeze was playing across the surface of the canvas. He must be more tired than he knew,...now his eyes were playing tricks on him,...he rubbed his temples with the back of one paint-splattered hand and stepped back, colliding with Liana, who had been right behind him and almost sending her flying.

  Hamish exclaimed, then apologised for his clumsiness, “I’m so sorry,” he said. Without thinking, he’d put out a hand to steady her, and had left multi-coloured fingerprints on the sleeve of the new pyjamas that had been part of Sara’s shopping spree. He reached for a turpentine-soaked cloth to remove the worst of the paint, but only succeeding in spreading the colours further. “Oops –now I’ve made it worse. We’ll have to wash it before the paint starts to se
t.” He looked at her then, noting her improved colour and expression. “I wasn’t expecting to see you out of bed ...you gave me a start, there.” Then he looked down. She was barefoot ... “I didn’t stand on your foot, did I?” She shook her head. “In that case …What were you thinking, coming out here without slippers ...or a dressing gown,” he looked stern, “The sun might be warm, but there’s still a cool breeze about. You want to catch a chill on top of that cold? Here, take my jacket.” He unzipped his warm fleece jacket and shrugged out of it to put it around her. It hung sizes too big over her shoulders, thin again from this latest illness, but it would keep her warm.

  She crossed her arms in front of her body to hold the edges of the jacket together and looked so abashed that he immediately regretted chastising her, “I didn’t realise ...I mean,... I’m not used to having to think about footwear and extra clothing,” she looked up at him, obviously confused. “I don’t know what’s happening to me ...I’ve never felt like this before. Do you have any idea?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Or at least, David and I do ...but we’ll talk about that later.” He looked quizzically at her, “Was that my eyes playing tricks just before, or was that something you did?”

  “Who, me?” she looked at him, all innocence, head to one side. She didn’t quite resort to fluttering her eyelashes, but the look was smugly coy.