Mystical Rose (16 page)

But Ruby, you don’t have a piano.

Who needs a piano if you have a good tuner, she said, hunting through her purse. Very sensitive fingers, she said. He needs them on his job.

Ruby! I felt obliged to act shocked. It made Ruby happier if she was shocking people.

Got a match? she asked. I don’t seem to have any left.

You can have my attention any day, said Albert, smiling up at me, tapping his unwithered foot. You can have my attention and some more too.

Please, Mother, said Harriet.

I had their eyes now, all of them, the whole room looking at me the way you look at the television when there’s only one channel. Nothing better on than me right now, so they were watching. Even the card players.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Rose and I’m new here. I have a short but important announcement to make.

Harriet stood beside me, head bowed, face locked in an expression of suffering. She hates to be made a fuss of.

I would like to present my daughter, Harriet, I said, turning slowly to starboard, like a … well, like one of them. A big one. This young lady here, I said. She’ll be coming by to visit me, and I want you to know her. Look well, I told them all, though the card players had gone back to their game. Albert was frowning up at me.

But you’re not Rose, he said.

Come along, Mother, said Harriet. Tears in her eyes, she wiped them away.

You’re Mavis, he insisted. You know, he wasn’t that bad looking. For a skinny cripple.

Harriet and I found a table to ourselves. A stain on the cloth, but I didn’t mind. Oh, Mother, Mother, she said. Where are you? She looked so sad, staring at me as if my eyes were windows with the curtains drawn, and she was trying to see past them into my living room.

Hi, there, said a lady in a sky-blue coat. A doormat — no. Haven’t seen you two in a while, she said.

Do you know my daughter, Harriet? I asked her.

She smiled. Course I know Harriet, she said. Don’t you present her to everyone whenever you come in here?

Harriet smiled sadly. Hello, Fern, she said. A volunteer. That’s what Fern was.

Do you want a cup of tea, Mother? With milk from the silver jug.

I hate tea, I said.

4
Annunciation

The sound at the door was fainter than breath on a window. I knew it more than I heard it. Come in, I said, my own whispered voice ringing like a great bell. I strained my eyes in the pitch dark of the third-floor bedroom, wanting to see his face, his hand on the door, wanting to see the door opening. But I saw nothing, heard nothing but my own lungs pushing the wind away. Next thing I knew I was gloriously overwhelmed, as if by a huge and affectionate mythical beast. Or maybe I was a shivering bather, plunging my cold loveless body into water so steaming hot that pain and pleasure were one. I could not, cannot now, say what happened. Did we speak? I have neither sound nor picture in my mind, only a glorious series of sensations, a kind of sense-movie. How long it took I do not know, but the smell afterwards was very strong. Smoke.

He did say I was beautiful. I can hear it. I can hear it even now. Did he say anything else? Did he say goodbye? I don’t know. But he did call me beautiful. Am I really, I said. Am I really beautiful?

And in the morning, there was the sun, and the wrapped box on
the desk. Silver paper with a true-love bow and a note inside. A gift for me on my birthday.

You bet you’re beautiful, sweetheart, said the man at the hotel bar.

My face must have registered shock like one of those meters you carry around to test if the connection is live. Ruby’s mouth opened in a carmine O, fringed with teeth and leaking cigarette smoke and hoarse laughter.

Careful, Orville, she said.

The man looked put out. Already said my name’s Wilbur, he said. And can’t a man pay a compliment to a … ahem, a beautiful lady like Rose here? Have another, he said.

Thanks, said Ruby, downing her manhattan — the perfect drink for our trip, she’d already called it. Numerous times.

I didn’t mean you, said the man, Orville — there now, I’ve got me doing it — Wilbur, the nice faintly drunk young man from advertising. I meant Rose here, he said.

She turned serious. Rose
is
beautiful, isn’t she? said Ruby. You are right, Orville. I’m glad the two of you are hitting it off so well.

I glared at Ruby, but she was already laughing at the man on the other side of her, a fat man with a loud suit and a drink in each hand.

Hi there, Dad, said a young voice behind Albert.

He grunted without turning round. Junior, he said.

The man was a younger version of Albert, tall and thin, long faced, large nosed, but without the hair. He was almost bald. I wondered what Harriet would make of him.

How have you been doing, Dad?

Fine.

Harriet wasn’t with me this morning. She promised she’d come one day soon. I nodded to Junior. A nice young man with dandruff on his dark suit. I wondered how you could have dandruff without hair. Albert didn’t introduce us, so I turned to go. Gracefully on my good leg, trailing my not-so-good one. Albert stopped me. Rolled his chair right at me. His eyebrows fell over his eyes, making his glance stern and reproving. I smiled over my shoulder, not coquettish or anything, but a woman’s smile at a man who likes her looks. You know the one.

Where are you off to, Mavis? Albert asked me.

I’m Rose, I said. Remember?

You are a silly girl, Mavis, he told me. I turned away to hide my smile. It was a bit of a thrill being called a girl. Took me back.

Oh, Dad. Oh, no. Junior stepped forward to grab the back of his father’s wheelchair. He smiled at me too, but not like his father. He was embarrassed. Come on, Dad, we have to go, he said, pulling the wheelchair around.

Goodbye, Albert called over his shoulder. See you soon, Mavis.

Bye, I said.

Aren’t you going to say goodbye to your own mother? Albert demanded. Junior wheeled him away without a word.

At the card table the fat lady was writing something on a scorepad. The little man picked his hearing aid off the table and tapped it, the way you tap a microphone to see if it’s working. He winced. It was working. The other lady was making faces at him. Funny faces, I thought.

The place was called Pierre’s. Long and narrow, with a bar down one side and booths on the other side. A dance floor at the back, with a quiet band, or maybe the talk was loud. The bartender’s
name was Max. He pushed his hair around when he wasn’t making drinks and emptying ashtrays. Wilbur was explaining his work to me and Ruby. I was listening. Ruby was flirting with the man on the other side of her.

Wilbur’s job was breaking down the people who bought things into groups. If we know who you are, he said, looking at me, we know how to sell you our product. He smiled with nice teeth. He liked talking about his work.

Even if it’s … shoes, I said, trying to think of something I didn’t want to buy right now. My shoes, bought that day in Broad’s, Fifth Avenue, were killing me.

Don’t you like shoes?

All right, not shoes. Oh … wrenches, then, I said. Or a brace and bit.

We wouldn’t try to sell you wrenches, he said. We wouldn’t waste our time on you with wrenches. We’d try to sell you what you wanted. What you’dve bought anyway. Only you’d buy ours, instead of the other guy’s.

Like Lux soap, I said, instead of Palmolive.

The interested look on his face went suddenly deeper. The difference between noticing a handsome man in the distance and having a handsome man come up and ask you for a light. Which brand of soap do you buy? he asked me.

Whichever is the cheapest, I said. Though I do like the advertisements for … Ajax.

Ajax? He couldn’t believe it. Ajax? The thundering hoofbeats getting louder and louder as the white knight gets closer to you. … Really, he said.

I nodded. I always see him as a stern man, I said.

Tough with dirt, he murmured.

But just, I said. And gentle underneath.

Ruby was talking to a bald man with a huge ring on his pinky. He wiped his forehead a lot, and he had a lot of forehead to wipe. The pinky ring flashed in the barlight.

Pardon me, Rose, but are you over thirty?

I stared. A woman doesn’t answer personal questions, but I was flattered to think that the issue might be in doubt.

I am over thirty, I said. Though, really, Mr. — I mean, Wilbur — I can’t see what business it is of yours?

My agency has the Ajax account, he said. Nationwide. I’m very … I’m interested in my work. Over thirty … well well, and of course you’re under forty-five. And you’re … single?

Widowed, I said. It was getting easier to think of myself that way; it was on all the forms.

He nodded. Widowed lady, between thirty and forty-five, he murmured, wriggling a little. Do you … pardon the personal nature of this question … own your own washing machine?

I nodded. His eyes shut. There were little drops of sweat on his eyelids. It was pretty hot in the bar. In the back the musicians were playing something slow and sultry.

Perfect, he said. Just perfect. Do you want to dance? he asked, leaning towards me. I could smell his hair.

Wilbur, I said. I’m not like that.

Yes you are, Rose. He opened his eyes. Statistics is an exact science, he said.

Was I surprised to hear the noise at my door? I must have been expecting it, to have heard it, faint as falling snow against the heavy panels. I must have been privy to the plan. I must have known, acquiesced, at some point led him to understand that his presence
was expected at my chamber door in the house where he lived.

My new room was not lovely, not large, not tidy, not well appointed. It sat at the back end of the third floor hallway, beside the broom cupboard, across from Parker’s cosy little den. It had been a furniture storeroom, and it still smelled of rotting leather and lumber, and squirrels. The window was small and hard to open, and faced north. All the tower maids wanted it. It’s not fair, said Mrs. Porson in her raspy voice, that Rose should get her own room. She hasn’t been here as long as me!

Shut up, said Parker. Shut up the lot of you. Make me sick, you cackle on like a parcel of hens.

We were all in the back kitchen. You know, I can still smell the lamp black. And the soot from the fireplaces. And the polish we used on the shoes and leather.

But you promised
me
, pouted little Maureen, Parker’s favourite. You promised, she said, standing next to the stout matronly housekeeper, staring up with her little-girl face. Ringlets, dimples, figure as tight and trim as a boy’s. We all tried for boys’ figures back then, heaved ourselves down with hawsers and wraps to avoid flapping.

You promised, Parky, she said, greatly daring. None of the rest of us would have called her Parky to her face.

Rose gets the new room, said Parker. Final. I have orders.

I stared out the window, disturbed because I was being singled out, because I knew what was going on. Because I didn’t know.

The back kitchen window overlooked a lane leading down to the stables — garage, I should say, though there were horses there too, still. Mr. Davey was burning trash in a big bonfire. Snow fell, the fat stupid surprised snowflakes of early spring, which vanished as soon as they touched anything.

Orders, rasped Mrs. Porson. From who, I wonder?

Orders from Master Robbie, said Maureen, in a whisper I was meant to hear.

Shut up, Parker said again. My orders come from Lady Margaret.

He came to me that night. I heard him, bumping down the corridor. I sat up in bed, thinking, This isn’t right. Excited, though, eyesight sharp, heart bumping around like a bee in a bottle, flesh atingle. The door was in the wrong place. What was wrong? Not used to the room. I listened as hard as a shrew listens in the dead of night, sensing the owl floating overhead. I swallowed. Wondered what it would be like.

I heard his voice, muttering. Hush, I wanted to shout. Hush, you fool. She’ll hear you.

The door handle turned. The door opened inward. Was that right? I saw his shadow in the shaft of hall light. A hunched crooked shadow, moving forward inexorably. Was that right?