Mystical Rose (21 page)

Do I … He’s a nice man, I said. Meaning it like a compliment, but Ruby laughed.

So you don’t love him. Well, you’ve known him forever. Have you taken him to bed?

Ruby!

What? I said something? Pardon me, Miss Joan of Arc, I seem to remember a weekend in New York with one of the Wright brothers …

I probably blushed. Is that all you can think about? Sex? I said.

Would I have said sex? Right out like that? Really. Well, if You say so.

What do you know about love? I asked Ruby.

She turned away, and I felt bad. Harriet was out with a girlfriend. We were alone, Ruby and I. She was sitting in an overstuffed wing chair with a drink in her hand. I’m sorry, I said. Have something. Have a … a mint candy. They were in a bowl on the side table, where everyone keeps their candies. I think they’d been there since about 1937. It’s a mystery about mint candies. I don’t eat them, so the bowl was always full. I’ve been to other houses with mint candies, and they don’t eat them either, and the bowls are full there too. What a world.

Stephen’s face, filling the screen. Questions from all around him.

It was her, said Stephen. The investigator from the ombudsman’s office.

The camera swung around. The ombudsman was frowning.

So you were pretending all along, said the news people to Stephen.

Of course not, he said.

Were you trying to make the ombudsman’s office look bad? asked the news people.

Of course not, said Stephen. I tell you, she cured me.

Who?

Stephen pointed. She did it, he said to the news people. It was her.

And there it was on the TV screen, as big as life, my daughter’s face, flushed and smiling, and on her forehead a pimple the size of a shiny red dime.

It was a nine days wonder, the compensation case that didn’t get any compensation and got better anyway. They couldn’t decide if it was a miracle or not. Neither could Harriet. I don’t know what
I did, she told me. I wasn’t trying to do anything. I remember wishing he would get better.

A nine days wonder, like I said. And on the tenth day Harriet was fired.

Uneaten candies in a bowl. It’s a silly idea. Flowers are nicer. More work, mind you, nipping away the dead blooms and refreshing the water — but much more satisfying to look at. There were flowers instead of mint candies in the big house. Plenty of places to put them. The downstairs receiving rooms alone — there were two, a classical and a modern — looked like furniture showrooms, big and busy and crammed full of smooth flat surfaces. And they all needed dusting, the mantels and stands and occasional tables and, in the classical room, a little Louis three-legged thing I was always afraid to touch in case it fell over. Twenty-two rooms in the place, not counting the kitchens and servants’ quarters. Twenty-three with the gallery overlooking the front hall. Twenty-three vases for me to polish and fill every morning, twenty-three vases to empty every evening. Plus the two in the cars. Ten bedrooms, two libraries, games room, front hall downstairs (large vase engraved with Ainslie coat of arms, and always at least one spray of purple) and gallery upstairs (small vase with Rolyoke coat of arms), two receiving rooms, small dining room, large dining room, three drawing rooms, and, last but not least, Lady Margaret’s upstairs sitting room with the view of the back lawn and lake — I mean river. This was the place in Philadelphia. The house in Cobourg was smaller, the lake was nearer, and there wasn’t a conservatory.

What a room that was! Big enough for a ballroom, full of sinuous colourful shapes, growing in defiance of the outdoors. A thick
glass door connected the conservatory to the south side of the house. I can still remember the smell of the place, rich and moist and earthy. And warm enough to grow spring flowers in winter. The power of the seasons at my fingertips. Robbie showed me how to change the temperature with a switch on the wall. Not Robbie, Mr. Rolyoke. I walked up and down the rows of plants, feeling like Eve on the sixth day.

I remember kneeling with my back to the door, cutting blossoms for the day. Electric light flickering overhead. Clouds of condensation on the windows.

I sensed his presence before he spoke. I didn’t dare turn around.

Beautiful Rose, he said.

I couldn’t help smiling. He was always paying me compliments, silly boy. Not a rose, sir, I said. It’s a wild orchid.

You flatter me
. But I wouldn’t have known that at the time. I still didn’t turn around.

Bewitching Rose, he said. Humorous, perplexing Rose. When will I be able to see more of you?

I’m sure I don’t know, sir, I said. With a delicate hand to my mouth, stifling a yawn. Miriam Hopkins had done just the same thing the week before. Perhaps you’ll see more of me when I stand up, I said.

I don’t know what I expected: a laugh, a hand on my shoulder. I tensed, but it wouldn’t have been with fear. I really don’t think it was fear, do You? He didn’t do anything, and when I finally did turn around he was gone.

I went back to cutting.

I cannot see. Hazy hazy, the world has wrapped itself in a … What has the world wrapped itself in, Harriet? I ask, staring up into her
battery-operated … fuck, what are they called? Eyes. Unfuck. Sorry. I don’t usually use words like that — You know that. Ruby will have told You. So will Mama.

She’s upset, Harriet says to the nurse. What is it, Mother? She bends down and shouts it in my ear. I wince.

I want to sit up, I say.

There there, Mother.

She hasn’t heard me. She’s holding my hand like it’s a TV remote. Point and click. I struggle against gravity, trying to sit up. I pull against her hand, working my long slow course up a hill. I can’t make it. I give up and lie back.

Up, I say. Please, up.

Harriet bends down. Tears in her eyes. There I got it that time. Eyes. She lifts me very carefully into a sitting position, holding me in her arms so I won’t fall. My daughter. Never had any children of her own, but she has a nice soft touch. There you go, she says.

I nod my head. Let out my breath. About fucking time, I say.

And of course everyone hears that. Harriet stiffens with shock but the nurse laughs. I don’t know why I’m so coarse all of a sudden.

The view is breathtaking; I’m not. I cough and try to breathe again, light breaths, my lungs moving slowly and carefully. I look out the window and see traffic lights. I see the shadow of our bus against a storefront nearby. Convenience. Candy, magazines, cigarettes. Two boys are arguing out front. One of them grabs something out of the hands of the other one. The first one grabs it back. It’s a magazine. It rips. We lurch on.

After a couple of minutes I get tired and Harriet lets me down onto the pillows. I pat her hand. She nods, blinks. A nurse changes
a bag that’s coming out of my lungs. The bus sways gently; we must be moving around a bend.

Have you put out the flowers?

Yes, Miss Parker.

All of them? All twenty-two vases?

Twenty-three, Miss Parker. Yes.

Saucy. Here, then — help Jane finish cleaning the breakfast pots and pans.

Yes, Miss Parker.

Demure, eyes down. Just three of us in the back kitchen, and Jane was happy to have the help. A minute later Robbie came in. I hoped he wouldn’t say anything about seeing me earlier that morning. Parker would be sure to draw all sorts of conclusions. He’d hardly opened his mouth to speak when I felt the strangest thrill running up and down my spine.

Any more tea? he asked, in a husky whisper. He looked awful, I noticed. Dressing gown and hair all awry.

Certainly, Mr. Robbie, said Parker with a tight smile.

And could I have some honey to put in it?

Of course, sir. That’s a nasty throat you have, sir.

He coughed again. Kept me awake all night, he said. I just got out of bed.

Jane splashed hot water on me. I jumped back. Sorry, she whispered.

I didn’t answer. It hadn’t been Robbie in the conservatory.

Oh, Robbie. I tried to be true to your memory. I don’t mean about Wilbur; that was a surprise, and it was about me, not you. I couldn’t marry Geoff. Rich, kind, manicured Geoff. I woke up after a bad
night — not a drowning nightmare, but a tossed and troubled sleep — and knew what I couldn’t do.

I’m sorry, Harriet, I said.

That’s okay, Mother.

What’ll you do if you can’t be a lawyer? I said.

I can still be a lawyer, she said.

Stubborn girl. She’d found out that you could start out as a law clerk, and then write the examinations anyway. She’d even found a lawyer who would sponsor her. What could I say? What would any parent have said? Good for you, I told her. Now eat your breakfast.

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 in the silence. I strained my eyes in the pitch dark of the third-floor back, wanting to see his face, his hand on the door, wanting to see the door opening. But I saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing until I felt him next to me.

Happy birthday, Rose, he said.

I didn’t say anything.

Beautiful Rose. Do not be afraid, he said. His breath smelled like smoke.

I could not, cannot now, say what happened. Did he speak again? I wonder. I have neither sound nor picture in my mind, only a glorious series of sensations, a kind of sense-movie.

Did he say goodbye? I don’t know.

5
Assumption

Mama, oh Mama, where are you going? Mama, why aren’t you there? Will I be safe with you gone? Will you miss me? Will I be safe? Will I be safe?

She didn’t say anything. Her eyes were closed. Her skin was whiter than I remembered. I went back to my seat. Harriet was chatting with the young woman next to her, a friendly, animated conversation with lots of nods and smiles. The young woman wore a deep red garment which went very well with her dark skin. One of the nieces. Neither of them paid me any attention. Oh yes, I heard Harriet say. He is nice looking, isn’t he?

The woman kneeling behind me whispered over the back of the pew.

You’re Rose, aren’t you? Mrs. Scanlon’s daughter?

I said I was.

You spent a lot of time up there, she whispered to me.

I found a smile for her, a cousin from a small seacoast village, blocky, smelling of cigarette smoke and fish, dressed in purple lilac.

It’s difficult to say goodbye, isn’t it? she wheezed.

I agreed.

It is that. When my Donald died, I cried for days. I couldn’t believe he was gone. I just couldn’t believe it. I used to wander around the house like a lost soul, calling his name. I’d put out food and everything. I couldn’t bring myself to visit his grave. And then — she swallowed recollectively — about a week afterwards, I saw a mouse. The first one since I brought Donald home from the SPCA shelter when he was just a kitten — and I just broke down and sobbed.

The minister read the burial service like a commercial for soap, cramming a lot of words and feeling into the allotted time. When it was over we buried Mama in a seaside cemetery full of dead Scanlons. The Atlantic Ocean snored and clashed and gnawed away at the rocks beneath us. No one cried, not even Bill. Not even me.

One of Bill’s brothers met Harriet and me at the Halifax train station and drove us straight to his house, insisting we stay with him. First time I’d seen any of the Scanlons since Harriet was born. Are you the one they call The Gord? I said.

He shook his head. Red is staying with The Gord, he said. There’ll be more room for you here with me and Jessie and the girls. Sometimes they call me Flat Top, he said.

Harriet ran upstairs after one of the daughters to change. I asked after the third brother.

Dog Face was killed in the war. He was in a minesweeper.

I said I was sorry.

That’s all right. It’s almost ten years, said Flat Top.

You don’t mind that your mother will be buried here? his wife Jessie interrupted. She was a soft-spoken kitchen body in a good black dress covered in cigarette ash. The daughters all smoked too, and the youngest wouldn’t have been more than twelve.