The Garden of Memories

Chapter 1

Rose looks through the kitchen window over the fields towards the thin blue smudge of the ocean. In one corner of the sky, a huddle of dark clouds is rolling towards centre-stage, which is a mixed blessing, as the pot plants could do with a watering. That had been Glen’s job, in fact the whole garden tending thing had been his domain. In the two years since he’s been gone, she’s only done the bare minimum. Mowing the lawn when she remembered and snipping off anything dead. Her gran had taught her that in gardens you always had to make room for the living and new growth (‘A bit like us old ’uns shuffling off this mortal coil,’ she always added), as well the names of some plants that Rose still remembers. Grandma Ivy had been a good teacher. A shame she hadn’t listened more attentively. She makes a mental note to get the garden sorted in the next few days. Sorted, in so far as watering and maybe a strim of the long grass was concerned at least. The rest could wait for proper spring weather.

One of the things Rose promised herself she’d do in the aftermath of not being a nurse, was to have a lie-in and a fry-up. These are two things she rarely has, apart from on ‘high days and holidays’, as her mum used to say. Rose never really knew what the ‘high days’ bit meant. Her mum had a plethora of sayings, part of which often made little sense. She’d had the lie-in, now time for the second promise.

The smell of bacon crisping under the grill lifts her spirits, then she notices the sparkly gift bag looking accusingly at her from the kitchen table. She hasn’t opened it yet, or the cards. When she got back home a few days ago from the surgery, all she wanted to do was watch TV with a takeaway pizza and have a glass of wine or two. Wanted to push the memory of her last day away, sweep it under the carpet, pretend it hadn’t happened. She has to say, over the weekend, she’s been pretty successful in this pushing and sweeping. The wine helped, but once again in the middle of the night, more ponderings poked her awake. She does wish her brain would have a rest. It’s time it had a high day, possibly a holiday. Leisure time, as they say.

A lady of leisure. Rose puts her plate and cup into the washing-up bowl and looks out of the window at the sky again. That’s something else people say, isn’t it? They say it tongue in cheek, with maybe a little smirk. They often add a sprinkling of ‘ladies wot lunch’ to the conversation too, like some hilarious in-joke. It invokes images of women around her age, retired, at a loose end, looking for something to do. It’s okay to poke gentle fun at these women, because they’re vaguely ridiculous, aren’t they? Pushed to the margins of society. They aren’t doers. They have outlived their usefulness – become afterthoughts on invitation lists, joined the ranks of ‘used to bes’.

Rose reminds herself that some women might never have been ‘anything’ in the first place, according to some. So ‘I used to be’ won’t even be a consolation prize for those who had been ‘stay-at-home mums’, or God forbid in her mum’s generation, ‘only housewives’. Maybe the worst of all fates was to ‘end up a spinster’. That’s a word you don’t hear often nowadays – spinster. It was common when Rose was a child. Her mum, gossiping to a neighbour, would sometimes hide that word behind her hand like an embarrassing secret as she passed it over the garden fence. Sometimes it would be mouthed silently above Rose’s head (though she missed nothing) in a café, along with a sly finger-point towards an unsuspecting woman sitting at another table. Rose asked her mum what it meant afterwards, and she said in the kind of hushed tones befitting a funeral parlour, ‘An unmarried woman, sometimes living on her own.’ Shock horror.

A flash of yellow amongst the green interrupts her thoughts, and she cranes her neck to see beyond the holly bush to the left of the wall. Daffodils! There seem to be many more than she remembers from last year, though she didn’t plant more, did she? And especially not there. There were just a few at the front, around the gate. Odd. But oh, aren’t they cheerful! Rose smiles at them. Little drops of sunlight to brighten her day. The sight of them galvanises her spirit somehow and lifts her mood no end. So much so that she decides to go for a walk along Port Gaverne beach, despite the iffy weather. It’s only five minutes away, and shouldn’t be too windy in the sheltered narrow cove nestling under the cliffs. Beach walking is something she hasn’t done for … actually, she can’t remember the last time. Silly, when you think about it, because she can see the ocean from the kitchen window. Then again, when has there been the time? There’s lots of that now, so Rose should make it a mission to get out more in the fresh air. There. That’s one thing she’s found to do already. Perhaps she needs to think outside the box more.

Critically appraising her appearance in the bathroom mirror after a shower, she finds herself wanting, however. Wanting a new face, hair and body, if she’s honest. Preferably a body that’s twenty years or so younger, with a face to match. The chin-length blonde curls clinging damply to her cheeks seem to have given way to grey again. Maybe it’s time she stopped dyeing her hair. Lots of women of her age surrender to the passing of time and ‘embrace the grey’. Blonde hair is for younger women, isn’t it? Another phrase of her mum’s comes to mind. Mutton dressed as lamb. If she does carry on with the blonde, will that be Rose? Mutton?

In the bedroom, she pulls on jeans and a turquoise jumper. Glen always loved her in turquoise, said it matched her eyes. They seem greyer these days too. Maybe all her colours are draining away to leave a fading image in a sepia photograph. Once spring comes, like her garden she’ll get more colour. Winter has dragged on so long this year. Meanwhile, she’ll make do with a sweep of blusher over her cheeks. Mutton. Two defiant pink flashes across the sepia cheekbones add colour to her eyes. Rose puts the blusher brush down and nods at the mirror. Not quite turquoise eyes, but more blue than grey now. Who cares what people think? She won’t conform to expectations. She’s decided to think outside the box after all.

Rose pulls her still-damp hair into a ponytail. What the hell is the box, anyway? Do we put ourselves in them? Do we create them – fashioned by routine and day-to-day life, or are we put in them by society, friends and family? Maybe her box has a label on it – Rose Lanyon, sixty-two, widow, mum, grandma – ‘used to be’ a nurse. If people were interested enough to look inside the box, they might find this extra information – not very adventurous, no ambitions for the future, mutton dressed as lamb. This box feels claustrophobic – restrictive. Definitely a box to break out of.

About to put boots and coat on, Rose notices the sparkly bag again and looks away. Why the reluctance to open it? Pondering a moment, she acknowledges it might be that she’s scared that all the sweeping and pushing away of the last day of being a nurse, could come undone. All the little threads of emotion that she’d so carefully tied together might be unravelled, leaving her exposed and vulnerable. Dear God, it’s just a bag of presents. In two strides she’s at the table and yanking it open.

There’s an envelope, with whip-round money scrawled across it in Sally’s handwriting. There’s a voucher for a cream tea and spa day for two at a swanky local hotel, and lastly, from Dr James, there’s a card with a picture of a galloping brown and white horse on it. Inside is a voucher for horse riding lessons. Horse riding lessons? Rose has to read the thing again to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. On the card is written – About time you went for it, Rose. Must be at least twenty years since you told me you’d always wanted to learn. Lots of love, James. Xx

Twenty years ago? Did she tell him that? She’s no recollection of it, though it’s true she always wanted to learn to ride … just never got round to it. Rose shakes her head. Fancy him remembering. Horse riding isn’t normally a thing to be found in my box, is it? She laughs to herself as she pulls her boots and coat on. Perhaps it should be, Rose. Perhaps it should be.