Chapter 5
To apply or not to apply? Flora pokes a fingernail at the flyer sitting in front of her on the library table and sniffs. She’s been staring at it for over half an hour, while occasionally reading the book she’s grabbed from one of the shelves. If she’s truthful, she’s not really been reading, because the flyer advertising a part-time assistant here at the library keeps distracting her. Through the window, the sunlight is pouring over it like molten gold, as if giving her some ethereal direction. Flora acknowledges it would be a perfect way to get to know the local community, get involved, be useful. But what exactly do they mean by part-time? As a seventy-seven-year-old woman, she doesn’t want to be tied to a few hours every day – that’s too much of a commitment. There are other things she wants to pursue. Like what, Flora? Sitting in the coffee shop, eating your body weight in cake?
Mother’s back again, then. Flora’s not heard her dulcet tones nagging in her head for a few months. Perhaps her absence has been because she’s been so busy moving house and getting used to a new way of life. The faint hope that Mother was left behind in Truro has come to nothing. What a surprise. Shut up, Mother.
You know I’m right. Make a decision, for goodness’ sake.
Flora decides that not replying is the best way forward, and her eyes slide to the pages of her book and then the flyer again. As she’s about to turn the page in the book, the name of which escapes her, and is largely irrelevant as she’s not reading it, a tall, slim, auburn-haired woman breezes in, dragging the cold air behind her. It bites at Flora’s shins, which are exposed, and not for the first time that day, she wonders about the logic of wearing knee-length culottes on a dull day in March – sparkly, or otherwise. The woman looks familiar and then it registers. She’s a librarian here, but she’s not here all the time. Perhaps she could be the person to ask about the job.
Before her mother can spout more vitriol, Flora gets up and goes over to the desk, where the woman who’s just come in is shrugging off her coat and pinning a badge on her chest which reads… Flora doesn’t know, because she’s left her glasses on top of the reading book. Seeing a puzzle form in the woman’s eyes and feeling a prize chump for standing there staring at her chest, she hurries to retrieve her glasses. Back at the desk, she sees the name badge says: Daisy – Library Assistant. Ah, good. Flora’s memory never fails her.
Well, what else would she be, apart from a library assistant? She’s standing behind the desk with a name badge pinned to her jumper, you ninny!
‘Hello, can I help you?’ Daisy asks, with a smile.
Flora notes that Daisy’s cheeks are pink, having been pinched by the cold wind, no doubt. Her own legs are only just recovering from the assault. Unusual eyes – brown, with orange flecks. Nice open face, too. Then, aware that she’s staring again, Flora replies, ‘Yes, please. I was wondering about the part-time job you have here.’ Did she detect a twitch in Daisy’s lips? Is she trying not to laugh because of Flora’s age, or is it the blue shins and the inappropriate culottes? Flora lifts her chin and sets her shoulders back. ‘Is there an age limit, and how many hours is it?’ Maybe a bit snippy, but she won’t be patronised.
Daisy looks unfazed. ‘No age limit, and it’s one day a week. Thursdays. Are you enquiring for yourself?’
No, for the King of England.
Shut up, Mother.
One day a week is very do-able and Flora begins to think it might work. ‘Yes, I am. Is there an interview process?’ Flora’s used to interviews on both sides of the desk because of her long teaching career. There won’t be a problem at all.
‘Not as such. Just an informal chat.’ Daisy looks around the almost empty library. ‘We’re quiet right now, if you’d like to do it – oh, and please fill this form in. Anna, the head librarian, has just popped on a break but she’ll be back soon.’
The form is basic, takes just a few minutes to fill in, and then a rotund woman in yellow, presumably Anna, appears. She asks if Flora has ever worked in a library before and Flora tells her no, but that she worked in a school for nearly forty years and feels over-qualified, if anything. Furthermore, she’s extremely well read and invites Anna to quiz her on the classics. Anna seems to have caught the twitch in Daisy’s lips, says that won’t be necessary and takes the form to her office.
‘We will let you know in the next few days, Ms Granger. May I call you Flora?’ Daisy asks.
‘You may. Are there many people waiting to hear?’
‘One or two.’ Daisy says, with a smile.
As Flora takes her leave, she can’t help thinking that Daisy will be nice to work with. She also realises she would be disappointed if she didn’t get the job. Considering she’s dithered about it for so long, this comes as something of a surprise. Though it would help her to settle in, and that was the main thing.
* * *
After a pleasant hour spent at the coffee shop, reluctantly Flora decides it’s time she was leaving. Her reluctance is because of the culottes. She’s unsure how they will stand up to the howling gale and driving rain that has replaced the brisk wind of earlier. Flora zips her orange cagoule up to the neck and tightens the toggles under her chin before stepping out. In seconds, her green canvas shoes are soaked through and she wishes she had windscreen wipers on her glasses. Every few steps she has to stop and remove them to give them a quick rub over with a tissue. The tissue is in danger of disintegrating and so is Flora’s patience. Why the heck did she not pay attention to the weather forecast?
Eventually, on the hill at the top of her road, she has to hang onto various shrubs and fences as she passes to keep upright. Should have brought that walking stick gathering dust in the hallway. You’re much too vain to accept that you might need it. That’s your trouble. Mother might have a point there. On her way past the nurse’s house, she catches a glimpse of her at the front window. The nurse opens it and yells, ‘My goodness, you’re drenched!’ No shit, Sherlock. ‘Would you like to come in and have a cuppa?’
Flora might do on any other day, but her bladder is near to bursting, and all she wants to do is get in the house before it’s too late. She raises a hand and quickens her pace. ‘Too busy today!’ Then a gust of wind tugs a strand of hair from under her hood and gags her with it. She was about to add that she’d like to do it another time, but the wind has other ideas.
* * *
Rose watches Hippy Lady struggle on and closes the window. How rude! Not sure she’ll be popping round to say hello anytime soon. But then maybe she’s shy … the sparkly culottes say otherwise, then Rose reminds herself that clothes don’t tell the whole story. It would have been nice to have some company, though. The idea of driving over to the riding stables and having a chat with them about a few lessons has been shelved today, because of this weather, so what to do instead? Maybe she could look out the old painting set of Bella’s that preoccupied her teenage years for about three days, and have a dabble. Glen had likened their daughter’s concentration span to that of a gnat. Another saying that has little relevance. How do we measure a gnat’s concentration against that of any other insect? Have there been experiments done? And if so, what kind of experiments? Rose’s mind is in danger of packing up and shipping out to the planet Surreal, so she puts the kettle on and thinks about Daisy.
It’s been three days since she visited and Rose has wanted to call her to apologise for being so gloomy and brusque with her. She remembers how hurt she looked as she left, as she’d only been concerned, but something has stopped Rose making the call. Wondering how to explain herself is probably the stumbling block, because she’d have to explain her behaviour to herself first. Sixes and sevens is as good an explanation as any.
With a cup of tea and a biscuit or two, Rose sits at the kitchen table and opens up her laptop. She intends to answer a few emails and then maybe call her daughter, Bella. There was a missed call from her the day she left her job (Rose’s brain won’t allow the word ‘retired’), and a WhatsApp message the other day from her that she hasn’t answered, apart from saying she’d call her soon and adding a few hearts. Bella’ll be getting worried soon if Rose doesn’t let her know how she is. Rose has told herself to stop wishing she still lived in the village, as it does no good, but she misses her so much. Instead of doing as she intended, she finds herself on social media, which tends to be a major distraction for her these days. Truth is, it allows her to drift through the stories of other people’s lives, see what snippets they find noteworthy and discover the bits of themselves they like to share all over the place. This is fascinating to Rose, as she tends to keep her own bits private.
Facebook tells her, amongst other things, that Daisy might have found the perfect person for the part-time job at the library; Sally has taken up yoga; and Bella has dyed her hair blonde. It suits her, but Rose notes that her roots will be a bugger to keep at bay, as she has her dad’s dark locks. Facebook also tells her she has a friend request from … she squints at the little profile picture, oh my goodness … Tristan Carthew. Though his hair is mostly grey now, Rose can still see the boy she knew gazing out. His smile is self-assured and he looks like the kind of man people would like to know. Is he the kind of man Rose would like to know? She finds herself casting the net of her memory back through the years and hauling it back with a full catch of smiles and a warm heart.
About to confirm his request, she has second thoughts. She’s already told Daisy she’d like to remember Tristan as the boy she knew, keep him in the past where everything looks rosier and you can make bits up that don’t fit, smooth off the rough edges until they do. Reality is less forgiving and so is the present, Rose has found. Everyone knows you should never go back. Besides, it’s such a cliché, as she also mentioned to Daisy. Her finger hovers over the accept button and withdraws – she shoves her hands in her trouser pockets. No. No, Tristan Carthew, best to leave things as they were.
Once the emails are answered, as is the WhatsApp to Bella, she decides to go up into the loft and dig out the paints she was thinking about before. A part of her is unsure that they will still be up there – perhaps they were thrown away during some spring-cleaning junk-dumping exercise years ago. Only one way to find out.
* * *
The loft ladder creaks down like old bones, bringing with it a veil of cobwebs and a musty aroma of wood and forgotten things. Glen, as well as being responsible for the garden, always used to be the ‘loft person’, going up there to retrieve Christmas decorations and suitcases. Rose rarely ventured up. Since Glen died, she hasn’t been on holiday, so there was no need for suitcases, and she couldn’t face the old Christmas decorations because they would have reminded her of Christmases past. She bought a few new ones from the garden centre and a little fake tree to hang them on. The strength to cherish those happy old memories, to embrace them with a nostalgic smile, has so far evaded her. Maybe this year she’ll be able to.
Old bones climbing old bones. Rose allows herself a wry smile as she hauls herself onto the boarded floor section at the top of the ladder. Another reason she was never the ‘loft person’ is because her dad scared her when she was little by saying it was dangerous being in a loft. You only had to miss your footing between a beam and the layers of fibreglass, and you’d be through the ceiling quicker than a knife through butter. Glen told her that Dad had probably just said that to make sure she was extra careful and that their own loft had boarded sections, but Rose still preferred to keep out.
A while later, after tracing her fingers across the terrains of numerous dusty containers, boxes and lids, she finds what she came up there for – a wooden box, mildewed with rusting hinges. Once opened, she sees a rainbow of oil paints in three rows. Remarkably, their smell still perfumes the stale loft air. A stroke of the box brings a memory of Bella around fourteen, sitting at an easel, her dark hair up in a high ponytail, a streak of red oil paint above her eyebrow. Rose came into her room to bring Bella a drink, and she tells her not to look at the canvas. She’s at that awkward, unsure age with fluctuating self-esteem – not quite grown into her personality. Rose looks at the canvas anyway, because she can tell part of her daughter wants her mother to see that she’s painted a gorgeous sunset over the ocean. Bella’s face grows as red as that sunset when Rose tells her how beautiful she thinks it is, and in answer to her pouty question, no, Rose is not just saying it because she’s her mum. Bella smiles at her then, and Rose’s heart fills with an impossible amount of love.
Cradling the box to her chest, Rose marvels at how vivid and ‘real’ that memory was. She could have almost reached out and removed a stray hair from her daughter’s forehead and given her a reassuring hug. Hugs with Bella these days are few and far between, reassuring or otherwise, now she’s no longer living around the corner. Thank goodness for memories. Bittersweet they may be, but she wouldn’t be without them. Maybe Rose will try to commit that memory to canvas later, if she can find one in a cobwebby box. A whisper of doubt argues there is no canvas up here, and she tends to agree. Never mind, she will have to go into town to buy one at some point. That will give her something else to do.
Before returning to the bone ladder, she casts an eye around to make extra sure there is nothing of any use. On an old card-table, she sees an old photo album that was hers in her mid-teens. Velvet green and covered in dust, she remembers it hides a wealth of polaroid images stuck in with glue. Is her fragile mood, her ‘sixes and sevens’ mentality, ready to see what lies between the pages? Does she want to be reminded of who she used to be before she was a nurse, a wife and a mother? Can she look into the eyes of her fifteen-year-old self without melancholy slipping back in? Without jealousy, because of all those years she has ahead of her?
While Rose is considering this, her fingers run a path through the dust and before she can stop them, they open the album. Her breath is snatched by a jump back in time and she takes in an image of her and Daisy laughing in the sea, their not-quite-a-woman bodies clad in skimpy bikinis. Their age is not certain, she’s plumping for fourteen rather than fifteen, but they could be either. The memory of that photo, or who took it, isn’t clear at all, but the joy of that day at the beach and that moment in time registers a faint echo somewhere. Most of them are of her and Daisy doing various crazy things. They’re at the fair in one, faces obscured by sticks of candyfloss that look like Marge Simpson’s hair. In another they’re in a park dancing in tight black jeans and yellow T-shirts with David Bowie’s face on them. Then there’s some more, groups of them – friends from school on boats, or surfing.
As she looks through them all, she finds herself smiling and glad that she opened the album. There’s no jealousy or melancholy, just acceptance and a sense of peace. What fun they had. Their whole lives in front of them and the sun always seemed to be shining. The photo on the last page catches Rose’s breath again for different reasons, and she knows exactly how old she is in this one. It’s her sixteenth birthday and she’s in the woods with Daisy, Daisy’s then boyfriend John, and Tristan Carthew. They’d gone there on a day trip. It was spring and the woods were so green and fresh. In the photo, Tristan and Rose are standing in a patch of wild garlic, arms about each other, laughing at the camera. Tristan has a guitar slung across his chest and they’d been singing together. He always said they’d join a band and be bigger than Fleetwood Mac one day.
Daisy took the photo and told them to say cheesy peasy. Afterwards, Rose remembers, she picked a white garlic flower and ate it. Immediately, the memory sends Rose back to the woods. The pungent, yet mild taste of garlic and dew on her tongue, the exhilarating feeling of turning sixteen in her chest, singing her heart out to the treetops swaying under a clear blue sky, the boy she loved by her side. They were going to take on the world, she and Tris – have the crowds falling at their feet. Releasing a breath, she closes the album and finds her cheeks wet.
* * *
Back in the kitchen, Rose wipes the box of paints free of dust with a cloth and wonders if the wild garlic still grows in the woods. There’s an idea taking shape in her mind and she likes the look of it. Why not drive out to Cardinham Woods and see? She could take some sandwiches and make an afternoon of it. She might even take these paints and a pad of paper. Through the window, the rain has stopped and the sky is the same blue as on that long-ago day when she turned sixteen. It would be nice to get out in the spring sunshine, wouldn’t it? The cheerful daffodils nod their encouragement, and before she can talk herself out of it, twenty minutes later Rose is out the door.