Post by AuntAggie on May 21, 2004 0:12:09 GMT 1
Posting on behalf of Rosebud, the continuation of his story...
In the Word of the Rose – Part 2
My youngest daughter had been to a car boot sale. She bought me a jigsaw puzzle. A thousand tiny cardboard pieces and the whole a huge vase of flowers. Sitting staring at jumbled pieces reminded me of my life. Didn’t know where to begin to make sense of it.
Since joining the therapy writers’ group I’ve learned a lot. So many things started to fall into place and make sense but I needed things confirmed. It wasn’t enough for me to believe Dad had been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, I needed to know. Had it been that which kept him so much in the corner of a room staring silently at nothing? Had it been something to do with his wartime experiences or was there something in the family? An inherited thing that could have affected me as a child? I’d been almost school age before I spoke my first proper words and then it was fear that gave me that voice. Fear that would take it away, too.
I began to make plans and a cake. Mam always liked cakes. Rich fruity ones or sponges with jam were her favourites. One of those and Linny accompanying me on my next visit and perhaps I’d be able to find the courage to ask her the questions churning around in my head?
Mam lives in one of those sheltered housing places. A nice place looking out into a garden with seats and flower beds and where the warden makes a point of popping in on everyone living there at least twice a day to make sure they are okay. She was expecting me. Sitting near a window looking out and waving like an expectant child. I let myself in with the key she’d given me.
‘Oh, Geoffrey,’ she said, ‘you’ve brought Nelson to see me.’
I let Linny off her lead and said nothing apart from greeting Mam and giving her the cake. Linny sniffed her new surroundings.
‘What a lovely cake, Geoffrey. Did Janice make it? She always makes lovely cakes. Put the kettle on, Geoffrey, there’s a good boy.’
Janice is my ex-wife. We’ve been divorced for years but Mam forgets these things. That was another reason I wanted to talk to her about the things bothering me and before she forgot any more. When I returned to the room with the tea she was fussing Linny.
‘I thought it was Nelson but he only had one eye. When did you get another dog, Geoffrey? You didn’t tell me… or perhaps I forgot? That’s right, you cut the cake, dear.’
I handed her a slice on a plate and sat down wondering where to start. Driving over I’d had it all worked out. Rehearsed. Sitting there watching Mam nibbling cake and the words wouldn’t come.
‘Your dad used to like cake.’
That was true and I remembered the day he pulled a whole one over to his place at the table and cut slice after slice off it. Eating until it was all gone. Remembered my brother trying to reach out to cut a piece for himself and Dad’s knife flashing down with such force that, had my brother not moved his hand quickly it would have been pinned to the table. Remembered the knife standing upright and quivering. It had gone right through the cloth and stuck into the table below. How Dad’s eyes glittered that day and Mam pushed all us kids out quickly into the garden. Dad used to have strange attacks, see? Moments of madness, some might say.
‘Mam,’ I said, ‘what was wrong with Dad?’
‘This is nice cake, Geoffrey. Here, Nelson you have a bit too.’ She crumbled a slice onto the carpet and sat watching, eyes down, as Linny cleaned up.
‘Mam,’ I said again, ‘what was wrong with Dad?’
A minute passed before she spoke again and when she raised her head there were tears in her eyes. I felt guilty for asking.
‘Your dad died in the war, Geoffrey. You know that.’
‘No, Mam. That was your dad. I remember mine. I wasn’t born until after the war ended.’
She fed Linny another piece of cake. ‘That’s right, dear. You were born in the spring. When the bluebells were out... If you’d been a girl we were going to call you Bella, Bampa and me, but you were a boy so I called you Geoffrey after your dad... Did it for Bampa, see?’
It was hopeless. I wanted desperately to ask one more question and to get a straight answer. I’d asked it before nearly fifty years earlier. She hadn’t answered me then, just told me not to be so silly, but the thought had never gone away. The words simply wouldn’t come out then.
Annoyed with myself, I didn’t drive straight back to my friend’s to return Linny. Instead I drove miles in the opposite direction. Up into the Beacons and took her for a walk instead. She didn’t mind and when breathlessness got the better of me and I stopped for a breather she came and sat down quietly beside me. Nelson had often done that when I was a child. If he wasn’t with Bampa then he was never far from me. I’d been playing in the garden with Nelson the day Dad shot a hole in the ceiling with Bampa’s shotgun. We’d both heard the shot, Mam’s scream and the crashing of furniture. Moments later Mam had rushed out of the house, bits of plaster and dust in her hair and over her navy cardigan.
She grabbed me by the shoulders, pushed and shoved me towards the gate saying, ‘Geoffrey, you must fetch Bampa. Fetch him quick from the piggery, you understand?’
I ran, fear turning my legs to lead jelly. Perhaps sensing where we were heading, Nelson ran on ahead, stopping every so often to check behind to see that I was still there. But Bampa wasn’t at the piggery. Being something of a ‘jack of all trades’ on the estate where we lived, Bampa could have been working almost anywhere. Running from building to building everywhere seemed deserted. Finally it was Nelson that put me right. Bampa was replacing a broken hayrack in one of the stables. He looked round and put his hammer down as Nelson rushed to greet him.
‘Howbe, young Rosie,’ he said, ‘you come to…’
Whether it was the look of terror on my face or me trying my hardest to make sounds come out of my mouth, I don’t know but suddenly he was on the floor kneeling in front of me and with his big hands cupping my shoulders. ‘What’s wrong, lad? What is it?’
Still I struggled. Can’t be sure now what it was that tried to say. It came out like a series of ‘buh, buh, buhs’ to begin with.
‘That’s it. Good lad, you spit it out. You can do it, Rosie.’
I began to cry. To pull at his sleeve and drag him after me but he held me back. Finally something in me snapped. The noise came out with a blast of air and somehow my tongue had found the right place against the back of my front teeth and I said my first ever word like an explosion. ‘Dad!’
There, it was said and in spite of the circumstances I know I felt a moment’s excitement. A grin spreading over my face and the warmth of Bampa as he pulled me against him in a great bear-hug but the moment was lost so quickly. As if the significance of the word suddenly dawned on Bampa and he was up and running, calling over his shoulder for me to follow him home.
They took Dad away that day. I saw them arrive in a big white ambulance. I was hiding then under the huge rhubarb leaves and peering out like the huge old tabby cat that used to stalk birds in our garden and often hid amongst the rhubarb.
It wasn’t the first time Dad had gone away for a holiday, as Bampa said, but it was the last time I ever saw him. The last time the neighbours did, too, I think. They were all there looking; shaking their heads and muttering things under their breath.
It was almost dark when I returned Linny.
‘Fancy some supper?’ asked my friend.
He must have thought it strange when I refused, claiming I was tired and wanted an early night. What I really wanted was to be alone. To have the space to think back to my childhood and to find a way to talk openly with Mam about so much I remembered.
The jigsaw puzzle was just as I’d left it. Sorting the pieces and putting them all the right way up took a while. It was a strange puzzle. Whoever had painted the original picture didn’t know flowers very well. Whoever heard of daffodils blooming at the same time as cornflowers? They just don’t look right together.
Whatever Dad had been like before the war; whatever he’d been like when he and Mam had first met, fallen in love and been swept along by some seasonal tide of the time, try as I might I could not see that the two people I recalled from my early childhood looked any more right together than those daffodils and cornflowers.
It was with such thoughts that I fell asleep yet again on the sofa that night. Imagining Mam as a young woman - a land girl taken on by the estate to help grow the nation’s wartime food and, along with another, lodged with Bampa. Then he must have been only recently widowed, too. How little I knew of my family? Apart from knowing Mam’s only brother had been a sailor and missing in action, the rest of her family had been wiped out during the blitz, I knew nothing of them beyond a tattered photo I’d seen. Bampa’s parents had been farming people, but neither he nor Mam ever spoke of them. Not them or any other of his other relatives; yet I remember some of them visiting once. The dark clothing, black ties and hushed voices talking in the parlour.
That wasn’t long before we moved house. Bampa, Mam, my brother, sister, Nelson and me.
It was the preacher’s eyes burning into me from the pulpit that woke me from yet another nightmare – unless it had been my own voice raised in anger and shouting something back at him? Had I ever done that? I doubt it, but I do believe that what I dreamed I’d cried out is something I truly believe. My dad never hung himself with a hospital bed sheet. That because the strange and silent man that Mam had married wasn’t my father at all. Bampa was.
In the Word of the Rose – Part 2
My youngest daughter had been to a car boot sale. She bought me a jigsaw puzzle. A thousand tiny cardboard pieces and the whole a huge vase of flowers. Sitting staring at jumbled pieces reminded me of my life. Didn’t know where to begin to make sense of it.
Since joining the therapy writers’ group I’ve learned a lot. So many things started to fall into place and make sense but I needed things confirmed. It wasn’t enough for me to believe Dad had been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, I needed to know. Had it been that which kept him so much in the corner of a room staring silently at nothing? Had it been something to do with his wartime experiences or was there something in the family? An inherited thing that could have affected me as a child? I’d been almost school age before I spoke my first proper words and then it was fear that gave me that voice. Fear that would take it away, too.
I began to make plans and a cake. Mam always liked cakes. Rich fruity ones or sponges with jam were her favourites. One of those and Linny accompanying me on my next visit and perhaps I’d be able to find the courage to ask her the questions churning around in my head?
Mam lives in one of those sheltered housing places. A nice place looking out into a garden with seats and flower beds and where the warden makes a point of popping in on everyone living there at least twice a day to make sure they are okay. She was expecting me. Sitting near a window looking out and waving like an expectant child. I let myself in with the key she’d given me.
‘Oh, Geoffrey,’ she said, ‘you’ve brought Nelson to see me.’
I let Linny off her lead and said nothing apart from greeting Mam and giving her the cake. Linny sniffed her new surroundings.
‘What a lovely cake, Geoffrey. Did Janice make it? She always makes lovely cakes. Put the kettle on, Geoffrey, there’s a good boy.’
Janice is my ex-wife. We’ve been divorced for years but Mam forgets these things. That was another reason I wanted to talk to her about the things bothering me and before she forgot any more. When I returned to the room with the tea she was fussing Linny.
‘I thought it was Nelson but he only had one eye. When did you get another dog, Geoffrey? You didn’t tell me… or perhaps I forgot? That’s right, you cut the cake, dear.’
I handed her a slice on a plate and sat down wondering where to start. Driving over I’d had it all worked out. Rehearsed. Sitting there watching Mam nibbling cake and the words wouldn’t come.
‘Your dad used to like cake.’
That was true and I remembered the day he pulled a whole one over to his place at the table and cut slice after slice off it. Eating until it was all gone. Remembered my brother trying to reach out to cut a piece for himself and Dad’s knife flashing down with such force that, had my brother not moved his hand quickly it would have been pinned to the table. Remembered the knife standing upright and quivering. It had gone right through the cloth and stuck into the table below. How Dad’s eyes glittered that day and Mam pushed all us kids out quickly into the garden. Dad used to have strange attacks, see? Moments of madness, some might say.
‘Mam,’ I said, ‘what was wrong with Dad?’
‘This is nice cake, Geoffrey. Here, Nelson you have a bit too.’ She crumbled a slice onto the carpet and sat watching, eyes down, as Linny cleaned up.
‘Mam,’ I said again, ‘what was wrong with Dad?’
A minute passed before she spoke again and when she raised her head there were tears in her eyes. I felt guilty for asking.
‘Your dad died in the war, Geoffrey. You know that.’
‘No, Mam. That was your dad. I remember mine. I wasn’t born until after the war ended.’
She fed Linny another piece of cake. ‘That’s right, dear. You were born in the spring. When the bluebells were out... If you’d been a girl we were going to call you Bella, Bampa and me, but you were a boy so I called you Geoffrey after your dad... Did it for Bampa, see?’
It was hopeless. I wanted desperately to ask one more question and to get a straight answer. I’d asked it before nearly fifty years earlier. She hadn’t answered me then, just told me not to be so silly, but the thought had never gone away. The words simply wouldn’t come out then.
Annoyed with myself, I didn’t drive straight back to my friend’s to return Linny. Instead I drove miles in the opposite direction. Up into the Beacons and took her for a walk instead. She didn’t mind and when breathlessness got the better of me and I stopped for a breather she came and sat down quietly beside me. Nelson had often done that when I was a child. If he wasn’t with Bampa then he was never far from me. I’d been playing in the garden with Nelson the day Dad shot a hole in the ceiling with Bampa’s shotgun. We’d both heard the shot, Mam’s scream and the crashing of furniture. Moments later Mam had rushed out of the house, bits of plaster and dust in her hair and over her navy cardigan.
She grabbed me by the shoulders, pushed and shoved me towards the gate saying, ‘Geoffrey, you must fetch Bampa. Fetch him quick from the piggery, you understand?’
I ran, fear turning my legs to lead jelly. Perhaps sensing where we were heading, Nelson ran on ahead, stopping every so often to check behind to see that I was still there. But Bampa wasn’t at the piggery. Being something of a ‘jack of all trades’ on the estate where we lived, Bampa could have been working almost anywhere. Running from building to building everywhere seemed deserted. Finally it was Nelson that put me right. Bampa was replacing a broken hayrack in one of the stables. He looked round and put his hammer down as Nelson rushed to greet him.
‘Howbe, young Rosie,’ he said, ‘you come to…’
Whether it was the look of terror on my face or me trying my hardest to make sounds come out of my mouth, I don’t know but suddenly he was on the floor kneeling in front of me and with his big hands cupping my shoulders. ‘What’s wrong, lad? What is it?’
Still I struggled. Can’t be sure now what it was that tried to say. It came out like a series of ‘buh, buh, buhs’ to begin with.
‘That’s it. Good lad, you spit it out. You can do it, Rosie.’
I began to cry. To pull at his sleeve and drag him after me but he held me back. Finally something in me snapped. The noise came out with a blast of air and somehow my tongue had found the right place against the back of my front teeth and I said my first ever word like an explosion. ‘Dad!’
There, it was said and in spite of the circumstances I know I felt a moment’s excitement. A grin spreading over my face and the warmth of Bampa as he pulled me against him in a great bear-hug but the moment was lost so quickly. As if the significance of the word suddenly dawned on Bampa and he was up and running, calling over his shoulder for me to follow him home.
They took Dad away that day. I saw them arrive in a big white ambulance. I was hiding then under the huge rhubarb leaves and peering out like the huge old tabby cat that used to stalk birds in our garden and often hid amongst the rhubarb.
It wasn’t the first time Dad had gone away for a holiday, as Bampa said, but it was the last time I ever saw him. The last time the neighbours did, too, I think. They were all there looking; shaking their heads and muttering things under their breath.
It was almost dark when I returned Linny.
‘Fancy some supper?’ asked my friend.
He must have thought it strange when I refused, claiming I was tired and wanted an early night. What I really wanted was to be alone. To have the space to think back to my childhood and to find a way to talk openly with Mam about so much I remembered.
The jigsaw puzzle was just as I’d left it. Sorting the pieces and putting them all the right way up took a while. It was a strange puzzle. Whoever had painted the original picture didn’t know flowers very well. Whoever heard of daffodils blooming at the same time as cornflowers? They just don’t look right together.
Whatever Dad had been like before the war; whatever he’d been like when he and Mam had first met, fallen in love and been swept along by some seasonal tide of the time, try as I might I could not see that the two people I recalled from my early childhood looked any more right together than those daffodils and cornflowers.
It was with such thoughts that I fell asleep yet again on the sofa that night. Imagining Mam as a young woman - a land girl taken on by the estate to help grow the nation’s wartime food and, along with another, lodged with Bampa. Then he must have been only recently widowed, too. How little I knew of my family? Apart from knowing Mam’s only brother had been a sailor and missing in action, the rest of her family had been wiped out during the blitz, I knew nothing of them beyond a tattered photo I’d seen. Bampa’s parents had been farming people, but neither he nor Mam ever spoke of them. Not them or any other of his other relatives; yet I remember some of them visiting once. The dark clothing, black ties and hushed voices talking in the parlour.
That wasn’t long before we moved house. Bampa, Mam, my brother, sister, Nelson and me.
It was the preacher’s eyes burning into me from the pulpit that woke me from yet another nightmare – unless it had been my own voice raised in anger and shouting something back at him? Had I ever done that? I doubt it, but I do believe that what I dreamed I’d cried out is something I truly believe. My dad never hung himself with a hospital bed sheet. That because the strange and silent man that Mam had married wasn’t my father at all. Bampa was.