A Rose For My Girl
by Anne Cleary
Of all who come to do my meds, make tea and toast, shower my slow and stubborn body, it’s the little blonde one I like best. Not just ‘cause she’s younger and prettier. We’re mates, she and I. We’ve got a connection, a bond.
I can never think of her name. She must think I’m an idiot, a doddery old man – and she’d be right – but do you think I can remember, from one day to the next, what’s she’s called? It’s embarrassing, staring as she talks, watching her lips move, groping for some kind of clue…
Joan’s the one who comes at lunchtime, makes me a banana sandwich, pops open the blister pack and stands over me while I gobble up my pills like a good child. Joan with the matronly hips, the barbeque sauce hair.
Darlene does dinner, issues the last of the day’s meds. Watches while I wash them down with weak, milky tea. She never says much. Sighs a lot. Crashes the dishes around in the sink.
Kathy, Katy, Carol, that other one, the young blonde, she’s different. Not like a nurse or mother hen. Each morning she boils the jug and plonks herself down on the couch like an old friend. She works pills from the first blister, dumps them on my meal tray, lets me take them when I’m good and ready; none of this breathing-down-me-neck business.
Every second day she assists me with my shower. It’s supposed to be daily but I don’t want to bother half the time, and she doesn’t fuss. Just shrugs, “Tomorrow then.”
You’d think it’d embarrass me, having a young lady seeing me naked as a baby, but it doesn’t. She just gets on with the job, nice and cheerful, scrubs where I can’t reach. Like my back and my feet.
“Tom,” she says, “You have impeccable feet.”
“The air force,” I tell her, “Had to keep ‘em ship-shape”.
I sit on a towel on the edge of my bed and she helps me dress. Even dries between my toes. I can never get used to having a woman kneel before me like that; it seems wrong. But she doesn’t care, just puts my socks on for me, turns the tops down how I like ‘em.
“You’re quite domesticated, aren’t you?” she says, “Look at these socks, balled up all perfect-like.”
“Had to do ‘em like that in the force,” I say, “Them were the rules.”
She lets me chew the fat about old times, my days in the air force as drum major. Seems like yesterday. Once I thought she’d been there with me. Don’t know what made me think that. I asked her what squadron she’d been in and she looked up from folding my fresh laundry and frowned.
“You’re getting confused, Tom,” she shook out a thick bath towel and it cracked like a whip. “Your memory’s playing tricks.”
She’s honest. It’s what a mate’s supposed to be, isn’t it?
These days I can count my true mates on the fingers of a hand. One’s me old pal Reg from bowls and the other’s this Kathy. Which is why I’m making an effort to visit her today. That’s what friends do – and she’s come to see me often enough. You gotta make an effort for your mates, especially those from the force. The things you go through together. The camaraderie.
Got me stick, me neck brace, me bus pass. I know where she lives cos she told me. The house opposite the dairy on Keats Street.
“Mind how you go,” the bus driver calls out as I finally reach the bottom step. I give him a salute. All them able-bodied passengers are probably wishing I’d hurry up and get off the bus so they can get on with their lives.
The walk down Keats Street is further than I thought; I’m gasping, face the colour of raw salmon, hand slippery on the grip of my cane.
A young lad on a bike pedals past, gives me a wary glance, then a lady walking a poodle.
“Are you alright?” she frowns.
“Fine,” I puff, knees like jelly, the neck brace prickling and cumbersome as a millstone.
By the time I reach the house where my little mate lives I’m heaving and I stand on the verge a moment to collect myself.
The place looks nothing like what I’d pictured. I was imagining clean, tidy, like when she folds my washing, neat as a pin. Or makes my bed up tight so it stays looking like no one slept in it.
If you don’t mind me saying, this house is the colour of baby’s crap. Karitane yellow, they used to call it. There’s a scratched-up boat taking up most of the driveway with a few cars parked at odd angles, one I recognize as Katie’s. Looks like it’s been months since anyone went near the lawns; kaikuyu snaking up and around everything.
I want to collapse in a heap right here on the footpath but I take a deep breath and forge ahead, leaning hard on my cane.
The door is answered by a small girl.
“Mummy!” she disappears through a doorway, “Mummy, there’s an old man…”
Kathy will be surprised. I should’ve brought flowers. Could’ve got some from the dairy. She used to love roses. Pale pink, especially. Not that they were sold in dairies back then. Mum’s garden grew all kinds of beautiful blooms and I’d cut stalks of the sweetest-smelling, tightest buds, just for my girl.
Here’s Kathy now.
“Tom! What the...what are you…oh, shit.”
Not quite the response I was hoping for. Feeling like a sweaty old lump of lard now. Melting to my knees like there’s a sink hole beneath me. Going down, going…
“Sarah, get your father. Quick!”
I see nothing but billowy clouds of colour.
Then I’m sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea in front of me. Two plain biscuits on a plate. “I’d Rather Be Fishing” the mug says. A chip on its lip.
“What were you thinking?” She is with me at the table. Over by the window, the young girl strokes a cat and stares. A dark figure passes the doorway and Kathy glances round then lowers her voice, “It’s the weekend. You can’t just turn up like this.”
“We’re mates, you ‘n’ I. Aren’t we?”
“You’re a client, Tom. We’re mates within the boundaries of a professional relationship.”
What she’s on about I have no idea, but this I do know: I’m a prize idiot, a concept heightened by the fact that there’s no way I can now make the trip home alone. Dropping my chin into the neck brace and sighing at my shoes seems a fitting posture. Buffoon. The word hovers over me and I let it.
Sighing, she pats my wrist. “Drink your tea; you’ll feel better.”
The figure returns to the doorway. “Angelique, we’ve got five minutes.”
“Yes, I’m…I know, Chris, can you just wait? Jeez…”
After finishing the tea and biscuits, I make my shaky way to the car.
The traffic is stop start stop start all the way to Cavalier Gardens Retirement Village where she pulls into the loading zone.
Clutching the handle of my walking stick, I try to turn my head to see her but the blasted neck brace constrains me. “I didn’t know you were married.”
“Oh, Tom. We’re not married. But I’ve told you about him a dozen times.” She goes to open the door. “Look, you understand, don’t you? Why you can’t just come round like that?”
“Mates visit each other. I thought…”
“The weekends are for family.”
Family. My head starts to throb.
“Like you had with your Kathy, Tom. Those old photos you show me sometimes. Remember? Oh, wait a sec, here’s Doug.”
Looking up, I see her scramble from the car and run to the guy on reception who happens to be walking past.
“Angelique,” he smiles, “Can’t keep away, eh?”
They’re talking in low voices, eyes on me, and I start to feel stupid and embarrassed but then I see it. In the flower bed right beside where we’re parked: a bush with roses the hue of a ballerina’s slipper.
I’m throwing open the car door and struggling out, and the two of them are rushing to help and, as they crowd round, I’m pushing my way through their concern, reaching the bush then twisting and snapping the dark stem until I clutch one perfect rose.
I turn to face them; Doug who is grinning kind of helplessly and Kathy, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “Jeez, you’re a worry.”
“For you, my darling,” I hand it to her.
She smiles. Laughs. And I’m sure, sure she blushes.
“Why, thank you, Tom,” she holds the bloom to her breast then smells it. “Pale pink,” she raises an eyebrow at me, cheeky-like. “My favourite colour for a rose. How did you know?”
I can never think of her name. She must think I’m an idiot, a doddery old man – and she’d be right – but do you think I can remember, from one day to the next, what’s she’s called? It’s embarrassing, staring as she talks, watching her lips move, groping for some kind of clue…
Joan’s the one who comes at lunchtime, makes me a banana sandwich, pops open the blister pack and stands over me while I gobble up my pills like a good child. Joan with the matronly hips, the barbeque sauce hair.
Darlene does dinner, issues the last of the day’s meds. Watches while I wash them down with weak, milky tea. She never says much. Sighs a lot. Crashes the dishes around in the sink.
Kathy, Katy, Carol, that other one, the young blonde, she’s different. Not like a nurse or mother hen. Each morning she boils the jug and plonks herself down on the couch like an old friend. She works pills from the first blister, dumps them on my meal tray, lets me take them when I’m good and ready; none of this breathing-down-me-neck business.
Every second day she assists me with my shower. It’s supposed to be daily but I don’t want to bother half the time, and she doesn’t fuss. Just shrugs, “Tomorrow then.”
You’d think it’d embarrass me, having a young lady seeing me naked as a baby, but it doesn’t. She just gets on with the job, nice and cheerful, scrubs where I can’t reach. Like my back and my feet.
“Tom,” she says, “You have impeccable feet.”
“The air force,” I tell her, “Had to keep ‘em ship-shape”.
I sit on a towel on the edge of my bed and she helps me dress. Even dries between my toes. I can never get used to having a woman kneel before me like that; it seems wrong. But she doesn’t care, just puts my socks on for me, turns the tops down how I like ‘em.
“You’re quite domesticated, aren’t you?” she says, “Look at these socks, balled up all perfect-like.”
“Had to do ‘em like that in the force,” I say, “Them were the rules.”
She lets me chew the fat about old times, my days in the air force as drum major. Seems like yesterday. Once I thought she’d been there with me. Don’t know what made me think that. I asked her what squadron she’d been in and she looked up from folding my fresh laundry and frowned.
“You’re getting confused, Tom,” she shook out a thick bath towel and it cracked like a whip. “Your memory’s playing tricks.”
She’s honest. It’s what a mate’s supposed to be, isn’t it?
These days I can count my true mates on the fingers of a hand. One’s me old pal Reg from bowls and the other’s this Kathy. Which is why I’m making an effort to visit her today. That’s what friends do – and she’s come to see me often enough. You gotta make an effort for your mates, especially those from the force. The things you go through together. The camaraderie.
Got me stick, me neck brace, me bus pass. I know where she lives cos she told me. The house opposite the dairy on Keats Street.
“Mind how you go,” the bus driver calls out as I finally reach the bottom step. I give him a salute. All them able-bodied passengers are probably wishing I’d hurry up and get off the bus so they can get on with their lives.
The walk down Keats Street is further than I thought; I’m gasping, face the colour of raw salmon, hand slippery on the grip of my cane.
A young lad on a bike pedals past, gives me a wary glance, then a lady walking a poodle.
“Are you alright?” she frowns.
“Fine,” I puff, knees like jelly, the neck brace prickling and cumbersome as a millstone.
By the time I reach the house where my little mate lives I’m heaving and I stand on the verge a moment to collect myself.
The place looks nothing like what I’d pictured. I was imagining clean, tidy, like when she folds my washing, neat as a pin. Or makes my bed up tight so it stays looking like no one slept in it.
If you don’t mind me saying, this house is the colour of baby’s crap. Karitane yellow, they used to call it. There’s a scratched-up boat taking up most of the driveway with a few cars parked at odd angles, one I recognize as Katie’s. Looks like it’s been months since anyone went near the lawns; kaikuyu snaking up and around everything.
I want to collapse in a heap right here on the footpath but I take a deep breath and forge ahead, leaning hard on my cane.
The door is answered by a small girl.
“Mummy!” she disappears through a doorway, “Mummy, there’s an old man…”
Kathy will be surprised. I should’ve brought flowers. Could’ve got some from the dairy. She used to love roses. Pale pink, especially. Not that they were sold in dairies back then. Mum’s garden grew all kinds of beautiful blooms and I’d cut stalks of the sweetest-smelling, tightest buds, just for my girl.
Here’s Kathy now.
“Tom! What the...what are you…oh, shit.”
Not quite the response I was hoping for. Feeling like a sweaty old lump of lard now. Melting to my knees like there’s a sink hole beneath me. Going down, going…
“Sarah, get your father. Quick!”
I see nothing but billowy clouds of colour.
Then I’m sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of tea in front of me. Two plain biscuits on a plate. “I’d Rather Be Fishing” the mug says. A chip on its lip.
“What were you thinking?” She is with me at the table. Over by the window, the young girl strokes a cat and stares. A dark figure passes the doorway and Kathy glances round then lowers her voice, “It’s the weekend. You can’t just turn up like this.”
“We’re mates, you ‘n’ I. Aren’t we?”
“You’re a client, Tom. We’re mates within the boundaries of a professional relationship.”
What she’s on about I have no idea, but this I do know: I’m a prize idiot, a concept heightened by the fact that there’s no way I can now make the trip home alone. Dropping my chin into the neck brace and sighing at my shoes seems a fitting posture. Buffoon. The word hovers over me and I let it.
Sighing, she pats my wrist. “Drink your tea; you’ll feel better.”
The figure returns to the doorway. “Angelique, we’ve got five minutes.”
“Yes, I’m…I know, Chris, can you just wait? Jeez…”
After finishing the tea and biscuits, I make my shaky way to the car.
The traffic is stop start stop start all the way to Cavalier Gardens Retirement Village where she pulls into the loading zone.
Clutching the handle of my walking stick, I try to turn my head to see her but the blasted neck brace constrains me. “I didn’t know you were married.”
“Oh, Tom. We’re not married. But I’ve told you about him a dozen times.” She goes to open the door. “Look, you understand, don’t you? Why you can’t just come round like that?”
“Mates visit each other. I thought…”
“The weekends are for family.”
Family. My head starts to throb.
“Like you had with your Kathy, Tom. Those old photos you show me sometimes. Remember? Oh, wait a sec, here’s Doug.”
Looking up, I see her scramble from the car and run to the guy on reception who happens to be walking past.
“Angelique,” he smiles, “Can’t keep away, eh?”
They’re talking in low voices, eyes on me, and I start to feel stupid and embarrassed but then I see it. In the flower bed right beside where we’re parked: a bush with roses the hue of a ballerina’s slipper.
I’m throwing open the car door and struggling out, and the two of them are rushing to help and, as they crowd round, I’m pushing my way through their concern, reaching the bush then twisting and snapping the dark stem until I clutch one perfect rose.
I turn to face them; Doug who is grinning kind of helplessly and Kathy, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “Jeez, you’re a worry.”
“For you, my darling,” I hand it to her.
She smiles. Laughs. And I’m sure, sure she blushes.
“Why, thank you, Tom,” she holds the bloom to her breast then smells it. “Pale pink,” she raises an eyebrow at me, cheeky-like. “My favourite colour for a rose. How did you know?”
Copyright and licensing notice
© 2017 by Franklin Writers Group
© 2017 by Franklin Writers Group
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
To view a copy of this license, please visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Attribute to: Franklin Writers Group and the author, Anne Cleary.
To view a copy of this license, please visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Attribute to: Franklin Writers Group and the author, Anne Cleary.
This page published 18th September 2017