Foxgloves

Phoebe Sizer

I carry my tea into the sitting room, and sit down on the greying old armchair in the corner. I take a sip from the mug. Underneath me, I can feel a lump on my thigh which feels like a rock. I’m sure it’s not a rock, but my mind takes me to a mountain with snow-tipped peaks and fresh wintry gales, rocks and boulders scattered prettily here and there like someone has placed them there with a purpose.

I decide to stand back up, putting my mug on the table besides the chair, and look underneath the cushion. It’s not a rock. It’s not even an exciting piece of evidence. It’s just the telly remote.

I remove the remote, and sit back down on the chair, relaxing into the folds of age and memories. I sip some more tea. The grate is empty in the corner of the room, the fire gone out a long time ago. But I remember a time when the fire would be alive and well only a couple of weeks ago. Full of joy and happiness. Memories and secrets. I found out one of the biggest secrets once, sitting in this room. Only I was not the one sitting in this chair. That was someone else.

She sat there neatly in her old armchair, the arms threadbare and grey. As I watched her I could see her whole body relaxing as she gently fell asleep. Her wise wrinkles showed she was tired. Her eye-lashes quivered as she tried to stop herself from sleeping. Her naked arm shifted slightly as her body tried to wake up. It lost its comfortable position on the chair. She opened her eyes and smiled, saying, “I must have dozed off, dear.”

She pushed herself off the greyed chair, making it squeak with age. She patted my head affectionately as she passed, bending down to pick up my empty mug of tea with obvious pain, and shuffled into the kitchen.

I collected up the other used cutlery and plates. As I walked to the kitchen, I saw some purple foxgloves, smiling in a white jug, filled with water smelling old and foul. I bent down to see if the flowers smelt nice. They didn’t smell of anything. “Granny, I have some more washing here.” 26

“Thank you dear,”

“Where did you get those flowers from?” “What flowers?”

I bent down to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

“In the sitting room. Aren’t they foxgloves?”

“Oh, yes, dear. I got them from next door’s garden.”

“Oh? Did he give them to you?”

“Oh, no dear. They looked so pretty, I thought I must have some for the house.”

“Did you ask?”

“No, I’m afraid I didn’t. I would have done if he was there, but his car was gone from the drive, and I didn’t know when he would be back.”

I decided to not say anything.

Once I was done loading the dishwasher, I went back into the sitting room. The fire had died down to a low red glow. As Granny came back in too, I put some more wood on, and it lazily caught the embers.

I sat down on the sofa opposite, the cream cover emitting a small army of dust particles, glinting in the late autumn sunshine. Granny went over to her greying chair and sat slowly, her arms holding her weight until she reached the cushion and sighed.

She smiled at me through her eyelashes. “I remember when I first met your father.”

“Really?” I remembered my mother talking about how he was a scoundrel, a charmer, a serial adulterer.

“I remember. It was a sunny spring evening in ’44, and I was on my way home from working at the shop. We were all walking and laughing. Suddenly, a young chap came out from one of the alleyways, and almost ran into us. We all screamed, I think, because we thought he was a bad person. But he had a bunch of flowers in his hand. He looked straight at me, his eyes looking for a friendly face. Whilst the other girls ran into the road; I smiled, so he gave me the flowers.”

I nodded, realising she was not talking about my father at all. She must have me mixed up with Mum, I thought as I asked whether she wanted another mug of tea.

As I went back into the kitchen, I looked at the foxgloves again. As the kettle bubbled, I decided to empty the yellowing water, and put in some fresh, propping the foxgloves in their jug, trying to hide the brown bits.

I sorted the tea and gave the other to Granny.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her eyes submerged in the past.

I sipped my tea.

“I put those flowers in a white jug with an angel engraved in it. They too were foxgloves. They sat in my room, the flowers turning browner as the days went by. I came home after work every day and changed the water, trying to keep the foxgloves alive for longer. But, after a few months not seeing the young chap, I had nearly forgotten him. Your father, you see, was already engaged to another woman.”

“What?” I gasped. “Grandpa was going to marry someone else?”

“No, dear. Not your Grandfather. Your father. He was from a higher class than me back then. I was a simple shop girl, from a family of lower middling class. But he was a young chap from a big estate.

“Anyway,” she continued. “It wasn’t until a few months later when finally I saw him again. I was at work, and he saw me from across the room. I remembered him immediately. Such manly features, and broad jaw. Very handsome. I can’t remember whether he came over straight away, or whether I went to him. But we began to talk. We met up later in the day once I had finished work. He was such a gentleman, always asking if I was warm. Putting his new coat on me even though I declined. Taking me back home. He talked to my father, and asked whether he could take me out again. After he had persuaded him, we went out and had dinner at a fancy hotel the next evening. Everything was great. I felt so loved. He completely charmed me and my family.”

Granny looked into the fire again.

“But he knew things couldn’t last. As I said, he was from a different class to me. He said his family wouldn’t allow it. He had to keep the estate in the family. So, he was forbidden to see me again. That was when I realised we could never really be together.”

She looked at me nervously, as if she shouldn’t be telling me this.

“Then I married your grandfather.”

She almost acknowledged my confused look, but continued.

“After about twenty years of marriage to your grandpa, I saw him again. I was in one of the new supermarket places. Very fancy and modern. I think it was about 1965. Your mother was about twenty.”

“I saw him in the aisle with the milk in.” She smiled at the memory. “He didn’t see me at first, and I stood there watching the side of his face as he deliberated whether to get red or green milk. He was still as handsome as ever. Handsomer. Still the same broad face. Still the same muscular arms. He had more wrinkles, of course, but he looked good with them.”

She looked at me. “He remembered me. We just stood there in the aisle, looking at each other, seeing how much time had changed us. But also recognising we hadn’t changed much at all. I can’t fully remember what happened after that. We got talking about what the twenty years between us had done. We had left the shop long ago, and had left most of our shopping behind. I think I invited him back to the house, but he said he had to get going. We had, after all, just spent nearly the whole afternoon together.

“When I got back, your grandfather had hardly even noticed me leaving. He had just been reading a book about boats the whole afternoon, just like normal. Your mother was at university then. No one had eaten, and I had no food. But I was glad because I had met my childhood sweetheart, and even if I never saw him again, I felt satisfied.”

From behind, something disrupted Granny’s conversation, and I could hear someone shouting. The voice walked into the room. “Mum? Are you alright. Do you want us to leave now?”

My mother picked up the empty tea mugs and dragged a shawl from the side of the sofa, onto Granny’s lap.

“Connie, don’t fuss. I’m fine.” Granny dragged the shawl back off her legs, and it floated to the carpet.

“Well, we’re about to have some cake. Do you two want to have some as well?”

“Yes please,” I said, as she put some more wood on the fire, unnecessarily. She then went to the window and began to close the curtains. “I’ll do that, Mum. Go and sort out the cake and tea.” 29

Mother smiled at me, and the creases around her eyes made her look tired. I think she wanted to go home more than Granny wanted us to leave.

I sat back down once the outside was shut out, and asked, “What happened to him?”

“George? He died in the end. I mean, we all die in the end. But he died before us all. I only saw him once again after that. Connie and I were walking down the village. Connie had just turned twenty-one and was looking for work, as she had just finished university. We saw him, and he came for a walk with us. He chatted with Connie. They seemed to get on well. Then Connie mentioned the fact she had no job and he said there was a position at the estate to run the place. And that was how she met your father.”

Mother came back in with some cake. “Here you go you two.” As she walked out she whispered, “Don’t tire her out.”

We ate our cake for a few moments, Granny making some murmuring noises.

“Granny?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand how he could be your father, dear?”

I nodded, sipped the tea, then I put it on the floor, and felt the burning liquid still on my tongue.

“Think about it, dear. You’re not stupid. She went to work for him. One thing led to another, and here we are. Here you are.”

I didn’t know how I should react. Maybe I should have felt alone. But I didn’t. I never knew my father, even when I didn’t know who he was. My mother had always said he was a scoundrel, a man not to be trusted. She just never said how she had met him. Or how old he was.

It’s odd. I feel like I should have cared, but I didn’t. All I felt was terrible sadness for my granny. She was obviously in love with him. Granny’s face was trying to find hurt in mine, and I was trying to find sadness in hers. Instead, we just looked at each other, feeling nothing.

Outside, the air is dusk, and the dust has settled once again. I take another sip of the tea in my hand, the liquid still lukewarm. Everything in the sitting room is in the same place. The jug still has the foxgloves in it, now completely brown. The carpet has mud on the carpet from previous days of people coming and going from the house. The house has a quietness about, almost as if it is stuck between lives. The heating doesn’t tick in the pipes, there are no creaks from footsteps. I can’t hear anything apart from my regular breaths which I imagine cause the dust particles to collide into each other through the sky in the darkened room.

I drink the rest of my tea, grimacing at the coldness of it, and get up from the chair again. I walk to the kitchen, picking up the jug on the way, and unwrap a fresh bouquet of flowers which are lying on the counter. Then I put the old ones in the wrapper.

I empty the old water from the jug, put in some fresh, and gently prop the new flowers in the jug. As I walk into the dining room I see there is a ring on the dresser where the dust has settled around it. I put the jug on the ring trying not to disturb the house’s peacefulness. I then walk back into the kitchen and swill water into the mug I used, putting it on the draining board afterwards. I pick up my coat from the counter, and walk away from the house.

The foxgloves and that mug stay there for a long time afterwards.