Island of Alana, 1965
Perhaps the house sensed it would be some time before anyone would be at home here again. The wind outside grew stronger, blowing up from the shore, tapping insistently against the windows as though telling Rose not to leave. Rain had begun as drizzle and then sea mist crept in from the beach below, disguising the extraordinary view from her sight. She sighed as she stood at the wide, bare window in her bedroom. It did not matter. Every detail was imprinted in her memory and it would have to be enough. She would not return.
The furniture had gone first. Rose couldn’t bear to think of it lingering here, rotting silently in the damp and dust that was sure to follow. It had taken some time to catalogue it and decide which items should be sold and which must be kept. The little Chippendale cabinet from her mother’s bedroom and her writing desk from the morning room, Rose could not part with. Nor the china dinner service given to her parents to celebrate their marriage and all of the books. Her nephew was not interested in those and so she had packed them carefully and taken them to the new place, where they would be loved still. The Georgian silver had been scattered over the years, pieces borrowed or lost, and she did not want to cling to the little that was left.
Her father’s collections had been separated some time ago, when her brother had died so unexpectedly young and everything had begun to alter in ways she had not foreseen. Those things which her father had loved had been divided up like raffle prizes and dispersed with little thought of their value to the house or to her. Nobody realised that they reminded her of him or that she had shared his dreams of the house and most especially the garden, long before they were real.
Rose banged the windowsill angrily, glad of the pain shooting through her wrist, for it matched the pain in her heart. It never quite went away, not really. There were days when remembering was harder, when she could pretend that the world beyond the island didn’t exist and she would stay here always, with her painting and the garden, all she had to sustain her. But then other days arrived when every glimpse outdoors revealed a memory, a vision of all she had loved still within reach and yet gone forever.
Her paintings, she had gathered up and taken away. She painted still, the only way she knew how to express all she felt. Landscapes captured from around the island, every inch a part of her soul. The garden, abundant, generous with its bounty and beauty, asking nothing and giving everything, soothing her even now. The house above the sea, the light glinting from the water and back to the building, bathing everything in a glow she captured on canvas.
That last summer together, with Archie, would never be forgotten. It was warm most days and when it rained they had simply hidden themselves away in the gardener’s cottage or the stables, her sturdy pony for pulling the little cart snuffling their hands for treats. Archie’s life was outlined in every shadow in the garden, every stroke of her brush, every dash to the summerhouse, their secret place.
She hadn’t kept a journal since then. There didn’t seem any point when there was nothing left to record. She didn’t need words to remind her how the garden had looked last spring or the winter before, and the summer ten years before that. Every rose was already drawn, captured with her pencils and watercolours, the petals carefully shaded. Rose turned away from the window, moving quickly through the almost empty room and into the corridor beyond.
Here, she smiled. She could never pass through the gallery without appreciating its generous proportions and clever design. Wide, lit by windows at either end, offering views to the east and west. It was where they had spent most of their time when they were still little, when the weather was too filthy for her mother to send them all outside. Croquet, bowls, even cricket had been allowed in here, the windows carefully covered. Games of hide and seek could last for hours if somebody discovered a secret place not yet explored. The littlest boys usually gave up long before she and Archie were found.
When they were still small, they used to peep down the curved staircase to the hall below in the evenings, listening, watching, discovering things they weren’t meant to know, when the adults hadn’t realised they could be heard. In those early days it had been laughter and fun, before calamitous events in the world arrived to claim them. Until then summers seemed endless, everything was possible and just far enough away.
Rose paused; about to descend the oak staircase when her attention was caught by a narrow door, tucked between two bedrooms. She realised that this cupboard, full of junk, had not yet been cleared; like the attic still full of the boxes she couldn’t summon the strength to remove on her own. Whatever was left up there, it would have to remain.
She stepped towards the cupboard, unwilling to confront the memories she knew it would contain. Perhaps she should leave it for the others, who would not be drawn back into the past by its contents. She reached out slowly and pulled at the handle. It opened more easily than she had expected, and she squinted at the darkness inside, drawing in a sharp breath as the smell of dust and damp and old things floated out to meet her.
She ought to have prepared for this. Return with boxes and opened the cupboard, tossing everything together for another bonfire. Nothing in here she would wish to keep and she pushed through the mess, dragging it out onto the gallery floor, sneezing from the dust. Cracked and worn children’s shoes, a raincoat which had rotted, a pair of cricket pads, the straps snapped. Endless mismatched socks, gloves, two scarves and a hat. Her mother had called it the glory hole, where everything broken or unwanted had been flung and discarded. Rose pulled out a few books with torn pages, cricket stumps and an old newspaper. And then, Archie’s bat. And tucked underneath it, a hard leather ball.
Gasping, she tugged the bat out and held it for a moment, a sharp sting of pain rushing through her heart and forcing tears to her eyes. How foolish. All these years, and still she cried for him, marvelling that such a simple discovery carried the power to hurt her. She tested it weight in her hands, remembering that it had been well used and loved, wondered for a moment if she ought to keep it.
But she wanted to be done with recollections and she tried to send away the image, utterly fixed in her heart and mind, of the beautiful blonde boy who had laughed and teased and loved her during that perfect, sunlit summer. She silently traced his initials with her fingertips before dropping it onto the pile of other belongings she had unearthed. She picked up the ball and tucked it into her pocket as she closed the cupboard door and walked briskly away.
The garden to the south of the house was still beautiful, especially at this time of year. She had not been able to prevent herself from tending it lovingly, even though it was far too large for just one person now that she had had to let the gardener go. She was able to do little with the north garden now and it had begun to overtake its design, the borders creeping beyond their boundaries and stretching into a lawn already growing heavy with weeds. The rose garden, she mostly ignored. Better to let it grow and just possibly survive rather than spend time amongst it all, remembering those first days and the excitement it had brought to her, so many years ago.
Sometimes she could smell the blooms on the breeze and she would breathe deeply, each scent a different memory, a name remembered. She had taken cuttings and whatever happened in the future, a part of the rose garden would always be with her. Perhaps someone would come after her. Someone who understood this place, and all it meant to her. Perhaps the house and its garden would breathe again, secure and safe. Perhaps.
Rose crossed the beautiful, light-filled drawing room, empty now, and opened the door to the terrace outside. She breathed in the briny tang of the sea and listened for the waves sliding back and forth on the beach below, as she had so many times before. She heard the sound of her feet tapping on the stone beneath her shoes as she walked slowly to the centre of the terrace. Her fingers went to her pocket and she felt for the ball and removed it. She glanced at it, feeling its smoothness and the contrasting scrape of the rough seam. She hurled the ball as far as she could, back into the garden where it belonged. She spun around and did not look back as she returned to the house and silently closed the door.
© Suzanne Snow 2021