The Memento

by Christy Ann Conlin

  Hector came into the Water House a few minutes after us, giving me a poke in the back as he went by. Art pretended not to notice. “It looks like a kitchen in here,” he said. “Like you’re going to cook us up some food, Mrs. Parker.”

  “Loretta was looking for you, Hector, old chap.” Harry clapped Hector on the shoulder. “She needs help with a few things.”

  Art had his hands in his pockets. “She keeps sending us out to look for you.”

  “I was down to the valley getting parts for old Rolly.”

  “Well, perhaps you could just check in with her a bit more often, Hector,” Harry said. “You know she can’t get along without you for long. I can’t imagine any of us could.”

  Hector laughed. Harry knew how to talk to him. It was so easy—just throw out a few compliments, like throwing treats to an animal. “Well, I do my best, you know.”

  Margaret cocked her hip. “Everyone likes a handyman, Hector.”

  He winked at her.

  Marigold clapped her hands. “Hector will go in and see Loretta when we’re done here. I’m sure he’ll enjoy this. He’s a natural gardener, just like you, Arthur, even though we’ve got him working on the engines all the time. It’s not the same as when we had our own gardeners—these landscape people, cleaning people, party people, all coming in from elsewhere. But at least it’s all tended to. I am most pleased you young people are interested in all of this. We’ll make soap in a few days, if I don’t fatigue.”

  Marigold was wistful as she touched the items on the table Harry and Sakura had set up: three red bricks, a glass bowl, jar and measuring cup. There was also a water pitcher, a funnel, eye droppers and a row of small glass bottles for the rosewater. They had also scrubbed and straightened the whole place. It was like a mix of a lab, a kitchen and a parlour, with white walls and tiled floors, faded sofas and armchairs in the corner.

  “Now then, we’ll need rose petals. We can’t do a thing without rose petals. Harry, wherever are the rose petals?”

  Jenny looked out the window screen past the chimes, in the direction of the lily pond. “I haven’t seen my swans yet. How are my swans doing?” She was sniffing the air and stroking the fabric on the chair as she looked at each of us, her eyes landing on Margaret. “I want to see my swans and their new babies. This is taking too long.”

  Pomeline cleared her throat then and I jumped. She hadn’t said a word since we’d come to the Water House. Her tired, pinched face was startling.

  Marigold took a deep breath. “Well, Agatha, dear, you didn’t have to come with us. You’re not even settled in the house yet, for goodness’ sake. You have the rest of the summer to check on the swans. Be patient, my darling girl. I’ve been out a few times myself and I assure you they await your arrival. They only hiss at the rest of us. Right now we’ll focus on roses.”

  “Well, if you didn’t want me to come you could have said so.” Jenny crossed her arms like she was five.

  “I’m sure you’re just tired, but there is no need to behave so, sweetest heart. You can be pleasant and stay here or go in the house with Loretta. Let’s carry on.”

  “They’re doing rather well, Jenny, gliding about, keeping an eye on things. Cute little cygnets, although I dare say if you even look at the babies the parents come at you like kamikaze pilots,” Harry said. “And I’m sure they will be just so superbly delighted to see you, as your Granny says, as they don’t seem to be happy to see anyone else.”

  That made Jenny smile.

  Harry walked over and took Marigold’s hand. “Marigold, you said to wait to pick the petals so they wouldn’t wilt.”

  “Oh yes, I did say that. It’s hard to keep things straight, isn’t it, with so many people about. Really, it should be rose petals collected first thing in the morning, still moist, not roses at the end of the day. But we are just learning today so they’ll do. There is such an intensity to the scent of hot petals.” She laughed. “That’s what we’re doing. We’re evaporating. It’s like a wee still.”

  Margaret chuckled. “You’ll like that, Hector.”

  “Well, we’d better get started if we’re going to practise singing as well, Granny.” Pomeline was sitting in a chair looking like she was about to fall asleep. “I must do some practising today as well.”

  Jenny stamped her foot. “We haven’t even done the rosewater and you’re taking over with the music.”

  “I’m not taking over with the music, Jenny. You haven’t even been here. Don’t be silly. We’ve been working on a few songs for the concert and we really do need to keep practising.” Pomeline smiled at me and Margaret and Art. “It’s coming along nicely, though.”

  Jenny clasped her hands together. “To hear the angels sing.”

  Margaret was snorting now, trying to hold in laughs. Jenny gave her the eye and Margaret stopped dead. “Jesus smiled at me out in the garden, when I was just a little girl. He smiled at me and blessed me and left me in ecstasy.”

  No one said a word for a moment.

  “Well,” Harry finally said, “isn’t that absolutely remarkable, Jenny, to have had such an experience. Marvellous. The garden is truly a mystical place, there is no doubt.”

  Margaret’s mouth was hanging open, and Marigold rapped a big metal spoon on the wooden table. “Agatha, I’m so very happy you have the Lord with you. But ecstasy isn’t a proper thing for a young girl to speak of. Really, you know better. Now, please don’t argue. I hope you didn’t travel all the way out to the countryside to stalk about Petal’s End suspiring and gloomy. You know better. We’re Parkers. Here at Petal’s End we’ll behave like civilized ladies. Pomeline is right. We really should get started because there is much to do.”

  The grin left Jenny’s lips, vanished, snatched away. She looked shrivelled, her crossing eyes behind thick lenses like bugs pinned to a mat behind a magnifying glass.

  “All right, Mrs. Parker,” Margaret said. “We’ll get some rose petals.”

  “Margaret, you stay here with me, my dear. Agatha, you look like you could use the fresh air. Off with you. And don’t strip all the roses bare. Be selective. Pick the roses that surrender the petals. No ripping and tugging, please. If you get pricked it will be from carelessness. Agatha, do you hear? Mind the thorns. Your mother will be simply feverish if she arrives back at Petal’s End and you’re torn up. Fancy and Arthur, why don’t you take Agatha to my rose garden, the one Charlie and I planted. I used to make rose oil, you know. Distillation only captures a whisper of the scent for particular flowers, and the rose is one of them. It’s referred to as a rose otto. Making a concentrated oil is a much more involved process, with a solvent. We call that sort of extraction an ‘absolute.’ You must extract the solvent after. Oh my, I do digress. Agatha, run along, darling.”

  Jenny stomped her foot. “I know where Daddy’s roses are. I live here. This is my garden, not theirs. Why does everybody keep forgetting that?”

  Jenny, Art and I headed off to the roses, with Jenny in the lead.

  “Shall come the time foretold,” she was singing in her tuneless way.

  “And what time is that, Jenny?”

  “Oh you’ll see, Fancy Mosher,” she said over her shoulder, her metal bowl glittering in the sun.

  The flowers were so plentiful that even after filling a bowl it hardly looked like we’d touched them. Jenny sat on the stone bench and watched us. She began speaking as though she’d called us together for a secret meeting.

  “My mother and Dr. Baker keep causing problems for Granny. He acts like he wants to help but he doesn’t. My mother has been in such a nasty mood. I don’t care if I get germs and viruses. I’m twelve now. She’s been arguing with Dr. Baker ever since Granny and Pomeline left. She says he’s out here too much. She says he pays attention to everybody but her, poor Mother. What do you think of Dr. Baker?” Jenny fiddled with her kerchief.

  Art and I just kept plucking rose petals.

  “That’s fine, you don’t have to say anything. He’s proba
bly got you both brainwashed as well. My mother thinks I’m deaf, not just blind. But I’m not. He doesn’t fool me, the good doctor. My mother doesn’t fool me, either.” Jenny took a handful of petals and started twisting them. She tossed the shreds on the grass and lifted her hands to her nose. She took a long sniff. We always knew Jenny didn’t like her mother or Dr. Baker but she had a special hate on for them now.

  “My mother is still mad at my father. He promised her she’d get the estate and he didn’t keep his promise, she says. Charlie broke my heart with his lies. That’s how she says it, in her whiny voice. The nerve of her to blame him. It’s her fault my father died. And she’d be happy to drive my grandmother to her grave. That’s what your mother did to your grandfather, didn’t she, Fancy?”

  I stopped picking. Jenny was going too far and she’d only just arrived. Art didn’t say a word, just continued filling the bowl.

  Jenny kept ripping up rose petals. “Well, I didn’t mean to offend you, Fancy. It just seems we both have mothers who don’t respect us. Does your mother still have her horses?”

  “No, she sold them a long time ago. She couldn’t look after them. Hector’s father has draught horses.”

  “I always did like a workhorse. Just like my grandmother.”

  “Well, why don’t you be a workhorse and help us out?”

  Jenny laughed. She jumped up and threw a few petals in the air. They drifted down on her white sandals, a few landing on my dirty brown toes. She put a rose petal in the middle of my forehead and pressed it with her finger. I could feel how cold her finger was, and when she took her hand away the petal stayed. She did the same thing to Art, and we stood there with petals on our foreheads while Jenny closed her eyes. Then she opened her eyes and answered a question no one had asked.

  “My mother would like nothing better than to see this place sold off. She can hardly wait for Granny to die. Half the time I expect to find her up late at night fashioning some sort of spell, putting a curse on Granny. The only time I’ve seen my mother grieve was when Granny got better from her attack. Granny comes from a strong line,” she said. “Like me. I’m a Parker. My mother is not a Parker. It’s all in the bloodline, you see.”

  “Good thing she’s got you to take care of her, Jenny,” Art said.

  “You sound like Dr. Baker. You don’t want to sound like him. Trust me.” She was whispering now. “And Pomeline thinks she’s the best granddaughter because she’s older and she never has any problems. And that Margaret, she thinks she’s running the place.”

  “Well, that’s just how Margaret is, but she’s a hard worker,” I said. Art was standing beside me, both of us with our bowls full of petals. It was hard to believe it had come to us defending Margaret.

  “Granny needs to be careful who she hires. I will have to stay out here. Pomeline’s so busy with her piano she doesn’t pay close enough attention.”

  When we came back to the Water House, Marigold got up from her armchair and ran her fingers through our bowls of petals. “There is nothing that makes me happier,” she said. “Once we used copper kettles; however that system was dismantled years ago. But we’ll make do with this simple stove-top method of steam distillation. Gather round and I’ll explain. It’s shockingly simple,” she said and then held forth on a baffling process involving sterilization, a big pot, a bowl and bricks, cascades of boiling water and frosty ice cubes, an inverted lid, and most importantly, the exact placement of rose petals in the pot. None of us could make sense of it except Jenny, who kept chiming in with her tips and comments, a self-appointed assistant. Marigold patted her on the head, proclaiming how moving it was to know Petal’s End Botanicals would carry on. Harry was beaming and whether he actually understood or was simply besotted with the romance and nostalgia of it all was impossible to tell.

  Margaret, of all people, was actually enjoying herself so much she didn’t even think to hide it. “I didn’t know you could just make this at home with a pot, Mrs. Parker.”

  Jenny gave her grandmother a hug. She stepped in front of Margaret with handfuls of rose petals and reached down into the pot, packing it as per Marigold’s exact instructions.

  Marigold pinched Jenny’s cheek. “That’s perfect, Jenny.” Then she picked up the pitcher of water and poured it in. “See how we add just enough water to cover the petals? Goodness, it smells divine already.” Marigold’s hands shook as she poured but they were still strong. She and Jenny had that in common, tough little fingers. “Now, we’ll turn this burner on and bring it to a rolling boil. Arthur, be a good boy and hand me the lid. I remember once when Charlie was quite young and he was helping me. John Lee was here as well. What an eager child. He couldn’t wait, and he got his hand scalded. He didn’t even cry. You most likely did not whimper either, Fancy, when you got your scar. My Charlie was a sensitive child. His father does not appreciate him. Charlie will love this. He loves rosewater. He’s romantic like that.”

  Pomeline’s eyes met mine just for a moment and moved to the scar on my cheek, which my hand had instinctively covered. Jenny and Pomeline exchanged a quick glance before Pomeline spoke. “Granny, you mean it was Daddy’s favourite.”

  “Yes. That’s what I said. There is no need to correct me. How rude.” Marigold went back to looking at her bottles and running her fingers through the leftover petals remaining in the shiny bowls.

  It didn’t take long and Marigold turned the burner down. We was all fanning ourselves, sweat beading down our faces.

  “It’s at a nice steady simmer. Now hand me the ice, Harry, please.” Marigold poured the ice on top of the inverted lid.

  “Now, let’s review, children. The steam will rise and hit the cold and at that point will drip down into the glass bowl resting on the bricks at the bottom of the pot. Harry and Sakura, we’ll have to leave you here. Every twenty minutes, spoon out the rosewater into the glass jar here, the one we sterilized. When the jar is full, about a quart, it will be done. If you keep going it will be too diluted. Be sure to watch the clock.”

  “I love how it smells in here.” Jenny tilted her chin up, eyes scrunched closed as she sniffed the air.

  Margaret crossed her arms. “I thought you hated the smell of cut flowers.”

  Jenny put her hands over her ears as though Margaret’s very voice was giving her a headache. “I don’t know how you would know that about me. It’s not polite to talk about people when they aren’t present. I don’t like watching flowers die. A vase is just an urn. That’s what they put my father in. He was burned up into ashes. Why did you hire someone so stupid, Granny?”

  “Agatha Jennifer, don’t be rude. My goodness, look at how you are behaving. You’ve spent too long with your mother. If you don’t mind your manners then you won’t be able to participate. Margaret is a fine help. I simply won’t have you talking like this.”

  But the thing is, she didn’t make Jenny apologize. I could tell Margaret made note of that.

  Marigold clicked her cane on the floor. “Let’s head into the house, Margaret. We’ll go in and refresh and meet you all in the music room in twenty minutes. We’ll make more rosewater tomorrow, don’t you worry, with fresh morning rose petals covered with dew. And Margaret, you’ll go mad for this rosewater. You can splash it on your face, or better yet, add it to your drinking water. It’s soothing for the skin.”

  “Why doesn’t Jenny stay behind to help Harry and Sakura? She’s not singing, so she might be bored,” Pomeline said.

  “I can still come and listen. You can’t make me stay out here. You can’t make me stay behind.”

  “I’m not trying to make you stay out here. I don’t want you to have a dull time, that’s all.”

  “Well, I could try to sing.”

  Pomeline stroked Jenny’s hair, what was sticking out of the kerchief. “You can turn the music for me.” Pomeline knew the music by heart but she wasn’t going to tell Jenny that.

  Marigold looked over. “Yes, Pommie, you really should include her. You don’
t do that enough. It’s no wonder she feels left out. Everyone makes such a fuss about you and your musical inclination and all the fine things you do, but at the expense of your younger sister. Agatha, we’d be utterly over the moon for you to join us.” She blew Jenny a kiss. Pomeline’s face sagged but her sister and grandmother did not seem to notice.

  Art looked over at me. We knew what Jenny was good at—flowers and snowflakes and her bizarre made-up religion—but no one else truly did. Maybe Pomeline did, the other Pomeline that is, the one we glimpsed at the very beginning of summer, before she got waxen and tired and sat at the keyboard channelling sadness from the air. I don’t think it was that Jenny disliked Pomeline, not in the way she disliked Margaret. She did love her sister. But Pomeline was everything Jenny couldn’t be, and most of the time Jenny couldn’t bear that truth. But in the moment, and I can see it right now as clear as a stone beneath still water, Jenny was happy. When Pomeline held out her hand, Jenny took it and they went into the house together.

  13.

  Sages, Leave Your Contemplations

  SOMETIMES IT feels as though my mind is covered in wallpaper, not of big flowers with golden swirls but pictures of my life, painted and stitched, stretching down endless walls. The music, the scent of roses, the gardens, vases piled with blossoms, big skies, the warm stone walls of Evermore and the halls and rooms of the big house at Petal’s End. And the steamy August air with Marigold snoring as she napped in the floral armchair with my mother’s embroidery covering, as though she was some wilted flower herself. That was how she was after her first go at making flower water, exhausted.

  Here on the verandah now the piano music is as bewitching in my memory as the day Pomeline sat in the stuffy music room. I can see it still, Pomeline hunched at the piano, the late-afternoon sun coming dappled through the leaves outside the long, closed window behind her. Pomeline’s eyes were on Marigold as she napped. It was just the two of them. Marigold’s face was relaxed as she slept, and Pomeline’s creased with concentration as though she was working out a puzzle.