By
Sante Montefiore
Rose was in the garden when the telephone rang. Her dog, Smut, lay sleeping in the spring sunshine for he was old like she was and too stiff to frolic about the bushes. He slept on as his mistress put down her trowel and walked inside. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness as she made her way to the kitchen. With an intuitive sense of doom she picked up the receiver. “Hello?” There was a brief pause then the low resonance of a voice she recognised from long ago.
“Hello, Rose, it’s Michael.”
Rose’s heart stumbled. He didn’t wait for her to answer. He knew she had guessed the reason for such an unexpected intrusion. “I’m afraid I have some very sad news,” he said. “George died yesterday. It was a gentle passing away. He didn’t suffer.” Rose sat down, unable to withstand so great a disappointment. “Are you alright?” he asked when she didn’t respond.
“Can I call you later?” she managed to whisper, straining her neck to suppress the sob that threatened to engulf her.
“Of course.”
When she put down the telephone she buried her head in her rough hands and gave way to despair. Smut must have sensed her anguish for he trotted in with his ears back, now grey like the hair of his mistress, and sat in front of her, pushing his long nose into her lap. Stroking his head she cried into his fur, deriving comfort from the one friend she had always been able to rely on.
After a while she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. She took a small brass key out of her jewellery box and opened the trunk that sat gathering dust on the landing. She had dreamed that this moment would be one of great joy so now the disappointment was all the more acute. Suddenly the air was filled with the unmistakeable scent of George for the trunk contained remnants of their life together, now over fifty years ago, when they had been engaged to be married. Letters, books, items of clothing, trinkets, souvenirs and memories, oh, so many memories all locked away in a moment of anger and bitterness but never thrown out. There was always hope and while there was hope the contents of the trunk were left to ferment.
With her faithful Smut lying dolefully with his head on his paws beside her she began to go through every single item. First she picked up a faded ivory envelope which contained the stiff invitation to Michael’s twenty-first birthday party in London. Michael was her first cousin and it was he who had introduced her to George. They had been best friends at school and were then at university together. Rose had fallen in love with George on sight. He was tall with sandy blond hair, pale green eyes that sparkled with mischief and a generous, sensitive mouth always on the verge of laughter. Without asking her he had swept her onto the dance floor after dinner and twirled her about the room until dawn. She had given her heart to him then and in spite of all that had happened since she had never once asked for it back. She paused a moment, lost in her memories, debilitated by the wave of nostalgia that had suddenly washed over her so that she could almost hear the music ringing out over the years. She inhaled deeply and delved her hand into the trunk, eager for the past to brush her spirit once again. This time her fingers found the opera tickets he had bought on their first date. She remembered it well for they had been unable to wait for dinner to talk and had sneaked out in the interval to have an early evening drink at the Savoy. He had touched her hand once when he had emphasised how happy he was to have met her and then once again when they had both laughed until their cheeks were streaming with tears. They had shared the same irreverent sense of humour and it was that readiness to see life’s incongruities that had bonded them. It was easy to love George. He had embraced life with an enthusiasm that was contagious. She rummaged about again and found the flower press her mother had given her as a child. The white roses he had sent her were still pressed between the paper, now crisp with age. She ran her finger over the petals, as diaphanous as the wings of a butterfly and her eyes stung with tears until her vision was blurred, but she could still smell his scent, a little like sandalwood, as if he were right there beside her.
Smut sneezed and she was wrenched back to the present moment and to the painful reminder that George had always been in love with someone else for the next item she pulled out of the trunk was a small photograph of the three of them together in Provence: herself, George and Michael. She hadn’t noticed before but George and Michael had their arms casually draped over each other while she stood a little apart as if subconsciously aware that theirs was a friendship with which she could never compete. They smiled and the white of their teeth dazzled against their dark faces. She, on the other hand, was pale for her skin burnt easily and her red hair was tied back into a neat chignon beneath her sunhat. How naïve and innocent she had been then. How love had blinded her to the true nature of her cousin’s friendship with her fiancé. She had thought nothing of it when George had asked if he could invite Michael on holiday with them. They were only recently engaged so it seemed improper to go away alone. Michael was doing them a favour.
The little red box that contained her engagement ring had fallen to the very bottom of the trunk. He had insisted she keep it, after all he had claimed he still loved her. She opened it and turned the diamond over and over in her fingers. It was small but it was as much as he had been able to afford then having just left university and started working. She didn’t mind for the ring itself was of little importance to her, its value lay in what it represented. She hadn’t worn it again, not since that terrible night in Provence. But she slipped it on now. It didn’t suit her wrinkled old hand, it was still shiny and new and would have looked better against young flesh, but she left it on all the same.
She recalled that the last couple of days of their holiday had been draped in a curious disquiet. George was depressed while Michael lay on a deck chair his face buried in a book. She had gone for a bicycle ride with George but they hadn’t talked much. He had been withdrawn and she had tried to lighten the atmosphere by being cheery, but she knew inside that something had altered their relationship. She hadn’t expected it to be Michael.
George had told her on their last night. They had walked up the track lined with sycamore trees and she recalled now that he had taken her hand. The air was charged with uncertainty and they had walked a while without speaking, George because he didn’t know how to begin and Rose out of fear. She sensed he was going to break off their engagement and her heart was slowly tearing. “If we marry I’ll be living a lie, Rose,” he had explained, turning around and taking her other hand so that he held them both tightly. His eyes glistened with remorse. “My heart will always belong to another. I care about you too much to deny you what you deserve.” Rose had frowned and he had lowered his eyes in shame. “I love Michael.” Those words had left an open wound that still ached to this day.
The engagement had been broken along with her heart and Rose had embarked on a life alone while Michael and George had enjoyed years of happiness. She had eventually bought a small cottage in Devon where she had lived modestly, working as a secretary in town. She had lost touch with most of her friends but one or two remained in contact and the years were punctuated with the odd piece of news of George so that little by little she began to live for them. George rose to a position of importance in the art world so that occasionally she read about him in the papers. These cuttings she kept in a drawer of her dressing table. She hadn’t opened the trunk until now.
The only thing that had kept her going was a small glimmer of hope. But that hope had recently been extinguished with the terrible news of his illness. An old friend had informed her that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Why George? Why not Michael? She had cried onto her pillows and her prayers had been worn thin by repetition. God hadn’t heard her, or he hadn’t listened because now George was dead.
It was late when she had composed herself enough to call Michael back. The sun hung low in the western sky and the air was filled with the clamour of nesting birds. She sat on one of the kitchen chairs and dialled his number. In her hand she held the slippers she had embroidered for George. She had sewn them over the years in the hope that perhaps he would one day wear them as an old man. Now it would never be.
Michael answered almost immediately. He had obviously been waiting for her call. “Hello Michael, it’s Rose.”
“How are you, Rose?” he said, his voice heavy with compassion.
“I’m okay.” She sighed.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise…”
“Then you’re more of a fool than I.” she paused a moment then said resolutely. “I can tell you the truth now, Michael, because George is dead.”
“Go on.”
At that point her voice shuddered, but she managed to pull herself together.
“I never stopped loving George and I never gave up hoping. I hoped, I prayed, that you would go before him so that I could at least share his final years with him. I wanted to look after him, you see. I had lived for it. But now he’s gone. Gone.” Her voice trailed off.
“I’m sorry.” He felt humbled by the strength of her love and sad because George had never known how much she had adored him.
Michael tried to telephone her over the next couple of days to make sure that she was alright. When she didn’t answer he got nervous and drove down to her cottage in Devon. The house was unlocked and the door out to the garden ajar and rattling in the wind. He panicked and called out her name. When no one responded he ran upstairs. On the landing a trunk lay open and the floor was strewn with photographs and other objects that he could tell at once belonged to the chapter of her life that she had shared with George. At that moment he heard a low whine coming from the bedroom. He turned and strode in to find Rose lying pale and still on the bed. Curled up beside her was an old black dog who lifted his head and wagged his tail weakly. Michael’s eyes rested sadly on the body of Rose. On her finger shone the diamond George had given her and in her hands she clutched a pair of embroidered slippers. On closer inspection he realised that she had made them for George for they bore his initials in large gold letters entwined with those of the two people he had loved most: R for Rose and M for Michael.
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