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| Apple and Rose. | |
| By Diddi | ||||||
| 28 May 2008 | ||||||
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My Father gave me a simple box on my eleventh birthday. Eight sided and no more than six inches in diameter. At the time, I did not know its worth, but over the years I have come to treasure it. I watched him craft each tiny sliver of wood from pieces I gleaned from his large bin of scraps. I knew that this was to be my birthday present, and I wanted and needed it to be perfect. I was slipping away from my childhood, I could feel the changes coming, I did not understand them, but I had seen the changes happen to other girls in our street and I knew it would soon be my turn. Older girls had turned from loving their fathers, worshipping them - to virtual viragos. Fond fathers became strangers, no longer could Father and Daughter combine, complaining about "Her Indoors" while caring for the vegetable garden, or the roses. Soon the "Garden Club" would be dissolved and Father would become "Him in the Shed." Growing up entails a tremendous shift of allegiance, and fathers are ever the losers in the battle of the hormones. When my father asked me what I would like for my birthday, I told him firmly that whatever it was, it had to be from his woodworking shed. I sat on the old three legged stool, swinging my long, loose legs in lazy arcs. I knew I was annoying him as he moved from the bench to the drill on the stand and back again. I was in a teasing mood, and Dad was my target. Mum was doing her "clean the house, the Vicar is coming for tea" routine. Why, I don't know, the Vicar scrounged a free meal every fortnight if he could. I escaped down the back of the long, narrow garden to Dad's shed. I couldn't hear her call me there. Call me to come and polish the silver. The silver, one sad rose bowl. There were never any roses in it, Dad wouldn't let Mum cut ours - he said they screamed when they were cut and no one was going to torture his rose bushes. **************************** I'm down in Dad's shed, annoying him, and waiting to be sent back into child labour in the home which is rapidly taking on the appearance of becoming a house instead. I was counting the seconds, counting from freedom to servitude. Shed to house, warmth to frost, in a few easy steps. Dad paused as he avoided my swinging legs. As he lowered his head slightly, his glasses slid down his nose, and he looked over them at me. "Eeh, lass. You're nowt but a llittle of slip of trouble in the making. If you don't get yersel' together soon, you'll be down the High Street and spending your time teasing the lads." He turned, shook his head and went back to his drill. "Dad, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a bother," I said quietly, "but I don't know why I'm so awkward. I know I'm growing up, but it's horrible." I turned my dark eyes to him, he turned, held out his arms. I rushed in as I had always done. His strong arms, knotted and firm from many years of carpentry wrapped me in a warmth that I knew from the cradle. The smells were always the same. Mixes and matches of glues and sap, of pine and peach wood. Sawdust to tickle the nose. Leather, warm and worn from the carpenters bag he was never without. "Ah, our little Lily, life's not kind to you now, is it? It's going to get a lot less kinder over the next few years until things settle down for you. In the meantime, you'll need to be aware of what you do. Don't you waggle your tail at the boys like our Daisy-dog does when she comes in season." He smiled at me as I giggled. Daisy was such a naughty dog, but she did have lovely puppies; we always had homes for them. "Dad, I'd never do that. It's mean. I know if I've to go through changes to grow up, so must the lads. Anyway, have you seen them? Spots, pimples and big teeth! They put greasy stuff in their hair and it smells awful!" Dad turned and grinned, his thin, angular face widening into a wonderful graggy map. I truly loved him at that moment. Then his face creased slightly, showing, I think, a touch of pain. Before I could ask him, the signs were gone, and he was my Dad again. I heard the voice of 'Her-in-doors,' "Lillian, Lillian!" "Oh Dad, I'll have to go." I started sliding off the stool, his hand stayed me, and I rested where I was. "Before you go, love." He said, concern in his eyes. "Polish that rose bowl well." "Why Dad? It's just a piece of shiny tin." I said, pulling my arm from the grasp. His hand tightened around my upper arm, and I felt a chill, a fear. He pulled me closer, he didn't seem like my Dad; he was more different, cold, a touch more cruel in his face. I couldn't really tell. "Listen child, you polish that silly little piece of tin for your Ma whenever she asks you! You understand!" "Dad you're frightening me!" I cried softly, tugging my arm from him. "I'm sorry lass, I didn't mean to hurt or scare you." Dad's eyes were full of tears as he looked at me. "Lily, sit beside me a little while, please." He beckoned to one of his carpenters stools where he laid his wood to cut. I settled on to one, Dad on the other. He leaned forward, his face so close to mine, his voice dropped in volume and intensity. "Look, lovely Lily, it was very hard, I loved your Mum from the first time I saw her. She could have had the pick of all of us, rich, poor, fat, thin. She chose me. Sixpence in me pocket and no prospect of work. She chose me. She still chooses me." He placed his work-roughened hand lightly over mine. "I love your Mum, and when I found work again, the rose bowl was the first item I bought her. She's a rose, a rose with thorns that's true, but she's a beautiful rose to me. I'm an apple tree, gnarled and twisted. We suit each other well. I'm so pleased that you chose those two woods for your box. You'd best go off now Lily, help your Mum." I gave him a small smile, "Dad, if you're the apple tree and Mum is the rose, what am I?" "Why love, you're our Lily, Lily of the Valley of course! Off you go now and do a good job on the bowl." He winked and gave me a gentle shove. ********************** I received my box on my birthday, at breakfast. It was the only gift I received, and there was no party with friends this time. My mother and I were more concerned with caring for my father. He had become increasingly ill over the following months and was diagnosed with cancer. Mum said it was a man's cancer which couldn't be cured. My box was the last thing he ever made. When it was finished, the shed door was closed. The lid of the box was made in a starburst pattern with wood from the apple tree and the rose bush in our garden. My Father alternated the white of the apple with the rich, warm colour of the rose bush to create a wonderful fan of wood. When I lifted the lid, a tiny golden chain stopped the lid from falling back. I later learnt that the chain was my Christening bracelet and was pure gold. Inside were the eight tiny sections, like an orange, perfect in their symmetry. After Dad died, I put a lock of his hair in my box and Mum gave me a photograph of him as a young man. Mum said to keep it safe, as it was her first one of him. I would often bring my box into the kitchen after tea, and Mum and I would examine it in minute detail. I would see him again, working the wood, crafting it and buffing tiny rough edges. I would see his hands, the feel and smells of the shed would assault me and tears would threaten to spill. Then my Mother would say: "Enough of that, Lillian, put your box away safely. Time for supper." I would take my little box back to my bedroom and place it safely in my dressing table drawer. When I came back down, we'd have our supper and talk about other things. School, then later, work occupied me. Mother and I went on through the years. I went away to work and only came home occasionally, but I wrote every week, telling her about my life. She would do the same. Wherever I went, I would always have my little box with me. Inside this simple box were eight tiny compartments, and in those eight sections I had, over the years, placed little slips of paper noting important, exciting and sometimes devastating moments of my life. Why I did this I do not know, but it was important to me. I was neither a good letter writer nor a diarist, but this box held everything I needed to remember about my life. At first, I stored little fragile beads, fragments of shells, snips of my hair and, later, cuts from magazines of my latest idols. As I matured, the segments changed. They changed as my life did and as fast. Sometimes a top from a secret, forbidden drink, given by a young lover. Later, a faded rose from another. The box always changed, mirroring my moods. I was in Bristol when I received the news from my specialist that I had Ovarian cancer. I am twenty-four, not married and have no children. Now I will have none. I am not sure if I will have a life for much longer. I went home to Mum, she received my news with sadness and a stoicism that surprised me. She was the same when Dad was dying. Caring but very practical in her manner. Visits to the family doctor, the transferring of my medical data was accomplished with speed, and within a week I had an appointment at the cancer clinic to define my path through this devastating disease. My mother came with me on all the appointments. Sometimes she was almost irritating with her constant questions to specialists, doctors and nurses. I realised that she needed to know and I didn't stop her. I did, however, stop listening as she received reasons and explanations. I felt divorced from this body. I felt it was all happening to someone else. ********************************* I am, however, bereft. I am not devastated by the news of my terminal illness, but I am destroyed and deprived by the loss of my little box of apple and rose. I want it back. That box speaks of me and who I am. Why would someone steal from a person undergoing diagnosis and treatment? Mum and I went to the clinic for my first treatment and I hid Dad's small box in my large bag. As I changed from my clothes into the hospital gown in the small alcove I placed the box on the bench when I searched for a tissue in my large bag. I left it on the bench and when I realised, it was gone. "Mum, my box has gone. I left it in the dressing room. Now it's gone!" "Oh Lillian, you never brought it here? Oh dear," she whispered, "look love, you start the treatment and I'll try and find it." She patted my cheek and kissed me. I tried to relax as they put the needles in my arm. I kept watching the door to the ward, hoping my mother would come in, the box in her hands. I closed my eyes, trying to be calm and give the drugs a head start. I must have drifted off for a moment. I felt a slight pressure on my stomach and opened my eyes. Mum put my little box on my stomach and smiled down at me. "Nobody stole it Lily, they had it in the office for safe keeping. I''m sorry it took so long, but the nurses were admiring it. It was lovely to talk to them, they're such nice girls. I told them about your Dad making it for you and how it was the last thing he made. I think you're in good hands here love." "Oh Mum, thank you so much, and yes, I do think I'm in good hands here." I smiled at her. "I've always been in good hands though, with you and Dad. But I don't think that I could do more than one course of this treatment. I'm sorry to let you down Mum, but I really don't see the point in it." "I know love, your Dad was the same. He said one treatment was enough and I agreed. I agree with you now. It's going to be hard on the both of us, but I want you to know that whatever you decide for yourself I will accept, but please stay home now." "I will Mum, I'm not going back to Bristol. I'm truly home."
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Thank you Phil. I agree, it has lost something. I wrote it for a competition on another site, I'm part of a group there. We have a 'group edit' system and during the group edit, I lost some of my idiosyncratic way of writing 
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