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| Rose of My Heart | |
| By Leo | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 27 August 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This is unusal piece for me, in that i am trying to write about love. If this is a topic that makes you want to reach for the sick bucket give this piece a wide berth! William stopped at the bottom of the bed and stepped out of his slippers. With a gentle nudge they were set under the side, ready to put on in the night. These days he had to use the bathroom two or three times before dawn. His GP had told him it came with his age. He hung his dressing gown on the end of the bed and immediately caught the clean, fresh smell of his cotton pyjamas. Sheila had washed, dried and ironed them only this morning. Whilst she wasn’t getting any younger she was still looking after him. ‘How would you cope without me to chase round and tidy after you?’ she’d often say. She was his wife and he loved her more than words could say. She looked beautiful as she lay in the bed. Her eyes closed. He’d lost count of the hours he had spent just looking at her slumbering form. Staring at her face. Normally it was him who went to bed early, and got up before her. She was normally still asleep when he got up to walk down the paper shop at seven every morning. It was his daily routine. It had been ever since he retired. Every morning before he set out he would always take just two or three minutes, just to look at her. At night as she read her books, she in turn would watch over him. Occasionally nudging him if he snored too loudly. But tonight she had felt tired, and had gone to bed early. He’d felt lonely down stairs watching the TV without her. So he’d come up, just to be near her. It gave him an extra chance just to look at her. There was something deeply satisfying about those quiet, delicate moments spent just watching her. It was difficult to explain. With her near, he just felt whole. It was also difficult to express why he thought she was so beautiful. She wasn’t as young as she used to be. Her deep auburn hair had been overtaken by grey long ago, her silky smooth skin had given way to the lines of age. They now dominated around her crystal blue eyes. Fine blue veins were visible if you looked closely. Her delicate nose wasn’t straight, she’d broken it when she was eleven, but he loved it all the same. It gave way to those tender, slender lips of her. Those lips that were still as soft as warm silk when she kissed him. These days they only kissed at points of departure and arrival. When he went down the allotment, or when she went down to the shops. And of course, they always kissed just before bed. There was just so much you could give someone, wrapped up in one tiny, delicate kiss. Even if she did tell him off, for minor infractions, like walking through the house in his muddy boots. He still loved her more than life itself. It seemed like they had always been together. He had worked at the electro-plating plant and she had been a wages clerk. He spotted her when her father first dropped her off in his new Hillman Imp. Thereafter every morning he timed his arrival to coincide with her. His mother teased him. ‘Why would you want to go and put that brill cream your hair before work love? It’s a factory not some fashion parade..’ She knew he was in love and laughed as he ran out after eating his breakfast. He would lurk just behind the corner come rain or shine, waiting for her to arrive. Then he would casually saunter over as she climbed out of the car. And then one day she noticed him. ‘You look like that Cliff Richards’, she said. He was over the moon. The moment their destinies truly entwined was the night he took her to the pub. They danced to Georgie Fame before the skiffle band took to the stage. The washboard zipped around the tea chest bass as every set of feet in the room caught the rhythm. Everybody was smiling and dancing. Clapping and soaking up the atmosphere. They were surrounded by friends. It was a night you wanted to bottle and save forever. He’d bought her a ginger ale and they’d laughed at his impressions of Mr Garforth, the director of finance. He walked her home, no funny business, but she’d said she love to do it again. Very soon!. Weeks later they’d saved up enough to go and see Lonnie Donegan at the Conway Hall in Holborn. A night up west. It was fabulous. Rock island line was electric. Then there was coffee in the late night café, before they danced under the stars, as they made there way to the bus stop. There they kissed for the first time. He decided there and then he wanted to marry her. They’d courted for nearly three years before he had the courage to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Their honeymoon had been a week in Selsey Bill. They had eaten chips from the same bag as they’d walked over by the Mixon rocks. The first of the girls was born nine months later. She was called Lillian after Sheila’s mum. Then there had been Maureen and finally James. They were truly a family that enjoyed each other’s company. Every year they went away for a week, together. It had been tradition to go to Selsey Bill, until they discovered country and western conventions. And then the entire coast line opened up to them. Blackpool, Scarborough, Morecambe, Hemsby, Breen Sands and Leysdown to name just a few. They didn’t need Sunkist foreign beaches or cities dripping in history and culture. They just needed to be with each other. The seaside offered them a place where normal life didn’t intrude. It was beautiful and timeless. They could lose themselves in each other. They laughed and smiled at the same things. They rode donkeys, held each other tight on the big dipper, watched the civil war re-enactments and even competed in the fast draw competitions. Sheila had won once, and swaggered back to the chalet like Annie Oakley. They danced and listened to music. It was fantastic. Love to him, was having someone to share life with. And he shared every moment with Sheila. One year he even got up on the stage and sang ‘Behind closed doors’. The whole room clapped him as he returned to his seat and knelt before Sheila like a knight in shining armour. That night they walked hand in hand along the beach. There was only the two of them in the whole wide world. It was fantastic. He could still smell the sea air, if he closed his eyes. Moments like that were forever. He’d captured some of the happy times on his new cine camera, and they now played out every Christmas, when all the children and grand children converged en mass. Who could ask for more? Quietly now, he slipped into bed along side her and placed his glasses on the nightstand. He looked at Sheila and contemplated how blessed he had been, all these years. He had experienced so much happiness. But just lately cold, dark waves of foreboding had swept over him. Always at night. Maybe it was because he was exhausted, after spending the morning on the allotment and afternoon in the social club. It was difficult to describe, and he wasn’t a man of many words. It was something he felt, rather than something he could articulate. Besides he kept it to himself, Sheila didn’t need to know. It was just that he had become increasingly worried about what would happen if he lost her. It was something that every couple of their age faced up to in the end. Could one survive without the other? Just thinking about it plunged him into a state of melancholy. It felt like someone had pulled the plug out on his life. Everything that had ever meant anything to him was swirling and disappearing down a bottomless hole. Try as he might to claw back the fast disappearing sources of joy he couldn’t. They seemed somehow to drift out of reach. In so doing they diminished and lost their magic power. As they did his feelings of despair intensified. His mood plunged. Even if he tried to seal the hole by rationalising his fears, drip-by-drip it all still drained away. He felt powerless. And tired. And so lonely. Just then he leant over and tenderly stroked her forehead. Brushing her hair back and away from her eyes. It always irritated her when her hair is in her eyes. The radio played a late night country music station. An earnest, husky southern drawl sang softly and gently, only to him. ‘When sorrow holds you in it’s arms of clay, It’s raindrops that fall from your eyes. Your smile’s like the sun, come to earth for a day, You brighten my blackest of skies….’ A tear ran down his cheek, as he looked at her pale face. She was gone. He’d lost her. Tears fell more freely. The damn burst as he sobbed and keened. He would never hear her say she loved him again. He couldn’t remember exactly the last time she said it. But he drew comfort from the fact that he knew she had. Every day. For 43 years. He leant over and kissed her, holding his forehead against her soft skin. Leaving tear stains on her delicate cheek. He clasped her hand, and squeezed it tightly. He didn’t want to let her go. He needed her to look after him. To chide him. To be there. He didn’t want to be on his own. Not without her. He couldn’t remember back to a time without her, it seemed like a lifetime ago. He lay down next to her and held her close. She smelt beautiful, like lavender. Memories played out in the back of his mind like 8 millimetre holiday films flashing and jump cutting from laughter to joy. Colours, sounds and emotional textures consumed him. He could smell the seaside. Feel the sand between his toes. They chased each other along the beach, and ran along the breaking surf. He smiled at the joyful events that had filled his life, and felt strangely tired. A gentle, euphoric sensation felt like candyfloss blossoming through his veins, began to spread throughout his body. His eyes felt heavy with a joy that was born out of the knowledge that the end was near. They would be together, forever. That he knew, very soon. The dark clouds lifted from the black skies, like it did that summer on the beach, and he felt a warm contentment. He was at peace. The sea gulls circled and climbed towards the heavens. And then he closed his eyes, for the very last time. The last thing he heard was the music coming from the transistor by the till, in the café, by the pier. Beautiful, tender, loving words drifting through his mind, as Sheila smiling and wearing her new ‘kiss me quick’ hat blew him a forever kiss…. ‘You are the rose of my heart, You are the love of my life. A flower not faded nor falling apart, You’re my harbour in life’s restless storm. Rose of my heart…’ Footnote/The copy of Rose of my heart that I have been listening to was recorded by Johnny Cash. I only discovered it a few weeks ago as I bought a CD at the airport. It’s on his American V: A hundred Highways album, which was released posthumously. It’s a beautiful, sparse track, his voice conveys such emotion. When you read the sleeve notes you realise it was one of his very last recordings. What makes it all the more poignant is that it must have been made shortly after his own wife, June Carter-Cash, had died. He ultimately died four months after her. To me it seemed like his heart was broken and he was lost without her. This was the kind of love I was trying to capture in this piece. Its not one known only to mythic figures such as the Cash’s, it’s one that many thousands of couples the length and breadth of the country know. The kind of people you walk past at the bus stop without even acknowledging. Just ordinary people leading unremarkable lives.
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