Stop And Smell The Roses

Dark days are over in this diverting short story by Leonora Francis.

The world had been on pause, and I was more grateful for my family than ever . . .

I’D rolled and fried the dumplings just like Mum taught me. I’d steamed the fish and boiled the rice. Even the plantain was just ripe, and today I had steamed it, too.

A coconut cake was sitting on the side, and the sorrel juice was cooling in the fridge.

As I washed the pots and pans from my big cook, I looked out of the window.

Fitzroy had done a great job of the garden, but I’d hardly noticed before now.

The sun was hot and the hydrangeas were blooming. The roses, too.

The garden was in full flower and didn’t seem to have suffered any damage from the unusually hot weather. I’d never known weather like it!

Most people only thought of global warming for a second. Couldn’t they see what was happening before their eyes?

Oh, how lovely the garden looked, and I couldn’t resist it, so I did something impulsive.

I dried my hands on a towel, opened the back door and stepped out into the garden and on to the lawn.

I sat down, then lay down, the scent of the roses pervading my very being.

When I was a child, I’d lie on the grass and stare at the clouds, imagining that they were making shapes.

Was that a dog? Was that a Chinese dragon flying in the sky?

When it rained I’d jump in puddles, singing the words of “Singing In The Rain” at the top of my lungs.

In winter, I’d stick my tongue out and catch snowflakes.

“You’re a tomboy, that’s what you are,” Mum used to say, and she was right.

The memories of my youth came flooding back and, oh, how happy they made me feel!

“Mum! What are you doing?”

My daughter’s voice drifted down from her upstairs bedroom window.

That daughter of mine, Ayana, was something else, but that was another story.

“I’m sunbathing,” I called back.

I kept my eyes closed and laughed inwardly. I’d wondered how long it would be before she searched me out.

We were close, but sometimes she was a nightmare.

She thought I was completely mad. I thought she was mad, too, so we somehow cancelled each other out.

“Sunbathing!” she cried. “But you have all your clothes on.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes I wonder about you.”

I looked up at the window and she was gone.

Seconds later, Fitzroy was up there, standing at her side.

“You OK, Jennifer?” he called.

“I’m absolutely fine,” I replied.

I could imagine them whispering about me. Worrying about me.

I’d not been the best mother or wife these last few months, I admit that. I felt like a caged animal.

“I’m off now,” Fitzroy said. “Wanna come?”

“No, thanks. I’m happy out here.”

The window slammed shut. I loved that man.

With the sun on my face, bees buzzing in my ears and the heat of the sun seeping through my jeans and T-shirt, memories of how we met 40 years ago came flooding back.

Forty years! How time flies.

We met at a local pub in Nottingham. It was a dowdy place, somewhere where youth hung out to listen to soul, funk and Motown music.

To us, it was better than the Palais ballroom in town.

There was a small dancefloor – if you could call it that – and my friends and I would dance in our platform shoes until our feet ached.

Our afros would bounce from side to side and we’d get lost in the music.

We’d make two drinks last us all night. Life in those days wasn’t about getting drunk. It was about having a good time.

He was there one night. A stranger. An out-oftowner, sitting on a bar stool and looking as miserable as could be.

His handsome face was set in a scowl – or was it sadness in his long-lashed eyes?

I remembered what a party pooper I thought he was, and so, instead of eyeing him up, I turned my mind back to the music and the dancing.

“These new shoes are killing me,” my best

friend, Lorna, said. “And my throat feels like I’ve swallowed razor blades.

“Go and get us a drink, Jennifer. Please.”

“But the bar is packed!” “Please, Jennifer.”

She leaned against a sweaty wall, her eyes pleading. I reluctantly placed my bag over my shoulder and walked over to the bar.

My feet were killing me, too. We’d been dancing for hours.

It was a simple incident that put him and me together.

I remembered likening it to those Regency bodiceripper romances I was reading at the time, where a woman would accidentlyon-purpose drop her handkerchief.

The man that she was aiming for would pick it up, look into her eyes as he rose from the ground and instantly fall in love.

It wasn’t a handkerchief I dropped that night, but it was clear we were fated to meet.

On either side of the man was a small gap, so I squeezed myself between him and another person waiting to be served.

I ordered two rum and Cokes. In the crush, I was jostled and spilled some in his lap.

“I’m really sorry!” I exclaimed, putting the drinks back on the bar.

I was flustered and embarrassed as I watched the liquid bleed into his trousers.

I raised my hand because my first instinct was to brush away the wetness.

He grabbed my wrist firmly, then looked into my eyes.

“You’re not really going to do that, are you?” he asked.

He had a London accent, which made him all the more attractive to my provincial ears.

Then he smiled and laughed. I laughed, too, and became mesmerised by the darkness of his skin, the beauty of his smile, the strength of his hand around my wrist.

What made him even more mysterious was a scar just under his left eye. A scar that made him all the more handsome and rugged.

People said that love at first sight was a myth, but I was testament to the truth that it existed.

On that day I found my love, my soul mate, the man that I was going to share the rest of my life with.

It wasn’t an easy coming together, though. He was a quiet man of few words.

“I’m really sorry,” I repeated.

“It’s OK.” He smiled. “It was an accident. It’ll dry.”

I raised my eyes to his. I didn’t want to leave him and return to Lorna. Not yet.

I was braver in those days.

“You’re not from around here,” I remarked.

“No. London. I’m at university here.”

He was educated, then. An educated man raised my infatuation to another level.

Fitzroy had ended up at the pub by chance. He couldn’t get his head around his course work and had gone for a long walk.

He’d walked and walked until he heard the music, then he’d come in and sat down.

We talked for what seemed like hours when, in fact, it was only minutes.

I’d completely forgotten about Lorna and her dry throat and painful shoes until she hobbled over.

“Jennifer!” she cried, giving me a disapproving look.

“Hello,” Fitzroy said. “Sorry I kept your friend from you. My name’s Fitzroy.”

“That’s OK.” She smiled. Lorna had melted under his gaze, her painful feet and dry throat forgotten.

It seemed that Fitzroy did that to people.

“He’s a lovely young man, Jennifer,” Mum said to me when she met him.

“Strong-willed but gentle. Kind and thoughtful,” she’d added. “He’ll make a good husband.”

She was right.

Fitzroy and I had been hanging out together for a few months, and he was coming to the end of his second year, when he told me he was going to drop out of university.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I can’t concentrate on my studies. I’ll fail if I stay.”

“Is it me?”

“No. It’s not you,” he assured me.

He placed his arm around my shoulder.

“I didn’t want to go to university in the first place,” he admitted.

“I got the grades and there was pressure from my parents.”

He found work with the local council in their parks division. He went from being academic to being physical.

His parents were furious. “They’ll get over it,” he said. “I’m not going home, either. I’m going to stay with you in Nottingham.”

I was filled with joy that he had chosen me over London life.

“You never know which direction you’re going to take in life,” Mum told me.

“If he doesn’t want to study any more, then at least he’s changed direction while he’s young.

“I knew a man once who worked on the trains for thirty years and hated every minute of it. Now he lives with regret.”

“Oh, what happened to him?” I asked.

“He’s retired now, but he’s become bitter. Bitterness is a terrible thing.

“Besides, Fitzroy is a clever man. Whatever he puts his hands to he’ll do well.”

Mum was right. When Fitzroy left university it was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

He became a new man. More importantly, he became my man.

Once we were married, life seemed perfect.

Then, with each passing month and each passing year, the prospect of ever having children seemed to diminish.

“Not all men and women were born to have children,” Mum reminded me. “You make of life what you will.

“I’ve known women who never had children and had fulfilling lives,” she went on. “Don’t fret. It will only make things worse between you and Fitzroy.”

We went for tests and doctors confirmed we were both fine. They offered us medical intervention if we wanted it.

“I’m not sure we should have medical intervention,” Fitzroy told me.

“I’m not sure I want it, either,” I admitted.

I’d already had lots of tests and I didn’t feel I could suffer any more.

We eventually decided against it. We had each other, and if it wasn’t to be, then it wasn’t to be.

Those were difficult times, though. Painful. To be childless when you always wanted children was a terrible thing.

Then, at twenty-nine, I found myself pregnant when we had already lost all hope.

We had two boys close together, and then, at thirty-nine, we had a third – my beautiful Ayana.

Mum was right. When we stopped stressing about it, the babies came.

Once we were married, life seemed perfect

Today I felt so much better in myself. It was a special day and I no longer felt like a cooped-up animal.

I managed to cook, stripped the bed in the spare room and washed the bedding. I even vacuumed.

My, I’d been busy, so I deserved a little rest after all that preparation!

“Mum, stay there,” Ayana called. “I’m coming

out. Let me just get my sunglasses.”

She came and lay next to me.

“I hope there’s no ants in here,” she moaned. “I can’t be doing with ants.”

“Don’t worry; you’ll know if one bites.”

“The neighbours must think we’ve gone crazy.” “Who cares?” I asked. Ayana laughed and took my hand. Then she leaned over and rested her chin on her hand.

“I never said thanks, Mum.”

“Thanks for what?” “I didn’t know what I wanted to do after university. I regret going on and on about it, thinking you didn’t care.”

“You know I’ll always care.”

“I was a bit stressed,” she admitted. “All my friends have gone into banking and insurance and actuarial work, but it’s just not me.”

“Why would you want to do something that you don’t want to do? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“I’ve finally made up my mind.”

I opened my eyes and turned to face her.

“I want to be a teacher.” I gave her a warm smile. “Brilliant!”

“What’s the point of having a first class degree and then wasting it on a job I don’t want?” she asked.

“I want to be a teacher. I want to give back to the community.” “I’m proud of you.” And I was. “You were right,” Ayana admitted. “You said that I should follow my heart, but I’ve been a bit of a nightmare while trying to follow it.”

She’d taken a year off after university, but her fun had been cut short by lockdown. She’d been bad-tempered and somewhat lost.

I’d been a bit of a dragon from being cooped up, too. Fitzroy had held us all together.

Ayana squeezed my hand and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. Then she lay down.

“Mum, you always know best,” she said as she lay back and looked up at the sky. “You always do.”

I’d sung that song a thousand times, but hearing it from her made me feel good.

“We’re here!” Fitzroy called when he returned.

“Where’s Gran?” Ayana screamed excitedly.

“I’m right here!” Her gran laughed. “I can’t move that fast these days. What are you girls doing?”

“We’re sunbathing,” Ayana replied, then began to stand up.

“Stay right where you are,” my mum ordered her. “Fitzroy, get me one of those loungers.”

“Coming up.”

He grabbed one from the shed and put it beside us.

Mum put her feet up, took off the hat that she never went anywhere without and used it to fan herself.

“Sometimes,” she began, “it’s good to lie out in the sun with a mind to thinking and remembering. It’s good for the soul.”

I looked at Mum lying comfortably on her lounger. She always had the right words.

When I was happy, I couldn’t wait to tell her what I was happy about.

When I was sad, she was always there with comforting words.

I loved my mum very much.

“Are we doing what’s called a bubble?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Ayana confirmed. “Lovely,” Mum said. “Really lovely.”

Fitzroy sat down beside me on the grass and stroked my hand.

He’d cared for me during the last few dark months. I’d never be able to thank him enough.

No matter how I’d felt, there was something to look forward to.

One of these days the bubble would get bigger.

Our two sons and their partners, our three grandchildren and my friends were yet to join.

We might have to wait, but it would happen, and when it did it would be as sweet as sweet as could be.

The End.