Autumn and Other Months, Page 2

  August - White Roses

  For a long time, no-one tended my grave. At the beginning, it was very different. My mother would come and lavish it with tears and roses, and she would talk to me as if she was tucking me up in bed. Or my father would come, shaking his head in disbelief and tell me of all the plans he had made for his only son. Sometimes, Sally would come on her way home from school and say how sorry she was and how much she missed me.

  Everyone said they were sorry and said that they were to blame. My mother for not teaching me to be careful on the road. My father for being at work. Sally for letting me run off to get the ball when it had bounced down the driveway onto the road. Her mother for not keeping a closer eye on us. Not that it made any difference now.

  The seasons pass. Time is supposed to heal – but that doesn’t always work. One morning, my father came to tell me he was going away to the city to work – that he couldn’t put up with my mother’s tears anymore. He shed a tear of his own, wiped it with his coat sleeve and strode away, without turning his head. I never saw him again.

  My mother still visited me, looking older and more tired with every visit. She always either fishing in her handbag for a hankie or wiping her eyes. Eventually, she wept herself into an early grave.

  By then, Sally had left the village. She had gone to the city with vague ideas of becoming a teacher. She came to say goodbye and lay flowers on my grave. And to say sorry again.

  So, there was no-one left to tend my grave. The seasons and the years drifted by. The slow growing warmth of spring, the heat of summer, the falling leaves of autumn and the chills of winter.

  Then Sally came to see me again. She told me she had come back to the village because her mother was ill. A few weeks later, she came to tell me that her mother had died. The eyes that I remembered full of joy and mischief were now full of tears and pain. In those few weeks, she had become old. She said she was going to stay on in the village, living alone in her childhood home, where we had both been happy. I made the short journey from the graveyard to my old neighbourhood and visited Sally.

  She was sitting in the chair that had been her mother’s and was gazing down the familiar driveway. It was a slight slope – imperceptible to the eye – but enough to help a ball bounce its way onto the main road. She sighed. I could tell her thoughts had drifted back to that day. I wanted to tell her it was OK. I moved the curtains. She moved them back. I ruffled the petals of the white roses on the table. Thinking it was the wind, she went to close the windows and found they were already closed. She frowned. She stood at the window, gazing at the driveway. There were tears in her eyes. I realised she was as alone in her world as I was in mine.

  Beside the vase of roses, there was a bottle of pills. I suppose they were her mother’s painkillers. She gulped them down like sweets. She sat down and watched the roses while I blew on the petals, until their perfume filled the room.