Mid-Summer Roses

The house is an old rectory with a large driveway surrounded by a shrubbery which is beautiful in a rambling, neglected sort of way. The front door is surrounded by climbing roses – a deep, deep red one and pale pink with huge thorns. Maybe Albertine, I think? When I press the bell I can hear it echoing through the house.
“Just ring the bell,” Sophie the niece had said, when I spoke with her earlier, “as a warning so he knows you are there; Uncle wants me to leave the door open for you. I’m sorry I can’t stay, but there’s a mid-summer concert on at the school, which I need to be at. I’ll be back about  10 ish tomorrow morning, after I’ve got the kids off to school.”
I check my watch. Just before 10 pm. I am a few minutes early. I try the handle, which gives and I walk in.
My handover from the call centre, which I scribbled down at 3:30 pm had told me that Mr Albert Westbury would be alone and that the dining room at the back of the house had been turned into the bedroom as he could no longer manage the stairs. Everything I needed would be there, they said but from years of habit I carried my case with me, as back up. Gloves, plastic pinnies, baby wipes, mouth swabs, a few dressings, some needles and syringes, that sort of thing.  You see, I often don’t get called in until right near the end. Only one or two days left. Then of course things can take a sudden turn for the worse and no one has had a chance to get all these things in place.
“Good evening, Mr Westbury,” I call out as I walk down the hallway. There’s no reply, but I can hear music, Chopin, I think. I call out again as I push open the door on the left at the end of the hallway where the music is coming from. The hospital style bed, bathed in a pool of light from an angle poise lamp has been turned back and at the foot a neatly curled ginger cat is fast asleep. The French windows are wide open and the evening air is being gently wafted about by a swinging fan set on the desk nearby. I put down my case. Maybe he has gone out to the toilet? There is a commode in the room, though, and the call centre had said he needed help to get out of bed. I walk over to the French windows and look out on the long and overgrown garden where I can pick out two figures in the fading light, both dressed in white, standing near a bed of roses. A sudden meow behind me makes me turn and the cat is awake, stretching. I look back towards the garden and can see now that male figure is standing alone and seems to be wavering a little. I run out onto the patio and call out,
“Hello, I’m the nurse, Ruth.” He looks in my direction, this tall thin man in white pyjamas, but seems vague and when I get to him he grasps my arm, and leans against me. At his feet he has a wide shallow basket of cut roses. “Mr Westbury?”
His face is puzzled when he can focus on me, but he smiles in a gentlemanly way.
“Can I help you back to the house?” I ask. He tries to reach down for the basket of roses and drops the secateurs. “Let’s leave those here,” I say, “I’ll come back for them later.”
He nods and slowly with shuffling footsteps he makes his way back towards the house. After what seems like a long time I get him to the edge of the bed and gently sit him down.
“Rosa,” he says, “Don’t forget to bring in the basket from the lawn.”
“In a minute, Mr Westbury,” I say.
“Albert,” he says, “Call me Albert.”
“And I’m Ruth,” I say.

I give him a drink and help him with his teeth, and tablets. Then we chat a little and I help to get the pillows in the right place. Almost as soon as he is comfortable he is asleep, but not before he reminds me of the basket on the lawn. I check my watch and it is nearly mid-night so I go around the house shutting windows and I lock the front door before stepping back out into the back garden for the basket of roses. It is only then that the memory of a second figure in the garden flits across my mind but I don’t dwell on it. Perhaps I had been mistaken? A neighbour perhaps? Afterwards I shut the French windows, and go to the kitchen to find a vase. When I return Albert is still asleep. The French windows are open –although I’m convinced I had locked them.
Albert stirs.
“Rosa?”
“Ruth,” I reply.
“I’m ready, you know,” he said. “Will you help me write a letter?”
In the early hours of the morning I take a dictated letter for Sophie, his only living blood relative, in which he tells her he is ready to die and join Rosa, his beloved wife, who died in 1997 and who had helped him pick roses that evening. As the dawn chorus starts he lies down again and shuts his eyes.
“Ruth,” he says, “don’t be scared, but Rosa is coming for me now.”
And in the garden I see an indistinct movement of a woman in white, down by the roses. Slowly the form moves towards the house and Albert’s breathing changes and I know it won’t be long now.

Author: Sarah

No time to lose. No, time to lose. Make time to stand and stare.... Did you see that? View all posts by Sarah