Rose
by John McGroarty
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: Stone and tears – the residue of a marriage.
_____________________________________________________________________
Rose had been crying a lot recently. Silly, really, she thought. She would be reading the newspaper or watching telly and suddenly she would burst into tears. Even when watching one of those bloody awful situation comedies she would well up and the hankies would be sodden in minutes. When she reflected on it, she realised that “recently” had been a lot of years, four or five at least. But she was getting worried because she had been losing weight, and the crying was much more frequent than it had been before.
“It’s the menopause,” said Bert.
She was fifty-four and had passed through it five years before. How could her husband not have noticed? One night she had had a strange dream in which all of her family were saying goodbye to each other. All of her old aunts and uncles, even ones she had never met and only recognised from old black and white photographs. They were shaking hands and kissing, hugging one another. Old maids. Old warriors in WW1 uniform. She woke up crying. No, not crying, sobbing was what it was. She thought she would never be able to stop. The sobs came from some well deep inside and there was no consolation. Not that Bert was the consoling type.
“Can’t you be quiet?” he asked.
She couldn’t. She closed the bathroom door and sat rocking herself for hours with tears rolling down her cheeks.
The next day she went to the doctor’s.
“I can’t do anything,” said Doctor Law, “there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Why can’t I stop crying?”
“I’m not a doctor of the mind, but from what you told me I would say you’re homesick. If you like, I can give you some tablets to help you until you get over it.”
“Oh tablets … no … homesick you say? For what?”
“For something you had, but you don’t have now. A sort of Freud in reverse.”
Freud in reverse, she thought, driving home.
Her mind wandered to the south of France. To the holidays she had had there when recently married. To Perpignan, to Nimes, to Carcassonne. Bert’s bad French. And how he had laughed at everything. His patient explanations of the Romanesque cathedrals. The details. Of the Cathars. The whole world is the creation of a demon who wants to destroy God. Standing looking out from the citadel of Carcassonne at the night sky, like people had done for a thousand years.
Bert was a soft man then. And intellectual. It was part of the reason why she had fallen for him. The grammar school boy who had wanted to change the world. Like Harold Wilson himself. That’s why he studied engineering, he said; to change the world, forge it anew in the white heat of technology.
His heat had cooled as he rose in the company. The change postponed. The forge dimmed. And as the years passed he became colder and colder, until the flame was blue.
Maybe, she thought, as she parked the car, she could convince him to retire. They were rich, weren’t they? They could buy a little chateau in Carcassonne and stand on the old ramparts on winter nights. Bert could speak French badly, and just maybe start to laugh at it all and have his wild, outrageous dreams. Light the forge again. She had been homesick, and the medicine was to go back, to go back home.
That night she waited patiently for Bert’s arrival. She had prepared a light supper with cheeses and wine. All French of course.
“What’s this?” he said.
“Just a little supper, aren’t you hungry?” she said, lighting candles on the table.
“I’ve got to prepare something for a meeting tomorrow,” he said.
“Just a little, Bert, I want to talk.”
He sat down and slowly ate some of the cheese.
“I really have to work,” he said, rising.
“But, darling, I wanted …”
“At the weekend.”
He disappeared into his study. Rose listened to the tic tac of the keyboard. After half an hour or so, silence. She sat for an hour, and then another. And then another. She got up to go to bed and thought she would give it one last try. Entering the study she called out to her husband. He made no response. She went around the desk and looked into his eyes. They were still. She reached out and touched his hand. It was cold. He had turned completely to stone. Rose began to cry and sat there throughout the night sobbing.
The next morning, Mrs McNab, the cleaning lady, let herself in and discovered the statue of Bert sitting there in front of his computer. On the floor there was a pool of liquid which had partially evaporated. On later investigation it was discovered, because of its high bitter salt content, to be human tears.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Stone and tears – the residue of a marriage.
_____________________________________________________________________
Rose had been crying a lot recently. Silly, really, she thought. She would be reading the newspaper or watching telly and suddenly she would burst into tears. Even when watching one of those bloody awful situation comedies she would well up and the hankies would be sodden in minutes. When she reflected on it, she realised that “recently” had been a lot of years, four or five at least. But she was getting worried because she had been losing weight, and the crying was much more frequent than it had been before.
“It’s the menopause,” said Bert.
She was fifty-four and had passed through it five years before. How could her husband not have noticed? One night she had had a strange dream in which all of her family were saying goodbye to each other. All of her old aunts and uncles, even ones she had never met and only recognised from old black and white photographs. They were shaking hands and kissing, hugging one another. Old maids. Old warriors in WW1 uniform. She woke up crying. No, not crying, sobbing was what it was. She thought she would never be able to stop. The sobs came from some well deep inside and there was no consolation. Not that Bert was the consoling type.
“Can’t you be quiet?” he asked.
She couldn’t. She closed the bathroom door and sat rocking herself for hours with tears rolling down her cheeks.
The next day she went to the doctor’s.
“I can’t do anything,” said Doctor Law, “there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Why can’t I stop crying?”
“I’m not a doctor of the mind, but from what you told me I would say you’re homesick. If you like, I can give you some tablets to help you until you get over it.”
“Oh tablets … no … homesick you say? For what?”
“For something you had, but you don’t have now. A sort of Freud in reverse.”
Freud in reverse, she thought, driving home.
Her mind wandered to the south of France. To the holidays she had had there when recently married. To Perpignan, to Nimes, to Carcassonne. Bert’s bad French. And how he had laughed at everything. His patient explanations of the Romanesque cathedrals. The details. Of the Cathars. The whole world is the creation of a demon who wants to destroy God. Standing looking out from the citadel of Carcassonne at the night sky, like people had done for a thousand years.
Bert was a soft man then. And intellectual. It was part of the reason why she had fallen for him. The grammar school boy who had wanted to change the world. Like Harold Wilson himself. That’s why he studied engineering, he said; to change the world, forge it anew in the white heat of technology.
His heat had cooled as he rose in the company. The change postponed. The forge dimmed. And as the years passed he became colder and colder, until the flame was blue.
Maybe, she thought, as she parked the car, she could convince him to retire. They were rich, weren’t they? They could buy a little chateau in Carcassonne and stand on the old ramparts on winter nights. Bert could speak French badly, and just maybe start to laugh at it all and have his wild, outrageous dreams. Light the forge again. She had been homesick, and the medicine was to go back, to go back home.
That night she waited patiently for Bert’s arrival. She had prepared a light supper with cheeses and wine. All French of course.
“What’s this?” he said.
“Just a little supper, aren’t you hungry?” she said, lighting candles on the table.
“I’ve got to prepare something for a meeting tomorrow,” he said.
“Just a little, Bert, I want to talk.”
He sat down and slowly ate some of the cheese.
“I really have to work,” he said, rising.
“But, darling, I wanted …”
“At the weekend.”
He disappeared into his study. Rose listened to the tic tac of the keyboard. After half an hour or so, silence. She sat for an hour, and then another. And then another. She got up to go to bed and thought she would give it one last try. Entering the study she called out to her husband. He made no response. She went around the desk and looked into his eyes. They were still. She reached out and touched his hand. It was cold. He had turned completely to stone. Rose began to cry and sat there throughout the night sobbing.
The next morning, Mrs McNab, the cleaning lady, let herself in and discovered the statue of Bert sitting there in front of his computer. On the floor there was a pool of liquid which had partially evaporated. On later investigation it was discovered, because of its high bitter salt content, to be human tears.
About the Author
John McGroarty was born in Glasgow and now lives in Barcelona, where he works as an English teacher. Although he has been writing short stories for many years, Rose is only his third to been seen publicly.