It was then your control actually snapped, wasn't it? Spewing away from you in a great torrent of fear and hate. You loved this house. We could see that by the way your hands ran down the banister. By the way your fingers traced the intricate shapes and swirls on the old mantelpiece. This house was all you had left of Dad but even that, it seemed, was to be denied you. If not for Mother, he would still be here. His big hands enclosing your own. If not for her, he would never have sought peace from the nearest bottle. Oh, how she had tortured him with her sharp words, her uncompromising opinions. How difficult it was to live up to the standards of perfection, of a god. If not for her, we would all be free now...
As you followed her into the garden, the jar gripped whitely in both hands, the smile on your face was extraordinarily flat.
We've never seen Mother since.
And you, Madeleine, totally ignore us. Neglect us even, as if you hold us responsible. I suppose some people just can't handle guilt. And now there's the letter, the messenger. Its torn remnants have been caught by the wind coming through the open doorway, fluttering wildly into the summer garden. As you come back down the path, your arms laden with roses and sweet peas, you stop and listen to the growl of bulldozers in the distance. A low grating of steel threats. Creeping nearer everyday, chewing the earth. The secret earth. Confirming the terrible rumours of a bypass.
Soon it'll be here, its steel jaws smashing against your door. You close it for now, gently but firmly, pulling the thick heavy curtain like a shield across the doorway. The sound of running water and your strong determined hum drowns the mechanical growl from outside...and the soft hissing from inside. You turn your back firmly against the sunlit window, placing the vase on the richly polished wood of the welsh dresser. Water spills and it glistens, the redness of the wood giving it the ruby tinge of spilt blood. You shiver. Rose petals drop like torn and broken wings as you look at us, a deep flush warming your cheeks. But then you smile, that same flat smile from years ago. That same dead smile you've worn all morning, that holds no warmth, no hope.
"Look," you say, nodding at the vase. "Even in death Mother can still make beautiful flowers..." And you laugh but your laughter is like your smile.
You sit at the table with us, opening our glass case, and suddenly the suffocating scent of the flowers hits us. But it cannot mask the stealthy fumes from the unlit hob. We can see your face already relaxing, succumbing, as your fingers fumble with these pins. These miniature steel sabres that have held us, so preciously, for so very, very long. Madeleine, you smile suddenly. And your smile spills over with warmth and hope. With happiness. With relief, even.
And perhaps, in your gathering darkness, you hardly hear the crowded tap of silken wings upon glass as there, beneath the window, we see a small slit. Just enough to let us pass. A crack in the killing jar. |
