He dictated an essay to my brother a few weeks before he died, this post is written in answer to that.
Wild Rosie
A car is pulled up at the side
of a small road that winds around a West Country hill. The long grass of the
verge sprinkles the tyres with water droplets from a recent shower. Two men are
standing conversing by a gate which cuts in two the thick lush hedgerow. In the
bushes the wildflowers grow truly wild, blooming impatiently and out of turn.
One of the men is old and stately, talking to the middle distance, his voice
hushed with gravity. The younger of the two, black hair just beginning to turn
grey listens intently with both eyes and ears. When it is his turn to speak he
is louder and more enthusiastic, encouraging. Three gangly children are in the
back of the car, usually noisy and pre-occupied, they are now straining to see
and hear the conversation. They have heard the story before.
Unaccounted years earlier, on this same spot (even though
they are not sure of it) a man and a boy passed through the gate. The boy was
barely six years old. His fair hair was almost white, he had a round gentle
face, and he gazed intently at his father through palest blue eyes. His father,
the sturdy man in a white shirt and black waistcoat holding the child’s chubby
hand, was striding at a pace which caused the boy to trot to keep up as they travelled
up the narrow grassy path between the hedgerows.
The child had not paid attention and didn’t know where they
were going, but it felt like an adventure, climbing the hill out of the
village, and taking the mysterious path away from the road, so he didn’t
complain. Presently they were approaching a tumbledown cottage in a clearing -
the kind that belongs in a fairy tale. Creeping shrubs climbed the walls, at
one corner a spray of elderflowers leaned out from the house. It was a summer’s
day, but smoke was rising from the chimney in swirls. A lady, stooped and trembling
with age emerged from the front door, apparently to tend to her plants in the
garden, but upon seeing the approaching visitors, she rose to her full height
and extended a hand to wave.
They arrived and were shown in.
“Hello Child,” the old lady began, “your pa finally brought
you ‘ere. I ’as been looking forward to meetin’ you.” Her voice was soft, but
strong with authority. The child was silent with wonder. Father looked down at
the boy, prompting him. The child searched his memory and discovered what his
mother had told him to say,
“You have a lovely home.” He said quickly and, thinking
about it, began to look around. There were dark chests of drawers lining the
walls; a fireplace, where a kettle was warming. The room was lit by the pale
sunlight drawn through the windows which casted shadows upon the cobwebbed corners.
Despite the fire, on that summer day the one room cottage seemed cold.
“Oh, it ain’t my ‘ouse.”
“Whose is it?” answered the boy, beginning to find his
voice.
“It belongs to Rosie. Do you know who Rosie is?” She didn’t
wait for him to shake his head - with a twinkle in the corner of her eye she
continued “she’s your great, great,” as the little boy brought his grubby
fingers up to his face to count, a secret and almost imperceptible grin spread
across the wrinkled face, “great, great…great grandma.”
The Father caught her eye and turned away to tend the fire.
“Is she very, very old?” asked the child, now inquisitive.
“Oh, o’course, she’s very old. Even older’n me. She was born
a very long time ago. I’ll tell you about ‘er. She’s a wise woman. She knows
every plant and flower in the forest, and she knows which ones’ll do you good
and which ones’ll do you ill.”
“How does she know?” asked the child.
“She’s tried ‘em all. She’s made ‘em into medicines and poultices
and draughts and the like, and tried ‘em all on ‘erself.”
“Why didn’t they make her ill?
“Because she knows when to spit. If it smells evil, or
tastes evil or looks evil, then it probably is. Mind you it migh’ not be. A
little migh’ do you good if you’re ill. She knows. And she wrote it all down in
a fashion, e’en though she can’t write. She’s got lots of drawers an’ a system,
an’ if you know the system and you ‘eard all ‘er stories then you know what
will cure and what won’t. An’ that I do and that I did and that I know.”
“Is she magic?”
“No she ain’t magic, and don’t you go lettin’ ‘er hear you
sayin’ that, she’d be mightily insulted.”
“Well how has she lived so long?”
“I’ll tell you that. She never did no magic. She’s making a
point. When she were young, a long time ago, there was those who thought that
women like ‘er - wise women o’ the forest - was magic just as you say, and that
they consorted wi’ demons in the night, and that they cast spells an’ made
potions. And they hunted them, an’ a lot of women was killed. You see now ‘ere
she is livin’ an’ she’s makin’ ‘er point.”
The boy was bewildered, too much so to answer the old lady.
He continued to stare up at her, as she stared down at him, with her back
hunched over in a perfect curve. Her once white apron covered a faded blue
cotton dress, and her large feet protruded rudely beneath. She was a singular
character and had ignited the boy’s curiosity.
“Well, boy.”
“What?”
“Don’t you think it’s about time you met ‘er? You came to
see ‘er didn’t you?” He consented with an unblinking gaze.
“She’s upstairs, careful on the ladder, I’ll follow right
behind you.”
The boy emerged into a loft space, stark and dusty and sprinkled
with flecks of light coming through the spaces in between the tiles. There was
a figure a few paces away, near a small window in the gable end. He turned back
to the old lady following,
“Should I call her great, great…” She almost chuckled as the
chubby fingers emerged again from behind his back.
“Rosie’ll do just fine. She likes a child quite enough for
‘is own sakes, doesn’t care much ‘ow you’re related. She’s old enough and ‘ad
enough children an’ grandchildren not to worry ‘bout that any more. Call ‘er
Rosie, sure she would’ha had another name when she were born, near enough to
your own I’d ‘azard a guess, since we’re all family together. But she made a
name for ‘erself round ‘ere and that name were Wild Rosie. There’s people come
from the village whenever they get ill, an’ they know I got all the medicines
and poultices and draughts, but they won’t get well will they? No, they won’t
get well ‘til they seen Wild Rosie.
“You know why that is boy?”
The wide eyed boy shook his head in the gloom.
“It’s because they think ‘emselves better. Many of ‘em
thought ‘emselves ill. One day they didn’t want to work so’s they found a
little niggle and let it grow to a big one all until they find out it’s better
to be well, so now they want to get better again. The medicines and poultices
help some, but it’s thoughts that help the most. Go on. Go over there, she
can’t see you ‘ere.”
The child walked with measured footsteps towards the thin
figure. She sat in a squeaking rocking chair. Bony knees dented the flow of her
tired nightgown, delicate with wear. Her wispy hair, matted in places formed an
ethereal veil around her face, translucent in the dim light from the dusty
window. Deep wrinkles contoured every feature of bony face. Her countenance was
grey and sharp, but she had kind eyes; the gleam of life shone out of
them.
The little boy approached her and stood boldly, his stomach
protruding and little fists by his sides, like only a six year old can, by her
chair,
“Hello Rosie” he said.
Her pale blue eyes rested on the shining round face as if
noticing him for the first time. Her gaze softened and she slowly nodded. A
slight smile disturbed the papery wrinkles around her mouth, communicating the
familial affection of someone very old for someone very small. She continued
rocking slowly in her chair, and in her bony fingers, two knitting needles
moved in slow motion. She was knitting, there was no yarn.
“What are you knitting?” The bold little boy asked her.
The very old lady replied with a slow, knowing blink from
her tired reddened eyelids.
“What is she knitting?” he asked turning to the other lady.
“Dreams, son. Imaginin’s.”
“Whose dreams?”
“Who knows boy, maybe yours an’ mine.”
He watched her for a while, and she watched him. The other
old lady’s footsteps approached behind him, and lifted him up to kiss the
delicate ivory cheek. He was afraid he’d hurt her. The skin was dry and he
thought he felt a cold bone beneath. She seemed to blush a little, and her
smile broadened.
He descended the rickety ladder again asking,
“How does she get up and down here?”
“She don’t, not on ‘er own. Most o’ the time she likes to
stay up there. Then when she’s needed down in the village, someone comes up an’
we lower ‘er down in a chair. Then the strappin’ lads carry ‘er down to the
village. She don’t go much anymore. Only for the dyin’. She’ll always be there
if it’s for the dyin’ particurly if it’s one o’ the old ones. She’s known ‘em
all from birth, remembers ‘em from when they was babies bein’ born. I tole you
some won’t get well ‘til they seen Wild Rosie, I tell you now, there’s some as
won’t die ‘til they seen ‘er neither.”
“What does she do when they die?”
“She sits with ‘em, stays with ‘em. They used to say she
said spells over them, or she enchanted them to sleep but that ain’t it. She
keeps ‘em company and she praps prays for ‘em as they go, an’ it helps ‘em die
properly.”
“When will she die?”
“What do you mean by that boy?”
“She’s so old.”
“Hundreds of years old, quite righ’.”
“Will she live forever?”
“I tole you boy she migh’ be a wise woman, but she ain’t
magic. Sure she’ll die one day. When they don’t need her no more.”
The boy’s father had brewed some nettle tea over the fire,
so they sat with him, the boy sinking into a woollen cushion, dull with
repeated use and ash from the open fire. Father told the old lady all the news
from the village. He gave her the basket of bread and meat he’d brought, which
she promptly stashed away a creaky cupboard.
When the visit was over, and they left the house, the little
boy waited until they were a short distance away and whispered to his father.
“She’s magic isn’t she?”
“Why do you think that?” he replied,
“She’s hundreds of years old and she’s still alive, and she
can make medicines to make people well, and she’s tried all the plants that
make you ill but she never got ill, and people come to see her and they get
better, and she knits my dreams.”
“She knits your dreams?” His father repeated, ever so
slightly surprised.
“Yes, she knits with invisible wool to make dreams.”
“She must be magic then” his father said, turning his eyes
again to the path, and they descended to the village.
The old man and the younger man get back in the car. It’s
too wet, and too late to try walking the path, the old man says. The children’s
imaginations stir. Is he scared that she won’t be there, that the story was
just too fanciful, or the village no longer needed her and she died? Or is he
scared that she will be there, still rocking in the dim light of a rainy day,
and the story will continue?
