1: Rosemary
I slammed close the door of my grey Citroen. And lifted my head to look at the low apartment building. I could see my father’s balcony from where I stood in the parking lot. My breath misted in the dark evening. It was a drizzly night, a blackness had fallen over the land and on my soul.
I took my time unpacking a woven basket from the trunk. I reached in for the glass bottle of alcohol free champagne. I held the bottle in my hand. Small droplets fell on the etiquette. My fingers were freezing.
I was on the verge of shoving both things back and bolting.
Suddenly it all seemed so pointless.
He wouldn’t be happy with the home made sponge cake and the very expensive bottle.
But I couldn’t give him what he wanted. I had never really been able to do it, and as years had gone by it seemed I could only give him less and less.
I closed the trunk and cast one final look at the car. A raven swooped down. It perched on top of the vehicle.
“Oh, wouldn’t you take me with you? He doesn’t really want me there. I want to fly free as you do.”
It cawed.
I sighed heavily. Probably the poor thing was hungry. And I didn’t really want to turn into a raven and fly to the skies. My research was far too interesting to be left behind at the university. And who would substitute me as the head of French Philology? It was just that I hated the New Year’s. So full of expectations and I seemed to always fall short of them.
I left the safe, dark and damp parking behind me and went to the downstairs door of the building. Silently I wished I had forgotten my keys, so I would still have an excuse to turn back and drive home.
The keys, to my great disappointment, were in my bag however and I had no difficulty entering the building.
I could have tripped with my high heels as I walked the corridor. I could have stumbled in the stairs. In theory, I could have turned back on my own free will.
Yet, pulled by the one inescapable force of nature, I ascended the stairs without an incident. Oh, he was wrong when he called me in the middle of the night and said I didn’t care for him, that I never thought of him. I wish I truly didn’t.
But I did. And that was the reason for me standing there on the day before New Year’s Eve: a daughter’s unwavering love for the undeserving father.
Scale Tongue read the small sign on the door. I knocked. Then entered without waiting, struggling with my packages through the door.
He was waiting, slumped against the lush sofa. An old, feeble man. He was making markings in a book that lay open on the glass table in front of his seat. His hand was trembling and the motion seemed unstable. On the table by a pile of old books was an unstoppered bottle of red vine. No glass. Just the bottle.
“Did you come by car?” He asked. The voice wasn’t quite crystal clear but he wasn’t that drunk yet. Just not quite clear-minded.
“Yes I did. Takes twice as long on public transport. So I drove. That’s why I came so late, to avoid the rush hour.”
He snorted. But then again, I didn’t believe myself either. I had come late so I could plead to the late hour and take my leave as soon as I dared.
“Good.” He lifted his lined face to me then. “So you can drive me to the crematorium then, because I am finished here.” He closed the book for emphasis.
I lifted the corners of my mouth.
“Unfortunately, I think they only take dead people.”
“I am not living.”
“Yes, well, your heart beats. I am afraid that is what matters to them.”
I lifted the basket onto the table, unsettling a pile of books.
“I made cake.”
“You made cake. So I would have a sweet taste in my mouth when I spend tomorrow alone here. Enjoying the splendid view. You know, the cars even change every now and then.”
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to cry. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to slam him with a book, or even better, with the bottle of alcohol free champagne I had brought with me.
I said:
“I hope it tastes sweet.”
And not bitter like everything else in your foul mouth.
I sat on a winged armchair.
“I told you. I’ll spend the change of years with a friend.”
“What friend is that?” He asked, trying to catch me lying. “Must be a nice friend to pass time with him, instead of your only family.”
I ignored the implication and latched to the nice in the middle of the speech.
“He is. Aconite is a lecturer in Folklore Studies.”
I almost continued with a I might like him, but thought better of it. Coriander Scale Tongue looked at me. Then he said:
“Aren’t you a bit old to spend that kind of a New Year’s with a man.”
How did he even come up with so much twistedness?
And how I would have loved to spend that kind of a new year for a change.
“Well. I am not getting any younger, you know,” I countered.
He snorted.
“You just wait. Where is your brother anyway? Is he even alive? Has he a number I can call if I tire of the company of these beautiful white walls?”
I felt a tightening in my stomach. I didn’t meet his eyes when I said:
“No one’s told me he would be dead. But I haven’t heard of him. Not since my birthday in October. He always sends flowers. I can give you his email. I don’t have his number anymore.”
“I bet he has kicked the bucket. Plume was always a weekling where you were just cruel. The world is meant for the evil.”
I gritted my teeth and stayed silent.
The twisted truth was that he was close to the truth. Plume, my lost twin brother, could have never faced this bitter shell of our dad. Plume, who had cried his eyes out at our mother’s funeral, decades ago. Plume who had been a timid artist, writing his deep feelings into songs he only ever played for me. Plume who had left.
“... look like your mother, you know. Now that there is grey in your hair. You look like her before she lost her hair.”
I was startled from my bitter reverie back to the present. I was almost shocked, staring at my father.
“I look like Swan?” I repeated. That was almost an openhearted compliment.
“You look old, is what I said. So much grey in your hair. But yes. You look like your mother. And you sound like her, too.”
I was suddenly speechless. Mother had died of cancer, so many years ago. And she had smiled and been full of solid good natured humor. I wondered what she would have thought of this bitter old man who had too much money for his own good. Money he mostly used for liquids and books, as he had nowhere interesting to go anymore and no one to drag him.
We chatted maybe a full half an hour after that. I made him taste the cake. He seemed to even like it somewhat. Oh, he didn’t admit it out loud, of course, not after he had initially scorned the whole concept. But he took another slice. Since old age made him a bit peckish. And it would ruin his health the sugar I was feeding him, but he was so close to death’s doors it hardly mattered anymore.
When I left, I promised to make him some currant pie the next time I visited.
He told me he would be delighted but he wasn’t sure he could make the appointment. The old man that he was. Might die any day now.
I closed the door behind myself and sighed in the empty corridor. I felt both relieved and exhausted as I returned to the parking area. I lifted the now empty basket into the trunk.
A raven was watching me from the top of a street light. I wanted to think it was the same one that had greeted me when I had arrived.
“I truly hope I had a friend to spend the New Year’s,” I told the bird. “I don’t want to be alone. But Aconite is busy. He apparently has a real family to spend it with.”
But, then again, I was good with being with myself. And there was still some paperwork to do before the next day.
But of course, the New Year’s was special. Families gathered together and gave presents and warmth. But as it was a family celebration those with less family became easily lonely. You really felt the absence when you didn’t even dare call anyone. Didn’t want to be the intruder.
But I was good at being alone. And I had a friend who had promised to call late on the New Year’s day. And it wasn’t like Rose’s family was ideal. She would probably console me by telling me how lucky I really was with no idiot ex-husbands and rude sons. I didn’t even have a mother-in-law.
Through the rear view mirror I saw the raven cocking its head after me in the middle of the damp parking lot.
Would it have a lonely new year’s as well? Or did it maybe have a great family of black birds to celebrate with? Maybe there were dozens of its cousins who would gather in some ancient castle ruins to flee from the cold damp of the typical December weather in Breasinghae, the capital of Atlantis.
