Like many of the best things about me,
‘Tulips and Sawdust’ came from my grandparents. Grandad is a carpenter by
calling, and a bloody good one at that. He is incomplete without wood shavings coating
his clothes, sitting in his eyebrows and floating around his ears (that’s
probably why he’s so deaf – sawdust in his ears). Every day I take him in my
arms and he smells like musty, glorious sawdust, which to me has come to smell
like home.
Moreover, since 2002, April has covered
the front garden of number 19 in a scattering of red. Nana planted dozens of
tulips when they first came south, and to this day a few still erupt from the
soil, greeting me with love as I pull up the drive in springtime.
I named my blog Tulips and Sawdust as an
afterthought; it was supposed to be the name of my book, but I got too busy to write it. To be
fair, I’m still busy, but I feel like now I’ve finished writing uni essays and
settled in to a full-time job, it’d be meaningful to invest some time in a story very
close to my heart. A story about a shipwright’s apprentice who knocked a young
lady off her bike. A story of family, ground-shaking loss and a phoenix of love
that took flight from a scattertube of ashes. Tulips and Sawdust will be the
story of their lives, and of ours. For its author at least, it begins at the
end.
Tulips and Sawdust
I stood among family, dressed head to
toe in black. Amy was putting her mascara on my eyelashes because I didn’t have
any of my own. Nasty stuff. Sticks your eyes together something terrible. When
I turned back to the white wood mirror on mum’s dresser, I saw a witch; a
green-eyed monster in a fancy-dress costume that didn’t quite fit either her
body or the biting January morning. My hair was down because they told me it
‘looked nice’ but I bloody hated it itching at my neck and flying about when
the wind blew.
The last week had passed with blurry
edges, sickly and confusing, noisy and lonely. There were moments I knew I’d
never forget no matter how hard I tried. First, the colour of my mum’s face
when she came up to tell us that nana had died (white with green around the
edges, like a lily). Then, the empty green armchair and the sobs that had come
from the bottom of grandad’s tummy and shook his whole body on the way out. My
12-year-old brain just couldn’t understand why I had to put make up and kitten
heels on to make more memories that would turn my stomach enough to wake me in
the night. But I turned from the mirror and slipped my feet in to those black
shoes anyway, waiting a moment before I joined the others in the stairwell of
Ash Close.
I can’t remember how I got to the crem,
and the next set of memories still come with a lump in my throat, so I don’t
rehash them very much, but for you, I will. We walked to the door together, the
sun high behind the clouds as morning waned to afternoon. There were people outside
that I hadn’t seen in years. I loved them, I recognise that now. We all loved
her. Some of us were crying already, others very obviously wanted to. As the
adults talked in muted voices, I turned my gaze to the inside of Weston
crematorium. My eyes took a second to adjust. The room was dim and heavy and
frightened me more than anything I had ever seen in my life. Daniel was on my
right, Mummy on my left, and that was the only reason I was able to put one
shaky kitten heel in front of the other and walk to my seat.
It smelled like the church where we
used to do our Christmas show at primary school – all churches are the same – woody
and worn. I felt pathetic and miserable and waiting for ages watching the
people I loved cry was making it ten times worse. There was a song book in
front of me. Stupid, I thought again.
Nobody feels like singing. I couldn’t
see grandad at all, but truthfully, I wasn’t looking for him. I couldn’t take
it just then, and I don’t think he could either. I have the grey green eyes of
the Hills women. Of his sweetheart.
The coffin was unremarkable and yet it
sent tremors through the room. Silence robbed us all of our words, our tears, the
air in our lungs. The deadweight of our mum, our wife, our Nana… It was borne
by the four boys.
…….
TBC
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