Phaedra Patrick - Wishes Under The Willow Tree

Benedict wasn’t willing to be drawn into another confrontation, so he pulled out all the balls of tissues and placed them behind him, unopened. Then he saw the item he’d been thinking about. ‘My father’s journal,’ he said, as he took it out and set the heavy, burgundy leather-bound book on his lap.

The cover was faded and cracked. It creaked when he opened it. Inside, the paper was as yellow at Citrine, stained around the edges from age and thumbs wet from coffee and oil. The front page said:

Joseph Stone’s Book of Gemstones and Crystals

Benedict swallowed as he saw his father’s adolescent handwriting.

Gemma’s eyes widened. Her arms slipped out of their tight fold. ‘It looks like it’s from when Jesus was alive.’

Benedict moved closer to her and opened it up.

Around a third of the pages featured sketches and photos torn from books and magazines, as well as notes and figures. His father started every few pages with a large italic letter of the alphabet. Some of the sections were full, ‘A’ for Agate, Aquamarine, Amethyst… ‘J’ for Jade, Jasper and Jet. Other sections had hardly any entries.

‘Even as a boy he was interested in gemstones,’ Benedict said. He opened to a page on Peridot, and he and Gemma read the words.

PERIDOT

A rich green stone, sometimes called Chrysolite, Peridot is widely known as the birthstone for August. It can often be found in volcanic landscapes. It was used in ancient times to ward off evil spirits. It can assist us to recognise negative patterns in our lives, override unwanted thought patterns, help let go of the past and ease fear and anxiety. It enhances the healing and harmony of relationships of all kinds, but particularly marriage. It can lessen stress, anger and jealousy in relationships, and also helps us to find what is lost…

‘That last sentence isn’t complete,’ Gemma said. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

To Benedict, it did. It was silly, he knew, but it was as if his father had written the words just for him.

‘You could so do with a piece of Peridot, Uncle Ben,’ Gemma added. ‘You need some harmony, with Estelle.’

Benedict was thinking the same thing.

‘There are a lot of blank pages in that journal,’ Gemma mused. ‘If I stay with you for longer, I could fill in stuff about the missing gems…about my gems…’

‘Hmmm.’ It sounded like a long project. He looked at his watch and saw that it had already gone nine-thirty. ‘Damn it.’

‘What?’

‘I said that I’d take Estelle’s paintings around for her tonight. It’s too late now.’

‘She also said that Lawrence would help her to collect them.’

‘I want to take them over. It will give us a reason to talk. I could perhaps take a small bunch of flowers too.’

‘Flowers? You need to do more than that.’

Benedict closed the journal. What could a sixteen-year-old girl know about relationships that he didn’t? But, her insistence that he do something echoed Cecil’s words. ‘Like what?’

‘I dunno.’ Gemma gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘Like, show her that you love her. Where is she staying?’

‘In her friend’s swanky modern apartment. It has a balcony, overlooking the canal—’

‘What?’ Gemma interrupted. ‘Like in Romeo and Juliet or something?’

‘I suppose it’s a bit like that.’

‘Hmmm. Well, that’s it then.’ Gemma gave a big smile, pleased with herself.

‘What is?’

‘If you don’t want this Lawrence guy sniffing around your wife, you’re gonna have to take action.’

‘I’m not really an action man. And I don’t know what you mean…’

‘Duh, Uncle Ben,’ Gemma said. ‘You gotta try to be like Romeo.’

7. Turquoise

healing, friendship, communication

Benedict caught the bus to Applethorpe Hospital and hoped that Cecil was okay. He rested his hand on his chin and stared at the green hills rolling past, but his daydreams soon turned to more unsettling thoughts. I wonder if Lawrence Donnington has any children, he mused. He looks virile, like he only has to glance at a woman to make her pregnant.

Benedict walked towards the rows of low stone buildings that reminded him of army barracks, through the entrance gates and past the maternity building. The windows of the middle floor were dotted with pink and blue helium balloons. They bobbed at the windows like blank faces. A baby cried out and Benedict stood still for a minute and listened. A wave of sadness overwhelmed him and he dug his hands into his pockets. The cries were a sound he might never get to hear.

He and Estelle had visited the antenatal clinic here often, for their tests and scans. Many times they had gripped hands tightly as they pulled open the heavy glass doors, took a deep breath and prepared themselves to hear the latest results, delivered with ever-increasing sombreness by the doctors and nurses.

All the posters on the waiting-room walls were aimed at women who were pregnant or who had given birth … don’t smoke when you’re expecting , breastfeeding is best, cut down on sugar, check your gums …but there was nothing for anyone who couldn’t get pregnant. That was like a secret, hidden away so as not to mar the happiness of those who could have children. It was only when you entered the realms of being unable to get pregnant that you heard the devastating stories of couples trying for years to have a baby, of miscarriages and of stillbirth. They were the tragedies that you might read about in a magazine and think that they happened to others and that you were okay, because you were one of the lucky ones. Then came the dull, creeping, painful realisation that you weren’t.

And so with every visit, each appointment, each consultation, each reassuring hold of each other’s hands, Benedict and Estelle learned that it was unlikely, very doubtful, they would ever be parents. What once was a possibility became uncertain and then improbable. And even though they sat with their fingers interlocked, Benedict felt very much alone, and suspected that his wife did too.

Estelle used to pore over leaflets and read out statistics to Benedict. ‘Around one in seven couples struggle to get pregnant… That’s 3.5 million people in the UK,’ she said. ‘It’s not just us. I feel like a failure, but there are others too.’

Benedict often looked in the mirror and wondered what was going on inside his body. He was like a clock that looked simple on the outside, but inside was a multitude of cogs, tiny screws and workings, and if just one was wrong, out of place, then the clock wouldn’t work. Except that no one could ever find his bloody faulty cog, to fix it.

In the hospital car park, a man strode across, his face half obscured by a huge bunch of pink roses wrapped in cellophane. He grasped a bottle of champagne tightly around the neck. ‘I’m a dad,’ he announced to Benedict. ‘My wife’s just had a little girl. It’s brilliant.’

Benedict said congratulations. It was so easy to imagine that Estelle might be in hospital, in bed on the maternity ward, holding their baby. He could almost feel the curl of tiny fingers around his own.

‘I can’t believe it. Me, a dad,’ the man repeated. ‘It’s the best feeling in the world.’

‘Well done,’ Benedict muttered, his heart feeling heavy. He pressed on and looked for the sign for Cecil’s ward.

Benedict had expected Cecil to be loafing around in his lilac silk pyjamas, entertaining the nurses with his stories about Lord Puss. He hadn’t considered how weak and tired his friend might look after his operation. It was as if Cecil had been replaced by a paler, skinnier version of himself, even though his hair was still coiffed into its budgerigar quiff.