11. A First and Second Prize

THE POETESS Part 11

Rosie sat in her pandemic parlour, as she called her sitting room, and tried to uncrumple the old sheet of paper that had been forced by time and other things, screwed up and tatty, to the back of her bureau drawer.

My first published poem, and look at it, she sighed. It was in a tatty state, the ball-point words fading where the paper had been endlessly creased.

I was so proud of this when it flowed, almost without any effort, onto this piece of paper. Suddenly, as if the sun had shone one of its fairy beams into my mind, I knew what to write Let me see if it brings back any memories for me…

Love is the aching moment

That blossomed when you died,

A fractured second of living torment

Spelt out in the way I cried…

And when the precious woman passed,

Her farewell casket before my eyes

When words could never be unsaid,

I remembered all my lies…

And the single truth I never said,

The drawing back of childhood greed,

The fact that down the for ever years

You’re still the one I’d need…

So mummy, when I wasn’t me

But some ghost in a wilful child

The truth is my love was always strong,

Though it’s shadow sometimes wild…

I still remember how I thought, the sudden burst of memory consisting of a kind of realisation that I might not have been the perfect daughter I’d thought I was. But then, I suppose all kids are like I was…

But when she opened it she knew!

When the letter arrived with the borough council stamp on the envelope and what seemed like the scent of spring flowers rising from it Rosie didn’t like to open it. It had been some weeks since she’d submitted her poem, carefully making sure that it reached whoever was going to judge it well before the closing date, and at first she had no idea what this letter was. Was it a bill? A demand for money she’d be hard-pressed to find? Or just junk?

“I’ve won,” she told herself, “I’ve only gone and got myself a hundred pounds!”

She would like to have someone to tell straight away, but her lodgers, Roy and Violet together with Archie, had moved together into a home of their own, a council house on a fairly new council estate where she hoped they would find a kind of peace to whatever problems they still seemed to be experiencing.

“I’ll ring Mildred before I go to work,” she said to herself. The phone was still in situ, though she’d not used it much since Clara had departed the realms of the living three years earlier.

“Guess what, Mildred?” she said when Roy’s aunt answered.

“Is that you Rosie? You sound all excited. What is it?”

“That poetry competition, the one you brought me a leaflet about, I’ve only gone and won it!”

“Well, fancy that. But I never doubted you for a moment. You’ve got a poet inside you. I knew that from the moment we first met. Or should I say poetess before you get all feminist at me!”

“Everything’s coming together, Mildred. I’m beginning to see myself at last! Look, I thought I must tell you, but I’m going to be late for work if I gab on much longer! Thanks for looking out for me.”

“I don’t know what our Roy was up to, letting you slip away,” murmured Aunt Mildred as she hung up, “silly boy! That Rosie’s a queen, and no mistake.”

The prize-giving, the ceremony at which she actually picked up the cheque, was at the weekend and she spent a great deal of time before it trying to work out what to wear.

In the end she decided to wear the mini kilt that she’d worn the day she first met Roy because somehow it seemed the one garment that was with her when things went well. She’d not worn it much, fashions coming and going as they do, so it had had very little wear. It was a warm bright corner of what had been an average summer and something cooling and pretty seemed most appropriate. And anyway she still liked looking at her own reflection in the mirror when she was wearing it.

And so she went to the old town hall where she was to be awarded her prize. There were quite a few people there, other entrants to the competition, she assumed, as well as men and women with nothing better to do than go to a prize-giving.

The mayor asked to see her, and when he set eyes on her she recognised him. It was the solicitor, Mr Babbage, and he smiled warmly at her. Just behind him and almost shadowed by him was Aunt Mildred.

“You might have let on you were coming,” said Rosie when they had a second together.

“I didn’t want to take one little bit away from you, Rosie,” replied Mildred. “I saw your poem after the judge had made his final decision and it brought tears to my eyes. I guess we all think things like that. Regrets. That’s what it was about.”

“And you’re with Mr Babbage?” asked Rosie, curious.

“He kindly invited me along. He needs an escort. His son is one of the runners-up. You’re bound to meet him. Leslie. He’s quite a bit like you in some respects in that he’s in his twenties and still single.”

“So’s Mr Babbage, his father, if you forget the twenties bit,” pointed out Rosie with a mischievous grin, and Mildred did her best to stifle a giggle.

The formal part of the ceremony was quite brief, three or four runners-up being awarded with book tokens of a modest value. And then came Rosie’s moment, and much to her unending joy a local poet of some national renown read out her poem and actually did it justice. There was a round of applause when he’d finished, and he announced at the end of his reading that the poem had shone like a bright light that illuminated an excellent bunch of romantic poems. But, he said, our mothers, in the end, are all to us, and when they’re gone there’s a life-long hole in our hearts.

Over-egging it a bit, thought the older Rosie, but I got what he meant, and so did everyone else. I carefully put my cheque for a whole hundred pounds into my handbag and started to make my way out, when…

“Why, hello there, genius,” came a voice in her ear.

She looked back and smiled, though she didn’t know who it was. “Hi,” she said.

“I love the way you’ve dressed,” he said, glancing down at what seemed an even smaller kilt than it had when she’d bought it a few years earlier.

“Why, thank you,” she replied, not sure of what to say or how to respond to any kind of praise.

“I loved your poem,” he gushed, “Dad gave me a chance to read it before we came, and it was quite rightly the outright winner, so I didn’t mind being just another runner-up. Let me introduce myself. I’m Leslie Babbage and I think you know my dad’s girlfriend.”

Rosie looked at where he indicated with a nod of his head, and there, smiling as ever, was Aunt Mildred with the solicitor Mr Babbage.

And that’s where I was when I met the one man who more than anyone else was going to prove quite an influence on my future, in more ways than one! And looking back I guess he was a second prize for me that night, I suppose, though not entirely the way I would have hoped.

© Peter Rogerson, 17.03.21

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