Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     In the spring, Mrs Rasmussen began her preparations. She needed three months to force the garden into form. Rake out the winter leaves, scratch the earth fertile again. And every day there were new weeds. Although she had the album, photographs of festivals from the last ten years decorating its pages like faded icing on so many birthday cakes, it was not sufficient. Each June the festival had to be born anew. And Dorothy Rasmussen was its mother. And so, in April, she began working on the garden, raking, scratching and pulling weeds every afternoon. Then, after supper, she took out her watercolors to paint the coming festival, filling sheet after sheet of white paper. The trellises wound with red roses, the card tables carefully placed, the long table with its white lace cloth that had been her mother’s, the silver punch bowl, crystal cups and damask napkins. She even painted in the punch, deep red with a scattering of strawberries over its surface. She was also busy making the girls, paperdolls she recreated every year in their pastel frocks, starched aprons and doily caps.

     That was why she had volunteered to lead the Scout troop. To find girls. But girls were changing. They were different nowadays, more interested in boys than in being little ladies.

     “You and your damn festival,” grumbled Mr Rasmussen. “Every spring it’s the same thing. Leave me alone, Nils. I’m planning the festival.” Mr Rasmussen lived in his bedroom. And he was glad of
it. His wife’s was overrun with dolls. And now, the festival piled up on her dressing table, sketch after sketch balancing among the rouge pots and powder jars. He even had to feed himself.

     Mrs Rasmussen did not answer. It was raining, so she was not out in the garden, away from him. But she was painting, looking into the tangle of green and color, rich brown furrows of earth. She was deep in her dream of Versailles, recalling her girlhood game. She had dressed in her mother’s old ball gown, waltzed her way down the green aisle between the hedges, wound violets in her hair. She had perfected her curtsey to the king, a large, scarred stump at the garden’s edge. How beautiful she had been then, her red hair glinting in the sun, her cheeks rosy with Burner heat. Beautiful! She still had the old photographs in the front of the album to prove it.

     Well, she still was beautiful. She kept her hair red, her cheeks rosed. And she had planted her own garden: neat boxhedges rimmed with white pebbles, roses to climb the arched trellises, slate stepping stones among violets and moss. But she had no daughter to share it with; no daughter she could spy op wearing her mother’s cast off gowns among the roses.

     She thought of her doll collection. Dolls in dotted swiss, organdy pink. Dolls with shining hair, perfectly curled around their ageless faces. The girls in the troop had seen them months ago. Mrs Rasmussen had offered to let them play with her dolls, but after their first ohs and ahs, they had turned away, talking about school and Sandra’s birthday party. Boys had been invited. They would play kissing games.

     Things weren’t going at all well with this year’s troop. Why just last week that had rudely left her on the nature walk in the woods beside the school playfield, giggled behind their hands and whispered to each other as she was pointing out the varied leaves the trees were unfurling. A baseball game was going on. Suddenly, like little animals, they had bolted and rub to the playfield. Left her alone in the woods. She’d not pursued them, then. In fact, she’d actually cried. Sat down on a fallen tree trunk and cried, her hands over her face. One girl, Amy, had come back to apologize. Only one. But Amy had always been a good girl, quiet and polite. Amy studied the piano. She liked to draw daffodils and pussywillows. Amy had convinced the others to be in the festival. Mrs Rasmussen trusted Amy.

     She stopped painting. It was time to go over the guest list again. The invitations had gone out already, though it was still two weeks away. All the girls and their mothers had been invited. And Dorothy Rasmussen knew it would be the best festival ever. She had readied the garden daily, washed the tablecloths, rubbed the crystal till it shone. She’d even remembered to find the kerosene and can for drowning the Japanese beetles. She’d do that the day before. The birdbath was scrubbed. All was waiting. Some of the girls’ mothers were im the Garden Club. Perhaps she could persuade them to landscape the triangle down at the corner.

     On festival morning Nils had a toothache. She hated him for that. He always found some way to try and distract her, just as her excitement was at its peak. Of course, he wasn’t invited. No men were. And he never had tried to come out, preferring to sulk in his room, she was sure. Why, if she didn’t put his clothes properly in his drawers the man couldn’t even dress himself. He’d sit in his bathrobe all day if it weren’t for her. It had grown worse since his retirement. At first he’d continued his carpentry, doing odd jobs around the neighbourhood. He’d made a sturdy birdhouse for Mrs Sargent. But now he sat for hours in his room, watching the TV. And grumbled at her. He was worse than a baby. Well, he’d have no sympathy from her today! It was festival day, and nothing could be allowed to spoil it! Dorothy looked out the window. The sun was lovely on the roses. She hoped it wouldn’t get too hot.

     Amy was the first to arrive, just at noon. She’d worn a fluffy yellow pinafore. Mrs Rasmussen carefully lifted the first apron off the starched, ironed pile. The bleach had worked again this year. The aprons were white as a cloud. With thelace cap pinned on her long dark hair, Amy was pretty as a picture. Amy’s mother clucked approvingly as she admired her daughter. The other girls came late, of course. But they came, as Amy had promised. They were, at least, properly dressed. After each had donned her apron and cap, Mrs Rasmussen sent them to the garden. She hoped they’d remember from their rehearsal, how to ladle and and serve the punch, carry the silver trays of pastry to their mothers.

     When she had everyone out in the garden, Mrs Rasmussen entered the festival. Made her speech. Complimented the girls on how lovely they looked. Welcomed the mothers, inviting them to explore the new perennial beds, smell the roses. She mingled among them, smiling. All was going well. It was hot, though. Sweat was on her forehead, her cheeks. She hoped it wasn’t streaking her rouge. And the gnats were still a problem, even though she had sprayed again last night.

     She was sitting on the white iron bench under the maples, fanning herself with her handkerchief, when she first heard the thunder. Oh God! She was afraid of thunderstorms. That’s what had happened to the old tree in her mother’s garden. Struck by lightning, cut down and turned into a stump. It did look a bit grey, up the hillby the Moore’s. The weather had threatened her before. But she’d been lucky. Never, in all the years, had it rained on a festival day. And it had better not, now.

     Mrs Rasmussen got up then, to check on the girls. All the mothers were talking nicely together, but the girls were not serving them as they should be. They were all in a cluster over by the back of the garage. Why were they way over there? How dare they! As she started across to them, she saw the punch table, the great scarlet stain run down her mother’s lace. The stupid brats had spilled the punchbowl. And now they were hiding from her again. How dare they! And yes, even Amy was over there with them.

     “You little guttersnipes!” she screamed, racing across the lawn. “You’ve spoiled my festival! Get out! Get out!” She quite forgot their mothers. Only saw the knot of girls, cowering together, red stains on their aprons. Mrs Rasmussen was grabbing at the girls, now, tearing the aprons from their waists, the caps off their heads. She should have known. She should have known. And then she went back to her bench, lap full of aprons and caps, went back to sit and run her fingers over and over the damage. She did not hear the storm growing around her, see the hasty departure of her guests.

     When she noticed the rain, she lifted her face to the sky, hating it. The wind was bending the roses. Never! Never before had such a thing happened to Dorothy Rasmussen’s festival. She surveyed the garden. Dirty punch cups, some on the grass; plates of half-eaten strawberry tarts among the soggy napkins. The girls ought to have cleaned it up. She’d just leave it, that’s all. It didn’t matter any more. They’d spoiled her festival.

     Slowly Mrs Rasmussen got up. As she walked toward the back door, she saw Amy watching her from the corner of the garage, peeking at her around the drainpipe. Mrs Rasmussen did not speak to her. Just like all the rest.

     “How’s it going, dear?” Nils was waiting in the kitchen. Waiting to eat the leftovers as he always had. Well he’d get none today. She knew he was asking her just for spite. Knew he’d been peeking through the curtains, seen her humiliation. He was holding a hot water bottle to his cheek. His slippers scraped the floor as he shuffled toward her.

     Turning her back, Dorothy Rasmussen entered her room. Thunder always drove her to bed. A new issue of House & Garden had come yesterday. In all the flurry of preparation, she hadn’t had a chance to see it. There it was, waiting for her on her bedside table. The cover was exquisite! How nicely the sun caught the tulips by the white brick wall of the old colonial. She took off her wet clothes and put on her dressing gown. As she climbed into bed, she noticed her dolls were smiling at her. She smiled back, picking up the magazine. Next year, it would surely be perfect.