Jewelweed

by Jim Murdoch

One would have thought that a prerequisite for being a primary school teacher, even before one starts to look at qualifications and experience, might be a fondness for, or at least not a total loathing of, children. This, strangely, has never been the case and I'm sure your childhood is replete, as is mine, with wicked old spinsters who just happen to have ended up responsible for entire classes of innocent children. Of course, they're never what we believe them to be, they have lives and loves and hopes and fears just like the rest of us but they seem a breed apart, not like the rest of us, caricatures, the butt of many a joke, sketch or skit on TV. Vivienne never cared to be reduced to a stereotype even if there was some basis for the reduction.

Have you ever caught a glimpse of yourself and seen yourself for what you are, seen beyond the façade? Vivienne had. In fact, it was all she ever saw in the mirror. I still catch her looking from time to time with that question mark hanging over her head. I asked her once what exactly she was looking for but she said she didn't know because every time she looked it wasn't there. She wanted to be more than the sum of her parts, not less. The sum of her parts was not great however: age – wrong, always wrong, she had always been the wrong age at the wrong time; intelligence – bright but lacking in common sense; personality – in need of a good service; sexuality – still hanging in there, but only allowed out to play on certain occasions and never when she had company; looks – attractive but only to those who like that sort of thing; social skills – wanting but not knowing what; interests – horticulture, flowers.

There's a school of thought that says you should talk to your plants, that they respond to positive vibrations or something like that. Vivienne didn't and doesn't. She looked after them but she didn't talk to them. They were like the parts of her body that she fed and cared for. If the flowers grew too big she re-potted them, if the shrubs needed training then she trimmed them in much the same way as she modified her wardrobe during certain times in the month when she felt bloated and always kept her hair shoulder-length and manageable. She looked after herself without seeming as if she actually cared. It was a job of work to be carried out, one of her daily chores, and if you did it correctly then… then… but there was no one to give her a gold star or the smiley face some of the newer teachers used. She said her children were just like a flower garden which sounds poetic but what she meant was they came and they went. The class filled up every year and it was always filled with the same, but different faces. It was her job to look after them for the year.

The conservatory wasn't hers. She had inherited it – she owned it flat out – but it never felt hers. The plants had been her father's and, even several seasons on, as far as she was concerned they were still his. A greenhouse – even one with a fancy name – is a hard thing to personalise I would have thought – I mean, they're just plants – but not so I'm informed. A part of her wanted to clear out the thing straight after the funeral but it seemed a shame to do away with all his hard work. Besides she had no idea how to actually go about such a task so, until she had a clear plan of action, she took to caring for them as best she knew how. At the time, pottering about in the greenhouse seemed to help her get over her father's death – her mother had already gone - and, after a while, she found herself taking an active interest, looking up books, subscribing to journals. If she kept it alive then she was keeping something of her father alive which I never understood because she rarely has a good thing to say about him.

Did she have a favourite plant? Actually, yes, she said, much to my surprise – I'm not even sure what brought up the subject in the first place – it was about a foot tall with spotted, bright yellow leaves that flourished in the shade. Vivienne said it was the first one she actually went out of her way to get, the first one that was for her alone and not a hand-me-down: it was a jewelweed.

“The jewelweed”, she explained to me, “is a very special type of plant. It's common name is ‘touch-me-not' and it's called that because, like other varieties of Impatiens, its seed pods, when ripe, will burst open at the slightest touch; that's where they get the name from, because they're impatient.”

Vivienne didn't know this when she bought the thing and the shop-keeper who sold it her neglected to pass on this germ of information but she found out soon enough that Autumn when, as she examined the plant for damage or infection, it exploded in her face. To her surprise, rather than be shocked, she laughed out loud, the first time she could remember doing so in a long time. Apparently, she just sat there on the floor and laughed till the tears flowed. It was a sound none of the plants was used to but it seemed to do them no harm.

Of course, I found out about all of this at a much later date. I'm not part of this story yet but I am the catalyst. I wish I'd been there to see it. I can get her to laugh sometimes but I just know there's more in there. A lifetime's laughter.

Vivienne was also nominally religious, she went through some of the motions. She attended church every Sunday barring illness, listened to the sermon, sang a few hymns, dropped whatever would salve her conscience into the collection and hurried home. It was what she was used to doing so she kept it up, like being a teacher, being alone and not knowing what else to be. The first thing you see when you enter her hallway is a painting of Jesus following his resurrection talking to Mary Magdalene. It has a title too, in Latin, “ Noli me Tangere ” which Vivienne says means, “touch me not.” I never cared for it but it does set the tone of the place. It's an old house, far too big for her alone, but it must have been her home for a long time. She certainly never speaks of any other place but dragging the past out of her is like pulling weeds. I've never seen a painting like it but it's clearly a cheap reproduction in an expensive frame. In time I managed to get her to move it into the spare room – I had to redecorate the entire hall to do it – but I don't think she'll ever get rid of it anymore than she'll shake the need to get up every Sunday morning and go to St Therese's.

We met at a conference, one of those chance events that could just as easily have never happened. The truth was I tried to get out of it and couldn't. I'm sure she's never questioned it as much as I or wondered about what our lives might have been like if we hadn't met but that's the difference between the two of us and differences are good; opposites attract.

Now, don't get me wrong. The first time I saw her if you'd said that within six weeks she would have given up her forty year old virginity to me across a creaky kitchen table one rainy Saturday afternoon I might have been shocked but a part of me would also have been intrigued at the possibility. It would have just seemed the most impossible thing to envisage but then I guess that's why I've always found wedding rings a strange source of fascination. Why? Because that's a sign to everyone that they've done it – with a man – probably more than once, possibly the previous evening and yet you see them all over the place on the bus or the train, sitting behind typewriters and addressing hoards of schoolchildren and you can't tell – but you know. When I met Vivienne I couldn't imagine her with anyone. The only wedding ring she had was on a chain between her breasts and they were well covered up. The thought simply never crossed my mind to be honest. It was a very pleasant surprise indeed to find she still possessed a fine cleavage indeed. Afterwards – to be blunt it didn't take too long – we gathered ourselves together but when she took one look at me with my hands on my knees and my trousers still at half-mast, wheezing like an old bull did she not burst out laughing? You know, that kind of infectious laugh that makes you giddy. I just looked back at her hanging out of her dress – I'll never forget the look on her face – and I was off too. I think that was when we fell in love, if you really wanted to pin things down to a moment in time, as if any one moment in time is that important.

We weren't actually introduced in the traditional way, not at first in any case. It was one of those sessions where we all took turns to stand up and deliver a short spiel about who we were, what school and/or discipline we represented, how long we'd been in the profession and so on and so forth. You get the idea. Vivienne had no sooner got to her feet than she seemed to be sitting back down again and I have no idea what she said about herself but one could not accuse her of loquacity, if anything, quite the opposite. Most men complain that their wives have to much to say about everything and take too long saying it but not mine.

Of course, when I look at Vivienne now I know I'm judging myself. I'm pretty sure a lot of people think I've settled and she's just dug her teeth in and hung on like crazy in case her last chance got away but it wasn't like that. Actually, it was a plant that got us together, a busy lizzie so she told me. I just remember a thing with sort of red leaves I think. It was perched on the window ledge behind me and, during one of the breaks I came back in early to get something, a diary I think, and there she was carefully dribbling water from a polystyrene cup into the pot. I thought it was such a compassionate thing to do – I hadn't yet come to terms with her practical nature – but it started us talking.

When I called on her the first time – unannounced I have to admit and without any clear intentions – I can't say I was received too well, nor was the potted plant I proffered. Well, what do I know about plants? It was clear she was not used to entertaining and had to go searching for the good china. At least I had enough gumption not to take cut flowers. That would have put the kibosh on things there and then I'm quite sure.

Nature is a funny thing. Theologians talk about God working in mysterious ways but naturalists could say pretty much the same. Vivienne's tried to educate me but to be honest I let her talk – it's nice to see her get excited about something – and make the appropriate noises when I sense the need to: she'll never teach me because I don't understand Nature in any of its guises, especially human nature. My wife is a flower, a late bloomer to be sure, she has a flower's beauty and its fragility, she does not do well in public places; you can see her visibly wilt as the day goes on. No one knows what she is like when we are together. She calls me Sunshine and I call her Petal. They're not just pet names. We never sat down and discussed what to call each other but we knew when it was right. It still feels right.

Tommy Stephens annoyed her today and not for the first time. He's not a stupid boy so she tells me – if anything I think she has something of a soft spot for the boy though she'd bitterly deny having a favourite – but it does seem he's the kind of child who enjoys tormenting helpless creatures be they insect, minor sibling or school teacher. The topic under discussion was English grammar, not a favourite of the class or of any class I can think of. Even when I was a lad – when more attention was paid to these things – I remember, with a fair amount of dread, being commanded to perform acts of conjugation before an entire class. Vivienne has similar memories. Perhaps that's why this is one of the few topics where an element of empathy has crept into her teaching. Tommy, however, had yet to develop his perceptive skills and he read empathy as weakness and went for the jugular.

“But, Miss! what about nothing?”

“What about nothing?”

“What is it?”

“What do you mean, Tommy?”

“Is nothing a noun or what?”

“Of course it's a noun, an indefinite pronoun to be precise.”

“But, Miss…” (God! I can just hear myself as a kid whine that). “Miss! You said that a noun was the name of a thing.”

“So it is.”

“But nothing isn't anything so how can it be a noun if a noun is a thing? It doesn't make sense.”

Touché. Well done, Tommy.

She's out in the conservatory just now – it's where she goes – clipping away for all she's worth and all that other stuff she does to keep herself sane. I'll take her a wee drink in a bit, when the time is right.