The Cellar

The Cellar - Chapter Seven (Clover)

Chapter Seven

 

Clover

 

 

Saturday 5th March 2005

Loneliness was like a terminal disease. With every passing day, you died a little bit more. I had felt as if I were dying for the past four years, and I had had enough. Combing over my hair one last time, I slid my wallet in my back pocket and picked up my keys. The girls’ room was finished. There was just one thing missing before I would be ready for them – their clothes.

On the way to the department store, I stopped off at my local florist to buy a bunch of Gerberas for my mother. “Good morning, Colin,” Mrs Koop said, and smiled from behind the flower filled counter.

I returned her smile and inhaled the fresh aroma of a mixture of flowers. “Good morning.”

“Would you like your usual?”

I nodded once. “Please.”

“Coming right up, dear.” She turned her back and gathered a handful of white Gerberas. Mother’s favourites. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, thank you. And yourself?”

“Oh, same old, same old,” she replied, as she tied a white ribbon around the flowers. “That’ll be ten pounds, please.” I handed over cash. “Thank you. Have a lovely day.”

“You too, Mrs Koop.”

I drove to the graveyard and for a minute, I sat in the car park and stroked the delicate white petals. No man had tampered with them or damaged them. They was pure and innocent – something that wasn’t often found in this world of greed, disgrace and self-gratification. The wrong people were protected while the innocent were left to be picked at like a lion’s prey. I wanted to stop that. I wanted my family to be protected from the outside evil. I will stop that, and I will protect them. I vowed.

Getting out of the car, I walked along the familiar path. Mother’s grave was at the end of the graveyard in the right hand corner. There was a space beside it reserved for me, so that we could be together again in the end. I placed a patchwork blanket down and knelt on it. Gazing at the perfectly soft petals, I smiled, appreciating the purity of nature’s most beautiful creation.

Turning my attention to my mother’s grave, I placed the flowers where her hear would be. “I miss you,” I said aloud. “I hope you don’t feel that me getting the family I have always wanted will affect what I feel for you, in any way.” I kept my eyes on the flowers, above her heart. “I love you very much and I always will. Nothing will stop me visiting you or putting you first. I won’t ever forget what you taught me and I promise you I will continue striving for what you wanted of this world. I won’t let them win, Mother, I promise you that.”

I looked up at the sound of a young girl laughing. She was walking with her parents and what must have been a brother. Her hair was so long and blonde, it looked like a golden veil draping down her back. She was the reason I would never give up the fight. Innocent little girls like her that in a few years would be tainted beyond repair.

“No, Mum,” she shouted, “I don’t like Westlife anymore, they’re not cool!”

I smiled at the innocent, fickle comment. She must have only been ten or eleven. Not long until she discovered boys and would have to contend with other girls fighting for the attention of the one she liked.

Her mum laughed. “Sweetheart, yesterday you bought their poster.”

“Well that was yesterday!” Her parents shook their heads, both smiling with pride and amusement. The boy hung back a bit as if embarrassed to be seen with them. He held his mobile phone out in front of him and mindlessly tapped away at it.