PAPER GARDEN
by
Eve Attwood
I paint a daffodil onto the ceiling on Wednesday when I hear it raining outside. The roof window here remains blocked off so that you cannot open it, nor can the light escape through it. It is repeatedly hit with the tip-tapping of rain, the water pelting it in a moment of anguish and rage. Today’s weather is abnormally bad. The rain continues to fall hard on the blacked-out window and gives me a fright, waking me up in the early hours of the morning and convincing me someone is attempting to break in and attack me. I wait for ten minutes in fear hidden behind the wardrobe, but no one ever comes in.
It is later that I continue painting the daffodil. I paint it as if I live in a room full of flowers; a garden that blooms and grows with the promise of new life and everlasting hope. But I have not seen a real daffodil in months. Was it ever this shade of yellow? Did it tilt slightly this way or that when the wind hit it sharply? Is this colour I use too bright or too dark? The longer I stare at the flower, the more I think it looks nothing like a daffodil at all, that instead, it is some kind of impression, an imitation. Never quite the real thing.
The paint is all over my hands. It seeps into a mess of yellow and burnt orange that attaches itself to my shirt, my face, my hair. But the colours are bright and full of vitality – I welcome them. The daffodil is anything but perfect, yet it looks half decent next to the peony painted beside it. The ceiling has grown into a maze full of painted flowers. I paint a new one everyday, but I’m running out of space. I will have to move to the walls instead and make them my new canvas, but that depends on how many more flowers I have left to paint inside of me. That depends on whether my sanity remains uncompromised.
Dinner comes at five. I have a plate of porridge pushed through a square in the door. It is cold and flavourless, but it tastes heavenly because it is the only meal I’ve had all day. I eat alone and imagine a field outside I can run into, come rain, come storm. The lightheadedness I have felt all day seems to pause for a moment, but my body remains weak and fragile.
I see him at midnight but close my eyes so I don’t have to. Some things are best left buried in the dead of night.
*
I have never received red roses on Valentine’s Day, so I decide to paint them upon the ceiling today. There is space in the top left-hand corner, so I place the ladder against the wall and make my way up slowly. There is no rain today, but the room is still cold as though a window has accidentally been left open overnight whilst a storm outside battled with it violently. I paint one red rose and then another the same size next to it. They are sisters, cousins, friends to one another who line the wall and provide me company. I wonder what it would be like to have a bouquet of those for myself. What it would be like to smell an actual rose instead of just imagining what it might be like.
If there is sun outside there is no way for me to see it. I descend down the ladder after painting for an hour or two and stand facing one of the three windows belonging to the left wall of the room. All of the windows are unable to be opened. All of them block out the light of day. All you can see from each is darkness, so you are forced to bring to the table a sense of imagination. Today I see a group of children playing in the rain with umbrellas and scarves too long they dangle awkwardly off their shoulders. Yesterday I saw a row of cows munching the grass all day long in the sun. A day before that I watched as fireworks lit up the sky in an explosion of colour. I create a story I want to see and watch it appear for me. There is no other way to feel normal.
The white dress he wants me to wear today comes down to my knees. The shoulders are lace and upon the chest are white flowers sewn in. It feels appropriate for someone ten years younger than I am, but not for me. The woman in my reflection has outgrown this style. I feel as though I have been transported back to a time where I still need my mother to brush my hair and my father to help me cross the road.
I hear screaming at one in the afternoon when I am trying to paint another red rose onto the ceiling. It is a sound I am familiar with, and I know it is the other girl. We have knocked to one another through the wall that separates us on many occasions. I don’t know her name, so in my head I’ve named her Rosalie. I have no idea what Rosalie looks like or where she came from. All I know is she is too young to be here.
The screaming stops an hour later when I have painted four more red roses. He leaves when the door slams down the corridor and tyres screech outside. I knock on the wall hard so that she hears me, and she knocks back but the sound is so faint it is almost impossible to hear. We cannot say a word to one another in case we are heard by him, so we talk through silent communication.
My meal arrives early at four-thirty when I am trying to imagine what flower Rosalie would be. I decide on a white orchid, painting the stem in which the flowers can grow out from and flourish. When I grow too tired and retreat to bed, he never comes. The screaming down the corridor restarts but stops abruptly after a few minutes. I knock on the wall an hour later. Rosalie never responds.
*
When I rise in the morning, I hear the sound of digging outside. He is fond of this – an avid gardener. I know because I’ve seen the outside of the building before I became an insider forever. The house is more castle-like than homely. It is stately, grey and intimidating, the flowers out front being the only sign of life and colour for miles. Hundreds of them neatly organised and planted. It had not all looked so grey when I first laid eyes on it, but now it only haunts me when I close my eyes and think of it again.
The digging stops around noon. I knock on Rosalie’s wall again. I risk knocking too loudly and having him hear me, but nothing comes my way in response. There is a sense of panic which swirls inside of me and threatens to work itself into a rage. I must paint another flower or this storm will never stop. The paint brush is in my hands before I can second guess myself again.
I paint a yellow rose in the small amount of space next to the row of red ones. It stands out like an odd thumb not supposed to be there, and yet the red roses invite it over willingly. They take its hand and allow it to join the crowd, unbothered about whether the gold of their petals clashes with its blood red. I paint the yellow rose for Rosalie because no one else can now.
A handwritten note comes with my meal telling me the exact time he’ll be in to see me. I acknowledge it but hide the paper away. The new dress is white again with buttons at the back that will be undone in the night. The dress is too beautiful to be worn, too innocent to be used in this way. It slips on easily and feels silky to the touch, but I gain no pleasure in seeing myself wear it. I might have been beautiful in it a while ago. Now I am fading.
He is coming at midnight so I continue with this in mind. I walk the ladder once more and decide to paint one last flower in the middle of the ceiling – a space I’ve left for a day where I felt it necessary. I have thought about which flower he is, which flower would make sense. There is only one. I begin to paint. The outside is a red wine, the inside: charcoal turning midnight black. The paint runs and I let it, since the flower itself is still clear enough to make out regardless. When I finish, my hands are soaked in red paint that looks like blood. I wipe my hands upon the dress and watch red piercing white, disrupting the innocent calm. It is as though the chains that left me prisoner all these years have finally fallen to the ground and I am set free. This is my revenge, my revenge on behalf of us all. The ladder is put back to rest by the wall when I step off it.
He sees me in the dress but not as he’d have liked to. I am flying, the chandelier above me allowing me to float in the air. But I have gone cold, and so will he. The black dahlia is painted in the centre of the ceiling for him to see. The red paint drips onto the floor and onto his shoe as he allows himself to stare up at me once again. I was a flower to him once. Now I hang dead in the garden.
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