She used to buy herself flowers a lot. “To cheer
herself up”, she would say. Lots of flowers, even when we had very
little money. Her need - to “cheer herself up”: my knowing that
they were paid for with money we did not have; funny money, scary
money, plastic money, money that becomes septic money; or if she was
being “good”, not being reckless, not using borrowed money, not
“just going for it”, then with money needed for basic stuff.
Later we would be short of stuff that mattered, essentials, stuff
that must be got, that had to be paid for come what may – a
spending vacuum into which, like a black hole, what little I had
would be remorselessly drawn. But, hell, she so needed the “cheering
up”. She'd spend on the flowers. Later I would reach into my pocket
for the dog's food.
Take a living thing, cut off its root, its
connection with earth, that which nurtures and sustains it, its means
of survival and the substance of its being. Put it in a jug and watch
it die.
She always bought flowers, no matter how poor we
were. I watched them die.
“Can't you see they are dead”, she would say,
“Why haven't you thrown them out? Do I have to do everything? Why
can't you look after things properly? It would not have taken much
effort to have noticed. You never notice. All these dead flowers
everywhere. Always left. You just don't care.”
