“Oh, yes,” Goldie says unconvincingly. “I do remember. What is your third wish, grandma?”
“I wish to be reunited with George,” she says simply.
“Oh, grandma,” Goldie says, taking her left hand off the steering wheel briefly to place it on her grandmother’s thigh.
“I want you to promise me something.”
“Yes, I remember—about spreading your ashes at Bracklesham Bay so that you can be with grandpa.”
“Yes, that as well,” says Pansy, as lucid as she has not been for a long time. “But another promise. Promise me that you will not grieve for me. I’ve had a very happy life. How many people can say that they’ve had the greatest romance ever? Now, all I want is to be with my best friend, lover and husband. It’s an occasion to rejoice, not grieve.”
“I will be sad but I do understand, grandma…”
And then a few minutes later, it’s as if the conversation had never taken place at all. Pansy seems to shrink back into the seat once she has delivered her important message, a veil of blankness dropping over her face. Goldie finds it hugely disconcerting. It’s as if she had imagined the whole thing. And yet, when she takes her grandmother into the Flower Dome, something sparks her back into life.
“Oh, I love this place,” Pansy claps her hands when they walk into the cool air-conditioning. “Thank you so much for bringing me here. You’re such a loving person. I feel it in my bones that you will soon meet someone who will be the love of your life.”
“That will be nice,” Goldie blushes.
“Oh look, fuchsias! Do you know what we call these flowers colloquially? Dancing Ladies. Look, can you see the ballerina’s tutu in the shape of the petals? Her legs? Her arms?”
“Oh, now that you’ve pointed them out… why, yes.”
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
“What did you say?” Pansy asks Goldie.
“I didn’t say anything, grandma. What’s the matter?”
“You’re sure you didn’t say anything? I swear I heard a voice reciting Wordsworth’s poem… in my ears… This one, on this page…” Pansy opens her Wordsworth book.
“There’s no one here but us, grandma…”
Pansy looks around her. Then her face brightens as she sees the flowers.
“Oh, look! Daffodils!” she suddenly says. “It must be spring now! I love spring. Yes, I can feel it in the air. Shall we go and sit by the lake? I will read you my Wordsworth’s…”
“The lake is outdoors, grandma. I can take you there later if you wish. But it will be warm now. How about we look round the Flower Dome first and then when it is cooler out there, I can walk you by the lake.”
“Daffodils,” Pansy says excitedly, as if not hearing what Goldie has said. “Your grandpa and I used to compete to see who can spot the first daffodil…”
“How can they have daffodils, here in Singapore?” Goldie says, disbelieving.
Of course Goldie has never seen them in the Dome before.
“Silly girl,” Pansy says, smacking Goldie’s arm gently. “Of course they can’t grow daffodils in Singapore. But they grow wild here in England…”
“Grandma, we’re not in…” But Goldie stops, alarmed.
She wonders if she should call her father straightaway. The cool air in the Flower Dome and the abundance of spring flowers must have made her grandmother think she was in England.
True enough, there they are. Daffodils. There are daffodils and their small cousin, the narcissi, planted in pots, on banks and in the flower beds, scattered under the arched, giant glass sky. And once again Pansy slips dangerously back to another time and another place. She looks out through the glass dome and she sees a lake. Her mind wants her to see the daffodils planted on the banks of the lake. A bed of daffodils is planted on raised ground in front of the glass walls of the conservatory and this colludes with her delusion that they are planted on the banks of the lake. Pansy no longer sees the glass walls, only the lake and the daffodils. And she sees herself back in Bracklesham Bay, George and herself going for their regular spring walk to catch their first sight of the daffodils of the season.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
This time she recognises George’s voice reciting the line of the poem…
“Oh George…”
“Grandma,” Goldie says with urgency, to help her grandmother snap out of the strange mood that she seems to be slipping into. She hears her grandmother calling out her grandfather’s name so she guesses that grandma thinks she can see George.
Goldie felt, rather than knew, that a dramatic change has come over her grandmother. It’s as if Pansy has been sprinkled with some fairy dust as she straightens from her usually bent posture. Her face glows with immeasurable joy. Goldie sees her grandmother staring through the glass wall of the conservatory as if she is seeing something on the other side which shows a view of the river. The daffodils in the foreground superimposed against the glass walls give the appearance that they are growing beside the water, next to the trees. Her grandmother calls out her husband’s name, her face wreathed in
