BLOSSOMING OBSESSIONS

BLOSSOMING OBSESSIONS © Mollie Kay Smith

At the very moment she passed through the entrance doors an overwhelming sense of foreboding stopped Blossom dead in her tracks. Already she knew the path she had chosen was fraught with danger. Even thinking about it had been foolish. Now, on the point of turning thoughts into action and with her heart beating erratically against her ribs, she was forced to admit her actions were foolhardy.
This year she was alone having refused to accompany her friends as she normally had in the past: and only too aware of the risk she was taking. Yet still she followed the crowd into the seemingly innocuous horticultural show. Innocuous for most, but for her…
Only her eyes revealed the thoughts frantically jostling each other through her mind like commuters on an overcrowded train. Fellow gardening aficionados might have thought she resembled a Japanese statue with her lips settled into their habitual serene smile for over recent months she had schooled herself never to allow the turbulent emotions tearing through her to show.
Foremost amongst these was anger, a fury so intense that even now it caused her head to throb and spots to blur her eyes. But worse was that behind the anger had developed the need to point an accusing finger. Her father, she had told herself over and over again, was the real culprit. Wasn’t it he who had brought her to the chaos which was now her life?
Momentarily the crowd halted and she stopped too, head raised like a pointer dog, testing the atmosphere and savouring that veritable pot-pourri of any horticultural show.
The sweetness of roses and flowering shrubs, the aromatic bitterness of crushed herbs, the waft of peaty compost - all mingling with the aroma of coffee emanating from the cafeteria.
As if overwhelmed by these over-abundant scents she stumbled like someone who has drunk too many glasses of wine; someone who is neither drunk nor totally sober, someone apparently intoxicated by the heady perfume emanating from troughs of exquisite white hyacinths lining the passageway into the exhibition hall proper.
Of course it was none of these which caused her ankle to turn. Momentarily she had forgotten where she was and had allowed her mind to carry her back to the days when it all started over half a century ago.
Like someone sleepwalking, she wandered on ignorant of the amused smiles her image and behaviour provoked on those she passed. Her thoughts skimmed over the years, from her childhood to the present day, forever castigating her father for what he had done. Soon the thoughts became murmurings and mutterings which added to her bizarre overall image.
Her hand slipped as if of its own volition from within the wide-sleeve of her kimono-style dress and with a finesse a heart surgeon might envy her fingers insinuated themselves beneath the broad obi belt sculpting her waist. Unseen they smoothed the two envelopes concealed there.
‘He shouldn’t have called me Blossom. Such a rubbish name.’ she told herself again and again as she recalled how he had spoiled her throughout her childhood, lavishing her with gifts and praise, seemingly trying by means of word and deed to compensate for her fragility and tiny frame. Yet though she never acknowledged it, deep down she knew she was lucky to have survived at all and hated herself for her ingratitude. For hadn’t her premature birth caused her mother's death?
'Good things come in small packets he told me.’ she murmured. ‘Remember you are a perfect human being in miniature.'
Here Blossom’s expression lost its serenity momentarily as she recalled that every time he had said this he had attempted to prove his point by giving her gifts which were exquisite reflections of what he said she was.
She remembered miniature dolls, tiny glass animals, finger-sized kitchen sets, inches-high doll's houses. And then, joy of joys a tiny translucent Japanese tea set decorated with delicate plum blossoms and a petite kimono clad Japanese woman.
This painted image had proved so influential that over the years she had deliberately set out to cultivate an appearance which resembled it. With her sallow complexion and eye-brows plucked and drawn in slantwise it was easier than she imagined. She adopted every ruse she could think of. She began to dress in a quasi-Japanese Geisha fashion, and wore her long black hair mounded on top of her head and held in place with long pins.
Whilst doing this she created an environment around herself that was as Japanese as she could make it. When her father died leaving her enough money to open her own flower shop she specialised in ikebana arrangements as a matter of course.
Now, having reached the main hall of the show, even though her thoughts were miles away, she continued on her way with the aplomb of someone who has been here dozens of times before. She homed in on the source of her obsession with the surety of a migratory bird returning to its annual nesting place.
Straight backed and with head raised her tiny retroussé nose led her past magnificent trumpet lilies and orchids, past dahlias and out of season chrysanthemums; delights which would have tempted a less dedicated visitor to halt in wonder
Anyone observing her closely would have known the exact moment when she laid eyes on her destination for her previously tranquil expression became transformed into one of overt lustfulness. Her voice when she spoke out loud was that of a pilgrim who has reached her most holy place.
'There they are. Bonsai. Oh, there’s nothing to beat them.'
The eyes of the elderly Japanese man whose stand she had arrived at lit up as she approached for here was somebody he recognised as an old acquaintance. ‘Good morning,’ he said, ’I’m so glad you came. Today the gods are watching over you. Look!’
'O-o-h.' Blossom breathed a long drawn-out admiring sigh. 'You still have it.'
'Yes indeed.' His smile and the twinkle in his eyes seemed intended to convey that his next words would make her the happiest woman on earth. 'And this year it's for sale.'
Her response surprised him; his expression turned into one of concern as her right hand reached out and clutched at the green baize covering his stand. ‘Oh, no. It can’t be. It’s too late. I…’
Her round face now resembled that of a geisha in full white makeup for it was drained of all colour. Then a wan smile flitted across her face as with an evident struggle she managed to overcome whatever ailed her. Nevertheless the old man looked worried when the spread fingers of her left hand clutched tightly against the Obi belt as if she were in pain. Her words slid almost soundlessly from between clenched teeth, so quiet they almost failed to reach him.
'I can't believe it! After all these years.'
'But it's true.' The old man shrugged his shoulders in the universal gesture of resignation, hands outstretched and palms uppermost. 'One has to live. Much as I love it I'd rather let it go than any of my trees.'
‘I can understand that.' Under control once again Blossom spoke softly. 'My own trees are like babies to me. They are the only things I have since my father died. I could never sell them either.'
The old man's fingers caressed the object of Blossom's admiration. They slid over the translucent jade green glaze as if over a silken nightdress, picking out the outline of the pot's discreet pattern with his fingertips before fondling each elegant foot in the manner of a lover with his beloved.
To the uninitiated this was merely a pot for a plant, a container for a bonsai tree. For Blossom it was what stood between her and the achievement of a long held ambition.
The old man’s expression, when she spoke again, demonstrated his confusion. Blossom’s right hand thumped out a tattoo on his table as if to underline her words. ‘It’s entirely his fault. It was him who started it. Now it’s too late. He’s gone and now the Wakebury Crab will never be the best in the world. Too late, too late.’
She drifted away from the stand, muttering wildly to herself as she reviewed the latter years of her life.
In 1962, still pandering to her obsession regarding all things Japanese, she bought an ancient scroll. It was to complement an antique screen depicting golden cranes and jade coloured bamboo which she had acquired at another auction along with her low tables and the futon she preferred to a traditional western bed.
Had her scroll been the original painted by Takakane Takashine in the fourteenth century, the first authentic record of a bonsai, she could never have afforded it. As it was the admirable copy was just within her reach and it inspired her to buy her own first tree.
In this gentle manner her erstwhile harmless obsession corkscrewed into dangerous realms and an innocent mountain maple provided the seed for her downfall.
Within eight years she owned more than a dozen trees and was now a member of the Wakebury Bonsai Society. After another five years her collection was extremely creditable and she became known locally as 'the expert'. A founder member of the British Bonsai Society in 1973 she was voted President of the Wakebury Society two years later.
Her life now seemed perfect for her fame as a bonsai grower spread nation-wide. She exhibited trees throughout the United Kingdom, gained endless trophies and wrote booklets of guidance for initiates.
Everyone acknowledged the best tree in her collection was the Wakebury Crab. This tree sent her obsession soaring into orbit for she came to believe The Crab would be the best in the western world if only it were set in the Chinese Kowatari pot the old man had always refused to sell. Until now.
'How much?' she asked, returning again to his stand, already knowing that whatever he said she could not afford it. The envelopes secreted under her Obi belt were proof of that. One carried the logo of her bank and its contents informed her she could not add even a ten pence piece to her already enormous overdraft. Her obsession must end.
Since her obsession had taken over her life she had forgotten to work and the flower shop fell deeper and deeper into debt. Things had grown so bad she had resigned her presidency at the last Wakebury Society meeting, fearing the inevitable public disgrace.
'A very fair price,' she responded, never flinching at the amount the old man mentioned. 'For a genuine Kowatari pot it's absolutely reasonable. But it's too late. I can't afford it now.'
She turned her back on him, on the pot, on her ambition, on the final prize she had striven so hard towards for all those years. She stumbled away like a lost soul doomed to wander in the wilderness for ever.
Eventually, though, her unbidden footsteps led her back to the old man's stand for she could not resist taking one last look at the pot.
Horror at what she found drew her closer, helpless as an iron filing against a powerful magnet, or an opium addict to his favourite den. She undulated though the crowd until she stood supported at her waist by the edge of the old man's table. The Kowatari pot now carried a red Sold label. To Blossom this disfigurement broke every rule governing the displaying of bonsai. And worse…
‘No! No! I’ll not accept it. Nobody’s having it if I can’t.’ Visitors, drawn by her cry, looked and then turned away, no doubt embarrassed by her strange behaviour. The old man talked to another devotee at the other end of his stand and had his back to Blossom.
'Nobody, ' Blossom’s whispers now sounded almost like a toy automaton, 'nobody, nobody.' Her voice emerged as the mere rustling of leaves, the sounds linking together into a mantra.
With each repeated word her tiny hand slid further across the green baize until finally its fingernails hooked beneath the ivory stand on which the pot stood. Her breath emerged in short measured gasps as centimetre by centimetre she drew the stand towards her.
Her shriek when the pot finally reached the edge of the table rent apart the convivial atmosphere in the exhibition hall.
'Nobody. Nobody. Nobody.'
For several seconds all was silent and then the old man too started to shriek.
The mesmerised crowd watched as slowly, very slowly, as in a film played in slow motion, Blossom's knees folded and she slid to the floor where she lay like a crumpled flower amongst the million jade green fragments which had so recently been a Kowatari pot.
Is it possible that a heart can shatter into as many pieces as rare porcelain? Possibly, for Blossom's had stopped beating at the very moment the pot ceased to exist. Her fall had loosened the obi belt and the letters previously secreted there were now exposed and lay alongside her amidst the shards of porcelain.
The one carrying the logo of her bank had fallen by her right hand; the second carrying the logo of a nearby hospital lay beside her left. Its contents had warned Blossom that unless she accepted the surgery recommended by her specialist her heart could fail at any stressful moment.
If only she could have read the card intended for inclusion in the package when the pot was boxed perhaps her stress might have been lessened.
To Blossom, with grateful thanks from the members of the Wakebury Bonsai society on her retirement as President after all these years.

THE END