Bleeding rose design

Ada kept one bush against the granite, its blooms pale as bleached sailcloth and shaded grey at the folds, as if someone had drawn them in pencil and couldn't decide where the light was leaving. The fishermen reckoned it never lied about the weather. When the wind backed south-west, the outer petals went dark at the edges first.

The winter the Marigold went out and didn't come back, Ada stood at that wall every morning with her tea going cold. One February she found the outer petals run through with red, as though the rose had been cut somewhere out of sight. The red kept coming, dripping from the flower onto the stones below.

Here's the bit the tourists like. The Marigold came in on the spring tide, her skipper climbing the slipway with his cap in his fists, saying the radio had died in the storm and he'd sheltered in the lee of the Mull. Ada said nothing. She pinched the red-stained petals off one by one and dropped them in the harbour, and the water carried them out without a ripple.

The rose was white again by Whitsun. Ada never explained the red and my nan never asked. But every February since, the drips come down the wall, and somebody in Porthluan lights a candle for the boats still out there.