Red and teal roses on a limb

The roses on Dad's wagon finally came good, though not the way he planned. He sketched them in purple chalk first, three heads on the panel, and then it rained on the lot for two days so the lines ran into the wash. Mum said leave them, and so we did. By Saturday the old showman was calling them the ghost roses, and the children kept asking if they were real.

Then the red one went in, deep as claret, and the pink one beside it with the white left bare where the light hits the petals. Dad worked the facets with a flat brush, angles like folded paper, nothing soft about them. The teal one he did last, tucked under the other two, and he said it had to look like it had been cut from glass. I held the lamp. He grumbled at the dark smudge behind them that kept spreading, then laughed and said it was only the night coming in off the fields.

Tom, the fair leaves Ashford on Tuesday. The panel stays with us though. He won't sell it, not even to the man from Margate who offered the price of a van. Come and see it before the paint cracks. Bring your own brushes. I have started the green leaves between the flowers and I want your hand on one of them before the frost.

Love, Ruth