The Corpse Flower's Bloom

Content notice: this story contains allusions to dementia.

Clare watched Rupert looking down at the snake plants, an expression tender as the Virgin. He wouldn't know they were hardy little blighters. The only thing he regularly nurtured was his investment portfolio. The plants lined the entrance walkway, emerald leaves edged in chartreuse, a row of cobras en garde. He regarded them with hand on heart.

‘Of course, we’d have to put in a reinforced walkway, and some kind of barrier, maybe a Security Guard.’

He motioned down the glasshouse pathway, which bubbled in a left-hand slant, a number eight melting in a Dali sun.

April. It was only this month that made her uncharitable, and she must resist it. Rupert was caring in his own way: an income projection graph with a y axis increasing to infinity. Monetising his father’s sacred space for love.

He wasn’t wrong about the barriers though. The other plants, which Clare had so meticulously cultivated, were poorly placed to withstand the exuberance of a wayward child, an over-curious tourist. Not that the glasshouse had ever, in the last century and a half, been used to any visitors other than the de Montforts and their Botanical Horticulturists.

Julian de Montfort winced like someone had offered him a glass of house wine.

‘That’s three upfront costs before the gates have even opened. I thought the point was to generate some income?’

‘These are notions, father,’ said Rupert. ‘If it proves too immoderate for you, we need not cross the Rubicon. You might use the existing CCTV, instead of hiring security. Feasibility is the question. I only wish to help.’

‘Your advice remains a tonic to me,’ Julian said, winking at Clare. ‘And so. The wretched hordes enter. They see anthuriums, alocasia, calla lilies: instantaneous joy.’

‘So it goes,’ said Clare, not meeting Julian’s eye. She motioned to the lower half of the figure eight, a central island in the middle of which sat a tall, thin flower with thin fiery, spiky petals, surrounded by more obedient, sturdy little flowers, thumb-pressed windmills of pink and orange. ‘The bird of paradise is unmistakable,’ Clare added. ‘And the plumeria.’

They passed under an archway, bedecked with Spanish moss. Nothing Spanish about it, nor is it a moss. It wound playfully over the lattice, silver and wispy and lacy. Climbing over everything, including her capricious vanilla orchids. She’d told it so many times: leave the orchids alone. It never did.

‘The orchids have a penchant for dying dramatically,’ Julian told his son. ‘Clare’s a natural healer - brings them back from the brink every time.’

He'd always known, in their many years of knowing each other, which words could be an embrace, an outstretched hand, a gentle nudge.

Rupert glanced politely at the archway. ‘Beautiful,’ he said, his eyes darting around as he said it, plainly still seeking the flowers in question. Far be it from Clare to point out where they actually were.

‘So far, so good,’ said Rupert.

Julian’s voice was sing-song. ‘But they haven’t yet met my malodorous mistress!’

‘Here’s the bench,’ Clare said, not listening, and trailing into the upper half of the figure eight. ‘They could sit here.’ She waved vaguely at a bench. ‘In front of the pond, under the banana tree. They’ll notice the heliconia, old red talons,’ she pointed to a plant whose flowers hung down like a magazine of claws, ‘and the ferns.’

‘They certainly shan’t if my rafflesia’s put on a show,’ said Julian, with the air of a child who’d just tied someone’s shoelaces together.

Clare looked at him askance. ‘Well, quite.’

They turned to face the corner: the furthest and darkest of the glasshouse. In it stood a rubber plant tree, covered in a leathery deep-green vine which ran from its trunk to the floor, where it was held down and in part obscured by a protuberance, big as a pumpkin but faded red, tumescent, and shrouded in black leaves: a growth which was clearly a guest, on the vine.

‘The corpse flower,’ Clare said.

‘My rafflesia. Absolutely thriving.’ said Julian.

‘Smells like putrid flesh when it blooms,’ said Clare, keeping her voice light, but letting her words drift towards Rupert like dandelion seeds in the wind, wondering if any would stick.

‘And it will bloom…?’ he asked.

Clare shrugged. ‘Could be tomorrow. Could be three months. You can’t plan for it; It’s up to the rafflesia.’

She neglected to mention the rarity of the occasion: a few days, every three to five years.

Julian addressed the engorged blob as if proposing a swap from first class to middle seat. ‘Rafflesia my dear, how do you feel about being gawped at?’

Rupert couldn’t stop himself rolling his eyes. ‘Well, father, if you want to continue sending cheques the size of this glasshouse to Children International, a little bit of gawping might be necessary.’ His hand settled on the old man’s shoulder. ‘I think that covers it for the tour. Shall we discuss over a dram?’

‘Indeed,’ said Julian, but he didn’t move. He turned to face Clare.

‘Just before I go - I know it’s a tough time of year for you,’ he said quietly. She frowned, waved a dismissive hand.

‘And I also know it would be your first, but you might think about a day off,’ he said kindly. ‘My monstera deliciosa only needs so much shadow.’

They held each other’s gaze for a moment, a brief, unspoken exchange passing between them, before he turned, and began the long, slow walk back towards the de Montfort’s main residence, with Rupert keeping patiently to his shuffle. Clare watched them grow smaller, move out of earshot.

‘Well,’ she addressed the rafflesia. ‘How do you feel about it?’

Nothing, at first. Then something like a shift. A movement so small it could have been in the air, or not. A flick of leaf from the Tetrastigma vine that cradled her. Gave her life.

Around the glasshouse, a sound emerged -

It began like the rustling of leaves -

A sigh -

Susurration - growing and growing, as specks of sunlight flitter in and out of her vision, impressionistic, filling her eyes, corner to corner with dots of emerald, sage, mint, lime, olive, moss, and glorious jade -

Until the whole glasshouse was full of chatter.

Clare looked around, the tiny quiver of each leaf instilling the deep peace of normality back into her, breath by breath.

And then a small voice from near the floor, asked:

‘The visitors. Will they hurt me?’

‘Oh, Raff,’ she said, and was about to follow it with of course not. But something stopped her. She saw it - children veering off-path, no security to stop them, one stray foot crushing the Tetrastigma, the rafflesia bud torn from its single artery.

‘It’s early days. But I’ll do everything I can.’

A soft draft brushed Clare’s cheek. She turned to see monstera deliciosa reaching from its trellis, unfurling one vast, split leaf - green and gleaming and nearly the size of her face.

‘What Julian said, about the shadows. He doesn’t speak for me,’ it said. ‘I don’t want you to be sad, but don’t go away because of me.’

Clare reached up and gently brushed its edge. ‘He’s full of nonsense,’ she said. ‘You know I couldn’t leave you. Not while the sensitive plants are looking so thirsty.’ She eyed a distant patch of thin-fronded plants, who earned their name from delicate leaves which retreated from touch.

Time to get back to the business of nurturing. She went to fetch her watering can, her mister, her tool belt. As she went, she let her hand drift along the leaves and stems, as though checking the pulse of the place.

Then a voice: bright, abrupt, loud.

‘Have you called your sister?’ called the Spanish moss, and as it curled down before her, Clare cursed her previous overshares - Moss had a talent for extortion.

She stopped. Looked up.

‘You’ve got to stop asking me that.’

‘Still a no, then?’ said Moss, curling a familiar tendril around her neck. ‘Don’t you think your mum would want you to? Especially with the anniversary and all.’

Clare remained very still. The glasshouse fell into a hush. As ever, Moss had been the boldest - or the most foolish.

‘She would have wanted me to,’ she corrected Moss. ‘Not would want.’

***

Days passed, without movement. Petals stretched out to meet the spring sunlight, and closed in the dusk, with no news about the future of the glasshouse. Julian continued his daily ritual, his shuffling admirations, apparently content that for now, this ecosystem existed for his eyes only.

The plants, too, had quietened. Their fretting gave way to their usual habits - exchanging gossip via each branch, stem and root, and needling Clare for stories from the years before she belonged to them.

‘Did your mum teach you that song, the one you hum when you’re sad?’

‘Tell us about Children International! Did you really see a banana tree in the wild?’

‘When you cry - is it for something that’s there, or not there?’

It was a few days later, on a day which should have been just like any other, but wasn’t, she arrived at the glasshouse in the morning - and felt it immediately.

The air was a maelstrom of howls and wails. A confusion of perfumes filled the air: she felt like she might choke.

‘Oh, Clare,’ called Moss, stretching out from her archway - her stem suddenly looking thin, isolated, agonised. ‘It’s Raff. Come. Come now.’

She ran. Past the bird of paradise who flinched as she passed, under the tense hush of the vanilla orchids, past the pond that didn’t dare ripple. To the dark back corner - and there, there was Raff.

Raff lay on her side. She was detached from the Tetrastigma, the only thing that had ever kept her alive.

Necrosis was already beginning to form at her petal edges. Petals forever curled in on themselves.

Raff was dead. More than that: Raff had been killed.

Clare started scanning the room, silently inviting the glasshouse to tell the story: offer her some kind of answer. She looked searchingly at Monstera, who had a clear view of the area.

‘Mon, what happened here?’

The plant was shaking. ‘I was asleep,’ she said. ‘I - I didn’t see what happened. I wasn’t there for her. Please don’t be angry with me.’

‘I’m not, Mon,’ Clare said, taken aback.

‘You cared for her so much. I was right here. I could have seen.’

‘But you didn’t,’ she said, and as she said it, she felt secateurs being taken to something thorny, overgrown, within her. ‘You just didn’t. And that’s okay.’

***

Julian had been a major donor for Children International for many years. He’d had a particular interest in vaccination programmes: Clare’s speciality. He believed in her programmes and he believed in her, to the tune of millions. She was his guide across continents, showing him first-hand the difference he made.

They’d asked her to break the news of her career change to him gently, as though he might take his money with her. She knew he never would.

‘Grief - it’s not the time to make big decisions,’ he’d said. ‘Why don’t you take a few months out. Longer.’

She was adamant. She was leaving and retraining: horticulture.

‘I’ve got a glasshouse, you know,’ he said. ‘So if you must leave - once you’re trained, give me a ring.’

And it turned out his word was good.

Now the days passed in a softer, more cultivated, less wild place than the world outside, with an ecological chorus of companions. As she got to know each of them, she let the world fall increasingly far away.

She had friends.

The bird of paradise, loud-mouthed and brilliant, a natural show-off, always the last word.

The sensitive plants, feeling everything, everything, ten times more deeply than Clare had allowed herself to feel anything.

Heliconia, sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, never letting her forget - the watering, the pruning, the feeding.

The tropical ferns, generous with their silences, offering spaces filled with ancient wisdom.

The vanilla orchids: delicate, tenuous, but confident in their fragility.

Monstera deliciosa, so steady. Always noticing the things Clare thought she’d hidden.

Tetrastigma, heartbeat-constant. Rafflesia, who needed love and loved like a child.

The Spanish moss, ever-curious, ever-insistent, making uncomfortable thoughts feel soft - something she could bear to carry.

And the snake plants - she could even tolerate them most of the time.

But now, here was Rupert, tapping at the glass, which contained her own paradise.

***

Clare knelt down amongst Tetra, before Raff. She began to sing the lullaby which she remembered from her own childhood. The bromeliads, the orchids, the ferns, all joined her, their close harmonies breathily rushing past one another.

She remembered Raff’s small voice as she’d asked the question yesterday: will they hurt me? Her heart sank as she thought that somehow, god knows how or why, she had failed to protect her. She had failed. Again.

She hadn’t been watching - but something had.

She looked up at the security cameras, one of which was trained precisely on the shady far corner. She reached for her phone, which held the CCTV app.

But instead of opening the app, she paused. The tune swooped, nosedived, arced, rushed like wind amongst the leaves.

Went to her contacts. Scrolled to C.

Call: Caroline.

As she expected, it went to voicemail.

‘Hello,’ she said, as the lilies, the papaya tree, and even the bird of paradise picked up the lullaby. ‘I know you won’t be expecting this, and I’m sorry to spring this on you, but … I’m sorry. Mum was unbelievably lucky to have you, and I should have been there with you. With her. I’m still finding a way to live with myself, and I’m sorry.’

Moss curled a tendril around Clare’s shoulders. ‘Well done.’

Clare gestured to Raff. ‘Did you see anything?’ she asked Moss, softly.

‘Not me,’ replied Moss.

‘And any of you?’ she called to the glasshouse. ‘Did any of you see anyone? Rupert maybe?’

There was no reply, only the gentle sound of singing.

‘You’re looking for blame,’ said the bird of paradise.

Clare ran through yesterday in her memory. Had she done something wrong? Damaged Tetra maybe, dislodged Raff? The wrong nutrients, a missed disease? It could so easily happen.

‘I think I’ve made a mistake,’ she said. ‘I’ve missed something. I’m sorry Mon, and I’m sorry everyone. I think it was my fault.’

‘No Clare,’ said Tetra. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘You don’t know that,’ insisted Clare.

‘I do,’ said Tetra, gentle, but firm.

The lullaby swelled, leaves and stems brushing rhythmically against glass walls, giving momentum to the lilting melody.

‘I know it’s not,’ said Tetra, whose voice, usually soft, had more of the leathery quality of her leaves. ‘Because it was me.’

Clare stared at Tetra. She became conscious of the vines, thicker and more prolific than she had ever noticed. They crept towards her.

‘What do you mean, you did it?’ she asked, stepping backwards.

‘Raff was a parasite. I fed her, and then I stopped. Don’t look on me harshly, Clare. It’s nature. I rejected what was taking life from me, and you should, too,’ she said. Clare began to feel the vines wrap around her ankles. She tried to struggle but Tetra only wrapped tighter.

The singing voices wavered, as shock and grief moved through the melody - but the song did not stop.

‘Listen to us, Clare.’

The vines coiled higher - legs, arms, chest - but they didn’t suffocate. They kept her in place; would not let her flee.

‘You don’t think you have it in you to care.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Clare. ‘I’ve always been able to care about someone. Myself.’ A tear fell from her eye and Moss brushed it away.

‘You nurture us every day,’ said Tetra. ‘But death thrives on your guilt. As Raff relied on me, guilt relies on you. And you need to give it up.’

‘But it’s my mum,’ said Clare, trying as hard as she could to fold in on herself, but Tetra held her strong. ‘I can’t give up my mum.’

‘You feel like you gave up on her in life.’

Clare closed her eyes, looking at something from another place, another time.

‘When she stopped knowing who I was, I hardly even went to visit,’ she whispered. ‘I was so wrapped up in Children International.’

‘Forgiveness is hard work,’ the vanilla orchid chimed in. ‘But look how you’ve helped me, again and again. You’re persistent. I know you can do it.’

The calatheas stirred, a ripple running through their leaves, like a gentle applause. ‘You can,’ they said quietly, weaving it into the song. ‘You've already started.’

The tropical ferns leaned in too. ‘We wouldn’t lie to you,’ they said. ‘It will take many seasons. You’ll have to tend to yourself with the care that you have tended on us. But you are brave.’

Moss, insistent as ever, spoke at her ear. ‘You can face it.’

Monstera deliciosa moved closer, her great green and gentle leaves open. ‘You don’t have to do it alone,’ she said.

Clare began to shake but Tetra did not let go. Clare squeezed her; she squeezed back.

Night jasmine, dracaena, dieffenbachia - all joined in the chorus.

The sensitive plants trembled, feeling it all, but this time they did not recoil.

The cheers of the bromeliads popped and zinged: in bright red, yellow, pink and orange, they shouted, ‘You can!’

Even the snake plants, raucous and rousing, joined in the song, lifting it from a lullaby into a rise-and-shine call: wake up, wake up, wake up.

And somewhere in Clare’s heart, a little bud began to unfurl, a forgotten feeling returned to her, and she felt the beginnings of sunshine, new life, and after a three year winter:

Spring.