Trim the Cauliflower

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Rhys Ramsay

__________

My father’s English is broken, which suits him just fine. He’s never been one for conversation, which can be nice, for a while—he listens, and not just to reply like some do. 

Between us, we speak only in our mother tongue. Like a secret pact. Us against the world. At least, that’s how I saw it. Still, I could probably count on one hand the conversations we’ve had in this lifetime that weren’t about his work, or dinner. I knew that back home he was a petroleum engineer, but that was about the extent of what I knew of his old life. 

When I was a child, I used to ask what it was he did for work. He’d only shrug and say, “Trim the cauliflower.” 

His answer to everything.

I remember every morning, he’d sneak past my door and drink his coffee in the dark. No newspaper, no radio. Just himself, and the quiet rise of steam from his mug. Then he’d leave for the day as I got dressed. 

At school, I’d watch other girls my age mirror their mothers: perfecting plaits in their hair, applying lip gloss in their little handheld mirrors, wearing their femininity like a second skin. Meanwhile, I wore baggy, thrifted jeans, my hair scraggly, and felt more beast than girl.

I would listen to the conversations, the secret pacts between mothers and daughters—a language I understood, but couldn’t speak. 

I’d go back home and watch my father silently shovel bits of pork steak into his mouth and wonder why we had no photos of my mother in the house. 

No stories or anything really to explain her absence. 

I never really questioned it. Who does at that age? 

I did have one memory. I’m not sure if it was real, or imagined. When I closed my eyes to sleep, I would see her above me, smiling, leaning in to kiss me on the forehead goodnight. 

Despite that absence, or maybe, because of it, I always stayed close to my father. I spent my evenings after school at the grocer’s where he worked, waiting for him to finish. 

He worked mostly in the basement, standing at a big wooden table, a small blade in his hand, a bucket lined with a red plastic bag on the floor. Boxes of cauliflowers lined the wall. 

The wall must have been pristine white once, but from what I remember it was always stained, and peeling.

With his blade he would slice away blackened leaves. The leaves would land in the bucket with a soft thud. 

From his sleeve there protruded a long, blistered scar. I traced it with my eye, not quite sure what it was then. His gaze met mine, and he smiled. 

I reached my fingers toward the scar, he clasped my hand firmly in his and shook his head. I went to the corner and sat with my school books instead, thinking to myself how strange it was that we cut away imperfections, yet leave our own untouched.

*

By the time I turned eighteen I wasn’t really a part of my father’s world anymore. I’d hole up in my room reading books—Carver was a big one for me. I read his collection, Cathedral, cover-to-cover until the glue started to peel from the spine.

My father, in his affected English, called me girl-who-reads-too-much. But he smiled the whole day long when my acceptance letter came from UCL. 

The day I was due to leave for university, I woke early and made coffee for us both in the cezve. I burnt my finger on the hot metal and winced, but I swallowed the sting, and flattened my face out as I turned and poured the coffee into my father’s cup. 

He gulped it down before it had time to cool, then took off, leaving me in the stillness of the flat. 

As I sipped my coffee, the walls seemed to whisper, spilling all the memories of the nights spent eating together in silence. 

The lightness I had felt at the thought of leaving when I woke that morning, turned heavy. Eager to break free from that feeling, I quickly finished my coffee and headed to my father’s room. I took a suitcase from his wardrobe and brought it into my own room. I brushed away the dust and threw it onto the bed, tossing it open.

I surveyed my room, and all the objects in it: The dog-eared old novels that once kept me company, but now mostly collected dust; the stuffed animals that were once treated like members of the family, but now sat sun-bleached and forgotten by the window. 

All these things that had defined me, but never fulfilled. 

Still, my heart was heavy at the thought of leaving them behind. I gave myself a shake and started sifting through clothes, deciding what to take and what to leave behind.

I placed a pile of shirts neatly in the suitcase, realising, with a pang, how out of place and dowdy I’d look in London. As I placed the shirts inside, my hand pressed against something hard yet soft, at the back of the suitcase. I noticed the outline of a square shape beneath the fabric. Then, I saw there was a zip. A hidden compartment. 

I unzipped it and reached inside—its surface rough and bumpy against my fingers. I pulled it out: a battered, old leather-bound book. As I looked at the cover, the memory rushed back to me—I must have been maybe six, or seven. I remembered the look on my father’s face when he caught me with it—like his heart had stopped, and blood just rushed out of him. Then the next day it was gone, without explanation. And now here it was again, as though I was meant to come across it, on that day of all days.

I sat on the bed and peeled the pages apart with a crack. Inside there were sepia-toned photographs with frayed edges and creases down the middle. There were photos of women in headscarves who had my eyes, my nose, my smile. 

I had thought about this scrapbook so many times over the years. Sometimes wondering if it had just been a figment of my imagination. But no, here it was. 

I remember thinking that, if I found the book again, I would be able to see a glimpse of my homeland in it. Or a glimpse of my mother. And, that I would be able to understand something about myself. Where I’d come from. Who I was.

I flipped through the pages of the book, grinding my teeth. My whole body was held tight, in a state of shock. My breath quickened, my heart pounded. 

It was just inconceivable that my father would keep this hidden from me for so long. A feeling of betrayal surged in my blood, lurking just beneath the surface, a flicker of anger. 

I mean, how dare he? What right did he have?

As I was wrestling with these thoughts, something slipped out from between the pages and landed on the floor with a faint tap. I reached down and grabbed it. Turning it over, I saw that smile—the one I used to see when I closed my eyes—staring back at me. 

It was a Polaroid of my mother.

She was wearing a graduation gown, looking so young, and happy. 

The anger that was simmering in me turned into something colder. A deep ache that hollowed out my chest. Grief, and sadness twinged with resentment washed over me at the idea that this book had been right under my nose all this time. 

There were so many questions unanswered, all these things that had gone unsaid for so many years.

I flopped backwards onto the bed, the Polaroid still clutched in my hand, staring at the smile of a woman who I didn’t really know, but who I felt this immense longing to discover. 

Slowly, I slid the photo into my pocket, my hand trembling. I lay there for a while looking at the ceiling, not really seeing anything. 

After a while, my breathing slowed and a sense of stillness settled over me. I decided to pay my father a visit at the grocer’s to hear what he had to say for himself.

*

I wheeled the suitcase up to the curb and paused to look up at the shop’s tired facade. Inside, it remained largely how I remembered it as a child. 

In the basement, the white wall still peeled, the air still carried the earthy musk of damp vegetables, and iron. My father stood in the same spot he always had with his blade in hand.

He heard the creak of the stairs, and turned his head my way.

He smiled—it felt more like a reflex, a mask—something carefully rehearsed just for me. 

When you watch him work—when he doesn’t know anyone’s watching—that’s when you see who he really is: a blank face, lost in the search for things to cut away.

“What a nice surprise,” he beamed in our language. He lowered his gaze to the suitcase trailing behind me. “Oh,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t realise it was today.”

“Yes, it is,” was all I said.

“I’m sorry sweetpea. If I’d known, I swear I would have made more of a fuss. I would’ve gotten you a cake or something to celebrate,” he paused, scrunching up his face. “Not celebrate, that’s not the right word. You know what I mean,” he chuckled, rapping his knuckles against the table. “Just something to mark the occasion, you know?”

“That’s alright,” I said, my voice tight, betraying my forced smile. “Maybe we can have cake some other time.”

Now that I stood before him, the Polaroid weighing heavily in my pocket, all the anger and frustration within me withered. He kept flashing that smile of his, and it made me soften in spite of myself. 

I lingered like a bad smell instead and watched him work, just as I had done all those years ago after school.

The stairs creaked, and a stout old man with wisps of white hair appeared at the top.

“Come and put some of this stock away upstairs, will you?” He called in English, not waiting for a response before vanishing again. 

My father gently set his blade down on the table and drifted upstairs. I followed behind, hands thrust deep in my pockets. I began to feel like I had made a mistake in coming to the shop.

What was the point? What did I expect to gain from this? 

Just as I thought about making some excuse to leave, my father held up a head of romanesco. He gazed at it with a sense of quiet reverence. 

“It looks like a small forest,” he said softly, almost to himself, his words taking on an almost mythical tone in our language. 

I could see it too—the intricate spirals, like a small ecosystem cradled in his palm. 

“It reminds me of a place I used to visit back home, when I was very young,” he traced a spiral with his fingertip, lost in the memory. 

Watching him at that moment, he was almost unrecognisable to me. This was the man who had spent years communicating primarily in grunts and nods at the dinner table and yet, here he was, suddenly sharing a piece of himself with me—telling me about the place he spent his summer holidays. 

That flicker of anger flared up inside me again, stronger and sharper than before, catching me off-guard. At first, it didn’t make sense. Then I realised, I was angry because he had chosen silence all these years, but here he was proving that he could open up about the past if he wanted to.

I took a deep breath. A flood of memories of our own summer holidays flashed in my mind: me sitting atop his shoulders, staring out at the sea on Brighton Pier, ice cream dribbling down my fingers onto his neck. Him laughing, smearing the melted mess across his nape. The anger quickly faded into the background, overpowered by tender nostalgia as I listened.

“There was a limestone monastery carved into the cliffs, its spires jutting out from the trees; this majestic river that wound below, splitting the valley in two,”

Then he fell silent, his eyes tracing every ridge, every crevice. Suddenly, a squawk of laughter burst from his lips, taking me by surprise. 

“When the sun would go down, me and the boys, my friends, we’d go under the cliffrock and yell into the eaves,” he laughed, describing how the bats would burst forth in startled waves, unraveling like ticker tape in the wind. “Your mama would get so mad with us,” he said, his stomach rocking with laughter. “You look like her when you get mad.”

He sighed, the laughter fading, his face deflating. His mention of mama stuck in my skull, reverberating like a struck bell. 

My chance was now. I took the Polaroid from my pocket, running my finger along its edge, digging the corner into the flesh beneath my fingernail. He placed the romanesco on the shelf, his fingers hovering on its surface. 

I paused, wondering if it was selfish to open this wound. 

I wasn’t so naive—I knew he probably had his reasons. But it felt like a compulsion at this point. Something outside my control.

“I found this while packing earlier,” I held the photo out for him to see. 

His features darkened. He paused, gazing at the photo for an eternity. He released a soft exhale, nodded—an action he didn’t seem fully conscious of. Then, he slowly bent down and retrieved a box from the floor and resumed his work.

I stood there holding the Polaroid, feeling a tidal wave crashing through me. 

That’s it? He doesn’t have anything to say? 

I bit my lip, my breathing shallow and raspy. He had given me this glimmer of hope, only to snatch it away. Suddenly I was a child again, trapped in the silence of our flat, my questions about mama answered only by the quiet clink of his coffee cup meeting the table each morning. I steadied myself, drew in my breath.

“You don’t want to say anything about it?”

He stopped his work, looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“Say what?”

“I don’t know. I mean… I would expect any normal person to at least say something.”

He stared at me a moment, then exhaled sharply through his nose.

“Mm…”

Without another word, he hefted a stack of boxes into his arms and disappeared into the basement. My arm dropped limply to my side. I realised I’d been pinching the Polaroid so tightly, I’d bent the bloody thing. I tried to smooth it back into place, but it was no use. The crease wasn’t going to shift. I stormed after him, my footsteps loud, rolling like thunder.

He was back at the table sculpting the cauliflowers with his blade like nothing had happened, examining them for blemishes like a jeweler inspecting diamonds.

“So that’s it then?”

He didn’t even look at me. He just shrugged. 

I stood there, stammering, my mouth open but no words coming out, only the breathy whimper of some wounded animal.

“I honestly can’t believe you,” I said, my voice cracking. 

His blade caught on a tough stem. “I don’t know what—” he grunted, driving the blade harder. “—it is you expect from me.”I couldn’t answer him. Truthfully, I didn’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. A voice nagged at the back of my mind, ‘This is childish.’.

What did I expect? For him to say some magic words, make me feel whole? 

Suddenly the whole thing felt so ridiculous and absurd. His face flushed red as he pressed all his weight onto the cauliflower, wedging it hard between the table and his blade.

“I just want to know who mama was,” I said, my voice shaking. “And I just want a chance to understand, to know why I had to grow up without her. It’s not your decision to make, to hide the past away from me,” I slapped the Polaroid down onto the table. The sound cracked through the air like a whip. “It’s my past as much as it is yours.”

His blade slipped, slicing clean through the cauliflower and landing with a loud thump on the table. The cauliflower split in half, little flecks of white spilled across the table like foam packing beads.

“Phusov na khuy,” he spat, looking at the broken cauliflower, defeated, lips pursed tight. “Look what you made me do.”

For a moment, he seemed to be debating whether to try and stitch it back together before gathering the pieces and dropping them in the bin.

“I’m sorry,” he said, avoiding my gaze. “It’s just… I’ve been dreading today for so long.”

His chin creased and began to tremble. And suddenly, I couldn’t tell whether I was angrier at him, or at myself for cracking him open like this.

A fat, solitary tear rolled down his cheek.

“It’s just that, you look so much like her, it’s like I’m losing her all over again.” He held his head in his hands, his breath hitching, like a stutter.

It hit me then, all the nights my father had woken unmoored, calling me by my mother’s name in the dark. How he looked at me when I appeared in the darkened doorway of his bedroom, his face ghostly pale, as though seeing a spectre emerge from the shadows. For the first time it struck me how that must have felt for him. My face, a constant reminder of his loss.

He sat down on a small stool, his knees bunched up to his chest, making him appear small, like a schoolboy in detention.

“I told myself that I was protecting you from the truth,” he said, flicking a tear at the corner of his eye. “It didn’t begin as a lie. At least, I don’t think so.” His voice grew loud. “Do you understand how hard it is, when your child is crying for her mama, over and over, and you don’t know what to say, or do. Can you comprehend?”

Maybe this was all a big mistake.

His breath shuddered, like a car struggling to start on a frosty morning. He rolled up his sleeve, his scar glinting beneath the light. He traced its length from elbow to hand with his finger.

“The day I received this, we were eating breakfast at the kitchen table…

I leaned in and listened to his story, forgetting to breathe. As he told it, I could picture the kitchen of our house back in the old country. I imagined it bathed in the soft orange glow of early morning sun filtering through the windows, the counters lined with vases of fresh flowers. 

He said I would have been barely two years old. Mama was cooking breakfast, while I sat in my highchair, enthralled by a game of peek-a-boo with him. The last thing he remembered was my smiling face, and the glint of my eyes between the small slit of his cupped hands—then, the air cracked and boomed. Everything swirled and turned upside-down. 

When he opened his eyes, there was a sharp ringing in his ears. He called out my name, Mama’s name—but he couldn’t hear his own shouts.

The breakfast table was on its side, my chair nowhere to be seen. Bits of glass and brick were strewn across the linoleum. Thick dust clouded everything. 

At first, he wasn’t aware of anything—just the ringing, and a warm sensation trickling down his arm. My mama’s face emerged from the dust: blackened, covered in ash. He couldn’t hear her, but he could see her mouth frozen in a silent scream.

My stomach lurched as I pictured her face. I looked at the Polaroid and imagined her mouth contorting, and saw the fear that must have been in her eyes. 

They tore through the room and found me still strapped into my tipped-over highchair. He said my face was a deep shade of purple, my eyes tightly clenched, my mouth parted, bawling.

As he recounted the story, his eyes welled up. He paused, gasping to fill his lungs.

“Are you okay?” I leapt up and put my hand on his shoulder.

He took a few deep breaths, steadying himself, then continued:

He had scooped me up off the kitchen floor, and together they ran outside with me in his arms. Still wearing our bedclothes, now covered in dust. 

A neighbour screamed something about tanks and artillery strikes. Without warning, our home had become a battlefield.

My father said he thought instantly about the monastery in the mountains of his childhood. It was a short drive away, and he knew it would be safe there. An impromptu convoy was arranged with the neighbours who all agreed—the monastery was their best chance at sanctuary. As he spoke with them, organising their escape, Mama darted back toward the house. He grabbed her arm to stop her, but she slipped out of his grasp. She re-emerged, clutching the family scrapbook to her chest like it contained life itself.

As he said this, I looked down at the Polaroid in my hands. At Mama’s smiling face. I thought about how cherished those memories must have been to her.

She darted away again, this time to her parents’ house a few doors down from our own. My father called after her, his voice breaking—me crying in his arms, smoke rising from the rooftops.

As he watched Mama run into the distance, the Earth shuddered, then cracked wide open with an ear-splitting blast. There was a flash of white. Dirt and rock kicked up to the sky. My father dropped to the ground, shielding me from the hail of debris.

When he looked back, Mama was gone. Her parents’ house was a shell, its facade ripped away.

He said everything went cold. As though all the warmth in him bled out, replaced by frigid air in his veins. 

I could see him shiver as he said it.

Before he had time to scream—or understand—sound came rushing back: my cries, the neighbour screaming at him, “Move! Move! Move!”

He went into auto-pilot, moving without thinking. Suddenly we were in the back of a car together, me still bundled in his arms. His eyes fixed on the spot where he had seen Mama last the whole time. The world sped by, and we turned a corner. 

The spot faded from view.

He sat on the stool silently sobbing. Tears streamed down my face. 

I wanted to scream, to cry and punch the walls.

I watched him sobbing, feeling immense guilt at forcing him to relive that moment, yet at the same time, there was this feeling of intense relief. Like it was finally out in the open, something we could talk about.

“I’m sorry Papa. I’m so, so sorry,” I said, flinging my arms around him.

“It’s okay,” he said, patting my back. “It’s okay.”

*

I had a train to catch. But first, we ate lunch together. In silence, as was our habit. Between bites, we exchanged warm smiles. 

As I readied myself to leave, he gripped me just below the shoulder and examined my face closely, as though trying to memorise it. 

I slid the Polaroid into my hand. We both bowed our heads, taking a moment to appreciate it. 

He took it from me gently, then strode to the other end of the room to a large cork notice board hanging on the wall opposite the wooden table. He pinned it between bits of paper no one looks at: timetables, notices, post-its. 

I took my suitcase in hand and turned toward the stairs. 

Silently, I hoped that the next time we saw each other, we’d speak of the old country: 

The monastery in the cliffs. 

The river’s gentle trickle. 

The sky before the smoke. 

He went to the table, picked up his blade and a cauliflower.

At the top of the stairs, I turned to catch one last look at him. 

He sliced away a withered leaf. It drifted softly into the bucket. Then, he looked up to the Polaroid. The corners of his lips bent upwards into a soft, sad smile. He parted his lips to speak:

“Hello again, my love.”

__________

Rhys Ramsay is an emerging Scottish writer. He currently lives in North London with his wife, daughter and their two pet rabbits.

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