by Julia Crouch
The last time this had happened, when she was sixteen, Polly had been there, thank God. The news Rose gave her father was so terrible to him that he would probably have killed her, had she been alone.
‘Slut,’ he hissed, holding Rose by the hair, raising his clenched fist, ready to bring it down hard into her stomach.
Tiny as she was, Polly launched herself across the room at him and physically stopped his arm.
‘NO,’ she yelled, so forcibly that he was shocked into silence.
She stood right in front of him and spat up into his face. Rose, still cowering by the sofa, her arm over her head, looked on in a stunned silence.
Her father turned and fled the front parlour of the family flat at the bottom of the tall dark Regency guesthouse, straight into the arms of his selectively blind wife.
Muttering about how they would never again be able to hold up their heads in Brighton, her parents put the guesthouse on the market. They moved up to Scotland, to her mother’s home town, a small place north of Edinburgh. They did not invite their daughter to go with them, nor would she have gone had they done so.
If it hadn’t been for Polly, Rose wouldn’t have known what to do. Polly’s mother had been put into hospital, so Rose moved into their flat. Polly took care of everything for Rose, sorted everything out. Yes, if it hadn’t been for Polly, she wouldn’t be where she was today.
Rose finished feeding Flossie, carried her to her little bedroom and lay her down in her cot. On her back, her eyes closed, her arms flopped out to either side, the baby looked dead to the world.
There was something in that position that triggered an unwelcome reverberation of the car crash Rose had witnessed earlier. She had forgotten about it until then. She closed her eyes and thought about that whole family, wiped out in one wrong move. It was all so fragile.
She touched Flossie on the cheek. After a couple of moments, she murmured and smacked her lips, telling Rose she was still alive, and freeing her to leave.
She went back down to the kitchen. Polly was once more in the armchair, staring into the fire, a glass of whisky in her hand. The washing-up still needed to be done, and Gareth was nowhere to be seen.
Seven
By the time Rose managed to prise Anna and the boys apart, it was gone eleven. While Anna got ready for bed, Rose showed Polly and the boys to the Annexe. She had tried to make the space as homely as possible, scrubbing it clean and putting a load of Anna’s old toys and books in the boys’ room. Before she left for the airport she had lit a fire in the woodburner they had installed when they first moved in. She was pleased to see that it was still giving off some warmth, hours later.
‘Where’s my room?’ Nico asked.
Rose showed him the little bedroom off the main room. ‘In there. You two will have to share.’
‘So tell me something new,’ he shrugged.
‘Wicked, a bunk bed. Can I go on top?’ Yannis looked up at Rose.
‘Get to bed now, you two,’ Polly said from the main room. ‘Don’t worry about teeth or pyjamas for tonight.’
After a little tussle, they worked out that Nico should sleep on top as he was bigger, so if he fell off it wouldn’t seem so far. Finally, Rose managed to get them both settled down. She leaned over and kissed each of them.
‘And we can stay as long as we like, you say?’ Yannis whispered from deep within his duvet.
‘Longer,’ Rose smiled.
She came out of the bedroom to find Polly pacing around the main room.
‘I know it’s rather small up here,’ Rose said, ‘but the boys are welcome to come down to the house to join us when they wake up, if you want to sleep on. I’m up at six with Floss, anyway.’
‘No, it’s lovely. It really is. I don’t know how to thank you,’ Polly said.
‘And look!’ Rose said, opening the fridge with a flourish. ‘Bonne Maman crème caramels. Remember?’
‘I used to live on them,’ Polly said, holding the little pot that Rose had passed to her. ‘Them and Solpadeine.’
She put the crème caramel back in the fridge and went to the window.
‘Quite a view of the big house I’ll have here in the morning,’ she said.
Rose showed her how to draw the curtains, using the rope rather than just pulling them across.
‘Leave them open, though, Rose. I want to look at the sky for a bit.’
Rose took hold of Polly’s hand. ‘Are you going to be OK?’
‘Of course,’ Polly said. ‘I’m a tough old bird.’
‘Don’t I just know it,’ Rose said, and drawing her close, she gave her a big hug. ‘Right. Time to leave you to your own devices. And you’ve got everything you need?’
‘The bed is there,’ Polly said.
‘And remember, just turf the boys out in the morning. Send them down to the house.’
‘I will. Never fear about that.’
On her way back to the house, Rose smelled woodsmoke. She wandered round to the back and found Gareth stoking the woodfired pizza oven that he had built on the terrace. It had been one of his pet projects. Rose hadn’t seen the point, but he had just gone ahead with it anyway. She was quietly boycotting it – she had her work cut out enough getting to grips with the Aga. And, as she did most of the food preparation, her inactivity had led to the pizza oven sitting there unchristened by food. But they had spent a couple of family evenings out there enjoying the heat it created when it was fired up with the doors open.
‘That’s nice,’ she whispered, slipping her arm into his. They stood, letting the flames warm their faces, watching the sparks rise and flicker towards the gaping mouth of the chimney.
‘Where did you get to back then?’ she asked, after a while.
‘There was something I needed to finish off in the studio. It wouldn’t keep. Polly said she was fine about me going.’
‘It just seemed a bit abrupt, you going off like that.’
‘She really didn’t mind. I behaved really well tonight.’
‘You did.’
‘I’m trying my best.’
They sat close together on the wooden bench, the light from the applewood flames flickering on their faces. The rain from earlier had stopped and the night was clear and cold. They could see every star up there, and the crescent of the moon was as sharp as a sickle.
‘Sometimes the work just screams out for me,’ Gareth said. ‘I can’t believe I was away from it for so long.’
‘I know.’
‘I didn’t draw anything for over a year.’
‘You did some lovely diagrams.’
‘Yeah, and I painted walls and woodwork.’
‘You did it beautifully, though,’ she smiled up at him. ‘And you did say you wanted to get your hands dirty. And you enjoyed it in a way . . .’
‘Yep.’
‘It was awful for you sometimes, Gareth. I know that.’
‘I lost the plot.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I did.’
‘We all had our low moments. Remember, “Fuck it, let’s go and buy a nice Barratt Home”? If it hadn’t been for Andy . . .’
Gareth stared into the flames.
‘Without him, I don’t know what we would have done,’ Rose said, searching for her husband’s eyes. ‘You have a great brother.’
‘He’s OK,’ Gareth said.
Rose had to be careful about discussing Andy with Gareth. There were issues there. Of course, they had grown up believing they were real brothers. In fact, out of the two of them, Andy was the only birth son of Pam and John, who for political reasons had only had one child of their own – and they had waited until they were into their forties to do that. Their choice had been to adopt a second baby, in order to share their good fortune in life with someone who might otherwise not have been so lucky.
Rose had asked Andy about this on one of the many evenings they spent alone together, while Gareth was hiding under the duvet, battling his demons.
‘Why didn’t they tell
you?’ she asked, as they went for one of their evening walks down to the river.
‘They didn’t want Gareth to feel the odd one out,’ Andy said. ‘I guess they thought it was for the best.’
‘Didn’t it come as a shock to you?’
‘Totally. I mean, we’re so physically alike, people always asked us if we were twins. But it wasn’t such a big deal for me as it was for Gareth. He’s never gotten over it. He never got beyond formalities with them again, and now Pam and John have passed away and it’s too late. They loved him so much, though, Rose.’
Rose looked at Andy. It was true; he and Gareth were very similar. Both tall and strong-looking, both with the same beautiful hands. But it was as if Gareth were made up of two halves – the light and the dark, whereas Andy was just light.
It was because of this lightness that Andy seemed to be able to cope with the residual anger that Gareth sometimes, for want of a better target, directed at him. It was because of this lightness that, from time to time, Rose found herself asking if she had picked the right brother.
‘Andy’s more than OK,’ Rose said to Gareth.
‘I guess,’ he shrugged.
The fire crackled around the knotty wood, sending a spray of sparks out onto the brick surround of the pizza oven. Rose looked at her husband and wondered how on earth she could ever have doubted that he was the one for her. They sat still, listening. The silence of the night was broken only by a blackbird that Rose had fed throughout the winter. He sat on their chimney, giving perspective to the evening.
‘I hope they don’t stay too long,’ Gareth said at last.
‘Oh, she doesn’t stop still,’ Rose said. ‘If I know Polly she’ll be up and off – probably with a new husband, band and recording contract – before I get a chance to change their bedlinen.’
‘I don’t want you running around after her. She’s a grown-up, you know. She needs to take care of her own stuff.’
‘OK, Dad,’ Rose said, leaning into him.
‘I’m sorry.’ Gareth put his arm around her shoulder. ‘I just don’t want us to be distracted from the important stuff.’
‘No worries about that.’ She reached up and kissed him. ‘You know, there’s something rather wonderful about this fire,’ she murmured, as she slipped to her knees and unbuttoned his Levis.
Later, in their bedroom, as she lay next to Gareth – who had gone out like a light – Rose thought about what he had said, about the dark days, about how he had lost the plot. There was a point back then when his silence had been deafening. He had effectively signed out, only showing up for meals.
This evening had been the first time they had ever really talked about it. She didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. Sometimes it was better just to forget about the unhappy stuff.
Remembering that not so distant time, she again questioned her wisdom in welcoming Polly. But it was unthinkable that she could have turned her away. In any case, she and Gareth had sworn to be generous with their good fortune. After all, just ten years ago, they wouldn’t in their wildest dreams have imagined themselves in this comfortable position.
Back then, before Hackney even, they lived in Gareth’s rented flat in Elephant and Castle. It actually had two bedrooms, but the landlord wasn’t allowed to charge rent for the second since it was too damp for human habitation. This ‘condemned’ room became Gareth’s studio, and it was there, out of necessity, that he had turned his back on the large-scale conceptual installations of his MA days. Instead, he started to work in what later became his trademark style of painting on found wood in oils. The dampness of the room meant that the oils stayed wet for longer than they normally would, and he would move his pictures into the living room to mingle their fumes with those of the paraffin stove that heated the place.
The smallness of the room also limited the size of his work, which further defined his style. The luck of it was that what he had hit upon out of necessity turned out to be very marketable and this had hauled them out of the grim rental market and on to the Hackney flat-owning step of the artist’s progress in London.
It had helped that Rose had been earning a regular salary. Without that, the mortgage for Hackney would have been impossible. Her teaching job had also qualified them for a key-worker’s loan for the deposit. These days, however, her role in their rise tended to be overlooked: both she and Gareth had a tendency to see their progress as being solely connected to his efforts. Over the years she had changed role from that of principal breadwinner to wife of the successful artist, and mother of his lovely children. While she knew she should probably feel bitter, or at least a little wistful about this, she was in fact genuinely happy with her lot.
Gareth snored softly. Rose sighed and turned over, aware that she had just a couple of hours before Flossie woke up for her feed, and that she must sleep.
After half an hour of lying there trying to empty her mind, she gave up. She knew it just wasn’t going to happen. Taking care not to wake Gareth, she got up and slipped on her dressing gown – a dusky pink antique kimono that Gareth had brought back from an opening in Japan – and padded down the stairs in her sheepskin slippers.
She stopped on the half-landing and looked out of the arched window towards the Annexe. The boy’s room was all darkness, but Polly’s light was still burning, and the curtains were still open. Rose stood still, to one side, and saw Polly pacing back and forth in front of the window, smoking, her hair following her like a dirty fox tail. Rose wondered whether she should go up there and see if she was all right.
But then Flossie started whimpering and rustling in her cot, two hours earlier than usual. Rose cursed under her breath. Floss had slept too long on the airport journey and that, along with the alcoholic milk and missing her usual bedtime routine, had messed her up.
Rose bounded back up the stairs to catch Flossie before Gareth woke up. She was rewarded by the vision of her daughter gurgling in her cot, holding out her arms, delighted to see her mother arrive so quickly. Rose scooped her up and took her downstairs to sit in their favourite feeding chair. She drew a blanket around them both and settling in, she slowly drifted off to the rhythmic sucking of the baby, the tingling of the letting down of her milk.
When she woke, she and Flossie were enclosed in the bubble of their own body heat. Flossie was fast asleep, a trickle of milk drying on her cool, soft cheek. Rose carried her back up the stairs, being careful not to wake her. On the way up to the second floor, she stood at the arched window again, looking at the Annexe. The main lights had been turned off, but there was still a glow in the room. Probably Polly had put the bedside light on. She was reading, perhaps. Or writing – Rose knew she liked to work in bed. Or was she just lying there, thinking of a beach, a house, a man, a life that had been taken from her and her boys?
Poor Polly.
Rose continued up the stairs and laid Flossie down in her cot, tucking her under the little duvet. She tiptoed across the landing to her bedroom, took off her kimono and slippers and put them in their proper places. She pulled back her crisp, clean, lavender-scented bedding and climbed in beside her handsome, capable, alive husband. Her sturdy baby slept solidly just yards from her, and her healthy and bright older daughter was dreaming good things on the floor below in her freshly painted, beautifully large bedroom.
How lucky was she?
Rose lay back and, like a rosary, she counted her blessings until she fell into a deep and generous sleep.
Eight
At seven o’clock, Nico and Yannis ran down to the house. Rose, up again with Flossie, set about making them porridge with maple syrup. They both sat at the big table, tousle-haired, sleep still in their eyes, their voices croaky. Flossie lay on her lambskin on the floor, gurgling and kicking, her eyes fixed on the coathanger hung with shiny toys that Rose had suspended from the ceiling to dangle down low in front of her.
‘Mama’s still sleeping,’ Nico said.
‘She’s always asleep,’ Yannis added.
‘It’s been a difficult time for her – for you all,’ Rose said, placing the porridge in front of the boys. ‘Sometimes people get so exhausted by stuff like that, they just have to go to bed and sleep it off.’
She showed them how to drizzle the maple syrup on the porridge to make a spiral shape.
‘She’s just drunk all the time,’ Nico said.
‘She is, Rose,’ said Yannis, looking up at her.
‘I’m sure she’s not drunk all the time,’ Rose said. ‘Things’ll work out. You just see. Now, eat up.’
They looked at their bowls.
‘Go on,’ she said.