by Julia Crouch
‘A beginning means a death,’ she said out loud.
Gently, she tried the door handle to the studio. It was locked. But Gareth never locked doors. Hadn’t he always laughed at her for finding that fact about him difficult? She bent and put her eye to the keyhole. The blinds were drawn – blackout blinds that let light neither in nor out. She held her breath and listened. She was sure she could hear his breathing, deep and slow. Or could she? And if she could, was there a counterpoint there? A lighter sound? Could she hear a duet?
She wished she could stop the noises that kept on coming up from within her so that she could listen more closely. But she seemed incapable of doing anything about it. The morning already felt as if she were trying to swim through a heavy syrup. Perhaps, she thought, I need to see a doctor.
She stood up and stretched her back out, turning to face the house. Just then, the fox streaked halfway across the lawn, his redness almost painful against the lush green of the wet grass. He stopped in the middle and stared right at her, eye to eye. She looked into him. It felt as if she were looking at herself.
It was impossible that he could have harmed Manky. She had read somewhere that foxes steered clear of cats; that they knew that in a fight they would come off a lot worse. And Foxy had other fish to fry. Or rabbits to tear to pieces. Why bother with a skin-and-bone moggy?
Again, she had to fight back the nausea that swooped up to her head from her belly. The fox slunk away into the bushes that stood between the house and the land.
‘Don’t go on the road,’ she warned him.
Then she heard Flossie cry out from the kitchen. She sprinted back to the house, not noticing till it was too late that, as she rushed in, her overshoes covered the kitchen floor with muddy footprints.
She looked over at Flossie and let the relief seep in: her problem was just one of a completely disintegrated rusk. Rose handed her another from the packet. Then she quickly got out a mop and bucket to clean up the floor. If it had been Anna, Gareth or the boys coming in with their feet like that, she would have lost her rag. She let herself off the hook, however. She had been having a bit of a time of it recently.
‘But if the kitchen gets in a mess, that’s the end of everything,’ she said to Flossie, who was watching her with a blank expression.
She squeezed out the mop, then, with a clean dishcloth, she tidied up Flossie’s rusk-crusted tray. She reached down Anna’s basket of onyx eggs then chose two smallish (but bigger than mouth-sized) specimens for Flossie to hold and roll around her tray. They were clean, smooth and perfect. She sat and watched as Flossie clasped first one, then the other, bringing each up in the air, tightly holding it in her hot little fingers and slamming it down on the tray. If she had laughed or smiled, Rose would have found the whole process a little less disconcerting. But Flossie performed each lift like a grim little automaton, like a bored person in a gym.
Rose turned her back on her baby and went to put the kettle on. She had turned it on twice already this morning, yet had so far failed to get any further towards making a cup of tea. This time, though, she forced herself to pour the water into the waiting mug, fish out the teabag, then top it up with milk. Task completed, she stood in front of the Aga, warming her legs and drinking her tea from her favourite big, clean mug. The reliability of the Aga’s heat, the fact it was always there, comforted her. It was like a rock, standing firm in the middle of foaming rapids, and it helped her internal noise to subside, until there was little more than a gentle hum, like the silence at the end of an overture.
She let her eyes move up to the Annexe again. Was this morning going to go round in circles? she wondered. Would she have to go up and check under the car, then skirt round again to the studio to see if she could detect any signs of Gareth? If nothing happened, she felt she might have to.
But the moment was quickly broken. Polly appeared from the back of the Annexe. Rose watched as she carefully made her way down the stone steps to the front door, in her slippers and nightdress. It was very early for Polly to be about. She looked tired.
‘Oh Rose, I’m so sorry.’ Polly came into the kitchen and put her arms around Rose, holding her to her, taking her warmth and pulling it into herself.
Rose drew away and looked at her friend. She could feel a flush spread up her neck.
‘What?’ she whispered, afraid of the answer. ‘What?’
‘Our poor old cat. Our poor old Manky. So awful,’ Polly said, taking Rose’s face between her hands. ‘You must feel so awful, Rose.’
‘Yes.’
‘Come, sit down. Can I get you anything?’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Rose showed Polly her cup of tea.
Polly started the Gareth-approved coffee-making ritual and Rose sat at the table as directed.
‘Gareth was such a hero last night,’ Polly was saying. ‘He’s put him in one of those wooden champagne boxes that Andy got him. We can have a proper burial. Put him to rest properly.’
‘Your slippers are muddy,’ Rose said.
‘God, sorry.’ Polly went over to the door where the shoe rack was and slipped them off her feet. ‘Is it OK if I wear these?’ She prodded Rose’s Birkenstocks with her big toe.
‘Go ahead,’ Rose said. ‘They’ll probably be too big, though.’
‘It’s just the floor’s a little chilly this morning.’
Rose got up and fetched the mop and bucket again, to wipe away Polly’s footprints. How, she wondered, do you get muddy slippers coming down a flight of stone steps? She knew about those steps. She had laid them carefully, on her knees, in the eighth month of her pregnancy.
‘Did you have a good time yesterday?’ she asked Polly.
‘Great!’ Polly said. ‘We tried to ring, but you weren’t in.’
‘I was at Simon’s,’ Rose said, watching Polly for any sign of a reaction. But she was a cool customer. Always had been.
‘This friend of Gareth’s, with the studio. He’s a really interesting guy. He played me some of his stuff. He worked with PJ Harvey, you know.’
‘Yes.’
‘My Nemesis, of course. If she hadn’t been there, I would have been her, they say.’ Polly ran her fingers through her hair, tangling them in the knots.
Rose sat down opposite Polly and took the largest egg from Anna’s basket. It was a heavy, yellow thing with amber-coloured swirls around it, too big to fit in one hand. She rolled it over and over underneath her palm.
‘Same name and everything,’ Polly said.
‘Where’s Gareth?’ Rose asked.
‘I suppose he’s lying in.’ Polly shrugged. They both paused and sipped their drinks. The only sounds were a rhythmic clunking from Flossie as she lifted and lowered the marble and onyx eggs onto her tray, and the roll and thud of the egg Rose was palming on the table.
‘Do you think we could stop that?’ Polly turned and took the eggs from Flossie, who just looked at her hands as if the things had disappeared from them. ‘It gets on my nerves,’ she said as she took the large egg from Rose, put everything back in the basket, and, stepping on a chair to reach, put it all back on the dresser shelf.
She looked over at Rose and sighed. ‘What are we going to do with you, eh, Rose?’
Rose squirmed.
‘I’ve got a great idea,’ Polly said. ‘Might cheer you up.’
‘It’ll have to be pretty good,’ Rose said.
‘Oh, poor Rose,’ Polly said. ‘You can’t think straight, can you? I mean, you’re so cut up about Manky – ’ Rose wished she had used a different expression ‘ – and I’ll bet anything Anna’s not going to take it well. She’s so sensitive, isn’t she? Well, here’s the plan: we’ll have the little ceremony later on in the morning. Gareth’s cool about digging a hole, and he says he’ll make a sort of wooden headstone. Then perhaps we could go to the river bathing-place? Have a picnic? Forget about it all for a bit?’
‘That sounds . . .’ Rose looked up to see Anna standing at the stairs, scratching her head, lookin
g like a lost little ghost ‘. . . great. Really.’
‘It’s going to be a beautiful day, according to the weather forecast. Even hotter than yesterday. One of those freakish April days. Oh, hi Anna. Porridge?’
Without waiting for an answer, Polly took herself over to the pantry to reach down the oats. Anna came and sat next to Rose, burying her face in her shoulder.
If only it were just us, Rose thought.
Thirty-Two
Later that morning, they held a solemn little service for Manky. Anna wept and threw handfuls of narcissi in the grave that Gareth had dug at the far corner of the orchard. Polly played the guitar and sang a plaintive version of ‘Cool for Cats’ with customised, Manky-themed verses.
Rose could have done without that. It seemed a little too ironic for what was after all, for her, a small personal tragedy. But it seemed to cheer Anna, who sang, seriously, along to the chorus:
Cool for Cats.
Cool for Cats.
Gareth stood and leaned on his shovel, respectfully grim-faced, like a professional gravedigger. Even the boys were subdued. The sun was high, and as Polly had predicted, it was unseasonably hot. Rose felt a pool of sweat gather in the small of her back. This was crazy weather for April.
Gareth wasn’t going to come to the picnic. He wanted to stay behind, he said, to fill in the grave and make the headstone structure. Rose had tried to change his mind, but he was adamant. She hadn’t seen him for what felt like years, not properly. She wanted to spend the afternoon with him, even if it was in Polly’s company. But clearly he felt differently.
‘Can’t we leave the river trip for another day?’ she said to Polly as they filed back up to the house from the orchard where they had buried the cat.
‘What, and miss this beautiful weather?’ Polly said, turning her face to the sun. Her pallor almost glowed.
‘Well, I—’
‘Oh, Mum,’ Anna said, slipping her hand into Rose’s and looking up to her with damaged eyes. ‘Please can we go?’
‘How can you say no to that?’ Polly said, tossing her hair back. ‘See you in about half an hour. Boys, get yourselves together, and be sure to help Rose.’ Swinging her guitar over her shoulders, she broke away from the rest of them and headed up to the Annexe.
Gareth organised the boys and gathered up the rest of the swimming things while Rose attempted to piece a picnic together with what she could find in the kitchen.
‘Are you OK, love?’ he asked as he put the packed swimming bag on the kitchen table.
‘I’ve been better.’
‘It does seem kind of quiet here without him, doesn’t it?’
Rose looked in all the biscuit tins. Apart from visiting the farmers’ market, which, as far as getting supplies in was more ornamental than practical, she hadn’t been shopping for ages, and everything was empty. She was losing her touch.
‘It’s no good,’ she said to Gareth. ‘I’ve got to go to the village shop.’
She went off with her basket tucked under her arm, taking Anna with her to help choose some treats, while Gareth got Flossie ready. On their way back, they were accosted by Polly, who stuck her head out of the Annexe window.
‘Aren’t you changed yet? Best sundresses, Rose! You and Anna! We’re doing this thing in style.’
Rose looked up at her and squinted. ‘I don’t think—’
‘Ten minutes to get them on, starting from now.’ Polly slammed the window shut, allowing no argument.
‘Come on, Mum, it’ll be fun.’ Anna dragged Rose towards The Lodge. They put the basket down on the kitchen table and went upstairs.
It was completely ridiculous, of course. Rose sat on her bed and looked at herself in her dressing-table mirror while Anna sped off to her room. In an impossibly short time to have wreaked such a change, Anna reappeared in her favourite – or rather, only – sundress. White and full-skirted, it was covered in a giant cherry print.
‘Come on, Mum, you’ve got to make an effort here,’ she said, rummaging in Rose’s wardrobe.
She pulled out Rose’s old sundress. It was a vintage thing she had picked up at a car-boot sale a couple of years back, before she had had Flossie. It was covered with shouty large rose blooms. She tried to remember what it was like, being the woman who had picked this extravagant thing out thinking that it was ‘her’.
‘I don’t think I’ll fit into that any more.’
‘Course you will. Just try it on.’
To Rose’s amazement she filled the dress as if it had been made after a series of long and painstaking fittings. Anna led her down the stairs to a small round of applause from Gareth. Flossie, who was in his arms, registered nothing.
‘You look a million dollars,’ Gareth said to Rose and Anna.
‘Can you get Flossie in the car seat, Gareth?’ Rose said, packing their new purchases into the picnic bag.
‘Come on, you boys!’ Gareth called.
Laden with picnic and swimming things, they trooped up to the car, just in time to see Polly come down the Annexe stairs holding up two chilled bottles of champagne.
‘Oh, my,’ Gareth said under his breath.
‘Snap!’ Polly said.
Polly was wearing a sundress very similar in style to Rose’s. The big difference was, Rose noticed, that it was a size six, whereas her own was a generous fourteen. Like hers, Polly’s was tight around the bodice and full-skirted. It, too, was covered in roses, but in amongst the blooms were – and this was a typically edgy move on Polly’s part – tiny white skulls, with the thorny rose stems curling in and around their eye-sockets.
Polly did a twirl for them all, holding the champagne aloft, and Rose saw, and remembered, the tattoos on her shoulders. On the left she had a rose, on the right, a skull, perfectly matching her sundress. Rose had been there when she had them done in a shady parlour in Streatham, one coke-fuelled evening in their early twenties. The idea was that Rose was going to have the same designs on her own shoulders, that same night. But she had decided against it when she saw what the process entailed. She had very forcibly shown her change of heart, she remembered, by first passing out, then throwing up, right there on the tattoo-parlour floor.
‘See how the dress matches the body,’ Gareth said, appraising her with what looked like an artist’s eye.
‘I’ll get a coolbag for the bottles,’ Rose said. ‘Gareth, will you strap Flossie in, please?’
After a final check that everyone had their seatbelts on, Rose started up the car. The children waved goodbye to Gareth, until they turned the corner in the lane and he could no longer be seen.
The river bathing-place was a field with a few huts, on the riverbank, about four miles downstream from The Lodge, beyond the next village. It was a private club and, like most of their neighbours, Rose and Gareth were members. For such a landlocked area, it provided welcome hot-weather relief. Although it was usually closed at this time of year the club had sent notes home with the schoolchildren a couple of days earlier saying that, due to the unseasonably hot weather, they would open for the weekend. Rose had been pleased when she saw the note. She loved swimming in wild water. The sea was the only thing she missed from her childhood in Brighton. She had swum in it almost daily, whatever the weather.
She parked the car in a gravelled patch at the entrance to the field. Anna and the boys flung open the car doors and started off towards the river.
‘Oy, you lot, come back here!’ Polly yelled. ‘Help Rose with the stuff.’
The three of them groaned, but came back and stood impatiently at the rear of the car, getting in Rose’s way.
She opened the hatchback and handed out the picnic basket, coolbag, rug, swimming bags and rubber rings. She hooked Flossie’s car seat into the crook of her arm, balancing it against her hip, and passed what she called the beach bag to Polly. Fully laden now, they clambered over a wooden stile and padded across the grass towards the river. The swimming spot was perfect here. There was a shallow paddling place for younge
r children, edged by a weir that was more or less impossible to go over by accident. The weir was a great water slide for the older children and it plunged mossily into a cool, deep pool that provided more challenging swimming for the seriousminded. The river was quite wide on that side – about thirty metres – ideal for catching up on widths.
The ground was still a little soft underfoot from the night’s rain. It gave slightly under their feet like not-quite-set fudge. But the sun was now so hot that the field was drying rapidly, filling the air with a steamy, earth smell that, had Rose grown up in the countryside, would have had a tinge of nostalgia to it.
‘Ugh,’ Polly said, as they stood looking for a space on the grass. ‘People.’