by Julia Crouch
Rose couldn’t bring herself to look at her friend and doctor, in case her kindness should set her off again.
‘I don’t know, Kate. It’s just that I need time, I suppose. Floss being like that was such a shock. And . . .’
‘And?’
‘And, well, I feel alone. So alone. I’ve never felt so lonely in all my life.’ Rose’s voice had shrunk to a tiny speck of its normal volume. ‘I feel as if there’s some sort of buffer, some sort of forcefield between me and the real world. I mean, I’m here for the children, but that’s about all it feels like at the moment. I feel so useless . . .’ Self-pity set her off crying again.
‘Have you spoken to Gareth about this?’
‘No,’ Rose said quickly. ‘He’s not to know.’
‘But he could help, perhaps?’
‘He’s not to know!’ Rose repeated.
‘OK, OK.’
There was a knock at the door, and Polly slipped in with a cup of tea for Kate. Rose looked away.
‘How is she?’ Polly asked, her voice dripping with concern.
‘Awake now,’ Kate said. ‘I think she’d like a cup of tea now as well. Would you, Rose?’
Rose nodded.
‘I’ll get Gareth to bring one up in a bit,’ Polly said. ‘I’ve got to get the children in the bath now.’
‘Bring me Flossie,’ Rose murmured.
‘Sorry?’ Polly, not catching what Rose said, leaned over towards her. Rose shot out a hand and grabbed Polly’s skinny wrist.
‘Bring me Flossie, now,’ she said.
‘Do you think that’s OK, Kate?’ Polly asked, pulling her arm away and rubbing her wrist. ‘Is she all right to hold the baby?’
‘It’s what Rose wants. Flossie’s had her jab so please bring her,’ Kate said, stroking Rose’s shoulder.
‘Well, if you think so . . .’ Polly went out and shut the door.
‘I don’t want her alone with my baby,’ Rose said to Kate.
‘Oh, Rose.’ Kate folded her hands in her lap, and looked at her for a long while. The silence between them was broken by her bleeper. ‘Shit.’ She looked down at it. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She got up and pulled her bag towards her, taking out her prescription pad.
‘I don’t want drugs,’ Rose said. ‘I don’t want them in my milk.’
‘I think you’d better lay off feeding Floss for the next forty-eight hours, Rose. Just in case.’
‘In case?’
‘Just to be sure, in case there was anything going on. Besides alcohol.’
Rose turned her face to the pillow and felt the tears come yet again.
‘Here’s your prescription.’ Kate laid the thin green slip of paper on Rose’s bedside table and bent over to kiss her. ‘Have my cuppa. I don’t think Gareth can have heard that you’re awake. I’ll make sure I tell him on my way out, and I’ll make sure that you get Flossie. Take care, and come and see me if you need any help.’
She went out, closing the door quietly behind her.
Rose lay there for a few moments, feeling blasted. Then she lifted a heavy arm over to the bedside table, groping until she found the prescription. She opened it and held it in front of her face until her eyes could focus. There, in Kate’s energetic yet ordered script, were six words:
Get her out of your house.
Rose folded the piece of paper and tucked it into her bedside drawer. As prescriptions went, this was a good one, but she thought she would keep it to herself for the time being.
Thirty-Four
Rose could feel someone in the room, so she forced her eyes open. She had drifted off again; the fatigue had stretched over her like a tight net until she couldn’t think or breathe any more.
It was Gareth, hovering by the bed with a mug of tea.
‘Hey, you,’ he said, putting the tea on the bedside table and kneeling on the floor beside her. He stroked her hair out of her eyes.
‘What happened, Gareth?’ she asked.
‘We’re not sure, but we think you were going down with this flu, and then you drank all that champagne – and the cold of the water just set it all off suddenly. You were lucky you didn’t drown.’
Rose looked away. Despite his gentle tone, he wasn’t going to let her off lightly.
‘But Kate says you’re on the mend now. You’ve got to rest, Rose. At least three days in bed, she said.’
‘I can’t do that. What about the children?’
‘We’ve got it all under control. Polly has very kindly stepped in, and is working wonders in the kitchen. You don’t need to worry about a thing. She’s really stepping up to the mark. Who’d have thought her so capable!’
Rose felt as if she were shrinking. The duvet and pillows threatened to engulf her.
‘Now then, you’ve got to drink all of this tea. I put three sugars in it.’
Rose made a face. She hated sugar in her tea.
‘You’ve got to. You haven’t eaten anything for nearly two days. Go on, now.’ He held the mug up to her lips and she forced herself to take a sip.
‘That’s a girl. We’ll bring your supper up shortly,’ he said. ‘But in the meantime, there’s a couple of young ladies who want to see you.’ He opened the bedroom door and there was Anna, holding Flossie in her arms.
‘Careful with her!’ Rose called out.
‘Anna’s a big girl now, Rose,’ Gareth said, and went across to stand behind the girls. ‘Go on, honey, don’t be afraid.’
Anna edged towards Rose. She looked as if she didn’t know where she was.
‘I’m fine now,’ Rose said. ‘Come and sit by me.’ She reached out for Flossie, and Anna gladly let her go into her arms. Flossie sat back onto Rose’s lap and looked at her, saucer-eyed, as if she were wondering who she was. Then she lifted up her fat little hand and put her thumb in her mouth, silently curling up like a comma in the shelter of her mother’s arms.
Anna smiled at this, and, the ice having been broken by her sister, she climbed over to the other side of the bed and tucked herself in next to Rose.
‘Are you really better, Mum?’ she asked.
‘Getting there.’ Rose put her arm around her.
She lay there with them for an hour, feeding on the proximity of their warm little bodies. She and Anna chatted about this and that, and Flossie nuzzled herself to sleep. Then Gareth knocked on the door and came in with a tray of food for Rose.
‘Supper’s ready, Anna. Get yourself downstairs now,’ he said.
‘Can’t I eat upstairs here with Mum?’ Anna pleaded.
‘No, love. It’s soup and it’ll spill. You can come straight back up after if you like, though,’ he said.
‘Can I sleep with her tonight? Can I?’
‘Of course you can,’ Gareth said kindly.
‘What about you?’ Rose croaked.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine to stay down in the studio. I’ve practically moved in there,’ Gareth said. ‘Now, let’s get you too, madam.’ He put the tray down on the bed beside Rose and took Flossie from her.
‘I’ll be back after my bath,’ Anna said, as Gareth ushered her out of the room.
He shut the door and Rose was left alone. She looked at her supper. It was a thin, liquidized vegetable soup, made with no discernible oil, butter or stock, served with a small piece of wholemeal bread. An apple sat unadorned on the tray as a nod towards dessert. To drink, she had a glass of tapwater.
It was no doubt healthy and low fat, but if she were feeling hungry this meal wouldn’t go anywhere near to satisfying her. She’s slimming us all down, Rose thought. Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, but in reverse.
She ate what she could of the food, then moved the tray to the floor and lay back down on the pillows. The day she had missed had nearly gone now, and the last dregs of the orange sunset stained the white curtains. The bedroom glowed, as if it were witnessing a fire. Rose let herself drift off to the imagined heat and crackle of the flames.
The next thing she knew, the bedroom
door burst open and Anna rushed in, clutching a largish wicker-basket to her breast.
‘Look, Mum! Look what Polly got me!’
She placed the basket on the bed as Rose groggily pulled herself up to sitting. Carefully, Anna lifted a small ball of fluff up to her face, closing her eyes and bending in to feel the softness against her cheeks.
‘A kitten,’ Rose whispered.
‘I’m going to call him Monkey,’ Anna said. ‘He’s a sort of replacement for Manky, but not quite, because, of course, nothing could replace Manky. But he’s going to help us all come to terms with our loss.’
‘Who told you that?’ Rose said.
‘Dad and Polly. Polly got him from the pub. Charlie the landlord’s cat just had these kittens. Isn’t he lovely?’ Anna held the little creature out for Rose to take hold of.
‘I’m not going to hold him just yet,’ Rose said, looking down. ‘Sorry.’
‘Why not? Isn’t he just the cutest?’ Anna thrust the kitten forwards again.
‘Sweet. We say sweet in this country.’
‘Sweet. Isn’t he sweet, then?’ Anna held the kitten out so its body hung down and its front paws stuck up in the air as if he were reaching out for some invisible bars.
‘Yes, he’s very sweet. He really is.’ Rose looked up at her daughter, whose smile was breaking, tipping over into tears of incomprehension. But she just couldn’t find it in herself to do this, to take hold of this animal that Polly had foisted upon them. It all seemed so indecent; just two days after they had buried her old cat. It showed that Polly completely failed to understand her. Either that, or it was a malicious attempt to upset. Rose didn’t know what was worse.
Trying not to show her tears, Anna put the kitten down on the bed.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ she sniffed.
‘Well, he’s a lovely kitten.’ This was all Rose could muster in the way of trying to improve Anna’s mood. ‘And I’m sure you’re going to be a great cat-owner for him.’
The kitten looked up at them with eyes that were like oversized sewn-on sequins, all surface glitter with nothing behind them. Rose shuddered.
‘Isn’t he just great?’ Gareth came into the room, with Polly and the boys behind him. Rose saw Polly was carrying Flossie, who was dressed for bed.
‘Give her to me,’ she said, reaching out. Polly shrugged and, smiling, leaned over and handed Flossie to her. She stood back and wiped her fingers on the front of her apron, which was, of course, Rose’s apron. With her hair neatly tied back, her face scrubbed of eye-liner and her simple black smock, Polly was quite clearly playing the part of domestic angel tonight.
‘Isn’t that great of Polly, Rose?’ Gareth had taken hold of the kitten and held it up, smiling and wrinkling his nose at it as if it were a baby. Rose put her arms around her daughters. She felt as if her face were peeling away from her skull.
‘Wonderful,’ she said.
‘Did you like your soup?’ Polly sat on the side of the bed and placed her hand on top of Rose’s, patting it ever so slightly.
‘Great.’ Rose made her mouth smile.
‘I’m going to give you my full range of healthy, warming meals,’ Polly said. ‘We’ll have you back on your feet in no time.’
Rose could see Nico behind his mother, pulling a face and sticking his finger down his throat, pretending to be sick. So it seemed he could be on her side. Rose would remember that.
‘Can we watch South Park now?’ Yannis said. He had hung around the edge of the room, leaning against the wall. Rose wondered if she looked scary to him, with her hair loose and matted and her face unwashed. She could still smell the brown river on her skin, and wondered how long it was exactly since she had showered or bathed. She shifted in her bed and a stale biscuity smell wafted up from the bowels of the duvet.
‘Go on, bog off, Square Eyes,’ Gareth said, ruffling Yannis’s hair. He had always loved to play with English idiom. One of his favourites was ‘wanker’, a word he had never encountered before he arrived at Goldsmiths. The boys charged off with a cheer, but Anna hung back, waiting for her promised night with Rose.
‘Go and brush your teeth, Anna, then you can get in with Mum,’ Gareth said.
After Anna had gone, Polly leaned towards Rose, her face full of concern, and put her hand on her forehead. ‘And how are you now? It seems like a lot of things hit you all at once: the drinking, the drowning and the disease,’ she said. ‘Poor you.’
‘Polly’s had a great idea,’ Gareth said, sitting on the other side of the bed. He took Rose’s hand and squeezed it.
‘It would be great for you to have a break, Rose,’ Polly said. ‘You’re overwrought. You’re dealing with all the fallout of Flossie’s illness, and now you’ve made yourself sick as well. Our bodies and our minds are so bound up with one another. There is no such thing as an accident, you know. Anyway, we both reckon you need a little holiday, so look!’ She spread ten railway tickets onto the bed. ‘Five tickets there, and five tickets back. We don’t have to pay for Flossie, apparently. It’s a total bargain.’
‘What?’ Rose peered at the tickets.
‘I was going to save this for a surprise, but I think the time is right now. We’re going to Brighton! You, me, Yann, Nico, Anna and Flossie. I got the tickets the other day when we were in Bath. They’re really cheap if you get them in advance.’
‘What? When?’
‘At the weekend. We’re going on Thursday morning, coming back on Monday.’
‘But what about school? And Gareth?’
‘It’ll be fine. Gareth is old enough to look after himself, believe me.’
‘Don’t worry about me.’ Gareth gave her hand another squeeze. ‘All we’ve got to do is make sure you’re better for the trip.’
‘And as for school,’ Polly went on, ‘well, for fuck’s sake, this will be educational. They’ll be seeing the spots where their old mums used to hang out.’
Rose looked down at the tickets again, as if by reading the details on them she could make sense of all this.
‘But why don’t we drive?’ she asked.
‘I don’t want you driving,’ Gareth said. ‘This is supposed to be a rest for you.’
‘Anyway, the train’s really cool,’ Polly urged. ‘It goes cross-country and we get to see the lovely English countryside on the way.’
Rose frowned. ‘I’m not sure though if I want to go back to Brighton,’ she said.
‘Course you do. It’ll be like we never left.’
‘But we did leave. Quite consciously on my part.’
‘You know what, Rose? You can’t keep hiding from your past all your life. You’ve got to face up to things or they get you in the end. Believe me, I know.’
‘Look, if this is some kind of therapy you’ve dreamed up for me . . .’ Rose’s argument was hampered by the fact that she didn’t want to talk about all of this in front of Gareth. There were things Polly knew that he didn’t, and Rose was keen to keep it that way. He seemed oblivious of any undercurrents, though, and just continued to sit on the bed, holding her hand and smiling – a little, she thought, like a zombie, or a man possessed.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ Polly went on. ‘We’re just going to go back to our home town, meet up with some friends, take the kids to the pier and the Sea Life Centre, show them the scenes of our youthful misdemeanours, visit a few old pubs then come back. What could be simpler? The boys are dying to see Brighton. And they’ve got Anna all excited too.’
‘Where will we stay, though?’
‘Lucy’s got space, now two of hers have left home.’
‘Lucy?’
‘You know – Lucy Gee. Tall, skinny, red hair? At school with us? Got pregnant? Went off and got married really young? Well, Mr Lucy went off and left her after the fourth child. Bastard. But that was ages ago, and her kids are all quite old. She’s got the house until the last one leaves, so she’s got loads of space. We’ve stayed in quite close contact, me and her.’
; Rose was surprised. She wondered, given all that, why Polly hadn’t thought of turning to this Lucy after Christos’s death, rather than foisting herself onto her and Gareth.
She closed her eyes. Of course she remembered Lucy. She could hardly forget her. But she couldn’t remember Polly being so intimate with her. And she herself certainly hadn’t been close to Lucy. In fact, she couldn’t remember having had any friends other than Polly. But, then again, her memory was unreliable: there were chunks of her life she had wiped out of her mind.