by Libby Page
Rosemary had watched them all and felt a great sense of contentment and warmth flow over her. The cider had helped too.
When she has finished her breakfast she opens a drawer and pushes aside a rolling pin, cling film, and a roll of tinfoil until she finds the kitchen scissors. Her hands shake as she slowly cuts out the front-page story. Once the story is detached she pins it to the fridge, moving Hope’s postcard from the cruise she went on two years ago and a menu for the Caribbean takeaway shop on her street.
Then she phones Kate and does something she hasn’t done for anyone in a very long time: she invites her to dinner.
Kate sounds surprised, but she agrees straightaway.
“Yes, of course, I’d love to. Thank you,” she says. “Oh, and Rosemary, I know it’s last minute, but what are you up to now? If you are free, we could use your help at the lido. Jay is taking some photos for another article—we’re hoping the coverage will help. Ahmed has set up a ‘Save Brockwell Lido’ Facebook page that we’ll mention in the piece too. I’ll show it to you later but it’s already getting a lot of support.”
“That’s wonderful,” replies Rosemary, a smile spreading across her face at the thought of Ahmed helping and of others joining in and showing their support for the lido. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Can you bring your swimsuit?” Kate says. “Jay thought a picture of you in the lido would work well. And seeing as you’ve already been on the front page, I thought you might not mind?”
Rosemary laughs.
“Why not,” she says.
Ahmed greets them outside the lido, he’s so excited to show Rosemary the Facebook page on his phone.
“It has sixty likes already, and I only set it up this morning,” he says happily. Rosemary wants to ask him what a “like” is, but doesn’t want to seem ignorant. So instead she says, “That’s wonderful, Ahmed; well done, you.”
Then Kate and Rosemary show Jay around. He meets the staff and the swimmers, all the time taking photographs. The children from the swimming group ask him to show them his camera. He kneels down on the ground and tells them what the different buttons do and shows them some of the photographs on the screen. They reach out eagerly to touch the camera. When he stands up his trousers are dark with water at the knees. He looks like he is wearing kneepads and it makes Kate laugh.
“I’m sorry,” she says, when he sees him laughing. “I hope you don’t mind them playing with your camera?”
“I’m used to it,” he says. “I have three nieces and two nephews.”
Rosemary watches Jay and Kate talking and notices how different Kate looks compared to the first time she met her. Happy.
At the end of the day the three of them part ways at the park gates.
“See you tomorrow evening then, Rosemary?” says Kate, squeezing Rosemary into a hug.
“Yes, see you tomorrow,” says Rosemary.
CHAPTER 34
“You have a lovely home, Rosemary, thank you for inviting me,” says Kate as she steps inside Rosemary’s flat and hands her a small bouquet of lilac tulips. The evening sun streams in from the balcony windows, casting the living room in a golden glow. It is a small room, but it is neat and ordered. There is a two-seater sofa, an armchair, and a coffee table with a record player next to it on the floor. Brightly colored cushions decorate the sofa and armchair: Kate recognizes the vibrant prints from the African fabric shop in Brixton Village. She thinks the room looks calm and cozy.
“You can put your coat on that chair,” says Rosemary, pointing to the chair by the door where her swimming bag sits expectantly.
Rosemary disappears into the kitchen, leaving Kate in the living room. While she is gone Kate wanders to the balcony doors. She looks over the fence and across the road to the lido walls, the bricks a burnt terra-cotta in the evening sun. Beyond the lido the rest of the park stretches into a green haze of treetops and grass.
She steps back from the balcony and across to the bookshelf that runs the length of one of the walls.
“Oh, look at all the books!” calls Kate into the kitchen, tilting her head sideways to read the titles on the long bookshelf. The Catcher in the Rye, A History of Brixton, Poems for Life . . .
“Shall we put on some music?” she asks, as Rosemary comes back into the room carrying the dish of peanuts. She points at the record player.
“What would you like to listen to?” says Rosemary.
“It’s hard to choose—you have such a great collection.”
“They’re George’s mostly.”
“May I?”
“Please do.”
Rosemary sits down and Kate kneels on the floor and leafs through the records. Eventually she picks one and carefully slides it out of its sleeve and lifts it onto the player.
“I love Frank Sinatra. My mum and stepdad used to dance to him in the kitchen. It embarrassed me when I was a teenager but I loved it really—the songs and the dancing.”
“George and I danced to him on more than one occasion too.”
“I’m sorry,” says Kate, “I can choose another one if you prefer?”
“No, leave it. I like it.”
From her seat on the sofa, Kate examines a framed photograph of George and Rosemary on their wedding day. They are in the park holding hands under a tree. Neither of them is looking at the camera; they are laughing and looking at something over the photographer’s shoulder.
“You look beautiful,” says Kate. “Both of you.”
“Thank you. I know we don’t usually use that word to describe men but I think he really was beautiful. He got so brown in the summer.”
Rosemary smiles and closes her eyes for a moment. Frank Sinatra’s smooth voice fills the flat.
As she listens to the music, Kate thinks about home. It has been some time since she went back to visit her mum and Brian. She used to worry that if she let herself go home, she might not come back. She might not have been home in a while, but she can still picture it clearly. It’s the smell of home that comes to her now: orange-scented candles and the wood of the dining table that they have had for as long as Kate can remember, and an indescribable scent that is a mix of the hair and clothes of the people she loves most in the world. When Erin and Kate were young they both had the same patterned scarves that were given to them by their grandmother. To tell whose was whose they would simply sniff the fabric and then swap them, recognizing each other’s smell instantly.
Kate looks up and realizes Rosemary is watching her. She glances at the wedding photo again, thinking how different Rosemary looks now, but also how similar in some ways too. Her face may have aged but her eyes are the same and there is still a certain confidence that can be seen clearly in both the photo and in the old woman in front of Kate.
“Tell me more about George?” asks Kate as she gently places the photo frame back on the shelf.
“Oh, where to start,” says Rosemary, sinking back a little into her chair. “You have probably guessed by now that he was a very good swimmer. He was evacuated to Devon during the war and he even swam with dolphins once, if you believe what he told me, which I’m not sure I do.”
Kate laughs.
“When I finished early at the library I would go and visit him at the fruit and vegetable shop. Sometimes he’d be serving customers and I’d stand and wait by the potatoes, watching him twist the paper bags in the air so they closed, or weighing tomatoes with real concentration. If there was no one in the shop he would often bring out a present for me: maybe a flat peach that he knew would be particularly sweet, or a twisted carrot from a sack of straight ones, or something I hadn’t seen before, like a yam when he had visited his Caribbean friends at the market.
“He liked to read, just like me, and I’d bring us both books home from the library. We’d sit and read them together and sometimes he’d just start laughing at something that he had read and then he’d try to keep quiet so he wouldn’t disturb me but often he couldn’t help it and he’d laugh so
much he started crying and there’d be tears streaming down his face. Of course that would make me laugh, too, and I’d just imagine what his customers would think if they saw this tall greengrocer laughing until he cried.”
Kate sits and rests her chin in her hand as she listens to Rosemary describing the man she loved. As she talks her blue eyes sparkle and her cheeks grow slightly flushed. Kate imagines the swimming greengrocer George. She pictures him sitting in this living room, sharing the two-seater sofa with Rosemary.
Rosemary looks up. “I’m sorry, I’m boring you.”
“No, the opposite,” says Kate. “I’m enjoying listening to you.”
“I suppose it has been a while since I’ve talked about him.”
“You must miss him,” Kate says gently.
Rosemary looks around the flat. Kate wonders what she sees—whether George is sitting on the armchair, standing by the balcony, or smiling at her from the kitchen door.
“Oh, terribly.”
“Time to eat,” says Rosemary then, the brief shadow passing away from her eyes.
The table is laid for two and there is a vase of cut lavender sprigs in the center.
When the timer buzzes Kate helps Rosemary lift a steaming dish out of the oven. A roasted joint of lamb sits on a bed of crisp, honeyed vegetables.
“This smells delicious, Rosemary,” she says.
Rosemary reaches above the fridge and takes down a black clothbound notebook that is nearly falling apart. Pages hang out of it and scribbled notes are stuck on scraps of paper that poke out of the edges. She passes it to Kate.
“George’s recipes. They’ve been very helpful. He used to do most of the cooking.”
Kate opens it and carefully turns the pages. Some have fingerprints and drops of food on them. Others have crossed-out notes and added comments. She turns page after page of recipes.
“You must have been very proud of him,” she says, carefully handing the book back to Rosemary.
“Very.”
Rosemary places the notebook gently back on the top of the fridge. Kate pulls the table out so Rosemary can sit down, and then tucks it back in.
“You cooked, I’ll serve,” she says.
Rosemary looks as though she is about to argue, but she is trapped behind the table so has no choice but to sit down and let Kate help.
“There’s a salad in the fridge, can you get it out? Please.”
As Kate goes to open the fridge door she notices her article and Rosemary’s photograph and smiles.
The fridge is full of colorful vegetables from Ellis and in the fridge door there is a bottle of white wine with her name on it. Kate reaches for the bowl of salad and the wine and closes the door.
She puts the salad on the table and holds out the wine with a smile and a raised eyebrow, turning the bottle with the “Kate” label stuck on it to face Rosemary.
“Oh, yes, I nearly forgot” says Rosemary. “Would you like some wine?”
“Glasses?”
“Top cupboard above the microwave.”
The cupboard has two of everything. Kate takes down the two wineglasses and opens the wine. She pours Rosemary’s well above half full.
“You deserve that,” says Kate.
The meat and vegetables are perfectly cooked and even the salad is delicious, made with fresh leaves and drizzled with a dressing whose flavor Kate can’t identify, but which tastes wonderful.
“I’m so impressed, this is amazing. Thank you, Rosemary.”
“You’re welcome,” says Rosemary, smiling. “I’m very lucky—George was an excellent cook. He knew everything about vegetables, of course, but he was good with meat too. He learned from the butchers in the market—he would ask them to tell him their secrets in exchange for a sack of potatoes or some bags of fruit.”
As they eat she continues to talk, telling Kate about George and their life together. Afterward, Kate quietly clears the table and washes the dishes. She is filling the kettle when Rosemary lets out a soft sigh.
“This has been a lovely birthday,” she says.
Kate turns around quickly. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday!”
Rosemary shrugs.
“I would have brought you something more than tulips,” says Kate, her eyebrows knotted and her voice full of concern. “I would have done something. And now I feel bad that you did all that cooking.”
“This is my eighty-seventh. I have had more than my fair share of birthdays.”
“Well, we should at least have another glass of wine,” Kate says, turning the kettle off and reaching for the wine instead.
“Here we go,” she says, pouring two full glasses. “Happy birthday, Rosemary.”
The two women clink glasses and take a sip. They sink back into their chairs and into conversation. They talk about the lido and about George, and for a while it is as though he is there in the kitchen with them, squeezed at the table that is only really big enough for two.
CHAPTER 35
It looked much higher once she was up the tree. She wrapped her legs around it and gripped the mossy branch tightly between her hands, her feet dangling below her. George was already on the other side; she could make out the shape of his body standing on the picnic bench, arms outstretched and waiting for her.
“I’m much too old for this!” she called down to him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. She couldn’t see his face properly but she could tell from his voice that he was smiling. “Don’t they say that sixty is the new thirty?”
“But I’m seventy-one!”
He laughed. “Well, we can’t be more than the new thirty-five then.”
“Well, my knees certainly aren’t thirty-five.”
On cue her knees sent a stabbing pain down her legs.
“You can do it, Rosy, I know you can do it.”
A cloud rolled away from the moon and lit up his face for a moment. He smiled broadly up at her. That face, she thought as she looked at him. I have always been a sucker for that face. She swung one leg over the tree branch and hugged it tightly between her arms, reaching her legs out beneath her, searching, searching for a solid surface. Lower, lower, she went until her feet met the safety of the bench. As she set herself down she slipped slightly and landed with a thud.
“Ouch,” she said. “Have I always been this graceful?” She brushed herself down and took his hand.
“Oh, and more,” he said, laughing.
Together they both climbed slowly off the bench, examining themselves quietly for injuries. No blood, no broken bones, no torn clothes. Once they had established that they were both in one piece they looked up at the same time.
A dappled light from the moon shone on the decking of the lido, the clock glowed white, and the lifeguard’s chair stood empty in the shadows. Above the lido it was patchy with clouds. Stars lined the pockets of clear sky. The trees stood to attention around the lido walls, their branches even darker than the sky behind them. It was still and quiet and cool.
“Shall we?” said George, looking at his wife’s face and not seeing the lines that had crept there over the years.
They let go of each other’s hand and walked to either side of the pool. Rosemary took one corner and George took the other. Together they peeled the cover off until the water beneath was revealed. They turned and headed together to the picnic bench, where they sat down next to each other. Rosemary kicked off her shoes. George leaned to untie his laces.
“Ow,” he said, straightening and holding his lower back.
“Back?” she asked. He nodded and pulled his left shoe off with his other foot. She put a hand on his shoulder and rubbed it. They undressed slowly, Rosemary helping George with the buttons on his shirt, George helping Rosemary with the zip on her skirt.
“It’s the one that gets stuck halfway,” she said. “You need to pull it hard, remember.”
Eventually they were naked. Their pale bodies were paler still in the moonlight. They loo
ked at each other as if looking in a mirror—they knew each other’s bodies as well as they knew their own. That scar on George’s left foot from dropping a crate of potatoes when unpacking a delivery into the shop; the purple scar on Rosemary’s wrist from burning herself taking a pie out of the oven (it was no wonder that George only rarely let her cook); the curves of their stomachs were both softened and padded with the years.
They held hands as they walked to the pool.
She slipped into the pool first with a splash and a quick intake of breath. The dark water swallowed her up in its cold. He followed her, choosing to face the wall. Rosemary watched his pale backside as she floated, waiting for him, and couldn’t help but laugh. He swore as he entered the water, doing a few quick strokes to warm up. But then he was laughing too. They floated on their backs for a moment, getting used to the cold that buoyed them up and filled their ears. Then they started to swim. They swam through stars and inky black patches of water where the clouds above blocked out the light. They stayed close to each other, matching each other’s steady pace. Ripples spread out through the water as they kicked, each of them feeling the waves of the other’s breaststroke.
Without having to mention it to each other they both had the sense that it would be somehow disrespectful to talk as they swam; it was so beautiful and so quiet. So they remained silent, wrapped in the cold and looking up at the sky.
After a few laps they headed to the shallow end again and pulled themselves out, their bodies so cold that they felt warm. They walked to the corners of the pool and pulled the cover back over the water as though they were tucking it in for the night. Back at the bench they pulled towels out of George’s backpack and wrapped them loosely around themselves. Then they sat down next to each other.
“Do you remember what we did next?”
Rosemary laughed. “I hope you’re not getting any ideas, George.”
“Did we even put a towel down? I can’t remember, I certainly had grazes on my knees.”