by Hilary McKay
He came back to the house at intervals all through the day to repeat this remark, and when everyone went off to Sarah’s house, David tagged along too. He got into the party spirit straight away. Seeing Indigo being greeted with a hug by Sarah’s mother, he bravely joined in by kissing Sarah herself, loudly and clumsily on her left ear.
This was a bit of a shock to Sarah’s father, who took his daughter aside at once. ‘I promised you when you were born that I would never criticise your boyfriends,’ he said. ‘So do not be afraid to introduce me, Sarah. I will not disgrace you by weeping in public but I may get slightly drunk.’
‘It’s all right,’ Sarah reassured him. ‘He is not my sort at all (short hair and politeness will never appeal to me). He is someone Indigo knows and is too kind to shoo away. His name is David.’
Sarah’s father, although not at all reassured by this information, said in that case he was more than welcome, obviously worse was to come, and he looked forward to meeting the long-haired yob who would eventually claim his daughter’s heart. Soon David was helping with the barbecue as if he was one of the family. He seemed very at home. (Later, when the photographs of the evening were eventually developed he was discovered to be on nearly all of them.)
‘I hope you’re not going to kiss me again,’ said Sarah, when he came ambling across for his birthday cake. ‘It is too scary for my poor father (not to mention me). I saw you posing with my mother under the Happy Birthday banner! I didn’t know you even knew her!’
‘No, I don’t,’ said David with his mouth full of cake.
‘I expect that’s why you didn’t bring her a present?’
‘Yes,’ agreed David.
‘What do you think of the cake?’
‘Fantastic.’
‘I made it.’
‘I know.’
‘You gobbled that bit so quickly I don’t suppose you had time to make a wish.’
‘I did,’ said David. ‘I wished Rose would be OK.’
Sarah looked at him more favourably than she ever had done before and said, ‘Take another slice.’
‘All right,’ said David, helping himself.
‘Then you can make another wish.’
David nodded, chewing.
‘So what was it?’
‘Oh,’ said David surprised. ‘I wished Rose would be OK again.’
‘Have some more,’ suggested Sarah, and when he had taken another piece and eaten it she asked, ‘Did you wish about Rose again?’
‘Yes,’ said David, wiping cake crumbs up from his plate and sucking them off his fingers. ‘Just that she would be OK.’
‘Isn’t there anything you want for yourself ?’
David thought about that, and eventually replied that he shouldn’t mind a drum kit. Sarah offered the plate again.
‘Thanks,’ said David, eating only slightly more slowly.
With his next piece (prompted by Sarah), he wished his old wish to be thin and swift and witty and effortlessly cool, and with his sixth piece he wished for drumming lessons to go with the drum kit, but all the time, at the back of these wishes, he was wishing for Rose to be OK.
He shook his head speechlessly at the offer of a seventh piece of cake.
‘Rose will be OK,’ said Sarah kindly.
Then the party was over. The barbecue was cold. The music was quiet. Helpful people wandered around with black bin bags, filling them with paper plates, napkins, plastic glasses, and candle stumps. Eve, who had drunk a great deal of wine, had a particularly heavy bag because she had also inadvertently tidied away two cameras, several small birthday presents and the barbecue tools. (Luckily her bag split before these things were lost for good.)
‘Bed,’ she said, hugging Sarah’s mother goodbye. ‘Lovely party! Off we go! Where’s Saffy?’
‘I’m stopping the night with Sarah,’ said Saffron.
‘Oh yes. Indy?’
‘Here,’ said Indigo.
‘MarcusJoshPatrick?’
‘I’m here too,’ said David.
‘Rose?’ asked Eve, stopping suddenly, half way along the road to home.
‘London, with Caddy.’
‘I knew that.’
At the door of the house she asked, ‘Bill?’
‘Looking after Rose,’ said Indigo soothingly.
‘Darling Bill. Bed or shed? Which is nearer?’
‘About the same,’ said Indigo.
‘Shed, I think,’ said Eve. ‘No stairs. Night night, darlings!’
Eve hovered for a moment, and then set off down the garden path. David watched her with his mouth hanging open.
‘It’s a very comfortable shed,’ said Indigo. ‘It’s got a sofa and quilts and cushions and stuff.’
‘Crikey.’
The shed door creaked, and then closed. And then there was a new sound. It came from inside the house. It was the telephone ringing, and as soon as Indigo and David heard it they both exclaimed, ‘Rose!’
While Sarah’s mother’s birthday party had been just getting underway, in London the last of the sunlight was shining low through the windows of Bill Casson’s apartment. It showed up a pattern of handprints on the glass, low down and small-sized, clustered together like a constellation.
Mine, thought Rose, recognising them in surprise. I don’t remember putting my hands there. I did look out of the window, though. Daddy will say, ‘Rose, look at those marks on the window!’ He hates mess. You can tell when you look at this room that he really hates mess. You could not be cosy in this room. You could not lie down on the floor and draw. You could play a guitar because you can play a guitar anywhere. Tom can play his lying down flat on his back. He crosses one leg over to make a place to rest it…
‘Rose!’ said Samantha, interrupting Rose’s thoughts. ‘Say that again! About what Saffron found when she was looking for her father on the internet.’
‘Oh,’ said Rose, innocently, not really concentrating, still much more interested in her own thoughts. ‘Oh yes. She found Daddy.’
Bill flung himself up from the sofa, dragged open the balcony windows, and stepped into the sudden noise of traffic and the warm dusty air of a London evening. He only stayed outside for a moment. Then he came back in and pulled the windows shut again. Rose saw that Samantha was staring at him as if a completely different person from the one who had stepped out a minute before had stepped back in.
Samantha said, ‘Saffron found you! You! Now I understand everything.’
Rose thought: Now he has made fingerprints on the window too. Good.
Bill said, ‘How am I ever going to face them again? Saffron? Eve?’ And he sat on the sofa with his head in his hands, holding it like it was a ball he had just caught before it fell.
Samantha asked, ‘Do you really think that Eve does not know you are Saffron’s father?’
Then, for the first time, Rose understood everything too.
Rose was still not yet nine. The facts of life were recent news to her. She had heard them first at school (in inaccurate, alarming and completely unbelievable detail). Then she had tested her new knowledge on Saffron and Sarah and been told them again.
‘For a start,’ Sarah had said, ‘they are not all the facts of life! Knowing them does not mean you know everything (some people think it does). They are some of the facts of life. You shouldn’t listen to mucky little boys in the playground, Rosy Pose!’
‘I had to listen!’
The information Rose heard from Saffron and Sarah was much less alarming (and sometimes hilarious), much more accurate, but equally unbelievable. At the end she had asked, ‘Is it truly not all a big joke?’
‘It’s a big joke,’ Saffron had told her. ‘But it’s true.’
‘For some people?’
‘For everyone.’
‘Except me,’ said Rose.
‘Just what I said when I first heard it all,’ remarked Sarah cheerfully.
‘It can be true for everyone except me!’ said Rose. ‘And all the people I know!
’
Saffron and Sarah said, ‘Oh all right then, Rosy Pose! It can be that way if you like.’
Now, incredibly, it seemed that it could not be that way if Rose liked. Bill was saying, very slowly, one word dropping at a time, ‘I don’t know…’
Rose’s whole world had gone spinning up into the air, like a penny flipped high, turning and turning.
‘If Eve knows…’
Higher and higher, until it seemed that everything she had believed in must be spilt and scattered and lost.
‘I am Saffron’s father.’
Coming down again.
‘But it’s true.’
And landing, right side up.
Rose gave a huge sigh of relief because it was all still there. Saffron. Sarah. Caddy. Michael. Indigo. Eve. Tom. All still there. And even Bill. The world had spun, and risen upwards, and tumbled back down again, and they had survived the flight. And so had she.
Nevertheless, she was hugely astonished.
She said, ‘Daddy! You are Saffy’s father! You! Goodness! No wonder! No wonder Saffy looks just like Caddy! No wonder there was nothing in the box! What an enormous, ENORMOUS secret to keep for so long!’
‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘What an enormous secret to keep for so long.’
He looked so unhappy, so unlike his usual arrogant, charming, confident self, that Rose was sorry for him.
‘New York will cheer you up,’ she told him consolingly.
Bill lifted his head a little.
‘Aren’t you angry with me, Rose?’
‘What, me?’ asked Rose, surprised, and Samantha suddenly crossed the room, dropped a kiss on the top of her head, and went out, closing the door.
‘Yes, you.’
‘Why? Because you’re Saffy’s father or because you don’t want to take me to New York?’
‘Rose, could we just drop the subject of New York?’
‘All right. No. I’m not angry.’
‘Sad?’
‘Because you are Saffy’s father?’
‘Yes.’
Rose shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Thank you, Rose.’
‘I am sad because you don’t want to take me to New York though.’
Bill sighed.
‘And I think Saffy will be angry.’
‘Yes.’
‘And Caddy and Indigo might say, A Bit Sneaky. Being Saffy’s father and not telling anyone. Because they will know what you must have done to be Saffy’s father.’
‘I suppose they will.’
‘They know the facts of life. And they believe them, too. So.’
‘And I suppose you know them as well, Rosy Pose?’
‘Yes,’ said Rose, cheerfully. ‘But don’t worry. I don’t believe them.’
‘Oh, Rose.’
‘And if the others say A Bit Sneaky and are very mad I will be on your side until they calm down.’
Bill lifted his head right up. He took his hands away and it stayed balanced on his neck where it had always been. He said, ‘Darling, brave, loyal Rose. No wonder your mother called you Permanent Rose.’
‘Can we talk about New York now?’ asked Rose, hopefully.
‘Rose!’ exclaimed Indigo and David when they heard the telephone ring, and they dashed into the house and grabbed it and they were right; it was Rose.
‘Is she OK?’ demanded David, crowding up close to the receiver so that he could hear too. ‘Ask her if she’s OK!’
‘Are you OK, Rose?’ asked Indigo. ‘Where are you? Is Caddy there too? Why are you calling so late?’
‘Because you weren’t in earlier,’ said Rose. ‘We tried and tried. Me and Daddy.’
‘Is that where you are?’
‘Of course it is! He’s asleep on the sofa right now. He’s got stress because Samantha dumped him (tell Mummy, she’ll be pleased). Caddy’s lost.’
‘What do you mean, lost?’
‘She rushed away and didn’t come back. But it doesn’t matter. I shan’t be on my own. Daddy said I can go with him.’
‘Go with him, where?’
‘And Samantha who is very nice bought me a lot of new clothes from Tesco because it stays open so late. Jeans and pyjamas and two T-shirts in a pack and a blue skirt and a bag with a toothbrush shaped like a dinosaur…’
‘Stop a minute, Rose!’ begged Indigo.
Rose stopped for a moment, but she had never had so many new things all at once in her life before, and the wonder had not yet left her. She stopped, but she started again almost immediately.
‘And a sponge shaped like a dinosaur to match the toothbrush. And socks and pants (not dinosaur just normal) and three pairs of trainers, because she didn’t know what size would fit me. You should have seen it, it was amazing, she just walked in with three big bags and said, “There you are, Rose” and they were all full of things for me. And all the trainers fit if I scrunch my toes up a bit in the smallest and walk slowly in the biggest so they don’t fall off but I am taking the middle-sized pair…’
‘Taking the middle-sized pair, where?’ shouted Indigo.
‘On the plane and I forget to say a sweatshirt with a hood because Samantha said it might be cold. Even if it’s hot here and hot there it might be cold in the sky in between. Samantha says.’
‘What sky in between?’ asked Indigo, although he was beginning to guess.
‘London and New York.’
‘Rose!’
‘Daddy said he would take me if there was a seat on the plane and if Mummy said yes. And there was a seat on the plane. Samantha’s. So.’
‘Rose, do you think you are going to find Tom in New York?’
‘Of course I am,’ said Rose.
‘How?’ demanded Indigo. ‘And anyway, what about Mum saying yes? She hasn’t!’
‘She will. And of course I will find Tom in New York. It’s where he lives.’
‘Rose,’ said Indigo, ‘what do you think is going to happen? Do you think you will land and find Tom standing under a sign that says “New York”? I think you ought to talk to Mum. Speak to David while I go and fetch her!’
Indigo passed the receiver over to David and hurried outside. David said, ‘Hello, Rose.’
‘Why are you at our house in the middle of the night?’
‘I just am. Are you OK?’
‘Of course I’m OK,’ said Rose. ‘At eight o’clock tomorrow morning, guess where I will be?’
‘Where?’
‘In the sky!’
‘Only if your mum says yes.’
‘Mummy always says yes,’ said Rose truthfully. ‘And Daddy has done already. He’s even put a label on my bag, so that proves it! London Heathrow To New York JFK. I keep reading it.’
‘Well I think your mum will say no.’
‘Why?’
‘Mine would.’
‘Oh,’ said Rose. ‘David?’
‘Yes?’
‘If she says no I won’t be able to go.’
‘Why doesn’t your father talk to her?’
‘He said he couldn’t face it. Because of why Samantha dumped him. David?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve got a good idea. Tell Mummy to telephone if it’s no. And if she doesn’t we will know it’s yes and I can go to New York…’
‘I can’t do that! Anyway, she’s coming…’
‘…Because I really have to go to New York,’ said Rose, ‘and I’ve got to go now because I have to go to bed,’ and she put down the receiver, inspected the base of her father’s telephone, muted the ringer, found the answer phone button, and turned that off too. To make extra sure that she was safe she picked up her father’s mobile from where it was lying on the coffee table, and switched that off as well.
Then she shook Bill awake and said, ‘I rang home and I can go!’
‘That’s good, Rosy Pose,’ said Bill very sleepily and now long past all battles. ‘So Eve said yes. I suppose she would say yes.’
‘She said yes,’ said Rose. ‘The way peopl
e do when they don’t say no.’
‘She didn’t say no, did she?’
‘No.’
‘All right, Rosy Pose.’
After Caddy had abandoned Rose she recrossed London, caught the next train home, and rushed straight to Michael’s house. Hours later, when she came away, she left Michael with the diamond and platinum ring.
‘At least I didn’t get it engraved,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll find some other girl to give it to, and she’ll never know that it wasn’t hers from the start.’
‘Oh Michael, don’t joke!’ wailed Caddy.
‘What else am I supposed to do?’ demanded Michael. ‘What else am I supposed to do when I feel like this? Cadmium darling.’
It was two o’clock in the morning before Caddy got home. She unlocked the door, tiptoed up the stairs, and crawled into bed. Her last thought, before she fell asleep, was that she had had enough of the world for one day.
Indigo had fallen asleep thinking about Rose and Tom. He dreamed that his hands were tied. He fought against the wrappings. They were thin and fragile, but there were hundreds of them. As fast as he could tear them away more and more came and folded around him.
In the morning the pages of Morte D’Arthur were scattered as thick as fallen leaves in a forest, all over the bed and floor.
Eve dreamed she was an infinitely small dot, rocking in an infinitely large darkness. It was her favourite dream.
Saffron said she dreamed of nothing.
‘Nothing?’ asked Sarah. ‘That’s not possible! I dreamed of that Year Twelve boy who does the school discos…’
Saffron flounced out of bed.
‘…he was…Saffy, you pig! Take those things off lovely Justin!’
‘No,’ said Saffy, getting back into bed, and looking at lovely Justin (dressed for the day in a fringed denim skirt and blue lace bra). ‘They fit him perfectly. That’ll teach you to dream.’
Saffy’s and Sarah’s hearts of stone were never very solid first thing in the morning.
Caddy woke up and exclaimed, ‘Rose!’ She had forgotten all about Rose.
All through the night Bill, sleeping on the sofa, was sure that he was a picture. A picture in a gallery, slipping slowly down the wall. ‘Oh really!’ complained Bill, as he slid. ‘I am not exactly…’