Dearest Rose

by Rowan Coleman

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘ALL I’M SAYING is, I know people,’ Shona said as soon as they managed to find a moment together alone to talk the next day, which was just after Jenny had tried her best to stuff them all with an enormous Sunday roast. Rose had come upstairs on the pretence of fetching something, and Shona had followed her, closing the door behind her as she entered the room, sitting on the edge of Rose’s bed. Maddie was downstairs, drawing Brian, who was asleep in an armchair, his mouth open, his snores rattling the rafters, which Maddie found highly amusing.

  ‘Hired assassins, you mean?’ Rose asked her, casting about for something to fetch and settling on a tube of lip salve, before sitting next to Shona on the bed.

  ‘Faces, sorts,’ Shona said, adding to, rather than clearing up, any ambiguity. ‘Blokes who’ll do what needs doing.’

  ‘So you’re suggesting I get Richard killed?’ Rose asked her, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Ssh.’ Shona looked around as if she thought that Rose’s bedroom might be bugged. ‘I’m just saying, if that was what you wanted I could get it done. Fuck it, I’ll do it myself if I get my hands on him.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Rose said, as if she herself was a little surprised by the news. ‘I’m OK, Shona.’

  ‘You’re not.’ Shona shook her head adamantly. ‘How can you be after what the brute did to you?’

  ‘Is it worse than what Ryan did to you?’ Rose asked her.

  ‘He never forced himself on me,’ Shona said, peculiarly proud.

  ‘No, just good clean physical violence,’ Rose said, shaking her head at how Shona seemed so able to box away the terrible violence done to her as if it were inconsequential. ‘At least he never physically hurt me, not really. Not until that last day. And before that, when he … he did it because he hates me. I think he’s probably hated me for a long time, and knowing that … it doesn’t make it better, but it makes it bearable. Because I’m starting to see that physical … you know … it’s nothing like what Richard did to me. It’s an entirely separate thing. I might never ever want to do it, ever, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that now I understand why Richard did what he did, I can escape it, be free of his hold on me. He hates me, and knowing that is an incredible relief. It makes everything so much simpler.’

  ‘Simpler? The psycho is out to get you whatever way he can, and you know he won’t stop until he has. How can you be so calm?’ Shona asked, horror and disbelief showing on her face. ‘Why don’t you hate him for what he did? Why aren’t you a shivering wreck?’

  ‘Oh, I do hate him,’ Rose said with grim assurance, as she passed the lip salve from one hand to the other. ‘But don’t you get it? I’ve been a shivering, wailing wreck. I’ve done that. But this time he is not going to win. I’m not calm, Shona, I’m something like what I think happy is. I’m free. Yes, he frightened me last night, he made me feel for a second that he had enough power over me to pull me back, whether I wanted that or not. And talking to you about that night, the night I left, it did bring it back, the disgust, the fear, the uncertainty. But when I woke up this morning I wasn’t afraid.’ Rose smiled as she picked up Shona’s hand. ‘The sun was coming in through the curtains, Maddie was already up, humming to herself as she drew. I thought of seeing my dad, and how he’s willing to try and be some sort of father to me, and how much it must cost him to do that. I thought of Frasier calling me last night to arrange to take me out, and you and Jenny and, yes, Ted, and Ted’s crazy kissing ability …’ Rose dropped her gaze, blushing a little as she remembered how sweet it had been to kiss Ted. How pure and clean and one million miles away from anything that Richard had ever done to her. ‘And I thought this is what life is supposed to be like. This is how it’s meant to be. Complicated, difficult, painful and quite probably disappointing, but with the possibility that everything will be all right.’ Rose laughed, spontaneously leaning forward to kiss Shona on the cheek. ‘Don’t you see? It’s the first time I’ve felt that way in the longest, longest time, and I got myself here, I rescued myself. What he did to me was all about keeping me down. Well, nothing is going to do that any more. Let him come and find me, I’ll be ready. And in the meantime, I’m going to practise being happy and, well, live my life for once! And you know what, it actually feels pretty good.’

  ‘You are a fucking hero, you know that?’ Shona said, hooking an arm around Rose’s neck and pulling her in close for a kiss. Just at that moment, Rose’s phone, which she had forgotten was still languishing under the dressing table, rang, and she tensed, feeling her heartbeat thunder in her chest. Taking a deep breath, and then another one, she let it ring until she had control of her habitual fear. It was only a phone, after all.

  ‘Leave it,’ Shona said, but Rose shook her head, falling to her hands and knees to reach it where it pulsated with light, wedged up against the skirting board.

  ‘Oh,’ Rose said, smiling as she saw the name on the display, hurrying to answer it before it went to messages. ‘Hello? Hello, Frasier!’

  Shona rolled her eyes, smirking as Rose knelt on the pink carpet, biting down hard on her lip as she listened to him.

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. Maddie slipped in the shower and got a fright, and then … I suppose my phone must have been on silent. Yes, yes, lovely. I look forward to it. Six at Storm Cottage. I’ll be there. Brilliant. See you then!’

  As she ended the call Rose couldn’t help hugging it to her, as if she was cradling a little lovebird between her hands.

  ‘I’m not sure about this, you know,’ Shona said, looking worried. ‘I mean, before I thought you were mental going after Frasier, but now I know what you’ve been through, how little you can take, whatever you say, Rose, I’m so worried you are only going to end up getting hurt. Frasier’s got a girlfriend, he’s got a life and you aren’t part of it. And I don’t care what you say, I’ve watched enough daytime television to know that after everything you’ve been through you are bound to be fragile, like in the head.’ Shona tapped her own forehead to illustrate her point. ‘I mean, all this snogging Ted, seeing Frasier – do you think you should?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Rose said emphatically, standing up to make her point. ‘This is about taking chances, being free. Doing what I want, what I’ve always wanted. And I’ve always wanted to have dinner with Frasier McCleod. I know that Frasier and I aren’t going to have our fairy-tale ending, but I’ve got so much to thank him for that he doesn’t even know about, that in one way, if I stop thinking too much about how I really do love him a lot, it doesn’t matter. Because if it wasn’t for him and his postcard and my silly little fantasy, then I don’t know where I’d be today. So I think seeing him, getting to know him – even if it is only as a friend – in the real world, can only be a good thing.’

  ‘I want to believe that you know what you’re doing, I do,’ Shona said, Rose’s certainty doing nothing to clear away the deep furrows of concern on her brow. ‘It’s just that you seem far too sane for my liking. I’m sure it must be that post-traumatic stress thing.’

  ‘No,’ Rose said, going to open her wardrobe to take a look at what her meagre selection of new clothes might have to offer for dinner at a Michelin-starred country house hotel. ‘Nope, it’s not that. It’s the freedom. I find it goes quite to my head.’

  Maddie drummed her heels impatiently the whole way, as they drove over to Storm Cottage later that afternoon, her sketchbook tucked in her arms, replacing Bear and the book about Ancient Egypt. She’d already unhooked her belt before Rose fully came to a stop, and shot out of the car, leaving the door open and dashing into the barn before Rose could turn off the ignition. Rose steadied herself, checking her reflection in the rear-view mirror.

  Keen not to look like she was trying too hard, she’d settled in the end on a white cotton dress with a scoop neck, and fullish fifties-style skirt that settled just above her knees. She teamed it with a pair of flat cherry-red pumps she found in the bottom of one of the bin bags of clothes that Jenny had given her, th
en rubbed a little moisturiser into her skin, put on a flick of mascara, ran her fingers through her hair and she was done.

  ‘You look like … you look like a professional virgin,’ Shona had told her as she left. ‘Still, it’s a look that suits you.’

  Getting out of the car, Rose saw that the gallery van was already here, but she couldn’t see Frasier’s car. He’d said he’d pick her up here at six, which wasn’t for almost an hour, but still Rose wondered if he’d come at all, if he’d forget or prefer to do something with his girlfriend, or just change his mind about the whole thing. Fortunately it had been a warm day, flooded with sunshine, and so Rose didn’t look too out of place in her flimsy cotton dress as she ventured after Maddie, skipping across the caked peaks and troughs of the thankfully dry muddy yard.

  ‘I understand that I am babysitting?’ John tested the phrase on his tongue as if it were rather distasteful to him.

  Maddie was already situated in her corner of the barn, her face a picture of concentration as she began the process of transferring a sketch she’d made of a view from the hillside onto her precious canvas with a pencil.

  ‘Is that what Maddie said?’ Rose asked. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to. It’s just that she so wanted to come up here today, and I couldn’t keep her at the B & B any longer. I just thought I would drop her off with my friend on the way back. I mean, if I’m being too presumptuous, if it’s too much, I don’t want to overstep –’

  ‘I don’t want to go back, I want to stay here with John,’ Maddie said. ‘He won’t mind.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Rose said to John. ‘Look Maddie, you can’t just invite yourself –’

  ‘She can stay if she must,’ John sighed. Everything about his expression showed a surface veneer of irritation at the prospect of providing childcare, but there was a warmth there too, just the hint that actually he was rather pleased to be having his granddaughter to stay, even if he couldn’t quite believe it himself.

  ‘Although I must warn you,’ he said sternly to the young girl, ‘it gets rather boring up here after work, Maddie. There is no TV or radio, only some books. And I’ve not much food in – some bread, I think, and cheese that is only a little bit mouldy.’

  ‘I like cheese on toast,’ Maddie shrugged, as if that was that problem solved.

  Rose hesitated, wondering if this was wise. It had been only a few days ago that John had been so determined to keep them at arm’s length, to shut them out of his life. From what he’d told her, she understood a little of why he had been so determined to keep them away, but this new willingness to bring them so fully into his life was hard to understand, and although she hated herself for feeling it, it made Rose wary.

  ‘I’ll come and pick her up. It might be fairly late, though,’ she said. ‘This is too much for you, too soon. And for Maddie too. You barely know each other.’

  ‘I said she can stay the night,’ John said, adamant. ‘As long as she won’t be scared of the creaking old house and the noise the wind makes when it rattles by; sounds like screaming ghosts.’ He was trying to be playful, Rose knew, but John had no idea how prone Maddie was to taking these things to heart, and to becoming a screaming, sleep-avoiding, stay-up-all-night, trembling wreck in a matter of seconds. It was a symbol of how very little they knew each other.

  ‘John,’ she said, ushering him to one side as Maddie stared at his work in progress, her nose almost touching it, ‘I’m just … this all seems a bit sudden. Don’t get me wrong, I want it to be like this, but why? Why all this now?’

  John said nothing for a moment, his expression unreadable as he seemed to consider what to say next. ‘I was keeping you at bay so I didn’t have to face my own guilt,’ he said finally. ‘Because I didn’t want to know what I had done to you, what I had missed. Someone said something that made me think …’

  ‘Who?’ Rose asked him. ‘Frasier?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who,’ John said, waving her question aside with his hand. ‘What matters is, I’ve reached a point in my life where I’ve finally learnt to listen. I am old, Rose.’

  ‘Not really. Being in your sixties isn’t old these days,’ Rose said, feeling her heart clench at the realisation of how much time had passed by as her life had stood still.

  ‘I’m old. And I’ve hated myself for long enough.’ John’s face softened, and Rose realised that he was looking at her with something more than fondness; he was looking at her with love. ‘You said that you can’t forgive me for how I left you, and I don’t expect you to. I’m not even sure I want you to. But I do hope, perhaps unreasonably, to live out the rest of my days without hating myself. If you could see your way to letting me get to know you and Maddie, from this moment on, as the person I am now, the man that I have never been before, then there is a very small chance I might achieve that.’

  John held out his hand to her, and Rose stared at it, wavering in mid-air. Since she’d found him they had never once touched each other and she was all too aware of what it would mean if she took his fingers in hers. Her hesitation was excruciating, but then she remembered what she had said to Shona as they had sat on the bed in her room at the B & B. Her life began now, and so, it seemed, did John’s. What reason could there be to stop them from making that step together, except to perpetuate anger, bitterness and hate? And Rose had had enough of all of those things to last her a lifetime.

  Reaching out, she took his fingers, warm and rough with calluses, in hers, and nodded, noticing the tears like the ones that stood in her own eyes also glistening in John’s.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Thank you, Rose. It’s more than I deserve.’

  ‘Are we holding hands?’ Maddie asked, noticing the adults again and plonking her hand heavily on top of John and Rose’s. ‘Does this mean I can stay the night?’

  ‘I suppose it does,’ Rose smiled at her daughter.

  ‘Besides,’ John told Maddie, ‘I did some clearing out of the boxroom last night, just in case. You can get to the bed now, and there are clean sheets on it.’

  ‘Exciting!’ Maddie squealed, with a little hop.

  ‘Thank you,’ Rose said, uncertain how to proceed now that this fragile bridge had been made between them. ‘The thing about Maddie is, she does sometimes get a bit scared –’

  ‘Not really,’ Maddie said, looking mortified at her mother’s revelation. ‘I don’t really get scared. I pretend, that’s all. It will be fine, Mum. John is my granddad, after all. Children are always staying with their grandfathers and it’s always fine. Don’t worry, I won’t miss you. There is painting, drawing and books, and John will tell me things and I can do him a test on colour theory. All the things I like are here. This is definitely not a place that makes me scared. Or pretend to be scared.’

  Rose bit her lip, somehow finding this new-found confidence in her daughter as hard to take as it was pleasing. She was used to Maddie depending utterly on her, and as much as she wanted her to have exactly this kind of independent spirit, she still found it hard to let go.

  ‘If you say so, Maddie. As long as you promise not to be pretend scared of the wind.’

  ‘It will be the wind,’ Maddie said, waving away the concern with her pencil.

  Maddie looked at John, who nodded once.

  ‘Wind,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Wind doesn’t scare me. I actually like wind.’

  ‘Very well then,’ Rose said, feeling another new beginning emerging. ‘You may stay.’

  Just then the storeroom door opened and two men emerged carrying a carefully wrapped canvas between them with some difficulty.

  ‘Third one’s still not dry, you say?’ the older of the two men asked John.

  ‘Not for a couple more days,’ John said, offhand.

  ‘So another trip down here then,’ the man said huffily.

  ‘I presume you will get paid twice,’ John said, unrepentant. ‘A veritable godsend in these uncertain times.’

  Rose pretended not to hear the man
swearing as they carefully manoeuvred the valuable piece of art out of the studio.

  ‘So what are you working on now?’ she asked John, who had restretched and prepared a small canvas, since she had last seen him, exactly like the one Maddie had co-opted before.

  ‘Something for me,’ John said. ‘Whenever I finish a commission I take some time for my work. It keeps me sane.’

  ‘What will it be?’ Rose asked him, intrigued as she took a step closer.

  John shook his head. ‘I can’t share that with you,’ he said. ‘This is just for me. Perhaps one day, but not yet.’

  Rose glanced over her shoulder to where Maddie was painstakingly recreating her sketch on her canvas, the curve of her cheek, the sweep of her lashes making Rose’s heart ache.

  ‘John,’ Rose said tentatively, ‘can I ask you something? You may not like it, but when I look at Maddie I see her, and … I don’t have anyone else to talk to about her except for you.’

  John nodded, visibly steeling himself for what he knew was coming.

  ‘Do you ever think about Mum?’ Rose asked him.

  ‘Yes,’ John said simply, heavily, as if merely uttering the word was almost too burdened with regret. ‘I think of her often. The older I get the more I think of her. The way she used to be, the first time I saw her. So smart, so sensible, so … full of light, like a beacon. I tried to stay away from her – she wasn’t really my type at all, a good girl, a girl-next-door – but I couldn’t, like a moth to a flame.’

  ‘Except you were the flame,’ Rose said sadly, without recrimination. ‘It was Mum who got burnt.’

  ‘Can I go outside and sit on the fence and draw the mountain?’ Maddie asked. ‘I won’t move from the fence, I promise. I just want to remember what it looks like exactly, for my next work.’

  ‘OK,’ Rose said, mustering a smile. ‘But don’t move from the fence. I mean it.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Maddie called over her shoulder as she headed outside.

  ‘She looked like fine bone china,’ John remembered Marian, smiling just a little. ‘Delicate and slim, like you, but she had this passion in her, this strength of appetite for living that made everyone around her want to live harder, better, faster.’ He glanced sideways at Rose as he sorted through assorted crumpled tubes of paint. ‘I’ve been thinking about her more recently. You remind me a lot of your mother.’