Snowdrops on Rosemary Lane

by Ellen Berry

Lucy winced, hovering in the doorway, waiting for her mother to finish the call. ‘What is it?’ she asked finally when she’d rung off. Anna snatched her cardigan from the back of the chair and trotted upstairs with Lucy in pursuit. It turned out that, although she had expressed zero concern over Paddy’s labyrinthitis, her mother was alarmed by the news her beloved Tilly – a fervent snaffler of pavement food – had experienced ‘digestive issues’ all day.

  ‘I’m sorry to miss Marnie’s birthday,’ she murmured as they reached the landing, ‘but I think it’s best if I go home first thing tomorrow. Say bye to the children from me if they’re still in bed when I leave.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lucy and the children stood in a clump in the fine rain, waving Anna off as she drove away. ‘Sorry, Mum,’ Sam murmured as they all sloped back inside.

  ‘Oh, Sam, it’s okay. It’s not your fault. I told you, it’s about Tilly being ill really.’

  He threw her a quick don’t-give-me-that look as they all ambled back inside. ‘I don’t want that stuff anymore anyway,’ he mumbled, flopping onto the sofa in the living room and kicking off his shoes. ‘It’s stupid having a museum. That kind of stuff’s for little kids.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘It was brilliant, what you put together. Really inventive and clever.’

  ‘Josh thought it was stupid.’ Ah, the so-called friend who had also laughed at Sam’s panda pillow the first time he’d been over to play. Chocolate-sausage Josh. No wonder the kid had issues.

  ‘But he didn’t even go up to your room last time he was here,’ Lucy remarked. ‘He never saw it, did he?’

  Sam tugged at a falling-off sock. ‘I told him about it. I asked if he wanted to see it and he said no, he hates museums, and then everyone laughed.’

  ‘Oh, never mind him,’ Lucy said quickly. ‘Listen – shall we do something nice today instead of moping around?’ He shrugged sulkily. ‘C’mon, darling. How about we go swimming or something?’

  ‘Nah.’ He shook his head. Marnie, who was sprawled on the rug with a notebook and pens, didn’t even deign to answer.

  Lucy glanced towards the window. The bleary morning was turning even greyer, and faint rain was still speckling the glass. She was aware that she had to pull something out of the bag today. Anna had left a cloud of despondency in her wake, and although Marnie was idly drawing now, Lucy suspected it wouldn’t keep her occupied for long.

  ‘How about Let’s Bounce?’ she asked, bracing herself before they had even answered. The gigantic soft play centre was forty minutes’ drive away and today – a wet Saturday – it would be particularly hectic. Lucy and Carys had braved it a couple of times. They were realistic enough to know that, while they loved to think they were providing all the benefits of a country childhood – all rosy cheeks and splashing in rivers – what their kids really wanted was to thrash around in an artificially lit barn amidst hordes of other screaming children, depressed-looking parents and the stench of fried food.

  Of course, Marnie leapt at her suggestion, and even Sam perked up, especially when she said they could take a couple of friends too. So, on the day her mother had flounced off home, Lucy found herself picking up Noah and Amber from Carys’s, and sipping a terrible coffee by herself whilst the four children in her care threw themselves round a cavernous barn in a state of high giddiness. Whilst they were certainly having fun, the banging music and the fact that a toddler had just vomited on the floor a few feet away served only to plummet Lucy even further into a pit of gloom.

  It was still raining steadily as she drove them, exhausted but at least happy again, back home. Her sense of flatness was lingering on like the burger smell that had clung to her hair, and now she wondered if she could have handled things differently with her mother. It wasn’t that Lucy didn’t appreciate everything she did for her. Anna kept in touch constantly and often sent little notes in the post to her and the children. In contrast, Ivan’s parents had virtually melted away, so consumed were they by their own grief. They had come to the service at the crematorium but rushed off straight afterwards with barely a goodbye. After driving all the way up from London, they hadn’t even come to Rosemary Cottage for the small gathering afterwards, or exchanged more than a few choked words with Lucy.

  Like her, Ivan had been an only child. She knew it had been devastating for them, but then Marnie and Sam would ask about them occasionally – ‘Why don’t we ever see Grandma Penny and Grandpa Nigel?’ – and what was she supposed to say? ‘They live so far away, and it’s such a long drive for them.’ How feeble that sounded.

  ‘Can’t we visit them, then?’ Marnie had asked. ‘I love London!’ Lucy didn’t know how to explain that, if they did visit, it probably wouldn’t be like last time, which had been all about the thrill of Hamleys, where remote controlled airships were flying across the store, or a vast dinner in Chinatown and the theatre in Covent Garden. Lucy phoned Penny and Nigel occasionally, but there was either a stilted exchange or it was just the answerphone, and they didn’t always call back.

  ‘I don’t think we got your message,’ Nigel said once, and apparently their answerphone was so old and decrepit – possibly steam-powered – that that might have been the case.

  ‘We have quite a lot on at the moment,’ explained Penny last time Lucy asked if they’d like to come up to stay, which meant no thank you. Lucy had known from Ivan that they rarely socialised and seemed to have few interests apart from watching TV. At least her own mother wanted to be involved. The situation frustrated Lucy, more for Marnie and Sam’s sake than her own. To her, they were in-laws with whom she had never been close. But Marnie and Sam were their only grandchildren, and Lucy had hoped that they would continue to play a part in her children’s lives.

  Next day was Marnie’s birthday. She knew it was touch and go whether a card and present would arrive from them, as nothing had turned up yet (at least Sam had received a card and book token; it had hardly thrilled him, but it was better than it not being acknowledged). Last year there’d been nothing for either of them, but Lucy had forgiven her in-laws for – presumably – forgetting. After all, it had only been six months since Ivan had died. But now here they were, a whole year further on without him. A wave of loneliness consumed her that evening, and no amount of ‘keeping busy’ with chores could help her to shake it off.

  When she’d still been at Claudine, Lucy had noticed the phrase ‘reach out’ creeping into common parlance, specifically in MC’s emails: Hey all, can I reach out and ask for your opinions on our new packaging options? Or, worse still, directed to her personally: I’m reaching out to you, Lucy, asking you to get on board with the men’s fun range.

  And I’m reaching out to you, she’d wanted to fire off back, to remind you that we are a much-loved quality lingerie brand but if you want to wreck all of that with your trunk pants, go ahead.

  However, later that night, following her mother’s abrupt departure and an afternoon at Let’s Bounce, Lucy lay in bed thinking that she would very much like to reach out to someone right now. Not in a physical sense; she had no desire to touch or be touched, and probably never would again, at least not in any intimate way. The idea of sleeping with someone was as alien a concept to her now as Morris dancing. No, what Lucy craved now was just to feel close to another person, just to talk, just to be together. Someone she could be utterly honest with and know she wouldn’t be judged.

  At just gone eleven it was too late to call anyone, and she decided her feelings were too muddled to be compressed into a short, neat text – so she decided she had better not contact anyone at all. But still it surprised her when she realised who she really wanted to be with right now.

  She didn’t quite know why this was, and this acknowledgement made her feel a little unsettled, as if something was changing in her as she lay there in the dark. Yet it was definitely James Halsall who filled her mind as she drifted off to sleep that night.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Something
weird had happened to James. His jeans were fine – jeans were jeans, after all – but his T-shirt looked terrible, faded and sad, and now he was rummaging through the few bits of clothing he kept at his dad’s, which wasn’t much.

  He wasn’t one to think about clothes normally. He just grabbed the nearest thing and that was that – if it was clean, comfy and fairy plain, then it did its job. But not now on this hazy Saturday afternoon, the last day of July. Right now, he was giving his attire serious thought, and he seemed to be incapable of making a simple decision.

  ‘James?’ Kenny called through from the living room. ‘Something’s up with my heating again.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ James was in his room, with the door ajar. He could hear his dad clonking about in the kitchen, muttering and swearing occasionally. Although certainly forgetful and prone to bouts of confusion, he was still managing okay with Rikke’s daily visits and James making his weekly trips over. These days, James enjoyed his trips – looked forward to them, even, if Lucy was going to be around. They hung out in her garden mostly, drinking coffee and chatting, doing a few jobs together if something needed attention. He found it incredibly soothing and enjoyable – but he wasn’t soothed now.

  ‘It’s gone off!’ Kenny announced accusingly, as if James might have been tampering with it.

  James had whipped off the substandard T-shirt. Now he was pulling on a cotton shirt he’d found in a drawer and must have left here ages ago. It was burgundy with a tiny black check – was that too much, he wondered, for the occasion? Christ, he’d have to iron it. Did his dad still possess a working iron?

  ‘James!’

  ‘You don’t need the heating on now,’ he called back. ‘It’s summer. It’s a lovely day out there.’

  He looked down at the shirt, wondering now if he’d be too hot in this, or look overdressed – but then it was only a shirt and jeans, he was hardly talking a dinner jacket, and actually it didn’t look too creased, not when it was on …

  ‘There’s no hot water,’ his father yelled. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you …’ With the shirt unbuttoned James strode through to the kitchen where his father was holding a hand under the running tap. ‘It’s stone cold,’ he announced. ‘Something’s broken. We’re going to have to get a man.’ He turned and stared at his son. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Um, just a little gathering,’ James replied. ‘I told you about it, remember? I’ll only be out for a couple of hours.’

  His father narrowed his eyes. ‘With your shirt open?’

  James exhaled loudly and tested the water with his hand; as his father had reported, it was freezing. He checked the main switch. ‘Dad, you’ve turned off the main heating control again. Please just leave it alone …’

  ‘I never touched it!’

  James flicked the switch on and waited a few moments until the low rumble of the boiler could be heard. ‘That’s it back on now.’ He started to button up his shirt and sensed his father’s bemused gaze upon him.

  ‘So … where did you say you’re going?’

  How old did his dad think he was? Nine? ‘Just to a thing in the village, Dad.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  He pushed back his hair and studied his father’s eager face, the small, intense brown eyes that still glinted with mischief, the pink mouth only just visible through the greying beard. ‘It’s a children’s birthday party,’ James said, smiling now. ‘It’ll be games and cakes and tons of kids charging around …’

  His father smirked. ‘You’re going to a kids’ party?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  He chuckled and, with the hot water issue miraculously rectified, sauntered back to the living room. ‘Right, I see. The way you’ve been acting, I thought you were going on a date.’

  Every children’s party they’d hosted at Rosemary Cottage had been blessed with brilliant weather, and today, Marnie’s tenth birthday, was no exception. The sky was a wash of turquoise, the freshly cut lawn bathed in sunshine. Lucy was grateful for that. Having a pile of children running about, playing games and enjoying a sprawling picnic was so much easier outside than everyone being in the house. It wasn’t that she was madly house-proud by nature, but she had B&B guests due later (having checked her bank account, she had decided she couldn’t really afford to turn down a booking just because it was her daughter’s birthday).

  Lucy’s friends had turned up to help: Carys and Jodie – known as the most glamorous mum at the school gates, and never un-manicured – plus several others whom she had got to know through their children. Other mothers were great, she reflected, at running indoors to fetch a fresh jug of juice without being asked. They gathered up discarded paper plates, handed out cake, administered plasters to cut knees, found someone’s lost bangle and rallied children around for a game – women were brilliant. But it wasn’t just the mums who had made the party such a success. James had proved invaluable too, noticing that Bramble had disappeared through the bars of the gate and run off in pursuit, as well as fetching and carrying to and from the kitchen virtually all afternoon.

  Towards the end of the party, Sam found a dead mouse by the shed. The younger ones gathered around him in fascination and disgust as he held it in his hand. ‘Will your mum let you keep it?’ came Noah’s voice.

  ‘Probably not,’ Sam said.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Josh marvelled. ‘Looks like it could be alive!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sam said, ignoring Lucy as she called over for him to throw it back into the undergrowth. The children continued to study the mouse. Next thing she knew, James had gone over and spoken to the boys. A small hole was dug by the fence, and the mouse placed in it, and everyone seemed satisfied with that.

  He looked so smart today, Lucy reflected. The fact that he had opted for a shirt rather than a T-shirt struck her as particularly endearing. He’d had a haircut, too, in the week since she’d last seen him. He hadn’t seemed to mind that, by the end of the party, his shirt had been daubed with ice cream (an overexcited Josh had collided with him whilst clutching a cone).

  She had told him about her mother flouncing off home a couple of days previously, and that Ivan’s parents hadn’t sent Marnie anything in time for her birthday. ‘I think she still had a pretty good time,’ he remarked as they cleared up together. Once he’d gone, she did a final spruce-up of the downstairs rooms, in preparation for her guests’ arrival. And here they came now: a retired head teacher called Moira with a wiry yoga body, who enthused madly over the house and garden, and her rather shy-seeming, bald and bespectacled husband, Jeremy.

  ‘We’ve had my daughter’s birthday party today,’ Lucy told them, as she spotted a deflated balloon lying on the stairs on the way to show them to their room.

  ‘You must be a powerhouse of energy,’ Moira remarked.

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ She smiled. ‘But my children are having a friend each to sleep over tonight. I’ve asked them to be especially quiet, but if you’re disturbed at all, please let me know. I mean, don’t think twice about it.’

  ‘I’m sure we won’t be,’ Jeremy said warmly. ‘It’s a family home. We expected there to be people around.’

  ‘And we’ve just driven up from Kent,’ Moira added, ‘so we’ll be out like lights tonight.’

  The party crowd had long gone now, apart from Amber and Noah, the designated sleepover friends, so Lucy spruced up the flowers throughout the house and set the breakfast table for her guests. Her mother called, ostensibly to ask how the party had gone, but really, Lucy suspected, to smooth the waters between them. ‘They had a lovely time,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the money towards the keyboard. Marnie really loves it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ her mother said. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help today.’

  ‘There were plenty of adults,’ Lucy said. ‘Most of the mums stayed, actually. And James came too—’

  ‘James?’ her mother repeated.

  ‘Yes, Mum.’ Now Lucy regretted mentioning
his name.

  ‘Does he have children, then?’

  Lucy set a tiny vase of honeysuckle flowers on the breakfast table. ‘Yes, he has a son called Spike.’

  ‘That’s a funny name!’

  Lucy cleared her throat. ‘I think it’s sweet actually. It’s unusual. It has character …’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Mum!’

  A small pause. ‘So, how does Spike get along with Marnie and Sam?’

  ‘Erm, they haven’t met yet.’ Lucy frowned, wondering why her mother was probing her in this way. She never quizzed her about her women friends in the village. Should she feel guilty for some reason?

  ‘Will they?’ her mum asked.

  ‘Will they what, Mum?’ Exasperation was beginning to rise in Lucy’s chest. She wanted to end this conversation and go to bed. She didn’t remember their relationship being anything like as prickly as this when Ivan was still alive; these days, they seemed to be permanently about to teeter over into some kind of row.

  ‘Meet. Will your children meet Spike?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘I expect so, yes, when he comes over to visit sometime—’

  ‘Well, anyway,’ her mother cut in, ‘I’m glad all went well today.’ She coughed dryly. ‘And Tilly’s fine now, in case you were wondering.’

  ‘I meant to ask,’ Lucy said quickly. ‘So, was it just a stomach bug?’

  ‘Something like that. We had to buy this special bland tinned food – it’s ten pounds a can – and of course your father made a big fuss about the expense, wanted to keep her on plain boiled rice for a few more days, but you know how that bungs her up …’

  ‘I do indeed,’ Lucy said gravely. ‘Anyway, Mum, thanks again for the money towards the present and all the little gifts you left for Marnie. She loved them all. She’ll be sending you a note …’

  ‘Oh, that’s okay, love.’

  Her stomach twisted with guilt now. ‘And, um … I’m sorry for what happened when you were here. With Sam, I mean.’