Missing Rose

by Linda Newbery

  Often Anna thought of that moment in the bedroom, frozen into stillness in her memory, when she’d held out the paper, and Rose’s hand had been stretched out to take it. The last few moments of not-knowing, of being proper sisters, before Rose turned into someone else.

  10

  Sandy, 1966

  The Skiptons lived in a town house on the eastern side of Croydon: a narrow, modern terrace, three-storeyed. Sandy and Roland’s bedrooms were on the top floor, divided by a square of landing. Roland’s room was the larger of the two, and he spent hours alone in there on his homework, or practising his guitar and perfecting his compositions. Only rarely would he let Sandy in; usually the door was closed.

  In the Merlins Roland sang only backing vocals; Phil, with his raw, plaintive voice, was their lead singer. In his bedroom Roland sang softly, or hummed, going over and over a snatch until it flowed. His hero was George Harrison of the Beatles. Sandy preferred Paul – that face, those eyes that gave him an almost preternatural beauty! – or even John Lennon, with his acerbic wit. But then her interest was rather different. Roland admired George for his quiet strength, his willingness to let the more outgoing John and Paul take the lead, and above all for his virtuosity with the guitar. When the new Beatles album, Revolver, was released in August, Roland bought it immediately and played it over and over on the portable gramophone in his room. It included three George Harrison songs: Taxman, I Want to Tell You, and Roland’s favourite, Love You To, with its Indian sitar accompaniment like nothing heard before on a Beatles record. Roland learned all three, singing them in a fair approximation of Harrison’s soft Liverpool accent and flattened tones, though his guitar couldn’t replicate the thrilling sound of the sitar. When Sandy was allowed in to listen she closed her eyes to Paul McCartney’s voice in Eleanor Rigby, which unfolded its scenes of loneliness and waste like episodes from a novel.

  Their father had been tolerant of the Merlins at first, when the four boys – Phil and Roland, with Mick the drummer and Dempsey on bass guitar – formed the group during the summer after O-Levels. As a holiday occupation, Roland’s father saw it as a reasonable, even commendable way to pass the time. But they stayed together in the sixth form, helped by Phil’s older brother Brian, who drove a van and became their unofficial manager, hoping to get a recording contract. They appeared at youth centres and dances, attracting a local following. Girls at school spoke of them as if they were a real, established group, to be mentioned alongside their famous idols.

  Now that Roland was in the upper sixth, his father disapproved. ‘It’s taking up valuable time. Getting in the way of your school work. You should be knuckling down – you only get one chance.’

  ‘I can do both.’ Roland would never be drawn into argument.

  ‘You might think so, but you’ll let yourself down. All this caterwauling – where’ll it get you?’

  Roland had a quiet stubbornness that meant he drove himself hard but pretended not to. In front of his friends, especially Phil, he kept up an attitude of not caring, of giving only scant attention to his studies. In reality he worked hard for his successes. When his O-Level results came, the string of nine grade As was marred for him by a B in Latin. His results were among the best in his year group, but he wouldn’t celebrate, wouldn’t be congratulated; in his own terms, he’d failed.

  With Sandy’s O-Levels approaching now, she was relieved not to have the same spotlight turned on her. She was fairly sure of getting good enough grades for a secretarial course without putting herself through the anguish of trying for the top and failing.

  There was too much going on to let school dominate her life.

  Occasionally, at weekends, Phil came round to work on songs with Roland. They were the Lennon and McCartney team of the Merlins, sparking ideas off each other. On one memorable occasion, when Sandy had lingered in the bedroom doorway, Roland told her, ‘Go away, Sand, we’re working,’ but Phil bestowed a smile on her – oh, something to treasure for days and weeks to come! – and said, ‘It’s all right, Sandy. Come in if you want.’ And she sat on a floor-cushion, mesmerized, ignored, as they put a song together: haltingly, pausing to note down chords, as words and music slowly came together. More than once Phil stopped playing and asked her opinion, and her happiness was complete.

  Beautiful Phil. Sandy gazed and gazed, storing every detail in her memory – the fall of light hair that curved into the back of his neck, bony hunch of shoulders, sweep of lowered eyelashes, hands caressing his guitar – so that she could recall every detail later, in bed. Those few words of acknowledgement were a blessing; she wanted no more. She had fallen in love with his voice, with the range of expression it conveyed, from searing anger to a barely whispered intimacy that touched something deep inside her.

  When she saw the group on stage, what attracted her most powerfully was Phil’s remoteness, his absorption: his eyes half closed as he cradled the microphone, the creak in his voice that was almost a sob. Who was he thinking of as he sang Roland’s lyrics? Someone, surely. Phil made the words his own, flinging them at no one in particular, not looking at any one girl in the audience. Roland stood behind, sometimes sharing a mike stand with Dempsey as he leaned in to sing backing vocals. Or, when the lead guitar took off thrillingly on its own, rising above bass and drums in notes that rose like bell chimes to the ceiling and gathered there, Roland seemed lost in an ecstasy that was almost painful, and Phil would turn to look at him, acknowledging his moment. Sandy could never be part of this, other than as an observer, and that was its attraction. It was an exclusively male thing, bonding them into brotherhood. To perform was to expose themselves to an audience, to lay bare their passions, invite ridicule and sneers. There was bravery in that, Sandy thought; bravery and defiance. On weekdays they were ordinary schoolboys, but as the Merlins they were transformed into something bigger. Energy pulsed from their voices and their instruments, vital, exhilarating.

  ‘I want to be their road manager,’ Elaine said.

  ‘They’ve got one.’

  ‘Assistant, then.’

  ‘You wouldn’t, if you saw the back of their van,’ Sandy told her. ‘All beer cans and chip papers and plugs and leads and sweaty Tshirts.’

  ‘Oh, take me there!’ Elaine inhaled deeply. ‘I’d love it. I’d get drunk on it.’

  Elaine’s chance came at the end of the autumn term. As a daring innovation that year, the fifth form was allowed to hold a dance jointly with the boys from Grove Park. Elaine, who was on the fifth-form council, pressed for a live group rather than a DJ, and the Merlins were booked.

  The resulting performance got the group banned from St Clare’s and also from church youth clubs nearby. In the form room the Merlins were spoken of in the same breath as the Rolling Stones; Phil injected a new strut and swagger into his act, imitating Mick Jagger’s feral magnetism. Bookings rolled in; Sandy gained prestige at school. Meanwhile Elaine was summoned to the headmistress’s office to account for herself.

  ‘Have you any idea how damaging this is to the school’s reputation? I might have expected you to have more sense of what’s appropriate. You’ve let me down badly.’

  This was relayed to Sandy with full dramatic effect; Elaine could do Miss Mowerby’s rigid, upright posture to perfection, and the way she spoke through closed teeth.

  ‘I understand that these young men made blatant references to sexual intercourse,’ Elaine went on, flaring her nostrils.

  ‘She didn’t say that!’

  ‘She did. That’s what this is all about. Roland’s lyrics. Oh, he’s such a hero, your brother! You should have heard me, all innocence.’ Elaine made her eyes big and round. ‘No, really, Miss Mowerby? Are you sure? I had no idea!’

  What had caused this outrage was Roland’s latest composition, The Power of Love, written for the occasion. Sandy had listened to him improvising in his bedroom, but hadn’t heard the full version until Saturday night, and even then couldn’t make out most of the words; with the amplifiers turned
up, it was poundingly fast, crashingly rhythmic. But one of the staff, who must have paid close attention, reported suggestiveness and indecency. It didn’t sound like the sort of thing Roland would write.

  The evening after Elaine’s summons, when he was bent over physics homework at the desk in his bedroom, Sandy asked him. Unmistakably pleased with himself, he opened the desk drawer and pulled out a folder, from which he took a page covered in words and chord notations. He handed it to her and carried on working.

  It’s electrifying, terrifying, she read,

  Energizing, so surprising,

  Titivating, elevating,

  Awe-inspiring, mesmerizing,

  CODA: It’s the power of love,

  I’ve got the power of love.

  Feel the power of love,

  The power of love, love, love, love, love.

  It’s concentrated, triple X-rated,

  Soul-uniting, neon lighting,

  Heat-provoking, engine stoking,

  Unbelieving, heavy breathing,

  Lusting, trusting, pelvic thrusting –

  CODA to:

  That’s the power of love – love – love – love – LOVE.

  On Saturday night Phil had belted these words into the school hall at full volume, the rhythm speeding towards the climax of crashing chords from Roland, finishing on a guitar vibrato that trembled in the air. There was a moment of silence, then squeals and shouts from the floor. Phil looked too exhausted to acknowledge the audience, all energy ground out of him. Sandy was struck by the fact that it was happening here – here, in the hall where prayers took place every morning, where the girls silently filed in, form by form, their shoes squeaking on the polished floor, to stand for the hymns and kneel for the prayers. Never before could such a sound have penetrated the primness of St Clare’s.

  Now, studying the words, she giggled, and looked at Roland’s bent head.

  ‘How do you know about all this stuff? You can’t have … you know—’

  ‘Go away, Sand,’ said Roland, head down. ‘I’m working.’

  On the following Friday, the Echo carried a short piece headed VICAR BANS LOCAL GROUP, and a photograph in which the band members were just about identifiable. Lead guitarist Roland Skipton, 18, penned the offending lines, said the article, and Phil was quoted as saying, ‘We’re only giving a picture of the lives and feelings of teenagers today. Songs about holding hands and writing love letters are old hat.’

  Roland’s father was appalled. ‘Did you stop to think of the disgrace to the family?’ Just in from work, he confronted Roland in the kitchen, brandishing the local paper. ‘If anything like this ever happens again, ever, don’t expect to look on this as your home. Go and … go and live in the back of a van with your precious Merlins or whatever you call yourselves, and see where that gets you.’

  ‘Douglas, for goodness’ sake!’ Patsy protested, a hand on his arm. ‘It hasn’t come to that.’

  He shook her off, glaring, and renewed his attack on Roland. ‘No one would think you had mock A-Levels coming up. How will this get you to Oxford?’

  ‘Oxford’s your idea, Dad. I don’t remember being asked what I want.’

  ‘Your mother and I work hard to give you the best education, the best chances. You seem determined to squander them, spend your time making up filth—’

  ‘For Christ’s sake cool it, Dad,’ Roland muttered. ‘It’s only a bit of fun.’

  Sandy – listening, frozen, not daring to speak – wondered how he could say that. His songs weren’t just fun: they were him. They had a passion and intensity that surprised her, usually kept so well hidden. She looked from one to the other, dismayed to see her father red-faced and even close to tears.

  Their mother’s tactic was to wait for the outburst to be over, then take the role of peacemaker. ‘There,’ she soothed, when Douglas had repeated that Roland was a disgrace, and stomped upstairs. ‘He’s said his piece now – we can forget all about it. Let’s not upset ourselves any more, not with Christmas coming.’

  Nothing must be allowed to spoil Christmas, those few days closeted with family over puzzles, Monopoly and TV. An aunt and uncle came to stay; camp-beds were brought out and the bed-settee unfolded at night, and there was a pleasurable air of making do. Entertaining her younger cousins allowed Sandy to join in games she’d usually condemn as childish, sprawling on the floor to shake dice, playing hide-and-seek and Murder in the Dark.

  Roland disdained all this. He stayed in his room, claiming that he needed to revise for his exams; he appeared for meals, said little, and gave the air of being so absorbed in his studies that he couldn’t disengage his brain to indulge in games or frivolity. It was a ploy that wrong-footed their father: Roland was doing exactly as bidden, so how could he criticize? Distraction, lack of sociability, even rudeness would have to be excused. The Merlins weren’t mentioned, and Roland hardly left the house; but Sandy knew that Phil was visiting relations in York, and that the band had no bookings until mid-January.

  Elaine was being allowed a party on New Year’s Eve, when her parents were staying away overnight. Excited phone calls were made; friends from school were invited, especially those with older brothers. Elaine made it clear that Sandy was responsible for getting not only Roland there, but the other three Merlins as well. Knowing that she could never reciprocate by having a party of her own – her mother’s idea of a party would entail jelly and ice cream, pass-the-parcel and the blowing-out of candles – Sandy tried hard, though the most she got from Roland was ‘Might do. If Phil’s cool with it.’

  Roland had a secret girlfriend, Sandy was certain. It was written all through his more soulful lyrics: I think of us together, but you know I’ll never tell, And I dream you won’t despise me, for loving you too well … In my dreams you say you love me, though I’ve fallen, long ago, But I wake up and it’s raining, and there’s no way you can know. When Phil sang these words, she could let herself think – giddyingly – that these were his feelings, but of course they came from Roland.

  Her determination to find out who Roland dreamed of in this way came partly from schadenfreude; it would do Elaine no harm to find that she couldn’t always have what she wanted. Sandy loved Roland as he was, moony and withdrawn but with the amazing extrovert side he revealed only in performance. If he started going out with Elaine, it would create an awkward triangular relationship, with herself caught between them.

  On the Thursday between Christmas and New Year, her parents went to the theatre, a treat they gave themselves once a year. They left early for the train to London; Roland was out, but returned with a bottle of vodka he’d bought, and was soon sprawled on the sofa, listening to Revolver at full volume, glass in hand.

  ‘Try some, if you want.’ The bottle was open on the coffee table. ‘A lot of girls like it with orange.’

  Sandy fetched a glass and tried a little neat vodka. It tasted at first almost medicinal, then tingled on her lips and tongue and down her throat, making her cough. Within minutes she felt warmed and relaxed. She and Roland had never done this before; it made them allies, passing the bottle, pouring spirit into each other’s glasses, swigging like connoisseurs. Sandy sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa. Soon most of the vodka was gone – Roland far outpacing her – and she felt floaty, as if nothing mattered much. Revolver’s final track, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, was a weird one: all fragments of tunes that loomed and faded, giving a swimmy, drunken effect that exaggerated the swirl in her head. John Lennon’s voice, as he sang about letting go and floating upstream, might have been strained through a filter, coming from far off.

  ‘I don’t get this,’ Sandy said, tilting her head back to look at Roland upside-down. ‘What does it mean?’

  She could ask, knowing that in his helpful brotherly way he would enlighten her. He wasn’t like the girls at school; to admit ignorance to them was to be pathetically childish.

  ‘Who knows? I don’t. But to me it’s … finding your real self.’ He was l
eaning back, eyes closed. ‘It’s like, you know, you can go from day to day doing what you’re told, thinking what you’re taught to think. If that’s all you do, how can you know who you really are? You’re the only one who can find out, by letting go of everything you think’s important.’

  ‘With drugs, you mean?’ Sandy searched for the right word. ‘Acid?’

  ‘If you can get it. But that shows you what’s already in your head. You only see what’s in there when you get rid of the clutter.’

  Sandy tried to turn her gaze inward, to examine her own mind, but found only the buzz of thoughts that zipped back and forth, colliding with each other. Was there something deeper, running like a river beneath the daily trivia floating on the surface? What if she found nothing there? Her main thread of thought was about Saturday’s party and whether she should spend her Christmas money on the orange and purple tunic she’d seen in Chelsea Girl.

  ‘Roly,’ she asked – he’d hated being called that since he left primary school, but sometimes she forgot – ‘you will come on Saturday, won’t you? You and Phil and the others?’

  ‘Probably, unless something else turns up.’ He pulled himself up from the sofa and went to the gramophone, squatting next to the open lid.

  ‘And – what about her?’ she asked him, greatly daring. ‘Will she come?’

  ‘Who?’ He looked at her in genuine surprise.

  ‘You know. Her. The girl you write all those songs about.’

  ‘Ah.’ Roland slid Revolver back into its sleeve. He turned away; she saw the edge of a smile.

  ‘I can’t believe you make it all up. It’s so real. There is someone, isn’t there? I can tell by your face.’

  ‘Might be. Might not.’

  ‘Come on,’ she wheedled. ‘What’s the big secret? Why won’t you tell me who she is?’

  ‘You haven’t guessed? No, I don’t think you would.’