Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams

by Jenny Colgan

  ‘Let’s,’ she said, and stood up, feeling confident in the gentle light coming from the fire, her hair tumbling down her back.

  Stephen smiled. ‘Cor,’ he said. ‘You are lush.’

  It was such an unlikely thing to hear him say that Rosie burst out laughing. Stephen laughed too, and pushed himself up and out of his chair.

  ‘I think I can still outrun you,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Not for long,’ said Stephen with a wolfish look on his face, lurching for her. She screamed – and then screamed again as suddenly she was blinded by enormous beams of light shooting straight through the kitchen window. At first she was completely frozen, unable to tell what was happening. Then she realised that, of course, it was another car coming back. She could hear voices and barks of laughter in the air and understood, to her utter horror, that it was all of Stephen’s friends, arriving home from the ball.

  It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if Stephen hadn’t found it so funny, as she scurried about the kitchen, desperately trying to find something to cover herself with, giving up on the idea of shrugging herself back into Lilian’s tight green gown. When she came up with Mrs Laird’s flowery apron, she thought he was about to bust a gut.

  ‘Stop laughing and help me,’ she said, conscious of the sounds of feet crunching on gravel and people making a lot of noise.

  ‘But you don’t need anything! You look incredibly beautiful as you are.’

  ‘Piss off!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Stephen, hurling her his jacket.

  ‘I’m going to run away upstairs,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t!’ he said. ‘You look lovely. And I thought you wanted to be introduced properly.’

  ‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘I’m going.’

  But it was too late.

  Rosie should have run and hid regardless, she figured later. They might have sniggered, but at least it would have been behind her back. If only she could have been more decisive about it …

  First to come in were two red-faced rugby-playing gents.

  ‘Way hey!’ they leered, straight away. ‘Sorry, mate, should have knocked.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ said Stephen. He could see Rosie was desperate to get away, and pulled her close to him, holding her hand. Rosie thought this was even worse, like she was some undignified doxy, half covered up.

  ‘This is Rosie,’ he managed. ‘We weren’t expecting you back so soon.’

  ‘Obviously!’ said the taller of the rugger buggers. They didn’t bother introducing themselves, simply turned round, looking for wine. There was a bottle of claret open on the big kitchen table and they grabbed that. Rosie felt herself go bright red.

  Then in through the door walked CeeCee. What would it take, Rosie wondered, to jerk her out of her near-unconscious levels of coolness?

  ‘Oh yeah, hi,’ she said, sweeping Rosie with a glance that implied that she, Rosie, was still below notice.

  ‘Stephen, darling. I can’t believe you deserted us.’

  ‘Uh …’ Stephen stuttered again. Rosie shook her head. ‘Well.’

  CeeCee accepted a glass of wine from one of the rugby boys.

  ‘Not to worry. I see you were having a spot of local fun.’ Venom dripped from her voice.

  Rosie had had enough. She looked around the room to see if there was a way to reclaim her dignity. There wasn’t.

  ‘I’m going,’ she said to Stephen, whispering in his ear.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Please don’t. You can stick on my pyjamas, they’re in my room.’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘Uhm, no. I need to get Moray’s car back. Truly.’

  Stephen blinked. He wondered if she were already regretting it.

  ‘OK … sorry, this lot are staying here tonight …’

  The other three sipped their wine, completely unperturbed. Stephen saw her to the door, Rosie fully aware that she was wearing a ridiculous apron and a too-short dinner jacket. She found she wanted to cry again, but for very different reasons.

  ‘Don’t you want to get dressed?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Rosie, her face flaming. She wanted to get as far away as fast as she could.

  ‘I wish you could stay,’ said Stephen. ‘I know there’s guests, but …’

  ‘No thank you,’ said Rosie, realising her attempt to be as cool as CeeCee was coming across as silly.

  ‘OK. OK, then I’ll call you.’

  Rosie shrugged. ‘If you get a signal.’

  ‘Uhm …’ CeeCee paused, as if she had been about to use Rosie’s name then realised she couldn’t remember it. ‘Uhm, don’t you want to take your knickers?’

  Burning with frustration and embarrassment, Rosie didn’t answer, just tried her hardest not to give her the Vs on her way out.

  Stephen stood in the doorway, his untucked shirt hanging out of his black trousers, looking at her car for a long time as she drove away down the long steep road. Rosie didn’t even notice him; she was looking at the other three, outlined in the kitchen windows, laughing their heads off.

  Fully sober now, she caught up with her friends as they marched down from a darkened Lipton Hall.

  ‘Hurrah!’ said Moray. ‘I thought it had been nicked.’

  Rosie opened the doors.

  ‘Do not say anything,’ she ordered as they all got in, Moray taking over the driving and Jake with his arm tightly around Tina’s shoulders. They were all giggly and happy and loved up.

  ‘But,’ said Tina.

  ‘Nope!’

  ‘You’ve got your dress on back to front.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘What on earth?’ said Moray.

  ‘Not you either!’

  Moray and Tina exchanged worried glances. Jake tried to hide a smirk and failed.

  ‘No smirking,’ said Rosie. ‘Otherwise I will cry, and I mean it.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘So,’ said Moray finally. ‘You pulled him then.’

  The rest of the car collapsed in laughter.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ said Rosie. And Moray heard it in her voice, just before she started to cry.

  ‘Don’t worry, girl,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. He’s just some posh nut job with a hole in his leg. He’s an idiot.’

  ‘He let them laugh at me,’ sobbed Rosie. ‘Like I was some stupid tart he’d picked up somewhere.’

  ‘Did he really?’ said Tina. ‘That sounds horrid.’

  ‘Arsehole,’ said Jake. ‘Would you like me to punch him for you?’

  ‘I would like that,’ said Rosie. ‘On his leg.’

  Her sniffs turned to hiccups. ‘Oh God. Why did I shag him? He’ll be having such a laugh about it with his mates. We never even had a cup of coffee. Not a date or anything. Nothing. I’m just some slutty nurse who went round his house and did him. They’ll all be pissing themselves.’

  ‘No they won’t,’ said Tina, unconvincingly. ‘Or OK, even if they are. That means they are all pathetic idiots and fuck-wits and horrible twats. So it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘No,’ sniffed Rosie. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  They all came back into the cottage and Tina made tea and toast for Rosie, who was still torn between thinking how sweet a moment they’d had, and how quickly it had all gone horribly wrong. Moray brought the empty champagne bottle in from the car.

  ‘Don’t rinse it,’ he said. ‘It’ll be nice for your aunt to smell.’

  Rosie nodded, now changed into her super-sensible big furry pyjamas. The tip of her nose was still red, and her mascara had run, but she felt much better with friends around her.

  ‘At least you never have to see him again,’ said Moray. ‘Whereas if I have to give him another fricking tetanus shot, I’ll tell him it’s the one that has to go right into the tip of his penis.’

  ‘Ha,’ said Rosie. Then, ‘I don’t suppose he’ll be here for much longer anyway, now he’s got all his posh townie mates back. He’ll be off with them.’

  ‘If he can get a j
ob,’ said Tina. ‘Which he won’t, because he’s a useless fuckwit.’

  He’s not, a part of Rosie was thinking. He’s a teacher.

  ‘Well, I am so glad I managed to let everyone convince me to go to the ball,’ she said. ‘But I think I want to get back to being Cinderella.’

  ‘Cinderella of the Sweeties,’ said Tina. ‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ said Rosie. ‘You’ve already found your prince.’

  Jake rolled his eyes. Tina giggled. But neither of them contradicted her.

  Things are meant to look better in the morning, grumbled Rosie to herself, as she woke up to a world where the snow was already turning grey and melting, and the lane looked dreary. The hills loomed, seemingly closer than ever, but large clouds in the sky threatened more snow yet.

  At breakfast, Lilian glanced at Rosie quickly and declined to ask. This was a mistake.

  ‘So has the news reached you?’ said Rosie, more sharply than she would have liked, mostly because she was nursing a horrible headache that had less to do with the champagne and more to do with reliving every second of the nightmare from the moment she’d woken up.

  ‘No,’ said Lilian pleasantly, and sipped her tea, complaining bitterly about the news in her Sunday Express. (When Rosie had suggested she changed her paper she had harrumphed and pointed out that she needed something to complain about, otherwise her life would be just too perfect.)

  ‘Well, good,’ said Rosie. ‘Never mind then.’

  And they spent the day like that. Except Rosie couldn’t help it. She spent a lot of time up by the highest front window of the cottage. If she leaned her arm out at a dangerous angle, she could just about get a mobile phone signal. Once, the idea swept over her that CeeCee and her friends would drive by, see her arm and know immediately what she was doing and piss themselves all over again, and she broke out in a cold sweat, but she stayed where she was. All the while thinking, he wasn’t like them, was he? Was he?

  Had she known it was the exact same position Lilian had sat in nearly seventy years before, she would have been horrified.

  Just after four, she heard a bang downstairs. At first, she thought it might be the door, and Stephen striding manfully through it … Of course not. That was ridiculous, a completely stupid thought. Then, panic hit her and she couldn’t believe she’d been so selfish.

  ‘Lil!’ she yelled, charging down the stairs. ‘LIL!’

  Lilian was lying there, thankfully conscious, but with her ankle at a strange angle.

  ‘What the hell … what on earth were you doing?’ she said.

  Lilian blinked up at her, confused. ‘I … I …’ She looked down, to where she had urinated on the floor.

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Rosie. ‘Don’t worry about that for a second. Come on, let me get you to a chair.’

  She weighed little more than a child, even after all of Rosie’s feeding up. She wasn’t putting on weight as she should, Rosie realised. She wasn’t … she wasn’t good enough for Lilian. She wasn’t doing it right.

  Lilian was tearful.

  ‘I just … I just wanted to get to the bathroom.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Rosie. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘Because,’ said Lilian. ‘Because it is utterly ridiculous I can’t make it to my own bathroom.’

  ‘I know,’ said Rosie. ‘I know it’s ridiculous. Doesn’t make it any less true. I had the monitor upstairs.’

  ‘I hate … I hate being a stupid old woman,’ said Lilian, her face crumpling. ‘I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.’

  ‘I know,’ said Rosie. ‘I hate it too.’

  ‘I’m all covered in pee and I can’t garden and I can’t cook and I can’t run my shop and I can’t do anything. Anything,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘I’m here’ said Rosie. But they were empty words, and they both knew it.

  ‘You can’t stay here’ said Lilian. ‘I won’t let you.’

  ‘I don’t have much else going on,’ said Rosie, ruefully.

  ‘Don’t you ever say that,’ said Lilian. ‘Don’t you dare ever say that to me.’

  Moray came, clutching his head and looking very under the weather. Rosie had cleaned up Lilian, and together they ascertained that it was a sprain rather than a break, but that she needed to be careful.

  ‘I need to be somewhere with soft walls,’ said Lilian, sulking. Rosie let her eat a packet of caramels for supper, while Moray handed her a leaflet.

  ‘It’s time,’ he said. ‘You know it’s time.’

  ‘But she’s so sharp in herself!’

  Moray shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, Rosie. Old age is an absolute bitch.’

  ‘Is that your professional opinion?’ said Rosie.

  ‘As a doctor, yes. I believe it is accepted fairly widely among the medical profession.’

  ‘An absolute bitch,’ said Rosie. ‘Yes.’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Please let me clear this up once and for all: ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get’ is a quotation of the highest nonsense. Every box of chocolates comes with a handy and clear pictogram relating the shape of the chocolate to its flavour. Also a box of chocolates is always welcome and delicious. Life is in fact like a bag of Revels. You never know what you’re going to get, and half of it you won’t like.

  Monday morning had grey lowering skies that perfectly suited Rosie’s mood. She checked her phone (inside and outside to make sure she was getting a signal). Nothing. Nothing at all. What kind of a prick was he? Presumably just because she turned up there, offering herself on a plate … She gulped. That was it. She was a cheap date, that was all. Probably happened to him all the time. She sighed, mightily. Stupid girl. She had rung Mike, who had laughed his head off and congratulated her on breaking her duck. It was quite something to have sex with someone new after such a long time.

  ‘How was it?’ he said.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ snapped Rosie.

  ‘Ooh, amazing,’ said Mike. ‘Wow. Don’t let that go.’

  ‘I don’t think I have the slightest choice in the matter,’ she had sniffed.

  ‘Look,’ said Mike. ‘Stop beating yourself up. This is good. And funny. Everyone else spent the whole of their twenties having one-night stands with unsuitable men. God, I know I did. You spent your entire twenties convincing yourself you were ready to settle down with Captain Pie. It’s all right to make a few mistakes along the way.’

  ‘Mmm-hmm,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Did you really like this bloke?’

  Rosie considered it. ‘Well, he’s really annoying and full of himself and cranky and he sulks all the time …’

  ‘You’ve got it really bad,’ said Mike.

  ‘He’s the bravest man I’ve ever met,’ said Rosie. ‘Pigheaded. But.’

  ‘Brave and fantastic in bed?’

  ‘And a lord.’

  Mike really was laughing now.

  ‘Well, good for you. You always set your sights too low.’

  ‘I honestly, truthfully do not give a shit about him being a lord,’ said Rosie. ‘I’d rather he had a job.’

  ‘And wasn’t surrounded by jaghags,’ observed Mike, helpfully.

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Rosie. ‘That too. Anyway. Not to worry. I have a business to sell … I wonder if Tina will let me keep some of the jars?’

  ‘You’ll miss it,’ said Mike. ‘Incredible. I can’t believe you’re not desperate to get back to mopping up puke and blood all day.’

  Rosie looked around the little shop. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will miss it.’

  But the weather seemed to be affecting everything. They were selling a lot of chocolate; something about the weather closing in made people want to snuggle down on their sofas with big slabs of Lindt and Dairy Crunch; the purple jackets of the sweet white Swiss Lindt, or the dark red of Bournville and, for the more daring – Rosie often felt she shou
ld keep them under the counter – the higher-count dark chocolates: 75, 85 and even 95 per cent cocoa, which didn’t taste in the least sweet to Rosie. They were selling a lot of the premium chocolate, so much so that she would be putting in a whole new order before the end of the week.

  ‘Rosie,’ said Tina, crashing in at ten thirty. Rosie looked up from her order book and saw her distressed face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she said. If Jake had done anything to hurt her friend, she vowed, she was going to whack his and Stephen’s heads together. ‘What’s the matter? Is it Jake?’

  Tina’s face temporarily cleared. ‘Oh. Oh, no, it’s not Jake. No. God. He’s amazing.’

  Rosie didn’t feel quite tough enough yet to hear about the amazing Jake.

  ‘Oh well, that’s good,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s not … it’s not Kent and Emily, is it? There’s nothing wrong with the twins?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Tina. ‘No, thank God. No. Touch wood. No. But oh, oh, Rosie.’ She dissolved in floods of tears. ‘It’s the shop.’

  Once they had sat down with a cup of tea, Tina could choke out the story. It turned out, in fact, that her Topshop habit had, in the end, proved a serious problem; her credit rating was nowhere near good enough to take out a business loan. She had tried to raise the money to buy Lilian out, but …

  ‘But didn’t you tell them?’ said Rosie. ‘Didn’t you tell them you were married to an alcoholic and you had to cope somehow and this was the best way, and …’

  ‘No,’ said Tina. ‘I think that would have made it all worse, don’t you?’

  ‘But we gave them all the books and projections and everything!’ wailed Rosie. ‘It’s so obvious you’re doing great things for this place! And turning it into a real business!’

  ‘It was always a real business,’ croaked Lilian over the baby monitor. Rosie had placed her on the sofa with her ankle raised. She should have been walking around on it, to get it moving again, but no one wanted to risk that. Moray had popped by with a walking frame. Lilian didn’t mind her stick so much, but there was absolutely no way, she warned them, she would be seen dead with that awful thing, hauling herself along like a zombie, and Rosie didn’t want to press the issue. Still, they had appointments made for that afternoon – Moray was being generous with his Land Rover once again – and that was that. Now this was throwing a spanner right in the works.