The Rose Girls

by Victoria Connelly

  They pressed their heads together in a gentle embrace.

  ‘What happened when you got home?’ Gertie asked.

  ‘After the church?’

  ‘Was she furious?’

  ‘Of course she was,’ James said. ‘But she was enjoying every single minute too. There’s nothing she loves more than being the victim and I had to spend the whole evening saying I was sorry when I wasn’t sorry at all.’

  ‘Did you really say you’d push her off Clacton Pier?’

  James laughed. ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘Evie said you did.’

  ‘Well, I guess I must have done.’ He ran a hand through his hair and, once again, Gertie saw how tired he looked.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  He nodded. ‘Just sleeping badly.’

  ‘Have you swapped rooms yet?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Samantha won’t let me. She makes this big scene every time I dare to mention it. She says she’ll wake up in the night and have an accident but she never wakes up in the night. Once she’s out, she’s out. She doesn’t need me there.’

  ‘You’ve got to move – and not just bedrooms,’ Gertie said. ‘You’ve got to move out completely.’

  ‘How can I when she’s so helpless?’

  ‘But she’s got money – she’ll just have to pay for a carer. You can’t go on being her slave. Not with things the way they are between you.’

  ‘What will people think of me if I do that?’ he asked.

  ‘Let them think what they like,’ Gertie told him. ‘They have no idea what you go through. Tell them to move in with her if they’re so worried and then they’ll see what she’s like.’

  James sighed. ‘Why didn’t we meet years ago?’

  ‘Because I was still at school,’ Gertie teased and James couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘I’m not that much older than you,’ he said.

  ‘You’re thirty-eight. You’re practically an old man!’

  He looked suitably outraged by this comment. ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel about me, I’ll go back to my wife right now!’

  Gertie laughed and then they were silent for a moment.

  ‘Evie said something else,’ she told him at last.

  ‘What?’ James said.

  ‘She said she thought you were having an affair.’

  ‘Oh my God. Did she?’

  ‘She doesn’t have any proof, of course. She just said she’d heard a rumour.’

  ‘Where from?’ James said, concerned.

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘We’ve been so careful,’ he said. ‘I don’t tell anyone where I’m going and I never see a soul. Do you?’

  ‘No,’ Gertie said, shaking her head. ‘I saw Mrs Forbes this evening but we didn’t say more than hello and I don’t think she’s the sort to gossip, anyway, even if she did suspect something.’

  ‘Are you sure about that? I don’t trust anyone in this village. Just a whiff of a rumour and they’re off.’

  ‘What a thing to say!’ Gertie said, her face full of outrage. ‘Just because you’re a Londoner where nobody talks to anyone and nobody cares what anybody gets up to.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’ James said. ‘I spoke to my neighbour at least twice in the five years I lived in my old flat.’

  Gertie grinned and then her smile slowly faded. ‘What are we going to do?’

  James leaned forward and kissed her forehead. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but we’ve got to work something out. I want to be with you so much.’

  ‘Then we have to start making plans,’ she said seriously.

  He continued to kiss her, working his way across the sensitive skin of her neck. ‘Plans,’ he said.

  ‘Yes!’ Gertie said. ‘James?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Do we have to talk about this now?’

  ‘Well, if not now, then when?’

  ‘We’ve got so little time together,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to waste it talking.’

  Gertie tried not to flinch at his use of the word waste because she didn’t want to spoil the moment, but she was becoming increasingly frustrated at not being able to make plans with him.

  ‘Just tell me we’ll be together soon,’ she said.

  ‘Of course we will,’ he said. ‘Very soon.’ And he stopped any more questions she had for him with another kiss.

  The crash in the night woke everyone, including Frinton, who immediately sprang up onto his mistress’s bed from his place on the floor and started up a fearful growling. One minute, Celeste had been deep in a dream which had involved her trying to compost a mountain of paperwork . . .

  ‘It’ll feed the roses. It’ll feed the roses,’ she’d been chanting to Gertie and Evie, who’d been watching her in utter despair.

  The next minute, she was sat up in bed, her heart racing like a wild animal’s.

  ‘Quiet, Frinton,’ she told the dog as she tried to work out what was happening.

  Gertie was in her room in an instant. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘I thought I’d dreamt it,’ Celeste said, turning on her bedside lamp and pulling on a jumper.

  ‘You didn’t dream it. It came from downstairs. Or upstairs. I’m not entirely sure,’ Gertie said.

  ‘Gertie?’ Evie’s voice cried from down the hallway.

  ‘I’m in Celeste’s bedroom,’ Gertie called back.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Evie joined them, her pretty face pale in the lamp light.

  ‘You couldn’t exactly miss it,’ Gertie said.

  ‘What was it? It sounded like a whole room falling in on itself,’ Evie said.

  ‘Don’t say that. Please don’t say that!’ Celeste said, shoving her feet into her slippers. But a room falling in on itself was not beyond the bounds of possibility in a place like the manor.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Evie said, turning to her big sister as if she would have the answer.

  ‘Check all the rooms,’ Celeste said.

  A moment later, the three of them left her bedroom with Frinton in tow and started opening doors and turning on lights.

  ‘Just be careful!’ Celeste shouted. ‘I don’t want anyone falling through the floorboards or anything.’

  ‘I don’t think it came from upstairs at all,’ Evie said a moment later.

  ‘Just keep checking,’ Celeste said. ‘We’ve got to know for sure.’

  A few minutes later, the three sisters met out on the landing.

  ‘Nothing,’ Gertie said.

  ‘Not so much as a cobweb out of place,’ Evie said.

  ‘It must have been from downstairs, then,’ Celeste said.

  ‘Oh, must we go down there?’ Evie said, pulling her dressing gown tighter at the neck. ‘This house really gives me the creeps at night.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Gertie said. ‘Safety in numbers.’

  ‘Right – so, if there’s a mad axeman hiding in the shadows, it’ll be okay because there are three screaming women in their nightdresses instead of just one,’ Evie said.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ Celeste said and she led her two sisters down the stairs. Frinton, who was absolutely delighted at this middle of the night adventure, charged on ahead and came to a skidding halt in the hallway a moment later, his front paws disappearing under an old threadbare rug.

  ‘What’s the time, anyway?’ Evie asked.

  The longcase clock chimed three at that precise moment as if in answer.

  ‘Where shall we start?’ Gertie asked.

  ‘I’m not splitting up,’ Evie said, ‘so don’t anyone dare suggest it!’

  Celeste sighed. ‘Well, let’s start in the dining room,’ she said, bravely opening the door into the room and turning on the main light. I
t was probably the least likely room to collapse in on itself and the suit of armour in the far corner was still upright. Anyway, if that had taken a tumble, it would have made quite a different sort of noise from the one that had woken them all up.

  They moved on through the house, checking the study and then working their way around the rooms that were least used until they reached the long dark corridor.

  ‘It’s The Room of Doom, isn’t it? Evie said.

  ‘It’s highly likely,’ Celeste said. ‘It’s been falling down for years.’

  ‘Can’t we leave it until morning? Another few hours won’t matter, surely?’ Evie said.

  But Celeste and Gertie were already marching down the hallway and, so as not to be left alone, Evie had no choice but to follow them. Luckily, Gertie had thought to bring a torch downstairs because, in this part of the house, the electrics were dodgy but, as they opened each and every door en route to the dreaded chamber and flashed the torch into every corner and crevice, they discovered that each was empty and untouched.

  ‘Well, that only leaves one room,’ Celeste said and, with hearts heavier than their footsteps, they ventured towards the Room of Doom.

  As soon as the door was open, Frinton started barking, the noise echoing around the empty room.

  ‘Frinton – quiet!’ Celeste cried.

  He looked up anxiously at his mistress as if to ask why she wanted to come to such a place when they could be tucked up in a nice warm bed together dreaming about rabbits.

  Gertie flashed the torch around. ‘What is that?’ she said in horror as she saw the great big pile of rubble in the middle of the room.

  ‘It’s the ceiling. The ceiling’s on the floor!’ Evie said.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Celeste said, closing her eyes, but the horror was still there when she opened them a second later and, as Gertie shone the light upwards, they saw that Evie was right. The ceiling was, indeed, on the floor.

  They stood in absolute silence. Even Frinton was speechless.

  Finally, Gertie spoke. ‘You’ve got to call that man from the auction house,’ she said.

  Celeste, who was pale-faced and tight-lipped, nodded solemnly. ‘I’ll make the call in the morning.’

  5.

  Celeste was warming her hands around a mug of sweet tea when Gertie came into the kitchen. It was the morning after the incident with the ceiling on the floor and neither of the sisters had slept well after its discovery.

  ‘You okay?’ Gertie asked as she poured herself an apple juice and sat down opposite her sister at the enormous pine table.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Celeste lied.

  ‘Well, you look awful, if you don’t mind me saying,’ Gertie said.

  ‘Thanks. I’d forgotten how honest you can be first thing in the morning.’

  Gertie gave a little smile. ‘I didn’t sleep very well – did you?’

  Celeste shook her head. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About everything,’ Celeste said.

  ‘Ah,’ Gertie said, ‘no wonder you couldn’t sleep.’

  Celeste took another sip of her tea and Gertie spoke again.

  ‘Have you heard from Liam recently?’

  Celeste shook her head. ‘I don’t expect to anymore, really.’

  ‘I can’t believe it’s a year since you two broke up,’ Gertie said.

  ‘I know,’ Celeste said. ‘I still can’t believe all that happened.’

  ‘Does he know you’re here?’

  ‘He’ll probably guess,’ Celeste said. ‘He knew I was only renting that place on the coast short-term and I let him know when Mum died.’

  ‘I thought it was disgraceful that he didn’t come to the funeral,’ Gertie said.

  ‘I asked him not to,’ Celeste said. ‘He never got on with Mum and she couldn’t stand the sight of him.’

  Gertie watched her sister for a moment before speaking again.

  ‘I’m really sorry things worked out the way they did,’ Gertie said at last.

  ‘It was completely my fault,’ Celeste said.

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘But it was,’ Celeste said. ‘If I hadn’t been in such a rush to leave home and make a new life for myself, I might have got to know Liam better and I would never have made such a mistake and married him.’

  ‘Was it really awful at the end?’ Gertie asked, her eyes crinkling in sympathy.

  ‘It was awful at the beginning,’ Celeste said with the tiniest of smiles. ‘No, that’s not true, actually. We had some fun times. He was’ – she paused – ‘he was able to make me take my mind off things, you know?’

  Gertie smiled. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ she said, thinking back to the early days of her brief marriage, ‘he was always doing silly things like taking me go-carting or wind-surfing or flying kites on the beach. We were always doing things – things I’d never done before.

  ‘Sounds like fun.’

  ‘It was,’ Celeste said, ‘but you can’t have fun all the time and, once the activities stopped and real life kicked in, we realised we had absolutely nothing in common.’ She shook her head as she remembered. ‘We came home from work one day and were making dinner in the kitchen and there was this awful silence. It wasn’t a nice comfortable silence like you might get between couples but a really awkward one as if we were total strangers. There wasn’t a single thing we wanted to talk about.’ She shrugged.

  ‘Still, I’m sorry I didn’t get to see your wedding,’ Gertie said.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t invite you,’ Celeste said. ‘It all happened so quickly.’

  ‘Why were you in such a rush?’ Gertie asked.

  Celeste pondered for a moment. ‘I think I was scared Mum would try and stop me.’

  ‘Really?’

  Celeste nodded. ‘She always used to tell me that I’d never leave this place and that it was my responsibility to keep everything going.’

  ‘She shouldn’t have put that pressure on you,’ Gertie said.

  ‘I think that’s why I made such a mistake with Liam. He gave me a chance to escape from here and that was really important at the time.’

  Gertie nodded. ‘I wish you’d told us how unhappy you were here. We had no idea – we really didn’t. You should have said something to us – we could have helped.’

  ‘There’s nothing you could have done.’

  ‘We could have listened to you,’ Gertie said.

  ‘I didn’t want to cause trouble between you and Mum – your relationship was good and Evie always worshipped her. I couldn’t spoil all that with my problems. I just couldn’t.’

  Gertie stretched her hands out across the table and Celeste took them and felt their comforting squeeze. ‘So, you swapped one hopeless situation for another?’

  ‘That about sums it up, I guess,’ Celeste said, and the two sisters looked at one another.

  ‘I’m glad you’re home now, though,’ Gertie said. ‘I mean, I know that sounds selfish and I know you think we just wanted you to come back to handle all the paperwork, but we really missed you. This old house just wasn’t the same after you left.’

  ‘You don’t have to flatter me,’ Celeste said with a teasing smile.

  ‘I’m not,’ Gertie said. ‘I’m telling you the truth. Something was missing when you left. Even Mum noticed it.’

  ‘Yeah, right!’

  ‘She did,’ Gertie said. ‘She might not have admitted it to anyone but I could see it in her. She looked –’ Gertie paused.

  ‘What?’ Celeste said.

  ‘Lost,’ Gertie said at last and Celeste laughed. ‘No, really.’

  ‘Gertie, you’re talking a lot of nonsense. Mum hated me.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Gertie said, her face filled with anguish.<
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  ‘But it’s true. She couldn’t stand me being in the same room as her, although she’d always moan if I wasn’t there to help her. I could never please her. I could never make her happy.’

  Gertie squeezed her sister’s hands again and Celeste knew that Gertie was still torn between wanting to believe her and wanting to remember Penelope in a gentler light. ‘But you made us happy,’ she said, ‘and we missed you.’

  ‘Did you? Did you really?’

  ‘Of course we did! We all did.’

  ‘I missed you too,’ Celeste said. ‘God, I can’t believe I’m thirty and divorced.’

  Gertie couldn’t help laughing. ‘At least you’ve had a go and aren’t an old spinster like me.’

  ‘You’re not old!’ Celeste told her.

  ‘I’m twenty-six and still on the shelf,’ Gertie said with a melodramatic sigh.

  ‘What happened with Tim?’ Celeste asked, remembering the earnest salesman who’d arrived one day trying to sell them double-glazing.

  ‘Oh, that finished ages ago.’

  ‘And there’s nobody else on the horizon?’ Celeste asked.

  Gertie looked at her sister, wondering if she should tell her, wondering if she would understand.

  ‘There is, isn’t there?’ Celeste said, leaning forward a little as if getting closer to her sister’s confession.

  ‘Well –’

  It was then that Evie breezed into the room, her platinum blonde hair piled up on top of her head with artless charm.

  ‘Good morning!’ she chimed. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘No,’ Celeste and Gertie said in unison.

  ‘Oh, dear! I was out for the count after all that excitement with the ceiling on the floor business.’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep at all,’ Celeste said, giving a yawn.

  ‘And I was just falling asleep when my alarm went off,’ Gertie said.

  ‘Are we ringing that man again?’ Evie asked as she opened a cupboard and reached in for a large mug covered in pink roses.

  ‘What man?’ Celeste said.

  ‘The one we ring when something breaks or falls down and he arrives in a funny little van and then sends an outrageous estimate in the post and we never get back to him.’

  ‘I think we should,’ Gertie said, ‘and I think we should try to pay him to do the job this time – don’t you, Celly?’