The Mistake

by K. L. Slater

  Rose felt a jolt of alarm as the attractive faces of other girls in the village clicked through her mind’s eye like a slideshow. Most of them were older than her. They had jobs in places like Mansfield and Nottingham, kept themselves groomed and well dressed.

  She wanted to see Gareth at the weekend but she would also like to honour her commitment and take Billy to football.

  If Gareth would only be a bit more flexible, she could do both but it was clear that wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘I’ll ask Mum if she can take Billy,’ she said reluctantly.

  ‘Good girl.’ Gareth smiled.

  ‘You can come with us if you like, Billy,’ Rose said brightly.

  Her parents were at the regeneration site and Gareth had called at the house on the pretence of Rose sharing her knowledge of the Nottingham & Beeston Canal.

  ‘It’s OK, Rose,’ Billy said. ‘I’m going to see if anyone from school is down on the field.’

  ‘But you love watching the narrowboats,’ she persisted.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Billy scowled and looked at Gareth.

  ‘It’s alright if Billy comes with us, isn’t it, Gareth?’

  Gareth shrugged. ‘He’s just said he doesn’t want to.’

  Rose became aware of a strange electricity in the air. She could feel it, crackling between Billy and Gareth.

  ‘What is it with you two?’ She looked frantically at one, then the other. ‘Something’s happened.’

  ‘Stop making up your silly stories, Rose,’ Gareth said smoothly, staring at Billy. ‘Nothing has happened. Billy can entertain himself. He’s eight years old now, not three.’

  She looked at her brother and felt her heartstrings tighten. For whatever reason, Billy wasn’t an overly popular boy at school. He had one or two friends but they lived on the edge of Hucknall, miles away from the village.

  He’d always been a bit of an outsider and now Gareth was making him feel uncomfortable within his own family. She’d given in and agreed not to take Billy to football training but now Gareth was expecting her to exclude him again.

  ‘Billy, I’d really like you to come, I—’

  Gareth grabbed her forearm. ‘Leave it, Rose. We’re going to the canal on our own and that’s final.’

  ‘Oww!’ She pulled her arm away and rubbed it, scowling.

  ‘Don’t you hurt my sister,’ Billy said between gritted teeth. He stepped forward, his small hand clenched into fists.

  Gareth threw his head back and let out an exaggerated laugh. ‘Why, what are you going to do, you skinny little runt?’ He pushed Billy hard and the boy stumbled back, banging his arm on the corner of the sideboard. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

  Rose rushed to his side.

  ‘How could you?’ She spat the words at Gareth, her eyes burning. ‘I think you’d better leave.’

  Before she could even register what was happening, Gareth stormed over to where she was crouched down rubbing Billy’s arm. He seized her by the hair.

  She screamed as he dragged her to her feet. Billy began to wail, his expression pure terror.

  ‘We’re going to the canal whether you like it or not, Rose. Get in the car right now.’ His voice was calm and level, amplifying her fear.

  ‘Gareth, please! No! I can’t just leave Billy, there’s nobody home to look after him.’

  ‘Get in there.’ He pushed her hard towards the kitchen. She crunched her shoulder on the door frame and cried out in pain. ‘You!’ Gareth turned round to a cowering Billy and raised his forefinger, moving it smoothly across his own mouth. ‘Keep it zipped, brat, or I’ll hurt your sister.’

  In the kitchen, Gareth towered above Rose, his features dark and malicious.

  ‘This is what you’re going to do.’ His voice kept the same monotonous tone. ‘When I’ve finished with you, you’ll go back in there and convince your brother to keep his stupid mouth shut. Otherwise, your dad is going to lose his position on the project and I’ll be giving his upcoming job to someone else.’

  Rose squeezed her eyes shut, forcing clusters of tears to tumble down her cheeks.

  When she opened her eyes and looked up at him, she wondered how such a caring, loving person could have turned into this… this monster.

  He was threatening her with her dad’s newfound purpose. Ray thought the world of Gareth. It was only now she realised he had carefully wormed his way into their lives. In his own way, he now controlled her father just like he controlled her and Billy… and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Cassie had been right all along.

  ‘I’ll tell him to keep quiet,’ she whispered, rubbing her eyes with the back of a hand.

  ‘Good girl. Very sensible.’

  She opened the kitchen door and walked back into the living room, where Billy stood in the middle of the room looking dazed.

  Rose knew if she told her father what was happening, he’d sort Gareth out in a heartbeat. Job or no job. There was no doubt in her mind he’d sacrifice his promised new future without a second thought if he knew Gareth Farnham was abusing both her and her brother.

  But Rose couldn’t do that to her dad. She was the one who’d got Gareth Farnham involved in their lives. It was up to her to protect her father and brother and to find a way out of this mess.

  She’d stupidly excluded nearly everyone who cared about her from her life. She’d genuinely believed that Gareth only wanted her to be with him because he loved her so much but now she finally saw the truth that Cassie had tried so hard to tell her about.

  Gareth was threatened by and jealous of everyone Rose cared about. Including her eight-year-old brother.

  She decided she’d stay quiet and try to keep Gareth away from Billy… until a solution presented itself.

  40

  SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER

  She’d waited for him outside the project office at lunchtime.

  It was a bright day, not cold, and Rose looked around the enormous site. She tried to see past the mounds of clogged earth, the patches of dead grass and to visualise the clever landscaping and planned fishing lake documented on the site plans her father had spread all over the table at home. It wasn’t easy.

  There was much work to be done – at least another eighteen months, Gareth had said. Then it would be a case of managing the whole thing, running the workforce and engaging the wider community to play a full part in using the new facilities.

  Gareth had plans to stay in the village long-term and Rose realised she couldn’t just run away from the situation. She had Billy to think about. He was eight years old and she’d asked him to lie for her, had asked him to protect a man who had treated them both like dirt.

  It now occurred to Rose that for a time she’d been carried away by what had appeared to be love’s sweet dream. She’d soaked in every compliment, every well-thought-out instruction Gareth had given her.

  She’d done it all without a second thought because she’d believed he really did want the best for her.

  That perspective had been shattered by how he’d treated her and, more importantly, how he’d treated Billy.

  It was as if someone had shone a bright, searching light into a dark, sinister corner… she wouldn’t be able to unsee those things again. The old platitudes she told herself to excuse Gareth’s controlling manner; they all rang empty in her head now.

  She had been a fool, pure and simple.

  Rose turned and peered through the window of the project office. The meeting was breaking up now, people standing, shaking hands.

  Her father looked up and raised his hand to her in greeting. His face shone. He was part of something again for the first time in a long time.

  A few seconds later, the gravel behind her scuffed as Ray stepped outside in his heavy metal-toed boots and overalls.

  ‘Rose! Are you here for me or Gareth?’

  ‘I’m here to see Gareth, Dad.’ She gave him a weak smile. ‘He needs my help with something.’

  Her father tur
ned and smiled. ‘Speak of the devil, here’s the man himself.’

  ‘Hello, Rose.’ Gareth faltered a little, his eyes skating between the two of them. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘I came to speak to you about that stuff you needed me to look at.’ Her voice sounded a little terse, even to her, but her father didn’t appear to notice.

  ‘Ahh, yes, of course. Ray, any chance you could show the contractor the area for the first dig while I get Rose’s esteemed opinion on something?’

  ‘Consider it done,’ Ray said, standing a little taller. ‘Bye, love.’

  ‘Bye, Dad,’ she said faintly, watching as he strode purposefully away.

  She wanted to run after him, grasp his arm, blurt out everything that had been happening over the last few weeks.

  Instead, she turned to Gareth.

  ‘I need to speak with you,’ she said. ‘Right now.’

  His office was situated in a cramped Portakabin on site. Gareth extended his arm and directed Rose to sit in one of the two office chairs opposite his desk. She felt like one of his visitors.

  His desk was neat, a pristine blotter taking pride of place. No doodles or notes, the pad of paper sat perfectly white and untouched. The stapler, hole punch and tub of pens and pencils were lined up perfectly next to the compact cordless phone. The effect was marred only by a couple of badly folded plans strewn on the right-hand side.

  Gareth sat down and leaned back in his seat, pressing his fingertips together as if he were about to suggest a proposal to her.

  But he said nothing.

  Rose took a breath.

  ‘I – I’ve done a lot of thinking and I think it’s best if we… well, if we stop seeing each other.’ She hadn’t meant to blurt it out so quickly but now, at least, it was done.

  She’d expected furious words, accusations, cruel jibes, but none of these things materialised. Gareth watched her but remained silent.

  ‘The thing is—’ she dragged air into her lungs but still felt horribly out of breath ‘ —I can’t put what happened the other day out of my mind, how you treated me and Billy and… and there have been other things too but I don’t want to go into all that now.’

  ‘I completely understand, Rose,’ he said, smoothly.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve behaved reprehensibly.’ He sighed and looked out of the small, misted window. ‘Truthfully, I’ve had some stress on here at work that I’ve tried to cope with alone but I can’t condone my behaviour. All I can say is I am truly, truly sorry.’

  Rose opened her mouth and closed it again. She’d run through a lot of possibilities in her mind but this humble response hadn’t been one of them.

  ‘I’m an idiot. I’ve lost the girl I love through my own arrogance and I’ve upset little Billy, who I’m really very fond of.’

  Gareth had always previously spoken about Billy as if he were a nuisance… was that something else Rose had misread?

  ‘It sounds as if you’ve thought very carefully about your decision, so I have to respect that,’ Gareth said softly. ‘But I beg you, can we still be friends, Rose? I can’t bear to think we might see each other in the street and not say hello. I couldn’t stand that.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said quickly, hours of steadily building tension suddenly lifting from her tight muscles.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again, and she thought how wretched he looked, sat there, so remorseful.

  ‘Apology accepted.’ Rose smiled. ‘I’m glad we can still be friends. Maybe I can help Dad out now and again here at the site.’

  ‘I’d love that.’ He nodded, pushing back his chair. ‘Take care, Rose. I really hope we can speak again soon.’

  And with that, Rose found herself courteously but unexpectedly dismissed.

  As she walked home, she felt curiously dazed, somewhat spooked, even.

  The breeze billowed under her long, loose hair and it occurred to her what had felt so strange, so out of place.

  Gareth had seemed like an entirely different person altogether.

  41

  SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER

  Rose heard from her mother that Cassie was out of hospital.

  ‘Give it a day or two, love,’ Stella had said when Rose had talked about popping round there. ‘I know this is out of character for Cassie but the trauma she’s been through… you have to realise that—’

  ‘But I want to help her through it.’ Rose had turned her back on Stella. ‘I want her to know I’m there for her.’

  Whenever she thought about the attack on Cassie, her heart filled with a powerful need to put things right between them. Rose didn’t know what she could really do about what had happened but this was the perfect chance to show Cassie none of it mattered any more. She thought that being there for her friend might be enough.

  ‘Another day or so and I’ll come with you,’ Stella had said. ‘How’s that?’

  Rose had shrugged and walked out of the kitchen; it seemed she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

  She had intended to send word to Mr Barrow that she wouldn’t be around that week to fulfil her volunteer duties but in the event that Cassie wasn’t yet ready to see her, Rose thought she might as well go in.

  It seemed preferable, she thought, to sitting around moping about Gareth or Cassie and unable to do anything about the situation with either of them.

  ‘Ah, Rose, there you are,’ Mr Barrow said briskly, looking up momentarily from his paperwork. ‘I’ve been having a bit of a clear out this morning so I’ve left you a bit of a pile over there. I hope you don’t mind.’

  He nodded to the small, square table behind him and gave her a guilty smile. It was piled with tatty-looking hardbacks.

  ‘They’re all overdue for a bit of repair work.’ He stood up and peered down at her through the narrow oblong spectacles that never moved from the end of his long nose. ‘Hope you don’t mind?’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Rose sighed. Actually she didn’t mind; it would be nice to become absorbed in something menial but ultimately satisfying, for the afternoon.

  She was vaguely aware of Mr Barrow rabbiting on about his allotment. She nodded here and there in what felt like the right places and that seemed to pacify him.

  She began to sort the books into piles that she had silently named: spines, pages and cover. Mr Barrow had already placed the archival quality repair tape, the PVA glue and the cellophane wrap on the side.

  There was something rewarding about repairing well-used books, of preserving the words within them, so more people could read and enjoy.

  As she began to relax into her work, cocooned in the discreet hum of hushed library conversations around her, Rose’s biggest worries wriggled their way out of the tight little compartment at the back of her head.

  Who had attacked Cassie?

  Rose couldn’t make sense of why Cassie was so completely shunning her. Yes, they’d properly fallen out for the first time ever but still… all the years of friendship before that surely counted for something?

  Had she done the right thing finishing things with Gareth?

  He’d been so accommodating, so apologetic. He’d behaved terribly towards both her and poor Billy but to her surprise, he’d fully acknowledged that. Despite everything, Rose already missed him. He’d felt like the only good thing in her life for so long. He hadn’t asked for one but was she a fool not to give him another chance?

  Rose didn’t know if she could keep her father from finding out at least some of what had been happening. It was wrong to ask an eight year old to keep secrets from his own parents, to defend someone who had hurt him. But what else could she have done under the circumstances?

  She was trying to protect everybody, and she was trying to protect her dad’s job. Her head felt dizzy with it all.

  ‘Miss Rose Tinsley?’

  Her head jerked up from her work at the mention of her name. Mr Barrow turned and smiled, beckoning her over to the main desk. A delivery man stood, his arms full
of an enormous bouquet of blood-red roses.

  ‘Your lucky day, love.’ He grinned, presenting the flowers using both arms, like he might pass her a baby.

  ‘Heavens, Rose—’ the librarian raised an eyebrow ‘—celebrating, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ she murmured, fishing a small envelope out from between the blooms. ‘I’ve no idea who sent them, Mr Barrow.’

  Mr Barrow’s attention was already back on his computer screen. Rose glanced round and a couple of customers nodded and smiled in appreciation of her delivery but she stepped back to the table, turning her back to the room.

  Picking up scissors, she used one blade to slit open the envelope. She pulled out the compact white card, its border a printed tangle of red and pink petals.

  She swallowed hard and silently read the neat handwritten print over and over.

  Mine forever G. x

  At four o’clock prompt, Rose said goodbye to Mr Barrow and left via the back entrance.

  Ten minutes before she was due to leave, she realised she’d been repairing the same broken book for over two hours. Mr Barrow blinked at the virtually untouched pile of repairs but he didn’t comment.

  Her mind had been everywhere but on the task in hand.

  What was Gareth hoping to achieve by sending her flowers? He’d seemed perfectly reasonable yesterday, accepting her decision and asking if they could still be friends.

  When she’d read his message, those two proprietary words, she’d felt a cold trickle of sweat forge its way down the length of her spine.

  Rose supposed that any gift of flowers was meant to make one feel special and valued but something about this had felt so… odd… so… inappropriate.

  She’d seen Mr Barrow glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, concerned at her expression. She’d thrown the card in the bin and dumped the flowers in the kitchenette in the back.

  Just about to turn the corner at the top of the road now, she stopped in her tracks as someone shouted, ‘Rose!’ She turned to see Jim Greaves, the library caretaker, striding towards her, his arms full of the discarded bouquet. ‘You forgot your lovely flowers, pet!’