Rosie Meadows Regrets...

by Catherine Alliott

Philly went pale. ‘That’s absurd, no one would ever believe him!’

  ‘I agree, they probably wouldn’t, but there’s always a chance, isn’t there? He says he’ll get his friends in high places to corroborate and, believe me, he’s got quite a few. Harry believes himself to be minor aristocracy, Phil, thinks all his cronies will come out of the ancestral woodwork to cloak him in lies, support him.’

  ‘Of course they won’t, no one would compromise themselves like that, perjure themselves in court. He’s living in cloud-cuckoo-land!’

  I shrugged. ‘So perhaps he’ll be more devious. Fabricate the evidence, mock up some photos of Ivo looking distressed with felt pen bruises on his arms, I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t!’ She sprang up sharply from the bench. ‘Don’t, I can’t bear it!’

  She walked quickly to her vegetables, stooped down, wrenched up cabbages and flung them in her basket like a thing possessed. Her cheeks were pink with anger. For some reason it suddenly reminded me of a time long ago, when we were little, staying with our grandmother in Cheltenham. Opposite Granny’s townhouse was a hairdresser’s which could be seen from a bedroom window, and one morning my brother Tom and I telephoned the number on the shop front and in false, grown-up voices booked an entire day’s worth of fictitious appointments. We watched, convulsed with laughter, clutching each other, as the young receptionist wrote them diligently in her book. When we confided our guilty, giggly secret to Philly, she clapped her hands over her ears in horror, crying, ‘Don’t! Don’t, I can’t bear it! That poor girl, it’s too dreadful!’

  Harry’s deceit was of course on a much grander scale, but it reminded me that Philly couldn’t take cruelty in any denomination.

  ‘I’m exaggerating, Phil,’ I said gently. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t stoop to that.’

  When she turned round she had two bright spots of colour burning high in her cheeks.

  ‘He’s a pig, isn’t he?’ she whispered.

  I smiled. This was as vile as Philly could get.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I agreed. ‘No doubt about that.’

  She nodded. I got up and we wandered slowly back towards the house, arm in arm.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said suddenly, stopping as we crossed the yard, ‘he works all day, how could he possibly look after a child?’

  ‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. He doesn’t actually work at all. He makes a big show of going upstairs to his office but that’s as far as it goes. In reality he makes a few phone calls, farts a lot and snores on his sofa.’

  ‘Which makes him totally unfit to look after a two-year-old!’ she snorted.

  ‘Well, you and I both know that, but some like-minded judge might think him a fine upstanding fellow with both time and money at his disposal to care for his only begotten child.’

  She swung me round to face her. ‘You’re not going to let this put you off, are you? You’re surely still going to go through with it?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m certainly moving out. Alice says I can borrow her cottage for a bit, but I’ve got to see a solicitor, Philly. I’ve got to take advice. If there’s any chance at all that I might lose Ivo, I couldn’t do it. He’s my whole life.’ Tears welled up in my throat, my eyes, my nose. I swallowed them down hard.

  ‘That won’t happen,’ she said staunchly. ‘Any solicitor worth his salt will tell you Harry hasn’t got a hope in hell.’ She frowned. ‘Did you say Alice’s cottage?’

  ‘Yes, it’s not far from here actually, just over the other side of the valley.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I went there once.’ She made a face. ‘It’s pretty primitive, you know, Rosie. It’s barely got indoor plumbing and electricity. Why don’t you stay here with us?’

  ‘Thanks, you’re sweet, but I’d rather be on my own. No offence, but I just want to sort myself out. It’ll be great having you so close, of course,’ I added, not wanting to sound ungrateful. ‘When did you see the cottage?’

  ‘Oh, ages ago,’ she said vaguely. ‘Some friends of ours rented it before Alice. It’s the old gardener’s place on a big estate.’

  ‘I know, I thought I might go and have a look tomorrow morning. Can I stay the night, Phil? I don’t feel like going back and facing Harry and the parents.’

  ‘You mean he’s still there? After all that’s been said?’

  ‘Oh, of course. Don’t forget, we’re happily married. There’ll be no more silly talk of divorce, Old Thing.’

  She shuddered. ‘Of course you can stay,’ she squeezed my arm, ‘and I’ll come and look at the cottage with you in the morning. I’m sure we can do something with it, paint the walls, put a few rugs down …’

  ‘A few fresh flowers?’ I inquired.

  She laughed. My mother’s answer to life’s rich tapestry was always to ‘put a few fresh flowers about the place’.

  ‘You don’t want to let her anywhere near it, incidentally,’ Philly warned. ‘She’ll be wrinkling her nose in disgust and smelling rats in the attic and damp in the mattresses and God knows what in the cellar. She’ll have you out of there in no time.’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll want to come anywhere near it anyway,’ I said quietly.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  I shrugged. ‘I just have a hunch that when she knows the lie of the land, her sympathies will be firmly in her son-in-law’s camp rather than mine.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ she said warmly. ‘Mum’s pretty asinine at the best of times but even she knows blood’s thicker than water.’

  ‘Depends what colour the blood is,’ I said grimly. ‘Anyway, time will tell.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘Congratulations!’ Philly’s husband Miles boomed at me over his breakfast the following morning. ‘That’s the best news I’ve heard all winter!’

  I blinked. ‘Miles, I think you’re supposed to say something along the lines of how sorry you are and how the break up of a marriage is always a cause for regret and have I really thought through the implications?’

  ‘Could do,’ he agreed, wiping some bread around his eggy plate, ‘just to satisfy your middle-class sensibilities, but the fact remains that it’s the best decision you’ve made for years and far better to make it now while you’re still young and you’ve got a good chance of remarrying and giving Ivo the chance of a half decent father.’ He popped the bread in his mouth and grinned at me disarmingly.

  I couldn’t help grinning back. I’d always found Miles’s propensity to say what everyone else was thinking but daren’t articulate rather refreshing.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Miles, a little tact could be engendered just for once, couldn’t it?’ admonished Philly, who didn’t always find it so refreshing.

  ‘Why?’ Miles turned round to face her as she cooked at the Aga. ‘Tact might cloud the issue, force her to take her eye off the ball. She knows she’s made a mistake and everyone else knows she’s made a mistake. The man’s a fat oaf and he needs marginalizing in the nicest possible way, that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘He wasn’t that fat when I met him,’ I said defensively, although quite who I was defending here I wasn’t sure.

  ‘Well, he’s certainly making up for it now. The last time I saw him wobbling towards me in that ridiculous Paisley dressing gown of his at your parents’ house I seriously thought it was Demis Roussos in a kaftan, thought he was going to break into one of those Greek ballads – ever and ever for ever and ever you’ll b-eeeeeee the one,’ he warbled, rising up from his chair and waving his arms evangelically.

  I giggled but Philly wasn’t amused. I’d noticed recently that she was irritated by some of his antics sometimes. She slammed the dishwasher door shut as she passed it.

  ‘Miles, Rosie is not divorcing Harry because of his weight problem, okay? Believe it or not there’s a little more to it than that.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure there is.’ He turned his chair round and swung a leg over it, straddling it backwards. ‘All the same, it’ll be a relief to give up the night shif
t, eh Rosie?’ He winked at me. ‘All that rib crushing, all that gasping for air, all that tantric sex because you haven’t got any choice, you simply can’t move; all those secret fears about dying on the job and being found squashed like a pancake by the paramedics and –’

  ‘Miles!’ Philly’s face was pink. ‘Why is it that you constantly feel impelled to cross the bounds of good taste?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Miles scratched his head sheepishly. ‘Just a joke, darling. Rosie doesn’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Not in the least, and if you must know, Miles, it was more like being laid on by a large wardrobe with a very small key.’ I grinned as Miles stifled a guffaw from his wife. No, I didn’t mind my brother-in-law’s banter, but then I didn’t have quite the broad stroke of gentility that Philly had. I could roar with laughter at dirty jokes and sexual innuendo with the best of them, but Philly had always had a problem on that score. It made her uncomfortable, just as unlined drawers and milk bottles on the table did too. I’m not saying she’d ever put blue water down the loo or have lavender air fresheners in the bathroom, but in many respects she was very much our mother’s daughter.

  Miles, actually, had been terribly good for her. Everyone waxed lyrical about what a lucky man he was to have her, but Miles’s slightly earthy, vulgar streak and his ability to air a prejudice without inhibition was just what Philly needed to stop her being prissy and priggish. I watched them now: Miles, tall, broad shouldered with curly dark hair, Viyella checked shirt and balding cords, very much the Gloucestershire farmer, getting up to cajole his pretty pouting wife at the Aga, deliberately patting her bum in front of me; and Philly, blushing, swatting his hand away, trying not to laugh, then laughing anyway as he restored her good humour. Despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, they made a good team and they knew it. And if Miles was a little lacking in the cerebral department, he certainly made up for it in the affable, hail-fellow-well-met department, qualities which were far more useful in his line of work down here. Miles was at his happiest propping up the bar in the village pub, talking crop yields and winter wheat and set-asides with the labourers and farmers or anyone, in fact, who cared to share a pint with him, buying everyone within hollering distance a drink and generally relaxing into his role of the country squire who had no problems remaining a man of the people. Miles had inherited the thousand-acre farm from his father, and his father before him. He knew everyone in the community, was well liked and well respected. He had eased gracefully into his place in life. His was an unshakeably happy lot.

  ‘Lovely arse,’ he murmured, still patting away.

  ‘Oh, Miles!’

  ‘Sorry.’ He abandoned his wife’s behind and hugged her shoulders instead.

  ‘She’s a terrible prude, you know,’ he confided to me. ‘Still gets undressed in the dark.’

  ‘Who said anything about getting undressed?’ Philly gave him a playful shove, but then, no doubt remembering Harry and the nightie lifting, shot me a sudden, guilty look. I sent her a placatory one back but I’m not sure she intercepted it.

  ‘I bought her a vibrator for her birthday this year, for a joke,’ said Miles, ‘and she opened it just as your mother came walking through the front door bearing flowers and presents.’

  ‘No!’ I gasped.

  ‘Oh yes, I couldn’t stop her. I was quietly tiptoeing from the room to go and dig a hole in which to die, when I was suddenly halted by Philly saying, “What is it, darling?” I slowly turned round, looked solemnly into two pairs of wide, puzzled eyes and told them it was a cordless egg whisk.’

  ‘Don’t tell me they believed you!’

  ‘Of course they did. “Oh isn’t that marvellous!” trilled your mother, and, “Gosh, how handy – no cord!” from your sister, and then off they scurried to the kitchen to whisk up some double cream with it.’

  ‘Did it work?’ I gasped.

  ‘I’ve no idea, Rosie, but I certainly didn’t have cream with my apple pie that day. I’m thinking of getting your mother one for Christmas actually. I’d love to see it hanging up in her kitchen – you know, on her implement rack, next to the potato masher and the fish slice. A nice big black one, I thought.’

  I giggled. ‘Imagine if it caught on!’

  ‘Well quite. Imagine if Marjorie got one, and Yvonne, and every other middle-aged housewife in West Oxfordshire. Imagine all their exhausted husbands coming home from work to be confronted with their sixty-plus wives, strapped into their pinnies, all gripping huge black phalluses, furiously whisking away at the egg whites and wondering why it was taking so long to form soft peaks.’

  We fell about laughing and Philly sank helplessly into her husband’s shoulder. I watched as he hugged her to him, laughing into each other’s eyes. Suddenly a huge wave of self-pity threatened to engulf me. I stood up, shaking it off determinedly, but my mirth had evaporated.

  ‘Right then,’ I said decisively. ‘I’m going to drag Ivo away from his cousins upstairs and then I’m off to see this cottage. Coming, Phil?’

  ‘What cottage?’ Miles grinned up at me, still holding on to his wife.

  ‘Alice Feelburn, a friend of mine, owns it – well, rents it, actually. She’s lending it to me, it’s over on the Basswater estate.’

  ‘I know,’ he nodded. ‘We’ve met the Feelburns, haven’t we, Phil?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Philly shortly.

  She made no further comment but I remembered that she and Alice had never exactly hit it off. A couple of years ago, when Alice had suddenly announced that she was taking a weekend cottage in a village literally ten minutes from my sister, I’d been absolutely delighted and had promptly instigated a dinner party at Philly’s place so they could all meet. It hadn’t been the greatest social success. Philly and Alice had irritated each other from the word go, with Philly, probably because of nerves, coming across as more than usually Mrs Perfect, and Alice, on the defensive, more aggressively Bohemian than usual, eulogizing about backpacking in Istanbul and the joys of orgies on the beaches – something I’m quite sure she’d never indulged in. Philly had been duly horrified and to change the subject had mentioned Bertie getting a place at a school that was known to be fiercely academic, whereupon Alice, thinking she was bragging, had launched an attack on pushy mothers. Philly had then produced some delicious profiteroles and Alice had remarked that M&S did some marvellous puddings too and had Philly ever tried them. Philly, genuinely astounded that anyone might even consider it, had said no, of course not! Alice, believing herself to be patronized, had bristled furiously. As the evening limped on, Philly had started raving about some terrific new power shower she’d just had installed, and said it was so marvellous she used it twice a day, whereupon Alice had said, what a ridiculous waste of water, people washed far too much these days and three times a week was really quite sufficient. Philly had said, oh, don’t be silly, anyone who only washed three times a week would start to smell, and Alice had said, actually she only took a bath three times a week, and Philly had said, yes, well, there you go. Hmmm. More profiteroles, anyone?

  The men, meanwhile, sensing that the women weren’t exactly hitting it off, had proceeded to overcompensate by getting quietly but spectacularly drunk, and Miles had ended the evening by insisting that Philly should climb on a chair and show everyone her Father Christmas knickers. ‘Cummon, darling, don’t be sush a shpoilshport, everyone wants to seeee! Oh cummon, dar-ling!’

  Philly had eventually stormed from the room in tears. It had been a memorable evening and remained a salutary reminder that just because one loves two people dearly, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they themselves will automatically bond. In fact, it rarely happens.

  I sighed as I recalled, and went to the phone on the dresser to ring Alice. I needed to discover where the key to the cottage was. There was no answer, but I left a message on her machine, knowing she was probably sipping coffee at her kitchen table but wanted to hear who was ringing her first.

  ‘You’ll have
some breakfast before we go, won’t you, Rosie?’

  I turned to see Philly brandishing a spatula at the stove. ‘Oh, er, what is it?’ I looked nervously at Miles’s plate. The funny thing about Philly was that she was a marvellous dinner party cook but very hit or miss on an everyday basis. This was chiefly because she insisted on using up absolutely everything in the fridge before she went shopping again, which of course is very laudable, and can be quite delicious if the leftovers happen to be eggs, smoked salmon and cream for instance, but when it’s haddock, salami, baked beans and yoghurt – which Philly was quite capable of chucking into the liquidizer and whisking up into a heave-making soup – I tended to pass and make myself a sandwich. I’d once, in a very giggly moment, Sellotaped a piece of cold, cooked macaroni to a postcard and sent it to her saying, Philly, what on earth can I do with this? I’ve run out of ideas.

  ‘Sausage and courgette omelette is on the menu today,’ murmured Miles as at that moment the phone rang.

  ‘That’ll be Alice,’ I said gratefully, launching myself at it.

  ‘Saved by the bell,’ he muttered drily.

  ‘The key to the cottage?’ said Alice when I asked her. ‘Oh, you’ll have to call in at the house for that. I used to leave it under a geranium pot but it went walkabout once, so now Joss has the spare.’

  ‘Joss?’

  ‘Jocelyn Dubarry, you know, the sculptor. He’s on the telly a lot, does all those highbrow arty programmes on BBC2, bit of a modern Michelangelo. You’ve heard of him, surely?’

  I hadn’t, but then the programmes I watched were decidedly middle brow, verging on the low.

  ‘Oh well, anyway, he lives at the manor, our cottage is in his grounds. You’ll see when you get there, you have to go past his house to get to us. Don’t be put off by him by the way, his bark is much worse than his bite, it’s just that being an artist and all that he hates being disturbed.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better ring him first and tell him I’m coming?’ I said nervously, not really relishing the barking.