Rosie Meadows Regrets...

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘Peeth car!’ he said, overjoyed.

  ‘Yes. I know, darling.’

  I got closer to the window and narrowed my eyes. The car appeared to be empty. Well, of course. Its occupants were clearly inside the cottage, looking for me. I watched for a moment longer, then slowly turned and retraced my steps downstairs. At the bottom I encountered Vera, rolling up the rugs, mop and bucket poised to wash the flagstones. She stared at me as I went past.

  ‘You all right, luv? Looks like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. Fine.’ Oddly enough, I did feel fine. I felt quite calm. You see, in a way, it was a bit of a relief. Put an end to all that nervous anticipation. ‘I’m just popping down to the cottage, Vera.’ I paused. I almost said, I might be some time. ‘Won’t be long. I think I’ve got some visitors.’

  She didn’t answer, just watched as I went calmly out of the front door and shut it softly behind me. I stood on the top step for a moment, gazing at the landscape, breathing in the crisp morning air. Its coldness was heady somehow. I raised my eyes to the vast, cloudless blue sky. Big skies. Then I turned and set off down the hill.

  As I approached the cottage, I realized the front door was wide open. I crept up as quietly as I could and peered cautiously inside. Yes, well, if they were hoping to surprise me, I’d surprise them. Instead, what I saw made me draw my breath in. I almost didn’t recognize my own sitting room. The whole place had been turned upside down. Drawers had been pulled out and thrown on the floor, papers were strewn everywhere and books had been wrenched haphazardly from the bookshelves, leaving the shelves bare. Cardboard boxes chock-a-block with stuff I didn’t even recognize had been plonked in front of the fire, presumably brought down from the attic because there was a gaping hole in the ceiling and the trap door hung open. Glancing into the kitchen I saw that all the china, pots and pans, and even the food from the larder was spread about the floor. Potatoes had been shaken from their bag and were rolling around; in fact everything, it seemed, that could be turned over or taken out had been. It looked as if I’d been burgled.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Meadows.’

  Out of the gloom stepped a familiar figure. Her mouth was set in its habitual thin line, her eyes were cold, the colour of winter skies, and her face was white against the upturned collar of her navy coat. Superintendent Hennessey showed her teeth in a cruel approximation of a smile.

  ‘What the hell’s been going on here?’ I whispered.

  ‘We’re searching your cottage, Mrs Meadows. We do have a warrant, of course.’ She whipped a paper out from inside her coat. ‘Happily we didn’t have to break the door down since you’d rather conveniently left it open, but it’s perhaps not a terribly wise thing to do on a regular basis. Then again, that’s the country for you, I suppose.’

  I went in past her, staring at the mess. ‘But – what are you looking for?’

  ‘Hard to say really until we find it. Perhaps you could give us a few pointers.’

  I turned. She fixed me with her eyes.

  ‘Well, I haven’t the faintest idea!’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No! But I know one thing’s for sure, you can’t just walk in here and ransack the place for no reason, it’s outrageous! And you must have known I was up at the house, why didn’t you come and get me? I mean, what were you going to do, leave a note saying, turned the place over, see you soon? God, you’ve even tipped the potpourri on the floor. What were you looking for in there? Drugs? Diamonds? Human remains?’

  ‘You tell me, Mrs Meadows.’

  I gazed at her. Without taking her eyes off me, she inclined her head sideways and threw her voice up the stairs. ‘How are you getting on up there, Bill?’

  ‘Still looking!’ came a voice.

  ‘Well, make sure you go through it with a fine-tooth comb. I want all those drawers and cupboards emptied and the beds stripped, duvets out of the covers. The kid’s room too.’

  ‘Righto, guv.’

  She lifted her chin defiantly at me and thrust her hands deeper into her pockets.

  I nodded slowly in realization. ‘Ah, right. Yes of course. This is intimidation, isn’t it? You’re not looking for anything at all, you’re just doing this to break me down, aren’t you?’

  ‘Call it what you will,’ she said softly.

  ‘Well, it won’t work,’ I said hoarsely. ‘Because I didn’t bloody do it, okay?’

  I turned and with Ivo in my arms blundered past her, outside into the cold. One other thing was for sure, I thought, as I stumbled round to the tiny patch of garden at the back, I wasn’t giving her the satisfaction of having me as her audience as she devastated my home. I lifted Ivo up on to the little flint wall that divided the garden from the fields and sat down beside him with my back to the cottage, hugging him hard. I stared out into the misty blue distance.

  After a while, though, Ivo got bored with my tight, trembly arms and clambered down the other side. He found an icy puddle to slide on. I watched as he skidded on it. The ice was thin and he cracked it easily with the heel of his boot, squealing with delight as the water splashed up. Tears pricked my eyelids, but happily they were tears of rage. Fury was mounting fast and I welcomed it, because I knew as long as I could stay good and angry and not cowed and frightened, I could beat them, and actually, by turning my cottage inside out they were going the right way about making me absolutely bloody livid. Sorry, Superintendent Hennessey, I thought savagely, but if you think this is going to make me sink to my knees and blurt out a false confession, you’re wrong.

  I took a deep breath and waited. I could hear banging and crashing coming from inside but I ignored it, knowing it was purely for my benefit. I concentrated instead on the way the icy water left little white trails on Ivo’s boots as it froze. Like snail trails. Finally, after what seemed like an age, Cold Lips herself came round to see me.

  ‘We’ve finished here,’ she said briskly.

  ‘Found anything interesting?’ I asked bitterly.

  ‘Not yet, but we’ll be searching your house in London next.’

  ‘My …’ I shook my head. ‘Fine. Fine, go ahead,’ I said wearily.

  ‘You still have the keys, I take it? Only it saves the embarrassment of breaking the door down in front of the neighbours.’

  I looked at her pinched face and wondered when she’d ever been sensible to people’s feelings, embarrassment or otherwise. Wordlessly I got off the wall and went inside to fetch the spare keys for her. Ignoring the total chaos that confronted me, the clothes – even my underwear, for God’s sake – strewn over the banisters, the papers littering the floor, plates piled high on the kitchen floor, I reached into my handbag.

  ‘Here.’

  As she went to take them, I held on to them for a moment, forcing her to look me sharply in the eye. ‘I’ve said this before, but I’ll keep on saying it. You’re making a big mistake here.’

  ‘Really,’ she said drily, yanking the keys from my hand. ‘I wonder if Harry would agree with you. But then conveniently for you he’s six feet under and can’t actually comment, can he?’

  And so saying she turned on her heel and walked out. As she got in the passenger side of the panda car, I caught a glimpse of the driver. I realized it was the same, vaguely sympathetic older man who’d driven me home from the police station that day. I thought he flashed me an apologetic look as they drove off, but then again I couldn’t be sure, and to be honest I didn’t really care.

  I sat down on an upturned box in the middle of the floor and stared around me. Havoc had most surely been wreaked here. Ivo toddled in from the garden and looked about in astonishment.

  ‘Methy!’

  ‘Just a bit, darling,’ I croaked. I gulped hard. Because now that they’d gone, anger had turned to dismay, and seeing my possessions strewn about me like this, my clothes hanging over the banisters, almost made me feel as if I’d been raped. Thankfully Ivo was blissfully diverted by the chaos and moved from one pile to the next, playing happily with e
lectricity bills here and saucepan lids there, and didn’t seem to notice that his mother was quietly dissolving on an upturned box and weeping silently into her hands. It was only when my face was so wet and my nose running so hard I had to look up to wipe it, that I realized there was someone standing over me. I glanced up in alarm.

  ‘Joss!’

  ‘What’s going on here, Rosie?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Oh Joss,’ I sobbed shamelessly, ‘I’m in big trouble!’

  ‘So I see.’ He sat down beside me in his overcoat.

  ‘It wasn’t just a few routine questions at the police station,’ I gasped. ‘You know, that time when they took me there after New Year, when you went away. They grilled me absolutely rigid and – oh God, Joss, they think I killed him, they really do!’ I fought with my breath and wiped my face with the back of my hand. Joss handed me a hanky.

  ‘I know, I thought as much. I spoke to Martha on the telephone yesterday and she more or less told me the worst. It was one of the reasons I came back, aside from seeing to the schools of course.’

  ‘Oh.’ I suddenly remembered. ‘How did it –?’

  ‘He’s fine at Westbourne Park, Rosie. You were right, he’ll do well there. He’s much more suited to that kind of atmosphere and I liked the head. I went to Stowbridge first but the Archers were remarkably unpleasant and threatened all sorts of lawsuits before I could even open my mouth. It seems the other boy’s parents have already removed their son, which is naturally Toby’s fault. In fact they seemed to think the whole damn episode is everybody’s fault but their own. It’s extraordinary how when the chips are down people show themselves as they really are. He’s a pompous ass if ever I saw one and she’s a really cold fish. You were right to take him away, Rosie.’ He paused and gazed about him, looking genuinely appalled. Suddenly, though, he rallied. ‘Anyway, enough of that.’ He stood up, rubbing his hands together briskly. ‘Let’s see about clearing this place up, shall we, and then you can tell me about the God-awful mess you seem to have gotten yourself into. Look at all this garbage, is this all yours?’

  I blew my nose miserably on his hanky. It was clean and white. A lovely handkerchief, I almost couldn’t bear to spoil it. I couldn’t help noticing, too, as he stood over me, how beautifully square his hands were as they hung at his sides and how kind his golden eyes as he looked down at me. He was a powerfully built man, tall with broad shoulders, not the type you’d expect to be artistic, more of a sportsman or something but then sculpting was, I suppose, pretty physical work. Physical – now why did that make me feel a bit hot … ? Oh God, if only things weren’t so ghastly, I thought miserably, wiping my nose again. If only I’d met him ten years ago, if only I’d met someone like him instead of Harry, if only Annabel could be run over by a truck, if only –

  ‘Rosie?’ He broke into my reverie.

  I tried to remember what he’d asked me. ‘Oh, yes,’ I sniffed. ‘It’s all mine, I expect.’ I looked about. ‘Well, no actually, these cardboard boxes aren’t mine. They’ve all come down from the attic. I thought they were yours but if they’re not they must belong to Alice and Michael because I’ve never even been up there.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like they’ve even looked in them,’ he said, peering at the neat pile of books and clothes, ‘just brought them down so you have the hassle of taking them back up.’

  ‘Quite! They just want to harass me, the bastards!’

  ‘Okay, okay. Take it easy. Come on, let’s shunt them back up. One of these days the Feelburns might even have the courtesy to stop by and pick them up instead of just dumping their crap in someone else’s attic, but for the moment it can go back where it came from.’ He tested the little ladder that came down from the loft. ‘That’s steady enough. You go up and I’ll pass them up to you, they look darned heavy.’

  I obediently climbed up and we set about humping the boxes back to the loft, him passing them up and me studiously avoiding touching his hands as I took them from him. They were mostly full of files, papers, books and old clothes, and as Joss repacked one that had fallen to bits, I riffled idly through the one he’d just passed up, mostly to try to avoid staring at his golden-brown head below. It was dark in the attic but as I peered in the box I realized … how odd. There was something remarkably familiar about some of these things. I picked up a faded Paisley scarf and then an old blue jumper underneath. I knew these bits of clothing. Recognized them. They were Philly’s. I delved deeper. A couple of old cassettes that could have been anybody’s, but then – an old velvet slipper, tatty, but very distinctive, with frayed embroidery on the front. Philly’s again, because I remembered she’d brought them back from Nepal. There were a couple of Jane Austen paperbacks and as I flipped them open – yes, on the inside covers there were the Ex Libris stickers that Philly always plastered in the front of her books, and in her black italic handwriting, Philippa Jane Cavendish. I frowned.

  ‘Joss?’

  He straightened up from his packing below. ‘What?’

  ‘Something … a bit odd here.’

  He came halfway up the ladder. ‘What is it?’

  I looked up from the book. ‘These things belong to my sister, Philly.’

  He peered in the box. ‘Oh. Do they?’

  ‘Well, don’t you think that’s a bit odd? I mean, what on earth is her stuff doing here? In my attic? Or your attic, come to that?’

  ‘Or even Michael’s attic,’ he said drily.

  I frowned. ‘What?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing. Beats me, Rosie.’ He made to go down again.

  ‘It does not!’ I said suddenly. He stopped on the ladder. ‘What d’you mean, Michael’s attic? What’s going on here, Joss?’

  Slowly he came back up the rungs until his face was level with mine. ‘Ah yes. I’d forgotten you were probably the only person left in Pennington unaware of your sister’s infidelity.’

  I stared at him. ‘My sister’s … Oh, don’t be ridiculous! Infidelity with who?’

  ‘With whom,’ he corrected instinctively. ‘With Michael Feelburn, of course.’

  I stared gormlessly. ‘Michael!’ My jaw dropped. ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘Well, maybe not any more, but it was, I can assure you. Your friend and mine, the very same Tricky Mickey, and frankly, much as I liked Alice, it was one of the reasons I wanted the Feelburns out of here and was pleased to see you installed instead. It was quite a relief to put an end to all the late night shenanigans that went on down here as he hustled your sister backwards and forwards. I felt pretty bad for poor old Alice too.’

  I stared in horror. ‘No! Philly! God, I just don’t believe it. Philly – and with Michael, of all people!’

  ‘I know, defies belief, doesn’t it? But then again when you think about it, it was all pretty convenient really. What with him being down here on business mid-week and Alice living up in town and your sister being in the next village. Oh yes, it was a regular Wednesday-night fixture. The rumour in the village was that the poor old cuckolded husband – Miles, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

  ‘That he thought she was out doing an evening art class.’ He laughed softly. ‘Life studies, apparently.’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s right,’ I said slowly. ‘She did do that on Wednesdays. She did a course at the local pol –’

  ‘Bullshit! She didn’t do any damn course anywhere, Rosie! The only nude she studied with any intensity on a Wednesday evening was Michael Feelburn!’

  I clutched my mouth. ‘God, that makes me feel sick!’

  ‘Well, you introduced them apparently.’

  I stared. ‘I did?’

  He shrugged. ‘So I heard. Some dinner party.’

  I blanched. Oh God, yes, I did. I did introduce them, at that ghastly supper party, ages ago, when Philly and Alice had hit it off so atrociously. I’d been so busy worrying about the bad vibes between the girls that I hadn’t even noticed Michael. Had he been shooting Philly hot looks all the while, playing f
ootsie under the table? Was that how it had started?

  ‘Oh God,’ I groaned, ‘that was years ago. It must have been going on for ages then!’

  ‘So it appears.’ He looked around at the boxes. ‘I mean, she certainly moved a heck of a lot of stuff in, didn’t she?’

  I shook my head in mute astonishment. Philly. Philly, of all people! I looked up sharply. ‘So – did everyone know?’

  He scratched his head. ‘Well, you know better than I do what these English villages are like, Rosie. You can’t scratch your butt without word getting about. I certainly knew because it all went on in my own back yard, right outside my window. Oh, they thought they were being terribly clandestine and discreet as they arrived back late, no doubt from dinner in Cheltenham, with her slumped down in the passenger seat, complete with big hat and dark glasses – summer only naturally, the darkness did the job in the winter – and then she’d leave in the same disguise an hour or so later, but I keep erratic hours and I was usually still in the studio in the window as they passed in and out. You could set your watch by them. I’d think, ah, Philly and Michael, it must be ten o’clock on a Wednesday evening, and then, ah, Philly and Michael again, it must be half past eleven and he must have shagged her senseless.’

  ‘Don’t!’ I snapped my hands over my ears. ‘I can’t bear to think about it!’

  ‘And I certainly caught enough glimpses of her to recognize her that day she turned up on my doorstep with you, asking if there was any room at the inn.’

  My hands left my ears. ‘I remember you staring at her,’ I said slowly. ‘I thought you fancied her, like most people do.’

  ‘I’m sure they do, she’s a great-looking girl but she’s not my type. No, I was just starry-eyed at the magnitude of her gall. It seemed pretty rich to me to be asking to rent the cottage when she’d been testing the bedsprings for the past couple of years.’