‘It will get easier, Rosie. Might not be for a while, but it will.’
He was a man who spoke from experience. She thought of Laurel’s letter, the rather cool explanation of a woman who had plans and wasn’t about to let marriage and motherhood get in the way. I didn’t want any of it, not marriage, not kids, not the routine of laundry and housework, not the small seaside life, none of it. I wanted more than to be known as my husband’s wife...
‘Did you feel this bad when Mum left?’ She kept her tone neutral. This was new territory for them both, but it was somehow easier to discuss it over the phone with a stretch of the A377 between them.
Her dad gave a small cough. His words, when they came, were barely more than a whisper.
‘I did, yes. It was a difficult time. I was taken aback, shocked. She rejected everything I had to offer, and there was no Plan B, no alternative life that I could tempt her with. She just disappeared, and I wanted to run away too, if I’m being honest, but I had this little baby girl to care for and I didn’t know how. I really didn’t.’
He chuckled with relief, as if he’d survived a near miss. ‘Looking back, I think I blamed you at first, in some way. I thought that if you hadn’t come along, she might have stayed. But I know that’s not true; you were just a little baby, you were an angel, too, placid and quiet, almost as if you knew you couldn’t be too much trouble, because I couldn’t have coped. And I figured out after a while that she was always going to go, it was just a question of when. I was never enough for her. And so I did what I had to do, battened down the hatches, tried not to think too much and soldiered on. I had no choice, did I?’
Rosie swallowed, taking in her Dad’s words of revelation and seeing him in a new light. She thought about the silent serving of her bland food at tea times, remembered his distant stare while she tried to chat and saw his fleeting, disingenuous smile, offered as a weak consolation on her birthdays. She realised for the first time that he hadn’t been cold or uncaring; he’d simply been trying to survive and had done so by putting a lid on the feelings that threatened to bubble to the surface. In fact he put a lid on all his feelings. And all the while she’d blamed him for her mum’s departure, assumed she’d upped and left because of something terrible he’d done.
‘Well, I think you did a good job, Dad. We muddled through, didn’t we?’
‘We did – just.’ She heard the crack of emotion in his voice. ‘And Naomi and Leona will be just fine too. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I guess.’ Again she pictured them at that moment.
‘I’ve seen the way you and Phil are with them: they are lucky kids and you’ll all come out the other side, all of you.’
‘Doesn’t feel like that right now,’ she whispered.
‘I know. But I do think you end up with who you’re meant to, Rosie. Look at Shona and me. We are happy. She looks after me, the first person ever to have done that. Your mum said something in her letter, she said that her leaving was to give everyone a chance to have the life that was meant for them, and I can see that now, not that I thanked her at the time.’
Rosie smiled, happy that her dad knew the words by heart. She visualised the coffee ring disappearing from the back of the envelope.
Her situation was, however, quite unlike his. The life she was meant to have was with Phil, there was no better life out there for her, of this she was sure. That life was the one she had always wanted; gorgeous kids, a lovely house and her man by her side. She swallowed the tears that threatened.
Her dad had more to say. ‘And she was right, you know. Hard as it was to see and to come to terms with, she was right. If she’d reluctantly stuck around, I would have had a very different life and so would you.’
‘It didn’t feel like that when I was growing up. I... I missed her.’
‘I know. But what you did was imagine a perfect mum.’
She thought about her apple-scented, smiling mummy who used to sit by her side in the darkness.
‘And you have become that mum for your girls and that’s the absolute best thing you could have done. It’s made you who you are.’
Rosie nodded. She had never thought about it in this way, but her dad was right. She had always been determined to give Naomi and Leona the love and care she felt she’d missed out on. So what if they were a bit rowdy and a bit less well behaved than the von Trapps; so long as they knew she would always be there for them, for the little things as well as the big things – ready to fix their hair for parties, to talk about periods and other stuff – that was all that really mattered.
‘I don’t say it often enough, Dad, but I appreciate what you did, what you went through, and I do love you.’
‘I know. And I love you too.’
After she put the phone down, Rosie felt her mood shift a little; she wasn’t happy, but she was less fearful. Her dad’s words had made an impact, made her feel as if she wasn’t alone and that was all she had ever really wanted.
Her phone rang again and she checked the screen. Mo. She must have known that the kids were out and was checking in. Rosie smiled and answered the call. ‘Hello, Mrs.’
‘Look, I know my hair’s a bit long and I have been known to wander round in a sarong, which is technically a skirt, and I do wear a bracelet, but—’
‘Kev! Oh my God! You’re home!’
‘No, I’m still away, but I got Mum to send her phone to Borneo so I could prank-call you.’
‘Very funny.’ She’d missed his teasing sarcasm.
‘So, Rosie Watson, what the hell’s been going on? I turn my back for five minutes...’
‘Oh, Kev.’
‘Wait! Don’t say a word. Bench time?’
‘Yes!’ She laughed. ‘Bench time would be good.’
*
Rosie arrived first. It was a little chilly in the evening breeze and she’d thrown on her thick wool poncho for warmth. She lifted her head and smiled in anticipation at every dog walker who passed by, waiting for her old, old friend. Her dad’s words were still fresh in her mind as she pictured her teenage self sitting at this very spot chatting to her mum in her mind and meeting Kev for ‘bench-time’ catch-ups whenever they were needed.
‘Get orf my bench!’ he shouted as he strode across the grass.
Rosie jumped up and greeted her brother-in-law with a long, firm hug. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she whispered into his shoulder-length, sun-bleached hair. ‘You smell of bonfires.’
‘Thank you,’ he replied and they laughed.
She resumed her place at the end of the bench, taking in his tanned skin, white teeth and permanent smile. ‘You look really well.’ She grinned at him. He was ageing, of course, but thankfully had retained his sparkle. And if anything, the faint crinkles now fanning out from the sides of his eyes only made him look kinder.
‘And you. Last time I saw you, you were kind of saggy and mumsy.’ He waved his arms.
‘Flippin’ ’eck, Kev! Say what you mean, why don’t you!’ She shoved her arms inside her woolly cover-up.
‘But you did! And now you look really good. Heartache suits you.’ He nudged her with his elbow.
‘I don’t know about that.’ She shook her head, unable to joke when everything was still so raw. ‘How long are you staying?’
‘Give me a chance – I’ve only just arrived. You trying to get rid of me already?’
‘No. I like you being home.’
‘I don’t know, actually. A couple of weeks, not sure. But I thought it would be nice to be here for Dad’s birthday. The weird thing is that it feels less like home the longer I’m away from it. Don’t tell Mum that.’
He sounded like the schoolboy of many years ago and it made her smile. ‘Birthdays and Christmas, your usual visiting times.’ She nudged him.
‘Oh don’t, you know I hate Christmas. I find it depressing, always have, all that false jollity and over indulgence. Give me a quiet beach and a good book any day.’
‘Don’t you miss turkey?
’ she asked.
‘Not even a little bit.’ He smiled at her.
‘Where are you going next?’
Kev straightened out his long legs and crossed them at the ankles; his desert boots were dull and dusty. ‘The British Virgin Islands, or BVI to those in the know. It’s got crystal-clear waters, glorious sunshine, incredible fish. It’s a tough gig, but someone’s got to do it.’
‘What are you doing there?’
‘I’m gathering and comparing algae samples, which is a lot more involved than it sounds.’
‘I’ll have to take your word for it.’
‘I’m going to be living on a boat, mainly, a beautiful wooden boat that you can moor within sight of any number of isolated beaches. It’s paradise.’
‘You said that about Borneo!’
‘Because it was! I love the travel, I always think the next place I go will be better than the last and it usually is. It’s all about keeping this open.’ He tapped his temple.
‘Don’t you ever get fed up of drifting from place to place? I mean, it must be lovely to always have a tan and sit on the sand, but don’t you ever think you might want to come home to bricks and mortar?’
‘And rain and traffic and television and crowds!’ He raised his voice. ‘No thanks.’
‘But you must want to set up your train set, get all your vinyl out, put pictures on the walls – that stuff was always really important to you.’ Memories flooded into her head, of a teenaged Kevin desperate to play her a particular track or show off the latest framed gig ticket hanging above his bed.
He smiled. ‘Yes, it was and I will, one day. Anyway, I’m not drifting. I’m anchored to the whole planet and not just one square inch of it. Do you know how big the earth is? How much there is to see?’
Rosie looked up at the darkening horizon. ‘No, I don’t. It feels very small to me. Especially at the moment. My mum died.’ She let the news blurt from her, obviously keener to share it than she’d realised.
‘Oh God! Rosie, no! I had no idea! Did you see her? How do you know?’ He twisted his body to face her, his questioning urgent.
She was glad of his interest, which was greater than his preoccupied brother had shown. She shook her head. ‘I never got to meet her, no.’
She placed her head in her hands and slumped forward as she cried. ‘I can’t stop crying. I don’t even want to cry any more, but I can’t stop it. I can’t believe he left us.’
Kev placed his hand on her back and palmed warm circles against her skin. ‘It’s okay, Rosie. Blimey, this reminds me of when we were third years and you sat here crying because Take That were splitting up.’
She lifted her head, crying and sniffing up her tears. ‘This feels a bit different.’
Kev removed his hand from her back. ‘Oh my God, I’d forgotten that you’re such an ugly crier! You look like an angry man when you cry.’
And just like that, her tears turned to laughter. ‘An angry man? What are you talking about?’
‘No, really, it’s bad. I remember it now, jheesh.’ He nodded sagely. ‘You are never, ever going to get a boyfriend looking like that.’
‘I don’t want a boyfriend!’ The thought was enough to set her crying again.
He carried on, as if she wasn’t sobbing her heart out. ‘I had a girlfriend, Chrissie, a Kiwi girl, and if I think about her, I picture her in tears. When she cried, her eyes glazed over and her cheeks glowed and she looked serene, beautiful. Of course I never wanted her to cry, but when she did, it was captivating.’
‘Did you tell her that?’ Rosie wiped her nose on the bottom of her poncho.
‘No. How can you say that to someone without it sounding weird?’ He pulled a menacing face. ‘I like to watch you when you cry! There’s no good way of breaking that to your girlfriend. Not that you have to worry about that, Rosie. No one is ever going to say that to you, because as I might have already mentioned, when you cry you look like an ugly, angry man.’
She thumped him on the arm. ‘Why did you and Chrissie break up? She sounds lovely.’
‘She shagged my mate.’
‘And that’s not the thing you think about when you remember her?’
‘Well, yeah. I mean, it’s no biggie.’ He pulled a Rizla from the top pocket of his pale blue shirt and rolled a cigarette. ‘You see, I believe that everyone has someone they are meant to be with. The one.’
‘You so do not believe that!’ She waited for the punchline.
‘No, I do!’ He placed his right palm over his heart, as if this gave his statement solemnity. ‘I really do. So when Chrissie goes off and shags my mate, or Raquel leaves the island I’m on, or my best friend, who I’ve singled out as my life partner, marries my brother...’
‘Shut up!’ She punched him on the arm again.
He smiled. ‘When those things happen, it’s fate’s way of telling me that they are not the one, because if they were, they wouldn’t do those things and would still be with me. So it’s no biggie, it just speeds up the process, takes me closer to finding her!’
Rosie stared at him. ‘What if you find your one, but you aren’t theirs?’ Her tears started again.
‘Ah, that’s the thing, Rosie. It doesn’t work like that. It’s not possible. It has to be the perfect fit, mutual and for always, or you are not their one and they are not yours. Even if you think they are for a while.’
He pulled her towards him and placed his arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re going to be all right, you know. Time will help put this into perspective, I promise.’
She laid her head against him. It felt nice to be held. ‘People keep telling me that, but it doesn’t feel like it.’
‘How does it feel?’ he whispered.
And she was glad he was there, her friend. She sat up straight, staring out to sea, as Kev lit his cigarette.
‘I feel like I’m sitting in a dark place and I have this big hollow space in the middle of my gut that used to be filled by him. I’m self-conscious in a way that I never was before, because he took what little confidence I had and pulled it out of me, as easy as pulling a weed. And I still don’t know where my place is in the world because everything I thought I knew and could rely on has gone. And I’m scared. I’m really scared.’
‘What are you scared of?’ he asked softly.
She coughed to clear her throat, which was clogged with tears. ‘I’m scared that I’ll never leave this dark place, that I’ll be in here forever.’
Kev shook his head. ‘Trust me, I have never lied to you and I am telling you now, it will get better. It will.’
‘Thank you, Kev.’ She meant it.
‘But you do need to find a way to sort that ugly crying thing out. It’s ba-ad!’ He giggled and she laughed too. The sweet sound of temporary happiness echoed around the rocks below and was carried out to sea.
*
Kev walked her home and punched her lightly on the arm before leaving, like he always used to.
‘You know where I am, right, if you need anything?’
She had nodded and smiled. He’d been the best medicine. She’d forgotten how he had the ability to make her laugh, help her escape. The subject of Phil sat between them like the boulder it had always been. It was something they were both keen to avoid.
It was a little after nine o’clock when the headlights swept the room and the roar of a powerful engine heralded the girls’ return home. Rosie sat up straight and waited for the knock on the door.
Phil was carrying Leona, who was slumped over his left shoulder, her arms and little legs dangling freely; she appeared to have lost a sock. Naomi held his right hand and was leaning against his hip with her eyes closed and her long hair falling over her face. The sight of the silent trio gladdened Rosie’s heart.
‘Very tired,’ Phil mouthed as he made his way inside, just as he had done a thousand times before.
Rosie bent down, scooped Naomi into her arms and followed her husband up the stairs. She placed her eldest girl in her b
ed, cradling her head as she laid her against the pillow, pulling off her shoes and socks, then folding the duvet up over her shoulders. Naomi was already asleep.
She turned and watched as Phil brushed the long, shiny hair from Leona’s forehead and bent down to gently kiss her cheek. He then blew a kiss to Naomi.
‘It’s a bit chilly,’ he whispered and, without hesitation, he went to the cupboard on the landing and removed the two spare blankets that lived there. They had been a wedding present from Phil’s Auntie Sue. Rosie pictured the two of them unwrapping the gift as they sat in the middle of the sitting-room floor, tearing off strips of silver paper and flinging it high in the room like confetti, stopping only to kiss each other. They’d laughed at the blankets, which they’d christened granny blankets, but they were the one gift that they still regularly used. Phil tucked the soft pink wool around the angelic forms of their sleeping daughters; their hair, fanned out on the pillows, looked like strands of spun gold.
Turning off the light and leaving the door ajar, Rosie and Phil made their way out onto the landing. The familiarity with which Phil moved around the house, the comforting presence of him and the way he treated his children made her doubt Kev’s words. She was certain that she had found her one, which made his betrayal even harder.
‘They’ve had a great time.’ He smiled, like the proud dad he was.
She felt her jaw tighten. ‘So, Kev’s home.’
‘Yeah, haven’t seen him yet.’
‘He’s on good form.’ She leant against the wall with her arms folded against her chest.
‘When isn’t he?’ He smirked.
‘Does your...’ She didn’t know what to call her and felt uncomfortable using her name. ‘Does your...’ She tried again. ‘Does she have any children?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I think it was all a bit of a shock to her – you know what those two are like, tag-team tornado.’ And he laughed, as if he’d forgotten who he was talking to, as if he was sharing an amusing snippet with a mate. Glancing at her expression, he straightened, adopted a more sober stance and lowered his voice.
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