“Six,” Rosie says suddenly, “I got a six … where do I go?”
I count six places out on the board and point to where she should move her piece. She does so and looks at me expectantly. As if I know what to do. I am not sure. I have not played it for years and never really liked it that much. And I have half my mind on the game, half on what’s happening outside.
“I ask you a question from this booklet … from last Sunday’s paper … the game cards are years old,” I say. “If you get it right, you put that piece of pie in the pie itself.” I am not sure that is correct, but try to sound convincing.
I look at where she’s landed and say I have to ask her a general knowledge question. I look down the questions in the booklet – 101 of them in all – to find one that is suitable. And maybe just a little bit easy.
“Who was prime minister before Boris Johnson?” That’s about as easy as you can get.
“Um,” she says. “Um …” A pause. She brushes an imaginary strand of hair back from her forehead. And blows air out of the side of her mouth. Another long pause into an embarrassing silence. Then she speaks. “Um. Can’t think … sorry.”
I shouldn’t, I know, but I give her another go. Sport this time. She’ll know this. Everyone does. “What’s the name of Andy Murray’s tennis-playing brother?”
“Andy Murray … Oh, I should know that,” she says. “Um, tip of my tongue … no, it’s gone again. Brain freeze.” She laughs a little, but it is an embarrassed noise.
One more. Another easy one for someone of her age (although it is meaningless to me).
“In Harry Potter, what animal represents Hufflepuff house?”
She sits there in silence. Something close to sullen now. A slight shrug indicates she does not know. I am not sure how to respond. I don’t know the answer. I’m sure she should.
Outside, the four-by-four revs up, and we both turn anxiously to see what’s happening. For a long, horrible moment, I think he is going to somehow do a three-point turn and ram the front of the car into my gate, up the path and against the front door. The utter ferocity of the man. There is a screeching, snarling noise from the car as he tries to push it into the correct gear. The man is jerking back and forth in his seat in frustrated fury.
He finally jabs the car into gear, and it reverses rapidly, the speed far too fast for the gears as he zigzags his way back towards his house. Rosie swears to herself under her breath: “Fucking hell.” I suddenly find myself gulping in air, as if it is the first proper breath I have taken since I first saw the car outside. I do not speak – my wavering voice would betray my emotions.
As I turn back towards Rosie, to try to appear calm and in control and ready to resume the game, she catches the edge of the board with her elbow and sends everything flying onto the carpet. I think this was deliberate, although I say nothing to her as I bend to start gathering it all up. She is dyslexic, so reading questions out to me, and checking the answers, was always going to be something of an issue for her.
I am happy to pack the game away.
I sit in the living room by the fire, reading my book, whilst she draws in her pad. Or sulks in her room, most likely.
Until teatime. When we can be happy chappies again.
Just before tea, I rummaged around and found some more make-up items of my wife’s in a chest of drawers.
Lipsticks, mostly. Not as bright as the red one that Rosie keeps wearing.
I pull a handful of lipsticks out of my pocket and roll them like marbles across the table to Rosie. She is eating her way through a plate of white bread and butter. That’s all she wanted. She stops and looks at the lipsticks scattered in front of her.
“My wife’s,” I explain. “All sorts of –” I search for the right word “– shades.”
Rosie reaches across and jiggles the six lipsticks into a row in front of her. She then takes a mouthful of bread and butter and, as she chews, unscrews each one in turn to see how much is left.
“My wife did not … has not used some of them. Some of them were new from the Christmas just before … she died. The others are about half used, but you can wipe the ends over with a tissue,” I say, prattling slightly. I am suddenly nervous, but am not sure why.
Rosie looks at each lipstick and reorders them from left to right, the complete lipsticks to the left, the others, in their different sizes, to the right. “I’ve never had …” she says through a mouthful of bread and butter. “Your wife had so many things.”
I nod, taking this at face value, as an observation rather than, as many people would, some sort of envious criticism. “You’re welcome,” I reply, although she has not said “thank you” as such. I take it for what it is. She is a funny little thing at times. I cannot get the measure of her.
She finishes her bread and butter and takes a mouthful of water from a glass by her side.
Then reaches into her pocket and takes out a hand-sized mirror. I have not seen it before. I wonder where she got it. It must have been my daughter’s or my wife’s. If it is my wife’s, it means she has been in my bedroom when I was out walking Fluffy.
She purses her lips. Brings the first lipstick up to her mouth. Rubs it round her lips. She checks her appearance in the mirror. Purses her lips again. I cannot do anything but watch.
I bite into my cheese and pickle sandwich. Then take a mouthful of milk from the glass by my side. I try not to watch her as she wipes her lips with the back of her hand and applies more lipstick. Pursing her lips time and again. Looking into the mirror. Her head this way and that. Pouting. I have thoughts in my head. Swirling round. I do not want them there.
She works her way through all of the lipsticks. Wipes her lips a final time. My eyes are drawn to the lipstick smears all over her hand. My mind full of imaginings. She applies lipstick, from the second in the row, one final time, checks her appearance and turns to me and smiles. She has lipstick on a tooth, and I cannot look away. There is something about it.
“You have so much,” she says suddenly, blurting out the words.
“It’s all yours,” I answer instinctively.
“Thank you,” she replies. I look at her. I am not sure if she is joking. And whether or not I am.
“I don’t have that much,” I add.
“You have this big house.”
“It’s not that big. But I do own it. The mortgage got paid off when my wife died.” I am not sure what to add to that. She looks blankly at me. Talk of mortgages and life assurance policies. She has no knowledge of nor interest in these sorts of things.
“And I have some savings.” I go to say but not much but stop myself. I don’t want her to know that I am running out of money, that I will need to go on benefits soon, and the thought depresses me. I do not want her to know I am a little man. A failure. A loser.
I want her to think of me as a smart man. Who has made a success of his life. Has taken early retirement. Can afford to do whatever he wants. Travel to exotic places. Tick off all those things on his bucket list. I want her to feel proud of me.
“And I have no family or friends. It’s just me and Fluffy with my cottage and my money.”
She looks at me warmly.
“And you can stay here just as long as you want.”
She laughs.
“And everything I have is yours.”
She smiles widely at me.
It is the coldest night so far. And the snow is coming down hard and fast again. BBC weather suggests this will be the last big fall for now. Another three to four inches or so. We must wait to see what happens next. It may go on and on, this weather, for some time.
Rosie, Fluffy and I are all huddled round the fire, staring into the flames. Fluffy’s bed takes centre stage at the front, so close that embers spit and fly towards him. Rosie and I take it in turns to pat them out on Fluffy’s fur before they burn into his skin.
There is a sense that we are under siege. Widow Woman. The Man in the Suit. And the Lump is never far away. That this mo
ment of quiet is a lull before some sort of storm. There is a feeling of closeness between us. We both feel it. Rosie pulls her blanket tightly around her shoulders, sips her hot chocolate, and then rests the beaker on the arm of her chair.
As we sit there quietly with our own thoughts, she kind of jiggles about. I sense she is ready to speak about herself. I have been waiting for this moment since she talked of her mother. I have wanted to know more of her childhood and who raised her after her mother died. If I had pushed her with questions, I might have driven her away. But I have judged it perfectly. She is about to take me into her confidence.
“You remind me of my dad,” she says unexpectedly, glancing shyly at me.
I think about this. I did not believe she had a father, as such. That she had never known him. She spoke only of her mother and “uncles”, and in such a way that I assumed they had treated her badly. And maybe more than that.
“What is your dad like?” I say as neutrally as I can, not conveying my assumption.
“He was nice. Kind. He was always smiling.” She pauses, and I think she is going to add like you, but she stops as if she is remembering him. Was suggests to me she knows he is dead.
“Where is he now?” I ask, realising she is opening up to me, perhaps fully.
“He left when I was five. At Christmas … Boxing Day night,” she answers. “He had a drug habit. I haven’t seen him since.”
I nod, waiting for her to go on. The assumption that he is out there somewhere, just waiting to be found. An improbable happy ending.
“We came here on holiday once. A caravan park by the railway, near some amusements. The trains kept me awake at night.” She half-smiles at the memory.
I smile too, imagining her as a small child, playing on the beach in the sunshine with her bucket and spade. The innocence and pure joy of it.
“He said he’d like to live here. As a deckchair attendant. His name is Martin Beech.” She looks up at me as if asking me if I might know him. Or have somehow heard of him. She is watching my face, my reactions.
I shake my head slightly as if to say sadly, no, I don’t and no, I haven’t. I stop myself from adding that I don’t think they have deckchair attendants here any more.
She reaches for her beaker and sips the hot chocolate from it. Her whole body is suddenly stiff and formal. I think she is screaming in pain inside.
“What happened after your dad left?” I ask as gently as I can. I want to see if she will elaborate on what she said before.
She sighs as she puts the beaker back on the armrest. I wonder what she is going to say. She looks down, her face troubled by her thoughts. Then up, her face full of I’m not sure what; unease, I think. Here it comes. Her truth. Out it gushes, unexpected in its emotion.
“My mum was into drugs. Because of my dad. She … the police were always round … and she was in and out of court … she never had any money. I always had to answer the door. She’d hide behind the sofa.”
She moves in the chair, curling up into herself. I cannot tell if she is distressed or angry.
“She worked as …” She stops, as if not sure what to say nor how to say it. “I had a lot of uncles … she made me call them ‘uncle’ … sometimes I had to … do things.”
She stops again. The horror revealed in her simple, stilted words. And more to come. It pours out of her in ragged breaths now, close to tears.
“There was a little boy … next door … Louis … I didn’t mean to … he died, and they took me away. Said it was my fault. They couldn’t find my dad. My mum died of an overdose. I didn’t have any family.”
She won’t look at me. My mind reels at what she is saying. She has taken a life. That’s what she is confessing. She has killed. I cannot help but respond.
“You … this boy … you … took his life?”
She looks at me. A sudden clear and steady gaze. “That’s what I was accused of. They put me away. No one helped me. I had nobody when I came out. I came here to find my dad.”
“You didn’t mean to … or you didn’t?”
She shrugs slightly as if she does not understand, to say, to ask, what’s the difference? Then she answers, almost gushing her words.
“People were in and out all the time. From all over. Next door. And down the street. I was … he was strangled … and they said it was me. I don’t remember … I wanted to be … good. I just wanted to draw. I had to have sex with men. I don’t know what happened to him … how it happened.”
I am breathing heavily, taking this all in. Part of me recoils at what she is saying. And another part is heartbroken. For her as much as the little boy. This young girl who was passed from man to man by her mother when she was no more than a child herself.
She pauses. A deep breath. “Please help me.”
I am not sure how to answer, my mind is reeling from what she has just said. But, deep down, regardless of my feelings now, I already know that I will. I am, one way or another, in love with her. In some sort of way, anyway.
I nod my reply, once hesitating, twice more firmly, confirming that I will. Rosie sinks back into her chair as if exhausted by her confession.
We sit there staring into the fire for what seems like ages, taking it in turns again to pat the sparks on Fluffy’s back before they catch fire. Later, as the fire dwindles and ebbs away, Rosie picks Fluffy up, and with shy smiles of understanding, she heads off to bed.
I can’t help thinking that, in some way, our relationship has changed.
Somehow turned on its head.
For better or worse, I do not yet know.
I lie in my bed, wrapped up tight in the duvet. Rosie and Fluffy are downstairs in the nookery.
I cannot sleep, my mind going over what Rosie said. So little. So much. I am weighing the words. Balancing the sentences. Running over it time and again.
Making sense of what she said. I work through it point by point. Stopping. Starting again. Understanding things.
Rosie is a vulnerable and damaged woman. I know that. She is little more than a girl, really. Only a few years out of childhood.
She was brought up by a drug-addict father and mother. The drug-raddled father left when she was small. Even though she hopes he might be here, he is almost certainly long-since dead.
She clearly loved the father and has come here to try to find him. I think she sees me as some kind of substitute.
Her mother was a sex worker. And Rosie was forced to have sex with different men from a young age. I do not know what age. I suspect a pre-teen age. My heart breaks for her.
Rosie needs my help. And she has asked for it.
I feel responsible for her.
I cannot just abandon her. I have to absolve her.
The little boy who died troubles me. Rosie said she was accused of killing him. That no one was there to help her. No father. Mother on drugs. Men at the house demanding sex. From all over, Rosie said. I wonder if she were the scapegoat – another victim – for what was happening there. That someone else did this terrible thing and blamed her.
I didn’t mean to is what she said. The suggestion in her inarticulate words that she did do it. But that it was an accident. Unintentional. That she wished she hadn’t. “I don’t remember.” She said that too. Maybe she had been given drugs. Somehow sedated before being forced to have sex with a man. Or several men at the same time.
I see her in my head as a young child of ten or eleven, stumbling from her bedroom, from the debris of second-hand toys and old comics, and away from two or three men there. In the dark, lashing out in fear at someone, the next in line to have sex with her. But not a man: a young boy. He falls backwards, bangs his head on the wall. Lies there. She runs. A man steps forward. Strangling the boy to silence him. As Rosie ran away.
I think it is possible that she did not do it. I believe in her. I don’t know why, but I do. In my heart.
If she did it, she was without doubt a victim of circumstance, and she surely cannot be beyond saving. She ca
n become a good and decent person. I am sure of it.
I can help her.
We can save each other.
Rosie and I.
I am back in the cell.
I cannot hear the sing-song voice that calls for me.
But I know it is there and will come for me soon.
I roll off my mattress.
Crouch down.
Empty my bowels.
The indignity of it.
There are whoops and hollers all around me.
Madness and insanity.
But I cannot hear the sing-song voice, and I want to.
I wipe myself.
Hang my head down.
In shame that I have come to this.
Part III
The Lump
11
Tuesday, 26 November, 7.32 Am
It is the morning at last. It has been a torrid night. Nightmares when I am asleep.
Thinking of Rosie when I am awake. Turning it all over in my mind.
I am determined to save her. And myself. To live a happy life together.
Rosie stands by the front door, on the doormat, looking back at me as I put on my coat, hat and gloves. She has Fluffy on his lead, waiting patiently.
She is wrapped up well. In my daughter’s red coat, which is almost the same shade as mine but thick and woolly, plus a striped bobble hat and matching scarf and gloves. We both have wellington boots on. Hers are a little too large, I think. She does not say.
She has the look of my daughter at times, and it almost overwhelms me. I glance at her and can see how excited she is. A walk in the snow! I wonder when it last snowed like this. I think it must be a decade or more.
“Can you remember such heavy snow?” I say to her as we push open the gate and turn right down the lane.
She shakes her head, then pulls the bobble hat down to try to cover her ears. Pushes her hands deep into her pockets. Head down into the wind.
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