Cuckoo (28 page)

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Authors: Julia Crouch

Tags: #Fiction

BOOK: Cuckoo
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‘No, thanks. I just put one out. See you.’ And he went off out the back door, which slammed as he passed through, making the kitchen windows rattle.
 
Rose realised that she had forgotten to ask him about the children going to school on their own. She went to follow him, but a great feeling of weariness overtook her. Perhaps it would be better just to start anew, now she was back, rather than rake over the old.
 
With Flossie still strapped to her, she sat at the kitchen table and gazed out of the window, up at the Annexe, where she could see Polly outlined in the bed-sitting-room window, holding her guitar.
 
It appeared to Rose that she was looking straight down at her.
 
Twenty-Five
 
Rose soon discovered that the outward appearance of order the house had presented when she got back from hospital was a piece of fiction. When she opened cupboards and looked under sofas, the chaos was revealed. Everything had just been shoved away, out of sight. She had her work cut out. She spent the day putting saucepans back in their right places, stacking plates correctly and sorting out the cutlery drawer. In between all that, she prepared supper and sat for a long while, feeding Flossie and looking out of the window.
 
She was far too busy to catch Polly or Gareth and ask them about what had happened while she was away. During the course of the day, she decided to let bygones be bygones. She had been away; all had fallen into chaos. It was a special case. It was to be expected, really.
 
She didn’t see either of them all day. Gareth had tucked himself away in his studio and didn’t even come up for lunch, and Polly was busy with her guitar in the Annexe. Occasionally the breeze carried a waft of a chord down and through the open kitchen window. Rose turned on Radio 4, to drown out the sound.
 
The men came to clear the drains at one. They backed a great, stinking lorry into the driveway. Then they sent a camera down the offending manhole. A tall, scabby-cheeked man – obviously the boss – sucked his teeth and muttered something about critters, then they blasted fearsome jets of water into an outlet behind the house. With a great gasp and a retch, the drain gave up its blockage, the water ran clear and the stink evaporated. The man with the cheeks presented Rose with a bill for over five hundred pounds.
 
‘What on earth did you do for all that money?’ she asked.
 
The man shrugged and gestured to the camera, the hoses, the four expensive men who had been operating them.
 
‘And what was the problem?’ she asked.
 
‘You don’t want to know, madam,’ he winked. ‘Payment in seven days, please. The address is on the bill.’
 
Rose stood in the driveway, her mouth open, as the men jumped on the lorry and disappeared.
 
 
Rose was sitting with the children at the kitchen table, attempting to get them to do their homework. She was trying to help Nico with his maths. It wasn’t his strong subject, and it failed to hold his attention.
 
‘So what’s the answer?’ she said.
 
But Nico was far more interested in goading Anna, who was still tender about what had happened that morning.
 
‘But it was only a bird, Anna,’ he said, rolling his eyes.
 
Anna looked at him over the top of her reading book as if she wanted to kill him. Rose had never seen her like that before. Nico’s insouciance worried her. She wasn’t entirely sure that he didn’t have anything to do with the little bird’s death. While she couldn’t believe that he had deliberately killed it, she did think that perhaps he might have handled it too roughly, accidentally breaking its neck or something.
 
‘Rose,’ Yannis said, looking up from the elaborate drawing he was doing of an Egyptian corpse having its brains drawn down through its nose prior to mummification.
 
‘Yes, Yannis?’
 
‘Please can we come back to live in the big house again, please?’
 
Anna looked up sharply.
 
‘It’s just Mama has taken the whole place over up there, and she plays guitar all night long, and she smokes and smokes, and I want to be back in my proper room down here.’
 
Rose looked over at Anna, who was entreating her with her eyes. She looked back at the boys, who were doing the same thing. She felt as if she was in the Mexican stand-off scene from
Reservoir Dogs
, where everyone has a gun pulled on them and no one can shoot. Then she remembered that it wasn’t like that at all. In fact, she was in control here.
 
‘Of course you can,’ she said to the boys.
 
‘No!’ Anna whispered.
 
‘Yay!’ whooped the boys.
 
‘We’ll go and get our stuff. Come on, Yannis.’ Nico got up and ran out.
 
‘Thank you, Rose.’ Yannis made a little bow then hurtled off after his brother.
 
‘Why, Mum?’ Anna looked up at Rose.
 
‘Sometimes you’ve got to think of someone beside yourself, Anna. The boys need to be properly looked after and that isn’t going to happen in the Annexe. They need to be here.’ The more Rose discovered about Polly, the more sure she was that this was the case.
 
‘But Nico . . .’
 
‘I know. But I said I was going to make sure you were all right, didn’t I? Don’t you trust me, Anna?’
 
Anna looked down. ‘I trust you, Mum,’ she said.
 
‘Good. I know things got a bit topsy-turvy, but believe me, they’re going to be right as rain now.’
 
 
Rose made lemon roast chicken with small cut roast potatoes and a green salad for supper. It was a bit of a scratch meal. She had got the chicken out of the freezer – she always liked to keep one in there in case of an emergency. She really should have gone shopping, but she had been too busy sorting things out.
 
When the food was ready and the table laid, she rang the bell. There was a groan from the living room.
 
‘Can we finish this episode?’ Anna asked. She, Nico and Yannis were watching
The Simpsons
in the living room. Anna was clearly trying to put the lesson Rose had taught her earlier into practice. She was a good girl.
 
‘How much longer?’
 
‘Fifteen minutes.’
 
‘All right, but then you’ve got to come straight through.’ A chicken was never harmed for resting another fifteen minutes. And, in any case, neither Gareth nor Polly seemed to be in any sort of hurry to come in from their work.
 
Finally, Gareth put his head round the kitchen door.
 
‘Hello, stranger,’ she said, and went to kiss him.
 
‘Hi.’ His head was still in his studio. She recognised the signs; while it was a little frustrating for her, it augured well for the work.
 
‘Good day?’ she asked as she poured him a glass of wine.
 
‘It’s been hard, getting back into it,’ he said, taking the drink and knocking it back in one. ‘I didn’t get much time when you were away, of course.’
 
‘Sorry.’ She bit her lip and turned to stir the gravy.
 
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ He sat down at the table, rubbing his eyes. ‘It’s just hard to find the rhythm of the work when you’re only dotting in and out of it.’
 
‘Well, we’re back now, and you can spend as much time down there as you like. I’ll even bring your food down for you if you want.’
 
‘Oh, I don’t think it’ll come to that,’ he said as he poured himself another glass of wine. ‘How’s Floss?’
 
‘Sleeping in the buggy. It’s all she’s done all day. Oh, Gareth,’ she said, taking her own glass and sitting down next to him. ‘I’m not sure she’s all right.’
 
‘Stop worrying, love,’ he said, holding her hand. ‘Kate said it’s going to take time. There’s nothing else we can do but sit and wait.’
 
‘That’s what’s so annoying.’
 
‘Eat my shorts!’ Nico led the snickering big children through from the living room with a perfect Bart Simpson impression.
 
‘Nico, would you go up to the Annexe and get your mother?’ Rose asked. ‘I don’t think she heard the bell.’
 
He groaned, but nevertheless belted off up the front garden.
 
‘Jason died,’ Anna said to her father.
 
‘Who?’ He ruffled her hair as she sat down, something he always did. From the way the hair was instantly smoothed back to its original state, it was obvious to Rose that Anna would rather he didn’t.
 
‘My bird.’ Anna looked offended that Gareth didn’t know.
 
‘Your bird? Oh honey, I’m sorry.’
 
Rose realised with a pang that Gareth had been in the studio when the death had been discovered, and had remained there all day. A whole, formative episode from his daughter’s life had been lost to him as he buried himself in whatever he was doing now.
 
‘There’s blood,’ Nico said as he came back.
 
‘What?’ Rose turned sharply.
 
‘Mama’s fingertips are bleeding from so much playing,’ he said. ‘She’s mental.’
 
‘Is she coming down for supper?’
 
‘She says thanks, but no. She’s too busy. She says save her a little and she’ll come and get it when she’s got a moment.’
 
It was less than a week to the gig, so this was probably going to be the pattern from now on. Rose plated up a meal for Polly, covered it with another dish, and after the meal, she sent Anna up to the Annexe with it.
 
Twenty-Six
 
Flossie lay insert on the activity mat. Before the hospital stay – this was how Rose chose to see it, her shorthand for a nightmare – the plan had been to put the mat away. When she had last been on it, Floss had been able to sit, supported by cushions. She had even been showing signs of wanting to move away, a baby’s mental preparation for crawling.
 
Since they had got back, Rose had tried to sit her up, but Flossie had just keeled over. She had consulted her well-thumbed babycare book.
After an illness, particularly one that necessitates a hospital stay
– ah, the dreaded euphemism again –
be prepared for him to take a step or two backwards on the developmental scale. For example, a baby who was sitting may not be able to do so. But don’t worry. In most cases, things will soon be back on track
. This gave Rose a flush, a burst of hope.
 
Back on track
. That’s what she wanted for Flossie.
Things will soon be back on track
. It all sounded so scientific, so ordered. So achievable.
 
But for now, Flossie lay on the mat, her legs not kicking. Her fists not beating. Her eyes were open, though, and they returned Rose’s gaze, following her finger as she moved it around her face. She smiled a little bit, too, from time to time. But Rose couldn’t help thinking there was something missing. Something
vacant
about her. Not the tabula rasa of a newborn, but more the sense of something lost.
 
Rose had rung Kate several times since they had got home to discuss this. Kate had been very kind, very accommodating, but by her third call, Rose had been made to feel that she was being a little unnecessary.
 
‘You just have to be patient, Rose. I’m sorry, but despite what most doctors would like you to believe, medicine isn’t a precise science. There are too many grey areas, and I’m afraid that Flossie falls into one of those.’
 
Rose turned to her grey area of a daughter, lying on the mat. She had let her down, and she couldn’t make it all better. But she had to force herself to have hope. She just needed to scale down her expectations, take a step or two back.
 
None of this came easily to her.
 
Twenty-Seven
 
The days leading up to Polly’s gig were strange and solitary for Rose. She saw Polly three, maybe four times, when she came down to the house to return plates and pick up more coffee or wine. There was never an occasion where a conversation was possible; when they did manage to exchange a few words, they were about the gig, and how the songs were coming on. Gareth seemed to be in a similarly work-oriented mode, only coming in for coffee refills and supper.

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