Dearest Rose (9 page)

‘Married, at eighteen! Well, that’s better than being dead in a ditch, I suppose,’ Shona said cheerfully. ‘We all thought that creep that used to stalk you had murdered you!’

‘What creep?’ Rose asked her, smiling uncertainly at a joke she didn’t quite get.

‘You know, that weird-looking bloke that hung around for weeks. The one that looked like he should be on
Crimewatch
. Used to take you for drinks after work. Ooh, he gave me the shudders.’

‘That …
creep
?’ Rose had been momentarily lost for words. It never occurred to her that anyone could look at her handsome respectable doctor husband and think of the word ‘creep’. She forced a laugh. ‘That “creep” was the one who I married, and I’m very happy, thank you very much!’

‘Oh fuck!’ Shona giggled, her laughter bubbling through the fingers with which she covered her mouth. ‘Really sorry! You married him, the one that looked like a serial killer? All piercing black eyes, and long murdery raincoats?’

Shona was so amused that Rose couldn’t help but smile.

‘I don’t think he looks like a serial killer at all,’ she insisted weakly. ‘He’s tall, dark, handsome
and
a doctor.’

‘Seriously, I’m pleased for you,’ Shona grinned, when she eventually got back her composure. ‘There’s nothing like finding the right man, is there? Honestly, Rosie, I thought it was all bollocks, I really did, love. I mean my mum and dad hated each
other
, yours did too. And then it happened. Ryan, he’s my knight in shining armour. Hey, do you still live here? I couldn’t have stayed here if I knew my mum had topped herself. I’d be too worried about bumping into her ghost, but anyway, I’m desperate for a piss. This little bastard is dancing on my bladder. Can I come in?’

Unconsciously calculating the time she had left before Richard would be back from the surgery, Rose glanced over her shoulder at her house, the lawn neatly manicured, the privet hedge trimmed to within an inch of its life. There had been no ghosts in the house after her mother had died; it had been a singularly empty place, even when she was in it. Now it was Richard’s house, her and Richard’s home, and he filled every corner of it with his presence, even in his absence.

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she said hesitantly, knowing instinctively how Richard would hate it if he knew there was a stranger in his house.

‘You’re a life saver. Any chance of a cuppa while you’re at it?’ Shona asked her brightly. ‘I’m gasping and fucking freezing. I got sacked from Harley’s when I couldn’t squeeze through the tables any more. I said to him, what about my rights? He said, when was the last time you paid any tax? He had a point. Ryan’s getting me a coat, though. I’ve seen the perfect one.’

Shona continued to talk as she followed Rose up the garden path.

‘Actually, Shona, I’m not sure …’ Rose looked at her watch as she reached the front door. It was almost five. Richard would be home in an hour, ready for a Scotch, or more likely two, and his dinner. After a day of talking over minor ailments with patients, making small talk with old ladies, and fielding the latest
furious
row instigated by his prickly receptionist, who seemed to feel she had the diagnostic skills to know if a patient really needed an emergency appointment, the woman whose job Rose had been begging Richard to give to her, the last thing he would want was a house full of noise and chatter. They never invited people round for a reason.

‘Oh, go on, I’m dying for a slash,’ Shona told her. ‘I’ll pee my pants right here if you say no!’

‘OK, just a quick cup of tea, though,’ Rose said. ‘I have to go out in a little while.’

As Rose opened the front door and set her keys in the little dish on the smoked-glass-topped telephone table, which Richard had chosen, she wondered why she’d felt the need to lie. And it was then that she realised that her marriage wasn’t totally normal, that she knew instinctively that if Richard found out she’d invited an old friend into their home he would be angry with her, even if Shona was gone by the time he came back.

‘There’s a loo under the stairs,’ Rose told Shona, as she went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Pork chops and mash were what she’d been planning for tea, with frozen peas. She could peel the potatoes while Shona drank her tea, and still be on schedule, just as long as Shona left well before six o’clock.

‘Two sugars, cheers,’ Shona said, as she returned from the loo, with decidedly dry-looking hands, nodding at the mug of weak tea that Rose had hurriedly made her.

‘So no kids, then?’ Shona asked, looking round the spotless kitchen.

‘No, not yet. We’re enjoying each other,’ Rose said, repeating what Richard always said in response to similar enquiries.

‘Ew,’ Shona said, wrinkling her nose. ‘I can’t wait to be a mum.
It
’s going to be so perfect. I’m down for a flat, when one comes up, so I have to keep quiet about Ryan for a bit. I get one quicker if it’s just me. I’d feel bad about it, but they hand out housing to flipping Poles like there’s no tomorrow. I mean, what do I pay my taxes for?’ Shona grinned. ‘If I paid any, that is.’

She looked tired for a moment, the unsympathetic strip lighting on the winter afternoon adding depth to the shadows under her eyes and around her mouth, making her look much older than her twenty-something years. ‘Anyway, Ryan will see us right, I know he will.’

Shona beamed again, and Rose smiled, self-consciously taking the potato peeler from the drawer, and beginning to peel the potatoes.

‘You’re a proper little housewife, aren’t you?’ Shona said, nodding at the pile of vegetables. ‘Don’t you work at all then?’

‘No.’ Rose shrugged, uncertain why the admission made her feel uncomfortable. She’d been working up for several months to asking Richard to let her look for a part-time job, but whenever she attempted to raise the subject, he promptly changed it or cut her off with, ‘Why? There’s no need.’

‘Lucky cow! You’ve really fallen on your feet, haven’t you? I’ll have to go back to work when I can, even with Ryan’s wages. Who knows if that old perv Harley will give me my job back when I’m a mummy. I only got it the first time round because I let him look down my top. Do you remember that time he had me trapped in the office, saying he wanted to make sure my uniform fitted? He had his hands all over me. Thank God you walked in when you did!’

Rose did remember that Mr Harley was rather inappropriately taken with Shona and many of the other girls’ physiques, always
thinking
of reasons to touch them in places that he shouldn’t. She had been so slight and slim that apart from one fleeting palm grazing across her backside one afternoon, she had fortunately escaped his attentions.

‘Right, I’d better get back. I’m staying with my mum until a flat comes up and she still gets a strop on if I’m not home for tea. Thanks for the use of your bog.’

‘No problem,’ Rose said, feeling a flood of relief as she checked the clock. Richard wasn’t due home for ten more minutes. She’d have plenty of time to wash up Shona’s mug and make it look as if no one had been here at all.

‘Hey, you know what, you and me should go out for a drink some time, have a laugh!’

‘Yes, great – we should,’ Rose said, although she knew it was unlikely she’d ever see Shona again.

‘I’m going to need your number then,’ Shona stopped dead in the hallway, so that Rose walked into her back. ‘Steady! Got a pen?’

‘A pen?’ Aware that her precious ten minutes were ticking away, Rose went and fetched the pen Richard liked always to be present beside the telephone, and handed it to Shona.

‘And a bit of paper?’ Shona raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘The lights are on, but there’s no one in, is there?’

‘Sorry I …’ Rose glanced at the notepad next to the telephone. Richard would know if she’d torn out a sheet, and then he’d want to know why. ‘Hang on, just a second …’ She ran into the loo and ripped off a piece of toilet paper.

‘Are you mental?’ Shona asked, amused as Rose took the pen and scribbled down, not her home number, but the number of the dry cleaners that she had memorised, absolutely certain that
moment
that not only did she never want to see Shona again, she simply wanted her out of the house now.

‘Well,’ Shona said pleasantly enough, taking the flimsy piece of tissue without looking at it. ‘You’re still a weirdo. See you then.’

‘See you,’ Rose said as she anxiously opened the door.

But it was too late. Richard was walking up the garden path. The look of fury on his face as he’d spotted Shona on his doorstep had been less than fleeting, gone in an instant, but Rose had seen it.

‘Well, hello,’ Richard said. ‘Who do we have here?’

‘This is Shona,’ Rose told him nervously. ‘I worked with her at the café. We bumped into each other just now, and she needed to use the loo, so I invited her in … just for a second.’

‘I’m just off anyway,’ Shona said, clearly sensing Rose’s discomfort.

‘Oh, there’s no need,’ Richard said. ‘Come on in, join us for dinner, check the TV pages, see what’s on, why not?’ He was smiling, but there was no humour there.

‘Jesus, all right,’ Shona frowned, forced to edge past him as he refused to step aside to make room for her. She held up the tissue paper and waved it at Rose. ‘I’ll call you, yeah? We’ll go out, have a laugh.’

Rose said nothing, letting go of the front door and walking quickly back into the kitchen where she put the dirty mug into the sink and began peeling potatoes again.

‘You’re home early,’ she said, without looking up when Richard came into the room, carrying his Scotch.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was hoping for a bit of peace and quiet in my own home, not a houseful.’

‘Shona is hardly a houseful,’ Rose said uncertainly, cutting a potato carefully into quarters and dropping it into a pan of cold water. ‘And she was just here for a minute, not even that.’

‘It takes longer than a minute to drink a cup of tea,’ Richard said, picking up the mug and slamming it down on the counter.

‘Does it matter?’ Rose asked him, briefly defiant, before lowering her eyes to quarter the next potato. She winced as Richard pushed her away from the worktop, and into the cooker, its metal edges biting into her spine.

‘I’ve been up to my neck in sick old ladies, filthy kids and malingering shirkers all day long, and what for? To keep this place, to keep you in it so that when I get home I have just a few hours of calm to myself! So yes, I would say it does matter, it matters a lot, Rose!’

He picked up the pan of water and potatoes and threw it hard against the opposite wall, where it clanged with a metallic thud, before bouncing off the tiles and leaving a pool of water and neatly quartered potatoes on the floor. Gasping, Rose remembered sensing it would be best to stay completely still, not making eye contact with her husband, as he finished his Scotch in one swig, his shoulders heaving from the exertion. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. Gentle.

‘See, see what you made me do?’ he said.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rose said. ‘I won’t do it again.’

‘Good girl.’ Richard leant over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’d better peel some more potatoes, hadn’t you? I’m starving.’

Rose had left her phone on so she could get updates from Shona on her whereabouts, and by mid-morning she was still
trying
to organise her sons and secure the loan of a car, which was tricky because her mum had gone off the radar with her latest flame. It came as no surprise to Rose that Richard texted her again. His deadline of midnight had come and gone with no response, and she knew that his lack of control over her, what she was doing, how she was responding to him, would be killing him. If there was one thing he couldn’t bear it was losing his grip on anything that he considered belonged to him. Rose thought for a moment about deleting the text unread, but even though she knew what it said, still she had to be sure. It was a simple, short message, quite benign in most other circumstances. All it said was, ‘I am coming to get you.’

That he would find her somehow, Rose had no doubt. It was more a question of what she did with the uncertain amount of time she had left until he got here. It was time to go and see her father.

‘Maddie,’ she said to her daughter’s back. Maddie was chatting away quite happily in the voices of several small family members.

‘Yes?’ Maddie sighed in her own voice without turning to look at her.

‘I have to go out. Do you want to stay here and play if Jenny says it’s OK?’

Maddie thought for a moment and then swivelled on her chair to look at Rose. ‘You’re going to see your dad,’ she stated, with a single nod.

‘Yes,’ Rose affirmed. ‘Which might be a bit tricky as I haven’t seen him for a long time. I expect there might be a lot of talking.’ Or no talking at all, Rose thought. ‘Anyway, I don’t
think
it’s the best time for you to meet him, so you’ll be OK here, won’t you, for a little while?’

Maddie stared at her for a long time in that unnerving way that she had, as if she knew something that Rose didn’t.

‘What will happen when Daddy comes?’ Maddie asked her at last, her expression pinched and uncomfortable.

‘We will talk things over,’ Rose said.

‘And then what?’ Maddie asked, so uncertainly that Rose wasn’t sure which answer she was hoping for.

‘To be honest, I don’t really know,’ Rose said. ‘Except that you and I will stick together, like we always do.’

Maddie was silent for a long time, watching Rose from her chair next to the doll’s house. Then, as Rose thought she might be about to say something, she turned back to the house and began to play again.

‘I think I’ll be OK here for now,’ she said over her shoulder.

Rose was getting into her car, wondering how much petrol it had left in its tank, when a stupidly big Toyota truck pulled up alongside her, blocking her in.

‘Excuse me!’ she was about to complain when she saw Ted in the driver’s seat grinning down at her, which made her all the more exasperated as she felt it would be impolite to be rude to her hosts’ son.

‘Morning,’ he said. ‘What you up to, then?’

‘I’m going to see my father, as if it’s any of your business!’ Rose exclaimed, as all her anxieties – about Richard’s text, about leaving Maddie, about seeing John – came to a head. ‘Maybe round here you all live in each other’s pockets, but I don’t, so mind your own. Get out of the way, please.’