Rosie (3 page)

She hesitated, then saw him raise his eyebrows in waning. ‘I promise. Anyway, I only had the one chain and they cut that. It was your granddad’s.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘I did think about throwing eggs, but that would have been wasteful. Anyway, I’d run out.’

‘Thank God.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘And this Russian thing. You’ll talk to me about it when you’re ready?’

‘Yes. When I’m ready. I never told your dad when he was little. I was waiting until he was older but then I knew there was no point. He was always a bit . . . well . . .’

‘Cynical?’

‘Yes. No imagination – except when he’s dreaming he can make a fortune on some hare-brained scheme or a horse. I told him his grandmother was Russian and that she stayed behind during the revolution when I was brought over here, but that’s all. I never told him any more. I’ve never told anyone. Stands to reason, doesn’t it? No one would have believed me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Not now. Later, when there’s more time. And, anyway, there are other things I want to do as well.’

‘What sort of things?’ Nick asked uneasily.

‘Things that nobody else has thought of. Like Marks and Spencer.’

‘What?’

She hunched forward conspiratorially. ‘I’ve had this brilliant idea. If Marks and Spencer change the labels on all their clothes, marking them as a size smaller than they really are, more people would shop there.’

‘I’m sorry?’

She sighed impatiently. ‘You’re so slow. Think about it. Women don’t like to think they’re fat. They want to be a size eight, and most of them are a size ten – or more. All M&S have to do is change the labels on their clothes and then the size-ten women will be able to fit into a size eight.’ She glanced about her to make sure they were not overheard, then carried on: ‘Stands to reason that Mrs Smith will keep going back there, rather than to Next or Laura Ashley, because she feels better about herself in clothes from M&S.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Of course I’m serious.’

‘But that would be illegal, wouldn’t it?’

‘I don’t see why. It would if you marked a twenty-eight-inch waist as twenty-six – Trade Descriptions and all that – but who’s to say how big a size eight, ten or sixteen is? Come to think of it,’ she went on reflectively, ‘maybe they should mark them down two sizes. Imagine a size-sixteen woman suddenly being able to fit into a twelve. Ha! Mind you, if I write and tell them, I don’t expect I shall hear anything. Next thing you know they’ll be doing it and won’t pay me a penny.’

Nick gaped at her.

‘Shut your mouth, dear, or you’ll catch a fly.’ She winked. ‘Cakes all gone. Shall we make a move?’

 
 
3

Very hardy.

A
s they walked down the street in Richmond towards his grandmother’s block of flats with the bare front garden she clung tightly to his arm. ‘Come in for a while?’

Nick looked at his watch. ‘Just for a few minutes. I have to catch the ferry back to the island.’

‘Aah! Doesn’t that sound lovely? Almost like an adventure.’

Nick smiled. ‘I suppose it does. I still like crossing the water to go home. Makes it a bit special.’

‘Yes. And I’ve always liked the Isle of Wight. Ever since that holiday when you were little.’

‘It’s a bit quiet now.’

‘Oh? I’d have thought it would have been busier than it was.’

‘No. I mean quieter for me.’

Rosie looked at him enquiringly.

‘Debs has gone.’

She stopped walking. ‘What? But you’d been together such a long time.’

‘Three years.’

‘Oh, love! I’m so sorry.’

‘Thanks.’ He tried to sound noncommittal.

‘What was it? You or her?’

‘An estate agent, actually.’

‘No!’

‘’Fraid so.’ He sounded pathetic, he thought, and tried to inject a more positive note into his voice. ‘But I think it had run its course. Just one of those things.’

‘And you feel OK?’

‘Marvellous. Raring to go.’

Rosie studied him. ‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mmm. Not sure I believe you.’

He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

‘Oh, I will,’ she countered. ‘Huh. Never liked estate agents. Too smug by half. Wearing cufflinks during the day.’ She took his arm and started walking again. ‘Was it a shock?’

‘Well, it was a bit of a surprise. I thought we were . . . comfortable.’

‘I always think that’s dangerous.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Being comfortable can mean being taken for granted.’

‘But you and Granddad were comfortable.’

‘Yes, but we’d been married nearly fifty years.’

‘So you think I should have carried on playing the field?’

‘Well, not exactly – but you could have made her aware of how lucky she was.’

‘And how would I have done that?’

‘Oh, it’s not easy, keeping a relationship fresh, but there are little tricks you can use.’

‘Like what?’

Rosie stopped at the kerb, looked right and left, then steered him across the road. Only when they had mounted the opposite pavement did she continue. ‘Well, whenever you meet someone who flirts with you, it’s no bad thing to let your partner see. I don’t mean you have to be unfaithful – nothing as strong as that – but it does no harm for them to be aware that you’re attractive to others.’

‘Listen to you! You sound like an agony aunt in a teen-mag.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wonder if they’d like me to do that. I could write and offer my services. Plenty of experience.’

‘You could put it in the post with the letter to Marks and Spencer.’

She elbowed him in the ribs.

‘Well, honestly!’ he exclaimed.

‘Your trouble is that you always undersell yourself,’ she told him.

‘I’m a realist.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re an apologist.’

‘That’s a big word.’

‘Well, you’re a big boy. Look at you – six foot what?’

‘And a bit.’

‘Good-looking, in a crooked sort of way.’

‘Careful!’

‘Well, no, you are – you’re not George Clooney, but you’ve got a lovely smile and all your own hair.’

Nick winced. ‘What is this? Are you starting up a dating agency?’

‘Now, there’s a thought . . .’

‘Don’t go there!’

‘All right. Too much paperwork anyway. But you’re not a bad catch and you’re only in your thirties . . .’

‘Just coming up for the final year.’

‘Oh, yes. I nearly forgot. Still, you needn’t worry. People leave it much longer now before they get married. Most don’t seem to bother. And if you get someone younger you’ve still time to have children. Mind you, you’ll be sixty-odd when they leave home.’

‘If you’ve quite finished planning my life for me . . .’

She looked up at him, winked and tugged at his arm. ‘Sorry. I suppose I’m just an interfering old granny.’ She smiled.

‘But you mean well.’ He smiled back.

‘Don’t say that! It’s the worst possible thing to have written on your tombstone, that is! “She meant well”.’

‘Better than the reverse.’ He was laughing now.

‘Maybe. Where’s Debs now?’ Evidently Rosie felt it was time to move on.

‘In the States. She flew out this morning. With her estate agent.’

‘Oh. He covers a pretty big area, then?’

‘Foreign properties.’

‘What do you think he’d describe her as? A country seat or a
pied à terre
?’

‘You’re incorrigible.’

‘Oh, I do hope I am . . . So what now?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. But I don’t want to sit on my arse – sorry, bum – thinking about it. I’m painting like a lunatic. Trying to get on. You know.’

‘You need me to sort you out.’

‘I thought
I
was sorting
you
out.’

‘Bit of a joint venture, then.’

She let go of his arm and rummaged in her handbag for the key. ‘It’s in here somewhere.’

‘Let me.’ He held out his hand for the bag and she shot him a withering look.

‘It’s the light, not my sight.’ She fished out a pair of glasses, put them on and continued to delve into the depths of the cavernous crocodile bag until, triumphantly, she located the key and slipped it into the lock. ‘I hate this door. It’s so heavy.’ She pressed her small frame against it and pushed.

‘Here, let me.’ Nick hauled the door open. It
was
heavy, even for him.

‘How we’re expected to cope with that spring I don’t know. Like a prison.’

It was certainly different from the house where Nick’s grandparents had lived when he was a child. Until widowhood had forced Rosie into a flat, her home had been a modest Victorian terraced house in Cheltenham, but inside it was neither the rebellious teak-filled home of Second World War veterans nor an antiquated Edwardian emporium furnished with chintz and a reproduction of Constable’s
The Haywain
on the wall. Instead the walls were barley white and peppered with bright prints and some of Nick’s early paintings. His grandmother had bought them from him – for as much as she could afford – when he was starting out. He had tried to refuse the money, but she had insisted, and pressed on him a ten-pound note here, a twenty there, right through art school. The floors were polished boards, part covered with Indian rugs, bright throws to disguise the time-worn upholstery of the sofas. Nick had always liked it.

His grandfather had been easy-going about Rosie’s taste: she had been the arty one, and he had deferred to that. He had been content to spend his retirement from the insurance company with the
Daily Telegraph
and the television. Then a stroke had robbed him of movement and speech, and confined him to hospital. Rosie had visited him twice a day for four years, until he had slipped away one evening while she was at home having supper.

She had wanted to stay in the family house, but Nick’s mother had insisted it was too large and Cheltenham too far away. Rosie, normally strong-willed enough to stand up for herself, had allowed herself, in the wake of her bereavement, to be moved into a flat in a small, purpose-built block, where her daughter-in-law could keep an eye on her. It was a grudging arrangement on both sides, and while it brought Rosie closer to her immediate family, it distanced her from her friends. When she had finally begun to pick up the threads of her life, she had realized her mistake, but by then it was too late. London was not really Rosie’s bag.

‘Funny folk round here. Never look at you when you’re going down the street. Never say hello. And they don’t walk round you, they walk through you.’

Nick watched her hang up her coat and adjust her hair in the mirror, then turn on the lamps in the sitting room, draw the curtains and walk through to the kitchen. Her kitchen had always been painted primrose yellow, and the biscuit barrel from which his grandfather had fed him Bourbons sat in the middle of the table.

‘Coffee?’ she asked, filling the kettle.

‘Just a quick one.’

‘Always a quick one. Why are you in such a hurry?’

‘I told you. The ferry.’

‘But they run all night don’t they?’

‘Not quite.’

She squinted at her watch. ‘Well, you’ve plenty of time. It’s only a quarter to five.’

‘I suppose so.’

She made the coffee, then deftly collected cups and saucers from the dresser.

The events of the day caused him to look at her more critically than usual. Nobody would take her for eighty-seven. Sixty-seven, maybe, or seventy – but not three years short of ninety. She had always been Rosie to him, at her own insistence, never Granny. She was tough and self-sufficient. Eccentric, too, but always grounded. Realistic. Was she finally losing her grip?

Caring for his grandfather must have taken it out of her. Oh, the hospital had done the lion’s share of the work, but she had been there for three or four hours every day without fail.

He pulled out a pine chair from the small breakfast table, sat down and looked around the new kitchen. The flat was more sparsely furnished than the house had been and seemed less her home than a staging-post – but there were always flowers: today a handful of dried lavender poked out of a painted jug and scarlet tulips swallow-dived from a square glass vase on the fitted worktop. Nick remembered the painted dresser filled with willow-pattern plates. They’d all gone now.

‘Will you stay here?’ he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

‘No.’

The answer came so quickly and so decisively that it surprised him. ‘Why?’

‘Because I hate it. It’s awful. And, anyway, I don’t need . . . things.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Oh, you know – stuff. Possessions.’ She brought the cups and saucers to the table. Carelessly. Almost as if she resented them.

‘But where will you go?’

‘I don’t know yet. Maybe back to Cheltenham.’

‘But you know what they say about the three most traumatic things in life?’

‘I do. Death, divorce and moving house.’

‘Well?’

‘The first can’t happen and the second two already have.’ She dropped two spoons into the saucers.

‘Rosie, I’m not sure it’s wise. Not at—’

‘Don’t say it! Bugger being wise.’

He had hardly ever heard her swear, and she always told him off when he did.