Rosie Read online

  ‘But why the Russian embassy? What do you want to go chaining yourself to railings for? I know you’ve always had a thing about your mum being left behind, but why bring it all up now?’

  ‘To scare myself.’

  ‘What?’

  She blew her nose again. ‘To make myself feel as though I’m doing more than just sitting around waiting.’ She sniffed. ‘That’s all it is, really. It’s to prove to myself that I can still feel things.’

  ‘Since Granddad?’

  She nodded.

  Nick reached forward and squeezed her hand. ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m glad he’s not in pain any more. It wasn’t much of a life at the end. But at least he minded. Once. Well . . . I think he did. About me.’

  ‘Of course he did. We all do.’

  ‘Huh! Some more than others.’

  ‘Is that why you didn’t ask the police to call Mum or Dad?’

  She dabbed her cheek with the handkerchief. ‘Not much point was there? Your mum would have given me what for, and your dad wouldn’t have been there. No, I wanted you.’

  ‘But you’ve got to find another way . . . You can’t keep getting yourself arrested.’

  ‘It was the first time!’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘If you mean will I promise I won’t be any more trouble, the answer’s no.’

  ‘But why should you want to be trouble?’

  ‘Because I want to do something with myself. It’s time I had a life.’

  ‘But you’ve had a life.’ As soon as he’d said it he could have bitten out his tongue.

  ‘So, is that it, then? Because I’m eighty-seven I shouldn’t have expectations?’

  ‘Well, no, I didn’t mean that—’

  ‘Well, what did you mean? I’ve got a new hip and a new knee. It’d be a crime not to use them.’

  ‘It is a crime when you chain them to railings.’

  She looked apologetic. ‘Well . . . I was upset.’

  ‘That’s a blessing. I wouldn’t want to think you did it when you were happy.’

  ‘It’s just that I don’t want to go quietly. To give in. I want to take risks.’

  ‘Like imprisonment?’

  She bit her lip, and her eyes brimmed with tears once more. She mopped at them, then sniffed. ‘Stupid old woman. I suppose it’s hard for you to understand.’

  ‘Not really. In one way, yes, but not in another.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘I just worry that—’

  ‘That I’m getting dementia? Well, I’m not. At least, I don’t think I am. But, then, I don’t suppose you realize it when it’s happening to you, do you?’

  Nick watched as she sipped her tea. She had looked confident in the police station, Nick thought, her eyes shining, enjoying the attention, the thrill of the chase. Now she looked crestfallen, fearful. He felt guilty: he was responsible for the change in her. He offered an olive branch. ‘Tell me about it, then.’

  She avoided his eyes. ‘About what?’

  ‘This Russian thing.’

  ‘You know perfectly well what it’s about.’ She picked up another tiny sandwich, nibbled the corner, then finished it.

  He spoke gently. ‘The policeman said something about the royal family.’

  She looked vague. ‘Did he?’

  ‘Can you remember what you said to him?’

  ‘I have perfect recall.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Not telling you now. Wrong time. Wrong place. One day. When I’m ready.’ She eyed the cakestand again and settled on an elaborate cream horn. ‘That’ll put me right.’ She began to dissect it. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she murmured, through a mouthful of pastry, ‘but I can’t be bothered what people think any more. It doesn’t really matter.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because people think what the newspapers and the television tell them to think. And, anyway, it’s all geared to people under forty. Thirty, even. Get to my age and they think all you want to watch is Countdown and repeats of Miss Marple. I can remember all the endings, you know.’

  ‘So you do watch them?’

  ‘Only once.’ She snapped the end off the cream horn. ‘Most of the time people just patronize you.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh, yes, they do. They only want to help you across the street because it makes them feel better. Last week I was standing on the pavement looking at some may blossom. It was so pretty, but before I knew it I was half-way across the road with this man gripping me by the arm and booming in my ear. They treat you as though you’re educationally subnormal. And deaf – they always shout at you. And I’m not deaf. Or daft.’

  ‘No,’ he said, with feeling.

  She was warming to her theme now, and the cream horn was yielding to the pressure of a pastry fork. ‘The trouble is, you get used to it. You do! You begin to believe that you are past it. You start acting like a child because you’re expected to, and before you know it you’ve given up. It’s a slippery slope.

  ‘Take that over-sixties club I went to. What a waste of time. Arguing over the teapot, painting Christmas cards. Being fawned over. Heavens! There’s more to life than that. I was twenty years older than most of them and I ended up running round after them – picking up their paints, passing them their coats, taking them to the toilet. It was like being back at school. No, thank you. I’ve still got a brain – what’s left of it – and I still have opinions, but they don’t seem to count any more. Who cares what I think?’

  ‘I do.’

  She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Do you? Do you really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even if it means being embarrassed?’

  Nick leaned forward. ‘I’d prefer to avoid that bit but, on the whole, yes, even if it means being embarrassed.’

  Her face brightened. ‘So will you help me?’

  ‘Help you with what?’

  ‘To live a bit.’

  Her request took him by surprise. It seemed so innocent and plaintive. ‘Well, I don’t know . . .’

  ‘I won’t be a burden. I don’t want to take over your life or anything. I just need a bit of support. Encouragement, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  She smiled weakly. ‘I know it must look like attention-seeing, but it’s not that. It’s just . . .’

  He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘What?’

  She sighed. ‘Do you know that Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is”?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, I suppose I just want to keep dancing a bit longer. That’s all.’

  Nick put his arm round her and squeezed her gently. She smelt faintly of Chanel No. 5. Not like a granny at all.

  He eased away and looked into her shimmering eyes. ‘Well, no more chaining yourself to railings. Promise?’

  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 els
e 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

  Richmond

  Very hardy.

  As 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 live
d 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?’