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  ‘Your only son getting his leg half blown off in Africa? No, I doubt it.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Rosie. ‘What a stupid bloody mess.’

  ‘People carry on,’ said Lilian, ‘but Hetty and Stephen … they found it very difficult.’

  Rosie nodded.

  ‘She wanted to look after him and he … I think he just wanted to wallow in the guilt. And she wanted to hand over the estate and, well, you can imagine.’

  ‘Hadn’t he been disinherited?’

  ‘No,’ said Lilian, ‘of course that was the thing. It was all bluster and nonsense. Felix was stubborn as a mule too, but he wasn’t daft, and he loved his boy. Poor Hetty, she does such a good job of carrying on, but she needs him. Him sitting up there sulking about everything …’

  ‘I think he’s depressed.’

  ‘He owns half of Derbyshire,’ said Lilian sharply. ‘He ought to get over it.’

  They both glanced over at Gerard suddenly. He had fallen asleep and let out a surprised, jerking snore.

  ‘I think you’d better get Jemima Puddleduck to bed,’ said Lilian.

  ‘Lilian!’ said Rosie. ‘Don’t be rude.’

  She gently shook Gerard awake; he’d had a long day. ‘Come on, darling.’

  Gerard stumbled clumsily up the stairs. Rosie took the teacups back into the kitchen to wash and drain them. Lilian carefully and gently, but nonetheless on her own, got up and started to make preparations for bed.

  Rosie passed her in the hallway, checking whether she needed any help. Lilian shook her head proudly. As Rosie went to head upstairs she asked, gently, ‘Do you love him?’

  And for the tiniest split second, Rosie didn’t have the faintest idea who she meant.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Free Games with Sweets

  First, we shall have a naming of parts. Anything that is more than 70 per cent small plastic wheels is not confectionery. It is a choking hazard, a losing hazard, an absolute cast-iron-guaranteed tantrum generator and, frankly, an abomination in any self-respecting sweetshop.

  I have absolutely no idea when it came to pass that one treat was not considered enough for a child; that on being offered chocolate, they would instantly expect to receive something else as well. The rise of the OPB, or Obscene Party Bag (see sections IX–XVII, and appendices 4(i) to 4 (vi)), seems to be mirrored in this obsession, to ensure children never ever learn when enough is enough.

  Therefore I shall oppose the creeping invasion of plastic and nasty cheap choc-o-like items whenever I see fit and for as long as it is within my power to do so. The real thing is out there. If you really want to be kind to your children, let them discover it.

  Rosie lay awake for a long time that night, and was still upset even when she did drift off, and when she woke up again too, remembering glumly that it was market day. There was a long day ahead.

  She glanced over to the other side of the bed. Gerard was still out for the count, his mouth open, a small damp patch underneath where his mouth had been. She looked at him for a long time. What had changed? In a single month? Was it just getting out of town, looking around a bit? Or was it something else: the idea of running her own place and doing something for herself? Even if she was only caretaking, she reminded herself. Even if it was only for a bit. She had gone from her mum’s house to student halls to Gerard’s flat without ever really doing anything by herself. The fact that she could take something and turn it into … Well, there was no point in thinking about that. As if on cue, her phone rang.

  ‘Rosie? Meridian, put that down. Down!’

  ‘Don wan put dine!’ came the strident Australian tones.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ said Rosie, moving to the bathroom to avoid waking Gerard. Her mother really did pick her moments.

  ‘Now, listen. How are things?’

  ‘Things are fine, fine.’

  ‘Have you found a buyer yet?’

  ‘No, no, but it’s looking good … I’m sure it’ll be really soon,’ lied Rosie. These things took time.

  ‘And what about a home? What does Lilian say about going into a home?’

  Even though Rosie knew there was no possibility of being heard downstairs, she cupped the phone to her ear.

  ‘Well, you know. I’m just getting her better.’

  ‘You can get her as better as you like, she’s still going to be eighty-seven years old,’ said Angie. ‘What, you want to stay there for ever and look after her?’

  Rosie was quiet. ‘No, obviously not. No.’

  ‘Found any nice men to replace that fat one yet?’

  ‘Angie!’

  ‘Oh God, is he there? With or without an engagement ring?’

  ‘Mum. Stop it. Please.’

  Angie sniffed. ‘Well. You don’t know how hard it is being the mother of someone whose boyfriend thinks he’s going to do better.’

  ‘He doesn’t think that,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Hmm,’ said her mother. ‘Well, good. I’m impressed that he’s managed to make a go of it on his own without you down in London.’

  Rosie didn’t quite feel up to answering that one.

  ‘Well, listen. Have a great day, and I need to know asap when everything’s sorted out, OK? And you don’t want to disrupt your life for longer than necessary, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Rosie, gazing out of the bathroom window, which overlooked the other side of the cottage. One of the bushes had sprouted shimmering purple blooms. Rosie couldn’t name it, but she could smell the heavy, rounded scent and hear the hum of the bumble bees as they started work even earlier than she did.

  ‘No,’ she said again, thinking of tube strikes, and overcrowded litter bins, and queues, and people, people everywhere, and lorries thundering down the road and recycling glass crushers at 4am and drunks on the pavements and battling to get served in bars and into the tube and being squashed up against strangers and …

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ she said. ‘I’ll get on it.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Angie. ‘Meridian, don’t eat that! Is that beetle red or black? Philip!’

  ‘Speak soon, Mum,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Very soon,’ said her mum. ‘She’ll need to sign all the paperwork and everything before … well, you know. Before she goes loopy or something.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s loopy,’ said Rosie. ‘Well, not by local standards.’

  1943

  Life went on. It had to. Lilian hurled herself into her work at the sweetshop, trying to balance the books. And the long hot Indian summer finally passed, and when she saw Ida Delia in the street she would quickly look the other way, and so would Ida, so that suited them both well – although Lilian couldn’t quite quell a pang every time she saw Ida’s swelling stomach, her brand new, cheap but still shiny wedding ring growing increasingly tight on her pudgy finger. All the while she thought to herself, it could have been me.

  It could have been her, set up in Henry’s tiny cottage that Lord Lipton had granted him now he had a family coming. Lilian knew it, had run past it many times on her afternoon jaunts – back at the tender age of seventeen – when she was younger, carefree; when she could run wild, rather than sit and fill out endless rows in her double-entry book, making sure everything tallied neatly at the end of the day before showing it to her father. The cottage was small, but it had everything you needed, as well as a beautiful, overgrown garden, fecund with wild flowers and sprawling rose bushes. There was even an apple tree. They had talked about it once, on one of those long hot summer evenings when she was mourning Ned and they chatted of anything and everything to take her mind off it; she had told him she dreamed one day of a herb garden and a kissing gate and honeysuckle and roses, and he had laughed and stroked her shoulder and said he didn’t think the cottage was that big, and she had felt a deep inner thrill that one day she might have the run of the garden.

  Ida Delia, she suspected, would fill it with tight rows of easy-to-maintain pink and yellow perennials, dump gravel on the rest and never think of it eve
r again.

  ‘Bacon sandwich?’

  Rosie vehemently hoped that Gerard’s favourite sandwich would make up for the night before. They’d just got out of the habit, she decided. The habit of being together. They’d been together for so long, in such a rut. He was probably suffering PlayStation withdrawal. That was it. And moving had changed her perspective so much, that was all. She’d get it back.

  She sat down and looked at him stirring awake, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, struggling to remember where he was. It was so like him. Suddenly, she realised she had to know.

  ‘Darling,’ she said, very quietly. ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘That’s odd,’ came a sleepy voice from the pillow. ‘Because at first I thought I heard someone asking me if I’d like a bacon sandwich.’ Gerard opened his eyes. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Seven thirty,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s a lovely day outside.’

  ‘Seven thirty?’ said Gerard. ‘On a Saturday? You’ve changed.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Rosie.

  Gerard turned over. ‘I’m going back to sleep,’ he said. ‘I never get up before eleven on Saturdays. You know that.’

  ‘Yes, but this is different …’

  Watching him, seeing how completely oblivious he was to her own plans, how uninterested in anything other than when she would come back to cook his dinner and take care of their flat, Rosie realised something. Something, she supposed, she’d known for a long time. As quietly as she could, she withdrew into the bathroom, sat down on the seat and, painfully, silently, burst into tears.

  It wasn’t Gerard’s fault – his easygoing, laissez-faire approach to life had charmed her once. But what she’d taken as his likeable good humour concealed, instead, simple laziness; it was easier to be nice to everyone than to stand up for yourself; it was easy to find someone like Rosie to look after him and take the place of his mother. But to grow up, to take on the responsibilities of the things she wanted – a nice home, a family, nothing too ambitious, surely? – these were beyond him. For now, perhaps for ever. Gerard just wanted an easy life. And she’d been so wrapped up in working and scurrying about and being part of London that she’d decided that was enough, no matter what her friends said behind her back or her mother said to her face.

  She felt such an idiot. Eight years of her life, eight years. Eight years when everyone else had been settling down and building a home and starting a life together. She didn’t even know how much Gerard earned. The only reason they’d got a mortgage together was that apart they wouldn’t have been allowed one. Oh God, there was so much to untangle. There was going to be such a fuss. And she would have to sit and listen, over and over again, to everyone – including her bloody great-aunt, it looked like, who’d met him for all of five poxy minutes – telling her how they’d known all along, and how was she going to find someone else now and wasn’t she getting on a bit and …

  Oh God, what a mess. Rosie let the tears stream down her face and stared out of the window, where even now clouds were gathering in a far corner over by the purple hills. What a stupid mess. She’d come up here to stop Lilian getting into trouble, and all that had happened was that she’d got herself, irrevocably, into trouble. Her heart beat worringly fast. It wasn’t too late, she told herself. He didn’t know anything about how she felt. Maybe she could issue him with an ultimatum or suggest they took some time out or …

  But she felt, deep inside, that it was over, as surely as the tolling of the village bell. It was over. Suddenly, painfully, she had a memory of glimpsing him from a ward window, coming into work early one morning years ago, eating a chocolate bar and carrying his briefcase, and she’d felt a sudden burst of happiness and love, watching him unobserved. How could it have deteriorated from that to this? To every weekend being spent with him in bed till lunchtime then sitting in front of the telly till supper then complaining he was too tired to go out? To her shrewishly banging on about washing up because he wasn’t capable of emptying a dishwasher. It was so … so banal.

  Suddenly the bathroom door banged open, and Rosie jerked up, guiltily. Gerard was still half asleep.

  ‘Need a wazz,’ he mumbled, his hand ferreting inside his boxer shorts, his paunch protruding. Then, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he finally cottoned on to her tear-stained face. ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’ he asked.

  Of course that made it worse. Sweet to the end. Rosie found she was no longer capable of crying silently, and instead let the whole lot come out in unsightly choking sobs. It was lucky there was plenty of toilet roll. Gerard sat down on the side of the bath, concern written large all over his face.

  ‘What’s wrong? Do you really hate it here?’

  ‘No! No, it’s not that. Gerard. I don’t … I don’t …’ She sighed. ‘I should probably have done this ages ago. Gerard, you have to tell me. Are we going anywhere?’

  Gerard furrowed his brow. ‘I thought you were working.’

  ‘You and me, Ger. You and me.’

  There was a long pause. A long pause where, for the final time, Rosie thought he might have suddenly revealed himself; gone down on one knee, whipped out a ring, declared undying love. Instead there was just a very long pause. Rosie worried. Had she not been clear? Assertive enough? Had she just fumbled her way through this relationship for so long they were no longer capable of understanding one another? She felt cross with herself.

  ‘I mean, I don’t expect fireworks and flowers, but …’

  Gerard’s face had taken on a rather frosty look.

  ‘Well, it sounds like you do.’

  ‘We only get one life, Gerard. Is this it?’

  ‘What do you mean? Why do girls always want to know what we’re doing and what’s coming next? We’re boyfriend and girlfriend, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘But what? You’re up here surrounded by all these blokes and you’ve decided I’m a bit boring for you? Not good enough? Maybe I can’t chop up a sheep? Which I can do, by the way. I’ve done dissection and everything.’

  ‘No, Gerard, it’s not that.’

  ‘So, what is it? The second we’re not living under the same roof you want to go out and do your own thing? Screw half the local pub?’

  ‘Of course not! Stop being childish!’

  Rosie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She didn’t expect him to be delighted but she hadn’t thought he’d be spiteful.

  ‘Ooh, ooh, let me go see that man! With that other man! I’ll just leave my silly old boyfriend in the pub, will I? He won’t care. All he does is look after me and hang out with me and put up with me all the time.’

  Rosie’s eyes were wide. ‘I didn’t think that … I never did. I promise.’

  ‘You changed the second you got here,’ said Gerard.

  ‘No,’ said Rosie. ‘No.’ But she knew she owed him the truth. ‘I think I started changing a long time ago.’

  ‘They always do,’ muttered Gerard.

  Rosie blinked in sadness.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Gerard. ‘Mum’ll be pleased.’

  ‘Really? Didn’t she like me?’ said Rosie, genuinely surprised. ‘Oh gosh. Wow. I didn’t know that.’

  ‘She liked you fine, but she always said you wouldn’t hang about. And she was right.’

  ‘I wish you’d listened to her five years ago!’

  ‘Plus she didn’t even know you were a tart.’

  ‘That is out of order, Gerard, and you know it.’

  Gerard shrugged. ‘Yeah, whatever.’

  There was a long awkward pause, while they both stared in different directions. Finally Gerard looked up from the floor.

  ‘Uhm, I still really need a wazz,’ he said.

  And oddly, as though they hadn’t peed in front of each other a thousand times, Rosie left the room to give him some privacy.

  Gerard was in the bathroom for a long time. Rosie sat on the bed, shaking, her stomach a tight knot of anxiety. What had she done? Was she mad? You heard about this all the t
ime, people breaking up with perfectly decent guys in their early thirties, only to find there was absolutely no one else out there, and then in eight years or so she’d be forty and that would be it, it would all be over. She’d be too late … She tried to breathe, tried not to work herself into a real state. It was hard. Her throat hurt.

  Gerard emerged from the bathroom standing a little straighter. He’d obviously given himself a talking-to in the mirror. Now he looked at her, the picture of wounded male pride.

  She felt, suddenly, as if she was waiting for the off. It was like being at the top of a rollercoaster, the second before it plummeted.

  ‘When do you want to collect your stuff?’ he asked.

  Rosie bit her lip. Of course. All of that.

  ‘We’ll need to figure it out,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Gerard. ‘Because you haven’t only fucked up my personal life, you’re going to fuck up where I live as well.’

  Rosie swallowed hard. She couldn’t deny it. She had thrown a big bomb into his life. For Gerard, who hated even walking a hundred metres to the tube station and consequently drove everywhere, it was horrible to think about having to do lots of work.

  ‘I … I haven’t quite thought about it,’ she said. ‘I might … I can maybe buy you out, or you could buy me out, own the whole thing outright.’

  She crossed her fingers at the awful lie. Skint and unemployed … surely she’d think of something?

  ‘Oh great,’ said Gerard. ‘You leave me and charge me thousands of fucking pounds for the privilege.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I don’t even want to think about that now.’ He grunted. ‘If I leave now I can get back to Mum’s before the Arsenal friendly. I wouldn’t want to hang around this shithole anyway.’

  Rosie smiled apologetically.

  Gerard shook his head. ‘Well,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Rosie. It sounded so pathetic and weak.

  Gerard started getting his stuff together – despite being in the room less than twelve hours, he’d already contrived to make an almighty mess – and she sat on the bed and watched him. Rosie suddenly felt panicked. Eight years couldn’t just vanish like this, could it? Not just get thrown away so fast? They couldn’t have finished talking, could they? Desperately, she searched for something to say.