According to YES (6 page)

As the four intrepid explorers emerge from the subway at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, Three is complaining, ‘But you said the secret would be found on the train? It wasn't.'

‘Yeh,' Red chimes in, ‘How come we're up on the street again?'

Rosie answers the impatient twosome, ‘I categorically didn't say it was on
the
train. I categorically did say it was to be found on
a
train.'

‘Hmmm,' says Teddy, ‘looks like you're gonna have to wriggle outta this one.'

‘Have faith please, gentlemen, there's more to this than meets the eye. You are thinking far too literally. All your logic is too earth-bound.'

‘Isn't a train a totally earth-bound phenomenon?' Teddy questions, clearly intrigued by the whole idea, ‘I mean either on the ground or under it, surely …?'

‘Yeh,' says Three thinking fast, ‘or it could be on a monorail, like those ones we went on in Disneyland?'

‘Yeh,' Red agrees, ‘but there's nothing like that here.'

Rosie is quick to refute this, ‘Oh, isn't there?' and she sets off towards 3rd Avenue.

The other three have to walk pretty fast to keep up with her as she is setting a brisk old pace. They shout quickfire questions at her bright-green back, as they whisk along the cracked sidewalks, avoiding slow-walkers and old compacted lumps of unmelted ice from the frozen weather. Rosie doesn't answer, she has her head down and is determined to lead with confidence even though this is their city, not hers.

As they round the corner on to 3rd Avenue, Teddy has a grim realization.

‘Oh my God, she's brought us to Bloomies, guys, she wants to shop.'

‘I hate Bloomingdales.'

‘Oh no. Mercy.'

‘Please, not shopping,' the boys plead.

She turns, ‘Do you want to uncover the secret or not?'

Teddy looks at the twins. ‘Yes. We do,' he answers on all of their behalves.

‘Right. Well zip it and follow me. Stay close because frankly, m'laddios, this is combat inside those doors, and we need to have eyeballs on each other at all times to survive. Got it?'

‘Yes sir,' says Red.

‘Ma'am,' corrects Three.

She shakes their hands, ‘For God, England and North America,
good luck …' and with that, she flings open the giant art deco iron doors and dives into the slipstream of the pushy crowd coming and going. She feels the warmth of Three's small hand creep into hers and as she looks back, she sees that they have formed a daisy chain of brothers, linked together by hand and all following her intently. She is the mama duck.

Rosie finds the escalators in the middle of the store and stays on them, travelling up up up to the sixth floor, where she heads towards the kitchen appliance department. Past the liquidizers, the fat-free fryers, the high-speed whisks, the spotty mugs, to a surprising chrome stairway, which looks like the glamorous entrance to a cruise liner from the roaring twenties. Up they go until they come to a narrow corridor. Are they still in Bloomingdales? It's so surreal! Here in front of them all is the side of an old French train, pulled in at the platform they appear to be standing on. A sign points to an open carriage door, ‘Le Train Bleu'. Rosie ushers the wide-eyed boys through the door into a vintage dining car, all laid up with crisp white table linen, gleaming silver cutlery and tinging glass goblets. It's a restaurant, in a train, on the sixth floor of Bloomingdales, which could, for all the world, be hurtling between Calais and the French Riviera in 1924! The walls are wood and mirror-panelled, with little table lights and cream shades on every table. The ceiling is padded with green fabric and wood struts and there are delicate French glass lights and subtle bistro chandeliers with chrome fans in between.
One whole side has windows looking out onto Manhattan.

Four or five elegant tables have elegant diners at them, and in the furthest corner there is one very special diner sitting alone at a table laid for four. She has her back to the boys, but it doesn't take long before they recognize the familiar compact frame and expensively highlighted blonde crop of their mum. All three boys rush to her and she gathers them into her arms and showers them with lots of silly little kisses. They pretend not to like it, but nobody resists too much.

She especially greets Teddy, who she hasn't seen for a month or so.

‘Teds!
Mon Dieu
! You've gotten so thin!'

‘S'one of the benefits of emotional turmoil, Mom.'

She laughs and looks hurt at the same time.

‘JOKE,' he assures her.

Natalie touches his cheek and adores him. She turns to Rosie, ‘Thank you Miss Kitto.'

‘Rosie, please.'

‘Rosie, thank you.'

‘No problem. I'll have a wander and be back in an hour or so. I know you've got your flight.'

They both nod at each other, two women complicit in the same endeavour, to keep these young men well-loved. Rosie leaves them to their mother and heads out into Bloomingdales to see what chocolate and shoe treasures it might contain. She won't be disappointed.

That evening, the happiness that comes from seeing their mum is still swirling around the boys, even around Teddy who is too cool to let it show much. Being eighteen and being jolly don't sit too well together. He's happier in his customary morose mode, but even he can't hide his cheer completely.

Rosie whips up some quick pasta with a tomato and basil sauce for the boys to scoff before Kemble is due home to take them to the movies. Teddy knows that if the choice of film is down to the twins, he is in for an evening of earth-threatening superhero high action. Does he mind? Not at all. All boys like the chance to be junior whenever possible, even Kemble, even Granpops. The excited chat around the kitchen counter where Rosie is cooking is all about which film they might choose. Thomas and Glenn are out, and it's Iva's night off, so she is in her room in the back of the apartment, next to Rosie's, catching up with her favourite Polish soap operas and talent shows on TV Polonia and using Skype to talk to her beloved daughter back home.

Rosie is the first to realize that the minutes are ticking away and there is a worrying no show from Kemble. She brushes off the concern as pessimism and serves up Oreo-cookie ice-cream for pudding, in the hope that by the time the last delicious gulp is gone, Kemble will be through the door and rushing to go straight back out again with them. The boys are loud but it's even louder inside Rosie's head where the clock is ticking. Tick … Tock. Come on Kemble.

Teddy is the next to wonder where his father is. Rosie shrugs her shoulders. Teddy picks up his phone and calls his dad's number, which goes repeatedly straight to voicemail.

‘Shit,' he whispers under his breath. He looks at the kitchen clock, it's just gone seven thirty p.m. They have missed most of the earlier movie start times. Rosie knows what he is thinking. He is damning his dad to hell. The twins are thankfully oblivious of time, assuming rightly that someone else is doing that thinking for them.

Rosie has an idea, ‘Hey guys, help me out with this, OK? Someone has been really annoying me recently, a man, a selfish thoughtless man, and I need to think of the appropriate swear words to call him when I next see him. Obviously I wouldn't EVER dream of using any demeaning words that pertain to women or women's bodies in my swearing so, avoid those at all costs, but almost anything about guys, their bits, poo, wee or anything else including f-words is fine. So, if we say the next five minutes is a total cussing amnesty, meaning
you can say anything within those rules, what can I call him? Go!'

The chaps look at each other, a bit uncertain how to process this instruction but, with encouragement, Teddy is the first to draw his curse sword, ‘Um, well I would call him … a dickhead … or maybe … a fucking douche?' he says hesitantly.

‘Yeah, those are good, but what about if you got a little more creative? Like, say … moosecock?'

The twins giggle. They love the fact that the gloves are off, that it's somehow, inexplicably alright to be so naughtily vulgar in Granma's house.

As Teddy gets more juiced up, he offers ‘OK, assmonger, prickface, fucktard …'

‘Great. More,' says Rosie.

Three summons his courage, and enters the ring with ‘Dicknose', which gets a round of applause.

Red tries next, ‘Pissmonkey', which gets whoops of approval. Then, it's a free for all, with words tumbling out of them like a silage truck shute of pure filth.

Red, ‘Fannycheese!'

Rosie allows this, because she thankfully remembers fanny means bum here, and bumcheese is infinitely preferable.

Three, ‘Dumbdick.'

Teddy, ‘Fuckerhead.'

Rosie gives it her best, ‘Oinking great arse knob.'

Teddy follows verbose suit, ‘Tit-faced cock end.'

The twins try more inventive words.

‘Turdbreath!'

‘Cockasaurus!'

‘Tithead!'

‘Nitshit!'

Teddy tries to trump them with ‘Jizzbucket!'

Rosie attempts something left field, ‘Republican!'

They fall apart laughing at the randomness of that, but the pleasure of the rude stuff is too tempting, so they return to it for a final volley.

Teddy, ‘Asswrangler!'

Rosie, ‘Bumdonkey!'

Then the twins collaborate to achieve the finale, ‘You … ratsuck … sweaty … fat … ass … balls!'

‘Yay!' Rosie cries, and holds their hands aloft like prizefighters, ‘We have the champions, ladies and gentlemen!!'

All of them are on their feet, stamping and clapping. And now, Rosie continues, ‘I declare the official end of the cussing competition, I have exactly what I need, so it has served its purpose. Just like the visit to the “Le Train Bleu” earlier today, I hereby consign both of these activities to a secret place where none, other than we select four, shall ever speak of them again. Understand?'

They all agree and she spits on her hand for them to follow suit and shake on it.

‘Now, listen, I am guessing your dad's been held up with
something important,' Rosie shoots Teddy a ‘don't say anything else' look, ‘so let's head on out and find a movie, yes?!'

She doesn't give the twins time to stop and think about where Kemble is or why he isn't there on time, she bustles them out of the door with Teddy's help. Teddy, who is very, very angry with his dad. Again.

Inside the cavernous cathedral earlier that same day, the congregation for Bill Sharpe's memorial seems insultingly tiny. There are a respectful couple of hundred people, but it still feels scant. That's the problem when you're important enough to warrant a service inside St Patrick's cathedral, but old enough to mean that few of your peers have outlived you and are able to attend. What you might have imagined to be a grand, significant occasion when you are alive and planning ahead, turns out to pall into a nugatory, rather slight thing of a do. Not for the want of effort. For some of the congregants, it has taken a
mighty
effort to come, so old and feeble are they. Some of them don't get dressed often, never mind dressed up, as they are today, in honour of their friend, colleague, husband, uncle and (for the two youngest people attending, who are themselves in their sixties) father, Bill. All are in their funeral garb. None have worn it for the first time. Some have worn these smart, suitably black threads too often for comfort. One of those is Thomas.

He sits quietly next to some of his old chums, nervously awaiting his turn to read. He is without Glenn. As expected. Glenn doesn't do memorials. He has been inside this cathedral on many occasions, happy and sad, and always he has been in awe of its towering splendour. Today, however, he is experiencing it differently. Yes it's huge and majestic and hallowed, but it's also cold and unfriendly and open to the public who mill about noisily, nosily, on the fringes of this very private service. It might have been better for them to be in one of the smaller side chapels, but the hubris, and the great grief of Sharpe's widow Betty, denoted that the main aisle and big altar was the only right place. So here they sit in their drab blacks and greys, feeling puny. Thomas is aware that he is in an inevitable queue of helpless mortals, merely waiting his turn, there but for the Grace of God …

Today is to celebrate Sharpe, his old college roommate, but like all things funereal, it reminds Thomas that he could be next, so he finds himself relieved at his reprieve and guilty for feeling so. Glad that Sharpe went first, that he has some more time himself. Then he looks around at the older ones, those in their nineties with the sallow cheeks, grey eyes, loose teeth and liver spots, and he wonders just what he's glad for? And he looks up at the soaring ceiling and the intricate design of the huge vaults supported by the colossal stone columns, suddenly aware that they are obediently seated in the belly of an immense stone carcass, with the blanched raw ribs ascending
and enclosing above them, a mighty, gigantic cage, to remind them of how small and insignificant and temporary they all are. The renegade Canute in Thomas longs to resist it all. Then, he hears his name, and it's time for him to climb the spiral stairs into the pulpit to say his poem loud and clear, in memory of his late friend. He looks out at the almost dead, and begins.

‘Holy Sonnet Number Ten by John Donne.

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me …'

Thomas is a good public speaker, that's why he's been asked, but today his voice is thinner than usual, he fears he might falter. Why? Because frankly, he's not sure he believes this poem. It sounds great, he's heard it at a thousand funerals, it works, but what really is Thomas saying? The poem seems to be insisting that death has no right to be proud, because apparently human beings don't die, they live eternally. Yeah. Right.

‘From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go.

Rest of their bones and soul's delivery.'

‘And soonest our best men with thee do go'? Sharpe was one of those ‘best men', and Sharpe was younger than Thomas. ‘
Bones and souls'? He doesn't want to be bones and souls, he wants to be flesh and heart and laugh and kiss and sing …

‘Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men.

And dost with poison, warm and sickness dwell;

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke, why swell'st thou then?'

So … What? … death is a cowardly slave who just depends on luck, accidents, decrees, murder, disease and war to kill men? OK, death may hide inside all of these, but it's still DEATH. Death is in charge, and it took Sharpe. In a long slow agonizingly cruel cancerous way. And it might come for Thomas next. It's horrific, and there's nothing he can do …

‘One short sleep past, we wake eternally.

And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.'

No! It's not a short sleep if you don't believe all that afterlife crap. That's it. FINITO.

Death doesn't die, John Donne, we do. All of us die, Thomas thinks: the clever, the lucky, the poor, the pretty, the ugly, the wealthy. Just the same as the ignorant, the greedy, the evil. We leave it all, good and bad, behind us. Thomas refuses to buy the notion that death is some kind of High Calling, will glorify us for all eternity. It's not, it's THE END.

Why the hell did he choose this poem? He apologizes to Sharpe in his deepest heart, and as he steps down from the pulpit, Thomas knows what he must do. He must escape from the carcass, and he must live whatever time he has left with
significance. He wants to love, and as he strides straight back down the aisle and out of the huge bronze doors onto Fifth Avenue, he gulps in the dirty air of his wonderful messy city and he resolves to live properly, to the full, while he can.

Fuck off, death.

Meantime, at a corner table in the lounge of The Colony Club, on 62nd Street and Park Avenue, Glenn sits alone, purposely. She sips Lady Grey tea and feigns reading the paper so that none other should approach. She prefers it when there are no men in the vicinity; this is a women-only private social club, after all, but occasionally, men are admitted as guests. Of course, she could join various other tables if she so chose, Annie Catlin is sitting with her daughter, and the Morgans seem to have a clattery round of mah-jong on the go. Glenn knows she would be welcome at either table, but she chooses to sit alone and appear occupied. She likes people to think she is taking a breather from her otherwise massively demanding life. Thomas made sure she knew she was welcome to come to the memorial, but Glenn rejects more than she accepts in every part of her life, and it's this simple choice that defines so much of her. She is comfortable with plenty of NO. She pours more tea through the strainer, and for a brief moment, she considers how delicious it might be to allow herself even one
mouthful of the mini lemon meringue tart which arrived alongside her tea as a little treat. But … NO … she decides against. Glenn's bouche remains strictly unamused.

Very much later that night, after the loud shooty film, after the fairly long walk home, after the late night peanut-butter-cup munchies, after warm face flannels and calming bedtime stories and after hot chocolate with Teddy, Rosie's day is finally over. Glenn and Thomas are home by the time the movie posse arrived back, and Rosie assumes they have already gone to bed. The twins have insisted on buying a swirl of red liquorice for Granpops when they were out, they know he LOVES that. Just as Rosie is turning out the lights in the kitchen, she sees it on the side and decides to pop it onto Thomas's desk as a surprise for the morning.

Although she feels sure he isn't in his office at – what is it? One fifteen a.m. – Rosie still knocks gently at the door. She's aware that actually, she probably shouldn't enter at all, but her desire to deposit this little gift overrides the rules. Of course there is no answer, so she opens the door quietly and pads bare-footed into the dark room. She then goes on tip-toe which is kind of ludicrous, since no-one is here. She knows the layout of the room well enough to find her way to his desk. As she moves carefully her eyes adjust to the darkness, and her senses
are heightened. She is aware of the smell of Thomas in the room. Yes, there would be that, it's where he always is. The aroma is of oak and leather and whatever that citrus aftershave is that he uses. As she gets closer to his desk, she can see the outline of his big chair against the window, and out of the shadows, suddenly his deep, quiet voice, ‘Come in, whydoncha.'

Rosie's blood stops still in her heart with shock, she gulps a roomful of air in, and freezes. ‘God! Sorry. I'll come back later …' she backs away, clumsy and stunned, and bumps into a bookcase behind her, ‘Ow.'

Thomas switches the desk light on, ‘No it's OK, what did you want?'

Rosie sees his face in the light and notices that his eyes are red, he's been crying. He is making a half-hearted attempt to wipe his face like proud men do, almost slapping themselves in an effort to cover up their emotions. In the moment, Rosie forgets that there is an invisible line of professionalism between them, and she reaches out, human to human.

‘Is there anything I can do?'

Thomas shakes his head. He can't quite speak for a moment, and while he is trying to compose himself, tears well in his eyes again. He laughs a little embarrassed laugh as one of them rolls down his cheek.

‘Only if you can make me immortal?'

‘You don't want that,' she says, as she takes a step nearer to him, ‘think of the fortune you would spend at the barbers …'

He smiles. ‘I went to the memorial service of a very close friend today. He was six months younger than me …' Rosie takes another step closer, while he continues, ‘So naturally, I'm sitting in the dark, feeling sorry for myself. It's completely selfish.' He stands up and goes to the window, where he is framed by the lights of the city outside. ‘I've given up red meat, red wine, smoking. I go to the gym most days. Well, I don't, but I have the guilt, and that's punishment enough. I even go and sit silently at the shrink's regularly. And the Grim Reaper's still out to get me.'

There is a pause. Rosie walks over to the window and stands next to him. She gently touches his arm,

‘Sod it then. If you're on your way, why not have the occasional glass of red wine and a ciggie?'

Thomas carefully pulls away, ‘Being nice to me is making it worse, I fear.'

For an interesting moment or two, they stand there, sharing the promise of the city beyond. Two very different people, two very different ages, with no problem standing still, being connected.

Outside in the hall there is the sound of a drunken Kemble stumbling into the apartment and dropping his keys. For some reason, Thomas and Rosie both feel a fleeting moment of guilt.

Kemble is in a heap on the floor of the hall, just inside the front door. He has banged into the table and sent a porcelain lamp flying, so he is sitting amongst the debris when Thomas and Rosie arrive to try and pick him up.

‘Hey, pops!' he slurs at his father, ‘Why you still up? You should be in bed … with … Cruella …'

It's at this most inopportune of moments that Glenn rounds the corner in her neat dressing gown. With her blows a bitter wind, ‘Thank you, Miss Kitto, that's quite enough, you may go to your rooms now.'

Thomas nods to indicate that may well be the best course of action. Rosie says goodnight and scootches off to bed, leaving Glenn and Thomas to pick up their broken son.

She doesn't dare look back, but she can hear Glenn admonishing him,

‘Get up Kemble, get up you idiot!'