Dearest Rose (34 page)

‘What is that?’ Rose asked her, advancing into the room, leaving Maddie hovering uncertainly by the door. ‘What are you giving him?’

‘Pain relief,’ Tilda said, covering John’s hand protectively, which infuriated Rose for some reason she couldn’t quite fathom, perhaps because with Tilda around he seemed like suddenly half the man, as if she literally diminished him.

‘What for? What’s wrong with you, John?’

‘A year or so ago –’ Tilda began, but John cut across her.

‘I’ve got arthritis. I hate it, it’s ruining my life. I try not to talk about it. Sometimes I forget to take the meds – so many now, I’ve got to take. I get bored with it. And then I pay the price, fall out of bed and can’t move again, silly old bastard. Seized up like a rusty old tin man.’

‘I thought you said it was a dizzy spell,’ Rose said, biting her lip. What wasn’t he telling her?

‘It was: withdrawal from the damn meds. I’ll be fine, a little rest, some food and water. Are you worried?’ John held out a trembling hand to Rose and she crossed the room to sit beside him, ousting Tilda from her position on the bed. As soon as
she
sat down, Maddie came to join them, looking up at the curious-looking Tilda with naked distrust.

‘Why didn’t you tell me before about the arthritis?’ Rose said, glancing back at Tilda, who now stood by the door. ‘I could have got your pills, made sure you didn’t forget to take them!’

‘I don’t expect you to come here after all these years without a father and nurse me like I’m your child,’ John said firmly. ‘And besides, Tilda knows what to do. A few hours’ rest, let the pills kick in, and I will be fine and everything will be back to normal.’

‘You look grey,’ Maddie said from the crook of her mother’s arm. ‘Are you going to die?’

‘One day,’ John said, smiling weakly as he reached out, briefly touching Maddie’s cheek. ‘But not today, I promise you.’

‘Or tomorrow,’ Maddie said. ‘Or until I’ve finished my paintings?’

‘Deal,’ John said, a twitch of a smile lifting his mouth.

‘I’ll go,’ Tilda said. ‘I brought groceries, some juice. Maddie, shall I make you a snack? Let Mum and Granddad talk.’

Maddie twisted her mouth into a knot of rebellion, and Rose braced herself for a classic Maddie moment. Amazingly, though, it did not come. Rose watched astonished as Maddie visibly controlled what she longed to say, sensing it would not be right, and nodded.

‘OK, but I don’t like butter in my sandwiches.’

Rose waited until she heard Tilda and Maddie descending the stairs. Looking at John’s hand, which still rested in hers, so old and, now she came to think of it, beginning to be misshapen and twisted by arthritis like a gnarled old tree, she had to force back the tears that threatened in her throat.

‘It’s just arthritis, nothing else?’ Rose asked John.

‘I’m fine,’ John said. ‘Or I will be. I am very touched that you care.’

‘Of course I care!’ Rose said. ‘How could I not? We still barely know each other – I couldn’t stand to lose you again now.’

John squeezed her fingers hard, unable to say anything more.

‘So you and Tilda, are you still together?’ Rose asked him quietly, not taking her eyes from his hand.

‘We are … married,’ John said, ‘although we haven’t lived together for a very, very long time. Ten years at least.’

‘Married!’ Rose looked up at him sharply, shocked by the news. It never occurred to her that he’d married Tilda. ‘When?’

John withdrew his hand from hers. ‘As soon as the divorce came through. I think we both acknowledge that we married at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. I barely remember the wedding day, or the first year of marriage, for that matter. Tilda left me when the drinking became too much and she couldn’t take any more. She hoped I would change for her, that there would be children, a home, a normal life, but none of that happened. She gave up a lot for me, and in the end I gave her nothing in return. I killed almost all the love she ever had for me. She couldn’t even bring herself to come back to me after I sobered up and, once sober, I wasn’t sure that she should anyway. I’d hurt her too much too, you see. And I don’t blame her for not wanting to risk that again. She lives in Keswick now, runs a little jewellery shop. She still thinks enough of me to get me food once a week, clean up now and then. Help me when I become … ill. We are friends, I suppose. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t know how to.’

He looked down at his hands, lying limp on top of the sheets.

‘I just can’t take it in,’ Rose said, aghast. A few hours ago Tilda had been a ghost from her past, an unwelcome memory, and now she was here, very present and, more than that, her father’s
wife
. ‘All this time I thought you and I were making progress, and you were secretly discussing me with her.’

‘No, not at all. All I said was how pleased I was that you were here, and how I didn’t want to chase you away by telling you about her, which hurt her, but she understood. I know how much you must hate Tilda, with good reason, I suppose. But she is not a bad person, Rose. I’ve damaged her as much as I’ve damaged you. Don’t hate her now, please. I …’

Rose waited for him to finish his sentence but no more words came, as he leaned back into the pillow, looking suddenly exhausted.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rose said, shocked by his frailty. ‘Tilda being here isn’t going to chase me away and I don’t want to hate her. I’m just … I didn’t expect her to still be in your life and I didn’t expect for you to be so … old.’

The faint ghost of a smile hovered around John’s greying lips.

‘I suppose I deserved that,’ he said.

‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way,’ Rose said. ‘I just mean that in my head you’ve always been this big lion of a man, invincible. And now, now I see you are not.’

‘I am very far from it,’ John said, his eyes drooping with tiredness.

‘You need to sleep, Dad,’ Rose said.

‘Say that again,’ John said hazily.

‘You need to sleep,’ Rose repeated.

‘No, the other part.’

‘Dad,’ she said, smiling as he drifted off to what looked like a restful sleep at last.

When Rose got to the bottom of the stairs, Maddie was staring suspiciously at Tilda over a large glass of juice, each regarding the other silently.

‘Rose, I’m sorry about the circumstances,’ Tilda said as she got up a little stiffly. ‘It is really nice to see you here. It means so much to your father.’

‘He’s said more than enough to let me know how he feels, thank you,’ Rose said, mindful of Maddie listening intently.

‘This must all be so strange for you,’ Tilda said, smiling pleasantly. ‘I know you must have mixed feelings about meeting me, to say the least. I don’t blame you. So, cards on the table. I’m not going to try and make you be friends with me, I don’t want to stand in the way of you and John getting to know each other, but if John wants or needs my help I will come, just as I always have. And I’d ask you not to try and come between us and what little we have left. Does that seem fair?’

‘Who are you again?’ Maddie asked her.

‘It seems fair,’ Rose said, relieved that she wasn’t to be forced into some reunion with a woman she’d last seen naked, and who had loomed over her life like a shadow for so long. This Tilda, this sixty-something woman, seemed almost like a separate entity from that woman who had haunted her life up until now. At least now that spectre could be exorcised for good. Still, Rose did not feel like throwing her arms around Tilda and forgiving her. After all, she was a very significant part of why Rose’s life had disintegrated so rapidly, her fragile sense of security washed away with one single tide.

‘Who is she?’ Maddie persisted, looking at Rose.

‘I’m Tilda,’ Tilda said. ‘I’m a good friend of John’s. I look in on him sometimes.’

‘Well, you don’t need to any more,’ Maddie said, perhaps picking up on the tension in the room. ‘He’s got us now. We’re related to him.’

‘I know, and that’s lovely, but John and I –’

‘Anyway,’ Maddie said, ‘he won’t need you now, will he, Mum? Now that we are going to live here.’

Tilda looked at Rose, who hurriedly covered up the surprise in her face as she met the older woman’s gaze.

‘Is that right?’ Tilda asked her. ‘Only John didn’t mention anything.’

‘Oh, so he doesn’t tell you everything then?’ Rose said, sounding more cruel than she meant to. ‘We’ll stay for today and tonight, make sure he’s OK. But we don’t have plans to exactly live here. Not yet, anyway.’

‘Right,’ Tilda said. ‘I brought the ingredients for shepherd’s pie; it always tempts him when he’s been –’

‘I can do it,’ Rose said, looking pointedly at the door, ‘if you want to go.’

Tilda’s expression flinched. ‘Of course, if that’s what you want. Tell him to call me if he –’

‘I’m sorry,’ Rose said, suddenly realising she was being cruel, not to the seductress who stole her father away, but to a concerned and very worried old woman. ‘I don’t mean to be unkind to you. It’s just … I didn’t know about you until just now. And it would mean a lot to me to be able to look after my dad for tonight.’

‘I understand, I do,’ Tilda said. ‘Rose, I’m so sorry for
everything
that’s happened. I’m so sorry that I played a part in hurting you.’

‘Thank you,’ Rose said. She didn’t know how else to respond.

Rose felt a pang of regret as she saw the sadness on Tilda’s face as she picked up her bag and left, knowing that she was behaving badly and unfairly, but unable to stop her nine-year-old self from kicking out at the woman who’d hurt her so deeply. There was time enough to reach an amicable place with Tilda. It didn’t have to be today.

‘Who was that woman?’ Maddie repeated, as Tilda left and Rose was staring into a bag of ingredients, wondering if she even knew how to make shepherd’s pie.

‘That was Granddad’s wife,’ Rose said.

‘So my grandma?’ Maddie asked her, wide-eyed.

‘No,’ Rose said. ‘Granddad’s second wife. She’s not related to us.’

After a good deal of guess work, quite a lot of good luck and some creative help from Maddie, Rose managed to cobble together something that looked like an approximation of shepherd’s pie. Maddie took great pleasure in peeling the potatoes, although Rose had to stop her at one point when she became so obsessed with getting them perfectly round that she was peeling them almost to marble size, and Rose guessed what to do with the lamb mince, so that it looked rich and brown and just about right.

There were a set number of dishes on Richard’s list of favourites that Rose knew how to execute perfectly, from steak and ale pie to calamari. But Richard had not liked shepherd’s pie and so Rose had never learnt to make it. Another unexpected
aspect
to her new life, she thought, smiling to herself as Maddie pretended to wash up, but really was just enjoying playing in the warm soapy water. Now she could learn to cook all sorts of exotic dishes: shepherd’s pie, toad-in-the-hole, maybe she would even go crazy and tackle a lasagne. When Rose thought about her life, and how very desperate it had been, how almost comically stupid her narrow existence was, she found that she wanted to laugh out loud. And she would have done, except she was still afraid of Richard hearing her. Richard never did like her laughing.

‘This is nice,’ Maddie said, filling a milk bottle with water and pouring it over the back of her hands. ‘I mean, I know Granddad is sick, and that is bad, but he’s not going to die so then this can be nice, can’t it? You and me and cooking. I like it.’

‘Me too,’ Rose said. ‘I don’t know why we haven’t done it before.’

‘I want to live here, Mum,’ Maddie said quite suddenly, turning away from the sink to look at Rose, washing-up liquid bubbles garlanding her wrists. ‘Like I said to that lady, I want to live here with Granddad, and cook together and paint every day.’

Rose put the finished pie into the creaky old oven, unsure whether it was nearly hot enough, and thought for a moment.

‘If we lived here, or near here, there would be a lot to think about.’

‘Like what?’ Maddie asked her.

‘School,’ Rose said. ‘It will be a new term before you know it. We’d have to find you a school place.’

‘But why?’ Maddie sighed unhappily. ‘I don’t like school. Teachers don’t like me, children don’t like me and I don’t like
them
. I’m not the sort of child who suits school. You could keep me at home and let me be a genius.’

Full of compassion for her poor awkward, cast-out little girl, Rose went to Maddie and put her arms around her.

‘That’s not true,’ she said. ‘It’s not true that people don’t like you. It’s just that you are different from most children, and they find you a little hard to get to know. I mean, how many other seven-year-olds know so much about Ancient Egypt? Or want to paint instead of play with dolls or watch TV? But you should have friends of your own age, and if we did stay around here you would have to go to school. This time, though, I’d be a better mummy. I’d help people understand how lovely you really are because I know they’ll like you when they do.’

For once Maddie relaxed into Rose’s body, letting herself be hugged.

‘I would try school again, if we stay here,’ Maddie said.

‘And what about Daddy?’ Rose said tentatively. ‘Living here would mean you were very far away from him.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Maddie said, drawing back to look up at her mum. ‘Daddy is a bad man, isn’t he? He hurt me and you, and he makes you cry a lot.’

Rose stared in Maddie’s face, which seemed so certain, and wanted to weep.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if Daddy is a bad man. I thought once that Granddad was bad, and he certainly made a lot of mistakes, but we’re getting to be friends now – good friends – and I don’t think he is bad any more. I think Daddy and me don’t belong together. We make each other very unhappy. But I would never want to take you away from your dad, Maddie. Even after he scared us as much as he did.’ Rose’s mouth went
dry
as she spoke out loud the words she could hardly bear to think.

‘He was never unkind to me before,’ Maddie said. ‘He used to always smile at me, and let me read to him, and take me out for trips to learn things. But he’s stopped being like that now. He’s turned into a troll.’ Maddie’s face folded inwards in dismay as she remembered once again what happened. ‘He hurt me. He stopped being Daddy and he hurt me.’