Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams (40 page)

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 ever 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 time, 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.

‘Can I ask one thing?’ said Rosie. ‘Just so as I know?’

Gerard shrugged. Rosie took a deep breath.

‘Were you ever going to pop the question? Did you ever see us together for ever?’

He shrugged again. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘I’d never really thought about it.’

‘Really?’ said Rosie, wondering if this was bravado. ‘What, all those weddings we went to and you never once thought about it?’

‘I liked things as they were,’ said Gerard. ‘I didn’t have a problem with it. I thought you were cool too.’

‘So did I,’ said Rosie, shaking her head. It had never even crossed his mind. ‘So did I.’

They gazed at each other in mutual incomprehension.

They even managed an awkward, difficult embrace as he left; a little, social kind of kiss that Gerard tried to turn into something else.

‘I can’t believe I didn’t even get a farewell shag,’ he said, which Rosie thought was encouraging. That was the thing about Gerard: his irrepressible cheerfulness. She didn’t think he’d be down for too long. But for now, prodding her heart carefully to feel the truth of the matter, it was undeniable, as she heard him gently closing the bedroom door, then the front door, which squeaked, and heard the thrum of his beloved Alfa Romeo start up, however much she might
regret it later, even if Gerard was her very, very last chance, she could still feel it.

Relief.