Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams (52 page)

They put the ancient, dusty, exquisite bottle of champagne into the freezer, on Tina’s advice.

‘Probably ruin it,’ she said with a nervous giggle.

‘It was probably ruined a long time ago,’ said Lilian. ‘It’ll be the most undrinkable muck, probably.’

‘Stop being such a pessimist,’ said Rosie. ‘I can’t believe you’ve had that there all this time. It could be worth a fortune. Can’t you sell it?’

Lilian shrugged. ‘It won’t be worth that much. Anyway, sell it so you can pack me off to a home? Not bloody likely.’

‘Actually I was thinking we could use the money to hire a nurse for a bit,
so there
,’ said Rosie.

‘You’d never guess you two were related,’ said Tina.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter what Miss Green Dress says,’ said Lilian, undaunted. ‘That is my bottle of champagne. Your granpa Gordon liberated it during the war and brought it all
the way back to Derbyshire. He brought two actually. We drank the first one to celebrate Gordon being home – he said it would be like drinking stars. I thought he was talking rubbish myself. But by his second glass, my da was singing a stupid song about blackbirds I hadn’t heard since my ma died. We spent the whole afternoon just laughing, and talking about Neddy – that was my middle brother, he died in the war – and, well. It was the first time I’d been happy in a long time. And then we were going to keep the second one for Terence coming home, but then we weren’t all there together, and he was always so low-key anyway, hated any fuss, didn’t even invite us to his wedding, the bugger. So we never drank it. Then your granpa went off to London and that was the end of that branch of the family, till a few months ago.’

‘Sorry,’ said Rosie, listening intently.

‘And, well, me and my da kept waiting for some great occasion to drink it on, and it just never arrived. We were working when the war ended, everyone came in and spent all their coupons on as many sweets as they could manage, and we were rushed off our feet. And then after Da died, well. I never thought to have it after that, I never was much for the drink.’

Tina and Rosie swapped glances. Rosie squeezed Lilian’s hand.

‘Thank you,’ said Lilian.

‘That’s all right,’ said Rosie gently. Then, more awkwardly, ‘Would you mind squeezing back please? Just so I can check?’

‘Ah, away with you!’ said Lilian, giving her a hard squeeze that involved digging her beautifully manicured nails into Rosie’s hand. Rosie jumped up, laughing and went to get the
glasses and fetch the bottle out of the freezer. But it wasn’t that funny, she thought. A life should have more opportunities to drink champagne than that.

Tina carefully peeled back the ancient, brittle foil and untwisted the wire.

‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘I can’t pop this. Honestly, if it all goes wrong, I’ll be a mess.’

Rosie took it from her.

‘I will now try to look like I do this every day of the week,’ she said, smiling. ‘OK, everyone cover their eyes.’

And she very carefully and very slowly twisted the old cork out of the bottle. It eased itself out with a gentle pop, no great crack at all, and the women held their breath in case it had gone flat. But it smelled good, a deep, viney scent, and when Rosie poured it into Lilian’s heavy crystal glasses, it made a satisfyingly fizzy noise. It was darker than champagne Rosie had drunk before, but when she took her first sip from the thick-edged glass, it still burst on to her tongue.

‘Not so fast!’ commanded Lilian, as if she drank champagne every night and this was a terrible breach of etiquette on Rosie’s part. ‘This is special, and we must have a toast.’

Tina giggled nervously. ‘Oh yes! To … to … hmm. Babysitters! And big posh nights out! And …’

‘Your friend is very noisy,’ said Lilian.

‘You’re not allowed to be rude to Tina,’ said Rosie. ‘I won’t allow it. Say sorry.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Tina.

Lilian raised an eyebrow.

‘I’ll make the toast. To exciting nights out, where anything
could happen. How when you’re young and in a pretty dress you should always say yes to a ball.’

Rosie rolled her eyes.

‘This is pretty much what I said,’ whispered Tina.

‘To grabbing what you want, Rosemary. As quickly as you can. And to love …’

‘Hurrah,’ said Tina.

‘… and to family,’ concluded Lilian. And then they chinked the heavy glasses.

Rosie smiled.

‘That was a lovely toast,’ she said. And Lilian had been right about something else: it was like drinking stars.

Tina had not lied about the size of the affair. The entire driveway to the great house was lined with braziers, lighting the way up the side of the moor. Rosie couldn’t resist a shiver of excitement. The weather had turned, suddenly, vicious; colder and colder. There were mutterings that it might snow. And then Moray and Jake had turned up, parping loudly in the Land Rover – Jake looking big and uncomfortable in his hired dinner suit, Moray a totally-at-home smoothie in his. ‘Of course it won’t matter,’ Moray was explaining to an awkward Jake. ‘All the real poshos turn up in their pinks.’

‘In pink?’ Rosie asked innocently. The other three all tutted.

‘No,’ said Tina. ‘They’re red. Red hunting jackets. They’re called pinks.’

‘Of course,’ said Rosie. ‘How clever of posh people to come up with their hilarious codes.’

Lilian had told them to hurry up and be off, they were going to be terribly late – but insisted they take the champagne with them. She said this was because it was wasted on her when they could share out the good stuff among them. She did not add that she could not bear to spend the evening sitting staring at the bottle and thinking of things that were long past.

‘Are you sure we can’t persuade you to join us, Miss H?’ said Moray with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I promise not to swing you too fiercely round the dance floor.’

‘All those ghastly old hoorays yelping and barking at each other till three o’clock in the morning? Oh, no thank you,’ said Lilian.

‘That was exactly what I said!’ said Rosie.

‘No, no, you young folk go and have fun.’

And she ushered them out the door. If that great-niece of hers saw a tear in her eye, she’d cancel her entire evening, sure as eggs were eggs. And they could snuggle up and watch television together and it would be like having a daughter, or a really good friend, or both, and then Rosie would cook them something nice and it would be lovely.

Lilian hardened herself. She would not be selfish. She would not, she would not. She would
not
stand in Rosie’s way.

‘Out!’ she barked at them. ‘Out of my house immediately!’ And she shut the door behind them, as the young folks exchanged glances at the grumpiness and irascibility of the old.

Out in the deserted main street of the village, as they walked companionably up to the car – Moray gallantly put his coat around Rosie’s bare shoulders, whereupon Jake, walking behind with Tina, started fumbling and wondering if he should be doing the same – they passed the bottle between them, Moray whistling at the vintage. As they did so, the first flakes of snow began to fall.

‘It’s
October
,’ said Tina. ‘Where is this global warming?’

‘It’s nigh on November,’ said Jake, looking up in a worried farmer’s way. ‘This is going to play havoc with my cabbages.’

But Rosie didn’t listen to either of them, just stared up into the freezing night sky, stars sharp and ice cold among the clouds; the flakes beginning to whirl now in the street lamps, and the champagne coursing through her veins. She smiled broadly. The sleepy village looked like something off a Christmas card, the cobblestones dotted here and there with tiny specks of white. She felt giddy and excited, and despite the disappointments of the day, and the knowledge that she didn’t have a chance with Stephen – well, who cared about that? Who cared about any of that? She was still young(ish); she did look, as both the men had pointed out, very pretty in her green dress. Even though it was silly, and old-fashioned, and pompous, and kind of ridiculous—

‘I’m going to the ball!’ she announced loudly.

‘
So am
I!’ hollered Tina, her happiness much less complicated than Rosie’s at that moment, as Jake’s fumbling hands attached his coat around her shoulders.

Moray bowed low in front of the door of his Land Rover.

‘Your carriage, mesdames.’

And laughing and yelling, they took off up the hill, along the driveway of flaming torches, to the great house that was Lipton Hall.

Chapter Twenty

Turkish Delight

Turkish delight has had a bad reputation since that man C.S. Lewis – a positive genius in other ways – linked it for ever with one of the most terrifying creations in literature, the White Witch of Narnia, and that naughty, sticky, traitorous Edmund. But with the sensuous pleasure imbued in its melting, gelatinous texture, and, when made in the proper way, delicately perfumed with rose petals, flavoured with oils and dusted with sugar, it reclaims its power as a sweet as seductive as Arabian nights. The fact that it now carries with it a whiff of danger merely adds to its pleasure. It is not, truly, a sweet for children. They simply complain, and get the almonds stuck up their noses.

‘Who
are
these people?’ said Rosie, still nervous and exhilarated from the champagne and their snowy drive up the hill.
‘And are you sure the area’s only non-mad health professional should be stepping out of the driving seat of a car slugging from a bottle of champagne?’

‘Ask the local police superintendent,’ said Moray. ‘He’s over there.’

The place was thronged. Up close, and floodlit from below, so it could be seen from miles off, Lipton Hall was truly imposing; built in the Queen Anne style, with red sandstone, gargoyles on the upper reaches. The rows of windows were brilliantly lit with chandeliers, and loud voices and rowdy laughter poured out from each of them. Rosie felt her ebullient mood shrink a little.

‘How does she pay for all this?’ she wondered aloud. ‘I thought they were broke.’

‘Oh, she is, completely,’ said Moray. ‘People pay a fortune to come.’