Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams (58 page)

Everyone heard it, they said, or knew someone who did. Ida Delia’s screams had filled the entire town, closely followed by Dorothy’s. ‘That bastard!’ she was rumoured to have shouted when the telegram arrived. ‘That
bastard
! How
dare
he?’

‘What was it like when he died?’ asked Rosie quietly.

Lilian looked at her quizzically, as if trying to sum up the best way for Rosie to take it in.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s like the most final thing you can ever imagine … Think of something ending, something happening that you couldn’t ever change.’

Rosie thought of Gerard and Yolande Harris but somehow
that didn’t really bother her. Then she remembered taking her mother to the airport when she left for Australia, and the horrible stone she had felt in the pit of her stomach, even though she was a grown-up and not supposed to mind.

‘OK,’ she said.

‘And take away every possibility, every semblance of doubt that anything could be different.’

Lilian looked at her. ‘Were you thinking of Angie?’

‘You’re spooky,’ said Rosie, trying to smile.

‘Imagine if Angie was never coming back, was never going to call, was never going to find her way back to you. And there was no one you could tell, not really. Your granpa, Gordon, he would just have laughed, he thought I should have got over it years ago. My dad …’

She smiled.

‘I suppose you would say these days that I loved my father very, very much. But you have to remember, he was born in 1896. He was, literally, a Victorian.’

Rosie nodded.

‘And … Henry and I had so little time together.’

‘That probably made it worse,’ said Rosie, thinking of Gerard. ‘Maybe if you’d had a few years washing out his dirty socks, it wouldn’t have been so awful.’

‘Maybe,’ said Lilian. ‘Or maybe we’d have settled into this little house and worked hard and raised our children and we’d have been looking after one another right now. And he would still look as young and handsome to me as he did then. It does happen, you know. Maybe it would have been that.’

They both fell silent for a moment.

‘But after …’ said Rosie.

‘Oh, there was a big fuss,’ said Lilian. ‘Ida Delia was in such a state. I’m sure they’d give it a name now: call it postnatal depression, get her sorted out in a hospital. You were just left to get on with it then. Poor Dorothy.’

‘I can’t believe she was Henry’s daughter,’ said Rosie.

‘There wasn’t much of Henry in her,’ said Lilian. ‘And the raising of her was a mess, a terrible shame. She was beautiful though as a young girl; extraordinary.’

‘Mrs
Isitt
?’ said Rosie.

‘Ask Hetty,’ said Lilian. ‘She was something else. Peter Isitt had been in the village all his life, of course. He knew what he was getting into and he still couldn’t help himself. Amazing what blonde curly hair will do to a chap.

‘But her mother blamed her and she blamed her mother and they both blamed Henry for dying and … I’m amazed,’ said Lilian, her eyes watering. ‘I’m truly amazed. I had no idea Ida Delia was still alive. She moved out of the village when Dorothy left home. She was still a young woman, young enough, she must have thought.’

Lilian shook her head.

‘And for you there was never anyone else …’

Lilian gazed into the fire.

‘Well, first off, a lot of men didn’t come home. And the ones that did, they couldn’t stomach village life; they couldn’t believe we’d been here quiet and safe all the time after what they’d been through. Like your granpa. He had it figured out. Life was short, and he was going to make the most of it. So a lot of them never came home, for one reason or another. And there weren’t a lot of men about. And then of course I had to help Dad, and he was getting older.’

She paused.

‘And, you know, it wouldn’t have been fair. I had this big lake of unhappiness inside me. Anyone else would have been second best. It would have been unfair on some poor sod if I’d hurled myself at him.’

‘And did you never regret that?’

Lilian shook her head.

‘I only had one bad year,’ she said, ‘1969. The year of the new divorce act. I couldn’t help thinking … I don’t think they’d have stuck it out, those two. Not in the end. Not with Ida so highly strung and him so … so decent. I reckon she’d have pushed him too far. So. That was hard. Apart from that …’

She gave a half-smile.

‘I haven’t been idle, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘I don’t think I need to know the details,’ said Rosie.

‘I took Felix off Hetty’s hands for a few years. Oh, don’t look so shocked,’ Lilian said, seeing Rosie’s face. ‘It was the sixties. Everyone was at it. Hetty didn’t mind a bit, she was getting tupped by the under-gardener.’

‘If you tell me you are really Stephen’s mother I am going to kill you,’ said Rosie.

‘Oh goodness
gracious
no, don’t be absurd,’ said Lilian. ‘No, no. I was just helping Hetty out. Felix was so terribly demanding.’

‘You
are
good friends,’ said Rosie. ‘Please don’t tell me any more.’

‘And there was …’

‘OK, OK. I get it.’ Rosie looked at her. ‘When I was little I thought you were just some old lady who sent us cough drops,’ she said.

‘Did you now,’ said Lilian.

‘This has been a good life,’ said Lilian later. It was getting late, but it was so cosy in front of the fire. Rosie had poured them both a sherry. She’d always thought she hated sherry, but it appeared she didn’t mind it after all.

Rosie looked around at the lovely sitting room with the fire still crackling away merrily. ‘I meant to ask you,’ she said, ‘how do you keep this place so nice? You can hardly move and I’m out all day and the garden is immaculate and the logs are always chopped. I know Hetty comes in, but …’

Lilian smiled. ‘Ah, my elves.’

Rosie raised an eyebrow.

‘Pretty much everyone comes by once in a while,’ Lilian said. ‘When you’ve served every child in the village, they don’t forget. They still remember. And they drop in. A bit of wood-chopping here, a bit of cleaning there.’

Rosie looked at her straight on. ‘Amazing.’

‘Well, there are some benefits to living in the same place for a long time,’ said Lilian. ‘Don’t pity me please.’

Rosie shook her head. ‘Not in a million years,’ she said, though she wasn’t quite speaking the truth.

‘I’ve had a happy life here,’ said Lilian. ‘I have a lot of friends. A lot of people who help take care of me. A good job. I never lost a son to war, or a man to the bottle, or a baby. I’ve never been rich, but I’ve paid my way – well, almost.’ She laughed, ruefully. ‘And I’ve had some adventures and kept safe and sound, and lived in a beautiful place and enjoyed every season of it. This has been a good life.’

Rosie let out a great sigh. It did sound like a good life.

‘I know. I know. But me – I’ve made such a fool of myself.’

‘Oh, you’ve been making a fool of yourself since you arrived,’ said Lilian. ‘Why stop now, I say.’

Rosie bit her lip.

‘Bed,’ she said.

Next morning was bleak; a grey Tuesday morning for Rosie, after a sleepless night thinking of everything Lilian had been through. She made a decision. It was the right thing to do, she was sure of it. She needed, she knew, to make a call. It was just that the very idea of it made her feel sick. Lilian, conversely, slept well and woke up feeling rested and calm, as if something had been decided for her. Which in a sense it had. Angie had rung in the dead of night Australian time, when she knew Rosie would be at the shop, and had let the phone ring till Lilian had picked it up.

‘Aunt Lily,’ Angie had said, in her no-nonsense tone with its new Australian twang. ‘You know what you have to do.’

‘Of course I do,’ Lilian had grumbled.

‘She’s a good girl, you know. She’s my good girl.’

‘She is, she is.’

‘But there are limits, you know?’

‘I know,’ said Lilian, crossly.

‘Will you miss her?’

Lilian sat up straight on the bed.

‘I do not for the life of me know how you can bear to be apart from her,’ she said in a tight voice.

Angie smiled ruefully.

‘Me neither. Listen, don’t tell her, I’m going to come back for a bit. Just for a bit; the little ones need me here, you know. But I want to visit, come and see you all. It sounds like you’ve been getting up to all sorts.’

‘We’ve been doing nothing of the kind,’ said Lilian stiffly.

‘Ah, you would say that though, wouldn’t you? Always been a dark horse.’

And Lilian’s mind was made up.

‘I think,’ she said at breakfast, ‘I think maybe, maybe I might like to visit Ida Delia.’

Rosie looked at her, bleary-eyed. She knew this was coming. She knew what it meant.

‘Sure,’ she said. Carefully.

Lilian smiled.

‘She’s probably doolally,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘Probably won’t remember me at all.’

‘Maybe,’ said Rosie. ‘Maybe not.’ Something else struck her. ‘How could you have been getting milk from Mrs Isitt all these years and never ever asked after her mother?’

Lilian shrugged. ‘Well, you know. We respect privacy around here.’

‘Ha!’ said Rosie. ‘My bum. Anyway.’ She had decided in the night. She was going to do it. She was going to make the call. ‘I have to use the phone.’

Lilian raised her eyebrows. Rosie would not be drawn, but instead went upstairs and crouched by the window, the only place with a signal. Lilian wanted her to use the home telephone but Rosie didn’t want to be overheard. Plus she didn’t
like the heavy old rotary dial, she kept getting the numbers wrong.

Her heart quaking in her chest, slowly she scrolled through her address book and pressed the button. She tried to imagine what he’d be doing right now, and found, somewhat to her surprise, that she couldn’t. However, he answered on the second ring. Rosie felt her heart leap in her chest.

‘Hello?’ came the voice. He sounded busy and preoccupied.

‘Hello,’ said Rosie, finding herself shaking. ‘Hello, Gerard.’