Rosie

by Lesley Pearse

  But old Mrs Tyler who had the cottage next to the post office was keen. She’d been widowed a few years before and, because she was crippled with arthritis, her once pretty small back garden had turned into a jungle. She had no problem with Donald – she’d never believed he was the one who hurt that little girl all those years ago, and was delighted he was home again. She was happy to pay them each two shillings an hour.

  It took just a few hours’ work to get Mrs Tyler’s garden back into shape. They pruned her roses and tied them to the trellis, dug out all the weeds and cut back the big shrubs, Mrs Tyler was delighted and almost everyone who came by her cottage was invited to see their work. Soon they had another job offer from a newly married couple who were both out working all day. This garden was far more of a challenge to Rosie because it was just a sloping lawn with a thin border around it. The couple wanted something more imaginative and asked Rosie for ideas. She suggested they had the part of the lawn nearest to the house dug away and a retaining wall built with a couple of steps up to where the lawn levelled out above. The area by the house could then be paved so they could sit outside when the grass was wet.

  They jumped at her idea, hired a couple of men to dig it out and do the bricklaying and paving stones, then invited Rosie and Donald back to carry on with the plan and to plant the garden out. They dug out gently curving flower beds around the lawn and a border next to the retaining wall so that eventually flowers would cascade down over it. It was too late in the season for bedding plants, but Rosie offered to come back in October to plant spring bulbs and perennials around the new shrubs for a good show next year.

  Aside from the odd request to do mowing and weeding, there had been no further offers until a few weeks ago, when suddenly it seemed that everyone wanted their gardens tidied for the autumn, spring bulbs put in and a general inspection to see where improvements could be made for the future.

  Rosie had no real idea how to organize it all, but Frank Cook did. He sat down with her one evening with a large diary and showed her how to allocate her time to her ‘clients’, giving them each a couple of hours twice a week. He pointed out that she mustn’t overreach herself because it might rain for days on end, and that she’d have to be flexible and do the digging jobs when the weather permitted. He explained too that along with charging for her time, she also had to charge for compost, bulbs and the plants she provided. As he said, it wasn’t intended to be a charity, it was real work. He got someone in his office to type up and duplicate a small leaflet which would explain all this to the customers: the money for materials was to be paid for in advance, then the hourly charge settled at the end of each week.

  It was Rosie’s hope that although there would be no work in the winter months, come the spring she’d be asked back to continue. Meanwhile she could grow summer bedding plants in the greenhouse at The Grange, and next year she would be able to sell those on too. Mr and Mrs Cook insisted Rosie should still be paid her two pounds ten shillings a week from them too, as Rosie would in effect still be looking after Donald. Rosie thought this was wrong as she could see she wasn’t going to have time to do the jobs she normally did around the house. So finally they reached a compromise. Rosie was to receive half-pay, unless she earned less than that in the week from gardening, in which case the Cooks would make it up to her normal wage.

  Later the same evening Rosie was just wiping down the kitchen surfaces when the telephone rang.

  ‘It’s for you, Rosie,’ Frank Cook yelled from the hall. ‘It’s Thomas. I’m just packing Donald off to bed. I’ll tell him you’ll be up later to say goodnight.’

  Rosie smiled, not just at the prospect of a chat with Thomas, but at the way the entire family had all gradually adopted her true name. It had started with Donald, then Gareth, and now they all used it, including little Robin, though he only managed ‘Osie’.

  It didn’t unnerve her any more. She hardly ever thought about the events of the past or her family now. As far as she was concerned it said Rosemary Smith on her insurance card, and that was her real name. She had gone so far down the road now that it would be impossible to tell either the Cooks or Gareth the truth. Even guilt had been banished, her father’s sins weren’t hers. She didn’t care where her brothers were, or what they were doing. She had a new life now and she didn’t look over her shoulder.

  Thomas had just got her letter telling him about her business and he wanted to congratulate her. ‘When do you start properly?’ he asked. He knew she’d been gardening for other people part-time for some weeks.

  ‘Monday morning. We’re working from nine till twelve at one place which needs a great deal doing. Then from three to six at another. I just hope the weather clears a bit by then. The rest of the week we’ve slotted in lots more jobs, and eventually we hope to be working from eight in the morning right through till dark.’

  ‘Now don’t you go overdoing it,’ Thomas reminded her. He asked how Gareth was. The last time Rosie had been to London to meet him, she’d stayed at Thomas’s flat overnight and the three of them had gone out together for supper.

  ‘He’s fine, he’s got his promotion to fireman and he’s backwards and forwards all day to Brighton.’

  ‘Has his mother come round yet?’

  Rosie sighed. ‘Not really. But then I told you in a letter how it was when I went over for Sunday dinner, didn’t I?’

  It was the same weekend she had stayed at Thomas’s. Gareth had come to collect her on his motorbike on the Sunday morning and promised everything would be fine. It wasn’t as bad as the first visit, but that was mainly because Mr Jones and Owen were there too. They were very nice, as warm and friendly as Gareth was, but his mother had stayed tight-lipped the entire time. She improved marginally as Rosie was leaving and offered to knit her a cardigan. Rosie hoped that was a sign of acceptance, but still she dreaded another invitation because it was such a strain.

  ‘But you’re still in love?’ Thomas asked. ‘Even if his mother is a witch.’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted, smiling down the telephone. ‘He’s wonderful. It just gets better and better.’

  ‘What plans have you got for your birthday?’ Thomas asked. ‘Are you coming up to London?’

  Rosie wasn’t sure how to answer this. In fact Gareth was intending to take her to a small hotel in Brighton for the weekend, but she couldn’t say that. She was currently working on a white lie which involved a fictitious aunt of Gareth’s who was going to put them up.

  ‘I’m not quite certain yet,’ she said hesitantly. She hated telling lies, especially to Thomas. ‘I’ve got so much on my plate right now and it’s a couple of weeks off anyway.’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay here,’ he said. ‘I’ll even go out for the evening in the cause of young love!’ he added. ‘But let me know. If you aren’t coming, I’ll need to send your present by post.’

  When Thomas rang off, Rosie went upstairs to say goodnight to Donald. He was sitting up in bed reading the Beano.

  ‘Is Thomas coming here to stay?’ he asked.

  ‘Not for a while yet,’ Rosie replied, sitting down on his bed. ‘He just rang to say how pleased he was about our gardening business.’

  ‘Did you tell him about the new wheelbarrow?’

  Rosie smiled. Mr Cook had brought them a brand new aluminium one which was a great deal lighter than their old wooden one. Donald loved it. He treated it like another man would his first car.

  ‘No, I left that for you to tell him next time he comes’ she said. ‘Now it’s time you went to sleep.’

  Donald obediently put down his comic and snuggled down under the covers. Rosie moved closer to tuck him in and kiss him goodnight.

  ‘Rosie,’ he said thoughtfully, looking up at her. ‘If you marry Gareth, will you go away and leave me?’

  Rosie was stunned for a moment. At night she sometimes pondered on this herself, wondering how Donald would react if she were to leave, and also how she would feel about leaving him. But she hadn’t realize
d Donald was smart enough to think this through for himself.

  The truth of the matter was that it would be a huge wrench leaving him. He had a place in her heart that no one else could ever fill. He was brother, child and friend all rolled into one. She looked at him now and saw the complete trust in his blue eyes.

  ‘I hope that if we do get married, then we’ll be able to live somewhere near here,’ she said truthfully. ‘And we’ll carry on with our gardening while Gareth drives his trains. But you mustn’t worry about that. Even if we do get married, it won’t be for a long time yet.’

  Two weeks later, on a Saturday afternoon, just a couple of days after Rosie’s seventeenth birthday, she and Gareth were up in the bedroom on the second floor of the Regent guest-house in Brighton.

  ‘They must know I’m not really Mrs Jones,’ Rosie said, spluttering with laughter. ‘I bet they’re all talking about us down there.’

  Gareth had bought her a wedding ring from Wool-worth’s and she’d taken great pains to display it. But even in her new green coat and smart brown velour side-tilted hat, she knew she couldn’t disguise how young she was or conceal her embarrassed blushes when the landlady asked them if they’d like early morning tea in bed tomorrow.

  ‘We will be married one day’, Gareth said, pulling her into his arms and showering her face with kisses. ‘Imagine having a bedroom just like this one.’

  Rosie looked around the room gleefully. From when she’d been a small child she had always looked at hotels and guest-houses in Weston-super-Mare and wondered what it must be like to stay in one. She wasn’t a bit disappointed by the Regent. It had red and gold carpet right up the stairs, and the sort of striped wallpaper she had always imagined rich people had in their homes. A quick glimpse of the dining-room had revealed more elegance, snowy white tablecloths on each table, and napkins standing up like little pyramids. But this room to her mind was almost as nice as Mr and Mrs Cook’s bedroom: a big double bed, a kidney-shaped dressing-table with a chintz frill around it, and better still it overlooked the promenade and the sea.

  She wasn’t going to worry now about how she would describe Gareth’s Auntie Mary in Brighton when she got back home. They needed to be alone together. If she was old enough to run a little business, then she was old enough to spend the night with the man she loved.

  ‘Shall we go out and explore?’ Gareth asked. ‘Tea isn’t until half past six and I’m starving now.’

  ‘It’s “dinner” in posh places,’ Rosie giggled. ‘But yes, let’s go out. I want to look at the sea.’

  It was very cold and windy on the promenade, the sky like lead, but Rosie turned up the collar of her new coat, pulled her hat on more securely, tucked her hand into Gareth’s pocket, and gazed at the sea in delight. The only proper resort she’d been to before was Weston-super-Mare, and though it had a lovely sandy beach while this one had only pebbles, the sea had been brown, not the clear, greeny blue it was here. The waves were huge, crashing down with such noise and force that it was hard to hear what Gareth was saying. She loved it. She wanted to run down the beach, wave her arms around and shout like Donald did when he was excited.

  They went on the pier and put some pennies in the slot machines. Gareth tried to win her a teddy bear by working a mechanical crane, but the money ran out before he managed to grab it. They had a hot-dog each and some candyfloss, then went on the dodgems.

  Later in the afternoon they found the Lanes, where all the little antique shops were. Rosie thought it was a bit like Hampstead and insisted that she paid for them to have tea and cakes in a posh tea shop with bow windows.

  It was even better inside than it was outside, with a roaring fire, copper pots hanging from the beams, and embroidered tablecloths. Rosie gasped as the waitress brought them a two-tiered glass stand with at least a dozen cakes on it. She waited till the girl was out of earshot and leaned closer to Gareth. ‘Surely they don’t expect us to eat them all?’

  She thought Gareth looked like a real man-about-town. He was wearing his dark suit and he’d borrowed a grey tweed overcoat from Owen.

  ‘I think they just charge us for what we eat,’ he said nervously, looking around to check on what other people were doing. ‘I’ve never been anywhere like this before.’

  ‘We’ll soon get used to living like this,’ Rosie said airily, as she poured the tea. ‘One day when I’m a famous gardener we’ll eat out like this every day.’

  Gareth didn’t laugh and she sensed she had hurt his feelings. ‘You’ll be driving the Flying Scotsman by then,’ she said quickly.

  He took her hand across the table and for a moment she thought he was going to do something romantic like kiss her hand, but instead he looked at her nails. ‘You won’t be welcome in smart places with those,’ he said sharply.

  Rosie snatched her hand away, cut to the quick with embarrassment. All her nails were broken, and although she’d scrubbed them well they did look awful. She also had calluses on her palms from digging, and a few scratches. All at once she noticed that the wedding ring was beginning to tarnish too.

  ‘Your hands aren’t so perfect either,’ she snapped back. ‘And don’t be nasty about the gardening, otherwise I’ll go home.’

  Gareth apologized and they moved on to talk of other things, but Rosie found herself terribly aware of her hands. And when she handed Gareth a ten-shilling note under the table to pay for the tea she knew he hated accepting it.

  After all they had eaten during the afternoon, Rosie found it hard to do justice to the braised steak dinner served at the guest-house. Gareth had no such problem: he wolfed it down and finished up Rosie’s too. There were only four other guests. A middle-aged couple who kept looking across at Rosie and Gareth and smiling, and two elderly ladies who complained about everything.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ Gareth asked when they’d finished. It was only just after seven, and the wind had grown even stronger while they were eating. It rattled the window frames and made them very aware of just how cold it would be outside. ‘We could go to the pictures. I noticed that Genevieve is on just up the road.’

  Rosie felt stuffed with food and so sleepy that she really fancied just going upstairs to cuddle, but she felt sure the landlady would earmark them as a couple away for a dirty weekend if they did that, so she pretended to be enthusiastic.

  The walk in the cold wind woke Rosie up again, and the film was as wonderful as all the critics had said. They stopped in a pub on the way back and Rosie had her first port and lemon, which Gareth told her was what ladies drank. She didn’t enjoy it much and thought it tasted like cough mixture. But she liked the effect. It made her feel all warm inside, so she had a second one.

  Gareth was in bed when Rosie came back along the passage from the bathroom in her nightdress. ‘I was beginning to think you’d run out on me,’ he said, sitting up. ‘What on earth have you been doing all this time?’

  ‘None of your business,’ she laughed, cheered by the fact he was wearing a pair of pyjamas. She hopped into bed beside him.

  She had in fact spun out washing and cleaning her teeth because she was suddenly and inexplicably stricken by panic. Gareth had always maintained that they would wait until they were married before making love properly, but Rosie thought it might be a different story once they were tucked up in that big bed. During the summer, out in the fields around Mayfield, there had been many times when they had come very close to going the whole way; all that really held them back was the fear of being seen by someone. Suppose they couldn’t help themselves tonight? What if she got pregnant? She wanted to marry Gareth more than anything else in the world, but she didn’t want to get pregnant; not just yet.

  Gareth pulled the cord above the bed to turn off the light, then drew Rosie into his arms. The wind was howling, waves were pounding on the shore, and it felt so good to be in the warm listening to it.

  ‘I’m sorry I said that about your hands this afternoon,’ Gareth remarked unexpectedly, cuddling her tightly. ‘I
don’t know why I say things like that. Sometimes I’m just like my mum.’

  ‘I love you anyway,’ she said, wriggling still closer and lifting her face to kiss him. Passion flared up the instant her lips touched his. They rolled together, kissing, stroking, fondling and holding. Her nightdress came off, then Gareth’s pyjamas, and as their two naked bodies ground against one another, their desire intensified.

  Gareth licked and sucked at her breasts until she was crying out for more, wantonly directing his fingers into her. She was swept along by a huge tidal wave of pleasure, growing ever closer to the point of release she’d only found before with her own fingers. She had lost all control, her earlier fears were forgotten. All that mattered now was fulfilment. She writhed under him, aching for the moment when he would lose his self-control and take her. But as she clawed at his back, thrusting her hips closer to him, he suddenly moved away from her, turned and went down under the bedclothes. He pushed her legs apart and began kissing her private parts.

  Astonishment made her stiffen. She had never heard of men doing such a thing, and it seemed a very crude act. Even worse, Gareth’s chin was stubbly and it rasped against the lips of her vagina.

  ‘It hurts,’ she whispered, trying to move his head away from her. But if he heard, he showed no sign of it. With one hand he spread her thighs wider apart, and with the other he thrust his cock into her mouth, giving her no chance for further protest.

  Linda had once spoken of this; she had called it ‘giving a man a gobble’. Judging by the cheerful way she’d said it, she didn’t find it repulsive at all. Mary had taken the opposite view. She’d said it was disgusting and no man would ever stick his thing in her mouth and live to tell the tale. At that time Rosie had never even held an erect penis in her hand, but she had had the idea that if you were really in love with a man you’d probably want to please him.