Rosie

by Lesley Pearse

  As much as she loved and wanted to marry Gareth, she also wanted to work at her chosen career. Could she do that if she was Mrs Jones, the train driver’s wife?

  May be she was being ridiculously pessimistic. Other girls of her own age thought no further than getting married, having a home of their own, and waiting for their first baby. Wouldn’t that be fulfilling enough for her?

  Being close to Gareth’s mother was another problem. In two years Rosie hadn’t grown to like the mean-spirited, sharp-tongued woman any better. Doubtless it was Mrs Jones who had poured cold water on the idea of a country cottage, who insisted her son could never be happy with Rosie unless he got her away from the Cooks to London. Once they were married, Rosie knew the woman would poke her nose into every aspect of their life. But it was Gareth’s dislike of the country that worried her even more. It said they were totally incompatible.

  She climbed up on to a stile and sat down on it. In front of her was a field of golden wheat, gently swaying in the breeze. Beyond that was a small wood where nightingales sang. As she sat there revelling in the beauty and tranquillity of the scene, she wondered how anyone could prefer London’s grimy streets to this. She remembered how Donald had been when she had first brought him out here. He had sat on this very stile just gazing at the view with a broad smile on his face. Like her he never tired of it, whether it was spring when the first bright green shoots sprang out from the soil, autumn when the farmer ploughed the field and hundreds of birds came down for the rich pickings he uncovered for them, or winter when the bare soil was frozen into stiff, frosted furrows. It was at its most beautiful now, yet Gareth had remained unmoved by it.

  In fact, Rosie had found few things that did move Gareth. The sight of the Brighton Belle or the Flying Scotsman with a full head of steam got him excited. His eyes grew misty when he looked at a powerful motorbike, and he became emotional when Wales beat England at rugby. But nature didn’t touch him at all.

  There were other areas in their relationship which worried her too. He could go out drinking with his pals in London and cheerfully spend half his wages in one night, but with her he insisted on getting the cheapest seats at the pictures, and if they went out for the day somewhere, he would always find a grubby little back street café to eat in.

  He was also a very selfish lover. Rosie sighed deeply. Perhaps she was to blame for this. Why didn’t she tell him she felt like a whore when he pushed her into masturbating him without trying to please her too? He seemed to think that protecting her from getting pregnant was an act of selfless love, but to her it appeared unnatural, cold and calculating. The trouble was she’d left it too long to start complaining now.

  ‘So what is it you love about him?’ she asked herself aloud.

  That question was like asking why someone adored the sea, thrilled to a particular piece of music or wept at a film. She couldn’t analyse what it was about him that made her pulse quicken as she ran to meet him at the station, her knees shake when he kissed her; it was pure emotion. She wanted to make love with him, walk down leafy lanes holding his hand, cook him meals, have his children. It didn’t make sense. But then what made some men want to climb mountains, others to be a butcher? Everyone was different, and they didn’t march to the same drumbeat.

  Above all else, though, Rosie was stubborn. In the main it was one of her greatest assets: she never gave up on a difficult job, finishing it when everyone else was sure she’d abandon it. She wasn’t going to give up on Gareth either, even if common sense told her it might be better to. Next time she saw him she would try and iron out some of the serious differences between them. There had to be a solution.

  Back at The Grange, Norah and Frank were taking a stroll round the garden together. It was at its best: the rain had made the lawn a lush green again and the herbaceous border was a riot of colour. Donald was indoors. They could hear him playing ‘Rock Around the Clock’ on the radiogram. He loved rock ‘n’ roll music; he bought a new record every week with his gardening money, but this one was still his favourite. Often in the evenings he and Rosie practised jiving together. Donald was surprisingly good at it, as long as he didn’t get too excited.

  ‘What’s happened to Rosie and Gareth?’ Frank asked his wife. ‘They used to seem so perfect together, but not any more.’

  ‘I know,’ Norah sighed. ‘I thought they were for ever too, but Gareth’s changed, hasn’t he? He’s becoming so opinionated and pompous. Did you hear him holding forth to Michael on Saturday about third-class travel being abolished? Poor Michael didn’t know what to say, he didn’t have any views on it one way or another, and to hear Gareth going on you’d think we were aristocrats with no understanding of working-class people.’

  Frank stopped by the pond and sat down on one of the big stones beside it. The water lilies were so thick on the surface he had to part them to see the fish below.

  ‘It’s the way he belittles Rosie which worries me more than anything,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I can understand his sarcasm towards Donald. He’s jealous of Rosie’s affection for him. But he never misses an opportunity to ridicule her gardening. You’d think he’d be so proud that she’s entirely self-taught. She astounds me the way she’s learned all about fertilizers and making compost, laying paths and building walls, along with acquiring an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of plants. I want to shake him and knock some sense into him.’

  ‘I suppose frustration is at the bottom of it,’ Norah said quietly, sitting down beside her husband and leaning against his shoulder. ‘I used to worry that Rosie would come home one day and tell us she was pregnant. I’m very glad of course that they’re so sensible and controlled, but it’s not exactly normal in a couple who love each other so much.’

  Frank grinned and picked up her hand to kiss her finger tips affectionately. ‘No one could ever accuse us of being sensible and controlled,’ he said. ‘I seem to remember we were like rabbits once we got started.’

  Norah blushed. Why she didn’t find herself pregnant before they married had always been a mystery to her. ‘Somehow I don’t think the control is on Rosie’s side,’ she said. ‘I think he makes all the rules. I suspect that fearsome mother of his has warped him to a certain extent. Have you noticed he rarely reveals anything personal about himself?’

  ‘Well, I suppose we could say the same about Rosie,’ Frank said evenly.

  ‘No, it’s not the same,’ Norah disagreed. ‘Rosie doesn’t like discussing her childhood, but she is open about her feelings and about what she wants out of life. I feel as if I know her inside out.’

  Frank smiled. ‘So what does she want, aside from Gareth?’

  ‘The same as most women. A decent home of her own, a kind, loving man and a parcel of kids. Sometimes I’m very glad she feels so strongly about Donald. But for him she might have gone off to London a long while ago. At least it’s holding her back from making any rash decisions.’

  They both looked round as their son stepped out on to the terrace by the kitchen. He was pretending to play the guitar and was entirely oblivious to his parents watching him. Hardly a day went by without them considering how much Rosie had enriched his life. They liked her for herself, but they loved her for what she’d given Donald.

  No one in the village was suspicious of him now. They knew he was nicknamed Dopey Donald, but because Rosie pushed him and encouraged him, he had found his niche as a ‘character’ rather than someone to be feared or avoided. His love and appreciation of gardening had endeared him to a great many people, and the fact that he’d proved himself to be reliable and hard-working made people trust him. Yet however steady and confident Donald was now, both his parents knew that when Rosie did finally leave, he would find it hard without her. She was, after all, his one true friend.

  ‘I suspect Gareth will become overbearing once she’s married to him. He’s very set in his ways and he doesn’t approve of women with minds of their own,’ Frank said with a frown. ‘Do you think we should talk this over with
Thomas? Maybe he could influence Rosie. She sets great store by his opinion.’

  Norah didn’t answer for a little while. In the two years Rosie had been with them, Thomas had been a regular visitor and he’d become a close friend to the entire family. He was a fascinating man, intelligent, sensitive, warm-hearted and great company. His experience and disability had given him great insight into others, and he had a wonderful sense of humour. Norah often wondered if there was more to the friendship between him and Rosie than just the nasty business at Carrington Hall. She sensed some sort of deep, mysterious and unexplained bond between them. It was almost as if Thomas had known Rosie since she was a small child, though she knew that wasn’t possible.

  ‘It might be an idea,’ Norah said. ‘But Gareth resents Thomas almost as much as he resents Donald. What a jealous man he’s turned out to be! Rosie is so smart about most things, but she’s blind and deaf where he’s concerned. You say you want to knock some sense into Gareth – well, I wish I could do the same to her.’

  While Norah and Frank Cook were caught up in their concern for Rosie, Freda Barnes, former matron of Carrington Hall, was thinking about her too. But her thoughts were entirely malevolent.

  Two years on from the humiliating ejection from her job and home, she was still in the same basement flat she’d been forced to take in London’s Camden Town. The severely straitened circumstances she was compelled to live in, the loss of prestige, family and friends, had turned her into a rapidly ageing and bitter woman.

  She had two rooms, a kitchen and a lavatory. The bath was in the kitchen, and with a cover on top it doubled as a table. The bedroom walls ran with damp, so she was forced to eat, live and sleep in just one gloomy room that never saw a ray of sunshine.

  The neighbours who saw the short, fat woman with iron-grey straggly hair waddling down the street each evening were unlikely to even pass the time of day with her, much less guess that for most of her life she’d been a respected and highly qualified nurse. They had heard that she snarled at the young couple in the flat above her for taking their rubbish down to the dustbins outside her door before ten in the morning and banged on the ceiling with a broom when their baby cried in the night. In Camden Town almost everyone was poor, so they didn’t mind the woman’s shabby, grubby appearance. But in a place where life was tough for everyone, they had no time for disagreeable people with sour faces.

  Freda didn’t want anyone to speak to her. She thought her noisy, common neighbours were well beneath her, and for the first few weeks after she moved in at 13A Harmood Street she thought it was only a matter of time before she found a post as housekeeper or lady’s companion and moved to more dignified surroundings. But soon it became clear that no one was going to employ a woman of her age without references. Prospective employers guessed by her manner and speech that she’d once had a position of authority, and their suspicions were aroused when she claimed she had spent the last fourteen years nursing a sick relative. As the weeks turned to months, and she put on a great deal more weight, her slovenly appearance and a certain desperation in her eyes precluded every type of work but office-cleaning.

  She fought against this for some time. It was demeaning and poorly paid. But as she began to eat into her savings, she just had to accept it was the only job she was likely to be offered. Worse still, she realized that the dark, damp flat was to become her permanent home.

  Apathy set in. At first she intended to paint the flat, buy new curtains and join the local church to meet new people. But as each day passed her will slowly weakened to the point where it became difficult to even take a bath, wash her clothes and maintain a proper diet.

  Now, two years on she hadn’t noticed that the black mould had crept right up the walls, that she hadn’t dusted in weeks, or that the newspapers she bought daily were growing into a small mountain in the corner of the room. She stayed in bed until ten, walked to the shops to buy her newspaper, then came home to read it cover to cover. At five she left the flat to walk to Tottenham Court Road to start work. It was usually around eleven when she came home and she went straight to bed. Sometimes a whole week could go by without her speaking to a soul.

  Once she’d grown used to the idea of office-cleaning, she did find that it had its advantages. She worked alone in the narrow four-storey office block and it was easy enough to clean. Built in 1947, it had the advantage of being modern with all its floors covered in lino. Besides the small foyer which she had to scrub and polish, she had only to clean the toilets, sweep, dust the desks and filing cabinets, and empty the waste-paper bins. She could easily do the entire job in three hours, but she spun it out to five by reading any newspapers that had been left behind.

  Sundays were the worst day of the week because there was no work to go to and all the shops were closed. The empty, lonely hours stretched out in front of her and as she sat by her window, seeing only the feet of people passing by up on the street level, she was always reminded of Carrington Hall. Sundays had been so pleasant there. The vicar would call for a service in the morning and in the afternoon she was frequently invited out to tea; then she would go to church in the evening and quite often there was supper later to round off the day.

  There were so many things she missed, not just from the Hall but from her entire nursing career. Her clothes had been washed and ironed in the laundry, meals were cooked for her, her room cleaned. Junior staff had looked up to her, and there had been discussions with doctors and meetings with patients’ relatives who were always so unfailingly grateful.

  Lionel Brace-Coombes’s last words to her still rang in her ears. He had called her ‘an affront to the nursing profession. For your own twisted ends you allowed mentally deficient patients to be abused and neglected. You betrayed the trust I had in you by lining your own pocket with money intended to maintain care and safety in Carrington Hall. I have enough evidence against you to have you sent to prison; the only reason I am not pressing criminal charges now is because I believe by doing so that several innocent young women in my employ might be damaged further by being asked to give evidence against you. You will leave here today, but should it ever come to my ears that you have tried to contact any of my staff again, or make trouble for anyone you knew here, I will come down so hard on you that you will live to regret it.’

  Yet her acrimony wasn’t directed at Lionel Brace-Coombes. To her mind it was that guttersnipe Rosie Parker who had wrecked her life – a troublemaking sixteen-year-old who knew nothing of nursing! Each long, miserable day the bitterness towards this girl ate away at her like acid. Night after night she lay awake trying to think of some way of exacting her revenge on Rosie Parker. But she had no idea where the girl was, and even less idea of how to go about finding her.

  Violet Pemberton was the only person likely to know where she was, but Freda knew she’d get no assistance from that quarter. She thought of hiring a private detective, but with less than six hundred pounds to her name in savings she wasn’t in a position to do that. One of the reasons why she read every newspaper she could get hold of was in the hope that the Parker brothers might one day make an appearance in the tabloids. She doubted very much that they’d stayed in Somerset after Seth was acquitted. It was far more likely they’d come to London to live. They might just come up again one day in the news on criminal charges and that would lead her to finding out where their sister was. It was a long shot, but searching the papers daily was better than twiddling her thumbs.

  Today, for the first time since moving to Camden Town, she felt optimistic. She had enough energy to put clean sheets on her bed and to tackle the kitchen. She even intended to have a bath and wash her hair later. All because she was ninety-nine per cent certain she’d tracked Seth Parker down. It had been well over a year ago when she read about a scrap-metal merchant in north London being fined in court for selling lead stolen from churches. It had jogged her memory – hadn’t Cole Parker and both his sons been scrap-metal dealers?

  Time was the one thing she h
ad plenty of, so she got herself a map, marked off areas where scrap yards were likely to be found, and two mornings a weeks she went out looking. She didn’t think for one moment that the Parkers would still be using their own names, but she had pictures of them cut from the newspapers at the time of the trial.

  It was some time before it dawned on her that the negative responses she was getting to her questions in scrap yards might be due to her appearance and manner. It was only when a burly man threatened to turn his dog loose on her that she realized she was perceived as some kind of professional snoop. After rethinking her strategy, she cleaned up her act and posed as a public health inspector, calling on houses close by yards.

  She soon discovered many housewives more than willing to talk. They listed their complaints eagerly, everything from noise, dirt, vermin and fear for their children. Although few of these women knew any employees in the yards by name, they were only too willing to give their views on criminal activity they’d observed. Finally, after some six months, when she had enough useless gossip and hearsay to fill an entire book, one woman in Acton looked at the picture of Seth and said she had seen him at the yard across from her house on several occasions in the past. She said he used to come in a lorry, unload it and then drive away. The reason she remembered him so well was because she hadn’t liked the way he leered at her fifteen-year-old daughter. She said she had written down the name on the side of the lorry – Franklin’s Haulage – because of this.

  Freda had traced that name eventually through another haulage company to London Bridge. She didn’t dare go into the office to inquire. The business was situated under a railway arch, a dank filthy place where two rough-looking men were stripping down an engine, and what passed for an office was just a kind of counter and a few shelves.