Rosie

by Lesley Pearse

  Rosie began to cry. It had all seemed so simple earlier. She would tell him this shameful dreadful secret and he would get angry enough to bring out whatever it was that was troubling him. Yet all she’d succeeded in doing was giving him more anguish.

  ‘For God’s sake, get angry!’ she suddenly roared out. ‘You are allowed to be angry. It’s quite normal! Or did you lose the ability to show your feelings when you lost your leg?’

  He straightened up with a jerk, his lean face flushed and his lips curled back.

  ‘Angry! I’m more than angry, I’m furious!’ he said in a rasping voice. ‘But there’s no one left to take it out on, is there? Your father’s been hanged, Donald’s virtually destroyed Seth, and your other brother is in hiding somewhere. What do you want me to do, Rosie? Beat the stuffing out of you to show what a big man I am? That’s what the men in your family do, isn’t it? But I couldn’t even hurt you – one punch and I’d probably fall over. I’m no use to anyone.’

  ‘I said get angry, not feel sorry for yourself,’ she snapped back. ‘So you’ve lost a leg – you’ve still got plenty of other things going for you. You’ve got two eyes, two hands and a fine brain. What’s a missing leg?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what a missing leg means,’ Thomas snarled, standing up and glowering down at her. ‘It means you can’t run to protect a woman you love, you can’t fight for her, and she’ll never want you anyway.’

  Rosie could only stare back into his angry brown eyes in amazement. But as the full realization of what he’d admitted came to her, she felt deep shame at having goaded him into revealing it.

  ‘Oh Thomas,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’d better go,’ he said, turning away. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Forget it.’

  Rosie got up and grabbed his arm. ‘You were right to say it if it’s the truth,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But I don’t agree a woman wouldn’t want you just because you couldn’t fight to protect her.’

  Thomas gave a tight little laugh and looked scornfully at her. ‘Wake up, Rosie! So a woman might be able to love a man with a heart condition, a blind man or even one with an incurable disease. There’s a touch of romanticism to that. But not one with an ugly stump. I know because other women have seen it, and it killed anything that might have happened stone dead.’

  Rosie felt the deep-seated inner pain that had prompted such a speech and it made her wince. She had believed she knew him, but just as she had locked away that image of Heather and her brothers, unable to speak of it, so he had locked this fear of rejection away too. She had always loved him as a friend, confidant, sometimes brother and father figure too. But she wasn’t seeing him in any one of those roles now. He was just a man who meant the world to her.

  ‘A woman who truly loved you for yourself wouldn’t be put off,’ she said tartly. ‘And a man can fight for a woman without using his fists. Ever heard of wooing? It’s insulting to women to suggest that every single female who might be attracted to you is bound to drop you after one glimpse of your stump. You weren’t the only man during the war to lose a limb, and I’m damn sure many of those others have fallen in love, married and had children.’

  Thomas squinted at Rosie, the sun in his eyes. ‘So how does a man start wooing a woman he’s known since she was a little ragamuffin?’ he said softly.

  Rosie smiled. She didn’t have the least idea of how to try to shift a long-standing friendship into a different gear.

  ‘You’re the one with all the experience,’ she said. ‘But I always thought kissing was the way most people get started.’

  ‘I’m too old for you,’ he groaned.

  ‘That’s a pathetic excuse,’ she said, and knowing he wasn’t going to make the first move, she did. She stepped forward, took his face in both hands and kissed him lingeringly on the lips.

  His arms came round her and suddenly it was him who was kissing her with sensual, soft lips which made her every nerve-ending tingle. Rosie knew then that she hadn’t made a fatal mistake; she felt the same hunger she could sense in him.

  ‘You’re some sort of demon kisser,’ she said, when he eventually let her go.

  ‘Well, everything else is intact, apart from my leg,’ he laughed softly, smoothing her bruised eye with his hand, his eyes glowing as he looked into hers. ‘My heart, soul and feelings. I’ve wanted to kiss you for such a long, long time.’

  They stayed in the garden until the sun moved away from the lawn and they were reminded it was after five. Kissing, holding and talking, but this time not merely about the past or recent events, but of the future too. Thomas finally told her about his painting and his hopes for an exhibition in Hampstead.

  Rosie felt a huge surge of excitement. She had seen him sketching occasionally when he came down here. On her last visit to his flat she’d thought she smelled paint, but as she’d seen no actual evidence that he’d really taken up his old hobby she’d forgotten about it.

  ‘When will this exhibition be?’ she gasped.

  ‘Probably in November,’ he said, thrilled by her reaction. ‘If people like my work, maybe I won’t need to stay in London, mending clocks and watches,’ he said. ‘I could move to the country and work there.’

  ‘While I garden?’ she asked laughingly. ‘Is that what you mean?’

  He held her face tenderly in both hands, looking into her eyes. ‘It’s too soon to speak of such things, Rosie. I didn’t mean to admit my feelings for you today, it wasn’t fair of me after the terrible ordeal you’ve just been through. But now I have, it puts you in an impossible position.’

  ‘It doesn’t!’ she said indignantly.

  ‘It does,’ he insisted. ‘You might at this moment think you share my feelings and even believe we can build a future together. But it could just be sympathy and in a few months you might very well see things differently.’

  Rosie shrugged. ‘I won’t.’

  Her stubborn expression made him laugh. ‘We’ll see. Let’s take things in easy stages. I’d like you to come up to London for the exhibition. I’d also like to show you around and introduce you to a few people who aren’t country yokels. But don’t let’s think beyond that for now.’

  As they walked back to The Grange, Rosie felt as if she was walking on air. Just a few hours ago she could see no further than a day ahead. Everything was flat and grey. Now she felt as if someone had just switched a black-and-white film to glorious Technicolor.

  ‘Something’s changed, hasn’t it?’ Norah said as Rosie came bouncing in after seeing Thomas off at the station that evening.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosie agreed, and just stood there in the kitchen grinning foolishly. ‘I suppose so. He’s kind of moved on from just being a friend.’

  Norah smiled. She had suspected at the time of Miss Pemberton’s death that Thomas’s feelings were more than just friendship. ‘I’m very glad for you both,’ she said honestly. ‘I hope it works out.’

  ‘Do you?’ Rosie’s eyes were as big as millstones. She had half expected her employer to throw cold water on the idea.

  Norah was just about to caution Rosie that she’d been through a terrible ordeal only days before and might be on the rebound from Gareth. But one glance again at the happy face in front of her stopped her.

  ‘I do indeed. You have a great deal in common.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s too old for me, then?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Maybe I would if you were any other girl,’ she said with a warm smile. ‘But you’ve always been so mature. In fact I couldn’t imagine you having anything in common with a boy of your own age. The only worry I have now is that this might be a reaction to what happened the other night. So take it slowly, Rosie.’

  Two months after the afternoon in the garden at Swallows, Rosie was out in the greenhouse potting some cuttings. It was an October Saturday morning and she and Donald were busier than ever tidying up gardens and planting spring bulbs. But it was raining hard, so she’d opted to stay where she was while Donald went to a job on
his own. He liked rain, it never kept him indoors.

  Everything was calm again in the village. Seth Parker was all but forgotten, since it was pronounced he was unfit to stand trial. Everyone assumed this was as a result of his injuries. It was only Rosie and those closest to her who knew the truth. Seth was considered by the psychiatrists to be insane. He would spend the rest of his life in a secure mental hospital.

  For Rosie who had a real idea of just how grim that would be, it was more appropriate for Seth than hanging. She had been sent a report by the psychiatrist handling Seth’s case and it seemed all her brother’s problems were connected to his mother deserting him. He idolized his father, yet hated him too because he held him responsible for Ethel leaving. In the same way he wanted to punish every woman he met to get back at his mother.

  Rosie still didn’t know if her father would ever be granted a posthumous pardon. The word of a man mentally unfit to stand trial could hardly be believed. But she had moved on from agonizing over such things. She felt happy and secure again. She had Donald for company, who was none the worse for that night in the woods – if anything it had made him sharper and more confident. Often in the evenings they’d slip across to the pub for a drink and she had got to know many other people in her own age group. Most Sundays Thomas came down, and she’d been up to London to spend the day with him a couple of times. She’d made long-term plans too: she was going to look for clients who wanted their gardens designed rather than just tidied up. Thomas had offered to take her rough layouts and produce professional-looking scale plans for her.

  Everything was just about perfect. Except Thomas’s reluctance to take things a step further.

  He kissed her all the time, so passionately she was sure it would soon lead to something more. But he was always the one who put the brakes on. Rosie wanted him so badly she could think of nothing else, but when she told him this he laughed and made excuses: she was on the rebound from Gareth; she might get pregnant; they had to be absolutely certain first; he wanted the first time to be somewhere special. Anything but the truth, which was that he was afraid of her seeing his stump.

  Maybe if he’d invited her to his flat she could have pushed him into a corner. But Thomas made excuses as to why he couldn’t do that either. His living-room was now a studio and was a mess; he didn’t want her to see it.

  It was the sound of the kitchen door opening that drew Rosie out of her thoughts and made her look up from her work. Norah Cook was rushing down the garden, protecting her newly set hair from the rain with an apron over her head.

  ‘Oh Rosie, Gareth’s here!’ she called out breathlessly before she even reached the greenhouse. ‘I told him I didn’t think you’d want to see him, but he said you’ve got to. I think he wants to apologize. I couldn’t do anything but invite him in.’

  Rosie was so surprised she couldn’t think of anything to say for a moment.

  ‘Gareth apologize?’ she managed eventually. ‘Well, there’s a turn-up. He’d better come out here – I’ve got a lot to do and my shoes are muddy.’

  Norah half smiled. It wasn’t that long since Rosie would have flown into the house, combed her hair and put on some lipstick before seeing him. Clearly she really had got over him.

  ‘Okay, I’ll send him out,’ she said, and ran back up the garden.

  But as Gareth appeared on the terrace, looking very handsome in a new navy blue suit, Rosie’s heart did an unexpected somersault. He’d lost a little weight and let his hair grow a little longer. The endearing curls were back, and she was afraid her old feelings for him were too.

  She stubbornly continued potting her cuttings, not even looking at him as he sprinted down the garden. She wished she wasn’t wearing such baggy, dirty trousers and that she’d washed her hair last night. She would have felt more confident if she was looking good.

  ‘Hullo, Rosie,’ he said from outside the door of the greenhouse. ‘Have we really got to talk out here? Can’t you come indoors with me?’

  ‘I’m too busy for that,’ she said, trying very hard to look disinterested. ‘You’ll have to come in here. But mind how you go, it’s a bit mucky.’

  He came right in and perched gingerly on an upturned orange-box. ‘You don’t seem very surprised to see me,’ he said, wrinkling his nose in disapproval at the stink of the compost.

  Rosie merely shrugged. She filled another flowerpot with soil. ‘Should I be?’

  ‘Well, I thought you would be,’ he said. ‘You see, I came down to tell you I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry about what?’ She glanced round at him. He might look the way he did when she first fell for him as he’d lost some weight and let his hair grow, but he still seemed as full of himself as ever, and she could smell beer. Obviously he’d popped into the pub for Dutch courage before coming. ‘Sorry that it wasn’t my dad who was the murderer but my brother instead? Or sorry I nearly got killed too?’ She gave him a long, cold stare.

  ‘I was a mug,’ he said, hanging his head. ‘I’ve missed you so much. I want to start all over again.’

  Night after night after he’d sent that terse, cold note, Rosie had dreamed of this scenario. If he’d turned up then, she knew she would have forgiven and forgotten because she needed him so badly. Even if he’d written or called to show his sympathy after Seth abducted her, she might have thought more kindly of him. But everything was different now. She had found not only that she could survive without him, but in fact she was a great deal happier. He would have to crawl at her feet before she could forgive him.

  Silently she listened to his long litany of woes. He couldn’t concentrate at work, he was off his food, no other girl would ever replace her, even his mother had called him a fool to ditch her. He missed coming down here at weekends, he was prepared to move to Tonbridge now, he wouldn’t even mind living in the country.

  She waited, thinking that any minute he would come to the crucial part and admit what a louse he’d been and show concern for what she’d suffered. She expected him to want to know the details of what Seth had done to her, to be angry that the police hadn’t given her better protection. Or even to ask how Donald had been since that night, and if the rest of the Cook family had been affected. But there was nothing like that. All he could talk about was himself.

  She let him go on, nodding as if in approval as he spoke of some new houses being built near Tonbridge and how he thought they could put a deposit down on one. But when he got round to saying his mother was prepared to give them her old three-piece suite as she was tired of it, Rosie gripped the edge of her workbench in anger. All at once she wondered how on earth she’d ever imagined herself to be in love with this pompous, self-centred ass.

  ‘How nice of your mother,’ she finally blurted out. ‘How thoughtful of her to offer me her furniture,’ she added, pausing for just one moment to allow the sarcasm to filter through. ‘But you can tell her from me I don’t want anything of hers in my home, especially not her son.’

  Gareth looked astonished. ‘But I thought –’

  ‘You thought you were such a catch that you only had to turn up here and say you’re sorry and I’d leap into your arms,’ she retorted sneeringly. ‘Let me spell it out for you. I’m glad you ditched me when you did, Gareth. I found out then how worthless you were. If you had turned up here today in a gold-plated Cadillac and offered me a place to live in, I’d still tell you to shove off.’

  ‘But, Rosie –’

  ‘Don’t “But, Rosie” me,’ she snarled at him. ‘I expect a man who said he wanted to marry me to be prepared to die for me. He’d certainly catch the next train here if he thought I was in danger or needed his support. I don’t want a man who can’t share everything, good and bad. Or one who does what his mother tells him to, who cares more about himself, trains and motorbikes than my feelings.’

  He managed to look just a little chastened. ‘But it was your fault. You didn’t tell me about yourself.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. But then you never really asked m
e anything, did you? I’ll tell you now why that was, because you were never that interested in me, not as a person. The kind of man I want and need would want to know every last thing about me. From the moment of my birth onwards. He’d care about my interests, want to discuss everything I do, dream and think about.’

  ‘Men aren’t like that,’ Gareth snorted scornfully. ‘Except in books and films. You’re living in a fantasy world.’

  ‘I know several men who are,’ she retorted, beginning to enjoy herself. ‘And one in particular. I just wish I hadn’t wasted two years of my life with you, when I could have been with him.’

  Gareth’s mouth fell open and a crimson flush crept up his neck. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Thomas, of course,’ she said airily.

  ‘You fancy a cripple?’ he sneered.

  She saw red and leapt forward to slap his face. ‘He is not a cripple,’ she roared. ‘He may have lost a leg, but he’s twice the man you are. He was just your age when he had it cut off, without anaesthetic, miles from anywhere in a jungle. You couldn’t even cope with a bad finger unless your mother was there to dress it for you. You are the real cripple, Gareth, not my Thomas. Now get out of here before I do you an injury.’

  Gareth backed away to the door, but he hesitated before moving out into the rain. ‘All right, I’ll go, if that’s the way you want to be. But there isn’t a train until four-thirty and I’ll get soaked if I go down to the station in this. Can’t we go indoors and have a cup of tea?’

  All at once Rosie saw the funny side of it all. She giggled. Gareth looked baffled. ‘I can’t see what’s so funny. My new suit will be ruined.’

  The giggle turned into a shriek of laughter. ‘You may have two legs, but you’ve only got half a brain,’ she said, giving him a push out into the rain. ‘Did you really think a new suit and your mother’s old armchairs would do anything for me? Didn’t you learn anything about me in our time together?’