Permanent Rose

by Hilary McKay

  ‘All right,’ agreed Rose, and she asked Samantha politely, ‘Are you an artist too?’

  ‘Sort of. I work in graphic design.’

  ‘Not exactly Art!’ Bill murmured, privately to himself, as he fetched orange juice for Rose. ‘Now, Rose! What is the plan? Because Caddy knows I leave tomorrow. Are you staying here with her while I am in New York? Because I must say I don’t…’

  ‘NEW YORK!’ exclaimed Rose. ‘NEW YORK!’

  Suddenly the purpose of all the happenings of her summer became clear to her. The lonely shoplifting game, Indigo’s unwelcome friend David, Michael’s roses and Caddy’s ring. They had brought her to London, and London, it seemed, was only a step from New York. Until that moment Rose had been almost as puzzled as Bill about why she was there, but now she knew. New York.

  New York to Rose was where Tom was. That was all. If someone had said to her, ‘Draw New York,’ she would have drawn a picture of Tom. Under a sign that read, New York.

  The helpless feeling that had tormented her all summer was suddenly gone. Joy fizzed through her like a stream of bubbles.

  ‘NEW YORK!’ she said again, and Bill, not seeming to notice that Rose’s life had been transformed by those two short words said, ‘Yes. Samantha and I are flying over very early tomorrow morning and I must say…’

  ‘NEW YORK TOMORROW MORNING!’ said Rose. ‘OH DADDY! OH DADDY! OH DADDY!’

  ‘Oh sweet!’ said Samantha. ‘Let’s take her with us!’

  ‘OH YES! TAKE ME WITH YOU!’ begged Rose, hands clasped, jumping up and down on a beautiful Chinese rug (in very grubby sandals), ‘OH DADDY PLEASE! OH DADDY PLEASE, PLEASE!’

  ‘Really, Samantha, we did not need this!’ groaned Bill. ‘Rose darling, do you think you would like to take those sandals off? You could leave them by the door…Perhaps I should roll up the rugs…’

  The jetstream of joyful bubbles was slowing down frighteningly quickly. Something was wrong. Some problem with her sandals?

  ‘Please say you will take me to New York,’ she begged.

  ‘Rose. Samantha was joking. Now take off those sandals.’

  It was the sandals.

  ‘I am!’ promised Rose, struggling with straps as she spoke. ‘I am taking them off!’

  ‘Just look at your feet!’

  Feet now.

  Take them off ? Not possible.

  ‘Absolutely filthy, Rose!’

  Filthy.

  ‘I’ll wash them!’ said Rose anxiously.

  ‘Good girl.’

  The bubbles began again. Rose rolled up the rug, handed it to her father, grabbed her sandals, arranged them by the door, and headed for the bathroom dizzy with relief.

  ‘Bill, you never told me she was so little,’ whispered Samantha. ‘How could you bear to leave her?’

  ‘I haven’t left her!’ snapped Bill. ‘I have always been there for her…Always! Oh Rose! That was quick! Now, drink your orange and tell me about Caddy. I will take you to New York…’

  ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ cried Rose, and splashed down her orange juice as she rushed to hug him.

  Bill pulled out a beautiful white handkerchief and hugged Rose with one hand while he mopped up orange juice with the other. ‘…But not now! When you are much older…’

  ‘NO!’ wailed Rose. ‘NO! NO!’

  ‘Please stop making that horrible noise!’

  ‘No, no, no!’ sobbed Rose, thumping his chest as hard as she could with both fists together.

  ‘Rose, I am losing patience here!’

  ‘Please, Daddy, please!’

  ‘Those are not real tears!’

  Rose could no longer reply. The tears, real or not, had doubled her over. They battered her to her knees.

  Samantha could not bear it. She put her arms round Rose and asked her, ‘Have you always wanted to go to New York, Rose sweetheart?’

  ‘NO!’ answered Bill, now quite sure whose side Samantha was on. ‘No she has not! This is ridiculous! This is the first time the thought has crossed her mind! This is a tantrum! Nothing more!’

  Rose knelt on the floor and sobbed on to the sofa (which fortunately was black leather and would wipe clean quite easily). Bill stamped out on to the balcony and peered vainly down the street, looking for Caddy. Samantha held on to Rose and murmured, ‘Hush, sweetheart, hush! Let me think!’

  ‘Samantha, stop it!’ shouted Bill in despair. ‘There is no question of Rose coming! She has no reason to come! She has no seat on the aeroplane! Besides…’

  He paused, waiting for Samantha to look up. When she did he shrugged his shoulders, and mouthed, ‘Passport!’

  That silenced Samantha, because she knew as well as anyone that nobody could travel anywhere without a passport. Unluckily for Bill she did not stay silent. She bent and explained to Rose, ‘Rose sweetheart, I should never have suggested it. You would need a passport…’

  Somehow that word penetrated the misery swamping Rose.

  Passport was not impossible. She made a wet blurry lumpy sort of noise, like a person trying to talk under water. Only someone naturally excellent at understanding underwater speech could possibly have made any sense of it. Samantha was one of those rare people. She translated perfectly.

  ‘Rose says she has her name on your passport, Bill!’

  ‘She says what?’

  ‘She says her name is on your passport.’

  ‘First I’ve heard of it,’ muttered Bill, looking incredibly shifty.

  Rose made more of her noise.

  ‘She says don’t you remember? When you had to get a new passport? And you had to put down her name? And you made a big fuss?’

  ‘I made a big fuss?’ asked Bill. ‘Me?’

  This time Rose’s noise was much more like human speech. She said quite plainly, between hiccups and huge sloshy sniffs, ‘Yes. You made a big fuss to Mummy because of my name. Because you hadn’t seen my birth certificate till then. And you didn’t know she really had called me Permanent Rose. So you had to put Permanent Rose on the passport. And you said what would people think. But you still put it on. Just in case. Like Caddy and Saffy and Indigo.’

  ‘It had slipped my mind,’ said Bill stiffly.

  ‘Please, Daddy, take me to New York and I will be good for ever.’

  ‘No, Rose.’

  ‘Please.’

  Bill said that he was going into the street to look for Caddy and marched out of the room. Samantha said, ‘Rose sweetheart. Stop crying. It’s only making him crosser. Let’s be sensible. Let me ring the airline and see if they’ve any seats. That’s the first thing to do. And Rose…’

  ‘Yes?’ hiccuped Rose.

  ‘Be nice to Bill while we wait for Caddy.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s any use waiting for Caddy.’

  ‘Be nice to him anyway. Please.’

  Rose nodded.

  ‘Now go and wash your face in cool water while I phone.’

  The storm was over. Rose looked at Samantha with sudden hope. She seemed capable of anything.

  Ten minutes later Rose was herself again. More than herself. Clean. Quiet. Sitting on the sofa, sitting on her hands, telling Samantha the news from home. Samantha had telephoned the airline and told her, ‘They’re ringing back. That’s the best I can do just now.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Tell me, what you’ve all been doing this summer.’

  Rose said, ‘Nothing much. Mummy’s been painting the hospital walls…’

  ‘Mummy’s been doing what?’ asked Bill, coming in at that moment and sighing with relief at the transformation Samantha had managed in his absence.

  ‘Painting the hospital walls,’ explained Rose, as nicely as she could. ‘To cheer them up. She did pictures of rude statues for the old people and pictures of home for the children. It gets her out of the shed, Saffy and Sarah say.’

  ‘Eve hides from life in the garden shed,’ explained Bill to Samantha. ‘Doesn’t she, Rose?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Rose. �
��When she’s not at the hospital. Or teaching at the college. Or doing her Young Offenders.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call that list hiding from life,’ remarked Samantha to no one in particular.

  ‘She goes asleep there,’ Rose told her. ‘On an old pink sofa. And she paints pictures in there too. Only Daddy says they’re not exactly Art…’

  ‘Oh does he?’

  ‘Yes. But she hasn’t done much painting this summer.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Too fed up,’ explained Rose devastatingly. ‘Because of…’

  ‘Change the subject, Rose!’ ordered Bill.

  ‘When will the aeroplane people ring?’

  ‘As soon as they can. I told them it’s urgent.’

  ‘Rose,’ said Bill. ‘I want you to understand that you will not be coming with us to New York. For goodness’ sake. And Samantha has only telephoned the airline to put your mind at rest (I presume) that there are no spare places on the plane. And why on earth do you want to go there anyway? I can think of no reason at all unless it is something to do with that American boy Indigo took up with. The one who was always getting into trouble…’

  Inwardly, Rose flinched, but outside she made no sign at all. She was concentrating on being nice. Also she knew that Samantha had not rung the airline to put her mind at rest that there were no seats. She had rung to try and get her a seat.

  ‘Tell me about Indigo’s olden days,’ suggested Samantha.

  ‘They are in a book he has,’ said Rose. ‘It is called Morte D’Arthur and that means the death of Arthur. The pages are all thin and yellowy grey and they stick to your fingers for too long when you try and turn over. Indigo and me have been reading it all summer.’

  ‘And how much of it do you understand?’ asked Bill.

  ‘All of it. Lancelot and Arthur and Kay and all the others. They were friends,’ said Rose, and a stray, unaccountable tear rolled down one cheek.

  It was a long, long afternoon. At intervals the telephone rang, never the airline, always friends of Bill, wanting to chat for hours. They waited for Caddy. They rang home, but there was no one to answer. Caddy was away. Eve was in the shed. Saffron was supervising Indigo shopping for clothes. (‘It is about time you wore something that I could borrow now and then,’ she said, steering him into Gap. ‘That jacket. That top. Those and those. Hurry up!’)

  ‘Where can Caddy have got to?’ moaned Bill for the hundredth time. ‘Why doesn’t she answer her mobile?’

  ‘It’s switched off,’ said Rose.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘In case someone rings.’

  ‘What have I done?’ moaned Bill, massaging his wrinkles in despair. ‘What have I done to deserve this?’

  ‘Yes, what have you done?’ asked Samantha.

  Caddy still did not come. Samantha rang the airline again and was told she was number eleven in a queue. Bill cooked pasta. Rose, having described the rest of her family, launched into the subject of Saffron and Sarah, their terrible cooking, their cultivation of hearts of stone (‘I’m with them there,’ said Samantha), and their search for Saffron’s father.

  The search for Saffron’s father meant giving Samantha a quick family history, which Bill interrupted four times to say he did not think Samantha could possibly be interested.

  ‘I am,’ said Samantha. ‘I am incredibly interested!You have never told me a word before! Go on, Rose. Where did Saffron look?’

  Rose told her about the box of photographs and letters and diaries and notebooks that contained nothing at all.

  ‘Nothing?’ asked Samantha incredulously.

  ‘No,’ said Rose. ‘Nothing. Did it, Daddy?’

  ‘How would I know?’ asked Bill, pacing the room like an animal in a cage.

  ‘You packed it.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Mummy said.’

  ‘Well, when did Eve ever pack anything?’

  ‘I can’t believe Eve doesn’t know,’ said Samantha.

  ‘She would tell Saffy if she did,’ said Rose. ‘She said she would. She said that was fair.’

  ‘Who does Saffy look like?’

  ‘Exactly like Caddy.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And Caddy looks like Mummy.’

  ‘And Bill,’ said Samantha.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Bill stopped pacing and left the room. Samantha and Rose could hear him opening and closing drawers, slamming them shut one after another. Then the slamming stopped and he came in, gulping on a cigarette, and said, ‘Time for bed, Rose!’

  Rose stared at him in astonishment.

  ‘Bill,’ said Samantha, ‘you don’t seriously expect Rose to go to bed at half-past five on a hot summer afternoon?’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  The phone in the hall rang again just then, luckily for Rose, who had been about to abandon being nice. Bill dashed off to answer it so fast he left a trail of blue smoke.

  ‘He gave up smoking,’ said Rose.

  ‘I know,’ nodded Samantha, and they both looked curiously at Bill, who saw them looking and turned his back.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Rose. ‘Caddy does look a bit like him too. I never noticed before. What if that’s the aeroplane people on the phone?’

  ‘It isn’t, Bill would have told us.’

  Bill finished talking and came back, lit another cigarette and asked, ‘Packing all done, Samantha darling?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You always forget something.’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘Better check.’

  ‘I’m talking to Rose.’

  ‘So I see. I’ll try ringing Eve again.’

  ‘Where else did Saffron look for her father?’ questioned Samantha.

  ‘On the internet,’ said Rose.

  Bill, who had just gone out of the room, nearly fell back in again.

  ‘On the internet?’ he demanded. ‘And what did she think she would find on the internet? For heaven’s sake?’

  ‘People do look for people on the internet,’ said Rose. ‘I’ve just remembered why no one is at home. It’s Sarah’s mother’s birthday party. They’re having a barbecue and we were all invited. Probably no one will be back for ages.’

  ‘Sweet angels of mercy lead me away!’ moaned Bill and he banged his head three times on the wall on purpose.

  ‘You were telling us about Saffy looking for her father on the internet,’ said Samantha, who seemed very determined to get to the end of the story. ‘Go on!’

  Bill stopped banging his head and lit himself two more cigarettes, one to smoke and one to cradle in his hands. He had to keep changing them over to make sure that neither of them went out.

  ‘Symbolic,’ said Samantha, glaring at him.

  Nobody seemed to hear her at first. Bill did not even look up. Rose was in a dream where she arrived in New York and saw Tom standing under a sign that read, New York.

  ‘So what did Saffron find on the internet?’ asked Samantha.

  Rose dragged herself away from New York and thought backwards to Sarah’s house. The laughter she had heard outside the bedroom, and the cardboard heroes that kept falling over. The computer screen burning in the warm summer gloom because the curtains had been drawn to shut out the glare. An unfathomable picture of a hat and a carton of milk. Bill Casson, Seriously Now. It all seemed very long ago.

  ‘She found Daddy,’ said Rose at last.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sarah’s mother’s party was nearly over. The candles on the packet mix birthday cake had been blown out, and the cake cut up and handed out by Sarah to anyone she could persuade to eat it. At Sarah’s third attempt at cake making she had dispensed with all fancy recipes. She had concentrated her efforts entirely on largeness, iced it pink, and sprinkled jelly beans among the forty-five candles.

  ‘Make a wish,’ she ordered, as she dealt the gluey slabs to her victims.

  Most people wished they hadn’t agreed to sample the birthday cak
e.

  Not everyone though.

  Indigo looked up at the summer stars and remembered the evening he and Tom had spent renaming them, just before Tom left. He wished he knew where Tom was now.

  Saffron came across to Sarah’s table and looked very dubiously at the cake, and said, ‘Admit it is not one of your finest creations!’

  ‘It is hideous,’ said Sarah cheerfully, ‘and the jelly beans are from a packet I had at Christmas and it is now September. I am only slightly hopeful that it is not poisonous. What! You are not going to eat it, are you, Saffy? Good grief, you must be mad!’

  ‘Shut up and let me concentrate,’ ordered Saffron. ‘I am making my wish!’

  ‘Well, you be careful what you wish for!’

  ‘I will.’

  Saffron thought briefly of her unknown father, and then at much more length of the Year Twelve boy at school who did the music for the discos. She wished that he would ask her out without her having to make him.

  Sarah’s mother wished she would not get any older, and then hastily unwished it, realising that the alternative was worse.

  Eve wished everyone would live happily ever after.

  David had arrived at the Casson house much earlier that afternoon. He seemed to be unable to stop telling Rose’s family how sorry he was to have accidentally despatched Rose to London. He was so apologetic even Saffron said, ‘Relax, David! Caddy telephoned and said she had her safe.’

  ‘I still don’t know why she had to go tearing after Caddy in the first place,’ said Indigo.

  ‘There was something she had to give to her,’ explained David.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I promised I wouldn’t tell.’

  ‘Well,’ said Eve, ‘she will be company for Caddy, so that’s good, but I shall be glad to have her home again. The house already feels empty without her.’

  ‘It does,’ agreed Saffron. ‘Nothing left but the dirty handprints and the pictures on the walls.’

  They all looked mournfully at the pictures on the walls. Even the one of Tom as Sir Lancelot under a sign that read New York struck no one as funny. David said, for about the twelfth time, that he hoped she was OK.