by Hilary McKay
She did not think of anyone except Tom. Because there he was, as she had always known that he would be. Standing (as instructed by David) under a sign that read, ‘New York’. Smiling and waving.
‘Hello, Tom!’ she cried, running up to him, and Tom said, as he sometimes did when he was very pleased to see her, ‘Hello, Permanent Rose!’
Chapter Thirteen
‘So, why?’ asked Saffron and Sarah when Rose was at last home again, grubby, jet-lagged, triumphant and laden with terrible presents (‘Just the sort Daddy brings back,’ said Rose, handing out Empire State building snow globes, baseball caps, Stars and Stripes T-shirts and light-up Statues of Liberty that played the Star Spangled Banner), ‘why did he never write? Telephone? Send us a messenger pigeon? Contact us in any way? Callous beyond belief or callous beyond belief ? Probably which?’
‘He did ring,’ said Rose. ‘Twice.’
‘He didn’t!’
‘He did, and I heard him. Right at the beginning of the summer. But nobody else heard, and I thought it was a dream. Don’t you remember?’
They did then, vaguely remember, hearing Eve and Rose talk of something like that.
‘But why didn’t he keep on telephoning?’ asked Saffron.
‘Because we didn’t,’ said Rose.
‘How could we have?’
‘He didn’t think, How could we have. He just thought we didn’t.’
‘The dope!’ exclaimed Sarah, and Indigo and Rose, who liked dopes, smiled at one another.
‘At first they were all terribly worried about Frances,’ explained Rose. ‘Frances, his sister (she’s learned my name, only she says “Wose”. She shouts, “WOSE!” She’s really funny). They thought she was going to die. She took ages to get well. And Tom thought we were horrible, not even asking how Frances was or anything. Especially when he’d given Indigo his guitar…Poor Tom!’
‘Poor Tom!’ repeated Sarah scornfully and sarcastically. ‘How sad!’
‘It was sad for him,’ insisted Rose. ‘It is sad when you think your friends don’t care. It is, isn’t it, Indy?’
‘Yep,’ said Indigo.
‘So he was very fed up with us,’ went on Rose. ‘And he gave us up. He sulked. His grandmother told me (she’s staying there with them but she’ll be home again soon) that he sulked all summer! He’s a very good sulker,’ said Rose admiringly. ‘He sulked until David telephoned and got them all out of bed at six o’clock in the morning…’
‘I did not!’ said David, indignantly. ‘It was nearly lunchtime that day I telephoned! Not six o’clock! Nothing like!’
‘It was six o’clock in New York,’ said Rose.
David gave her a look of affectionate disbelief and for about the tenth time that day took off and admired the baseball cap she had brought him. (‘I needed a hat,’ he had said, overwhelmed with pleasure when she gave it to him.) David’s baseball cap had a big red apple on the front which flashed if it was banged very hard. Caddy had a similar one, only instead of an apple it said ‘I love NY’ with a pulsating, flashing heart for the love.
‘To remind you of Michael,’ said Rose.
Michael was gone now. Quite suddenly. He had given up being a driving instructor, bought himself a set of leathers and a second-hand motorbike (‘He must have sold your ring,’ said Saffron callously), and disappeared into the sunset with Luke. After that, the only proof that anyone had that he had not forgotten them was by way of Rose. The Early Morning Rose Delivery Service (bringing roses to Rose) did not stop. From all around the edge of Europe Michael sent postcards to Rose, and all of them pictures of roses. This drove Caddy wild. She came home from university every weekend to inspect the postmark on the latest card, and she pinned a map of Europe to her bedroom wall, and began to mark the progress of his journey with little silver flags.
‘You could fly over,’ suggested Saffron and Sarah, ‘and casually waylay him, on some remote Mediterranean road…How desperate are you? Enough to shove Luke off a convenient cliff ? Yes? No? What’s that horrible thing you are knitting? A scarf ? It looks lethal! Is it to strangle Luke with?’
‘Oh shut up!’ said Caddy, but she did not stop knitting the scarf. Rose used to inspect it from time to time, and then go and gloat over a small box she was taking care of for Michael. It was supposed to be a total secret, and almost was, except that she could not resist sharing it with Indigo.
‘Promise you won’t tell anyone?’
‘Promise.’
‘Not even Tom?’
‘Oh, all right.’
Tom and Indigo were in constant contact again. Several times a week they e-mailed each other, exchanging news, music, guitar playing advice, and the occasional chunk of Morte D’Arthur.
‘What does Tom make of all that stuff ?’ asked David one day, watching as Indigo typed, ‘And so Bagdemagus departed and did many adventures and proved after a full good knight.’
‘Thinks it’s fantastic,’ said Indigo.
‘I think it’s rubbish,’ grumbled David, and read over Indigo’s shoulder, ‘And so on the morn…’
‘…there fell,’ wrote Indigo.
‘New tidings
And other adventures.’
‘Tell him I’m getting drumming lessons for Christmas,’ said David, and Indigo smiled.
‘And one day I’m getting a drum kit and Grandad says I can keep it at his house when I do.’
‘One day we’ll have a band,’ said Indigo.
‘Who will?’ asked Rose, coming in just then.
‘David and Tom and me.’
‘What about me?’
‘And you. Any messages for Tom, Rosy Pose?’
‘Oh,’ said Rose. ‘Just tell him I’m still here.’
‘Nothing else you want to say?’
‘Nothing that matters,’ said Rose.
The new computer that made all this possible had been bought by Bill. He had bought a number of very expensive presents lately.
‘Guilt,’ said Saffron.
It had taken Saffron a long time to recover from the shock of discovering who her father was. It would have taken even longer if it had not been for Sarah. Sarah loyally listened and sympathised through all the tears and anger.
‘Good thing,’ she said, when they at last reached the point of being able to joke again, ‘that we spent the summer cultivating hearts of stone.’
Bill did guilt as beautifully as he did everything else. Humble. Gentle. Making no excuses. Saying (as he flicked a speck of dust from his sleeve) (‘He is not cool with dust,’ remarked Sarah), ‘I shall never forgive myself. Never. Saffy darling.’
Saffron had been so horrible to him then that she felt guilty afterwards.
‘He still smiles the same smile,’ said Sarah, consoling her.
Eve forgave Bill very easily, having had plenty of practice at this in the past. ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘I suppose I always knew. Or could have known, if I’d wanted to. Poor darling Linda…’
‘Do you really not hate her?’ asked Saffron.
‘Of course I don’t! Of course I don’t! And never did, and never will, not for a moment! I do understand,’ said Eve, and added dreamily, ‘We always did share everything!’
‘Eve!’ said Sarah.
‘And after all, it was Linda who knew Bill first!’
Eve smiled at them lovingly, kissed Rose, and wandered out to her shed. Saffron and Sarah looked at one other, and each could see the other’s eyes were fizzing with a dozen questions.
‘Saint, or just more or less totally bonkers?’ asked Sarah at last. ‘Probably which?’
‘I think probably both,’ said Saffron.
Then nobody said anything for a long time until Indigo came in. He had brought a message that had just come to Rose from Tom.
‘It looked so good I printed it out for you,’ he said as he handed it over.
It was beautiful giant rainbow letters,
Hello, Permanent Rose!
Rose was so pleased with it she took
it out to the shed, where she and Eve admired it together.
‘Perfect!’ said Eve. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Perfect,’ agreed Rose, and then she asked, ‘Why did you call me that? Why did you? Did you mean it for a joke?’
‘No,’ said Eve, at once. ‘No, Rosy Pose. Really…I really meant it for…’
‘What? Tell me.’
‘A promise,’ said Eve.
Michael’s Roses
The First Rose
‘Oy!’ said a voice behind me and it was Michael, leaning out from his car window. ‘You OK, Rosy Pose?’
‘I’m just waiting for the postman,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ said Michael. ‘I’ve done that. I’ll wait with you, shall I?’
‘It won’t do any good,’ I told him, and it didn’t. The postman hurried past with no glance in my direction.
‘They don’t even look sorry, do they?’ asked Michael. ‘Mind, they don’t look guilty when they give you a bill either. It’s probably part of their training.’
Since Michael seemed interested the arrival of the post, I asked him two questions that had been bothering me for a long time.
‘Michael?’
‘Hum?’
‘Do you know how much it costs to post a letter from America to England? And do you think the letters often get lost?’
Michael looked at me for so long I could tell what he was thinking. He could say, It costs loads! You’d not believe how much! and I would stop expecting someone who had hardly any money to spend it on stamps to send letters to me. Or he could say, Not that much, but they hardly ever get here and I could cheer up, thinking of all the post intended for me, floating somewhere in the ocean.
But Michael didn’t. He opened his passenger door and said, ‘Hop in,’ and then he drove very quickly down the street to the park which was completely empty because it was so early in the morning.
‘I haven’t been on a swing for years,’ said Michael. ‘I always used to try and get them going so high they’d flip over the top.’
‘Did you ever?’ I asked.
‘Not yet,’ said Michael. ‘Come on!’
‘Now?’
‘Quick!’ he said. ‘I’ve got five minutes.’
I nearly did it. I know I did. And Michael came so close I heard myself scream.
‘Time’s up!’ said Michael and jumped, and caught me when I jumped too, and raced me to the car, and in a moment we were back at the house and I was hopping out again, much faster than I’d hopped in, so as not to make him late for work.
‘There you go,’ said Michael and handed me a large, fresh, beautiful orange rose.
Like magic.
There was a pink one the next day, warm and slightly squashed from being carried in his pocket.
A bunch of tiny white ones, with bright gold middles. A bee came to investigate them as I stood and admired them. ‘Look, look, look!’ I said, and Michael laughed.
There was a rose every morning.
‘It’s nice to be appreciated,’ said Michael when I hugged him. That day the rose was yellow, with dark glossy leaves. Three raindrops balancing amongst the petals.
Once there was a red one, so red the outside petals were almost black. ‘Is that for me or Caddy?’ I asked.
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Michael. ‘This is the early morning rose delivery service, bringing roses to Roses. Of course it’s for you.’
The World of the Casson Family
by Rose Casson
The first thing to say about the world of the Casson family is that I do not know who is in it.
Our family has extended. However, it began with Mum and Dad, Caddy and Indigo and Saffy and me in a house that the Victorians built, thinking it would be comfortable (how wrong they were) half way down a long road, in a largish town in the middle of England.
It looks like the most unmagical place in the world.
It isn’t.
Caddy
Caddy’s real name is Cadmium Gold, but nobody calls her that. My friends say Caddy is pretty. I suppose she is. She moves very quickly and she has a sort of shine about her when she’s happy. She is often happy – it doesn’t take much.
Caddy says that she likes animals better than people. I don’t really believe this is true, but she thinks it is. Animals do not have to be cute and furry for Caddy to like them. Spiders, worms … Once, right in the middle of a perfectly peaceful day she rushed downstairs and started talking about worms. Apparently they visit … (I nearly started telling you myself.) But if you want to know I’ll put it on Twitter. Say, and I’ll do it.
The thing about Caddy is that she is kind. I used to think Caddy was kind because it was easier than fighting. Then for an experiment I tried being kind myself. I lasted about half a day. It’s not easy.
Saffron
is complicated …
She’s my cousin as well as my sister because my parents adopted her before I was born, when her own mother (my mum’s sister) died. She didn’t discover this until she was eight and found her name was not on the colour chart with mine and Indigo’s and Caddy’s. She wasn’t too thrilled about that, according to Caddy. She turned intelligent (but maybe she would have done anyway) and waspish and independent and sleek and cool and gold.
Saffron has a friend who is like her other half. She is called Sarah. I cannot imagine what Saffron would be like without Sarah, nor what Sarah would be like without Saffy.
Sometimes, when I am painting, I put two colours together that apart you would hardly notice, but together they glow.
Like the colours of a kingfisher, that blue and that orange.
Indigo
Indigo has smoke dark eyes and brown hair and a very slow smile. He is tall and too thin and stubborn and brave and I think he is the only one of us who really thinks about what will happen next and if it does, whether it will be possible to survive.
Indigo creates meals by saying, ‘That and that and that!’ Then in everything goes, with chillies. Grilled cheese appears on the top of everything except curry but including the birthday apple cake he made for his friend David.
What else? He plays guitar but cannot sing. ‘Ooh dear,’ he says, listening to himself. It doesn’t stop him. He likes ice and rock and stones and fossils.
Sometimes he detaches himself from us all. You see it in his eyes first. Then the way he suddenly lifts his head. And the next thing you know, he is off.
Gone.
Mummy
(that’s Eve to the world)
It’s not true that Mummy calls everyone darling to save her bothering to remember names.
And if she seems scatty, she’s not; she’s juggling. She keeps multiple worries spinning in the air. They are:
Saffy and Caddy and Indigo and me.
Daddy.
The needy people who besiege her constantly. What do they need? Sometimes no more than a bit of noticing. To be called darling, or asked a favour. Sometimes they need rescuing. Or forgiving (naming no names but giving hard stares at my father).
Her other worries are:
Paint that takes forever to dry (she is a garden shed artist, the sort that paints anything that pays: dead pets, local views, visions, hospital walls). (‘Not exactly art,’ says Daddy.)
Food. How hard it is to remember to buy. How quickly it vanishes.
Her car. Petrol. Oil. Water. Air in the tyres. Strange grating noises. Terrible smells. ‘It’s like keeping some exotic pet!’ cries Mummy.
Her secrets.
To make up for all these problems she has …
A shed!
Which contains …
The pink sofa!
Mummy’s pink sofa is her greatest treat. It is escape and summer holidays, peace and luxury. It has worn out arms and feather cushions, paint splodges, a burnt hole in the back, a knitted patchwork blanket, an awful mangy sheepskin and an endless treasure trove of pencils, small coins, paint brushes, hair clips and teaspoons lost down the back.
‘Once it h
ad little tassels,’ says Mummy. ‘Here and here,’ she touches the arms. ‘Never mind.’
Daddy
If you didn’t know him, if, for example, you read about him in a book, you’d think he was awful. ‘Samantha?’ you would ask. ‘And Saffy? Did … ? Was … ? Are you? THAT’S TERRIBLE!’
If you’d never seen him smile. If you’d never had him rush home to save you from yourself. If you’d never wiped your teary, runny face on his jacket, watched him hang up his shirts (wooden hangers, 4 cm apart, colour coded, not touching), seen him search through the fridge …
We drive him mad. He drives us mad. He has two lives, one much more glamorous than the other. We are the unglamorous life. The amazing thing is that he keeps coming back. He needn’t, but he does.
Rose
by everyone else
Rose has inherited a great deal of artistic talent, which she uses with reckless destruction on all that she encounters.
Bill Casson, father
I called her Permanent Rose. I knew she would stay. I can’t imagine the world without her. She is perfect (like all the children). That time she went to New York without telling me, and the shop lifting (if you could call it that), the differences she has with darling Bill and those reports from school, those things do not count.
Eve Casson, mother
Rose is so much the smallest and the youngest in our family that I always feel we should take care of her more than we do. Sometimes I try. I go up to her bedroom and sort through her things with her. Nearly everything she owns once belonged to someone else. She doesn’t mind this. She holds up some tatty tee shirt or discarded bear for me to admire, and says ‘I like it because it was Indigo’s.’ Or mine or Saffy’s or Sarah’s, wherever it happens to come from.
