Rosie

by Alan Titchmarsh

  ‘I told you. The ferry.’

  ‘But they run all night don’t they?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  She squinted at her watch. ‘Well, you’ve plenty of time. It’s only a quarter to five.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  She made the coffee, then deftly collected cups and saucers from the dresser.

  The events of the day caused him to look at her more critically than usual. Nobody would take her for eighty-seven. Sixty-seven, maybe, or seventy – but not three years short of ninety. She had always been Rosie to him, at her own insistence, never Granny. She was tough and self-sufficient. Eccentric, too, but always grounded. Realistic. Was she finally losing her grip?

  Caring for his grandfather must have taken it out of her. Oh, the hospital had done the lion’s share of the work, but she had been there for three or four hours every day without fail.

  He pulled out a pine chair from the small breakfast table, sat down and looked around the new kitchen. The flat was more sparsely furnished than the house had been and seemed less her home than a staging-post – but there were always flowers: today a handful of dried lavender poked out of a painted jug and scarlet tulips swallow-dived from a square glass vase on the fitted worktop. Nick remembered the painted dresser filled with willow-pattern plates. They’d all gone now.

  ‘Will you stay here?’ he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

  ‘No.’

  The answer came so quickly and so decisively that it surprised him. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I hate it. It’s awful. And, anyway, I don’t need . . . things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Oh, you know – stuff. Possessions.’ She brought the cups and saucers to the table. Carelessly. Almost as if she resented them.

  ‘But where will you go?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Maybe back to Cheltenham.’

  ‘But you know what they say about the three most traumatic things in life?’

  ‘I do. Death, divorce and moving house.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The first can’t happen and the second two already have.’ She dropped two spoons into the saucers.

  ‘Rosie, I’m not sure it’s wise. Not at—’

  ‘Don’t say it! Bugger being wise.’

  He had hardly ever heard her swear, and she always told him off when he did.

  ‘If I stay here I’ll just sulk and fade away. Let’s be honest. I probably haven’t long to go.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  She leaned on the back of a chair and the piercing eyes fixed him. ‘Now who’s not being realistic?’

  ‘It’s just that—’

  ‘You don’t want to admit it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right, then, we won’t talk about it again, so long as you don’t try to wrap me in cotton wool.’

  ‘I don’t think I could.’

  ‘Dead right, mister.’

  ‘Normal grannies don’t talk like that.’

  ‘Well, I’m not a normal granny.’

  He left her at six, and as he kissed her on both cheeks at the door of her flat, he noticed the photograph on a side table. The one that used to be by her bed. The one in the silver frame. It was a sepia-toned portrait of a girl with dark hair, fine features and a clear complexion. A girl whose eyes seemed to shine through the winter cold. She stood in snow, which powdered the front of her high-buttoned coat. A pale scarf was wrapped round her neck, and her mouth was open a little, as if she was catching her breath in the ice-cold winter air. She stood to the left of a small boy in a thick, barathea sailor suit, and a bearded man in a military uniform who was holding a spade that had been used to clear snow. Behind them, the tapering trunks of birch trees stood out against a white sky.

  ‘She’s still here, then.’

  Rosie turned and picked up the photograph. ‘Mama? Oh, yes. She always is. Doesn’t she look lovely?’

  ‘She does.’

  Rosie replaced the photograph. ‘We’ll talk about it soon.’

  ‘I’ll call you. I can get back next week, if that’s OK?’

  ‘Fine.’

  As he walked down the stairs she called after him, ‘You’re not too cross with me, are you?’

  ‘You’re not very easy to be cross with.’ Then he opened the door and disappeared with a wave.

  Rosie shut the door. ‘But I think you might be soon,’ she whispered. She looked again at the photograph and ran her hand over the woman, who was standing in the snow with her father and younger brother.

  4

  Rose du Roi

  Sometimes classified as a Hybrid Perpetual.

  The northern coast of the Isle of Wight is divided into two by the Medina river. The eastern half looks towards Portsmouth and Hayling Island, and the western towards Lymington and Dorset. A few miles west of Cowes, between Gurnard and Thorness Bay, there is a craggy, crumbling stretch of coastline opposite the Beaulieu river. Cattle graze the pale green undulating meadows, which slope backwards from the cliff, and ancient wheelless railway carriages in duck-egg blue and tarry black, dusky maroon and peeling white are tucked under wind-grizzled sycamores and garlanded with honeysuckle and bindweed. Once they provided holidays for cash-strapped mainland families. Now all but a handful are derelict, their broken windows allowing access to new families, of robins, wrens and blackbirds.

  A snaking pathway cuts its way along the coastline below them, between banks of blackthorn and quickthorn, brambles and gorse. In winter the salt-laden winds rip through the undergrowth, and heavy rains wash swathes of the greasy grey clay into the waters of the Solent below. In summer, the hedgerows are wreathed in dog-roses and bryony, and clouded yellow butterflies flit over clover and vetches while the song thrush sings in the twisted trees.

  For five years, Nick Robertson had lived in a clapboard cottage perched on the top of this bare patch of coastline, just about making a living from painting watercolours and selling them through a local gallery.

  His grandmother had impinged rarely on his life. He called her on the phone every week or so, and she would ask how things were going with the painting and his love life – she was never backward in coming forward and always spoke her mind.

  His mother, Anna, having raised her three children – Alice, now married and living in South Africa, Sophie, single and travelling in South America, and Nick, the arty one who studied at St Martin’s and then decided to ‘do his own thing’ – was doing an Open University degree in medieval history, and worked at her local library. ‘It’s my time now,’ she had told her family, and proceeded to live an almost independent life. After the children had gone, she had told her husband she wanted out. He surprised her by saying that so did he, then upped and left. Rosie had not been pleased.

  Derek Robertson was known to most people outside the family as ‘a bit of a lad’. His wife used less endearing terms to describe him. After a moderately successful spell in the City he had cashed in his chips and devoted himself to the turf – often with surprising success. The Racing Post was his daily paper, and when he wasn’t placing bets on horses, he took a chance on anything vaguely entrepreneurial that came his way. From time to time there were disasters, but Derek was one of those people, said his mother, who would land in a bed of clover if he fell out of the sky.

  His flat in Chelsea Harbour suited him nicely, and he could just about keep it going during the winning streaks, which usually came in the nick of time. He loved his daughters, did his best to understand his son, and enjoyed the wheeler-dealer life.

  Which explained why, when Rosie was in trouble, she called on Nick, the one member of her family whom she knew she could always contact and would get her out of a spot. Her relations with her son were good-natured but sporadic, and with her daughter-in-law, frosty and matter-of-fact.

  Nick sat in his studio gazing at the sea, today the colour of pewter and merging with the sky. The north island – the locals’ disparaging name for the mainla
nd – had disappeared from view, as if it didn’t exist. He liked the feeling of being cut off. As he was now – in more ways than one.

  The parting from Debs had been surprisingly low key. Hollow, even. She had brushed her hand across his cheek and thanked him, almost as if he was a friend rather than a lover. By then the anger had been voiced and the tears shed.

  He didn’t expect her to call, so when the phone rang he assumed it would be the gallery, enquiring about the paintings that were due for the start of the season, or the garage to say that his van was ready.

  It was neither. It was his mother. ‘Nick?’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Have you seen the paper?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The Richmond and Twickenham Times.’

  ‘We don’t get it on the Isle of Wight.’

  ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. The front page is plastered with pictures of your grandmother chained to some railings. Do you know about this?’

  ‘Well . . . yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell me?’

  ‘Well . . . no.’

  ‘Why not, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Because I knew you’d be furious.’

  ‘I am! What was she playing at? The Russian embassy, for God’s sake! She’s not started all that again, has she?’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘About her mother being wronged by the Bolsheviks.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘She’s clearly not fit to be on her own any more!’

  ‘Oh, come on, Mum. That’s a bit much. She looked after Granddad until his stroke.’

  ‘Well, clearly she can’t look after herself. And your father’s no help.’

  ‘Have you rung him?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, he’d just laugh.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nick agreed ruefully.

  ‘Well, I’m going round there today to find out what it’s all about.’

  ‘Don’t do that – you’ll only upset her.’

  ‘Too right I’ll upset her. She has to know that she just can’t do this sort of thing.’

  He could visualize Anna at the other end of the phone: the grey mane held back with a black velvet alice band, the finely plucked eyebrows, the pearls, the black pashmina draped round her shoulders, the Jaeger tweed skirt and the black tights. ‘Just leave it to me, Mum.’

  ‘But what can you do, over there?’

  ‘I can come over. I’ve already been once, as it is.’

  ‘It’s May. Aren’t you up to your ears in painting?’

  ‘Well, yes, but . . .’

  ‘I must sort this out before she embarrasses us even more. Thank God I use my maiden name on the OU course. At least nobody will guess I’m related to her.’

  ‘That’s not a very nice thing to say.’

  ‘What she did was not a very nice thing to do. I’m going to get some brochures about nursing homes.’

  ‘But she’s not ill!’

  ‘Maybe not physically, but you can’t tell me she’s all there mentally. It will have to be sheltered accommodation at the very least.’

  ‘Look, don’t do anything yet. I’ll talk to her.’

  ‘It won’t make any difference.’

  ‘At least let me try.’

  After a few more placatory remarks he put the phone down. It rang again, almost immediately, and the pompous voice at the other end made him smile.

  ‘By my elegant little Cartier watch it’s forty-eight minutes past the hour of eleven, which means that you are now exactly eighteen minutes late. As it takes a good half-hour to get to my little gallery in Seaview from your shack in the back-of-beyond that means I shall not see you until lunchtime. Do I take it that you’ll be requiring refreshments?’

  ‘Henry Kinross Fine Art’ was to be found at the top of a short flight of worn stone steps by the slipway that sloped down to the sea. It had once been a boathouse, but the bitumen-painted feather-edged boards were now a delicate shade of eau-de-Nil, and scallop shells had been fixed in a double row on either side of the door. As Nick opened it, the bell pinged loudly. The gallery owner was holding a dreary seascape and frowning at it through half-moon spectacles. ‘Look at this! Drive a man to drink. Or a couple of Nurofen.’

  Nick glanced at the picture. ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Typically noncommittal.’

  ‘Well, what do you want me to say? That it’s crap?’

  ‘It would be accurate.’

  Henry Kinross was not a small man. He had a sizeable belly, short legs, and the sort of face that looked as though someone had sat on it. His hair was grey, his cheeks the colour of a Victoria plum, and his voice refined with years of claret. The painting would have been crushed into matchwood had he clenched his fat fists. Instead, he laid it on the white-painted table in the centre of the room and took off his glasses. ‘Time you got a new motor.’

  ‘They reckon they’ve fixed it this time.’

  ‘Serves you right for buying British. Why don’t you get yourself a reliable foreign car?’

  Nick ignored the jibe. ‘Do you want me to bring them in?’

  Henry waved at the blank wall at one end of the gallery. ‘It’ll look pretty bare if you don’t. How many have you got?’

  ‘About a dozen.’ Nick propped open the door and began to carry in the framed watercolours.

  ‘Wonderful. That should keep me going for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘God! Longer than that, I hope. I’m not a machine.’

  ‘Bloody artistic temperament. You’ll never make your fortune at this rate. John Piper could turn them out much faster.’

  ‘John Piper had had more practice.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but you have better luck with the weather.’

  Henry began to line up the paintings against the wall. ‘No gratitude, that’s your trouble. Not everyone sells like you do, you know. Look at old what’s-his-face.’ He nodded in the direction of the grey seascape. ‘That’ll never shift. Too depressing.’

  ‘Accurate, though,’ Nick told him.

  ‘If people want accuracy they can take a photograph.’

  ‘Maybe mine will start to get a bit more dreary now.’

  ‘Ah.’ Henry put down with the others the painting he was carrying and straightened, with some effort. ‘She’s gone, then?’

  Nick nodded.

  ‘And you’re feeling sorry for yourself.’

  ‘Guess so.’

  ‘Mmm. I know the feeling. Can’t say I blame you. She was a nice girl.’

  ‘I don’t need reminding.’

  ‘I suppose not. But you probably need cheering up.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t bother if I were you, Henry. Bit of a lost cause at the moment.’

  ‘Well, let’s change the subject or I shall be put off my lunch, and I don’t remember the last time that happened.’ He stood back to take in the row of Nick’s paintings – some large, some small. ‘I like that one – good sky. And the Needles. I can sell those little bits of white rock as fast as you can paint them. Where’s the church?’

  ‘Shalfleet.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Dumpy tower. “The Shalfleet poor and simple people, Sold the bells to build the steeple.”’

  ‘It hasn’t got a steeple.’

  ‘It fell to bits. Waste of time selling the bells, if you ask me.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Not a bad lot, Mr Robertson. Well up to par.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear. Come on. Let’s get out of here and into some food. Starving artist and all that.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Well, I am, so you’ll just have to watch me. Come and have a glass at least.’

  Henry prodded Nick across the road and into the bar of the Red Duster. He ordered a bottle of the house red and two glasses. They planted themselves, on Henry’s instructions, at a table just opposite the door. ‘Cheers, old bean! First of the day.’ Henry took a gulp of wine and sighed with satisfaction. ‘Oh, little grape, how great thou
art! Now, then . . . we’ll wait to order food. Someone else is joining us.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Artist. Wants me to take her stuff. I’m interested to know what you think.’

  ‘What – here? In the pub?’

  ‘No. Thought you’d like to meet her first and then we’ll go back and look at her paintings.’

  ‘No fear.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m happy to meet her, Henry, but I’m not going to sit in judgement on her stuff – certainly not in front of her. One artist criticizing another?’

  ‘That’s all you lot ever do, isn’t it?’

  ‘In private, maybe, but not to each other’s faces.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  The uneasy silence that might have followed was preempted by an almighty clatter outside the pub. All conversation stopped, and there was a general movement towards the door. Nick and Henry were first on to the pavement, followed by the barman and a couple of local builders.

  ‘Bloody ’ell.’ One of the builders had summed up the scene neatly, if not with clinical accuracy. In front of them, where earlier Nick’s Morris Minor van had sat by the pavement, was a hybrid vehicle, half Morris, half Fiat, with no visible distinction between the two.

  A dark-haired girl was sitting at the wheel of the Fiat, her head in her hands. Nick tried to open the car door but it refused to budge. He ran round to the other side and tugged at the passenger door, which yielded. ‘Are you all right?’

  The girl lowered her hands.

  ‘It’s OK. Don’t worry. Come on, let me help you get out.’

  She gazed at him apologetically. ‘It was my brakes.’ Then she began to shake.

  ‘Best get her out,’ offered Henry.

  ‘Yes, come on. Can you slide across?’

  She swivelled her denim-covered legs across the passenger seat and got out on to the pavement. She was slight, about thirty. Her long dark hair had been pinned back, but was now falling over her face – fine-boned and olive-skinned, but pale with shock. He put his arm round her to steady her. The baggy pink and white sailing shirt she wore made her appear waif-like, as though a sea breeze might blow her away.

  ‘I tried to stop, but nothing happened,’ she said.

  Nick glanced at the fused vehicles. ‘No.’