My Name Is Rose

by Sally Grindley

  ‘She’ll only have herself to blame if they don’t,’ said Victoria.

  She disappeared into the first hall, and by the time Rose and Mrs Luca went back through, she had already picked out two blouses and two jumpers that she wanted her mother to buy her.

  ‘It’s only fair,’ she said, ‘and you promised if I helped Anna I could have something too.’

  ‘Just don’t tell your father, that’s all,’ sighed Mrs Luca. ‘Things are a little tight at the moment.’

  ‘Daddy won’t mind,’ Victoria replied, and plucked a necklace from a stand to add to her selection, despite her mother’s protestations.

  Rose felt exhausted when they left the store. She wasn’t as strong as she thought, but she had no intention of letting Mrs Luca know, because this would only lead to more unwanted fussing and pampering. She hoped they would soon be returning to the house, but her guardian turned into another enormous store.

  ‘Here we are,’ Mrs Luca said. ‘Just what we need.’

  Rose stared at the thousands of books and magazines that were stacked high everywhere she turned. So many words, she thought, none of which would make any sense to me, even if they were written in my own language. And there were pens and pencils and crayons in hundreds of different colours, shapes and sizes. Mrs Luca selected a variety of them before going to the checkout to pay.

  ‘Why can’t you talk, then?’ Victoria asked Rose out of the blue, while they were waiting for her to return. Her question wasn’t voiced unkindly. She was curious. ‘Are you sure you’re not pretending because you’re scared?’ she continued. She looked penetratingly at Rose, who blushed with discomfort. ‘Just try saying “hello”,’ Victoria persisted.

  Rose shook her head and moved closer to Mrs Luca.

  ‘I bet I can catch you out one day,’ said Victoria. ‘And once I’ve done that we’ll be able to find out a lot more about you, especially all your little secrets.’

  Chapter 14

  Mrs Luca scarcely left Rose alone during the next few weeks. She was determined that Rose should understand what she could and couldn’t do. She enforced strict routines for mealtimes, lessons and bedtime, all of which were flouted regularly by Victoria, who only had to enlist her father’s support in order to get her own way. Rose was amazed at how the girl could manipulate her father against her mother. She and Rani had been brought up to do as they were told, and Esme and Nicu formed a united front if ever there was any attempt at disobedience.

  The rules of the house, and those that were specific to Rose, were many and comprehensive. Rose was convinced she would break several inadvertently. The main rules were that the kitchen, library and Mr Luca’s office were out of bounds to her, as were all of the upstairs rooms apart from her bedroom. If she wanted a book to read, she must ask permission to go into the library.

  ‘We don’t want to discourage you from reading – on the contrary – but the library is Mr Luca’s pride and joy. Everything is precisely catalogued, so we don’t want to undo all of my husband’s hard work.’

  Rose was forbidden from passing time with the servants, and on no account was she to do any of the servants’ work. She would be allowed to watch tele­vision for a maximum of six hours in a week and not after seven o’clock in the evening. That’s no hardship, Rose thought to herself, since we didn’t have a television in our wagon and only ever watched it at Uncle Aleksandar’s. She would be permitted to go riding, but only accompanied by Mrs Luca or Victoria. She would be expected to maintain a respectful silence around Mr Luca’s office whenever he was working from home. ‘Well, that’ll apply when you regain your power of speech.’ Mrs Luca blushed when she realised her impropriety.

  There were numerous petty rules as well. Rose was to refrain from running in the hallways and she wasn’t allowed to play ball games in the gardens. At all times, she was to use the back door rather than the front, unless she was with other members of the family. At mealtimes, she would remember, please, to keep her elbows off the table, to use her napkin and to speak only when she was spoken to. Again, Mrs Luca added that she was meaning in the future, of course.

  Rose was to have lessons for four hours a day, five days a week. Other than that, she was free to spend her time as she wished.

  ‘You’re still so very young,’ said Mrs Luca. ‘I want your childhood to be a happy one. We have so much to offer and I can see you’ll thrive here.’

  Finally, one of Rose’s duties would be to take the dog for a walk every morning before breakfast. ‘A little bit of exercise first thing will set you up well for your lessons,’ Mrs Luca remarked.

  Rose thought she would hate it. She wasn’t keen on dogs and had taken an instant dislike to Crumble, a small, wiry dog, who seemed to yap incessantly and who kept jumping up at people. However, she discovered that once she had got into a routine, she enjoyed setting out on her own with just the dog for company. She began to form a strong bond with Crumble, who stood eagerly by the door, head cocked, ears perked up, as she changed into her boots. Once they were away from the confines of the gardens and off down the road, he scampered ahead, waited for her to catch up, scampered ahead, waited for her to catch up, until they reached the stile that led into the fields. Crumble squeezed his way under while Rose clambered over, then she picked up a stick and hurled it for him to collect. Crumble never tired of collecting sticks, or conkers, or rose hips, or the ball Rose sometimes took with her. She learnt to stop him from barking by tapping him on the nose whenever he did so, and refusing to throw anything for him to fetch until he was quiet. And he quickly learnt not to jump up at her as soon as he understood that she wouldn’t be his playmate if he didn’t obey.

  It took Rose a while to accept that Crumble was allowed to live indoors. None of the Roma families she knew would have allowed it. But once he had earned her affection she was happy for him to sit on her feet, which he insisted upon much to Victoria’s disgust, while she sat in the television room in the evening.

  ‘You’re obviously spoiling him,’ Victoria said. ‘He doesn’t do that with anyone else, stupid animal.’

  Victoria watched television a lot, Rose discovered, especially if her parents were out – and not just during the evening. She even invited Rose to watch with her one afternoon when Mr and Mrs Luca had gone into town. But what’s the point, Rose thought, when I can’t understand what anyone’s saying?

  ‘Come on,’ Victoria persisted. ‘Mummy and Daddy won’t know. There’s a really good film on.’

  Rose hovered in the doorway, unsure what to do.

  ‘You’re such a goody-goody,’ Victoria said. ‘I won’t tell if you don’t, and you’ll be bored stiff if you don’t break the rules sometimes.’

  Rose slowly shook her head. She didn’t trust Victoria not to tell, and certainly didn’t want to get into trouble when she had only been there a few weeks.

  ‘You’ll have more fun here if you make friends with me,’ Victoria said another time. ‘But if I take against you, I can make your life hell.’

  Rose didn’t doubt it, and knew that if she weren’t careful Victoria would make trouble for her. The girl took delight in baiting her, then all of a sudden would transform herself into a model of amiability, acting as though she were Rose’s best friend in the whole wide world.

  Misconstruing this, Mrs Luca would say, ‘I’m so glad you’re getting on so well. I hoped you would.’

  To which Victoria would reply, ‘Anna will soon be like a sister to me, and I’m sure if she could speak for herself she’d say the same.’ Or she would smile a fake smile, which might have fooled her mother, but not Rose.

  It wasn’t Victoria, though, who caused the first real upset for Rose. It was the fact that Rose couldn’t write. From the moment Mrs Luca had bought the pile of notepads and pencils, Rose knew she would be found out. She resisted Mrs Luca’s initial encouragements to jot down anything she needed, but when her guardian made a very specific request that required an answer, Rose could see that either her refusal to
communicate would be taken as insolence or her secret would be discovered.

  Esme and Nicu could scarcely read or write, only enough to sign their names and read maps. Esme had wanted both Rose and Rani to ‘have some education’, and they had attended local village schools whenever they stayed in one place for long enough to make it worthwhile. However, Rose had always felt too much of a stranger among the gadje children to concentrate on lessons, and the teachers often picked on her because of her lack of what they considered to be basic skills and knowledge. She fared no better with the schoolchildren, who sidelined her or were openly unfriendly because she was different, particularly if their parents had told them that Rose and Rani were Gypsies and not to be trusted.

  Mrs Luca wanted Rose to write down her five favourite meals. ‘I’ll have Marina cook them for you every now and again,’ she said, pleased with herself over the treat she was suggesting.

  Rose looked at her blankly. Even if she had been capable of writing something down, nothing could compare to Esme’s delicious meals.

  ‘Don’t be shy, Anna,’ Mrs Luca persisted. ‘Everyone has their favourites and I want to know yours. Here, take this pencil and notepad and make a list.’

  Rose took the pencil and notepad and pretended she was thinking.

  ‘Surely it can’t be that difficult,’ said Mrs Luca, beginning to sound a little impatient that her treat was being rejected. ‘Write down just one meal, and we can come back to the others when you’ve had more time to think.’

  Rose could feel herself becoming tearful. She took a deep breath and shook her head. She dared not look Mrs Luca in the face, so she stared fixedly at the floor, waiting to reap the anger that her action would undoubtedly cause.

  There was no visible anger. Mrs Luca simply left the room.

  Chapter 15

  Rose’s secret was finally uncovered by her English teacher. Mrs Conta was a short, round, bespectacled, no-nonsense sort of woman, who nevertheless had a twinkle in her eye and a big heart. She was English herself and married to a Romanian engineer, and therefore able to speak Rose’s native language. When she was first introduced to Rose, she shook her hand warmly and expressed her wish that they would get on well and that, provided she studied hard, Rose would have a solid understanding of English in no time at all. Rose responded with a nod, which meant simply that she was listening, but nothing more.

  ‘Perhaps the first words we shall hear you say will be in English.’ The teacher chuckled. ‘Wouldn’t that surprise everyone, Anna?’

  It would definitely surprise me! Rose thought.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Mrs Conta. ‘You’ll be under no pressure from me to speak if you’re not ready to. There’s plenty of written work we can do, and if you hear me saying the words frequently enough you’ll begin to understand them and know how to use them when need be.’

  She pointed to the door, a chair, a window, the clock, and said the name of each in English. She wrote the words on a whiteboard and asked Rose to copy them into a notepad. Rose didn’t even pick up a pencil. She sat in her chair with her eyes lowered.

  ‘Copy what I’ve written, please, Anna,’ Mrs Conta instructed.

  When she saw that Rose was making no attempt to do as she was told, the teacher sat down next to her.

  ‘What’s going on here, then?’ she said. ‘Do I have a disobedient child in front of me? Do I have a child who doesn’t want to learn? Do I have a child who is too unhappy to be bothered? Or do I have a child who, quite simply, can’t write?’ She watched Rose carefully. ‘Look at me, Anna,’ she said gently.

  When she said it for a second time, Rose looked at her.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ Mrs Conta asked. ‘A child who’s being disobedient doesn’t cry. A child who doesn’t want to learn doesn’t cry. But a child who is unhappy, or a child who’s frightened to admit that she can’t do what she’s being asked to do might cry. Which is it, Anna, or is it both things?’

  She took Rose’s hand. ‘Squeeze my hand once if you’re unhappy, twice if the writing is the problem, or three times if it’s both.’

  Rose squeezed the teacher’s hand once, paused, squeezed again, almost imperceptibly, then hesitated, before pulling her hand away.

  ‘If that’s the problem, then it’s a problem we can do something about. I will teach you how to write,’ Mrs Conta said brightly. ‘And I won’t tell, if that’s what you’re worried about, though I can’t guarantee your secret won’t be found out.’

  Rose was so grateful, but she was anxious as well. Writing had always seemed such a strange thing to do and she wasn’t sure she could master it, especially since a lot of her Roma friends and family were unable to write. What if not being able to write is in my blood?

  She picked up the pencil and held it in her hand the way she had been shown in the past and the way Mrs Conta was demonstrating now. For the next half an hour, she copied shapes and lines until she could keep the pencil from wobbling and had stopped gouging deep furrows into the paper. Occasionally, she wanted to hurl the pencil across the room, frustrated at the constant repetition and at being confined indoors for so long, but when she had mastered the letters r, o, s and e and carefully consigned them to her memory, she was happy with her achievement. I’ll always be Rose if I can write my name.

  ‘You’re lucky your name has only two different letters in it,’ Mrs Conta had said at the beginning of the lesson. ‘You’ll master it in no time.’

  It was true. Rose was soon able to write anna, though she had no more emotional attachment to the word than to luca.

  She liked Mrs Conta. The teacher was kind without being treacly, firm without being harsh. She seemed to understand Rose’s needs. She didn’t probe, but responded sympathetically whenever Rose appeared distant or sad. She didn’t ask Rose to write down what she was feeling, even when she was proficient enough to be able to express herself on the page.

  Rose began to look forward to her lessons. The whole process of sitting still, listening and learning was alien to her, and she had to get used to being closeted in a room for hours on end, but she found herself becoming hungry to learn more. She especially enjoyed discovering about England’s history. When she heard there was a queen who lived in a huge palace, she wanted to go and see her.

  ‘Is she beautiful?’ she wrote using words and pictures.

  ‘She has a kind face and she works very hard for her people,’ said the teacher. ‘Perhaps one day Mrs Luca might take you to London to see the palace, but very few people meet the queen.’

  Rose had visions of looking up and catching a glimpse of the queen framed by one of the palace windows. She would wave to her and tell her that she was unhappy in her country and would like, if you please, to go home.

  Mrs Conta brought her magazines with photographs of famous places in England, like Trafalgar Square with its lion statues, Stonehenge with its huge prehistoric stones, the white cliffs of Dover overlooking the sea, Windsor Castle, where the queen sometimes lived, as well as Buckingham Palace itself. Rose gazed at them in awe – they were all on such an enormous scale compared to anything she had come across in her previous life.

  She felt more at home when Mrs Conta showed her pictures of country villages with narrow, winding lanes and cottages decked with flowers. She could imagine being with her parents and brother in their wagon, trotting slowly along the lanes, Nicu with his pipe in his mouth, Esme humming quietly with her sewing on her lap and Rani chattering non-stop. Some of the villages were so pretty! If only I might be allowed to walk around them one day, Rose brooded.

  ‘Perhaps Mrs Luca will be happy for me to take you out for the day,’ Mrs Conta suggested when she saw Rose pass her fingers wistfully over the photograph of a river lined with bulrushes and overhung with willows. ‘Would you like that?’

  Rose nodded quickly, her eyes lighting up.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do, but first it’s time for maths.’

  Rose pulled a face. She loathed maths and felt hopeles
s at it. As long as she could count she didn’t see the need for complicated calculations, however hard Mrs Conta tried to make her understand their usefulness.

  ‘Sour faces won’t get you anywhere,’ Mrs Conta responded to her pouts, ‘whereas knowing your multiplication tables will come in very handy in lots of different situations.’

  Rose pulled another long face, which made Mrs Conta laugh, but tried to concentrate on the numbers the teacher was writing on the board.

  From time to time, Mrs Luca would pop her head round the door to see how they were getting on. Mrs Conta would always praise Rose’s efforts.

  ‘Anna is a model pupil,’ she said. ‘She’s very curious and picks things up quickly.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mrs Luca. ‘I’m delighted to hear that we’ll soon be able to communicate with her properly.’

  Chapter 16

  When lessons were over and at weekends, Rose was allowed to wander freely around the grounds of the house. She couldn’t wait! She let herself out of the back door and took deep breaths of the fresh air that welcomed her. Summer was almost over. The leaves on the trees were turning crisp and golden, prey to sudden gusts of wind that would break their fragile hold and send them twirling downward in a last dance of life.

  Rose loved the autumn. Back home, her family used to ramble through woods and meadows in search of edible mushrooms to sell in nearby villages. They would travel the country looking for work helping farmers to harvest their crops. It was always a race to be there first, ahead of other Roma families. There was only so much work to go round. Nicu prided himself on the relationship he had built over the years with farmers who were happy to employ him because they knew he could be trusted. He and the family would set up camp on a farmer’s land and dig for potatoes or pick peas and beans. Rose preferred the peas and beans. It was back-breaking work sifting the earth for potatoes.

  Rose was growing used to life at the Lucas’ house and could even appreciate some aspects of it. She enjoyed spending time in the garden, wandering from one area to another. She played on an old tyre swing and climbing frame that used to belong to Victoria, which Mrs Luca had asked Goran to set up for her. She liked to sit on the edge of the pond and watch the fish, running her fingers gently through the water and trying to spot snails on the water lily leaves. Fifteen today, she would count to herself. Twenty-eight today!