The Mistake

by K. L. Slater

  ‘Because you’ll be far too busy to watch the film, if you get my drift…’ Cassie sat on the edge of the bed and patted the space next to her. Rose dutifully sat down. ‘So. Let’s imagine we’re at the cinema right now, yeah? The film’s started and you’re comfy and relaxed. About ten or fifteen minutes in, you could slide your hand onto his leg like this.’

  She pressed her hand onto Rose’s thigh and began stroking it seductively.

  ‘Gerroff!’ she squealed and sprang away, laughing.

  ‘Rose! This isn’t a game. Gareth isn’t a kid, he’s going to be used to dating real women. Confident women who know what they’re doing. Get my drift?’

  Rose shuffled back next to her.

  ‘If you think that’s a bit forward to start with then just lay your head on his shoulder or shift your leg a bit so your knees are touching, like this.’

  Cassie’s knee pressed lightly against her own.

  ‘OK,’ Rose replied doubtfully.

  For the next half an hour, Cassie took her through the full spectrum of possibilities; from merely touching knees to nigh on having full intercourse in the cinema seat. Rose had no intention of doing any of it, of course, but she stayed quiet and appeared to pay full attention.

  Rose had learned way back in primary school that once Cassie set her mind on an idea, there was no stopping her. It was easier to just let her have her say.

  Cassie’s mum popped her head around the door. ‘I’m just off for a couple of drinkies down the Station Hotel with Barbara. Blimey, is that you under there, Rose? You look stunning.’

  ‘Thanks, Carolyn.’ She smiled shyly. It did make a nice change to feel positive about her appearance for once.

  When Carolyn had gone, the girls went downstairs into the living room. Cassie turned her Britney CD up twice as loud as her mother usually allowed and Rose fetched the two Bacardi Breezers that Cassie had hidden for them earlier at the back of the fridge.

  The girls gyrated seductively, bumped hips and bottoms in time with the beat and swigged from their bottles. Later they fell onto the settee, exhausted and unable to speak for laughing.

  When Rose left it was already dark. She walked along the street at a steady pace, enjoying the cool air and the relative silence after the music blaring in her ears. She could hear a steady stream of traffic passing the village on the main road but there were no vehicles around on the smaller back roads.

  It had been such fun tonight at Cassie’s. When she’d first caught sight of herself in the mirror after her makeover, Rose had felt just like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. She really hadn’t known she could look so… attractive.

  Was that really a word that she could ever get used to using about herself?

  Now, walking home, she felt like she’d been plucked out of a life of college-kid drudgery and transplanted onto a path to womanhood. A date with a real man and a hot new image in the space of a few hours… it was almost too much to get her head around.

  But she would, she told herself silently, she would get used to it because it was a hell of a lot more exciting than what she’d had in her life so far.

  As she walked under a lamppost, Rose glanced at her watch. It wasn’t even seven-fifteen yet. There was no rush to get home, where she’d have to come down to earth with a bump and revert back into boring Rose. Although she was looking forward to speaking to Gareth, if not a little nervous in case her dad realised she was speaking to a boy.

  She decided to walk the long way home and then cut through the park to bring her out near the end of her street.

  As she walked she conjured up Gareth again in her mind: his neat dark hair, and soulful brown eyes. He was neither muscle-bound nor skinny; just the perfect build for his height, which Rose estimated to be around 5’10”, maybe five inches taller than herself.

  His voice was deep, masterful. He’d sounded so experienced and wise when they chatted… he was just perfect!

  She shuddered with the anticipation of what it might feel like to kiss Gareth as she entered the small, grassed park area that, last year, the council had dotted with climbing frames and play equipment for the local kids.

  On impulse, she sat on a swing and, keeping her feet on the floor, rocked herself gently. She closed her eyes and smiled, leaning her head against the freezing cold chain and imagining her cheek pressing into Gareth’s chest.

  A noise over to the left caused her eyelids to snap open involuntarily. She stood up and peered into the gloom of the bushes where the sound, like a snapping twig, came from.

  ‘Hello?’ She walked a little closer and then stopped again to listen.

  Nothing. It was probably just a cat. She shrugged and chuckled to herself when she thought about her man-dreaming on the swing. That’s what drinking alcopops and dancing wildly did for you.

  Still, she couldn’t remember feeling so excited and nervous in equal measure.

  Rose sighed, thinking that she’d better get home so she wasn’t late for Gareth’s call.

  She walked to the park exit and crossed the road to where her own house stood, lights blazing in the front room.

  She didn’t look back. She didn’t see the figure step out of the bushes and watch her as she used her key to open the front door.

  11

  SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER

  Back in her bed later that night, Rose found it difficult to get to sleep. When she finally dozed off, she snapped awake at two a.m. in a state of exhausted excitement.

  It was the thoughts, the possibilities. Mostly, it was the replaying of Gareth’s deep, seductive voice in her head that kept her from resting.

  He’d called her last night, just as he’d promised he would. Eight o’clock on the dot.

  It had been a stressful wait because her mum’s friend Kath rang the landline unexpectedly at seven-thirty. The two women had been known to chat for England, so Rose breathed a sigh of relief when Stella ended the call after twenty minutes, so she could watch Masterchef.

  ‘Why are you sitting on your own out here, Rose?’ Billy enquired loudly when he passed her on the bottom step, next to the telephone table.

  ‘It’s my new reading spot,’ she said with a tight smile.

  ‘So, where’s your book then?’ That kid was just too smart for his own good at times. But she knew how to get rid of him.

  ‘Tell me about school today, Billy. What lessons did you do?’

  He frowned and mumbled something incoherent, shuffling off into the kitchen. She heard the back door open and close. It was just before eight; too late for Billy to be going out. Why wasn’t her mum calling him back? It was too close to Gareth calling for Rose to get involved now.

  The last five minutes of waiting was torture. Her dad got up from his chair and walked past her on the step without speaking. She wasn’t even sure he’d noticed her sitting there; he seemed to be in a world of his own these days.

  Rose heard him pottering around in the kitchen. A minute or two later he walked by again with a sandwich and a can of lager.

  Rose wondered if she’d be able to speak if the phone rang. Her lips were dry and her skin was still stinging from where Cassie had scrubbed off the make-up in a huff.

  ‘I’ve gone to all that trouble and now you want it taking off.’ She’d scowled, pummelling at Rose’s face with a pungent face wipe. ‘You should have just said if you hate it.’

  ‘Cass, of course I don’t hate it. But what do you think my dad’s going to say if I go home looking like this?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘All glammed up. I think you’ve done an amazing job but I don’t want them asking questions when I go out with Gareth tomorrow night, do I?’

  ‘Suppose not,’ Cassie had conceded moodily.

  The truth was, Cassie might have done a really super job with her make-up but the more Rose looked at her reflection, the more she felt decidedly uncomfortable. It didn’t look like her in the mirror, for one thing. Not as she liked her ordinary appearance but she thought
it might be a slightly better idea to start with make-up that was a bit more natural looking; a look that didn’t transform her into someone else entirely.

  She wasn’t about to tell Cassie that. It was more than her life was worth.

  The shrill ring of the phone made her jump.

  ‘I’ll get it, it’ll probably just be Beth from college,’ Rose called through to her mum and dad just before she snatched up the phone. They didn’t respond.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Rose. It’s Gareth here.’

  The hairs on her forearms prickled. ‘Oh, hello.’

  She tried desperately to act as casual and relaxed as she would with a college friend but she thought she probably sounded more like a nervous teen. She hoped that Gareth would soon gather Rose was having a double-sided conversation, just in case her parents were tuning in next door.

  ‘Are you OK to talk, Rose?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s fine.’

  ‘So, what have you been up to today then?’

  She could hardly talk about her day at college, seeing as it was supposed to be Beth Teague on the phone, who was on the same art course and whom her parents had met a couple of times.

  ‘I popped round to Cassie’s house earlier.’

  ‘Oh, I get it.’ Gareth laughed. ‘I’m a college girl now, right? I’ll have to start wearing a dress and high heels and gossip about the fittest boys.’

  Rose giggled.

  ‘Cassie’s your friend, I’m guessing?’

  ‘Yes. She lives on Byron Road.’

  ‘Right. And what were you doing there?’

  Rose hesitated. She couldn’t very well say Cassie had shown her how to apply make-up and lectured her on how to fondle him on their cinema date.

  ‘Sorry. Was that an awkward question to answer when your parents are listening?’

  ‘No, no. We just hung out in her bedroom. You know, playing music and talking. Just the usual stuff.’

  ‘Teenage girls, talking about which boys they fancy, eh?’ He gave a low, throaty chuckle.

  Rose felt her cheeks begin to heat up and she couldn’t think of what to say.

  She and Cassie might still be college students but legally they were adults now as both had turned eighteen. They weren’t still silly little girls, which is how he’d made it sound… did Gareth think she was younger than she actually was? Maybe Cassie was right and she did need to slap on the make-up a bit.

  They arranged to meet the following night.

  ‘If you walk to the top of your street, I’ll wait for you in the slip road just by the school,’ Gareth said. ‘I have a silver Ford Escort.’

  He had a car! For some reason this excited Rose even further.

  ‘And have you thought about which film you’d like to see?’

  She had. She’d browsed the film lists in the local newspaper earlier that day.

  ‘I thought maybe… Shrek?’

  ‘Shrek?’

  She was embarrassed at his surprised tone. It was the sort of film she’d usually see with Cassie; they’d go halves on a bucket of popcorn and relive the Disney films of their childhood. ‘I just thought it was… I don’t know, nice and light. Funny.’

  ‘OK. Well, I said you could choose, so Shrek it is.’

  ‘No, honestly,’ she said quickly. ‘If there’s a better film on then—’

  ‘Well… how about The Mummy Returns?’

  ‘I don’t mind, if you’d rather see that.’

  ‘That’s sorted, then. You’ll have to cuddle up to me if you get scared.’ She heard the tease in his voice. ‘But if you really want to see Shrek, then just say so.’

  ‘No, honestly. The Mummy Returns sounds great. Perfect.’

  ‘Excellent. See you tomorrow at seven, then. We’ll go for a drink first.’

  Rose said goodbye to ‘Beth’ and ended the call.

  She remained sitting on the bottom step for a few minutes, basking in the secretive gloom of the hallway. What had she done to deserve someone as classy as Gareth asking her out? She might be eighteen but to all intents and purposes she was just a college kid who lived in a boring little village where nothing ever happened.

  She didn’t even know how to apply eyeshadow properly, for goodness sake.

  She felt a bit sick now. Would he take her for a drink at some sophisticated cocktail bar?

  Gareth had told her he’d only just arrived in Newstead to begin working on the regeneration project. Rose felt sure when he saw the other village girls – Cassie herself with her rock chick looks – or perhaps Stephanie Barrett, who was a curvy brunette who came third last year in the local Miss Mansfield beauty pageant, he’d realise he was wasting his time on pale, uninteresting Rose Tinsley.

  To Rose’s eternal shame, and Cassie’s amusement, she’d never so much as kissed a boy and now a good-looking man with a job and a car had asked her out.

  Despite feeling like the plainest girl in the village and worrying about whether Gareth was too old for her, Rose couldn’t ignore the continuous fizz of excitement that threaded through her veins.

  12

  ROSE

  PRESENT DAY

  The day after Ronnie’s collapse, I get to work a little earlier than I need to.

  The library’s staff entrance door is open but I’m pleased there’s no sign of Jim. I’m very fond of him and he’s such a gregarious soul but sometimes he doesn’t know when to stop rattling on and leave me to get on with my work in peace.

  His loud booming laugh and sharp Geordie wit is enough to make any librarian cringe; we’re well known for our love of quiet whispers, after all.

  The library isn’t due to open to the public for another fifty minutes so I make myself a coffee and sit in the easy chairs over in the reading corner to scan through a thick wad of documentation. I’ve been putting off looking at what amounts to a pile of official spin from the local authority, detailing why they are intending to close up to fifteen libraries across the county of Nottinghamshire.

  It starts with a covering letter explaining their officers will be visiting each library to view the facilities and meet librarians personally. I enter the date for Newstead’s visit in my diary and skip ahead.

  A chill crawls the length of my spine when I think about what will happen if I lose my job. I feel so safe here; I know the area. I feel I’m amongst my own and I know nearly all of the people who regularly use the library.

  I’d be forced to get another job.

  I have some savings but barely more than a couple of months’ salary. The very thought of starting anew somewhere… maybe even being forced to move to a different area… makes my lungs feel as if they are about to burst.

  I can’t afford to dwell on it. I’m still not strong enough to contemplate how I’d even begin to get through such a massive life change when I’m still wrestling to get through each day.

  ‘Morning, Rose,’ Jim says over my shoulder, making me jump. ‘Sorry to startle you. How’s Ronnie?’

  Word had already got around the village about Ronnie’s ill health. Just a few minutes after the ambulance took him to hospital, a small, concerned group of our closest neighbours gathered, eager to offer any help Ronnie might need.

  ‘Morning, Jim.’ I take a breath to calm myself again and turn in my chair to face him. ‘I rang the hospital first thing and they said he’d had a bit of a restless night but he’s now comfortable. I’m popping in to see him later this afternoon.’

  ‘Give him mine and Janice’s best regards, will you, pet? And give me a shout if his garden needs tidying or anything of that nature. They don’t make them like Ronnie any more, that’s for sure.’ Jim’s smile dissolves into a sad expression. ‘Did everything he could for our Joe, I’ll never forget it. Tried to resuscitate him right there at the pit gates in front of that baying crowd. Ronnie Turner, he’s got the heart of a lion.’

  We all knew the story. Jim’s twin brother, Joe, was one of a small number of miners who decided not to go on st
rike in 1984. Consistently referred to by the striking miners as ‘scabs’, the men were vilified and the subject of much intimidation locally.

  One morning, when the National Coal Board bus carrying the working miners edged past the furious crowd of those men who were on strike and penniless, the restraining police line failed. As the men got off the bus, the crowd surged forward and objects were thrown.

  Half a flying brick hit Joe Greaves on the back of the head. Joe never gained consciousness and the culprit was never found.

  There were lots of similar incidents that documented the troubled years, as they’d come to be locally known, although none had been quite as tragic as that one. But the lack of justice following Joe’s death had bred a suspicious discontent that still simmered under the surface of the community to this day.

  ‘I’ll tell Ronnie you were asking after him, Joe,’ I said, standing up. ‘You can open the main doors now, if you like. There’ll probably be a stampede, all those lovely new books waiting to be collected.’

  ‘Aye, you should’ve seen my Jan’s face when I took that book home last night, her nose was straight in it.’ His expression grew mock-stern. ‘I had to make my own tea, mind.’

  I grin and move over to the main desk as Jim opens the doors. Predictably, there are a handful of people already waiting, most of whom I’d left a message for yesterday.

  But the first questions were not about their long-awaited books.

  ‘How’s poor old Ronnie?’ Mrs Brewster heaved her considerable bulk over towards me and leaned on the desk to catch her breath. ‘I’ve been thinking about him ever since I heard.’

  Miss Carter followed her over and I told the two of them what the nurse had said when I called the hospital this morning.

  ‘I thought about starting a little collection for Mr Turner,’ Miss Carter said, shyly. A whip-thin elderly woman with a grey bun, she peered at me through school-ma’am spectacles. ‘If you don’t think it too presumptuous of me.’

  ‘I think that’s a lovely idea.’ I smiled at her, hoping she’d have no more questions about my eating habits. ‘Ronnie will be very touched, I’m sure.’