Mr. Rosenblum's List: Or Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman

by Natasha Solomons

  Jack gave an unhappy cry, ‘I can’t do it, Sadie. I can’t.’ He could not bear to remain and watch new people desecrate his golf course, his dream of England. ‘And really darling, what can we afford to buy? We’ve not even two hundred pounds.’

  He tenderly removed a red money spider dangling from a curl of her grey hair. Undeterred, Sadie reached into her apron pocket and took out a copy of the Blackmore Vale Gazette, which she unfolded to reveal an advertisement in bold letters. ‘See here. Wilson’s Housing Corporation is delighted to offer for sale charming bungalows with super meadow views. All mod cons. Deposit only one hundred pounds. You see Jack, we can afford to stay.’

  He tried to suppress a shudder and failed. With a bitter laugh, he took the paper from her and read the advertisement for himself.

  ‘So, after all this time and effort, all we can manage is one of those concrete huts despoiling the water meadows. I can’t do it. I can’t. I’m sorry, dolly. I gambled and I lost.’

  He did not need to say it. They both knew that the price of defeat was to leave, never to return.

  Sadie did not raise the topic again and, since they must go, it was her task to organise the unhappy journey. She booked the removal company, began to pack up boxes and wrote to Elizabeth of the change in circumstance, but even then none of it seemed quite real. Slowly, they began to change the habits formed over the last year; they stopped sitting outside in the evening – in the city they could no longer stretch to the expense of a garden and so must wean themselves off fresh air.

  ‘It will be good to be back in town,’ said Sadie, trying her best to be cheerful, as they sat in the airless living room.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Jack. ‘I’ll go to the beigel shop each morning. No more stupid plans. No more lists.’

  Sadie stifled a sigh and went back to packing boxes. She did not know what to do with Jack – his unhappiness was as relentless as his cheery optimism had been before and she longed for the old Jack to return. There was a knock at the front door that nearly made her drop the china bell she was holding. ‘Can you get it? I’m busy.’

  Jack scowled. ‘I don’t want to see anyone.’

  With a huff, Sadie abandoned the packing box and went to the front door, where Curtis was standing on the porch.

  ‘I ’as come t’ see Mister Rose-in-Bloom.’

  ‘Of course, come in,’ said Sadie ignoring her husband’s stipulation, rather hoping that the old man might be able to raise his spirits, but Curtis hesitated, pointing to his mud-caked feet.

  ‘They is awful mucky.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’re leaving – let the new people clean it up.’

  She ushered him into the living room but Jack had gone, leaving his half-finished whisky tumbler on the floor. She puffed up a cushion on an armchair and motioned Curtis to sit. ‘May I get you a drink?’

  ‘No thank ee.’

  Curtis patted his pocket where he kept his hip flask of special cider. They sat there awkwardly, talking about the weather.

  ‘Lovely and sunny.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Though a trifle windy.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Curtis took a swig from his flask and offered it to her, but politely she declined.

  ‘Let me find Jack.’

  She went upstairs to the bedroom, to find Jack hiding in the corner.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she hissed, not wanting Curtis to overhear.

  ‘I won’t see any of them. I can’t bear it.’ He made no effort to keep his voice down.

  Sadie frowned, folded her arms and shot him a look of fierce resolution. ‘Mr Curtis is a guest and you are being rude. The English are always polite and welcome their guests.’

  She added this last part in an effort to cajole him but Jack merely scowled at her and climbed into bed fully clothed, pulling the covers over his head.

  ‘I’m not English and I’m not coming down.’

  The following evening Sadie persuaded Jack to take a walk around the village, on the condition that it was late and the working folk were all in bed. The cherry blossom was nearly finished and it landed in her hair like brown confetti. Blue tits zoomed to and fro taking constant meals to their hungry chicks. The grass had sprouted and was the glossy green of early summer and she could hear the evening rattle of crickets in the fields. Out of habit they walked down to the parish notice board at Charing Cross but they were both too melancholy to talk. A smart poster painted blue, white and red was carefully pinned to the board and the second she saw it Sadie tried to turn back. But it was too late: Jack began to read.

  Coronation of Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth the Second,

  Tuesday, 2nd June 1953. Golf Match at

  ‘The Queen Elizabeth Golf Club’. Tee off 6 am.

  Celebrations Pursebury Ash Village Hall, 11 sharpish.

  Latecomers not admitted.

  Due to unforeseen circumstances the golf match is cancelled.

  He stood bewildered, then rubbed his eyes, gave a loud cough and cleared his throat, ‘Must be making hay nearby. Always bothers my eyes.’

  Sadie looked at the forlorn figure and decided she could bear it no longer.

  ‘I’ve had enough, Jack. The sooner we leave the better. I think we should simply pack up and go.’

  ‘Yes. No goodbyes. We’ll just disappear.’

  On her way through the kitchen garden, Sadie noticed her sweet peas were beginning to form their first buds – in a week or two they would be flowering. A month ago Jack had cut hazel twigs and hammered them into the earth for her to twine the fragile stems of the seedling sweet peas around. She had ground up seashells and sprinkled them about the young plants to ward off slugs and snails but now they would flower once and go to seed.

  Jack brought the car to the front door and loaded the cases. Sadie came scurrying out, locked the front door with the giant iron key and hid it in a flowerpot. As the car bounced along the uneven driveway Jack peered into the gloomy trees on either side and tried to resist taking a last look at the house. This part of his life was finished. He mustn’t look back, he mustn’t.

  The car snaked along the narrow lanes as the moon caught the last of the cow parsley frothing in the hedgerows and the white wings of flitting moths. The night was thick with the scent of flowers; every garden seemed to have a lilac tree bursting into bloom and the air was heavy with sweet lavender. In his pocket, Jack had the brown envelope with all their remaining money: one hundred and twenty-nine pounds six shillings and ten pence. He had already decided how to spend it – they would take a room at the Ritz. The old, confident Jack would have spent all his money in the belief that more would come, and so he decided to feign optimism in the hope that it would return to him, along with his good luck.

  They drove in silence as the car purred towards the main roads and the city. ‘Do you want to stop for dinner?’ Jack asked, puncturing the quiet, as they passed through a small town crouching amongst the hills.

  ‘No. Let’s just get there.’

  Dorset smoothed into Wiltshire; then they were in Hampshire and the first of the Home Counties. The roads widened and they began to see other cars. Villages became towns, and then swelled into suburbs, until at last they were in London. The streets crawled with vehicles: taxis honked and red double-deckers cut in front of them. The sky disappeared behind the buildings and it was a starless dark. The city was a vast construction sight: blocks of flats sprouted like weird concrete plants and great cranes hung over the West End. They tried to drive up the Mall but it was already cordoned off for the coronation. Thousands of flags lined every street and hung from all the windows, and each display in the elegant windows of Harrods and Fortnum’s celebrated the great event. They waited at lights on Piccadilly and then, at last, they reached the Ritz. A bellboy held open the car door and Jack handed his keys to a porter wearing a smart pillbox hat, who swiftly unloaded the car and then whisked it away to be parked out of sight.

  Sadie wanted to be thrilled by the glam
our and decadence of the hotel and managed a smile. ‘Well, this is a treat, Broitgeber.’

  Jack offered her an arm and, each acting a game of jollity for the benefit of the other, they went into the smart lobby of the hotel. The tiled floor shone with polish, a new and sumptuous red carpet accentuated the curve of the room and a magnificent vase of exotic lilies rested on a circular table. They weren’t a native variety and must have been flown in especially at huge expense, decided Sadie. This opulence was not really to her taste – all she wanted was a comfortable bed. The clerk at reception, stiffly clad in tails, bowed his head as he saw Jack.

  ‘Good to see you again, sir. It’s been a while.’

  ‘Too long. It’s good to be back.’

  ‘Clarence.’

  The receptionist gestured to the bellboy, who ushered them into the lift and shut the cage, which with the stutter of machinery carried them to the fourth floor. He showed them into an elegant room, the ceilings high and the bed neatly turned down. The moment he left them alone, Sadie flopped onto the soft mattress and nestled into a pile of cushions, and watched as Jack went to the window and wrenched it open. Instantly, the sound of the city poured into the room, along with a dark ooze of smog. Sadie coughed. ‘Close it, Jack.’

  Jack shut the window with a bang. ‘I wanted some fresh air.’

  ‘Darling, this is London.’

  He went to the drinks cupboard, ‘Toast our return?’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  Sadie kicked off her high-heeled shoes; she hadn’t worn heels for a year and they were pinching her toes.

  ‘There’s whisky, a twenty-five-year malt. Gin, vodka. The usual suspects. I can call down for a cocktail if you prefer.’

  What she really wanted was a glass of milk and perhaps a boiled egg. She thought of her hens and of collecting the warm eggs and peeling off the downy feathers from the shells.

  ‘I’ll have a tonic water.’

  He passed her a glass, which she didn’t drink but held against her hot cheeks and forehead. She took in the creases around Jack’s eyes, the shadow of grey stubble on his chin and the straggle of white hair. He removed his spectacles to clean them on his tie and she saw his eyes were red, laced with veins. He never used to be still – he was always moving, buzzing here and there with a scheme or a wild idea. Now, he sat with his whisky clasped on his lap, motionless as a heron watching goldfish in the pond.

  This wasn’t her Jack. Sadie wanted him spilling over at the edges with chaos and enthusiasm. She sensed with his abandoning the list that now England could never be home. They would live and die in exile.

  She’d always done her best to ignore his list, but now she wondered. He’d almost succeeded in finishing it, and she had an inkling that if he had, they would have belonged to Pursebury Ash.

  Sadie heaved herself up and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. With a piece of cotton wool and a dab of cold cream she removed her coral lipstick and matching blush. ‘My name is Sadie Rose,’ she said into the mirror.

  The new name still tasted strange on her tongue, and though it was a little inelegant, she would prefer to be Sadie Rose-in-Bloom – now that was a good name. If they had stayed in the village, she might have tried to persuade Jack that Rose-in-Bloom was the best choice for their passports. She supposed it didn’t really matter anymore. During her life, she had many names and had lived in many places but Rosenblum belonged to another Sadie – the one who lived in Berlin all those years ago. They would never go back now – neither of them could understand the people who went back. Before did not exist anymore, however much one might wish it. That other world had gone and it was pointless to return and look for it.

  She stared at her reflection until her vision began to cloud and her nose seemed to drift downwards towards her chin. This was not an English face, neither was it exciting or exotic – she saw a middle-aged woman fattening into old age, with a dusting of dark hairs on her top lip. She didn’t belong anywhere: she wasn’t English and she certainly wasn’t German. Jew. It was such a small word and caused so much trouble. Jewess. That sounded more enticing, sexy even – but was not a word that fitted her, a plump woman born in the suburbs. She smoothed her blouse and tried to get the creases out of her skirt. It was tighter than it was a year ago – she needed to diet. Was it really only a year? In that time she had come to love the landscape and the seasons and the sky and the ducks and the stories.

  Sadie realised that she was crying. She chided herself, ‘Du blöde Kuh. This won’t do. Pull yourself together, silly old woman.’

  She combed her hair, wincing as the brush caught on a burr. She untangled it, placing it on the corner by the sink. It was a tiny piece of the countryside and, somehow, she couldn’t quite bear to throw it away.

  Jack could put it off no longer – it was time to call in at the carpet factory. He left Sadie after breakfast and drove to the East End. Even this corner of London was decorated with flags and coloured ribbons, although underneath the paraphernalia of celebration the bricks were dirty and soot stained, and there was the faint odour of rubbish decaying sweetly in the heat. The streets were teeming with stallholders selling beigels, buns, shoelaces, stinking fish, soap flakes and pickle jars, and Jack picked his way through the crowd to the narrow street leading to his factory. The gates were locked and he took a key from his pocket to let himself into the yard. He stood alone in the cobbled forecourt for a moment, listening to the low thrum of machinery.

  The men working on the looms did not look up when he came onto the factory floor; they were far too busy threading and cutting to see him, and the bang of the door was lost in the clamouring din. Jack had forgotten quite how loud the great looms were – the crash and clatter of the machines vibrated through him and he felt the familiar pain at the back of his head begin to pulse. One loom was broken and silent, its metal guts spewed across the floor.

  He walked to his old office, where his name still hung on a brass plaque, now coated in a layer of dust. Wiping it off with his sleeve, he went inside. There was a scurry of movement and Fielding scrambled to his feet, sending a pot of tea flying in his haste.

  ‘Mr Rosenblum, sir. I am sorry. Wasn’t expecting you … did you call?… I’ve just been here a minute. I’ll leave now.’

  Jack settled into the battered chair opposite the desk and motioned for the man to sit back down. The waste bin was overflowing, a dead plant rested on the windowsill and judging by the snapshot of Fielding’s family on the desk, it was clear that he’d been here for some time. This was no longer Jack’s office. Through the background whir and clack of the great looms there was a knock at the door and a young woman barged in without waiting for a response, clutching a folder. She stopped the instant she saw Jack.

  ‘Please, come in,’ he said beckoning her inside.

  Hesitating, she handed the file to Mr Fielding and scurried out.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Fielding, ‘when you didn’t come back, it was easier for me to work in here. It has a telephone.’

  ‘It was the sensible thing to do.’

  ‘Are you coming back?’ asked Fielding, his voice betraying a note of desperation. ‘Things have gone to the dogs without you.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not so bad,’ said Jack smoothly, taking the file.

  He opened it and read the contents in silence. When he had finished, he closed the folder and leant back in his chair, wondering what to say. Fielding was right – it was bad, worse than bad. He took off his glasses, cleaned them as a matter of habit on his tie, put them back on and pushed them up his nose.

  ‘I know this is my fault. I took money out of the business to start another concern. But these figures are dreadful. We’re not even in profit.’

  Fielding let out a tiny scream that sounded like a kettle giving off steam when it had boiled. ‘It’s God-awful! I wrote to you again and again and you never replied, Mr Rosenblum. I needed you to make decisions on things and you wouldn’t. We need new machines like the other
carpet factories. These looms are old and break down every other day. You never even responded to my telegram.’

  Jack said nothing – it was all true. He was to blame and needed to make it right but he was too tired to hustle and scheme. Carpets just did not interest him like they used to.

  He chose another two shades for next season’s plush pile range: ‘Rainy Day Grey forty-two’ and ‘Spring Green sixteen’. Neither looked anything like their descriptions, he thought dismissively. ‘Spring Green sixteen’ was a lurid colour – nothing like the soft, rippling shades that were found in the garden at Chantry Orchard. The grey of a rainy day on Bulbarrow was full of drama – there the black sky billowed with the swirling patterns of raindrops, while the wind sang in the telegraph wires. The colours on the dye chart looked flat and fake.

  Jack tried to find his old self by doing all the things that used to give him pleasure: he went to the pictures to watch a daft cowboy flick and took Sadie to a play, the new Noël Coward. He didn’t ask her how she found it, in case she wanted to discuss the finer points of the plot. As the greatest actors in England performed on Shaftesbury Avenue, he found himself wondering how tall the new trees had grown and whether they yet screened the bungalows from the vista at the fifth hole, and as he clapped during the curtain call, he realised that he had entirely neglected to watch the play.

  They both struggled to readjust to London hours from Pursebury mean time, finding themselves yawning by nine o’clock and eating dinner unfashionably early. They walked arm in arm along the Mall, pretending to admire the flags and the gathering crowds. The trees were slender and had been gracefully pollarded, but Sadie didn’t approve of the style.

  ‘Look at them. Poor things, they’re old and they’ve been all chopped about. They look like their limbs have been amputated. It’s cruel.’

  Jack prodded a trunk and a trace of city grime came off on his finger. He realised that all the trees lining the avenue were coated with soot and thought sadly of the clean trees in his orchard. The day they had left he saw a toad there – it sat on a log, blinked its eyes and croaked. It wasn’t a bad life that of a toad, he decided. No one would tell a toad that he was in debt and must leave his lily pad. Jack huffed – he urgently needed to contact the estate agent. Tomorrow. He would do it tomorrow.