Rosie Meadows Regrets...

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘Yes, and I forgot, so come on, let’s find the wretched thing and get going again. I presume you’ve done all the titivating you need to do this morning. Done all the spurious errands you invented to get you out of a morning’s childcare?’

  ‘Er, yes, although –’

  ‘Right, let’s get back on the road. Your mother’s got roast pheasant for lunch and I’m damned if I’m missing that. No point taking two cars down, is there?’

  ‘Um, no.’

  ‘Well, come on then.’

  ‘Yes. Right. Listen, Harry, Blinky’s probably in Ivo’s bed. If you could just go and get him I’ll grab a few things I need from the bathroom – make-up, sponge bag, that kind of thing …’

  ‘Well, hurry up. I’m bloody hungry and I could do with a drink. All I need now is to miss lunch, that would really make my day!’

  Harry exited angrily and I hastened to the bathroom. I stuck my head round the door. Tim was sitting up on the loo seat, hugging his knees to his chest like a little gnome.

  ‘We’re going,’ I hissed. ‘You’ll have to climb out of a window or something. Okay? Make sure you shut it behind you!’

  The fact that I was leaving a strange man alone in my house, and that there would then be a window conveniently left unlocked for any other strange man who happened to be passing, was nothing, let me tell you, to being discovered with a toy boy in the en suite.

  ‘Will do,’ he whispered with a grin. ‘Quite fun this, isn’t it? I could get used to all this subterfuge.’ He winked. ‘Quite a turn-on.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I spluttered, shutting the door. Harry reappeared in the bedroom.

  ‘Right, you get in the car and I’ll set the alarm.’

  I stared at him aghast. ‘You’re going to … set the alarm?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Why not?’

  ‘Well, I never bother!’

  ‘I know you never bother, Rosie, but that’s one of the curious differences between you and me. If I invest in a burglar alarm I make damn sure I use it, unlike you who can’t even be bothered to find out how the ruddy thing works.’

  I gulped in horror. Oh God, Tim would be stuck in the bathroom all weekend. Either that or he’d make a run for it and the place would be crawling with police in seconds.

  ‘But, Harry, we can’t!’ I croaked, finding my voice at last.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, because – it’s broken.’

  ‘Broken? Since when?’

  ‘Since – yesterday. When I broke it. By mistake. I thought I’d have a go, you see, and I punched in all the wrong numbers. The whole thing went berserk, blew up in my face!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Rosie, it’s working perfectly. Punching in the wrong numbers doesn’t make any difference. Come on, I’ll show you.’

  He made to lead me away when suddenly, to our left, someone started whistling the theme tune to The Guns of Navarone. Very loudly and very tunelessly. I stiffened. Harry stared at me. The whistling stopped. There was a silence, then it began again. Only this time it was 633 Squadron.

  Harry spoke slowly. ‘Rosie, would you mind telling me who, in the name of God, is whistling Second World War theme tunes in my bathroom?’

  ‘Ah,’ I croaked. ‘Yes. Well, now that would be, um, that’s …’

  Without waiting for an explanation, Harry kicked open the bathroom door as if it was the saloon at the OK Corral. Tim was revealed, on his knees, with his hand thrust down the lavatory, shoulder deep in water, whistling away furiously.

  ‘That’s all right now, missus,’ he announced cheerfully, withdrawing his arm. ‘I’ve located the problem, that’s your S bend unblocked!’

  ‘That’s the plumber!’ I finished triumphantly. Oh, bless him, bless him! My, what astounding ingenuity, King’s College Cambridge watch out, this boy was destined for great things.

  Tim stood up and grinned, wiping his arm on a towel. ‘All in perfect working order now.’

  Harry gawped.

  ‘I forgot to tell you, darling,’ I gabbled. ‘That’s what the emergency was. You see, when I came back from shopping, there was water everywhere, the upstairs loo was overflowing, so I had to call out an emergency plumber!’

  ‘Twenty-four-hour service and if we’re not there in five minutes you get a year’s supply of free loo paper. Crapper’s the name and plumbing’s the game – you won’t have any more trouble with that little darling, missus,’ said Tim nodding knowledgeably at our low-level flush. ‘I’ve sorted her elementary canal out good and proper. Nothing serious, mind, just a bit of overenthusiasm with the quilted Andrex.’ He stepped forward and lowered his voice confidentially. ‘A little tip. I recommend only four sheets per wipe, see?’ He pulled four pieces off the roll to demonstrate. ‘And only three wipes. One up, one down and one to polish. Any more than that and you’re in trouble. Oh, and if it’s going to take more than three wipes,’ he tapped his nose, ‘flush in between, that’s what I say. Have a mid-crap flush.’

  Harry was puce, speechless.

  ‘Er, excellent, thank you so much,’ I stammered, wishing he wouldn’t throw himself into the role-playing quite so enthusiastically. ‘Um, this is my husband, by the way,’ I added, and then experienced a moment of social unease as I wondered if one normally introduced one’s husband to the plumber.

  ‘Good morning to you, sir. Mr Crapper at your service!’ He gave a dinky little bow. Oh God, he was really playing the cheeky chappie, any minute now he’d turn into Dick Van Dyke, leap up on the loo seat and do the plumber’s equivalent of Chim-chiminee. Tim peered at Harry’s incredulous face.

  ‘Haven’t we met before, sir?’

  I groaned inwardly. Did he have to push his luck?

  ‘Certainly not!’ spluttered Harry.

  Tim cocked his head to one side. ‘Funny, I never forget a lavvy and I never forget a face.’ He frowned. Then his face cleared. ‘Ah yes, got it. White’s Club, St James’s, January ninety-six. Bit of trouble with the overflow in the gents there, a nice white Viceroy Standard, as I recall. I remember passing you on the way out, snoozing on the library sofa, ha ha! Anyway, I’ll be off now – oh, and I wouldn’t perform on that for a day or two, missus, let it settle down a bit before you have a motion, all right? Want me to mop up in here first?’

  I looked down at the flood he’d had the presence of mind to create on the floor. ‘No, no, I’ll do that.’

  ‘Righto. Cheerio then.’

  ‘I’ll, um, see you out.’ I followed him quickly downstairs.

  As he went through the front door he gave me a broad wink. ‘Didn’t I do well?’ he whispered.

  ‘Too well,’ I muttered as I shut the door firmly in his face.

  I turned round – and jumped. Harry was standing right behind me. He looked rather pale.

  ‘Plumber, eh?’

  ‘Er, yes!’

  ‘Curiously devoid of a tool bag, a spanner, a widget, a whatnot, or even, dare I say it, a plunger.’

  ‘Ah. He must have left them … in his van.’

  Even as I spoke we both turned to see Tim through the hall window, skipping merrily up the road, hands in his pockets, very much on foot, very much back to Sainsbury’s.

  Harry gazed at me for a moment, a strange, twisted expression on his face. Then he turned and went into the sitting room. He made straight for the drinks cupboard. Without even bothering to get out a glass, he unscrewed the top of the whisky bottle, held it to his lips, tipped his head back and glugged hard. Then he set it down. He wiped his mouth and turned back to me, staring. For once I almost felt sorry for him. Oh God, he thought I was having an affair. Thought he’d surprised us, done a coitus interruptus.

  I sighed. ‘Look, okay, you’re right, Harry, he wasn’t a plumber, actually he works in Sainsbury’s. He carried my bags home and for some obscure reason saw fit to take the bubble bath upstairs to the bathroom. Rather cheeky, I agree, but he’s bigger than me so I decided not to wrestle him downstairs again. When we hear
d you come in, I knew you were going to think the worst so he hid in the bathroom, and when you said you were going to put the alarm on he pretended to be a plumber. Ridiculous, I know, but that’s all there is to it, I swear.’

  His pale eyes bored into mine for a long moment. ‘Get in the car, Rosie,’ he said quietly.

  I stared at him for a second, and suddenly I couldn’t be bothered to argue. Oh God, I was off anyway, wasn’t I, so why try to convince him? So what if he thought I was playing fast and loose with boys young enough to be bob-a-jobbing for me? So what if he thought I’d begun the extramarital activity already? I went back upstairs to get the few things I needed for the weekend and then went silently out to the car.

  The drive down to Oxfordshire was slow, silent and tense. The traffic was very heavy and I was aware that Harry, now on his third leg of the journey and sandwiched firmly between two juggernauts, was simmering away quietly beside me. He finally came to the boil somewhere around High Wycombe.

  ‘Of course you realize you’ve condemned us to Friday afternoon traffic now, don’t you? While you’ve been canoodling with underage gippos, half the planet has seen fit to hit the M40!’

  ‘You were the one who forgot Blinky,’ I reminded him mildly.

  ‘Only because you were too busy dreaming about getting your leg over that bit of rough to pack the bloody thing in the first place! It’s going to take all afternoon to get down there now. Look at all these ghastly people in their revolting little cars!’ He ground his teeth at an innocuous-looking couple in a Metro beside us. They looked away in alarm. ‘Quadruple the price of petrol, that’s what I say. That would keep these proles off the road! Make it twenty quid a gallon, thirty even. That’ll make them think twice before they nip down to Auntie Maureen’s in the Fiesta. When I come to power I shall push that through as a matter of urgency. We’ll use superior purchasing power to out-manoeuvre these bastards and go back to the days when only gentlemen drove on the highways!’

  ‘Yes, and you could live at Toad Hall.’

  ‘There are too many people on this island, Rosie,’ he seethed. ‘Too many common people. I’d like to round up at least ninety per cent of them, march them all off to the white cliffs of Dover and –’

  ‘Push them off the edge, yes, I know, you’ve told me before. Harry, I want a divorce.’

  I hadn’t meant to say it so soon. In fact, I hadn’t planned exactly when I was going to say it, but at that particular moment, as he launched into his habitual Nazi diatribe on the great unwashed, which I’d heard so many times before, I truly hated him. We were crawling along in the slow lane of the motorway at the time, which required little in the way of driving skill, so he was able to turn almost ninety degrees to look at me. His mouth dropped open, his blue eyes popped, but at the same time a police siren wailed abruptly behind us. He glanced up into his rear-view mirror.

  A panda car was advancing at speed towards us up the hard shoulder, lights flashing. A moment later it had slowed to a crawl alongside us. The driver leaned out of his window and by means of an eloquent gesture invited us, unequivocally, to join him.

  Harry touched his chest. ‘Me?’ he mouthed back, incredulous.

  Both policemen nodded firmly in unison.

  Shaking his head in disbelief, Harry pulled over, watched gleefully, I might add, by the massed ranks of the great unwashed, including the couple in the Metro.

  Now from the moment when I’d reached an age when I could sit behind a wheel, my father had impressed upon me the importance of getting out of the car when stopped by the police. Not only is it polite, he’d stressed, but it also subliminally predisposes them towards you. Harry, of course, knew better. He sat firm, arrogant and unamused as they approached. As the policeman crouched into view in Harry’s window, I suddenly had a nasty feeling I knew what this was all about.

  ‘This your car, sir?’

  ‘Of course it’s my car. What the devil have you pulled me over for?’

  ‘Well, according to our records, this car was stolen this morning. Would you happen to know anything about that?’

  ‘Stolen! Don’t be ridiculous, this is my car and I’m driving it, how can it have been stolen? You’ve got the wrong vehicle, officer.’

  My tongue seemed to have got entangled with my tonsils. I unwound it and leaned across.

  ‘Er, no,’ I stammered, ‘you’re right, officer, it was this car. You see, I thought I’d lost it in a car park this morning and reported it missing, but actually I hadn’t lost it at all because my husband was driving it and I was driving his. I’m afraid it was just a silly misunderstanding and totally my fault.’

  Harry turned to me, momentarily dumbstruck. But only momentarily. ‘Do you mean to say you reported this car stolen and didn’t even bother to tell me?’

  ‘Harry, so much has happened this morning and there simply wasn’t time. I meant to ring the police station and tell them it was all a silly mistake but I just forgot. I’m terribly sorry.’ I addressed this last remark to the policeman, blushing furiously.

  He pushed his cap back and scratched his head. He looked baffled, but not murderous like Harry. ‘I see. Right, well, I suppose that explains it. Can I see your documentation and your licences please?’

  I produced mine from my handbag but Harry hadn’t got his on him.

  ‘It’s at home in my study. Good God, I’m so sorry about all this, officer, quite frankly I’m appalled at my wife’s behaviour. What a perfectly bloody stupid thing to do. Talk about wasting police time, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Rosie! These people have got better things to do than charge around looking for fictitious cars!’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I muttered.

  ‘That’s okay, sir,’ said the policeman kindly. ‘No harm done. We’ll just check with London though. Which police station was it, madam?’

  ‘Kensington.’

  ‘Kensington!’ brayed Harry. ‘What the hell were you doing in Kensington!’

  ‘Shopping,’ I muttered. ‘I told you.’

  ‘Ha! All the way to Kensington for a pair of knickers and some shampoo – women, I ask you, eh?’ He turned jovially to the policemen for solidarity, but one of them was looking at Harry rather carefully.

  ‘Have you been drinking, sir?’

  A horrid silence fell. Harry went very pink. ‘Of course not, officer,’ he spluttered at last. ‘I haven’t even had lunch yet!’

  What that had to do with the price of eggs, I’ve no idea.

  ‘Well then, you won’t mind stepping from the car and blowing into the bag for me, will you? Just a formality.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any need for that.’

  ‘Probably not, but all the same, sir, we can’t be too careful.’

  Harry stared at him belligerently, and for a moment I thought he was going to refuse. Then he got out and slammed the door furiously. As he walked off towards the panda car, I heard him berating them.

  ‘This is just the sort of easy crime you enjoy, isn’t it, officer? You’ve lost control of the streets, you can’t catch the real criminals, but by golly you’ll nail the middle classes as they go quietly about their business!’

  I sank down in my seat with a low moan, watching with trepidation as the equipment was produced from the police car. Oh God, this was really going to send him into orbit. Forget the divorce, if Harry lost his licence I might as well emigrate. I watched fearfully through my fingers as Harry stood in the wind by the panda car, trouser legs flapping, hair standing on end, blowing into a bag. The two policemen regarded the result grimly. Then one of them approached my car again. He crouched down at the window.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask your husband to accompany us to the station. Would you like to follow on behind?’

  I did. And then I sat for what seemed like an age in a cold, grey waiting room, decorated with lots of stern posters with dire warnings about the dangers of not locking your car or protecting your property, while Harry was taken away to be teste
d again. Surprise, surprise, this test also proved to be extremely positive, at least that’s what I assumed when Harry finally emerged from a little back room with a face like thunder.

  ‘Don’t speak to me,’ he hissed as we walked out. ‘If you value your life, don’t even utter. This is all your fault, Rosie!’

  I knew better than to argue and got back in the car.

  ‘Move over,’ he snarled.

  ‘But, Harry, surely I should drive. You can’t –’

  ‘I’m perfectly entitled to drive until my case comes up in a month’s time, when I will, in all probability and thanks to you, be banned from driving a vehicle for at least a year, but until such time I am quite within my rights to sit behind a wheel. Now MOVE OVER!’

  Crazy not to. I shifted into the passenger seat and he drove away at top speed. The motorway was clearer now and we zipped along it in silence. No mention was made of the divorce and I felt it was almost as if I’d never said it. I wondered if this was a deliberate ploy on his part, or if actually, in the light of this massive blow to his morale, it was simply of no importance. After all, what was the dissolution of a marriage compared to this restriction of Harry’s liberty? Lost your wife and child, Harry old boy? Jolly bad luck, have another glass of port. Lost your licence? Good God, how on earth will you get to Cheltenham? To Goodwood? I sank back in my seat with a sigh and wondered if I’d ever have the nerve to say it again. Or perhaps I wouldn’t have to, I thought hopefully. Yes, perhaps it didn’t matter, perhaps I could just serve him with the relevant papers and when he expressed surprise say, oh, don’t you remember, Harry? I mentioned it a few Fridays ago, just before we took the scenic route to my parents’ via the police station.

  As we careered off the motorway at the appropriate exit I glanced at his set, angry face. I knew that look and gripped my seat hard as he began to take his aggression out on the narrow lanes that led to my parents’ house. My knuckles were white and my eyes shut as we flew along at breakneck speed, but I knew better than to say anything. As we zipped past the farm at the end of my parents’ road we suddenly had to screech to a halt within centimetres of a car trying to pass in the opposite direction. The woman driver buzzed down her window.