Rosie Meadows Regrets...

by Catherine Alliott

‘Out! Out! No bed!’ he demanded, raising his arms and clenching and unclenching his chubby fists.

  ‘No more bed,’ I agreed, lifting him out and holding him close. He smelled divine. I nuzzled into his hair and neck, breathing him in deeply. My heart beat against his. Over my dead body, Harry. Over my dead body. I quickly changed his nappy, then carried him downstairs, sticking my head round the kitchen door.

  ‘I’m just popping over to Philly’s, Mum, okay?’

  My mother turned round from the kitchen sink, an apron protecting her silk shirtwaister, Cabouchon bracelets clinking above her Marigolds. She raised her gloves like a surgeon preparing to operate, eyes wide. ‘But she’s coming over for lunch tomorrow, I told you! You’ll see her then.’

  I shrugged. ‘Okay, so I’ll see her now and then.’

  ‘Will you be back for supper?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so, I’ll probably stay over.’

  ‘But I’ve asked the Burdetts and the Palmers! I thought we’d have some of those little cucumber mousses you do so beautifully and a bit of stuffed pork.’

  My mother had a happy knack of inviting all her friends over for dinner when I was around to do the catering.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll love that, Mum. My recipes are in my blue folder in the drawer.’

  ‘Oh, but the girls will be so disappointed.’

  The only reason ‘the girls’ – Marjorie Burdett and Yvonne Palmer were both pushing sixty-five – would be disappointed was because they’d be getting the cucumber without the mousse, and the pork without the stuffing. Unless of course she stuffed the cucumber up the pork.

  ‘Give them my love,’ I said sweetly. ‘And my regrets.’

  I could almost hear my mother’s teeth grinding as I went out to the car, but cooking a four-course meal for Marjorie Burdett was not top of my list of priorities at the moment. The only priority I have right now, I determined as I strapped Ivo into his seat and paused to regard him squarely, is you, mate.

  Popping over to Philly’s was not as easy as I’d deliberately and nonchalantly made it sound. She didn’t exactly live next door, but in the next county, in deepest, rural Gloucestershire, some thirty-five minutes away, but that suited me fine. I needed time on my own, time to think. I set off down the lanes and reflected on my little debacle with Harry, which, in retrospect, although harrowing, had actually been extremely illuminating, particularly with regard to what he’d said about Bertram. Deep down I suppose I’d always known that his uncle’s approbation of me had increased Harry’s ardour, but it was a revelation actually to hear him say it. I remembered how I’d dreaded going up to Yorkshire to meet this mythical figure, Harry’s only living relative, his benefactor, from whom Harry expected to inherit the earth. I remembered Harry’s nerves too, how he’d made me change at least twice before we set off and given me a whole list of instructions about what to say and what not to say as we drove up there, and I remembered how, finally, as we reached the craggy hills which led to Bertram’s estate, I’d gasped as this colossal Gothic greystone pile came looming into view.

  As I walked slowly up the ancient stone steps, the solid oak door swung back and I braced myself for a gouty, gin-soaked, cantankerous ex-general with a ruddy complexion, a brace of smelly Labradors and a monocle – only to discover that this wasn’t Bertram at all. To my surprise the man who greeted us cheerfully at the door was an extremely spry, energetic little octogenarian with a fine line in wit and an even finer eye for the ladies. I’d never actually been chased around a kitchen table by a man of eighty-six before, but there’s always a first time, and once I’d got the hang of it and made a few rules of my own – like for instance that even if he did catch me, his hand would get a smart slap if it so much as touched my bottom – he settled down and confined himself to leering at me over the breakfast table. After that, he and I, much to Harry’s surprise, got along famously.

  He lived almost entirely on his own, apart from an equally aged retainer named Parkinson, a stooped, white-haired old fellow, who lived in a grace and favour flat at the back of the house. As far as I could make out, Parkinson’s main duty was to shuffle around the house dusting ornaments, dropping them, and then leaving the mess on the floor for a few days while he pottered outside to the garden to dig up daffodils instead of onions. Bertram had apparently sacked the cook and all the rest of his staff long ago on the grounds that they’d lusted after him too voraciously – although I suspect the reverse to be true – and now did all the catering himself, which in reality meant that he lived almost exclusively on corned beef, Branston pickle, claret and Curly Wurlys. I regarded this diet as thoroughly slothful, and told him so in no uncertain terms, but I also regarded it as a challenge. I set to work trying to teach him how to make an omelette, a shepherd’s pie and how to stew the fruit that grew so abundantly in his orchards, instead of just leaving it to rot on the grass. He did actually have a stab at some cooking, although I think the only reason he bothered to learn was that he liked to stand extremely close to me at the stove, gazing at my breasts as I taught him.

  For all his lechery he was actually very entertaining and bright, making it quite clear – at least to me – that he knew exactly how Harry’s mind worked. He teased him mercilessly and apropos of nothing, was quite likely to look up from his newspaper at breakfast and say something like: ‘I say, Harry, I forgot to mention. I had those Guide Dogs for the Blind chappies up here the other day. Very nice people, very nice indeed. Marvellous things they do. Seemed very interested in the house for some reason, said it would make an ideal training centre. Can’t imagine what they meant.’

  As Harry turned puce and spat his Cornflakes across the room, Bertram would disappear behind his paper again. A moment later, though, he’d slyly peek out and give me a huge wink.

  Yes, he and I saw eye to eye on a lot of things, so much so that by the time we finally left, Harry was almost speechless I think with envy. When he eventually found his voice on the drive home he leaned across and patted my hand, saying incredulously, ‘Well done, my dear. Very well done indeed. Good heavens, you charmed the pants off him!’

  ‘Heaven forbid,’ I’d muttered back.

  But Bertram had indeed taken a shine to me, so much so that were Harry and I to divorce … ah yes, I thought grimly as I shunted down a gear to take the sharp bend into Philly’s village, yes, it was all becoming very clear now. Very clear indeed. No wonder Harry wouldn’t entertain the idea, he didn’t want to upset Bertram. Didn’t want to upset the inheritance apple cart. But wasn’t it also very telling that in the latter stages of our conversation Harry had said, ‘Stay with me for the duration, Rosie, and I’ll see you’re all right.’ For the duration of what? For the duration of Bertram’s life, that’s what, because you can bet your greystone Gothic manor that as soon as Bertram turned up his toes, Harry would be only too delighted to be shot of me. He was hanging on to me as an insurance policy for his inheritance. Well, no dice, Harry, I thought as I drove slowly down the lane to Philly’s farm, sorry, no dice at all.

  I gazed out across the patchwork of fields to Philly’s beautiful old farmhouse nestling just round the copse by the river. It was long, low, shaped in an L round a gravel courtyard and, like everything around here, built in the distinctive mellow Cotswold stone, which at this time of year was covered with gnarled branches of bare wisteria. Philly wasn’t expecting me, of course, and could easily have been out, but somehow I wasn’t surprised when I drove into her valley – and I mean that in the proprietorial sense since husband Miles did actually own the valley – to see her bending down in her vegetable garden behind the house, picking her winter greens and putting them in a wicker basket.

  Philly always looked the part and today was no exception. She had on an old felt hat of Miles’s and her hair hung down her back in a thick dark plait, quite a lot escaping in wisps around her face. As she worked, she occasionally paused to flick the plait back impatiently as it fell in her way. She wore faded cords, boots and a Barbo
ur, but although it was de rigueur country gear, it all seemed to fit beautifully so that her long legs, long hair and nipped-in little waist did not go unnoticed. Two of her three children, Bertie and Chloe, who were blond and dark and six and four respectively, were playing at her feet, digging up stones from the ground and piling them up into a neat little pyramid, quietly and diligently. The perfection of the scene made me smile. It was like a Medici greeting card in its sentimentality, but then that had always been the way with Philly. You could have taken snapshots of her unawares at any stage of her life and never once found her to be anything other than perfect. At two years old you would have found her gurgling happily in her playpen, at six having nice little make-believe tea parties with her dollies, at twelve winning the best turned-out pony at the local gymkhana, at fifteen diligently doing her homework in her bedroom, at twenty swirling round an Oxford University ballroom looking drop-dead gorgeous, at twenty-five sailing through a hospital ward with a stethoscope round her neck and now, finally, at thirty-three, baking scones at her navy blue Aga in her farmhouse kitchen for her landowning husband with three small children at her feet. She was enough to make you puke, unless you loved her, which I did, unreservedly, but she was a very hard act to follow.

  Not that I’d ever tried, actually. And I’m not saying it could never have been me in any of those photographs, it could. I was never a particularly naughty child, but by the same token if the candid camera had done its homework, it could also have glimpsed me being sick in my pram, scribbling on my bedroom walls, smoking in the woods at school, groaning with my head down the loo at a teenage party, snogging an undesirable yobbo behind McDonald’s, and generally dropping a bollock, as Uncle Bertram would say. Not Philly. She’d never dropped a bollock in her life. I daresay if she hadn’t been so nice I would have hated her, but I never had. Envied her, yes, but not in a dangerous, deep-seated smouldering sort of way, just a nice healthy upfront ‘God, you old cow, why do you have to be so bloody perfect?’ sort of way, which she took on the chin as her lot.

  She turned her head now as she heard the car, shading her eyes and screwing them up against the sun, but that didn’t stop any fool seeing that she had the face of an angel. It cleared into a broad grin and she raised her hand in recognition as I swept into the courtyard.

  ‘I thought we were seeing you tomorrow!’ she exclaimed, dropping her gardening gloves and striding over to greet me.

  ‘You are.’ I got out and lifted Ivo from his seat. ‘But I just felt like coming to see you today too, is that a problem?’

  ‘Not in the least.’ She hugged my shoulders. ‘We’re pretty chaotic as usual, the house is a tip and I haven’t got much in the way of food but I’ll get a bottle of wine out and – oh, Rosie, what’s wrong!’

  I’d held myself together until she hugged me; now I collapsed in tears on my big sister’s shoulder.

  Philly held me for a moment, then turned to the gawping children at our feet.

  ‘Bertie, take Ivo into the playroom and show him the new train set, there’s a good boy, and find Anna and ask her to give you all a biscuit. Chloe, go with them.’

  ‘But what’s wrong with Aunt Rosie?’ demanded Chloe, fascinated by adult tears, which doubtless she’d never seen in her life before. Certainly not in her own home.

  ‘Nothing.’ Philly gave her a little push. ‘Go on, darling, I’ll be along in a moment.’

  At the mention of a train set and a biscuit Ivo had already ignored his sobbing mother and set off at a trot for the back door. His cousins reluctantly turned and followed.

  Philly led me back to the vegetable garden where there was an old stone bench by the runner bean canes. We sat down together and I quickly got control, blowing my nose volubly into a hanky she’d passed me, wiping my eyes and stuffing it up my sleeve. We sat in silence for a moment.

  ‘They’re late,’ I said eventually, nodding at the basket of cabbages on the ground.

  ‘Mmm, I know. It was the wet autumn, I think. Keeps them going longer. What’s wrong, Rosie?’

  I sighed heavily. ‘Oh, everything. Harry. Me. Harry and me.’

  She nodded, as if she’d been expecting it.

  I smiled sardonically. ‘No one’s surprised of course. In fact most people are delighted.’

  ‘Who’s most people?’

  ‘Well, only Alice actually, but she nearly leapt for joy. And Dad, but I only hinted to him. Didn’t want to upset him. You know what he’s like, he’ll burst into tears if you tell him the cricket season’s over.’

  ‘So it is over?’

  ‘Yes. I hate him, Philly, and happily he hates me too, so that’s marvellous, isn’t it?’ I laughed hollowly. ‘Everyone’s happy.’

  She patted my hand. ‘Of course he doesn’t hate you. People say terrible things in the heat of the moment.’

  ‘Oh no, he does, he loathes me, and he told me precisely why in no uncertain terms.’ I screwed up my eyes to think. ‘And the funny thing is, Phil, the things he accused me of are actually all quite true. It’s just I’d never really thought of them as being particularly loathsome traits in my character before.’

  ‘Such as?’ she demanded, bristling loyally.

  ‘Oh, he said I was ignorant and domesticated and had no firm views on anything outside the kitchen. Said I had no opinions on anything that really mattered, and to a certain extent I think he’s right.’

  ‘What sort of things does he think matter?’

  ‘Oh, you know, politics, religion, anything topical, I suppose. And he’s right, I can’t get too excited about Maastricht and the ERM and global warming and whether the Hootsies are shooting the Tootsies in the footsies, because it all seems too remote and far removed from my life.’

  ‘Yes, but you care about other things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, like education, health – matters that are closer to your heart. We all do.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said slowly, ‘I suppose I do. I certainly get concerned about class sizes and whether there are enough helpers at the playgroup Ivo’s going to, but that’s just selfish, isn’t it? It’s because it affects me.’ I struggled to think what else I cared about. ‘And I suppose I get concerned that old people don’t turn their heating on in the winter for fear of a stonking great gas bill and that the reason so many children wreak havoc in schools is because they aren’t getting enough love at home, and occasionally I even pause to think about the planet and wonder if I should use terry towelling nappies to save it as I chuck another hundredweight of rainforest into the nappy bin, but it’s all just cosy Woman’s Own stuff, isn’t it? To be honest my sphere of political interest doesn’t get much beyond my own back door.’

  ‘Well, neither does mine!’

  ‘Oh, it does though, Phil. You know jolly well that if you were shelling peas on your doorstep with a toddler at your feet and some smart alec political columnist approached and asked for your views on the budget deficit, you’d have an intelligent response, and most probably put him firmly in his place. I wouldn’t, and that must make me ignorant.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, it just makes you disinterested. Ignorant is like Mum, who thought the ozone layer was in her armpit and what business was it of anyone else’s if she destroyed it with deodorants?’

  I giggled. ‘All right, disinterested. But then, the thing is, when I realize people do expect a view on something, I panic and borrow someone else’s.’

  ‘But in reality that’s all anybody does, and to be honest as long as it isn’t Harry’s it’s fine. The man’s a raving fascist.’

  ‘You see,’ I said gloomily, ‘you know that. You’ve probably always known that, and the awful thing is I’ve only recently realized how prejudiced and arrogant he is. It’s only now that I’ve made myself stand back and look at him dispassionately, as an individual and not as my husband and the father of my child, that I can see it.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said staunchly. ‘You were blinded by loyalty before.’

&nbs
p; ‘And by wanting it to be right. Needing not to see his faults. Kidding myself we were the perfect, nuclear, happy family.’

  ‘Well for goodness’ sake, you don’t have to have compatible political views to make a marriage work. Look at me and Miles. He’d vote for a donkey with a blue ribbon on it and I’m as woolly Liberal as they come. So what? What about the things that matter? What about love, what about passion? Whatever happened to all of that?’

  ‘I’m not sure there ever was any of that,’ I said quietly.

  She stared. ‘Rosie, are you telling me you never loved him?’

  I sighed. ‘I thought I did. I told myself I did. It was convenient.’ I struggled to remember what I’d felt. ‘Relief,’ I said finally. ‘There was a lot of that. On both sides. I think we both interpreted that as love. As for passion,’ I made a face. ‘Harry’s always been a lights out and up with the nightie man.’

  ‘But that’s so unlike you, so untrue to form! You thrived on grand passion prior to him, all those gorgeous men – it was meat and drink to you!’

  ‘I know,’ I said gloomily, ‘and I reckon I overindulged, binged, gorged myself. By the time I met Harry I was emotionally bulimic, sick of the very smell of the stuff. I thought being fond of a man was just what I needed.’

  She made a face. ‘I think it’s called the rebound.’

  ‘I believe it is.’

  We were quiet for a moment.

  ‘So,’ she said at length, sitting up straight. ‘It’s divorce, is it?’

  ‘That would be pleasant. Sadly, though, it’s looking unlikely.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Harry doesn’t want one.’

  ‘So what? What can he do about it?’

  ‘Take Ivo away from me.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ she scoffed. ‘How can he possibly do that? You’re the mother, you’re bound to get custody!’

  ‘He says he’ll tell the court what an unfit mother I am. Cite my cruelty. Say I pinch Ivo in his sleep, burn him with cigarettes, that kind of thing.’