Rosie Meadows Regrets...

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘My dear, I have to leave soon and I simply must talk to you for a moment.’

  I was surprised by his subdued, rather perturbed tone, expecting to have to deal with his habitual innuendo, swatting away his wandering old hands.

  ‘Of course, what is it?’

  ‘Sit down.’ He gestured to the unoccupied sofa and sat, patting a space next to him. He looked tired. ‘For all my pretence, the old legs aren’t what they used to be, Rosie, and I can’t take all this standing up. It seems to be the vogue at these sort of events nowadays, nobody wants to sit any more.’

  I perched obediently.

  ‘Now, my dear. What I really want to talk about is Stockley Hall. D’you want it?’

  I blinked, surprised. ‘Well, I hadn’t really thought about it, Bertram … Oh, I see. You mean now that Harry’s gone.’

  ‘Precisely. I’d left it to him in my will, of course, so technically I should make it over to you and then in turn to Ivo, but that would mean that if I should turn up my toes in a couple of years – which frankly is looking more and more likely the way my dicky heart’s playing up – you’d have to go and live in the place.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Exactly, oh. Or sell it.’

  ‘Ah.’ I brightened.

  ‘Ah. Yes, much more appealing, I can see. But the thing is …’ he hesitated.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, call me a sentimental old fool, but I’ve lived there all my life, as my father did before me, and I’m not convinced I want the old place sold the moment my back’s turned, as it were.’

  ‘Well, no. I can understand that.’

  ‘Shall I tell you what I had in mind then?’

  I smiled, knowing he would anyway. ‘Do.’

  ‘Well, I know you think it’s a terrible old pile of crumbling rock and granite stuck out in the middle of nowhere, but you know, there’s something about all that ruggedness that probably appeals more to a male sensibility than a female one. And you never know, Ivo, when he’s older, might quite like the place.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, you may be right. So?’

  ‘So what I had in mind, if you don’t feel too hard done by, is to put the place in trust for Ivo until he gets to an age when he can make up his own mind about it. Say about twenty-five. It may be he’ll agree with you and think it’s a ghastly old mausoleum, in which case he can sell it and buy himself a flashy pad in Mayfair and a Ferrari, and good luck to him, but he may, on the other hand, decide to keep it up. Live in it, shoot, hunt, maybe even raise a family.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’d like him to have that option.’

  I watched his face. It was soft, tender almost, for a moment. I felt for him. It was all he had left. I squeezed his hand.

  ‘I’d like that too, Bertram, and I think it’s a marvellous idea. Thank you, on Ivo’s behalf. And you’re absolutely right, I’d never live in it and I suppose in a few years’ time I might decide to sell it, and then, who knows, Ivo might never forgive me.’

  He smiled and patted my hand. ‘Good. That’s settled then. In the meantime I’ll drum up some suitable trustees, make sure the place is looked after properly and get it all sorted out.’ He sighed, leaned his head back on the sofa. ‘You know, it’s funny, Rosie. I was delighted when Harry married you, thought you’d be good for him, even imagined that one day you might all come up and live at Stockley. Thought I could take the granny flat in the attic, or maybe even one of the cottages. But it wouldn’t have worked, would it? I mean, even if he hadn’t died, I don’t think you’d have stuck it out with him, would you?’

  I swallowed. He didn’t know I’d already left him. I licked my lips. ‘Bertram, I’ll tell you all about it some day. But – not here. Not now.’

  He nodded. ‘You’re right. Neither the time nor the place.’ He folded his arms and sat up straight. ‘Well, now, to other things. How are you off for money, for instance? Did he see you all right?’

  ‘D’you know, I’m not really sure. I’m seeing Harry’s solicitor tomorrow to find out how he left things, but I expect I’ll be fine.’ I wasn’t too certain at all, actually. Harry’s solicitor, alias Boffy, hadn’t given me much of an indication about Harry’s estate but had suggested, rather tentatively after the funeral, that I might ‘pop in’.

  ‘Well, if there’s any sort of hiccup, you come and see me. I wouldn’t put it past the old fool to have left his affairs in a right bugger’s muddle. He had no idea how to make money, or to hang on to it either, for that matter. Hadn’t got much idea about a lot of things actually, God bless him,’ he observed gloomily. He looked at me sideways. ‘Can’t imagine why you married him in the first place. Must have been the sex, I suppose, hmmm?’

  I sighed. ‘Bertram –’

  ‘No, you’re right, neither the time nor the place, I know.’ He pursed his lips and sighed. ‘Oh well, since there’s to be no talk of sex, and since we’ve sorted out the money and the chattels, I think I should be getting myself back to Yorkshire.’ He went to stand up but the sofa was very deep. I helped him up, much to his annoyance.

  ‘How are you getting back?’

  ‘Parkinson’s in the kitchen. He’s got the car outside. As soon as he’s hoovered up as many egg sandwiches as he can stuff in his mouth, we’ll be off.’

  I smiled as he limped away to recover his chauffeur, barking ‘Parkinson!’ loudly, like something out of Jeeves and Wooster. Parkinson materialized and stood obediently by, helping him into his hat and coat in the hall. As I kissed his wrinkled old cheek, it occurred to me that Bertram hadn’t come down here to pay his respects to Harry at all. He’d come down to settle his business affairs. Bertram was a very wily old man. I walked down the path to the car with him, folding my arms against the cold in my thin black suit and shivering as Parkinson opened the door to let him in. Once he’d settled himself, he buzzed down the window and leaned out.

  ‘Now don’t forget, my dear, if there’s any problem financially, you come and see me. I don’t want you to think I’ve cut you off without a penny.’

  ‘I’ll do that, Bertram, thank you.’

  ‘Don’t lie,’ he snorted as the car moved off. ‘You’d rather starve in a garret than come cap in hand to me!’

  I laughed and stood waving on the pavement until the car was out of sight.

  As I turned to go back inside I saw Mummy, waiting for me in the open doorway.

  ‘Well?’ she said eagerly, eyes alight.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Well, have you got it?’

  ‘Got what?’ I walked up towards her.

  ‘Stockley Hall, of course! Has he left it to you?’

  ‘Oh, right.’ I shut the door behind me. ‘Well, no, not really. He sort of offered it to me but I could tell he knew I didn’t really want it, so no. But he’s left it to Ivo.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘No, not now, it’s going to be held in trust.’ I wandered through to the kitchen and picked absently at a smoked salmon pin wheel. ‘Ivo can inherit when he’s about twenty-five.’

  ‘But – but that’s ages away!’

  ‘I suppose so, but it’s in safe hands until then.’

  ‘But it could have been in your hands!’

  I frowned. ‘What would I have done with it, Mum? I don’t want to live there, I’d only have sold it and Bertram didn’t want that.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t know, would he?’ she hissed. ‘He’d be dead!’

  I stared in surprise.

  ‘You could have made a fortune! Don’t you realise that?’

  I gazed at her incredulous face. Gosh, it meant so much to her, didn’t it? I wondered if that’s what she’d been bending Bertram’s ear about earlier.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, Mum, I didn’t want it and I thought it unscrupulous to take it and pretend I wouldn’t sell it when in fact I probably would, especially when that was clearly what he didn’t want, okay?’

  ‘No, it’s not okay, it’s never bloody well okay when you do anything! Oh God, when w
ill you ever get anything right!’

  A few people around us stopped talking and turned to look.

  ‘Mum, listen –’

  ‘No, you listen! I’m sick of it, Rosie, the one chance you had to claw something back out of this God-awful mess and you can’t even do that! You just muddle on through letting other people pick up the pieces of your life, letting me and Philly shoulder the entire load of this funeral while you take a back seat as usual and pitch up at the eleventh hour. It’s all so typical! The trouble with you, my girl, is you’ve got no spunk!’

  There were a few muffled titters around us, but my mother still referred to ‘gay’ curtains and wasn’t to know that people didn’t really shout about spunk these days.

  Philly came zooming through the throng like a heat-seeking missile and seized Mummy’s arm.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she hissed. ‘We can hear you in the drawing room, Mummy. Why are you shouting at Rosie? Everyone’s listening!’

  ‘D’you know what she’s done?’ Mummy raised her voice defiantly. ‘Hmmm? She’s let Stockley Hall go. Said she didn’t want it, said, no thanks, she’d rather live in a two-up two-down rented gardener’s cottage actually. It’s pathetic, Philly!’ She was shaking with emotion now. ‘And after all the work I put in for you with that ghastly old man. I don’t know where I’ve gone wrong with you, Rosie, I really don’t.’

  ‘Stop it right now,’ warned Philly fiercely.

  Mummy slumped down in a chair in defeat. ‘The one chance this family had of finally being somebody somewhere. The Cavendishes of Stockley Hall. And you let it slip right through your fingers.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.’

  Philly and I gazed at her. The Cavendishes of Stockley Hall? God, what planet was she on? Which century? Philly shook her head sadly.

  ‘You’re just tired, Mum,’ she said softly. ‘That’s all it is. This has all been too much for you.’

  Tom popped his head round the door. ‘What’s going on? Everyone’s waiting for the crockery to start flying in here.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Philly said firmly. ‘Mum’s just a bit overwrought, that’s all. She’s overdone it. Tom, be an angel and help her upstairs, would you? I think she needs to lie down.’

  ‘Sure.’ He helped her up and she instantly fell on him, clinging like a barnacle.

  ‘Tom, oh Tom, my dear boy, my only boy. When are you going to get married, Tommy, hmmm? Produce some heirs?’

  ‘Heirs!’ he muttered, rolling his eyes. ‘What, to my rented, downtown, condominium dynasty?’ He glanced ruefully over his shoulder at us as he helped her away. ‘And you wonder why I live in America.’

  Later, when everyone else had gone home, Miles and Philly stayed behind to help me clear up. I had to see Boffy and the estate agent in the morning so I was staying the night at the house, but part of me wished I’d arranged to stay at Alice’s. I looked around the kitchen warily as I tidied up. It just seemed so peculiar now that Harry wasn’t here. Philly wiped the table down as I rinsed some glasses. She paused for a moment, dishcloth in hand, then apropos of absolutely nothing said, ‘You know that guy you were talking to when we came down to the cottage?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘You know, outside, as we drove up.’

  ‘Oh. Alex Munroe?’

  ‘That’s it.’ She folded her arms and beamed widely. ‘Gosh, he’s so nice.’

  ‘Yes, he seemed it.’

  ‘He’s the local vet, you know.’ She started scrubbing again. ‘Miles and I know him quite well, what with all our animals and everything. He’s always popping in, and he’s been to dinner once or twice too. He had a girlfriend for years, a really sweet girl, but they broke up, I don’t quite know why, and now he’s absolutely hot property. Hottest, in fact, and that’s saying something in our neck of the woods. Plenty of handsome young farmers about.’

  ‘Really,’ I said drily.

  ‘Yes. In fact Miles went to a drinks party the other night – I couldn’t go, couldn’t get a baby-sitter – and he said it was amazing, there were all these bits of blonde totty from Cirencester with their Verbier tans circling him like piranhas. Said their puffas were practically squeaking with excitement, velvet hairbands bristling – you know how Miles exaggerates. But Milly Thomas was there too and she said her younger sister – who’s absolutely knock-out-looking, Michelle Pfeiffer but dark – was in a complete lather over him, dribbling into her dry white wine and flicking back her hair like her life depended on it. He’s obviously got something.’

  ‘Has he indeed? I really can’t imagine why you’re telling me all this, Philly.’

  ‘Well, I’m just mentioning it, Rosie, that’s all. It’s no big deal, it’s just –’

  I flung the sponge in the water. ‘Oh, you’re so like Mummy, Phil! I know, I know, you’re just casually mentioning it, just gently floating the idea, waiting to see if I’ll take the bait, see if I’m interested, and even if I was – which I’m not, incidentally, seeing as I’ve just this minute buried my husband – but even if I was, d’you know something, Phil? It spoils it. All your so-called casual, well-meaning asides, it’s downright scheming actually, and it sours it all from the word go.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  ‘Because I feel watched, that’s why. I don’t want the telephone wires buzzing between you and Mummy the moment you get home from shopping because you’ve seen me “talking to a nice man” in the high street. I don’t want pressure and I don’t want to be pushed into anything, ever again!’

  ‘I did not push you into marrying Harry!’ she declared hotly.

  ‘I know, I know, I got myself into that mess, but I’m very conscious that I don’t want to screw up again. I don’t want any helpful advice, thank you very much, don’t want any cosy candlelit foursome dinner parties,’ I eyed her beadily, ‘and I’m sorry if that thwarts your social arrangements and throws water on all your matchmaking skills but I just want to be left alone, if that doesn’t sound too ungracious.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry.’

  She sulked for a moment, then shrugged and picked up her J Cloth again. ‘Oh well,’ she said cheerfully, rubbing away at a wine stain on the table, ‘it was worth a try.’

  Later that evening, when I’d assured Philly and Miles for the millionth time that I was perfectly all right on my own, I finally shut the door on them and had the house to myself. I shivered in the hall for a moment, crossing my arms and rubbing my shoulders. I glanced quickly into the dining room. It was so odd. It was as if in every room, in every chair, I could still see him. Watching me. I shook myself mentally. Now stop it, Rosie, you’re just being ridiculous, you’re working yourself up into a right little tizz. Just go and get Ivo, put him to bed and then have a nice hot bath and get to bed yourself. Then first thing in the morning, get the hell out of here as fast as you can. Right. Absolutely. Good plan. I pulled on my coat and set off across the road to Alison’s house to get Ivo.

  It was nine o’clock now so he was fast asleep when I got there. Alison popped upstairs to get him and handed him to me on the doorstep, wrapped in a blanket. I took my bundle, whispered my thanks and gently carried him home. As I went I thought, how odd, there was someone, Alison, whom I’d known pretty well for two whole years now but whom I’d probably never see in my life again. Because for all our promises to keep in touch, what were the chances of our paths ever crossing? What were the chances of her coming down to Gloucestershire or me ever coming back to this road? Life had to be like that, though, didn’t it, I mused as I walked, constantly changing tack, ebbing and flowing and – hello, here was someone else I thought I’d never see again! Coming round the corner, head bent, hands deep in his pockets, probably on his way back from a late shift at the supermarket, was Tim. He was heading straight towards me, but it was dark and he was whistling away at the pavement, clearly miles away. He hadn’t seen me. I smiled as he got closer, remembering the ludicrous farce in th
e bathroom, his antics as the mad plumber. As he approached, he looked up and caught my eye. I stopped.

  ‘Tim! How are you? D’you know, I was just thinking how funny it was –’ I swung round, staring incredulously at his back as he sailed straight past me and walked on, for all the world as if he’d never seen me before in his life.

  Chapter Twelve

  I have to admit, despite my protestations I spent a fairly sleepless night in the old marital bed. Harry’s things were very much in evidence around the house, but never more so than in the bedroom where I hadn’t had the nerve to touch anything. His dressing gown hung limply on the back of the door, his hairbrush lay abandoned on the dressing table, and his socks, I knew, were festering at the bottom of the linen basket even now. Consequently he felt ever-present. I slept fitfully and at one point opened my eyes to see – aaaargh! There he was! Standing at the end of the bed! I sat bolt upright, only to realize it was just his Corby trouser press with a jacket thrown over the back, but that was enough for me. I seized the duvet, thundered downstairs and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning on the sofa. The following morning, as soon as Ivo was dressed and breakfasted, I got out of that house like a bat exiting hell, pedalled off furiously on my faithful old bicycle and arrived at Alice’s house where I was dropping Ivo off for the day.

  ‘Sure you don’t mind?’ I said anxiously as she came to the door in her working gear – baggy trousers, paint-splattered fisherman’s jersey – and dragging a child on each ankle like a ball and chain.