Rosie Meadows Regrets...

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘Ah. So there was a little bird.’

  ‘Well, as you said, I’d have found out sooner or later.’

  ‘I daresay.’ She turned and began unloading the dishwasher, her back to me, ignoring me. I watched her for a moment. I could feel myself simmering up inside.

  ‘Philly, how could you!’ I blurted out.

  ‘How could I have an affair, or how could I do it with Michael?’

  ‘Well, both!’

  She paused in her unloading and straightened up, cradling a cup. She sighed. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just wanted to escape, I suppose. To get away from all this,’ she waved her hand around.

  ‘All what?’ I looked around at her beautiful farmhouse kitchen with its brand new terracotta floor, its shiny Aga, the huge circular pine table, the butcher’s block – well-scrubbed of course, no BSE lurking there – the vase of white pansies set just so, the hanging copper pans, the neat bunches of dried flowers, the Bridgewater pottery sparkling on the dresser, the spriggy curtains with matching napkins stacked neatly in a wicker basket, the elaborately decoupaged jugs and watering cans sitting on the windowsill which overlooked her very own rolling acres – all a little contrived, I grant you, but God, who’s being picky? I for one wouldn’t turn it down for the world.

  ‘All what?’ I echoed again, incredulously.

  ‘Well, it’s all so neat, isn’t it? So perfect. In fact it’s so bloody perfect it makes me want to puke sometimes, Rosie, and I know that makes me sound like a spoiled bitch, but now that I’ve got it all, what am I supposed to do with it? Sit and admire it? Applaud my good taste? Fiddle with my dried flowers, contemplate my good fortune? They’re just things, you see, they don’t do anything.’

  ‘Well, how about bringing your children up amongst these Things?’ I said, a trifle piously perhaps but with mounting irritation.

  She gave a hollow laugh. ‘Oh yes, childcare. It’s all so wonderfully glorious, isn’t it? Or so Penelope Leach and Miriam Stoppard would have us believe as they get on with their own sparkling careers, and so boring too, and don’t you dare tell me it isn’t, Rosie, because you know it is. There’s nothing remotely stimulating about potty training, or carrot blending, or reading Elmer the Elephant for the umpteenth time, or having “Does the Queen poo, discuss” conversations all day long.’

  ‘No, okay, it’s not stimulating, but it’s, well, it’s –’

  ‘Don’t you dare say fulfilling,’ she pounced. ‘Or satisfying. Or any of those other rosy-glow feel-good words we read in the women’s pages of the Telegraph as we scrape the Weetabix off the wall or get the Playdoh out of our pubes or share a cup of tea with dolly, because none of those words actually touch on the mind-numbing monotony of it all, do they?’

  ‘Well, go back to work!’ I snapped crossly. ‘Get a nanny, for God’s sake, swallow your pride!’

  ‘I can’t, Rosie, and believe me it’s got nothing to do with pride. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that I gave up work in a blaze of mother-to-be, luminous glory, pledging myself wholeheartedly to breast-feeding for a minimum of eighteen months and taking the high moral ground with all those heartless souls who pursued their own ends and ran guiltily out in their Armani suits the moment the nanny arrived. It’s got nothing to do with that, the point is I physically can’t go back now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, for one thing I’ve left it too late. I’ve been out in the wilderness for six years now and I don’t care how terrific everyone said I was then, no one wants to know now, but it’s not just that either, Rosie. The bottom line is I’m too highly qualified. I’m an anaesthetist, goddammit, not a secretary, or even a GP or a solicitor. I can’t just slip back into an office or a general practice. I work in an operating theatre in a hospital, and if I went back to it I’d have to work flat out, nights too, and not necessarily even in Gloucestershire. I can’t just pick up the phone to Cheltenham General and say, oh hi, look, I live down the road and I’ve got a window of opportunity somewhere between the school run and ballet and tap so how about I nip down and give someone a good gassing? Positions like that are fought over, people kill for them, and yes, if I really wanted it badly enough I might just get a job again, but miles away, somewhere like Skegness General if I was lucky, and how would I square that with being a Gloucestershire farmer’s wife and mother of three children?’ She stared out of the window at the sheep grazing beyond the post and rail fence in the field.

  ‘It’s all a big con, you know,’ she said quietly. ‘And we’re all foolish and naive enough to believe it. At eighteen, bright-eyed and armed with a stash of A-levels and bags of optimism, we think, yeah, right, I can do that. I can be a surgeon or a barrister or a nuclear physicist if I want, and so we can. And we do. Until suddenly, just when it’s all going swimmingly and we’re doing terrifically well, we get fat. And we have a baby, and then something strange clicks in and makes us want to look after the little wretch but we hastily ignore that and say, no, no, I’m buggered if something as primeval as maternal hormones is going to come between me and being a consultant, or a QC, or whatever, and so we go on. We go on pretending we’re still the same thrusting, ambitious people we were a year or so ago, but we’re not. We’ve got this thing, you see, this baby, which the guys in the trousers and the facial hair haven’t. And make no mistake about it, Rosie, from then on in we’re doing it with one arm tied firmly behind our backs. Six-month post in Paris? Sorry, there’s little Johnny to think of. Consecutive late-night meetings? Sorry, but I always get back in time for the bath. I insist on getting back for bathtime. Call them small, those differences, but they’re there.’ She paused and picked a sprout out of the sink. Threw it in the bin behind her. Then she sighed.

  ‘So either we accept those differences and go at it half-cocked, which didn’t appeal to me, or we abandon the whole thing in mid-stream, like I did. All that work, all those exams, all that shinning up the greasy pole but never actually making it to the top, all the effort with none of the glory, and for what? To say that we’ve done it? To say that we could have got there? To prove a point, satisfy our egos? What a waste!’

  ‘Okay,’ I said quietly, ‘so what’s the answer?’

  ‘I don’t think there is one. I just think we should be more prepared for reality, that’s all. I shall certainly prepare my girls, encourage them to be secretaries or beauticians.’

  ‘Philly! You don’t mean that!’

  She swung to face me. ‘Why not? Sammy, who waxes my legs periodically, has two children and works four mornings a week. Well, that’s more than I do, isn’t it? She talks to people, gets out of the house and earns money. That’s certainly more than I do in this godforsaken rural idyll! Oh yes, if Anna and Chloe come running home from school telling me they want to be bishops or airline pilots, I shall say, fine, darlings, highly commendable, but do you want to have children? Because if you do, how are you going to square it with flying your 747 to Istanbul five times a week, or administering to your flock? No, no, my chickens, put away those university applications and do a nice little hairdressing course instead, because that way you really can have it all!’

  ‘You’re bitter.’

  She smiled. ‘Undoubtedly. But not twisted. I’m bitter because I’m bored witless, Rosie, and that’s because I’m clever. I was good at what I did and I’m not doing it now and other people less able than me are. But I’m not twisted because I have no grudges to bear, no axes to grind. I made the choices, the decisions, no one else did. It’s my fault they happened to be the wrong ones. Wrong science A-levels, wrong degree course, wrong career, wrong …’ She paused.

  ‘Husband?’

  She sighed. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Yes. No. Who knows? Let’s face it, if it hadn’t been Miles, it would have been someone like him, wouldn’t it? I was programmed from birth to marry a rich, good-looking personable chap like Miles and you know me, I always run true to type.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ I squeaked, thinking, God, some peop
le would give their eye teeth to run according to that sort of type, including me!

  ‘Nothing,’ she said patiently. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Miles, he’s lovely. Solid, dependable, amiable, jocular Miles. It’s me that’s wrong. I just feel so constricted, so – frustrated, and sometimes I just want out.’

  ‘But with Michael? Why Michael, for heaven’s sake?’

  She shrugged. ‘He’s like-minded. He feels it too, the stultifying niceness of it all. The bide-a-wee home-sweet-hominess of going back to stripped pine doors and spaghetti bolognese and two point four children.’

  ‘But he’s such a –’

  ‘Prat?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘True, but he’s terrific between the sheets.’

  ‘Oh!’ I blinked.

  She smiled. ‘Sorry. I’ve offended your middle-class sensibilities, haven’t I? Nice girls like us aren’t supposed to think like that, are we? And anyway, he’s probably not all that terrific at all, not with Alice. It’s just the naughty, clandestine nature of an affair that brings out the beast in one.’ She raised her chin at me defiantly. ‘Brought out the beast in me too, if you must know.’

  ‘Oh. Er, good.’ I wasn’t sure I must know that at all.

  She turned, threw back her head and scratched it energetically, gazing out of the window. Her eyes, I noticed, looked very bright. Ablaze. I cleared my throat.

  ‘And was Michael the only one that you … you know …’

  ‘Had an affair with?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  I gasped. ‘Oh Philly!’

  ‘Oh Philly!’ she mimicked. She turned and smiled. ‘It’s all right, I wasn’t that promiscuous, I don’t need to be carted off to the AIDS clinic or anything, but there was one other, before Michael. But he was much too young, too lovestruck, and he got far too close. I didn’t want that. He demanded too much of me. Logistically he had to go too because it was crazy, he lived miles away and I was forever on the motorway driving two hours to London for a quick ten-minute bonk with a toy boy. No, Michael was perfect. He was on the spot but not all the time, he didn’t want me to leave Miles like the other one did, and I don’t think he even really fell in love with me. He was pretty upset when I finished it of course, but it had gone on too long. It was getting boring. No,’ she mused, ‘what Michael liked was the sex.’

  ‘Which is what you liked too.’

  She smiled. ‘Not really. I mean it was okay, but what I liked – loved, actually – was the danger. The total recklessness of it all. The thrill that one false move and it could all end in tears. One slip and all of this,’ she swung her arm round the room, ‘could be gone. It could all go up in smoke. Home, husband, children even – it was like playing Russian roulette with my life. I felt … vital. Alive. It wasn’t unlike being back in the operating theatre actually, with your finger on the button, your hand in total control, knowing that one false move and you could have a corpse on the table. Either that or a vegetable.’

  I stared at her. Christ, she was cool. I shuddered. ‘God, I’d hate that.’

  She swung round and almost – almost – smirked. ‘Of course you would. But then you’ve always lacked that killer instinct, haven’t you?’

  I gazed at her. ‘Yes, I … suppose I have.’

  ‘I’ve always envied you that actually. Your placidness, your anything for a quiet life approach. You’d rather live with a man like Harry, a man you hated, than rock the boat, wouldn’t you?’

  As I stared at her, I felt myself begin to tremble.

  She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do that. At least I’ve never hated Miles. We get on pretty well, it’s just that it’s not wham-bam-kapow any more.’

  I cleared my throat, which seemed inexplicably dry. ‘Philly,’ I faltered, ‘about Harry. Could you ever – I mean, did you ever –’

  ‘Shit!’ She lunged, but too late, the cup slipped off the table. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Chloe, that’s the second glass of Ribena you’ve had over this morning!’ She seized a cloth and began frantically mopping the floor. ‘You stupid child, you just don’t look, do you! Too busy getting in everyone’s way!’

  ‘Here, I’ll do it.’ I cuddled a distraught and sobbing Chloe with one arm and grabbed another cloth from the Aga.

  ‘No! That’s pure Irish linen, for heaven’s sake, not a floor-cloth!’

  ‘Sorry!’ I dropped it.

  At this point Ivo began to wail in sympathy with Chloe and in the middle of all the mayhem, the telephone rang.

  ‘God Almighty, give me strength,’ Philly hissed. ‘I’ll take that in the hall, I won’t hear myself speak in here.’ She marched off, slamming a soggy tea towel on the floor before she went.

  Chloe whimpered and hung round my neck and Ivo attached himself firmly to my bended knees. With both of them clinging on like limpets, I mopped up. I felt numb, shocked, and as I mopped, I had a terrible sense of realization that I didn’t want to have at all but that wouldn’t go away.

  ‘Shh, Chloe, shush, it’s all right. Here, let’s find the biscuits.’

  I settled them down at the table again with more juice and biscuits, and gradually the crying subsided. As they sniffed into their mugs, I sat opposite them, watching the door, waiting dumbly for Philly to come back, unable even to look a Jaffa Cake in the face. She did come back, a few minutes later, but as pale as anything, as if she’d seen a ghost. She stood still in the doorway, staring somewhere above my head.

  ‘What?’ I said in alarm. ‘Philly, what’s happened?’

  ‘That was Mum.’

  ‘And? What?’ My heart lurched. I felt afraid.

  ‘It’s Dad.’

  ‘Oh God!’ My hand flew to my mouth.

  ‘He’s about to drive down to the police station. Hand himself in.’

  I stared at her. Couldn’t speak. Slowly her eyes came down and met mine. ‘It was Dad, Rosie. He’s just admitted it. He killed Harry.’

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  I stared at her. ‘No. No, that can’t be true! Dad wouldn’t – he can’t have done!’

  ‘Of course he can’t have done it,’ she said sharply. ‘You and I both know that.’

  Our eyes locked like magnets.

  ‘He’s covering up,’ I breathed. ‘Protecting …’ I couldn’t say it.

  ‘Exactly.’ Philly paced round the kitchen, then paused at the window, staring out, drumming her fingers on the work surface, her back to me.

  ‘Has he actually gone to the police?’

  ‘Not yet. He can’t, Mum’s got him locked in the potting shed.’

  ‘Oh!’ I smiled in spite of myself.

  ‘She says she’s not letting him out until he stops all this silly nonsense and she’s been pushing little notes and ham sandwiches under the door, pleading with him. But you know Dad when his mind’s made up.’

  ‘Oh God, poor Daddy, but you’ll talk to him, Phil? You’ll talk him out of it?’ I said anxiously.

  ‘I’ll try. But if I can’t …’ She swung round. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Rosie, you know what Dad’s up to! He’s convinced his angina will see him off in a year or two anyway, so he’s making the ultimate sacrifice!’

  ‘Yes, but – for you!’

  She stared. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘For you,’ I whispered.

  She squinted incredulously at me. ‘What the hell d’you mean?’

  I gulped. ‘I found your books, Phil.’

  ‘What books?’

  ‘Your mushroom books,’ I said, hating myself. ‘Three of them, well-thumbed and well-used, with your name in them. They were with all the rest of your stuff in the boxes from the attic.’

  She gazed at me for a long moment, then her eyes slithered away. Philly’s eyes never did that. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said softly.

  ‘Philly,’ I was trembling now, ‘I found them.’ She was silent. I licked my lips. ‘L
ook,’ I said beseechingly, ‘you can talk to me, you can trust me, I know you did it for me and we can work this out together. I’ll help you, I promise, but you’ve got to trust me, talk to me!’

  ‘I don’t know anything about any books,’ she said. Then she walked to the dresser and calmly lifted her car keys off a hook. She tossed them in the air and as she caught them she turned and gave me a strange smile. ‘I can’t quite believe you’re doing this, Rosie.’

  ‘Doing what?’ I shrieked. ‘I’m not doing anything! I found them, that’s all. Now if you just happen to be a closet mycologist but thought you’d better not mention it in case anyone thought it a hideously suspicious coincidence in the light of your brother-in-law’s demise, well fine, let’s chuck them all away, we’ll burn them together, but tell me, Phil! Let me in, please!’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, but right now I’m more worried about Dad. And I’ve got to go to Mummy. She’s in a terrible state, weeping hysterically, understandably.’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ I whispered, getting up.

  ‘I hardly think that’s a good idea, do you?’ Her eyes were like flints. ‘Mummy’s bound to think you’re the reason Dad’s doing this and she won’t be far wrong either. She may not be totally overjoyed to see you.’ She walked to the door.

  I was shaking now, couldn’t believe this was happening. Philly, my darling sister whom I’d looked up to all my life, identified with, believed myself to be so like only not quite so magnificent, whose opinion I’d waited for on everything before making up my own mind accordingly. My deepest held belief had always been that our differences were just superficial – looks, intelligence, confidence – but that beneath all that, we were the same. That we were just like each other. But that wasn’t so, I could see that now. I felt, with a startling, breathtaking realization, almost as if I didn’t know her at all. It was unbearable.