‘Okay, put it another way – someone with no baggage, no history, no ties.’
‘We all have history. Patrick, do you love me?’
‘Yeah, I do – too much to hurt you, now or in the future.’
‘I’ll take my chance on getting hurt. So let’s live for the moment and let’s not think about your history.’
I wasn’t going to tell him about mine.
PATRICK
Rosie said she had to take a couple days away to visit with her folks in Dorset: her grandmother was sick and she was worried.
My grandmothers were dead and buried by the time I came along and maybe it was just as well. Mom’s parents more or less disowned her when she married Dad, and from what I understand his own were trash of the worst kind.
‘Yeah, I’ll watch Joseph Saturday and Sunday,’ I told Lex when she collected Joe and Poll from the apartment London University had found for me. ‘We can do some guy stuff. Do you and Mr Wonderful have plans?’
‘Stephen’s going to take me to the Lake District.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘It’s someplace in the north of England, supposed to be real pretty. Wordsworth used to live there.’
‘Who was Wordsworth?’
‘A famous British poet, he wrote a famous poem about daffodils, the famous British flower.’ Lexie looked at me like I was dumb. ‘Patrick, could you watch your daughter, too?’
‘I don’t think so, Lex. Joe and I are heading to the Natural History Museum to check out dinosaurs. We’re taking in the Science Museum, too. Polly would be bored. Anyway, I reckon you and Mr Wonderful could use a chaperone.’
Lexie blushed at that. ‘Patrick, I – we—’
‘What?’
‘You kids, go into Daddy’s bedroom and close the door behind you,’ Lexie told them. ‘Joe, you take my iPhone. You know how to find the games. Polly, go play Barbies.’ As the kids went off dragging their backpacks, Lexie turned to me. ‘Pat, don’t be so difficult. You and I – when we were kids in high school, we loved each other, didn’t we?’
‘Yeah, I thought we did. But people change. Move on, cross boundaries, so there’s no going back.’
‘What do you mean, cross boundaries?’
‘I heard about your afternoon with Ben.’
She looked at me like I had slapped her face. ‘How did you know?’ she whispered. ‘Ben promised not to say a word to you.’
‘You forget you had a witness, Lexie, and Tess didn’t promise anything.’
‘So she told you?’
‘She did.’
‘But it was nothing! Two old friends, we had a drink together, smoked some stuff and things got out of hand. We didn’t mean—’
‘I don’t care what you and Fairfax did or didn’t mean. Or what you and your lovers do, provided you’re not jerking me around.’
‘You want to file for divorce?’
‘No, I’m far too busy and all that stuff takes time. I have a major conference in the summer and I have a ton of work to do.’
‘You always put your work before your family.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You do! You always did.’
‘As I said, I’m busy. I’m sure your schedule must be crowded too, so I’ll let you get on. I’ll collect Joe Friday about six o’clock, okay?’
‘If you don’t watch Polly we can’t go to the Lake District,’ said Lexie. ‘Or not to the place we planned on going.’
‘Why?’
‘Stephen wants to take me to a smart hotel in Windermere where children aren’t allowed.’
‘I see.’
‘We meant it to be kind of special. We had this little fight around about a week ago. He was tired and I was tired, we both got scratchy and this is his way of making up.’ Lexie looked at me with pleading eyes. ‘But if you won’t watch Polly, seems like we’ll miss out now?’
‘Lex, don’t look at me like that.’ I sighed. ‘Oh, what the hell – you go have your fun weekend with Mr Wonderful. I guess Poll can do some guy stuff, too.’
ROSIE
Granny Cassie was so pleased to see me.
She had been quite ill. She’d had a bad reaction to a new arthritis drug and ended up in hospital. But she was getting better now, was home again and she was very bored. ‘So come on, Rosie – tell me everything?’ she wheedled.
‘All my secrets, Granny?’
‘Yes, of course!’
‘Why don’t you have another violet cream?’
We were eating chocolates. I’d bought them from a shop in Piccadilly. We both knew they were evil, far too high in fat and sugar, so she shouldn’t have too many. But they were so delicious that we scoffed them anyway. Mum could read the riot act to us later, after the event – poor Mum.
‘How’s your new job?’ she asked.
‘It’s going really well. I’m getting lots of new accounts and Fanny’s very helpful, always putting work my way.’
‘But it’s not your job that’s made your pretty face light up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You can’t fool me, my girl. I’ve been there, got the silky knickers and the lace suspender belt.’
‘Granny, you’re so naughty!’
‘You’re in love.’
‘Mum told you she met Patrick?’
‘Your mother tells me nothing. She thinks I’ll have a heart attack and die if I hear anything exciting. What do I not know?’
‘When Mum came to London, this man was at my flat.’
‘You mean in your bedroom?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Granny. ‘I dare say that was interesting for everyone concerned?’
‘It was beyond embarrassing. Do please stop giggling, Granny. You sound about fourteen.’
‘Why should I not giggle if the two of you are happy? As I assume you must be?’
‘Pat is an American who lives in Minnesota and he’s married with two children.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘What does he want to do?’
‘He hasn’t told me, so perhaps he doesn’t know. Or perhaps I’m just a blip and maybe he will go back to his wife. Do you think I’m wicked?’
‘No, of course I don’t, my darling. You’re incapable of wickedness. But please don’t let him hurt you. I don’t want you to be hurt again. You’ve been hurt more than enough already.’
‘Pat isn’t going to hurt me.’
‘Good,’ said Granny. ‘What about a game of Scrabble? I could fancy that. You’ll have to sort the letters out for me.’
‘She’s very up and down,’ my mother told me when I said Granny didn’t seem too bad – in fact, she seemed quite chirpy. ‘She’s on such a mix of painkillers it’s hard to get the dose exactly right.’
I don’t know if in this life anybody can get anything exactly right?
But Granny had seemed bright and cheerful when she’d talked to me. Or maybe she was being determinedly jolly because I had come home? She always knew exactly what to say to me, and sometimes that was – nothing.
But my mother wasn’t as intuitive as Granny, wasn’t into intuition, never had been, never would be. Mum was into confrontation, self-expression, talking it all through.
On Sunday afternoon, while Granny was asleep and Dad had gone to see a golfing friend about some boring tournament, Mum followed me into the sitting room. I saw she had that look upon her face. The look which was accessorised by we must have a serious talk in flashing neon letters on her forehead.
‘How are you, Rosie?’ she began as I was gathering up the Sunday papers, hoping Mum’s interrogation wouldn’t last too long and I could have a quiet read.
‘I’m fine,’ I said and forced a smile. ‘I have a bit of indigestion. I ate too many Yorkshires. I can’t resist your Yorkshires.’
‘You’re coping, are you, darling?’
‘Yes – are you?’
‘I’m asking about you. Do yo
u want to talk about it?’
‘No.’
‘Do you get nightmares?’
‘All the time.’
‘You could still have some counselling, you know.’
‘Mum, could we change the subject?’
Big mistake.
‘That man I met in London,’ said my mother. ‘Who exactly is he?’
‘Patrick Riley. I introduced him to you, didn’t I?’
‘I mean, what is this man to you?’
‘He’s just a friend.’
‘But he’s married, isn’t he? I saw his wedding ring. He’s an American, as well.’
‘Well done, Mum. Ten out of ten for noticing his accent. But don’t worry, I’m not having sex with aliens. It’s rumoured that Americans are human beings, too.’
‘Rosie, please don’t be facetious. You know what I’m trying to say. I’m aware that nowadays things must be quite difficult for you, trying to get your PR business off the ground, and—’
‘Fanny’s being very helpful: brilliant, in fact. She sends you all her love. She said to tell you when you’re next in town—’
‘Darling, I’m a magistrate.’ Mum put on her kind and caring face. ‘So I’m very well aware that when a person has a bad experience, it can be hard to cope with normal life. People get confused. Go off the rails a little. It doesn’t mean they’re bad—’
‘Mum, I’m not a teenage hoodie who’s been doing drugs because his father beat him when he was a little boy. So please spare me all that Social Services and Probation Officer rubbish?’
‘Rosie, listen—’
‘If I go to bed with married men, it’s because I fancy married men. Or a particular married man. It’s not because of Charlie or what happened and it definitely isn’t about you.’
As I said it, I regretted it. I knew it was cruel, spiteful, hurtful, all those things. So why didn’t I apologise? Why didn’t I go and sit beside my mother, hold her hand, tell her that I knew how much she must be hurting and I hadn’t meant to make it worse?
I didn’t know.
I drove back to London Sunday evening really looking forward to seeing Pat again, to finding something like a truth – a certainty – with him. But whatever Pat was offering, I knew deep in my heart it wasn’t certainty.
He spent a lot of evenings at my flat.
Most of the time, it was all fine. We talked, we joked, we laughed, lay on the sofa entwined with one another, drinking wine and watching tripe on television, mocking idiots on game shows, planning where we could take Joe and Polly when he had them next.
But he had a streak of melancholy in him half a mile wide. He was sometimes silent and so totally preoccupied that I learned to leave him to it, not to ask if anything was wrong or if he fancied going for a drink, to see a film.
He was certainly a workaholic, on his laptop all the time, writing emails, grading coursework, skyping colleagues, students and other academics all around the world, doing his job in Minnesota at long distance, somehow fitting in his London lectures and research, seeing Joe and Polly and also seeing me.
It was just as well I was so busy with my own new company, that my flat was full of samples, folders, files, promotional material (both edible and hopefully-intended-to-be-edible-but-actually-inedible. What were some people thinking? Anyone for birch bark biscuits, pansy cookies, hedgerow harvest pies?), carrier bags and boxes which needed my attention.
I can’t pretend he didn’t take a lot of interest in me and my not-exactly-Nobel-laureate-level work.
‘What’s all this?’ he asked one evening, walking in to find me sitting on the floor and trying to play a board game which was meant for ten-year-olds, surrounded by a mess of cards and spinning tops and counters and failing to get anywhere.
‘It’s the next big thing,’ I told him. ‘Hamleys will go mad for it. Come on, Pat, why don’t you play with me?’
‘Okay, if you insist. But let’s play in your bedroom, not in here with all this garbage on the floor. Those spinning tops look more than capable of doing serious damage to a guy.’
‘Pat, this is important! This game could be the next Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit. It could make some people millionaires. One of them might be me.’
‘No kidding, Rosie? Maybe I should take a closer look?’ He hunkered down, examined all the bits and pieces, read the rules and then he shook his head. He pointed out some fatal flaws of logic. Unless this and this and this were fixed, unless one player cheated, the game would be impossible to win. It always would be stalemate.
‘You give that to a bunch of kids without doing a lot more work on it, there will be blood,’ he told me. Then he grabbed a notebook. He started drawing diagrams and doing calculations, explaining very clearly what was wrong and how to put it right.
Blood and stalemate.
Pat could fix the board game, but could he fix my life? Or had he stalemated it for good? What if one of the players cheated – what would happen then?
June
PATRICK
I guess in Britain summer doesn’t happen?
But it didn’t matter. Rosie was the sunshine in my life. She made me smile. She made me laugh out loud. She raised my spirits, and just thinking of her always put me on a high. I told her that I loved her half a dozen times a day.
‘But what is it you love about an idiot like me, Professor?’ she enquired one evening as I fixed her laptop yet again, explained again why she should choose some stronger passwords so that her accounts would be less likely to get hacked.
‘You crack me up,’ I said, as she keyed in patwasbornawankerin1978 and shrekthe3rdsgreenarse.
‘You mean you find me frightfully amusing?’
‘I suppose I must.’
‘You mean you guess you do?’ She grinned at me. ‘Your Britglish, mate – it’s coming on a treat.’
‘Your Amglish has a way to go.’
‘I’m not trying to learn Amglish. I speak seven languages already.’
‘Do you – fluently?’
‘If we’re going to insist on fluency, I suppose it’s three. But that’s two more than you – and no, computer languages don’t count.’
‘You’re fluent in three languages, you have a quarter blue in tiddlywinks, whatever that might mean – Tess mentioned it one time – you dazzle me.’
‘You’re such a sarcastic git.’
‘I know. Lex and Mr Wonderful are flying up to Scotland on the weekend. Okay if I bring Joe and Poll to visit?’
‘Yes, of course. Do bring the children round. I’d love to see them. What shall we do with them?’
‘What’s Alton Towers?’
‘It’s a theme park full of noisy rides and shrieking kids.’
‘You went there?’
‘Yes, when I was ten. Pat, shall I sort something out?’ She looked at me enquiringly, head tilted to one side. ‘You don’t really hate surprises, do you?’
‘I guess I don’t – but no more rocks?’
‘No more rocks,’ she promised.
A few days later, she called me on my cell. ‘It’s all arranged for Friday,’ she announced. ‘You’ll need your passports and a change of clothes, or maybe three for Polly. We’ll be away two nights.’
‘Why do we need our passports?’
‘Why do you think you need your passports, dummy?’
‘Where exactly are we going, Rosie?’
‘You’ll have to wait and see.’
ROSIE
I had to face it some time, and going with Pat and Joe and Polly meant I’d have distractions.
‘Come on, Rosie, spill?’ said Pat on Friday morning when he rang me at the office.
‘You’ll soon know,’ I told him.
‘Do the kids need factor forty?’
‘Yes, might be a plan.’
‘You’re such a tease, Miss Rosie.’
‘Just a few more hours to wait, Professor, and all will be revealed.’
Although I’d booked it, paid for it, got overdrawn for
it, I was still going to give myself the chance to chicken out.
I met them at St Pancras.
Pat was looking puzzled, Polly solemn. But Joe was jigging up and down and grinning, ready for adventures. He had spiked his hair with gel and wore a stylish, brand new denim jacket.
‘It’s from Gap,’ he told me.
‘Cool,’ I said. ‘I like the corduroy collar.’
‘It’s Sherpa-lined as well. You do rate it, don’t you?’
‘Joe, I love it!’ I’d never known a child so keen on fashion. He was going to be the next Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren or Jasper Conran, I would bet my new Armani shades. ‘How did you hurt your finger?’
‘I cut it on some paper.’
‘Ouch, those paper cuts are horrible.’
‘Yeah, there was a ton of blood. But Mom got me Batman Band-Aids – look?’
‘You said we needed passports. So why are we here in central London?’ asked his father, dispensing with the niceties of greeting and cutting to the chase. ‘Why aren’t we at the airport?’
‘Good evening, Pat. It’s great to see you. Hello, Polly. What a pretty anorak. I love the pink embroidery.’
‘Rosie!’ Pat looked ready to combust spontaneously.
‘We don’t need to fly.’ I handed him my iPod. ‘Listen for a moment, will you?’
So he did, still frowning. But then, as comprehension dawned, he smiled. ‘It’s An American in Paris. We’re not going to Paris, Rosie?’
‘Yes!’
‘Paris, France?’
‘No, Paris, Texas, Pat. Of course we’re going to Paris, France, you clot.’ I turned to Joe. ‘We’re going to catch a very special train. It goes under the water.’
‘Awesome!’ Joe exclaimed, his brown eyes sparkling. ‘Do we get to see some sharks and whales?’
PATRICK
She played me An American in Paris, my favourite piece of Gershwin.
So she had been listening that time in Minneapolis when we were at the concert hall and I had talked about my favourite music and she hadn’t seemed to hear.
Until I came to Britain, I never rode the train. British people do it all the time. But in America, we have about destroyed our railroad network. There’ve been a few attempts in recent years to change this situation but, apart from in New England, mostly tourists tend to ride the few remaining routes. The rest of us drive everywhere or fly.
Magic Sometimes Happens Page 21
