‘There was a hint in something Vivi said, just a hint, that something has been going on, to do with Rosa’.
‘Ah—’
‘And when I’d rung off and was pacing about learning my lines, it came to me that perhaps something had been going on to do with Rosa, to do with Matt too, for that matter, something that I didn’t know about, but which you possibly did’.
Russell looked out of the window and waited.
‘Well, I couldn’t go on pacing up and down, declaiming about dissolution and debauchery, I couldn’t concentrate any more, so I got on the tube, and I came.
Russell?’
‘Damn Vivi,’ Russell said lightly.
Edie put her hand on his sleeve.
‘What,’ Edie said, ‘have you and Rosa been doing?’
Russell looked down at Edie’s hand on his arm. He felt a sudden uncharacteristic and complete loss of temper, and moved his arm so that Edie’s hand fell from it.
‘Nothing,’ he said furiously. ‘Nothing. Nothing to do with you’.
‘But—’
‘Did you hear me?’ Edie stared at him.
She hesitated and then she said uncertainly, ‘If you say so—’
‘I do’.
‘But is she OK?’
Russell turned away and bent over his desk, staring deliberately at the computer screen.
‘When she isn’t,’ he said more calmly, ‘I’ll tell you’.
There were four messages on Rosa’s mobile phone, one from her mother, one from her father, one from her aunt, and one from her older brother. Only the last one did she have any inclination to return. The others – well, how depressing was it, at her age, and stuffed into the sky-blue polyester blazer with yellow plastic sunburst buttons required by the travel company, to have a string of messages on your phone that are all, but all, from your family? It would be all very well, of course, if there were other messages, messages from friends and – well, better not think about that. Better not remember how happy she had been to let Josh make her miserable, better not even start down that train of thought that began by fantasising how it might have been if she had never met him, never fallen in love with him, never been so sure that keeping him mattered more than anything else in the world. She’d hardly taken her eyes off her phone in the Josh days.
The messages were all, except for Matt’s, of a kind that she didn’t much want to hear. It was evident that her aunt had rung her mother to have a small but unmistakable gloat about Rosa’s living arrangements, and, in the course of conversation, had hinted that something had occurred to prevent Rosa’s turning at once to her parents in time of need. Her mother had then, it appeared, gone straight to find her father, who had had to confess what had happened, and they had both subsequently left messages, her father’s apologetic but brisk, her mother’s imploring her to come home. Matthew’s, by contrast, was completely unemotional. He just said he’d like to catch up sometime soon. He was plainly calling from the office because his call took ten seconds.
Rosa dropped her phone back in the bag at her feet. She was not going to deal with any of this just now. Despite the blue polyester blazer, today had been a reasonably good day. She had sold a weekend in Venice to a party of six, booked a stag group to Vilnius and reserved several family-holiday special-offers in Croatia. If they all came good, it was the most commission she had made so far, which might translate into the first tiny repayment of debt, the first small step back to even a vestige of independence. If you coupled that with the prospect of Vivien’s spare bedroom – a bit fussy, a bit overfurnished, but comfortable and convenient and almost free – it was not, Rosa considered, quite as black an outlook as it had been a month before.
She moved the mouse for her computer to access her emails. It was not permitted, in the travel company, to use the email service for personal messages, but who was going to check on her if she bent the rule just once? She typed in Matthew’s work address.
‘Tx for message,’ Rosa wrote, one eye on the office manager eight feet away straightening the rack of brochures. ‘Yes, would be good to meet. When? Where?’ And then she added, pulling a booking form towards her in order to look like work, ‘Need to talk. Parents!!!’
The office manager turned from the brochure rack. She had ironed straight hair and favoured pearlised lip-gloss.
She looked straight at Rosa. ‘Checking your bookings?’ Rosa smiled broadly. ‘Just checking’.
Chapter Eight
‘News on flat???’ Laura’s email said. ‘Need update!’ Then, ‘We are thinking of a Smeg fridge. Would pink be idiotic and would I get tired of it?’
Ruth sighed. The notion of a huge pink fridge even existing, let alone being a preoccupation, was at this moment so irrelevant as to be fantastical. And upsetting. Ruth wasn’t sure she had ever felt this sad. There was, really, no other word for this leaden suffering, this sensation that her heart, as a muscle, actually hurt. Every time she thought about Matthew, which she did constantly, she was invaded by an aching distress, which she could recognise, even while it was happening, as one of the most real emotions she had ever felt.
But, at the same time, she was certain she couldn’t slow her life to accommodate his. When he had uttered the word ‘pitiful’ she had discovered that, even if she energetically listed and acknowledged all his qualities, she would always know – because he would always know – that in a vital area of achievement and contribution he could not at the moment begin to match her. He was afraid of being pitied or made allowance for, and he was right. He knew what he could bear, and what he couldn’t, and – which made her throat constrict with love for him – he had more resolve in that department than she did. And not only resolve, but dignity. He had, in a way, taken quiet charge of their last meeting in the empty flat. He had told her that, even if she withdrew from buying it, the dynamic of their relationship had changed in a way that could not be changed back again. She had clutched at straws and he had not joined in. When she thought of the way he had behaved, she wasn’t at all sure she could stand missing him so much.
Her offer on the flat had been accepted. She had arranged a mortgage through the bank used by her company. What was extremely strange was that all the time she was involved in these transactions she had felt she was right in proceeding with them, and also she had not sensed any diminishment in her excitement over the flat. How could it be that one could feel such heartache and such hope at the same time? How was it that something could feel so right and so wrong simultaneously? And how could one ever know, in these shapeless days of moral codes being so much a matter of personal choice, if one was behaving in the way that one ought to be behaving? She put the heels of her hands up against her temples and closed her eyes. What, anyway, did ‘ought’ mean any more?
She clicked on ‘Reply’ to Laura’s message.
‘Forget fridge,’ she wrote, ‘I need advice. No, I don’t. I need comfort. I thought if I showed Matthew the flat – and it is stunning – it would somehow persuade him that we could work it out together in a place like that. But he was wiser than me. He saw what I didn’t want to see, and he’s gone. Laura, he’s gone. And I am devastated. But I am still thrilled about the flat. Laura, am I a freak?’
‘Like the blazer,’ Matthew said, nodding at the sunburst buttons.
‘It would be kinder not to mention it’. ‘I can’t not mention it’.
‘Yes, you can,’ Rosa said. ‘Unless you want to make even more of a point about contrasting my life with yours’.
There was a tiny pause and then Matthew said, indicating the menu, ‘What d’you want to eat?’
‘Are you paying?’
‘Yes’.
Well, I’ll have the courgette-and-broad-bean thing with a grilled chicken breast’.
‘Please’.
Rosa smiled at him.
‘Please’.
Matthew turned and gestured for a waiter. Rosa said, ‘And possibly a glass of Sauvignon?’ Matthew glanced at her.
‘Matt, one glass—’ He turned back.
‘I don’t begrudge you a glass, Rose. You can have a bottle if you want. It isn’t that’.
‘What isn’t what?’
A waiter appeared, in a long black apron, holding a pad. He smiled at Rosa. She held up her menu, so that he could see, pointing at what she wanted. Then she looked up at him and smiled back.
‘I’ll have the kedgeree,’ Matthew said, ‘and a salad. And one glass of house Sauvignon’.
‘Aren’t you having any?’
‘No’.
‘Why not?’
‘Because,’ Matthew said, ‘I really don’t feel like it’. ‘Why not?’ Rosa said again. ‘Tummy? Head?’ Matthew picked up the menus and handed them to the waiter.
‘Heart,’ he said shortly. Rosa sat up. ‘What’s happened?’
Matthew picked up a basket of bread and offered it to his sister.
She ignored it.
‘Matt. What’s happened?’
‘Well,’ Matthew said, putting the bread down and leaning his arms on the table, ‘Ruth and I are – over’.
‘Oh no’.
‘Yes’.
‘Not you two—’
‘Yes’.
‘Same outlook, same interests, same ambition—’
‘No’.
‘Has she met someone else?’
‘No’.
‘Well, from the look of you, you haven’t’.
‘No’.
‘Matt—’
‘I’ll tell you,’ Matthew said, ‘if you’ll just shut up a minute’.
The waiter put a glass of wine down in front of Rosa. She said, ‘I can’t believe it, I can’t grasp—’ ‘Nor can I’.
‘This flat—’
‘That’s it really,’ Matthew said, ‘the flat. The bottom line is that she can afford it and I can’t. And she should be on the property ladder. It’s the right decision for her, I’ve told her so. But I can’t join her’.
Rosa said slowly, ‘I thought you were earning a shed of money’.
Matthew made a face.
‘Half what Ruth earns’.
‘Half?’ ‘Yes’.
‘Heavens, I always thought—’
‘I know. I didn’t stop anyone thinking that. But the truth is, it’s been a struggle to keep up and lately – well, lately I haven’t been keeping up. And I certainly can’t begin on fancy flat buying’.
Rosa’s gaze moved, item by item, over as much of her brother as she could see above the table.
He said, ‘Say stupid if you want to’.
‘I don’t want to. And I’m hardly in a position to say anything anyway’. She paused and took a mouthful of wine and then she said, ‘Poor you’.
He shrugged.
‘What – what if she doesn’t buy the flat?’ ‘Too late,’ Matthew said. ‘You mean too late, she’s bought it?’ He shook his head.
‘No, too late to retrieve where we were. The flat was just the catalyst. It made us face the disparity’. ‘Did she throw you out?’ ‘No!’ he said angrily. ‘Sorry—’ ‘I threw myself’.
‘Oh Matt,’ Rosa said, ‘I wish I’d done that’. He said sadly, ‘It’s awful, whatever you do’. She leaned forward. ‘Do you still love her?’
The waiter appeared again, holding their plates of food. Matthew leaned back.
He waited until the kedgeree was in front of him and then he said, ‘Of course I do. You don’t just switch that off in an instant. You should know that’.
Rosa looked at her plate.
She said hesitantly, ‘I meant, do you still love her enough to try again?’ Matthew sighed.
‘Not under present circumstances’.
‘But Ruth will just go on being successful. Won’t she?’
‘Yes. And she ought to’.
‘What, put work before relationships?’
‘Well,’ Matthew said, putting his fork into the rice and taking it out again, ‘you’ve got to put something first, haven’t you? Not everything can take priority’.
Rosa waited a moment. She cut a strip off her chicken.
‘Matt, what about you? Couldn’t you have compromised?’
Matthew sighed.
‘Apparently not’.
‘A cheaper flat—’
‘Ben said that. But I couldn’t afford even a cheaper flat. And she was – kind of stuck on this one. Elated’.
Rosa stopped cutting chicken and looked soberly across the table at her brother.
‘Matt, what about you?’
He said, not looking up, ‘I’ve still got a job’.
‘Do you like it?’
‘I don’t mind it. In fact, I do quite like it. But it feels different now, if there isn’t going to be Ruth. It was just one part of life and now it’s got to be almost all of it. So – well, it doesn’t feel like it used to. I can’t quite remember what it’s for’.
‘D’you think,’ Rosa said, ‘that having Mum and Dad still together makes us feel we ought to be in a relationship?’
Matthew took a tiny mouthful.
‘I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it’.
‘Have you told them?’
‘It’s only just happened,’ Matthew said. ‘Ben knows, that’s all’.
‘Before me?’
‘He just rang me,’ Matthew said patiently. ‘He just happened to be around’.
Rosa picked her wine glass up. ‘Where are you sleeping?’ ‘On the sofa’.
‘Ruth in the bedroom, you on the sofa—’
‘Yup’.
‘You can’t do that—’ ‘No. Not for long’.
Rosa said, as if an idea was slowly dawning, ‘Maybe, if you got a flat, we could share’. Matthew put his fork down. ‘Sorry, Rose’.
‘What?’
He looked at her.
‘I just feel – a bit demoralised, I suppose. As if everything has come to a halt, as if I can’t decide anything for a while. I never thought I’d say this, I mean, I left about seven years ago, for God’s sake, but I think I might go home. Just for a while’.
‘I wonder,’ Freddie Cass said to Edie at the end of rehearsal, ‘if I could ask you something’.
Edie was putting on her jacket.
‘Of course’.
Freddie put out an arm to hold a shoulder of the jacket. ‘It’s Regina’.
‘Ah’.
Regina was being played by the defiant girl called Cheryl Smith who chain-smoked and stamped about rehearsals in slouched pirate boots.
‘She’s good,’ Freddie said. ‘She knows what she’s doing. But Lazlo’s frightened of her’.
Edie shrugged her jacket round her neck.
‘She’s in-your-face sort of sexy—’
‘Exactly. That’s what I wanted. Especially for Act Three. But there’s no chemistry between the two of them because she’s contemptuous and he’s scared’.
Edie said, ‘Well, you’re the director—’
‘Well, indeed I am’. He smiled at Edie. He smiled so seldom, showing long, greyish teeth, that she was startled. ‘But you could do something for me’.
‘I said of course—’
‘You’re mothering Lazlo so excellently’.
‘Don’t ask me to mother Cheryl—’
‘Oh no. Just have her to supper’.
Edie looked across the room. Cheryl, her legs arranged in their distinct dancer’s pose, was smoking and talking to Ivor.
‘She’d never come’.
‘Oh, I think so’. ‘With – with Lazlo?’
‘That was my idea’.
‘She’d certainly never come if he came’. Freddie switched his smile off. Edie felt a sense of relief.
‘She’d come,’ Freddie said, ‘if you told her your husband’s an agent’.
Edie said indignantly, ‘Look, sorry, but this is your job!’
He leaned forward and gripped her arm.
‘In a production like this, dear, it’s our job
. I’ll buy the wine’.
Later, on the bus going home, Edie found herself having to work hard at staying indignant. Freddie should never have asked her to help him out and she should never have agreed, but once they had both done so there was little point in nursing outrage. In any case, the energy outrage would have consumed seemed to want to be channelled into thinking about having Lazlo and Cheryl to supper and how their presence in the kitchen – both in their twenties, both in a precarious profession – might serve as a useful bait for tempting Rosa to come back, just for the evening, just for supper. And once Rosa was there, it might be possible – or, at any rate, less impossible – to discover why she had chosen to seek help from her friends and her aunt rather than her mother.
Edie looked at the script in the bag on her knee. That afternoon, she and Lazlo had made a first attempt at their final, terrible scene. She had flung out her hands and cried Mrs Alving’s words, ‘But I gave you your life!’ and Lazlo had looked back at her and said, as if he hardly knew her, ‘I never asked you for life’. She had burst into tears. Mrs Alving’s wail of ‘Help! Help!’ had been no trouble at all. Freddie Cass had strolled over and looked into her face with his removed, observant grey gaze.
‘Nice,’ he’d said.
Vivien had emptied all the cupboards and drawers in her spare room, for Rosa. The drawers, Rosa noted with awe, were lined with sprigged paper and the hangers were solid and purposeful, not simply a motley collection left over from chain stores and dry-cleaners’. There were also two sizes of towel, a new cake of soap and a copy of Glamour magazine. It was kind, Rosa thought, bundling her sweaters on to the sprigged paper, it was really very kind, but in the context of complicated family loyalties it was also making a point, a point Rosa was going to have to ignore if she was to live with her aunt in any kind of equity. It would be perfectly acceptable to thank Vivien for making her so welcome, but it wouldn’t be acceptable at all to applaud her for it. Applause would imply that a comparison with Edie had been made in which Vivien was the victor. Rosa sighed.
‘How could you,’ Edie had demanded over the telephone, ‘turn to friends rather than to me? I am your mother!’
‘That’s why,’ Rosa had wanted to say. Instead she’d said, lamely, despising herself, ‘Sorry’. ‘And now Vivien—’ ‘Sorry’.
Second Honeymoon Page 11
