The noise of their chatter and laughter woke her; it was the sweetest sound she could imagine. The girls fell silent, however, when they arrived at her room. They stood in the open doorway, staring. Each held one of their nan’s hands as they studied her, their legs twisting and their fingers in their mouths, embarrassed, unsure.
‘Well, am I glad to see you!’ She spoke as best she could, but her voice was strained and husky and the effort was painful. Even so, it seemed to do the trick. They slowly came closer, eyeing her suspiciously from top to bottom. She took in their clean clothes and unfamiliar hairstyles. Someone had given them each an elaborate, tight, side braid that fell against one shoulder; it looked complex and professional and certainly wasn’t Phil’s handiwork. She blotted out the image of Gerri touching their beautiful long hair, chatting over their shoulder into a large mirror.
‘Do I look a bit funny?’ she asked Leona, who nodded.
‘Your face looks funny,’ Naomi said. ‘You’ve got scabbies here...’ She dotted her finger around her mouth. ‘And here.’ She did the same around her nose. ‘And your eyes are all puffed up, like you’ve been crying.’
‘I have a bit.’ She looked at Mo. ‘Thank you for bringing them.’
‘Oh, Rosie.’ Mo’s lip trembled and she looked close to tears. She coughed and ushered the girls forward. It was down to her to present a calm and dignified front for the kids. ‘I came in before, but you were sleeping. So I sat with you for a while.’
Rosie was happy to know this, pleased that she had bothered.
‘Wow, that’s an amazing card! Who’s it from?’ Mo nodded at the enormous one-foot-square picture of a kitten.
‘Doug and the girls at the site.’
‘That was kind.’ Mo paused. ‘Kev sends you his best; he’s phoned every day. I told him you were on the mend.’ She pursed her lips as if to stop herself from thinking about the reason for her son’s absence.
Naomi leant on the bed. ‘Mummy, look what we got!’ She lifted her leg up onto the mattress to showcase her little pale pink Ugg boots.
‘Oh!’ was all Rosie could manage as a sour taste filled her throat.
‘And Daddy said we have to get new clothes and new toys because ours were in the fire.’ She stood within touching distance and ran her little fingertips over her mum’s bandaged arm.
‘Yes. That’ll be fun!’
Naomi smiled at the thought and nodded. ‘And we’ve got to get our uniforms for Glencote.’ She straightened, as though the place was worthy of a more dignified posture.
Rosie hated the name of the place, even more so hearing it spoken by her child.
Naomi continued with gusto. ‘I am getting a skirt and jumper and shirt and shoes and coat and a hat and a swimming costume and special socks!’
‘Special socks sound good.’ She gave a false smile.
‘I feel sad, Mum, that my house has gone.’ Tears welled in her eyes.
Rosie held her hand. Her precious girl. ‘Of course you do. I understand and I feel the same, but it won’t be for long, darling.’ She swallowed, struggling for breath. ‘We’ll get it fixed up in no time and I’ll be back on my feet soon. You can help me choose the paint, we can have any colour you fancy!’ She tried to sound bright, excited, despite her slow speech and the panic that swirled in her gut when she considered how she was going to be able to afford a tin of paint, let alone a rebuild.
‘I want green!’ Leona nodded. ‘I want everything to be green. Green walls and green carpet and a green chair, so it’s like walking in the grass!’ She grinned, as though this was the best idea in the world.
‘Green will be lovely.’ Rosie smiled. A cough built in her chest. She tried to suppress it until she had no choice but to wheeze and cough, leaning forward with a tissue over her nose and mouth, trying to clear her lungs.
‘Sorry,’ she managed, between bouts of breathlessness.
Leona took a step backwards and once again gripped her nan’s hand.
‘I think you might cough your guts up,’ Naomi observed, half fascinated, half petrified by the display.
‘Hope not!’ Rosie croaked.
‘We made you a card.’ Leona stepped forward warily and handed her mum the folded sheet of paper. It was remarkably similar to the one they’d made her a while ago, but this time her head was swathed in bandages and she was in a bed with a big red cross over the top, presumably to indicate the hospital. Her face was still streaked with tears.
‘It’s lovely.’
Leona opened it up to reveal both their names ringed in a neat chain of Xs.
‘The doctor said we weren’t to keep you talking for too long.’ Mo stepped forward and placed a kiss on her daughter-in-law’s forehead. ‘I’d better get them back.’
Rosie grabbed her arm. ‘Mo! Oh God! What can I do?’ she whispered, fighting the urge to shout out, ‘Stay with me, girls! Don’t go to London! Stay here! I need you!’
‘You’ll be okay. You will.’ Mo was firm.
First Naomi and then Leona wrapped her in a tentative hug, but it was obvious she didn’t feel or smell like their mum, not really.
‘I’ll miss you.’ Naomi’s words were like gold that she would sew into a pocket above her heart and keep safe.
‘And I will miss you too, every second of every day, but you know that Daddy and I will always make sure that you are safe and happy.’ She paused to catch her breath. ‘We will make sure of it because no matter what happens between us, we both love you very much. You don’t have to worry.’ She tried out a smile of reassurance.
Having waved off her visitors, she sank back onto the pillows, more weakened by the exertion than she could have imagined. She closed her eyes, swamped by the ache of loneliness and doing her best to shut out the dark fear that Mo was wrong and that she would never be okay again.
*
The doctor was pleased with her progress and had told her to expect to be allowed home later in the week. The news buoyed her up a little, although the prospect of going to stay with her dad and Shona hardly filled her with glee.
She had taken her painkillers and was waiting for the effects to kick in. Her days were a cycle of pain and pain relief and she had learnt to look forward to the moment the little pills were handed to her in a tiny pleated paper cup. She sipped the weak tea she’d been given to take away the taste, then looked up to see Gerri standing in front of her. Her first reaction was embarrassment at being so incapacitated in Gerri’s presence. She noticed, as she had before, that despite her diminutive stature, Gerri filled the space. The swish of straight, shiny hair, the whiff of expensive-smelling perfume and her confident stance made up for what she lacked in bulk. Rosie considered patting her hair into place and checking her face, but there was no point; no amount of primping could disguise the mess that she was in. And, in truth, she didn’t care.
‘Oh, look at you! You poor old thing.’ Gerri’s fake sympathy was grating.
Rosie looked at her and blinked. The hard, stubby eyelashes dug into her lids and made her eyes water, which, ironically offered some relief to her sore, dry eyes.
‘I hope you don’t mind me coming. I guess I just wanted to say don’t worry,’ Gerri cooed.
‘About what?’ Rosie croaked, her voice rasping as it tended to when she hadn’t used it for a bit.
‘About Naomi and Leona. I can assure you that they will have the very best time in London. I know you aren’t in a position to do much for them, but even if you were, you’ll agree that this really is a fabulous opportunity for them.’
‘Please just go,’ Rosie managed, looking towards the window, as if she might magic up a view to distract her from this odious woman and her hurtful words.
‘Don’t be like that. I come in peace!’ Her tone was mocking, superior. ‘Glencote really is the best school, and they’ll be living in my beautiful house, and they’ll be with their dad, who loves them. They’ll have all they could wish for. To deny them that would be very selfish.’
Rosie
turned to look at her. She noted her still enviably flat tummy and her white, white teeth. Her tears fell and her breathing stalled with every sob.
‘Don’t cry. You’re doing the right thing, recognising that we are a family, allowing them to bond with their little brother.’ Gerri patted her stomach over her baby-blue jersey. ‘Yes, it’s a boy! Darling Mo and Keith will visit us a lot, so there’ll be familiar faces around. Phil works for me now, as you know, so he’ll always be on hand to care for them and to do the school run. It really is for the best. You can see that, can’t you, Rosie?’ She sighed. ‘I mean, what can you offer them right now? You’re effectively homeless.’
Rosie felt her face fold in distress. The skin around her mouth pulled, and the painkillers dulled her senses, sending a hazy mist over her world. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t offer them anything. Because I haven’t got anything.’ She closed her eyes, the admission taking the last of her strength.
Gerri turned to leave. ‘He’ll want a divorce, you know. I can’t have my baby’s dad being married to someone else. But you knew that was coming, right?’
Later that afternoon, Mel turned up, clearly nervous and feeling guilty about not having come sooner. Their chat was strained, awkward.
‘Gerri said she popped in.’ Mel’s tone suggested she was a mutual friend.
‘I don’t want her near me!’ Rosie replied hoarsely.
‘She just wants to help. She’s not a bad person.’
When she heard that, Rosie knew there was no point in trying to convince Mel she’d got Gerri all wrong. It was yet another wedge between them and one that might never shift.
‘Tyler said the girls said goodbye at school,’ Mel continued.
Rosie stared at her friend, wondering if she had the slightest concept of how much this little titbit hurt her.
‘I don’t want them to go!’
Mel sat forward. ‘Course you don’t, but you know, honey, they’re having a great adventure. They’re staying in some incredible places and doing some amazing things and before you know it, they’ll be back for the holidays and you’ll be wanting a break from all that chatter.’
She shook her head. Not even her friend’s lies, intended to placate her, could make the situation seem better. She closed her eyes and feigned sleep until, eventually, Mel tiptoed from the room.
*
At the end of the week she was discharged.
‘We’ll get a wheelchair to take you down to reception.’ The male nurse gripped the pen and wrote on her chart as she waited for her dad to arrive.
‘I don’t need one.’
‘It’s hospital policy. You’ve been lying down for a long time and even though you’re much better, you might be a bit unsteady on your legs and we can’t have you falling.’
‘I’ll manage.’ She stared at the card in her hand, the drawing of her and her sad, sad face. I don’t want the girls to think of me like this...
Her dad entered the room a little sheepishly, unsure of what to say.
‘Is this all your luggage, love?’ He picked up the carrier bag containing her toiletries, hairbrush, pyjamas and a couple of pairs of pants. She was wearing the jeans and jersey that Mo had picked up for her.
‘I haven’t got anything else.’ Phil had told her he’d managed to salvage a few bits and pieces from Arlington Road. His descriptions had been vague, so all she knew was that her worldly possessions now fitted into two plastic storage boxes and were in the yard up at Mo and Keith’s for when she could get back into the house. The one saving grace was that the girls’ lives had been documented in photographs which had been distributed to their grandparents, so at least she could make copies. As she visualised the charred remains of their family home – everything from their comfy sofa to their favourite books, all gone – her tears fell again, tracing a familiar route down her cheeks.
‘Right.’ Roy nodded and picked up the bag for her, quietly and apologetically, as had always been his way.
‘We’re just waiting on her medication, pain relief, dressings and some emollients for her skin and when we’ve got that lot from the pharmacy, she’s all yours.’ The nurse smiled. Her dad nodded his thanks.
I don’t want to be all his. I want to turn the clock back to the time when I woke up next to my husband, with my children sleeping down the hall, in my house...
Just as the nurse had anticipated, she was quite shaky on her feet, but she managed to get into the front seat of her dad’s car without assistance. ‘Can we go and look at the house before we go back to Exeter?’ she asked meekly, as if she was once again a young child in her dad’s care.
‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea.’ He put the key in the ignition.
‘Please, Dad.’
He nodded and sighed, then pulled out of the car park and joined the road that would take them to Woolacombe.
When they reached Arlington Road, Rosie stood on the pavement and stared. No imaginings could have prepared her for the sight. As she let her eyes rove across the boarded-up frontage of her family home, she realised just how much she’d loved their house – the very bricks and mortar of it, the hard-earned and carefully chosen furniture and furnishings, the mess of normal family life and all the memories contained within. And now all that remained was a blackened shell.
The smell was invasive and intense, like a bonfire but laced with the toxic stink of everything that had melted inside. She reached out and touched her finger to the blistered wooden doorframe in which their front door used to sit, the door for which she’d had the key, the door she’d walked through with her new babies, the door her hus-band walked out of.
Carbonised ghosts were everywhere. They had invaded her house and taken up residence on bare surfaces; they were clinging to once pristine paintwork and jumping up walls. She wanted them gone.
Her eyes lingered on the patch of tarmac, now filled by a neighbour’s van, where her car had often lurked; that too, damaged in the fire, had been scrapped.
‘I want my home back!’ she rasped, as loud as her voice would allow.
‘I know, love. I know.’
‘I’ve got nothing!’ she shouted, hoarsely, caring little who overheard. Her sobs a desperate wail that carried on the wind. ‘How has this happened to me? How has everything disappeared, what did I do, wrong? I want my family back! I want my life!’ she howled.
As the strength left her legs and her knees buckled, her dad placed his hand on her back. ‘It’s time to go now,’ he cajoled, trying to guide her towards the car. Part of her wanted to stay; the other part couldn’t wait to get away. ‘There’s nothing we can do here just now, love. We’ll get you nice and comfy in Exeter and there’ll be a cup of tea waiting. And trust me, you have to believe that good things are around the corner.’
Rosie cried, his words did little to pierce her shell of utter despair.
During the rest of their journey he tried hard to fill the silent interludes. ‘Shona’s got the spare room ready,’ he said.
Rosie could only nod her thanks. The image of the blackened walls and boarded-up windows would haunt her for a long, long time.
‘Makes you realise how lucky you were, doesn’t it?’ he asked softly, as if reading her mind.
‘I don’t feel very lucky.’
‘I know things must feel like the end of the world right now...’
They do, Dad.
‘...but they’re not. There will come a time when you’ll count your blessings. Trust me.’
‘I don’t understand how I’ve lost control. I’ve lost control of everything, my whole life. I’ve got to start again, but I don’t know if I can.’
‘Well that’s the thing, love. You don’t have any choice.’ He sighed and gripped the steering wheel in the ten-to-two position, carefully and slowly changing up to fourth gear.
*
Shona waved from the open front door, her tan as dark as ever and set off by hot pink lipstick. ‘Oh, Rosie, look at you! Come on in, love, and make
yourself at home.’
It was the warmest welcome Shona had ever given her, but Rosie baulked at the tone of it, which made her feel like a rescue puppy. The moment the front door closed behind her, she wanted to leave. She turned her head and stared at the burgundy runner and the back of the door with its polished brass letterbox flap, as if trying to figure out the exit code. But even if she found the confidence to run, she had nowhere to go and no one to run to.
She couldn’t help but think of the day six months ago when she’d left the same house, happy to be heading back to Woolacombe with nothing to occupy her thoughts but the letter from Laurel that sat in her bag, its contents waiting to be shared with her husband. She remembered later that night, holding up her palm, as if, like a superhero, she might be able to deflect his words, erase his thoughts, change her fate. ‘I’ve met someone...’
But it wasn’t just someone he had met. It was Geraldine Farmer, the woman who had everything she had ever wanted, apart from the little people to populate her beautiful home. Rosie felt that Geraldine was more than her in every way: prettier, slimmer, richer and cleverer. She had beaten her at every turn. ‘I mean, what can you offer them right now?’ The words rang inside her head as she pictured her little girls in their pale pink Uggs.
‘Nothing,’ she said out loud.
Shona shot Rosie’s dad a wide-eyed look. ‘Nothing?’ She gave a small laugh. ‘I said, would you like to go up to your room?’ Clearly Rosie had missed her question the first time.
‘Yes, please,’ she whispered, deciding it would be better to be alone than to sit and watch the two of them try to think of what to say next.
Shona closed the bedroom door behind her and Rosie heard her speedy tread on the stairs. No doubt she was keen to discuss events with her dad. She could sense their whispers floating up through the floorboards and bouncing off the shiny floral wallpaper and built-in white laminate wardrobes: ‘What did she say in the car?’ and ‘How long is she staying?’
She sat at the dressing table with its large, oval, white and gold mirror on a stand and swivelled it to see her reflection. Her face was now mottled with little white patches that looked like countries on a map, irregular shapes that sat around her mouth, under her nose and below her left eye. She touched the tip of her finger to them. The doctor had told her they would fade a little; she wondered how much. Not that she cared about her altered appearance, not really. It didn’t matter. Her hair was dirty and knotty and she couldn’t wait to give it a good wash. She tried to imagine bathing and washing her hair in Roy and Shona’s bathroom, among their unfamiliar lotions and towels, thinking how odd it was that he was her dad, her flesh and blood, and yet still in so many ways a stranger.
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