Rosie

  ‘You’re mad,’ he said in alarm, backing away from her. ‘As mad as your brother.’

  ‘I am mad,’ she yelled after him as he ran up the garden. ‘Mad for Thomas like I never was for you.’

  After he’d gone Rosie sat on the box Gareth had just vacated and continued to laugh. She thought of his tight-lipped mother in her spotless house and that set her off again. Remembering how Gareth knew train timetables by heart, she rocked with merriment. Tears ran down her cheeks with the laughter, and as she imagined him dodging into doorways all the way to the station she had to hold her sides.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Donald’s voice from the doorway caught her short.

  He was dressed in a yellow waterproof coat, Wellingtons and a sou’wester. He looked like the man on the Shiphams fishpaste advertisements.

  ‘It’s Gareth,’ she said, still spluttering with laughter as she made room for him to come in out of the rain. ‘Oh Donald, I wish you’d been here, he was so pathetic. I can’t imagine what I ever saw in him.’

  Donald tilted back his sou’wester. His face was still a golden brown from working outside and his eyes were the clearest blue. ‘Good,’ he said, a big smile spreading across his face. ‘That means you can marry Thomas, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Now what makes you think Thomas would want to marry me?’ she asked, reaching out and ruffling his damp hair affectionately.

  Donald looked surprised at her question. ‘Of course he does. Last time he was here he said he hated going back to London. I said he didn’t need to go, he could marry you and stay with us for ever.’

  ‘And what did he say to that?’ Rosie laughed. She was always very aware of Donald’s limitations. He certainly didn’t understand the complexities of adult emotions.

  ‘He said he’d like to, but you loved Gareth, not him.’

  Rosie frowned. Donald got people’s meanings all wrong all the time. He took everything said to him as gospel, whether it was intended as a light-hearted joke, sarcasm or serious comment. But one thing Rosie had learned was that he was very good at relaying exactly what people had said. He hadn’t learned to embellish things, and unless Donald had suddenly acquired that talent, she could entirely believe him. That put a different complexion on Thomas’s reluctance to take things a step further. While she had believed his leg to be the only problem, Thomas had seen Gareth as an immovable obstacle.

  Rosie wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, yet she could see there was some truth in that, or at least there had been until Gareth walked into the greenhouse. She had needed that showdown with him – to see him once and for all – to rid her of any romantic illusions she’d once held. She knew now that she never, ever wanted to clap eyes on Gareth again. The relationship was truly dead and buried.

  She thought for just a moment. ‘Would you finish potting these for me?’ she asked Donald, waving her hand at the cuttings.

  ‘Why? Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘To London,’ she said with a grin. ‘To see Thomas.’

  Norah was making a cake when Rosie burst into the kitchen to ask if she’d mind if she went to London for the rest of the weekend.

  ‘What, now?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows. ‘On the same train as Gareth?’

  Rosie hadn’t considered that, but the irony of it appealed to her. ‘I doubt if he’ll even recognize me in my new outfit,’ she giggled. ‘But I’ll wait till the last minute before jumping on the train and get in the Ladies Only carriage.’

  Rosie arrived at the station with only a minute to spare to buy her ticket. She could hear the train coming in. She waited in the ticket hall for a moment or two until a few passengers had come out, then nipped out to the platform and straight on to the train. She caught a glimpse of Gareth further down as he got into the front coach.

  She was so excited and never more sure of herself. Her appearance reflected everything she felt. A couple of weeks earlier she’d taken some money out of her savings to buy a midnight-blue coat with a velvet collar from a very expensive shop in Tunbridge Wells. She had intended to wear it for the first time to Thomas’s art exhibition, but today was more important. It was quite beautiful, a soft lightweight wool in the new Princess style which clung to her slim figure. She had a small, matching, velvet skullcap too, and her curls wound up around it in a fetching manner. Underneath she wore a plain navy sheath dress. It wasn’t new but it was smart, too smart to wear in Mayfield.

  It had been such a rush to have a bath, wash her hair and do her nails, all in time to catch the train. She wondered what Thomas would say when he saw her.

  *

  The church clock was striking seven as she rang the bell on the shop door in Flask Walk. She clutched her small suitcase and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. As she heard Thomas clonking down the stairs, she resolved that once they were together for ever, they’d find a bungalow so he didn’t have the strain of stairs.

  His face broke into a broad smile as he saw her face pressed up against the glass. He flicked on the light and moved faster across the small shop to open the door.

  ‘Rosie!’ he exclaimed. ‘what on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m here to see you,’ she said, and with that threw herself into his arms.

  ‘But why now?’ he said, after kissing her. ‘And why the case?’

  ‘Because I’m going to stay the night with you,’ she said. ‘But you’ll have to get yourself smartened up because we’re going out to dinner first.’

  She was surprised he didn’t argue. All he asked was if the Cooks knew she was coming here, and said it was lucky he’d collected his best shirt from the laundry. He also said the living-room was a pig-sty and she’d probably want to catch the next train home.

  While Thomas was shaving, Rosie went into his living-room. It was messy just as he’d said, pots and tubes of oil paints strewn everywhere, pencil sketches littering the floor, and a recently started painting on his easel. But a finished painting propped against a chair caught her attention. It was of two small girls bent over a battered doll’s pram. It was absolutely delightful, but her first reaction was to wonder what prompted such a subject.

  Thomas hadn’t said what subjects he painted. She had assumed they were all scenic like the two she’d seen on his walls. She had never imagined him painting people.

  The picture had a curious timeless quality. The little girls had very worn-looking dresses, in dull colours; the background had a murky tenement or back-alley feel to it. But for the short clothes showing plump legs, they could be two little girls from any period.

  Thomas came back into the room adjusting his tie. He paused to watch her looking at the painting.

  ‘Your verdict, milady?’ he said.

  ‘It’s truly magical,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘What made you paint them?’

  ‘Because they were there,’ he laughed. ‘I saw them out of this window one Sunday afternoon and I quickly sketched them. I suppose it brought back images of Heather. We never had enough money for her to have a doll’s pram, but I remember her borrowing one once.’

  ‘She used to love taking Alan out in his pram,’ Rosie said, suddenly seeing Heather in her mind’s eye, pushing the pram fast and letting it go, then running after it to make Alan laugh. She was on the point of reminiscing how much she missed Heather in those first few months after she disappeared, of how she had to push Alan in his pram up to the village to be minded by a neighbour while she went to school, but she caught herself in time. Tonight wasn’t the occasion for speaking of sad things.

  ‘So where are we going to eat?’ Thomas asked, picking up a clothes-brush to clean his jacket.

  ‘In that posh Italian place up the road,’ Rosie said. ‘And it’s my treat, before you start arguing. I thought of it.’

  He raised an eyebrow as if wanting to disagree, but Rosie wagged a finger at him. ‘Don’t you dare! Otherwise I’ll behave like a guttersnipe in there and embarrass you.’

  ‘You couldn’t possibly
behave like a guttersnipe in that outfit,’ he said with a smile. ‘Did I tell you that you look like a film star?’

  ‘I thought you hadn’t noticed,’ she laughed, twirling round for his benefit. ‘I bought this for the opening of your exhibition. But I thought tonight was just as important, perhaps more in a way.’

  ‘And why?’ he asked, coming closer to hug her.

  ‘Because it’s the special night we’ve both been waiting for,’ she said. ‘And because I’ve got something very funny to tell you.’

  The waiter took them to a table in an alcove at the back of the restaurant and lit the candle on the table. Rosie had grown used to eating out as the Cooks often took her and Donald with them to their favourite restaurant in Tunbridge Wells. But that was a brightly lit place, with big silver covers on the joints of meat and sparkling white tablecloths. This place was small, intimate and dark, with checked tablecloths and flowers on the table. She liked it very much more.

  They had minestrone soup first. Then, as the waiter brought the main course of chicken and vegetables, Rosie told Thomas about Gareth’s visit.

  She was good at telling funny stories. She described his new suit and his obvious annoyance that she didn’t take him back into the house, then she launched into his litany of misery, adding a few extra things for good measure. All she omitted was Gareth’s description of Thomas as a cripple. She changed that to ‘being so old’.

  Thomas was laughing with her as she got to the part about Mrs Jones’s three-piece suite, and although he knew what Gareth must really have said about him, he took some pleasure in imagining the man being so taken aback by the volley of abuse Rosie flung at him. But what pleased him most was to see the joy in her face as she related the tale. He knew she meant every word, and for her to rush off on the train, taking the risk that Gareth would see her and think she’d come after him, was so very flattering.

  ‘So it is finally dead and buried,’ she concluded. ‘You were daft to think I still held a torch for him. I suppose that’s why you’ve been holding me at arm’s length?’

  Thomas was somewhat surprised by her direct approach. But then she’d always been so direct about everything. Yet women were funny things, one moment outspoken, the next afraid to say what was on their minds.

  In five years of being in Hampstead he’d had many women friends. Before he’d found his heart was in Rosie’s keeping, several of them had claimed to love him, some had been to bed with him, yet not one of them had been honest enough to admit that his disability put them off. One in particular had wounded him almost mortally when after a night of passion she’d turned her head away as he got out of bed and loudly insisted he put on his trousers immediately.

  ‘I’ve been holding you at arm’s length for lots of reasons,’ he said, taking her hand in his. ‘Gareth was the major one. I was afraid you still cared for him, and we all do silly things on the rebound. But that isn’t the only reason. There is my leg, and the fact that I’m so much older than you. You see, I value you as a friend above all else, Rosie. I couldn’t bear to lose you, so I had to be sure of you first.’

  They were both a little tipsy as they walked home. Hampstead Village looked enchanting to Rosie with its bow-fronted shop windows all lit up and with beautiful displays unlike anything she ever saw in Sussex. She was excited by everything – the clear, starry sky, the leaves blowing down on to pavements, the music wafting out of public houses and Thomas’s hand in hers.

  In a week’s time she would be nineteen. If she’d been born to any other family down on the Somerset Levels, she would probably be married with children of her own by now. Yet she was still a virgin. But not for much longer.

  Thomas lit the fire in his living-room and produced a bottle of champagne he’d bought for the opening of his exhibition. It was warm because he didn’t have a refrigerator, and placing it outside the kitchen window while they were out hadn’t really had the desired effect. He wished he’d had some warning that Rosie was coming tonight. He would have changed the sheets on his bed, spring cleaned the flat and bought candles to make it all more romantic. Yet despite his anxiety, just Rosie’s presence was enough to make his heart beat faster. In the soft glow of the fire her coppery curls, pink cheeks and sparkling eyes gave the untidy little room beauty.

  Rosie giggled as she sipped the first glass. ‘I always wondered what champagne tasted like,’ she said. ‘I got a book from the library once where the heroine drank it sitting in her bath. One night when I was having a bath in the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of lemonade to pretend I was her.’

  Thomas smiled at the mental picture of a skinny teenager sitting in a tin bath imagining such things. ‘Maybe one day I can take you somewhere glamorous enough to try it out,’ he said. ‘But for tonight we can pretend this is a suite in the Dorchester.’

  ‘Have you ever stayed anywhere really grand?’ she asked. She liked the champagne and the effect it was having. She moved her chair a little closer to Thomas and took his hand in hers.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘I went into Raffles, a posh hotel in Singapore, a few times, but only for drinks. That was splendid, with polished wood floors, big fans keeping it cool and soft armchairs. I used to dream of it a great deal when I was in the camp. But maybe if I sell lots of pictures at the exhibition I’ll be able to take you somewhere like that.’

  Rosie slipped off her chair and knelt down in front of him, leaning her arms on his lap. ‘It’s good that both of us haven’t ever had much, isn’t it? I mean, we can dream about it all together, and plan how we’re going to get there.’

  Thomas’s heart contracted painfully at her words. They made the gulf between their ages and experience so much narrower. Joy and excitement bubbled up inside him like the champagne. At last he felt he was stepping out of a long, dark tunnel into bright sunshine, and before him lay a road lined with all the things that had once seemed unattainable.

  Her eyes, looking like sapphires in the firelight, were glowing for him, and her soft lips were waiting to be feasted upon. He was just twenty again, and all the niggling doubts in his mind vanished as he bent to kiss her.

  ‘Let’s get into bed,’ Rosie whispered some minutes later. She stood up and took both his hands, urging him out of his seat. Her lips were swollen with kissing, her hair as tousled as it had been the first time he saw her.

  Thomas wished he could pick her up in his arms and carry her to the bedroom, but Rosie slipped her arms around his waist and led him there herself. He sat down on the bed. This was the moment he’d been dreading, but Rosie sat beside him and kissed him again, gently pushing him on to his back.

  ‘I love you,’ she said simply. ‘I know you are embarrassed, but so am I and tonight’s just the beginning of something wonderful for both of us. So we aren’t going to let it stand in our way.’

  It wasn’t until Rosie knelt up on the bed beside him and slowly began to undress him that he was reminded she had always been a carer, and that she had bathed and dressed adults with worse disabilities than his. She took off his shirt first, running her fingertips across the smooth skin of his chest, kissing his shoulders, arms and abdomen with such tenderness that he felt the embarrassment fading.

  Half nurse, half lover, she slowly stripped him of his shoes and trousers, down to his underpants. He held his breath, searching her face for signs of panic or disgust when she saw the stone-coloured artificial leg lying next to his normal, muscular one, but her loving expression remained unchanged. ‘You have a beautiful body,’ she murmured as her hands moved to the straps. ‘This is the last hurdle.’

  The leg clanked as she dropped it to the floor and Thomas closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and waited for the expected gasp. But instead he felt a soft hand stroke the scarred stump tenderly. ‘There,’ she whispered. ‘You can open your eyes now. There are no more secrets between us.’

  Thomas opened his eyes to see her through his tears. Her face was serene, her eyes soft with love, and she wa
s caressing and looking at his body with adoration.

  He pulled her down to him, overcome by emotion. The mouth that met his was as hungry as his own and he knew that they really had leapt over that last hurdle.

  ‘You are an angel,’ he whispered. ‘I love you so much.’

  She climbed off his bed and began to undress herself. Thomas moved himself round into the bed and watched her with awe. Her dress slid down to the floor, leaving her in a cream satin petticoat. Like a practised temptress she lifted one leg on to the bed and unfastened her stocking, peeling it off slowly, then the other. She smiled at him as she lowered one strap of the petticoat over her shoulder, then the other, and slowly the satin slithered down her slender body, leaving her in satin knickers and a matching brassière.

  She climbed back on to the bed and it was only then that Thomas realized she was just as embarrassed about revealing her body as he was.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything so perfect,’ he whispered as he slid his hands around her body and unfastened the hook of her bra. Her breasts were small and uptilted, nipples erect in the cold room, her skin creamy with just a hint of pink that reminded him of the inside of seashells. ‘Come into bed. You’re cold.’

  For Rosie it was the best, most thrilling moment in her life as she cuddled into Thomas’s warm body. She hadn’t expected to be repelled by his leg. Any thoughts she’d had previously were just curiosity. It wasn’t ugly as he’d led her to believe, just a thigh ending above the knee and neatly and smoothly gathered together. She didn’t understand why anyone would find it daunting. As for the rest of his body, that was just perfect, a smooth and muscular chest, powerful arms and shoulders. She loved every inch of him.

  That feeling of love and adoration became even stronger as he caressed her. His fingertips were so sensitive compared with the rough manner in which Gareth had often handled her, and his kisses sent her off on to another, higher plane. He moved down the bed to kiss and suck at her breasts, and her body seemed to melt into his as if they were one. But it was the things he whispered as he was loving her that made it extra-wonderful – how perfect her breasts were, the silkiness of her skin and how much he wanted her.