Cuckoo (46 page)
Then, brushing her hands free of the shards of canvas and paint that covered them, she switched off the light, locked the door and threw the key into the pond. Those ancient keys didn’t come with copies. Even if Gareth did get up before they left for Brighton, that should buy her a bit of time to stage her getaway.
Forty-Two
Rose had a quick shower, then spent what remained of the afternoon packing for Brighton. She started the task by making a list, on which, amongst the baby wipes, nappies, changes of clothes for herself, Flossie and Anna, she included:
suit of armour, bazooka, landmines (two)
.
suit of armour, bazooka, landmines (two)
.
By leaving out the ordnance, she managed to boil everything down to one large rucksack and a wheeled suitcase. It wasn’t exactly travelling light, but it nevertheless felt liberating to know that she and her daughters had everything they needed for survival in just two bags. She then packed two smaller, wheeled suitcases for the boys. She supposed she would be the only one to think about that, and it wasn’t fair on them to be bloody-minded about such things.
She rang Simon to check on the children, and to warn him that they wouldn’t be staying to watch a movie, because an early night was called for. In all honesty, this was more for her own benefit than theirs. Her duvet was calling her. She just wanted to hide there until the morning, and then leave.
Instead, though, she had the rest of the afternoon to deal with. She got some chicken stock out of the freezer and heated it up with some thread egg noodles in it to serve to the invalids. To add belt and braces to her plan, she ground another four of the green herbal pills in her pestle and mortar and stirred the powder into Gareth’s bowl.
‘That should keep him quiet,’ she said to the kitten, who was crying up at her, unfed. ‘I’m not going to humour you, you know,’ Rose said, ignoring its pitiful mewing. ‘You’re the devil’s work, you are.’
She found a tray and spread one of her lovely Irish linen, lace-edged napkins on it. They were among the few things she had taken from her parents’ house when they had kicked her out. She had rarely used them.
She smoothed out the ironed-in creases.
They had kicked her out.
She thought about it. In their view, she had shamed them, so they had actually kicked her, their only child, out of their home. Left her alone, in trouble, with only Polly to rely on, only Polly to sort her out.
They had kicked her out.
She thought about it. In their view, she had shamed them, so they had actually kicked her, their only child, out of their home. Left her alone, in trouble, with only Polly to rely on, only Polly to sort her out.
How could they do that? And was it any wonder she didn’t want to go back to Brighton? But it was too late now. And anyway, she had plans, now.
She poured Gareth’s soup into one of her favourite vintage Biot bowls and placed it on top of the napkin. By the side, she positioned a heavy tumbler of water, a small vase with a little bunch of honeysuckle from the garden in it, and a weighty silver soup spoon from the ancestral canteen she and Gareth had received from Pam and John for a wedding present-cum-attempted peace-offering. If he was feeling well enough, he would be pleased with this arrangement. Pleased enough, hopefully, to drink the whole bowlful no matter how bitter it tasted.
She tiptoed up the stairs and knocked softly on Anna’s door.
She heard Gareth mumble something, so she pushed the door open and went inside. He was ashen, but awake, with dark rings under his eyes. What a baby, Rose thought. What a milksop.
‘I brought you a little chicken soup.’
‘Oy vey,’ he tried to smile.
‘If you eat something, it’ll make you stronger.’ She put the tray down in front of him.
‘Very pretty,’ he said, taking the spoon in his hand.
She hoped he didn’t think she was trying to say sorry for her outburst with this tray of food. But it was a risk she had to take in order to keep him quiet. She watched with satisfaction as he took first one then another spoonful of the soup.
‘I’ll take a bowl up to Polly,’ Rose said, turning to go.
‘How is she?’
‘On the mend. Bit better than you, in fact. She still wants to go to Brighton tomorrow, in any case.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘You must go. Don’t worry about me.’
As if
, Rose thought.
, Rose thought.
Polly was asleep when Rose took another, less well-adorned tray up to the Annexe, so she left it on the floor by the bed. With any luck, she would tip it over when she got up and get cold soup over her nightdress.
Back at The Lodge, Rose was just slipping on her Barbour for the walk over to Simon’s house to pick up the children, when she heard Anna’s bedroom door swing open and Gareth rush across the landing to the family bathroom. He was in such a hurry, he didn’t have a chance to shut the door, and Rose listened with satisfaction to his involuntary exertions. Before she went, she lit a Jo Malone candle on the kitchen table, to mask the stink.
It took a while to get the children to sleep. They were so excited about the impending trip that they begged Rose for details, for snippets of history, for tips as to the best rides on the pier. She put up her hands and refused to say a word.
‘You’ll find out all about it at the weekend,’ she promised. Instead, she read the chapter from
Winnie the Pooh
where he takes a balloon and floats up into a tree.
Winnie the Pooh
where he takes a balloon and floats up into a tree.
She put them all to bed, then sat at the kitchen table and drank an entire bottle of Gareth’s special champagne. She felt the day called for a celebration. The champagne tasted quite disgusting served warm, but it seemed more fitting that way.
Forty-Three
When Rose went downstairs the following morning, she nearly fell over in shock. Polly was already up, sitting in the kitchen armchair, dressed like a punk Celia Howard in
Brief Encounter
. She balanced a little handbag on her knee; a small suitcase that Rose had never seen before was perched on the floor beside her.
Brief Encounter
. She balanced a little handbag on her knee; a small suitcase that Rose had never seen before was perched on the floor beside her.
‘Good morning!’ Polly said, her face bright. ‘I fed the cat. He was starving, poor kitty.’
Hungover, still unwashed and in her nightclothes, Rose didn’t feel anywhere near as perky. She grunted and put Flossie in her high chair. Then the house erupted, as the herd that was Nico, Yannis and Anna thundered down the stairs.
‘Are we going to be late?’ they asked.
‘Will the taxi be here on time?’
Nico and Yannis directed all their questions at Rose. They seemed to fail to notice that their mother, whose health they had feared for so much the day before, was now alive and well and sitting in the kitchen.
‘Hush now, we don’t want to wake Gareth,’ Rose said. ‘It’s only just gone six.’
When they were all washed, breakfasted and dressed, they took their suitcases up the steps towards the lane to wait for the people-carrier that the local shopkeeper’s husband drove and which served for the village taxi. Rose didn’t want him to pull up in the driveway and sound his horn like he normally did. She had left a brief, functional note for Gareth, reminding him to feed the kitten. She had also taken the precaution of not letting him know where they were staying and removing Polly’s mobile phone from her handbag while she was in the bathroom. She turned it off, ran it under the tap for good measure, then hid it at the back of the dresser.
It was a misty morning – so misty that you couldn’t see your hand in front of you. Rose hoped it was only a local problem – they did live in a slight dip – or they might actually miss the train, and then what would she do?
They stood on a nub of grass at the lane entrance to The Lodge and waited. The older children pulled up long grasses and, holding them like cigarettes, pretended to smoke them, blowing out clouds of breath into the damp air. Flossie was quiet, cocooned in her allterrain buggy like a sleeping Buddha. Out there in the cold country morning, all done up in her forties gear, Polly looked a little gormless, Rose thought. She was clearly bamboozled by the early hour, the chill, and the fact that she really wasn’t wearing enough clothes for someone with no inbuilt insulation.
‘Look!’ Anna said, pointing at a chandelier of cobwebs, jewelled with diamanté beads of dew. Nico drew back his grass cigarette and swiped at them, bringing the elaborate construction twinkling down with a silent clatter. Anna laughed and clapped her hands. A couple of months ago she would have been distraught. Rose wondered what had shifted to harden her daughter so, and whether it was a good or bad thing.
Thankfully, the taxi turned up on time and Rose’s fears about the mist were unfounded. Once they got onto the main road it was plain sailing, and they arrived at the station with five minutes to spare. Even boarding the train was simple, despite all the bags and the children, thanks to an absurdly cheery, red-faced couple of older male station guards who insisted on doing everything ‘while you ladies find a nice seat for yourselves and the kiddies’. There was even a trolley service on the train, run by an apple-cheeked young Polish girl. As soon as they sat down on their reserved seats, she wheeled up towards them and offered them tea, coffee and hot chocolate along with fresh sugared doughnuts for the children. Rose paid.
‘I’ll pay you back. I’m still waiting for the Greek lawyers. They’re taking an age – although next week is looking likely,’ Polly said.
It dawned on Rose that Polly might have come away with no means of paying for anything herself. It was probably something she had never really had to think about before, so the fact she didn’t have any money now wasn’t going to stop her.
‘How are you feeling this morning, then?’ Rose asked her.
‘Oh, you know, OK,’ Polly said.
‘At least you didn’t end up in hospital for a week.’
Polly looked sharply up at her, but Rose turned to look out of the window.
‘Look at that,’ she said to the children. A wide waterway carved its way through a fat, springy meadow. ‘That water comes from our river,’ she said. The river from the bottom of the field by The Lodge. The river that once upon a time Gareth had said he was going to chart with woodcuts.
Mist hung over the top of the water and spilled from its edges into the grass.
‘It’s almost as if we’re in a plane and we’re looking down through the clouds,’ she said.
Polly leaned her head against the window, preparing to drop off. Rose reached over and tapped her on the knee.
‘Shall I take the tickets? In case you’re asleep when the guard comes.’
Polly reached in her little handbag and passed a wallet with the tickets in it over to Rose.
They crawled across the West Country, stopping at every station on the way. Polly was soon fast asleep, but Rose was kept busy keeping the children in line. The boys kept attacking each other as usual, but the new development was that Anna was now joining in, holding her own and giving as good as she got. Rose tried to keep them quiet, but it was a long journey, and they were excited. A few of the passengers sitting around them quietly got up and moved further down the train. One or two made their displeasure more evident. An hour into the journey there was an exclusion zone around them.
As they moved into Hampshire, Polly woke up and, borrowing ten pounds from Rose, staggered down the train to find the Polish girl and her trolley. She returned with packets of crisps for the children and a coffee for herself.
‘You didn’t want anything, did you, Rose?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine,’ Rose said.
‘Can we go over there?’ Anna asked, pointing to an empty table a few seats away.
‘If you’re good,’ Rose said, and louder, so that everyone on the carriage could be reassured, she went on: ‘I’ll make you come back here the minute I hear anything I don’t like.’
She sat and looked at Polly, this woman who had once been her friend. She wondered if things had always been so difficult between them, underneath the veneer of their shared history and the repeated mantra of referring to each other as best friends. Or was it like a long marriage, dissolved into mute seething where there must surely once have been love? For all her tininess, her little-girl aura, Polly had some nasty hard edges. Rose realised that she had probably always hated her, one way or another. If it wasn’t for the downright evil man-snatching that was going on now, it was as an object for jealousy and inadequate self-comparison.
‘What are your plans, Poll?’ she blurted out when Polly had finished her coffee. The train rattled past a low-tide harbour somewhere near Southampton, with desolate little boats stranded in a space entirely filled with ooze.
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