Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams (35 page)

Rosie was so cross she dawdled doing the books, then nipped back next door to get changed.

‘Isn’t your young man coming?’ asked Lilian by the door. She had clearly dressed up and was wearing a lavender coat dress and matching lipstick.

‘Ooh, you look nice,’ said Rosie. She almost added, ‘Are you going somewhere?’ but thankfully stopped herself just in time.

‘Well, where is he?’

‘Uhm … he’s … I’m meeting him at the pub.’

‘At the
pub
?’ said Lilian, as if she’d said ‘at the brothel’.

‘Yes, it’s all right. Here, I have pie and beans for you, I’m just going to heat it up in the microwave.’

With her first week’s profits, Rosie had bought Lilian a microwave. Even though she refused to go near it, Rosie felt better knowing it was there.

‘Sorry, I know it’s nothing fancy, but it’s delicious and full of calories.’

‘He’s at the pub?’ asked Lilian again as if she hadn’t heard her. ‘He didn’t come to say good evening?’

Rosie tried to tell herself that Lilian was just an old fuddy-duddy caught up in old-fashioned ideas. That was it. She was old and set in her ways. But even so, doubt crept in. It was terribly rude, wasn’t it? Not to greet someone who was putting a roof over your head for the night? Classic Gerard.

‘He was really exhausted after driving up here,’ she said.

‘So he can’t stay off the sauce?’ said Lilian acidly.

‘No,’ said Rosie. ‘I’ll … I’ll go meet him. We’ll see you later.’

‘I don’t like that pub,’ said Lilian. ‘Never set foot in it again.’

‘Again what?’ said Rosie, but Lilian didn’t answer. ‘Are you all right?’ asked Rosie, taking dinner out of the microwave, but Lilian waved her away.

‘You have fun,’ she said.

‘OK,’ said Rosie. ‘Don’t wait up.’

Lilian smiled. And for the first time, spontaneously, and without thinking about it, Rosie leaned over and kissed her great-aunt on the cheek before she left.

The Red Lion was lively-looking on a Friday night. Rosie had never been in there before and felt tentative at the entrance, the busy noise spilling out on to the pavement with the warm light and the smokers. There was a filled water trough outside,
and the sound of hearty male laughter. Rosie had noticed just how many men there were in the countryside – the farmboys, the vets, the tree surgeons, the chemists. This was probably why her female friends always complained about how difficult it was to find a man in the city. Because they’d all moved to the countryside, or never left it. It was true, Lipton was full of hunks; if you let them loose on London the women there would hold a parade. Whereas here they just carried on hoicking hay, undiscovered.

Rosie checked her lipgloss, and slight sense of nerves, and pushed the door. Inside, the wallpaper was ancient and yellow, the fire burning to stave off the early autumnal chill; big oblong tables were positioned willy-nilly around the room, with horse brasses on the walls. And there he sat, slightly awkward-looking, his boyish face and pink cheeks out of place among the tanned agricultural labourers, his shirt crumpled. In front of him was a nearly empty pint of cider and three empty crisp packets. This was her man, she thought. For the first time since she’d been so wrapped up in the giddiness of moving in together, planning their future, she looked at him, hard. Here he was. Not perfect. Well, she wasn’t perfect. And he was her bloke. Her face broke into a smile.

‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Where’s that gin and tonic?’

Two hours later, Rosie was well into the swing of things. Although Gerard did talk a little bit about what it was like to be back at his mum’s and how great it was and how he got a cooked breakfast every day, and he did suggest, after his third
pint, perhaps a little too loudly, that they should nip into the bathrooms and have sex, particularly as, along with Jake and his friends, there was the vicar and Malik from the Spar within a few tables.

‘How do you know everyone already?’ said Gerard. Rosie considered telling him it was because she’d ruined Mr Isitt’s vegetable garden and as a consequence was considered by half the town to be sleeping with the other half, but she shrugged and simply said, ‘Oh, you know, small towns.’

‘I don’t,’ said Gerard. ‘It’s weird. Did you say that guy runs the Spar?’

Rosie smiled and nodded over at Malik, who was, it had to be said, quite sanguine about their opening, and had merely remarked that as long as she stayed out of booze, fags and lottery tickets they would get along fine. They occasionally made change for one another. They had a quick chat about how they expected to do on market day, and Rosie instantly regretted not getting an ice-cream fridge. Malik sold standard ice creams, so she could get in something special like Green & Black’s to appeal to older people instead … That would work well next summer, she thought. Then Jake came over to say hi, and gave Gerard such a blatant up-and-down look that Rosie found herself blushing.

‘Who’s this?’ said Jake.

‘This is … this is Gerard,’ said Rosie. ‘Uhm, my, my boyfriend.’

Gerard wiped some crisp dust off his fingers and didn’t get up.

‘Hello,’ he said amiably, ‘you’re a big fella.’

Jake gave Rosie a questioning look. She ignored him.

‘There’s a lot of blokes here,’ said Gerard, glancing around the pub.

‘Yes,’ said Rosie, smiling goodbye to Jake, who didn’t seem to take the hint.

‘We need to go and do some more gardening,’ he said. Behind him, his friends were nudging each other.

‘What, now?’ said Rosie.

Jake stuck out his bottom lip. Rosie suspected he probably found it quite easy to get women. She was just the new thing in town.

‘Soon,’ he said.

‘Yes, all right,’ said Rosie. ‘Soon.’

She took a long slug of her gin and tonic, waving politely to Hye, Maeve and Moray over in the far corner, already well into some bottles of wine. Typical doctor behaviour, she thought.

‘What is this,
The Waltons
?’ said Gerard, turning his head. ‘You’ve been here five minutes and you know half the town.’

‘Well, I run the local sweetshop,’ said Rosie. ‘Of course I’m going to meet a few people. And everyone knows Lilian.’

‘Yes, but …’

‘And I don’t know everyone, anyway. There’s loads of people I don’t know, like them for example.’

Rosie gestured at a random couple by the window, then realised she’d seen the woman before. The woman saw her looking and got up and came over.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Edison’s mum.’

‘Oh, hello, nice to meet you.’

‘Well, even I’ve met Edison,’ said Gerard, throwing up his hands.

‘He liked his tooth-fairy bag,’ said Edison’s mother, stiffly. ‘I’ve tried to tell him it’s all just ridiculous superstition, but …’

‘Oh, it’s harmless,’ said Rosie.

The woman sniffed.

‘Actually,’ said Rosie, ‘I did want to ask you something.’ She stood up. The woman had naturally grey hair even though she was quite young, and wire-rimmed spectacles. She wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up, and was very thin. Potentially, thought Rosie, she could look amazing. ‘Edison talks about his friend who isn’t allowed any sweets? I realise mothers do take quite a firm line on this kind of thing, but we sell fruit drops and raisins, and …’

Edison’s mother smiled in a slightly superior kind of way.

‘Oh gosh, no,’ she said. ‘There is no Reuben!’

Rosie squinted. Edison’s mother seemed to be implying that she, Rosie, was being rather stupid.

‘Reuben is his imaginary friend!’ said the woman cheerfully. ‘He’s terribly imaginative! It’s a sign of very high intelligence.’

Rosie stifled the unkind thought that if his mother dyed her hair and bought Edison a pair of normal trainers then he might not have to make imaginary friends and could make a real one, but nonetheless she arranged her face into an expression of concern.

‘You know,’ confided his mother as if this were a badge of honour, ‘we’ve taken him to all these child psychologists and they just don’t know what to do with him.’

‘Loads of children have imaginary friends though, don’t they?’ said Rosie, stunned they would send such a small boy to see a shrink. ‘Maybe they think it’s perfectly normal.’

Edison’s mum let out a little laugh. ‘Oh no, you would never call our Edison anything like normal! There’s nothing average about our Edison! You see, he’s particularly intelligent. So really it is something of a worry for us.’

She didn’t look like it was a worry, thought Rosie. She looked absolutely delighted that she was turning her own child into the town weirdo.

But she didn’t say anything, it was hardly her place – and, after all, who was to know whether one day, if she did have children (though Gerard had never shown the slightest indication in that direction), she might not be an overprotective basket case too. But she hoped not.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘well, good luck. He’s welcome any time. And his “friend”.’

Edison’s mother smiled. ‘Oh, it’s
so
nice to have someone a little broad-minded around town,’ she said, loudly, and Rosie smiled her goodbyes as politely as she could and sat down again.

‘So,’ said Gerard, ‘what about selling the shop then? Have you got it on the market? Have you had any viewings? What are you selling it for?’

‘Uhm,’ said Rosie. ‘Well, you know, I’ve been very busy getting it up and running.’

‘Getting it up and running?’ said Gerard. ‘You’ve been here four weeks. It was only meant to be for six. You’ve got a career waiting for you.’

For the first time, oddly, Rosie found the idea of going back to a big hospital – which she normally found buzzy, and exciting, and endlessly interesting, so unlike here, she supposed – unappealing. Instead of being anxious to get back and
frustrated with the pace of things here, she found herself in no hurry at all.

‘Yes, yes, I know,’ she said. ‘I know, you’re right.’

‘Well, if you know I’m right, why don’t you just do it?’ grumbled Gerard. ‘Don’t just nod your head and say yeah yeah yeah.’

‘Mmm,’ said Rosie. ‘No, I will, definitely.’

‘Because I don’t want to keep living at my mum’s.’

‘You don’t have to live at your mum’s!’ said Rosie suddenly in exasperation. ‘Why don’t you live in our home like a normal adult human being?’

‘What, ha, and do my own laundry and buy my own food when I can get it all done for me for free?’ scoffed Gerard. ‘Yeah, right, that sounds like a great idea, Rosie. Yes, brilliant.’

‘But don’t you enjoy your independence?’

Gerard shrugged. ‘Why should I? My mum didn’t move to Australia.’

‘Oh, that is very unfair,’ said Rosie, incredibly annoyed that, suddenly, and outwith her control, they seemed to be skidding towards a fight. She was also conscious that, around her, people were watching them. This was a definite disadvantage, she thought, of knowing everyone in the town. It felt a bit like being famous; all sorts of people were looking at them, judging her, she knew, judging Gerard. How dare they! On the other hand, if Gerard had made more of an effort to say hello to people, come and said hi to her great-aunt; turned up with a huge bouquet of flowers, or a small bouquet of petrol station flowers, or … well. That didn’t matter.

‘Shall we get out of here?’

‘Where else is there?’ asked Gerard, slightly bitterly, looking at his pint. It was a fair point. There was a fancy hotel up the road that they used for weddings and conventions but Rosie had never been there and didn’t know what it was like on the weekends.

‘Well, we could try …’ Rosie looked around and took a deep breath. She was going to make an effort. They could try again. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we have another drink?’

Gerard smiled, his pique forgotten.

‘Pint of Magners please! And some crisps! Then I’m going to have the scampi! Can I have the scampi?’

Rosie wondered for a second if he’d always been so young. Well, it was endearing, of course. He was cute, everyone thought that. It was just … well, Jake wouldn’t bother asking her if he could have scampi. Moray wouldn’t eat it. And Stephen … well. Anyway.

‘I don’t mind what you have,’ she said, sounding slightly sharper than she’d intended. ‘Eat what you like.’

‘It’s just I thought, crisps
and
chips …’