Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams (39 page)

‘So he didn’t want to join the army?’

‘He did not,’ said Lilian. ‘Of course it’s common as coppers, children who don’t want to do what you want them to do. Look at your granpa Gordon.’

Rosie smiled. ‘He didn’t even sound like you.’

‘Of course he didn’t. Couldn’t put enough space between here and London. Wanted to leave it all behind. That’s why we never saw you.’

Rosie shrugged. ‘I wish we had.’

Lilian could not entirely hide her smile.

‘Any sensible man would have waited it out, just ignored it. But have you ever met a sensible aristocrat?’

‘No,’ said Rosie, honestly.

‘So there were fights, and threats, and will rewritings and all of that. Big scandal. Stephen was such a sensitive child.’

‘He still is,’ said Rosie.

‘With a tendency to be an utter mule.’

‘And that,’ said Rosie.

‘Wanted to do English literature at university. Felix wouldn’t hear of it. No son of his doing some namby-pamby subject, not on his money, etc.’

‘No, really?’ said Rosie. ‘That’s just daft these days.’

‘Well, them lot don’t necessarily live in these days,’ pointed out Lilian. ‘There’s an inheritance, a big house to maintain. It takes hard work and duty. A lot of people rely on the estate for their livelihoods. You can’t just swan off and read poetry.’

‘Why can’t the sister do it?’

Lilian rolled her eyes. ‘Oh yes, well done, you are very modern.’

‘So, what happened?’

‘Well,’ said Lilian, ‘finally … finally they came to an
agreement. He could do his college course if he did army training at the weekends. Felix thought it was the only way to learn discipline and restraint for when he inherited, rather than all the drug-taking and loose living you need to get an arts degree, apparently.’

Rosie hadn’t known a single person with enough money to go in for drugs or loose living during her nursing courses, but of course things were different when you were a girl from town making her own way rather than a funded kid at university. She started to feel a bit sorry for Felix.

‘So, Stephen was fine in college, then what?’

‘He took himself off to Africa without telling his dad. Caused a
huge
stink, I can tell you. Gave up his course to go run a village school in Namibia. He owed the army time too.’

‘He went AWOL?’

‘Not exactly, you’re allowed to defer, but Felix was utterly furious. Sent his blood pressure sky high.’

‘What happened?’

Lilian half smiled. ‘Well, it wasn’t in the least bit funny. Not at all. But I believe you might call it ironic … Stephen was hit by a blast from a land mine. A piece of shrapnel got stuck in his leg. He ended up being airlifted to a military hospital.’

Rosie took a minute to absorb it all.

‘Whereas if he’d joined the army …’

‘If he’d joined the army, he could have been part of a landmine clearing team. Yes. Could have made things better. And of course, while he was convalescing in Namibia …’

‘His dad?’ said Rosie, sadly.

Lilian nodded. ‘Heart attack. He was getting on of course.
He didn’t just shout at Stephen, he shouted at everyone. He was an accident waiting to happen.’

Rosie sipped her tea. ‘But Stephen didn’t help.’

‘Your only son getting his leg half blown off in Africa? No, I doubt it.’

‘Oh God,’ said Rosie. ‘What a stupid bloody mess.’

‘People carry on,’ said Lilian, ‘but Hetty and Stephen … they found it very difficult.’

Rosie nodded.

‘She wanted to look after him and he … I think he just wanted to wallow in the guilt. And she wanted to hand over the estate and, well, you can imagine.’

‘Hadn’t he been disinherited?’

‘No,’ said Lilian, ‘of course that was the thing. It was all bluster and nonsense. Felix was stubborn as a mule too, but he wasn’t daft, and he loved his boy. Poor Hetty, she does such a good job of carrying on, but she needs him. Him sitting up there sulking about everything …’

‘I think he’s depressed.’

‘He owns half of Derbyshire,’ said Lilian sharply. ‘He ought to get over it.’

They both glanced over at Gerard suddenly. He had fallen asleep and let out a surprised, jerking snore.

‘I think you’d better get Jemima Puddleduck to bed,’ said Lilian.

‘Lilian!’ said Rosie. ‘Don’t be rude.’

She gently shook Gerard awake; he’d had a long day. ‘Come on, darling.’

Gerard stumbled clumsily up the stairs. Rosie took the teacups back into the kitchen to wash and drain them. Lilian
carefully and gently, but nonetheless on her own, got up and started to make preparations for bed.

Rosie passed her in the hallway, checking whether she needed any help. Lilian shook her head proudly. As Rosie went to head upstairs she asked, gently, ‘Do you love him?’

And for the tiniest split second, Rosie didn’t have the faintest idea who she meant.

Chapter Fifteen

Free Games with Sweets

First, we shall have a naming of parts. Anything that is more than 70 per cent small plastic wheels is not confectionery. It is a choking hazard, a losing hazard, an absolute cast-iron-guaranteed tantrum generator and, frankly, an abomination in any self-respecting sweetshop.

I have absolutely no idea when it came to pass that one treat was not considered enough for a child; that on being offered chocolate, they would instantly expect to receive something else as well. The rise of the OPB, or Obscene Party Bag (see sections IX–XVII, and appendices 4(i) to 4 (vi)), seems to be mirrored in this obsession, to ensure children never ever learn when enough is enough.

Therefore I shall oppose the creeping invasion of plastic and nasty cheap choc-o-like items whenever I see fit and for as long as it is within my power to do so. The real thing is out there. If you really want to be kind to your children, let them discover it.

Rosie lay awake for a long time that night, and was still upset even when she did drift off, and when she woke up again too, remembering glumly that it was market day. There was a long day ahead.

She glanced over to the other side of the bed. Gerard was still out for the count, his mouth open, a small damp patch underneath where his mouth had been. She looked at him for a long time. What had changed? In a single month? Was it just getting out of town, looking around a bit? Or was it something else: the idea of running her own place and doing something for herself? Even if she was only caretaking, she reminded herself. Even if it was only for a bit. She had gone from her mum’s house to student halls to Gerard’s flat without ever really doing anything by herself. The fact that she could take something and turn it into … Well, there was no point in thinking about that. As if on cue, her phone rang.

‘Rosie? Meridian, put that down.
Down!
’

‘
Don wan put dine!
’ came the strident Australian tones.

‘Hi, Mum,’ said Rosie, moving to the bathroom to avoid waking Gerard. Her mother really did pick her moments.

‘Now, listen. How are things?’

‘Things are fine, fine.’

‘Have you found a buyer yet?’

‘No, no, but it’s looking good … I’m sure it’ll be really soon,’ lied Rosie. These things took time.

‘And what about a home? What does Lilian say about going into a home?’

Even though Rosie knew there was no possibility of being heard downstairs, she cupped the phone to her ear.

‘Well, you know. I’m just getting her better.’

‘You can get her as better as you like, she’s still going to be eighty-seven years old,’ said Angie. ‘What, you want to stay there for ever and look after her?’

Rosie was quiet. ‘No, obviously not. No.’

‘Found any nice men to replace that fat one yet?’

‘Angie!’

‘Oh God, is he there? With or without an engagement ring?’

‘Mum. Stop it. Please.’

Angie sniffed. ‘Well. You don’t know how hard it is being the mother of someone whose boyfriend thinks he’s going to do better.’

‘He doesn’t think that,’ said Rosie.

‘Hmm,’ said her mother. ‘Well, good. I’m impressed that he’s managed to make a go of it on his own without you down in London.’

Rosie didn’t quite feel up to answering that one.

‘Well, listen. Have a great day, and I need to know asap when everything’s sorted out, OK? And you don’t want to disrupt your life for longer than necessary, do you?’

‘No,’ said Rosie, gazing out of the bathroom window, which overlooked the other side of the cottage. One of the bushes had sprouted shimmering purple blooms. Rosie couldn’t name it, but she could smell the heavy, rounded scent and hear the hum of the bumble bees as they started work even earlier than she did.

‘No,’ she said again, thinking of tube strikes, and overcrowded litter bins, and queues, and people, people everywhere, and lorries thundering down the road and recycling glass crushers at 4am and drunks on the pavements and battling to get served in bars and into the tube and being squashed up against strangers and …

‘Sorry, Mum,’ she said. ‘I’ll get on it.’

‘Good girl,’ said Angie. ‘Meridian, don’t eat that! Is that beetle red or black?
Philip!
’

‘Speak soon, Mum,’ said Rosie.

‘Very soon,’ said her mum. ‘She’ll need to sign all the paperwork and everything before … well, you know. Before she goes loopy or something.’

‘I don’t think she’s loopy,’ said Rosie. ‘Well, not by local standards.’

1943

Life went on. It had to. Lilian hurled herself into her work at the sweetshop, trying to balance the books. And the long hot Indian summer finally passed, and when she saw Ida Delia in the street she would quickly look the other way, and so would Ida, so that suited them both well – although Lilian couldn’t quite quell a pang every time she saw Ida’s swelling stomach, her brand new, cheap but still shiny wedding ring growing increasingly tight on her pudgy finger. All the while she thought to herself, it could have been me
.

It could have been her, set up in Henry’s tiny cottage that Lord Lipton had granted him now he had a family coming. Lilian knew it, had run past it many times on her afternoon jaunts – back at the tender age of seventeen – when she was younger, carefree; when she could run wild, rather than sit and fill out endless rows in her double-entry book, making sure everything tallied neatly at the end of the day before showing it to her father. The cottage was small, but it had everything you needed, as well as a beautiful, overgrown garden, fecund with wild flowers and sprawling rose bushes. There was even an apple tree. They had talked about it once, on one of those long hot summer evenings when she was mourning Ned and they chatted of anything and everything to take her mind off it; she had told him she dreamed one day of a herb garden and a kissing gate and honeysuckle and roses, and he had laughed and stroked her shoulder and said he didn’t think the cottage was that big, and she had felt a deep inner thrill that one day she might have the run of the garden
.