Drowning Rose (7 page)

Drowned. ‘How?’

‘Swimming pool.’

Eliza looked at me and her eyes were almost completely round. For a moment I thought she might be laughing at me but when she said, ‘That’s dreadful,’ she sounded genuine.

‘Well, it was a long time ago.’

‘Your poor mum. She must have been tiny.’ She had finally put her notebook and pencil down. ‘Or perhaps it’s better that way. I don’t remember a thing about my father and sometimes I think that’s good because I’m not actually missing something concrete, although sometimes it makes me feel sadder for exactly the same reason. And your grandfather, too, he must have been devastated.’

I pulled a regretful face. ‘Well, that’s another thing. She wasn’t married. She got pregnant by this Italian guy. He was a count or something.’ I made my voice casual as if it made no difference to me if my grandfather was a count or not. ‘Of course they weren’t allowed to get married.’

‘Why?’ She was looking up at me, her large hands resting on her knees and her auburn hair streaming down her back and shoulders. Right then I would have killed to look like her, even with the big hands and feet and the freckles.

‘Oh, all sorts of reasons.’ I tried to think of some.

‘I suppose him being Catholic?’

I nodded. ‘That’s it. It wasn’t allowed on religious grounds.’

‘So you’re really the granddaughter of an Italian count? Cool.’

‘Well, not officially, obviously. My grandmother had to leave the opera and she came back and married her childhood sweetheart.’

‘But she went back to Italy eventually?’

‘No, I don’t think she did. She longed to but that was part of the tragedy, she never got back. She was stuck in this small town married to this guy she didn’t love.’

‘But she drowned? In a swimming pool in Florence?’

‘Yeah. I mean, no, she did drown but it was back home in England. In a swimming pool, a public one, obviously, because they were really poor.’ I noticed Eliza had picked up the pencil and notebook again.

‘Anyway,’ I gave a little laugh. ‘Enough about my boring old family.’

‘Hardly boring,’ Eliza said, but by now she was looking at her drawing. I nodded at the large poster of Leslie Howard that she had blu-tacked to the wall above her bed. ‘He died tragically young, too, didn’t he? I know because my mum is always going on about him. Him and Cary Grant.’

I had got her attention back. ‘He wasn’t really young, forty or something, but too young to die, obviously. He was on a secret mission on behalf of Churchill when his plane was shot down. Everyone always goes on about Clark Gable in
Gone with the Wind
but I don’t get that. I think Leslie Howard is just completely amazing.’

I wasn’t going to point out to her that she was the only person I knew under the age of fifty who gave a toss about either Leslie Howard or Clark Gable because she wouldn’t care anyway. She didn’t seem to go for any of the things that the rest of the girls liked but she never got teased, not even the way she dressed.

‘I sometimes think I too will die young,’ I said. Actually I hadn’t ever thought about it, but I just kept on saying stuff, any stuff, to keep her attention. She put her hand out and touched my knee lightly, for just a moment. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘That would be really sad.’

I sighed and gave her a smile. ‘I won’t, then. For your sake.’

Maybe I had gone too far because her tawny brows knitted together in a frown and her eyes took on a wary look.

‘You always seem so, well, sure about stuff,’ I said quickly. ‘What you like and who you like and what you look like; everything.’

Now she looked more puzzled than anything. ‘Do you think I am sure of everything?’

I nodded. ‘You all are, Rose and Portia too.’

‘Maybe we are. I hadn’t really thought about it. I mean, I know what I know and that’s it really. I expect it’s the same with them.’ She scratched her nose with the tip of her pencil and leant her head against the bed. Her face and body were covered in those tiny freckles but her neck, where her chin had shaded the skin from sunlight, was semi-transparent, blue-tinged like skimmed milk. She straightened up again. ‘I think certainty is very restful.’ She paused for a moment, her head tilted to one side. ‘In fact that’s what’s so good about fairy tales. They rule in a realm of certainty. I mean you don’t have “And the princess was quite pretty if you liked that kind of thing and the prince would follow many quests to gain her hand although he did draw the line at confronting the dragon. And they lived happily ever after, we hope.” ’ She grinned at me.

We exchanged smiles, two friends who understood each other. I didn’t want the moment to end but I wanted even less for it to end the wrong way so I got up from the chair. ‘I’ll go and check on your washing.’

‘No, don’t you do it. I’ll go in a minute.’ She made a move as if to get up herself, but she remained where she was, her gaze on her drawing, her hand poised with the pencil.

We both knew she wasn’t going to.

Her washing was finished and I sang to myself as I hung it up; her hideous tights, that black dress she loved that made her look just like a Victorian orphan, her knickers and her two bras. She had tiny boobs.

A little later I returned to iron her school dress.

I heard Miss Philips having a go at her. ‘Eliza Cummings, the state of that dress is a disgrace. Surely you have been taught how to iron.’

I heard Eliza’s cool voice. ‘Yes, Miss Philips. I’m sorry, Miss Philips.’

‘There’s no excuse for being a slob, Eliza.’

‘No, Miss Philips.’

Eliza was getting into trouble because of my crap ironing. The thing is, Mum always did that sort of stuff for me and at school I used the school laundry service. ‘I’m not having you wasting your time on washing and such things,’ my dad had told me. ‘We can afford it.’

I think Rose and Portia used it too, but Eliza didn’t. She’d mentioned that she and her mum had to be a bit careful with money. I remember being really surprised. I had imagined that everyone here apart from me was really well off.

My heart pounded as I stepped round the corner to face them. ‘Miss Philips.’

Miss Philips stifled a sigh. ‘Yes, Sandra?’

I pushed my shoulders back and raised my chin in defiance exactly like a young heroine in a film. ‘It was me. It was my fault.’

‘What was your fault, Sandra?’

‘The state of Eliza’s dress. I ironed it.’ I caught Eliza’s eye and gave a little nod to show it would all be OK.

‘Is that true, Eliza?’ Miss Philips asked. ‘You let Sandra iron your uniform for you?’

Eliza shrugged and mumbled something.

‘Miss Philips . . .’ I began.

‘That’ll be all, thank you, Sandra.’ Miss Philips didn’t even look at me, keeping her pebble eyes on Eliza.

‘But . . .’

‘I said, that will be
all
.’

Menopausal cow. I stomped off but as soon as I was round the corner, out of sight, I stopped and listened.

‘I simply will not put up with that kind of behaviour in Hill House, Miss Cummings. Getting another girl to act as your maid. It’s especially distasteful seeing that Sandra Mitchum is here under the new Assisted Places scheme. I’m disappointed, quite frankly. And surprised. There are some girls from whom I’d expect no better, but from you, Eliza . . .’

The cool had left Eliza’s voice as she repeated that she was sorry and that it wouldn’t happen again. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t tell Miss Philips that I had done it without asking. As I dithered about whether or not to intervene again Miss Philips finished with Eliza and stalked back towards her flat. I poked my head round the corner and saw Eliza sitting on the stairs. She was crying.

The other two were furious with me. They cornered me in the supper queue. ‘We thought you should know that Eliza’s on cleaning duties for the rest of the month thanks to you having to be the Goody Two Shoes. “It was me, Miss Philips, I did the ironing.” ’

The way they looked at me, the way they imitated my voice, it was as if I were some lesser mortal. And it was so unfair. ‘That’s not how it was at all,’ I said. But they had made their minds up. They didn’t
hear
me. I felt my eyes tearing up. ‘She was being told off for not doing it properly. I was trying to help her.’

‘Sure you were,’ Rose said. ‘Great help running to Miss Philips to say you’d been left doing her laundry.’

‘That’s so unfair. I . . .’

‘Save it for someone who cares,’ Portia said. She turned to Rose. ‘Let’s join the back of the queue. Air’s better there.’ She swung around and her straight fair hair fanned out and danced round her shoulders.

‘Rice or potatoes,’ the cook asked me.

‘Both,’ I said.

‘It’s a choice menu, dear, so you have to pick one or t’other. The rice is good today.’

I looked at her, at her stupid red face, and then I fixed her with a princess stare. ‘I said I wanted both. You’re not a teacher. You can’t tell me what I can eat or cannot eat. Do you know how much we pay to come here?’

You wouldn’t have thought it possible but she turned even redder. ‘There’s no need to talk like that, young lady. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you can be rude, you know. Now what will it be, rice or potatoes?’

‘Neither,’ I said my voice calm and haughty. ‘You can shove your disgusting food.’

Actually, I almost liked her for thinking I was one of
them
.

Nine

Eliza

The doorbell rang the evening after my return from Sweden. I was sitting at the kitchen table working on a Staffordshire piece of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf that some misguided interior designer had made into a lamp. I was at a critical point of my work. It was the turn of the Wolf’s grin to be retouched. The painter’s vision appeared to have been of a wolf who grinned sheepishly. Not my take on the story, but I had no right to interfere with the creator’s vision, so I would make sure it remained sheepish. I decided to ignore whoever it was. The bell rang a second time and for longer. Reluctantly I got to my feet and ran down the stairs. I looked through the peephole. It was Ruth. Ruth is my stepsister, my mother having married her father, Claude, the summer after I left school. Ruth, her husband Robert and their daughter Lottie, had remained safely on the other side of the world until six months ago when they had moved, rather suddenly, to London. My mother had muttered something about ‘a fresh start’, adding that her lips were sealed. She had gone on to say that it would be nice if I introduced my stepsister to some of my friends. After a pause she had added, ‘Well, to Beatrice.’

‘I have other friends.’

‘Of course you do,’ my mother had said.

‘Eliza, is that you?’ Ruth called through the door.

With a sigh I hoped she had not heard I unlocked the door. We touched cheeks. I realised I had paint on my fingers so I wiped my hands on the back of my dress.

‘Oh I’m sorry.’ She looked me up and down. ‘Should I have phoned first?’

‘No no, this is fine.’ I stood by to let her through, as it appeared there was no polite way of stopping her.

She followed me up the stairs to the little landing. Looking around her she said, ‘So this is where you live.’

‘But you’ve been here before, haven’t you?’

‘No. Never. I told Olivia I understood if you were feeling a bit embarrassed. I’ve seen pictures of that lovely mews house you and Gabriel used to live in when you were still together.’ She glanced around her at the narrow hall, which was painted in a ‘neutral’ colour like the rest of the place because the landlord had been watching too much
Property Ladder
. ‘This is a bit different, isn’t it?’ She turned back to me. ‘But I told Olivia, Eliza should know by now that I’m the last person to mind that sort of thing.’

Until then it hadn’t occurred to me to be ashamed of my flat. It was perfectly comfortable and most importantly I could afford it without taking any of my ex-husband’s money.

Ruth gave a skittish little laugh. ‘Or else there’s some other reason why you haven’t wanted to invite me.’ She led the way to the kitchen. ‘At least there’s no danger of getting lost.’ She indicated the kitchen table that doubled as a workstation and at the brushes and pots of pigments and Little Red Riding Hood herself. ‘You’re working.’

‘Yup.’

‘Busy time?’

‘Absolutely. We’re preparing for the opening of the new gallery so we’re flat out. All hands to the pump, that kind of thing.’

‘Is that so,’ Ruth said and sat down.

It happened quite a lot when I was working at home, that people phoned or visited unannounced, observed I was busy only to proceed as if they had caught me reclining on the sofa watching daytime TV with a box of Turkish Delight at my side.

People before porcelain, people before porcelain, I told myself and I thought of Uncle Ian’s mopping-up operation, or search for closure as Ove the vicar had termed it. If I were to die tomorrow, did I want to go to my grave having added unkindness to a large woman with tiny feet and wistful eyes to my list of sins? I think not. So I moved my work to the far end of the kitchen table and lied with a smile, ‘It’s lovely to see you.’