Gull Island (31 page)

A week later, the Careys set off for London. To Mrs Carey’s entreaty for Rosita to look after Richard, Rosita responded promptly. That evening she went to the Careys’ door and put a note through the letterbox. It was a list
of seven restaurants where he could get a meal. One for each evening his mother was away. And each one worse than the last.

Kate ushered her group into the hotel where they had booked bed and breakfast. She looked around her doubtfully. It was gloomy but the place looked clean and well run, although the curtains could do with a wash. Turning to help Mrs Carey up the long flight of stairs, she smiled at her.

‘Very nice, isn’t it, Mam? Richard was so kind to get us a smart place like this.’

‘It wasn’t easy, mind. Everyone wants to be in London for the festival,’ Mrs Carey said, puffing between words. Kate moved ahead of her; it was best not to encourage her to talk while she had stairs to climb. Mr Carey walked behind his wife, even slower than her, Kate thought, listening to his rasping breath.

That first evening they planned to do little more than explore their immediate surroundings. But at five o’clock the receptionist sent a message to tell them their taxi had arrived to take them on a tour of the sights. Richard had arranged it when he had booked the rooms.

At first, Mrs Carey reeled off the names of the places she recognized, her eyes darting from one side to the other, afraid of missing the smallest thing. Marble Arch, Nelson’s Column, the Houses of Parliament: she shouted out the famous landmarks, her eyes widening as she took it all in, her voice high-pitched with the thrill of it. Mr Carey nodded modestly as if he had arranged the whole thing for her delight.

All the time, Kate coaxed her when she missed something, and her words were echoed by the girls. The good-natured taxi driver laughed and added to their minimal knowledge with a running commentary.

Mrs Carey was so exhausted that she was in bed and asleep before Kate’s two daughters. Kate sat with her father-in-law after the others were settled and they pored over maps and information booklets, planning their itinerary for the following day. At ten o’clock, she held out the festival guide to ask his opinion on something and saw that he too had succumbed to the long day and had fallen asleep. Gently she woke him and guided him to his room.

She went down the wide, carpeted stairs once more, this time to phone Idris and tell him they had arrived safely. He greeted her call with a
casualness
that hurt her. His mind seemed to be on other things. She thought she heard whispering in the background as they talked and she put the receiver down with a frown on her face. She was obviously mistaken. It must have been the wireless as Idris had said, yet she could have sworn it had been Hattie’s voice she had heard.

‘Would you like to talk to Richard?’ she asked Mrs Carey the following morning. When Mrs Carey accepted with pleasure, she used the excuse to phone the site office. Monty answered.

‘His mother would like to speak to Richard,’ she explained.

‘Sorry, Mrs Carey, but Richard isn’t here. I’d try phoning him here at say, eight o’clock? I’ll make sure he’s here then.’

‘My husband, is he there? I’d like a word, please.’

‘Well now, Idris hasn’t been in since Thursday. When he didn’t turn up on Friday we thought he was seeing you off but he hasn’t been in since. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure. He must be a bit under the weather, like.’

‘Oh, he didn’t say when – Thank you, Monty. Sorry to have troubled you.’

Putting aside her worries about Idris’s behaviour with an effort, she smiled at Mrs Carey. ‘Sorry, Mam. Richard isn’t there and neither is Idris. Both out, busy as bees, like always. Monty suggests we try Richard at the site office tonight.’

‘Nothing wrong, is there, Kate?’ Mrs Carey’s sharp eyes had noted the frown in Kate’s usually placid face.

‘No, nothing wrong, just that Idris hasn’t been at work and I wondered why. He didn’t say anything about being unwell when we spoke.’

Having given her accommodation and booking to a friend, Hattie sat in bed on that Monday morning, forty-eight hours after she should have left for Weston-super-Mare, with a smile of utter satisfaction on her face. The sound of cheerful whistling came from below. Idris was cooking breakfast, which they intended to eat in bed, Kate’s bed. Idris had decided he too would have a holiday and didn’t intend to go to work at all that week. He had seen his wife and daughters off on the train and had found little
difficulty
in persuading Hattie to spend her holiday with him. He was now cooking breakfast which, although they intended to eat it in bed, wouldn’t be a prelude to their getting dressed.

The whistle of the kettle was added to the rather tuneless sound made by Idris and when it stopped she heard footsteps coming up the carpeted stairs. She burst out laughing as Idris entered the room with an improvized chef’s hat made from a towel and another across his arm. He wore nothing else. He carried a tray on which two plates of bacon, fried bread and some rather crinkly-edged eggs floated in fat.

‘Breakfast is served, madam,’ he said, balancing the tray. He slid back into the bed he had recently vacated.

‘The rations, Idris! Kate will notice if you’ve used all the rations!’

‘Left these rashers for me, she did. They had to take their ration books
for their stay in London but she saved last week’s so I could have a
nourishing
breakfast. What does it matter if I use it all the first day?’ He chuckled. ‘Poor Kate. If she only knew.’

Hattie thought Kate would know. Accidentally, or on purpose, she would let the information slip the moment her sister got back from London.

Richard was sitting in his bedroom too, but he was alone, with only books for company. The business was thriving, everything going to plan, growing at a remarkable rate. He would soon be able to buy himself a house, build one perhaps. He put down the pen he was using to make notes and sighed. If things had worked out as they ought, he and Rosita would be designing one together, choosing furniture and planning a smart kitchen, but it was useless to think about it. They were always at loggerheads. There was no possibility of them ever agreeing long enough to plan a picnic, let alone a life together.

He thought about food and smiled grimly when he remembered the list of eating places that was Rosita’s way of ‘helping’. A glance at his food cupboard with the small allocation of bacon, one egg and a few sausages that his mother had left made him shudder. He couldn’t face stuff like that and filling up on slice after slice of bread. Rosita was right: he’d better eat out.

Walking up to the main road he abandoned the idea of a solitary meal and decided to call on Monty. The food at the bed and board, where he lived, was hardly cheerful. He might welcome an excuse to go out to eat.

They found a place that offered pie, mash and peas and ate with the solid look of refuelling rather than with enjoyment. Richard told Monty of the list pushed through his door by Rosita and the man looked at it and laughed unsympathetically. ‘She’s a delightful girl, your Rosita. All the customers think the world of her.’

‘She isn’t
my
Rosita,’ Richard growled.

‘Then it’s time she was.’

‘I thought so once but it’s hopeless. Every time we meet we end up rowing. She’s too strong-minded ever to learn to share my life. We want different things.’

‘Then you’ll have to rethink what you want and what you expect of her, won’t you?’

‘I want marriage, children, a wife waiting for me in a pleasant home with a meal ready when I get home.’

At this, Monty roared with laughter so loud that other diners turned their heads to share the joke. ‘You’ve chosen the wrong one there, haven’t you? Rosita is an exceptional woman and damned good businesswoman –
you can’t expect her to change overnight into a housewife, content to concentrate on nothing more than your home and comfort! For many women that’s what they want and they’re more than happy with it. They do it brilliantly, make an art of home-making, but not your Rosita.’

‘Stop calling her
my
Rosita!’

‘I suppose I’ll have to. Unless you do something soon, she’ll be some other lucky devil’s Rosita, and more fool you for not grabbing her while you have the chance!’ Showing what was for him rare irritability, Monty stood and went to wait at the exit.

For a while they walked silently along the pavements, their feet in unison but their minds going separate ways.

‘What can I do to persuade her to marry me, Monty?’ Richard asked at last. ‘Dammit, I love the woman, but I can’t get under her protective shell. Whenever we start talking about a future together, she storms off in a temper.’

‘Perhaps it’s a question of picking the right place. You need somewhere where she can’t storm off, don’t you?’

Richard began to smile as Monty expounded his ideas.

In London, the Careys were exhausted. For the sake of Kate’s girls, they went first to the Battersea pleasure gardens then to the children’s zoo – and the boating lake – and the funfair. Feet began to drag but they persevered, determined to give the girls all they wanted from the visit.

The grotto was Mrs Carey’s favourite although she wished she were taller so she could see more.

‘I love the Temple of Winds,’ she said as they sat eating lunch in the splendour of the gold and white pavilion buffet. ‘There’s clever it is to have each wind bringing the sounds and scents of its origin.’

‘The north wind was best,’ Kate and the girls agreed. ‘That was magic, with the whisper of sleigh bells, howling wolves and the scent of pine forests.’

‘And the east wind, that was good too, mind. Wafting scents of oriental spices and temple bells ringing far away.’

‘What was your favourite, Dad?’ Kate asked Mr Carey, then she shared a smile with her mother-in-law; he was fast asleep.

‘Can we see the clock again?’ Helen pleaded. Leaving Mrs Carey watching over her husband, Kate pushed her way through the
ever-increasing
crowds to the Guinness Festival Clock. Movement after movement held them enthralled, with an ostrich popping out of a chimney, a sun, a zookeeper ringing a bell, a mad hatter trying to grab fish,
everything
so fascinating it was impossible to fully appreciate first time.

When Mr Carey was gently roused, Mrs Carey attempted to make their way to a few exhibits he might enjoy. She was small, and the rest of the happy visitors seemed like giants. The crowds were so intense she doubted if she would be able to see anything without Kate there to make a space for her. All she could see as she and Henry, hand in hand, struggled towards the Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway, were the backs of men’s shirts and women’s dresses.

Giving up the unequal struggle, they collapsed into a fortuitously vacant seat in the Aviary Restaurant and slowly recovered enough for another onslaught into the delights around them. When they eventually found the bandstand where they were to meet the others, they both looked so exhausted that Kate insisted on going back to the hotel.

Hiding the fact from Mrs Carey, Kate had tried several times during the day to phone Idris. There was no reply and in desperation she rang Richard and asked him to go and see if everything was all right.

‘Typical! Idris is a damned nuisance to worry you like this,’ Richard said without preamble. ‘You know what he’s like, Kate. He’s just taking a holiday from work. It isn’t the first time he’s let me down and I doubt very much if he’s ill. There’s been a light on when I’ve passed at night, and although he hasn’t bothered to let me know he won’t be in, I haven’t any fears for his wellbeing! But,’ he added, as she began to argue, ‘I’ll call on my way home from work this evening, then I’ll phone the hotel. All right?’

On his way home, Richard was passing the school shop just as Rosita was locking the door. He stopped, touched the van’s horn and waved. ‘Fancy coming for a meal later?’ he shouted, but a car changed gear as it reached the corner and his voice was lost to her. She waved back with a brief, irritated movement of her arm and walked away from him to where she had left her car.

‘Damn you, woman.’ Richard slammed the van in gear and drove off, overtaking her as she was starting the engine.

‘Bad-tempered devil,’ Rosita murmured, wondering at his impatience to be off without a word. He needn’t worry, I’m not desperate for a friendly greeting from him, she told herself. But her heart was aching as she watched the van hurl itself at the corner and disappear with another squeal of brakes.

Richard slowed and parked at the kerb. This won’t do, he told himself. Driving dangerously wasn’t the answer to his frustration. Continuing at a more sensible speed, he drove to his brother’s house and parked outside.

There was no response to his knock and, irritability returning, he went around the corner into the lane and tried the back door. It was open and, after calling, he stepped inside. For the first time he began to feel alarmed.
Perhaps he had been wrong and Idris was ill? Moving faster now, he walked through to the kitchen, the living rooms and, there being no one there, up the stairs.

Anxiety increased as he looked in one room then another, his footfall silent on the soft-carpeted floors. There was no point in looking in the third room; the small back room was Hattie’s. That was bound to be empty with Hattie in Weston-super-Mare, but perhaps he’d better check?

As he touched the door handle his brother’s voice called: ‘All right, Richard, I’m coming.’

He must have heard the van, Richard thought, but why is he in that room? He knew from his brother’s loud call that Idris thought he was downstairs. Unashamedly he bent his head and listened at the crack in the door. Voices. Whispering voices. He must have a woman in there! Unable to control his anger, he pushed the door and stared at the bed. Entwined together in the sheets were Idris and a red-faced Hattie.

Not waiting for excuses or explanations, he hurried back down the stairs and out of the house. The sight of his brother with his wife’s sister was imprinted on his mind like a horrible nightmare. What could he tell Kate?