Her Name Is Rose (25 page)

Abruptly, he stops and steps back.

“See you in the morning, Rosie.” He gives a swift flick of his head and goes out. She hears his footsteps until they disappear. A moment longer, she thinks, and she would have ripped her clothes off.

*   *   *

When she lays her head down later with the surf beating below, Rose thinks about her father. Luke hadn't had the chance to talk to her about these sorts of things. Relationships with men. She is sure he meant to, but … she wonders when her parents first had sex. Sex? It's the only thing on her mind. Should she, shouldn't she? He's out there in the van. She could go to him. She's all at sea. Frustrated, she gets up from the bed and takes out her violin. She doesn't play the Bach sonata, or a jazz piece, or a jig or a reel. Nothing fits her humor, so she practices her scales, pianissimo, in three octaves in the minor keys until her fingertips hurt and her bow arm tires. The scales give her form and content and she can practice style. She starts with single notes, then moves on to double notes. Separate bow. Slurred bow. Spiccato. Vibrato. Fast bows. Slow bows. Marcato in the upper half of the bow until somebody taps on the wall next door. “Quiet.” She puts the violin down and falls asleep.

The next morning Rose goes down to the beach. Conor has left a note on his van, he is already surfing. He is so easy in himself, she thinks, watching him ride the small waves into the shore. Calm and patient. Someone whom her father would have definitely called a free spirit. Wouldn't Dadda have liked him?

“I've got an extra wet suit in the van,” Conor calls to her.

“I'm afraid of sharks!” she shouts back.

He laughs. “Okay, so, just one more and then we'll get going.”

*   *   *

The Welsh countryside looks like a green velvet sheet has been thrown over it. Like it's a setting for one of those BBC period dramas.

“Sorry about last night,” Rose says, not looking at him.

“No worries. Gerty and I had a lovely sleep.” She punches him.

After a four-hour drive, passing Bristol and Swindon and Slough, they arrive in the early evening at Rose's flat in Camden. There is still light enough in the sky to walk along the canal and up into Primrose Hill. They eat pizza outside on a picnic table at the Lansdowne as the sun sets. When they get back to her flat she asks him to sit out on the balcony. She wants to practice, alone.

“Please don't say anything. Good or bad.”

“Gotcha. Quiet as a church mouse.”

She can't put her finger on it but somehow something about him makes her feel totally free to be herself. She feels like singing and does a little bow to herself in her room in front of the mirror. She plays brilliantly, she thinks. She plays the third movement like a Gypsy. Gets all the dancelike rhythms just right. Take that, Roger Ballantyne, and put that in your pipe and smoke it. She laughs out loud. “Where did that come from?”

When she finishes the sonata, through the open doors of the flat's sitting room, Rose hears clapping.

“What?” Conor says when Rose comes out to him on the balcony, half smiling, half frowning. He leans against the railings. “I didn't say anything.” She goes straight up to him and pushes up from her toes and grabs him around the neck and kisses him.

“Now, that's more like it,” he says.

That night when they look at Rose's narrow bed, she says, “I'm not ready.” She scratches around her eye as if shielding herself from him in some way.

“Me, either. I'm not as easy as I look.” He cups Rose's chin in his hand. He touches her birthmark. “Look, I understand. First things first. Let's get that other surfer dude in your life sorted.”

Rose sleeps well on her own.

She wakes when she hears talking in the next room. It's Conor talking to her roommate, Isobel.

“Rosie,” she says when Rose comes into their sitting room, “you made this poor lad sleep on the couch?” Isobel is wearing her pajama bottoms and a sweater over a string top. She has bleached hair cut to an inch of her scalp. “What's up with that?” She nudges Rose with her elbow. Her socks are mismatched. She is still wearing makeup from the previous night. “I don't blame you, though. He does look a bit rough around the edges.”

“Ha ha. Right!” says Conor, rising and giving Rose a big, fat kiss full-on. He dips her ceremoniously and she gives in, her hair falling back and touching the floor. She groans. Conor scoops her back up.

“Oh,” says Isobel. “I see.” A grin spreads across her face. “So that's the way it is.”

Rose looks at Conor blushing and says, “Yup. That's how it is. So rough that if we'd slept together I wouldn't have any energy left for the rematch today.”

“Rematch? Huh?” Isobel turns to put the kettle on.

“My master class. It's a long story, Izzy.”

*   *   *

The Avenue Gardens in Regent's Park are in full summer bloom and when Rose and Conor pass Readymoney's old drinking fountain in the center of the Broad Walk the clock reads ten past nine. (Roger had texted he'd be in his office at ten.)

“Has your mum been here?”

“Yes. A few times.”

“Super gardens.”

“She can't pass a flower without taking a picture or taking down notes and making little sketches in her notebook.”

Conor bends to a patch of unusual-looking ferns. He reads from the printed sign: “Maidenhair. Species: A. veitchii Hance. Family: Adiantaceae.”

“Oh God, my mother will love you!”

Conor smiles. “You nervous?”

“A little.”

“Don't be. You played—”

“Conor! I told you not to say anything.”

“Sorry, forgot. Jeeze, don't bite my head off. Here, let me take that.” He reaches for her violin case.

“No, it'd be bad luck. I'm used to having it against me. It keeps me grounded.”

He puts his arm around her and her violin.

Twenty minutes later they are across the park, walking right on Marylebone Road and approaching the wooden doors of the academy. They enter and George the porter smiles his crooked smile when Rose stands before his desk. She signs in.

“I'm bringing a friend in with me today, George, okay?”

“Yes, miss. Nice to see you again.”

Rose remembers George had been standing at the front door that afternoon she ran out of the recital hall. “And you, George.” She turns and heads up the steps, Conor following, giving her plenty of space. By the time she knocks on Roger Ballantyne's door it's like she is a gathering storm and ready to burst.

“Come in.”

She nods to Conor and he holds up the crossed fingers of both hands. Rose hears the words in her head even though he hasn't said them:
Get your Irish up, girleen.
Then she steps into the office.

“Rose! I'm so glad you came back,” Roger says. He has on his brown Waiheke Island T-shirt with the wineglass logo and white linen pants and flip-flops. He steps closer, lowers his voice, and says, “I was worried I'd never see you again.”

Rose turns to her violin case.

“Listen, before you say anything, let me apologize. My behavior was deplorable. Despicable.”

Rose suddenly realizes she isn't nervous, but she pulls a sulky face anyway.

“Can you forgive me?” He shuts the door.

“Maybe.” Her pout slowly turns to a smile. “I'm sorry I left, Roger.”

“I understand. Don't apologize. No worries. It'll be all right. What do you say we both get a second chance?”

Something has come into her. She doesn't know what. She unpacks her case. She turns her head quickly, swiftly, when she hears a wood pigeon murmuring on the ledge and she hopes Roger won't shoo him away, and when he doesn't, when he just looks too, she feels he is with her and he is ready to listen. She lifts her violin with her left hand and brings it to her shoulder. Her chin senses the known place and nestles into position. She thinks of Conor's workshop and the ginger cats and the winter sunshine on the day they first met. She thinks of the man outside in the corridor who transformed pieces of wood and string into her violin that's about to sing. She hopes he will hear her. She bends her fingers and squares them, places them for the first four-note chord of the adagio. With her bow raised, she takes a moment, counts to three, scans the room: the poster, the morning light angling in from the window, Roger standing by the door. Then, with the top of her bow hovering just a whisper above the strings, she nods imperceptibly to the unseen surfer standing outside in the hall and begins the adagio with a sweeping run into an arpeggio.

It goes like a good dream. She is relaxed, inspired. Somewhere near the end of the second movement, the fugue, Roger nods his head. Then he waves enthusiastically for her to keep going. She does. She plays straight through to the end of the piece and when she finishes with a flourish on the up bow, her chest fills with air and her outbreath releases all her worry in her ability. She
is
good. And now Roger knows it, too. And Conor.

At once the door opens and Conor steps boldly into the room, clapping. “That was mighty! Absolutely one hundred percent—”

Rose shoots him a look and masks her delight.

So does Roger. It takes him a half second before he says, looking at Conor, “Well, your … your friend here is right.” He eyes Conor as if peering down his nose over his glasses, although he doesn't wear any. To his student he says, “It's great work, Rose. Really great.”

Rose is grinning. She thinks Roger is waiting for her to say something. When she doesn't, he asks: “Should you and … I … go for a drink?”

“No, but thanks,” she says, and she puts her violin back into its case. “I'm going back home. I'm going home for the summer.”

“Well,” Conor says, “that's that, then.” And he reaches into his jacket pocket and hands Roger Ballantyne a business card.
Conor Flynn, Master Violin Maker, Kinvara, Co. Galway.
“See you,” he says, and follows Rose, who waves to Roger and walks out.

 

Fifteen

Children are born. They have a life but they belong to no one. This was running through Iris's mind on the long, silent return to West Newton Street. When she and Hector arrived back in the South End early that evening, Grace came out to greet them. She'd heard the car pull in, but as the two soberly approached with a space between them defined as vacant, she stood aside and said nothing. Iris had been crying and when she looked at Grace she shook her head, couldn't speak.

There was nothing and everything to say. Grace stood openmouthed. Hector didn't come inside. He stayed on the sidewalk, not attempting to follow, and watched Iris go in.

In her room Iris began to pack. She was leaving—no matter what—the next day. She'd get on any plane crossing the Atlantic just to get away. It had been a horrible mistake. She was back where she started. She sat on the bed and held her breasts. It was the left breast. It hurt.

“Iris? Are you all right?” There was a soft knock at the door.

Iris didn't answer at first. It was sweet of Grace, but Iris didn't want to have a chat about it. Didn't want to have a sit-down with Grace sitting in Bob's old chair commiserating.

“I just need to sleep,” Iris said.

“Of course. I understand. I just thought you might like some tea.” There was a soundless pause. “I'll leave it on a tray outside the door in case you change your mind. And I've brought up the phone if … in case … in case you need to phone Ireland.”

Iris heard Grace lay down the tray outside and waited a few moments until she was sure Grace had gone. She listened at the door, wanting also to avoid meeting Hector. She didn't want to see him. Not that any of it was his fault, but her feelings for him were confusing.

Grace had set a tray with a pink rose alongside the tea and a sandwich and the phone. Iris was close to tears upon seeing the flower. Get it together. This is not the time to feel sorry for yourself. She put down the tray and turned to the mirror, remembering Tess's words. “Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Goddamn it. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.”

It was nine o'clock in the evening, too late to ring Ireland, but she phoned the airline and after a long wait—listening every thirty seconds to the recorded voice: “We are experiencing a high volume of calls and all our operators are busy. Your call is important to us. Please hold the line and a representative will be with you shortly”—a live voice came on. There were seats available for a return flight the next day. She'd only have to pay an extra change-of-date fee. Iris was relieved. She would be in Ashwood in thirty-six hours. She sat against the bed. She didn't want to think about anything else. Not Hilary, not the Breast Clinic, not Hector. She took off her now wrinkled blue dress and folded it, laid it in her case, and put on the bathrobe she'd been wearing the last few nights. She pulled aside the bed covers and slipped inside. She returned to the dream of Luke walking out of the sea toward her. He'd been smiling. Why was he smiling? There was nothing to smile about. There was no one there. Hilary was dead. And as for Hector, Iris wished he'd stayed as he was that first morning. Unapproachable. It would have saved her from behaving like a schoolgirl on a first date and, worse, from feeling guilty that she dared to let herself imagine a relationship. Turning from one side of the old bed to the other, she struggled to get comfortable. She turned around to the foot of the bed, buried her head under a pillow, tried to block out the sound of the irritating air-conditioning vent. She was in that zone she knew well: alert, electric, fully charged, a live wire connected to nothing. She rose from the bed, went to her case and took one of the sleeping tablets Dr. O'Reilly had given her. Soon she was falling asleep, trying to picture Luke coming from the sea.

*   *   *