Rosie (2 page)

‘I see.’ He thought about it. It would have been his grandfather’s. She wouldn’t have sent it to a jumble sale yet or a charity shop.

‘The worry is that I think she rather enjoyed the attention. We’d prefer it if she didn’t do it again. We’ve enough on without coping with protesting pensioners.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ll try to make sure she stays out of trouble.’

‘If you would.’

‘Can I take her home then?’

‘Yes, of course.’ He hesitated. ‘Can I just ask you, sir . . .?’

‘Yes?’

‘What your granny was saying. I suppose it’s just her funny way, isn’t it? I mean . . .’ He brought one of the long arms up to tug at his left ear, then looked at Nick sideways. ‘She’s not really related to the Russian royal family is she?’

‘What?’ It was one of those defining moments: the sort that make all sounds subside, all movement grind to a halt, and the world seems to take a deep breath. The moment when your granny, whom you’ve always perceived as adorable and ever-so-slightly . . .
individual
, might have turned a corner that you’d hoped would never appear on the horizon. The policeman must have misheard her. Sounds emerged once more from the corridor. There was movement, too.

Nick shook his head. ‘No. I think you misunderstood. Her family
was
Russian. Gran left when there was all that bother with the royal family when she was a baby. She’s lived in Britain ever since. Always felt bitter about the revolution, though. I think her mum was caught up in it.’

The policeman stared at Nick for a moment. ‘Well, the embassy were very good about it. They had a particularly reasonable attaché on duty today. I suggested to him that your granny was just a bit – well, doo-lally.’

Nick’s eyes widened. ‘Not within her earshot, I hope.’

‘Er, no. I thought it best not to.’

‘Wise man.’ He smiled ruefully.

‘So, if you could just make sure she gets home safely. And maybe keep her away from bicycle chains for a while.’ He pointed to the old safety cable lying in a corner, and as the limb revealed its full extent it occurred to Nick that this really was the long arm of the law.

‘Yes. Yes, of course. It won’t happen again,’ he said, and added, under his breath, ‘I hope.’

She was standing by the front door of the police station, smiling, silver-grey hair in its familiar soft curls, sensible shoes polished and tweed skirt pressed. Thanks to the morning’s excitement, her pale blue eyes sparkled, and she pushed her hands deep into the pockets of the red, woolly jacket.

Nick’s greeting came as a bit of a let down.

‘Come on, Granny.’ Nick’s tone was impatient.

She frowned. ‘There’s no need for that.’

‘All right, then – Rosie.’

‘Better.’

He sighed. ‘Tea?’

‘Ooh! Yes, please. Best thing anybody’s said all day.’

‘I thought police stations were famous for their tea.’

‘Yes. But they don’t do Earl Grey. Terrible stuff, theirs. Colour of oxtail soup.’

‘There’s a café across the road. Come on, they’ll probably do a range of designer teas.’

She stood quite still and shook her head.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I’m not having tea there, designer range or no.’

‘Where, then?’

‘The Ritz.’

‘What?’

‘As a celebration.’

‘A celebration of what?’

‘Mission accomplished.’

‘What sort of mission? You’ve just been arrested.’

‘I achieved what I set out to do.’

‘Which was?’

She pulled up the fake-fur collar of her coat and held it with a leather-gloved hand. ‘To draw attention to my life in exile.’

‘Oh, Rosie!’

She fixed him with flashing pale blue eyes. ‘I mean it.’ The stern expression subsided and she grinned. ‘Oh, go on, take me for tea at the Ritz. You look as though you could do with a bit of fun.’

He shook his head. ‘What are you like?’

She put her head on one side. ‘A duchess?’

He felt the same stab of unease that had shot through him when the policeman had mentioned the Russian royal family. He thought it best to shrug it off. Right now an attention-seeking grandmother was not an enticing prospect. ‘Just don’t push it. We’ll go to Brown’s, not the Ritz.’

‘Cheapskate.’

 
 
2

Soft pink . . . borne in large trusses.

‘I
do wish you wouldn’t look so smug.’

Rosie sipped the Earl Grey in the china cup. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Look, we’ve even got a tea-strainer.’

‘Because you should be ashamed of yourself. Wasting police time.’

‘Well, it was all in a good cause.’ She sat in the corner of the large chintz sofa, under the towering grandfather clock, looking about her with wide eyes. ‘This is nice, isn’t it? Classy sort of place. Didn’t Agatha Christie set one of her murder mysteries here? I saw it on the box. Lovely costumes.’ Her eyes, lively and enquiring, darted around the opulent lounge.

‘I think that was Bertram’s, not Brown’s. Anyway I’m glad you like it. But don’t get too used to it.’

‘Mmm. Not much chance of that.’ She picked up a tiny cucumber sandwich, and popped it into her mouth, whole, chewing it purposefully and scrutinising her surroundings. ‘Look at him. Over there.’ She gestured towards a small, bespectacled man in a light grey suit. He was systematically putting away the contents of a tiered cakestand, looking around the room from time to time as though he was waiting for someone. ‘He looks suspicious. Do you think he’s here to meet a lover?’

The reply was impatient. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘Well, he might be. They come in the most unlikely disguises, you know.’

‘Who do?’

‘Lovers.’

‘Like duchesses.’

She avoided his eye, then muttered, mock-absentminded, ‘What, love?’

‘What were you telling that policeman?’

‘Have you finished with the sandwiches? Shall we go on to the cakes?’

‘Is this how it’s going to be now?’

‘How what’s going to be, love?’ She was examining the cakestand.

‘Are you going to carry on being childish?’

She looked hurt. ‘That’s a bit mean.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. Very. “Childish” is a very mean thing to say.’ He saw that her eyes were glistening with tears.

‘Oh, don’t do that!’ He searched his pockets for a handkerchief, found it and handed it to her. ‘You know what I mean.’

Rosie blew her nose. ‘Oh, yes, I know what you mean. Don’t be any trouble. Grow old gracefully. You’ve had a good life. You’re eighty-seven. Why can’t you just be a normal granny? The usual stuff.’

‘Well, what wrong with that?’

She wiped the tears off her cheeks, and he glimpsed smears of mascara and rouge on the white lawn. ‘I’m cross.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, I’m fed up – fed up with people.’

‘Has Mum been at it again?’

‘A bit. But it’s not just her.’

‘But why the Russian embassy? What do you want to go chaining yourself to railings for? I know you’ve always had a thing about your mum being left behind, but why bring it all up now?’

‘To scare myself.’

‘What?’

She blew her nose again. ‘To make myself feel as though I’m doing more than just sitting around waiting.’ She sniffed. ‘That’s all it is, really. It’s to prove to myself that I can still feel things.’

‘Since Granddad?’

She nodded.

Nick reached forward and squeezed her hand. ‘I know.’

‘I’m glad he’s not in pain any more. It wasn’t much of a life at the end. But at least he minded. Once. Well . . . I think he did. About me.’

‘Of course he did. We all do.’

‘Huh! Some more than others.’

‘Is that why you didn’t ask the police to call Mum or Dad?’

She dabbed her cheek with the handkerchief. ‘Not much point was there? Your mum would have given me what for, and your dad wouldn’t have been there. No, I wanted you.’

‘But you’ve got to find another way . . . You can’t keep getting yourself arrested.’

‘It was the first time!’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘If you mean will I promise I won’t be any more trouble, the answer’s no.’

‘But why should you want to be trouble?’

‘Because I want to do something with myself. It’s time I had a life.’

‘But you’ve had a life.’ As soon as he’d said it he could have bitten out his tongue.

‘So, is that it, then? Because I’m eighty-seven I shouldn’t have expectations?’

‘Well, no, I didn’t mean that—’

‘Well, what did you mean? I’ve got a new hip and a new knee. It’d be a crime not to use them.’

‘It
is
a crime when you chain them to railings.’

She looked apologetic. ‘Well . . . I was upset.’

‘That’s a blessing. I wouldn’t want to think you did it when you were happy.’

‘It’s just that I don’t want to go quietly. To give in. I want to take risks.’

‘Like imprisonment?’

She bit her lip, and her eyes brimmed with tears once more. She mopped at them, then sniffed. ‘Stupid old woman. I suppose it’s hard for you to understand.’

‘Not really. In one way, yes, but not in another.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘I just worry that—’

‘That I’m getting dementia? Well, I’m not. At least, I don’t think I am. But, then, I don’t suppose you realize it when it’s happening to you, do you?’

Nick watched as she sipped her tea. She had looked confident in the police station, Nick thought, her eyes shining, enjoying the attention, the thrill of the chase. Now she looked crestfallen, fearful. He felt guilty: he was responsible for the change in her. He offered an olive branch. ‘Tell me about it, then.’

She avoided his eyes. ‘About what?’

‘This Russian thing.’

‘You know perfectly well what it’s about.’ She picked up another tiny sandwich, nibbled the corner, then finished it.

He spoke gently. ‘The policeman said something about the royal family.’

She looked vague. ‘Did he?’

‘Can you remember what you said to him?’

‘I have perfect recall.’

‘Well?’

‘Not telling you now. Wrong time. Wrong place. One day. When I’m ready.’ She eyed the cakestand again and settled on an elaborate cream horn. ‘That’ll put me right.’ She began to dissect it. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she murmured, through a mouthful of pastry, ‘but I can’t be bothered what people think any more. It doesn’t really matter.’

‘Why?’

‘Because people think what the newspapers and the television tell them to think. And, anyway, it’s all geared to people under forty. Thirty, even. Get to my age and they think all you want to watch is
Countdown
and repeats of
Miss Marple
. I can remember all the endings, you know.’

‘So you do watch them?’

‘Only once.’ She snapped the end off the cream horn. ‘Most of the time people just patronize you.’

‘No!’

‘Oh, yes, they do. They only want to help you across the street because it makes them feel better. Last week I was standing on the pavement looking at some may blossom. It was so pretty, but before I knew it I was half-way across the road with this man gripping me by the arm and booming in my ear. They treat you as though you’re educationally subnormal. And deaf – they always shout at you. And I’m not deaf. Or daft.’

‘No,’ he said, with feeling.

She was warming to her theme now, and the cream horn was yielding to the pressure of a pastry fork. ‘The trouble is, you get used to it. You do! You begin to believe that you
are
past it. You start acting like a child because you’re expected to, and before you know it you’ve given up. It’s a slippery slope.

‘Take that over-sixties club I went to. What a waste of time. Arguing over the teapot, painting Christmas cards. Being fawned over. Heavens! There’s more to life than that. I was twenty years older than most of them and I ended up running round after them – picking up their paints, passing them their coats, taking them to the toilet. It was like being back at school. No, thank you. I’ve still got a brain – what’s left of it – and I still have opinions, but they don’t seem to count any more. Who cares what I think?’

‘I do.’

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Do you? Do you really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even if it means being embarrassed?’

Nick leaned forward. ‘I’d prefer to avoid that bit but, on the whole, yes, even if it means being embarrassed.’

Her face brightened. ‘So will you help me?’

‘Help you with what?’

‘To live a bit.’

Her request took him by surprise. It seemed so innocent and plaintive. ‘Well, I don’t know . . .’

‘I won’t be a burden. I don’t want to take over your life or anything. I just need a bit of support. Encouragement, I suppose.’

‘I’ll try.’

She smiled weakly. ‘I know it must look like attention-seeing, but it’s not that. It’s just . . .’

He raised an eyebrow.

‘What?’

She sighed. ‘Do you know that Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is”?’

He nodded.

‘Well, I suppose I just want to keep dancing a bit longer. That’s all.’

Nick put his arm round her and squeezed her gently. She smelt faintly of Chanel No. 5. Not like a granny at all.

He eased away and looked into her shimmering eyes. ‘Well, no more chaining yourself to railings. Promise?’