Rosie (50 page)

Rosie knew Mrs Cook was only being motherly and wanting to make her son look as normal as possible, but the bit about his table manners reminded her sharply of Mrs Bentley.

‘He didn’t get to use a knife and fork at Carrington Hall, only a spoon,’ Rosie said pointedly. ‘But he’ll soon learn to use them again, just by watching us.’

‘I do hope so, dear.’ Mrs Cook’s blue eyes looked anxious and a trifle disbelieving. ‘I noticed he wipes his nose on his sleeve. We’ll have to break that habit too. I suppose it can’t all be done in a day though.’

‘He learns fast,’ Rosie said quickly. ‘Speaking of that, have you made any plans yet about what you want me to do with Donald each day?’

Mrs Cook looked askance at Rosie. ‘He’ll just be here with us! There’ll be walks, a bit of shopping, that sort of thing. Later on, when he’s had a bit of a holiday, maybe we can plan a little further ahead.’

Rosie’s heart plummeted. Mrs Cook was very kindly, but she was clearly intending to indulge her son and make up for all the lost years. She wasn’t being practical, or doing Donald any favours. He was used to strict discipline, and if it disappeared overnight he was likely to behave like a greedy child let loose in a sweetshop.

She took a deep breath. ‘I hope you won’t think I’m speaking out of turn,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘But I think we must give him some kind of routine right from the start. He’s bound to feel very disorientated until he gets used to being here. So I think we ought to try and keep things as much like being at Carrington Hall as possible for a while.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’ Mrs Cook’s voice rose to a surprised squeak. ‘I would think you of all people would welcome sweeping away such memories.’

Rosie blushed, but she was determined to get her point across. She explained how Donald had always helped the chargehands and how much he’d enjoyed doing it. Mrs Cook sat down at the table to listen properly and Rosie went on to tell her the worries she’d had on the way down here.

‘He needs firm guidelines,’ she insisted. ‘He was the smartest person on his ward and because of that he got little privileges that the other patients didn’t get. If you just let him wander about aimlessly, he’ll lose that feeling of his importance. I thought that perhaps after breakfast we could do some little jobs together. Maybe making beds, cleaning shoes, sweeping up the terrace, easy things at first until he gets the hang of it. Then later I could have some quiet time with him, looking at books or doing a jigsaw puzzle.’

Mrs Cook smiled at last. ‘Well, that doesn’t sound too onerous. And what had you thought of for the afternoons? I’m pretty certain you’ve got that worked out too.’

That last remark had a touch of sarcasm, but Rosie had to stand her ground. ‘Working in the garden, or going for a walk. But I think we should keep him right away from people and the shops in the High Street until he’s had time to get used to us and the house.’

Rosie squirmed a little as Mrs Cook looked thoughtfully at her for a moment. Although she was a small woman and her nice clothes and well-manicured nails all suggested she had a fairly idle life, Rosie had already discovered in the couple of hours she’d been here that this wasn’t so. Apart from Josie coming in to do some of the heavy work, she was very much a housewife. She cooked, cleaned, made clothes for her grandchildren, and the pantry was stuffed with her home-made preserves, jams and pickles. She had also been a very good mother and Rosie felt that she must seem very impudent telling Mrs Cook how to treat her own son.

‘Fair enough,’ Mrs Cook said at last, nodding her head. ‘I believe he went to bed early at Carrington Hall, so maybe we’d better stick to that too for the time being.’

Rosie breathed a sigh of relief. It was said now, the air was cleared. She just hoped Donald wouldn’t sense that his mother wasn’t entirely in agreement with her and play them one against the other. He was perfectly capable of that. ‘I’m a bit worried about him at night though,’ she admitted. ‘He’s been so used to the other men in the dormitory, he might not like being alone in a room.’

She had seen the rooms both she and Donald were to have. Donald’s was the one he’d had as a child, newly decorated in blue and white stripes, and hers was across the landing, at the back, a small but very pretty pink and white room with a similar sloping ceiling to Donald’s. She wasn’t sure if she’d hear him call out from there.

‘Maybe I could sleep outside his door for a few nights?’ Rosie suggested. ‘Just to make sure he doesn’t get up and go wandering.’

Mrs Cook looked aghast at that idea. ‘My dear,’ she said, raising her dainty eyebrows, ‘we didn’t bring you here to be some sort of guard-dog.’

Rosie giggled. ‘I didn’t mean lying on a mat – perhaps a camp-bed tucked up by the banisters. You see, after all the locked doors in Carrington Hall he’s going to want to explore everywhere. He’ll be like your little grandson Robin for a while, wanting to touch and look at everything. But he won’t see the dangers in ordinary things like matches, sharp knives and suchlike. He might be clumsy too, and break things.’

Rosie’s point was proved only a few moments later as Donald knocked over a vase of flowers on a low table in the sitting-room. The glass vase smashed, the water spilled all over the table, and when Donald went to pick up the glass he cut his finger. He began to cry when he saw the blood.

Mrs Cook put an Elastoplast on the cut. Rosie mopped up the water and she noticed that Mr Cook was looking fearfully around the room as if wondering what else they ought to move.

Rosie did sleep on a camp-bed. It was just as well because Donald came lumbering out of his room three times during the night. The first couple of times Rosie escorted him to the lavatory, then took him back to his room and tucked him back into bed. The third time it was dawn and she took him down to the kitchen to make him a drink.

‘You must stay in your room at night, Donald,’ she said firmly as she filled the kettle. ‘I need my sleep even if you don’t.’

He looked so very young and boyish sitting there at the kitchen table in his striped pyjamas.

‘It’s t-t-too quiet,’ he said.

‘Quiet at night-time is good,’ she said, putting one hand on his shoulder and squeezing it affectionately. ‘It means all the birds and other creatures are tucked up fast asleep just like you. There’s nothing to be afraid of; your mother and father are close by, and so am I.’

Rosie was more worried now than she had been when she spoke to Mrs Cook. Between the evening meal and Donald going to bed, some of the problems she’d anticipated had already reared their heads.

Mrs Cook just couldn’t imagine the difference between the bleak day room with nothing to look at, and her treasure-filled sitting-room. Even Rosie had a strong desire to pick things up and look at them. But each time Donald touched something, his mother stiffened, afraid he was going to drop it. When she did reprimand him, her ladylike manner and soft voice didn’t cut any ice. When his father saw this, he roared at him, and that frightened Donald half to death.

Rosie was afraid he might fly into a tantrum before long, if they kept saying no. With so many easily accessible things to hurl around, she didn’t like to dwell on the mayhem he might cause. Another problem was that none of them could possibly guess what he might want to investigate next. They had left him alone in the sitting-room watching the television for a few moments, and when they came back he had raided the coal scuttle and lined up the lumps on the carpet like a row of soldiers. She was scared his parents might lose patience with him. They were middle-class people with a beautiful home, and at their age it would be very difficult to adjust to having their comfortable life disturbed. She was also worried they might come to blame her for suggesting that Donald was capable of living at home in the first place, and then for not being vigilant enough.

Before Rosie took Donald back upstairs she opened the curtains over the doors which led on to the terrace so he could see the garden and the first rays of sun lighting up the sky. As they stood for a moment watching and listening to the birds sing, Rosie stole a look at him. His face was a picture of wonder. A lump came to her throat. She felt that if he was sensitive enough to be moved by the beauty of a sunrise, he was sensitive enough to learn to look at delicate things without touching, to obey his mother even if she didn’t shout at him, to learn to eat with a knife and fork again.

Rosie could see a strong parallel between how she had felt on her arrival at Mrs Bentley’s in Bristol and how Donald must feel now: both uprooted, thrust into an alien world, then bombarded with new experiences. Her heart filled with sympathy for him.

‘It’s time for the birds to get up and look for their breakfast,’ she said after a minute or two. ‘But too soon for us just yet. So it’s back to bed, and this time you’ll stay there until I call you.’

After taking Donald upstairs, Rosie sat on his bed for a while and gently stroked his forehead. The anxious expression in his eyes made her think of Alan and it also reminded her again that Donald was to all intents and purposes a small boy. Perhaps they had all made a mistake in thinking he understood what coming home for good meant. Maybe he felt he had to snatch everything at once, just in case it was all gone the next day.

‘This is where you are going to stay for ever, Donald,’ she said slowly and clearly. ‘You aren’t ever going back to Carrington Hall, not tomorrow, next week, or even next year. This is your home now, and I’m going to stay with you and look after you.’ She bent down and kissed his cheek. ‘Now go back to sleep. I’ll still be here when you wake up.’

On her fourth night at The Grange, Rosie woke with a start on hearing a noise from downstairs. It was still dark, but as she looked across the landing at Donald’s room she could just make out his window, which meant his door was wide open and he’d crept out without her hearing him.

Sighing, she got out of bed and reached for her dressing-gown. She hadn’t had more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep since she arrived here. But this was the first time he hadn’t woken her. He was growing crafty now, as well as disobedient.

‘You naughty boy,’ she exclaimed as she walked into the kitchen and found him scoffing food in the larder. He had a large slice of meat pie in one hand and a huge lump of cheese in the other. His cheeks were stuffed with food, puffed up like a hamster’s. ‘How many times have I told you not to come down here?’

He tried to reply but couldn’t manage it. Rosie caught hold of the back of his pyjama jacket, pulled him out of the larder, then snatched the food from his hands.

You get more than enough to eat during the day. You’re just being greedy,’ she snapped at him and felt like slapping him too. ‘You must stop being naughty, Donald. Now wash your hands and back to bed.’

She forced his hands under the kitchen tap and washed them for him.

‘I’m s-s-sorry,’ Donald finally managed to say as he chewed the food still in his mouth. ‘Don’t be cross with me.’

‘I will be cross with you until you stop this,’ she said fiercely. ‘And I won’t be your friend any more.’

She frog-marched him back up the stairs, tucked him into bed and then went back to her bed.

Rosie was in despair, tired, anxious and so very afraid she’d been mistaken in thinking Donald could cope at home. Mr Cook had threatened to put a lock on his bedroom door yesterday, but Rosie had talked him out of it, saying it defeated the object of bringing him home. Now she wanted a good night’s sleep so much she was tempted to ask Mr Cook to do it.

It was tough enough during the day. Donald didn’t sit still even for a minute, examining this, poking into that, knocking things over. He’d even wet himself several times because he was too afraid of missing something while he was in the lavatory. Rosie felt he would calm down eventually, but his parents were at the end of their tether.

It seemed like only moments later that Rosie awoke to another noise. It was light again, she guessed about six in the morning, and the sound was Donald retching. Wearily she got up and went into him. He was lying in a heap of vomit – it was in his hair, all over his pyjamas and bedding, cascading down on to the floor – and judging by the sheer quantity of it, he’d eaten half the contents of the larder before she’d caught him.

‘That’s what comes of being so greedy,’ she said, sickened at the thought of clearing it up when she was so tired. ‘Get up and come into the bathroom.’

Sympathy overcame her as he knelt by the lavatory bowl vomiting up still more. In Carrington Hall he’d grown used to a bland diet of mushy food. He had forgotten how to chew properly and his stomach couldn’t possibly cope with the vast amount of cheese, meat pie and ham he’d stuffed into it. Perhaps he’d learned a valuable lesson at last.

Once there was nothing left in his stomach, she washed him, got some clean pyjamas and tucked him into her camp-bed. He fell asleep almost immediately and Rosie paused for a moment, just looking down at him, before going back into his room to clear up the mess there. She thought how cruel nature was sometimes: in sleep there was nothing to show he was different from any other man. He was handsome enough to attract any girl, but a simple accident at birth had robbed him of a career, marriage and children. She wondered what would become of him when his parents grew too old to look out for him.

Two weeks later on a Friday morning, Rosie was kneeling on the grass planting out summer bedding plants when Mrs Cook came out with a tray of soft drinks and biscuits for elevenses. She looked very pretty in a loose-fitting print dress, her white hair fluffy around her small face. No one would guess she was in her sixties; she had the grace and quick movements of a much younger woman.

Donald was mowing the grass, but at the sight of his mother he came gambolling across the lawn. Two weeks of fresh air, sunshine, exercise and good food had done wonders for him. Dressed in only a pair of khaki shorts, his hair streaked by the sun, he had the look of a tanned, but rather thin beachcomber.

‘Sit down before I give you your drink,’ Mrs Cook said reprovingly as he lunged towards the tray. ‘We don’t want spills, not even in the garden.’