Remembering Rose (Mapleby Memories Book 1) Page 8

  In the past Pa used to help with the heavy things, even going to the wholesaler for us sometimes, but he wouldn’t any more, not since he injured his back lifting a heavy pack of forty-eight shrink-wrapped tins from the trunk of the car. I was about to mention this when Daniel shook his head.

  “That’s where you’re wrong because Millie came back after she collected the boys and they all helped, even the little one, although his main aim seemed to be to carry in the sweets.” He smiled as he said it and although I tried to ignore it, I suddenly had a mental picture of a cozy togetherness: Daniel carting in the heavy stuff while Millie re-stocked the shelves and the little boys dragged in a few of the smaller boxes. A sudden surge of jealousy made me spiteful.

  “So now you’re paying her overtime as well I suppose, and you’ll have given the boys some sweets, too. It’s got to stop Daniel, because we can’t afford to sub Millie Carter, however sorry you feel for her.”

  He took a long drink before he answered but when he did I knew I had overstepped the mark. “As it happens, I didn’t pay Millie a penny extra. She came back because she said it was her fault we were low on some things, so the least she could do was help to put it right. She wouldn’t let me give the little boys sweets either. She said they had to learn to help out without expecting a reward every time they did something.”

  “So she’s buttering you up until you’ve made a decision about the rooms above the shop.”

  He shook his head. “No Rachel, she was just being helpful, the same as you were before you discovered you had a sharp tongue.”

  I turned away and concentrated on grating the cheese because I didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes. I didn’t apologize though. Instead I asked him when we were going to talk about it.

  “Whenever you like,” he said, and his voice hardened as he got up and poured himself another beer.

  I swung round and scowled at him. “You’ve already decided, haven’t you? And you’ve told Millie.”

  He nodded. “It’s a no brainer because Millie’s grandfather has offered to pay for the decorating and repairs and he’s going to help Millie with the rent, so what is there to discuss? We can’t afford to turn down such a good offer and you know it. Besides, having someone living over the premises makes the shop far more secure. With Millie there I won’t get those middle of the night calls when some night creature triggers the security alarm.”

  I knew he had me and if it had been anyone other than Millie I would have been thrilled. Renting out the rooms above the shop was not only going to help offset the fact that we now only had one wage coming in, they would be decorated as well, something we had been meaning to get around to ever since we took it over.

  I finished cooking the omelet and tipped it and the fries onto a plate. Sliding it across the table I gave him a sheepish smile. “You’re right. I guess being here on my own all day makes me a bit irrational at times. It’s a good decision and I’m sure Millie appreciates it.”

  He nodded and then tucked into his meal and we didn’t mention it again. I didn’t say a word about what I had been doing that day either because somewhere in the middle of our argument about Millie Carter, I lost my wish to share. If he was going to make arbitrary decisions, then I was going to keep everything I had learned about Rose to myself. I wasn’t going to tell him anything about the house next door or Robbie Parker either.

  * * *

  The next day Ma was already at the nursing home when I arrived with Leah and the fresh banana bread, and she greeted me with a relieved smile. “You must have a sixth sense or something, Grandma has been talking about you ever since I arrived, not that I’ve been able to make head nor tail of what she’s on about.”

  I lifted Leah out of the pram and plumped her down on her great-grandmother’s ample lap. “Hello Grandma, how are you today?”

  She gave me a sharp look. “You’ve made Rose sad.”

  Ma rolled her eyes.

  Wondering how best to deal with the effect the photos had obviously had on Grandma’s tenuous hold on reality, I sank into the chair opposite her and leaned forward. “What have I done?”

  “Blue eyes aren’t everything.” Her voice dripped with disappointment.

  Although it sounded like nonsense I knew straight away she was talking about Robbie Parker and an involuntary shiver ran up my spine. Ma snorted.

  “I’m going to fetch her a cup of tea. It’ll give her something else to focus on,” she said in a muffled whisper.

  I waited until she’d gone before I answered my grandmother. “Why did me talking to Robbie make Rose sad?”

  “Because she did it too.” For a brief moment Gran’s eyes were full of lucidity but then she retreated into confusion, and by the time Ma returned with a tray of tea for all of us, she was asking me who Leah’s parents were.

  * * *

  For the next half-hour we chatted about inconsequential things while we all watched Leah as she rolled around on the blanket I’d spread out on the carpet. I didn’t forget though, and when I was sure I could be trusted to keep my voice casual, I scrolled through the photos on my cell phone. The picture of the horseshoe and the writing beneath it was very clear. I held it out to Grandma.

  “Did Rose do this?”

  Ma frowned. “Don’t encourage her, Rachel,” she muttered. I ignored her.

  Grandma peered at the photo. “Jed died,” she said.

  “I know he did. Do you know what happened?”

  She nodded and her voice became dreamy as she recalled something she had been told in the dim and distant past of her childhood. “Granny Rose said he was pulling the cart and it was heavy, and he fell down and he was dead.”

  “Did she see it happen?”

  “Rose was on the cart. She should have been in the kitchen but she was on the cart.”

  Thanks to those diary entries, I could see it all. Instead of helping her mother, Rose had slipped away under the pretext of taking a message to her father at the big house, and he, always happy to indulge her, had pulled her up onto the cart and given her a ride. It had been while they were laughing together that poor Jed, already old and probably overworked, had had a heart attack. He had died still harnessed to the cart he had pulled for the whole of his life.

  “She couldn’t bear it. She cried for days and days and made herself ill. She didn’t stop until her Papa brought home the horseshoe and nailed it to the fence.”

  Ma plucked the phone out of Grandma’s hand while she was still talking. After staring at the picture for a moment, she looked at me in confusion. “Well at least you seem to know what’s she’s talking about.”

  I gave her a half smile. “Not really, although I’m beginning to piece things together. Apparently Granny Rose lived in our cottage when she was a little girl. In those days the garden was much bigger and there was an orchard. It was where the house next door is now. Granny Rose’s Father worked with horses up at the big house, wherever that was, and Jed, the horse who this shoe belonged to, was Rose’s favorite, so he sometimes brought him home and tethered him in the orchard under the plum tree.”

  “And you’ve found all this out from those old notebooks?”

  “Yes,” I lied. Then, to put myself in the clear in case anyone else decided to read them. “Well, those and listening to Grandma. She can remember quite a lot when she’s in the mood.”

  “Hmm, so there is something in this suggestion that we keep talking to her about the past, is there?”

  “It seems so,” I nodded. Then Leah began to cry because she had managed to wedge herself into a gap between two chairs. By the time I’d extricated her and smothered her with kisses so that she was laughing again, it was time for Grandma’s tea, so I didn’t have to say anything else.

  * * *

  I walked back to the farm with Ma, listening with pretended fascination while she recounted her day in town with Louise. By the time we got there Leah was hungry so I fed her sitting in the sun on the back porch while Ma water
ed the tubs of geraniums. I had almost finished when she came and sat beside me.

  “There was a scandal of some sort you know…about Granny Rose,” she said.

  I stared at her. “What do you mean, a scandal?”

  She shrugged. “She had some sort of nervous breakdown I think, although I’ve no idea why. I probably heard about it when I was listening where I shouldn’t have been. Maybe Grandma will be able to tell you on one of her good days.”

  “You must know more than that,” I said hurriedly because I didn’t want her to suddenly remember that I’d had some sort of breakdown too and try to change the subject.

  She shook her head. “People didn’t talk about things openly in those days, they just whispered in corners, but when I was a very small I discovered that if I sat, quiet as a mouse under the kitchen table, I could learn their secrets. It had a green baize cloth that used to hang almost to the floor so no one knew I was there.”

  I grinned at her, remembering how I used to hide behind the sofa listening to my sisters. It was where I’d learned the facts of life and a whole lot of other useful things, and it was how I had gleaned enough secrets to be able to embarrass them whenever their boyfriends came to call. Ma saw the thought and laughed

  “You too, Rachel! It’s what happens when you’re the youngest because it’s the only way you can find out anything at all.”

  * * *

  I remembered what Ma had said later that evening when I settled down to read some more of Rose’s diary. It was slow work because after the enthusiasm of the first few carefully written pages her handwriting became far more difficult to decipher as she experimented with different styles in the way of all teenagers. Sometimes the writing was so small I had to screw up my eyes to make sense of it. I ploughed on though, because I was sure she would have written something about Jed.

  I found the entry halfway through the notebook. I knew it was the right place before I even started reading because she had edged the whole page with black ink. To say she was devastated was an understatement. The writing was blurred in places, presumably from her tears. I didn’t learn anything new though, not on that page. The next one, however, opened up a whole lot of possibilities, and this time it was about May.

  Today Mama and Papa gave in and said May can go and work in the village. She has been pleading and crying about it for months and now they have agreed. She is going to work for Miss Acton. As soon as they told her she could go she stopped being mean and lent me her best black ribbon for my hair so everyone can see how sad I am about dear old Jed.

  I cannot imagine why she wants to work for Miss Acton, who is tall and thin and never smiles, but she does. May even asked if she can live in the village during the week, but Papa said no. He says she has to come home every evening, even in the winter. She got those two red spots on her cheeks that she always gets when she’s angry, but she didn’t say a word. She will ask again though, I’m sure of it. Once she has been working for a while she will find a way of persuading Mama and Papa to let her stay with Aunt Mabel during the week and then I will have the bedroom all to myself. What bliss!

  I leaned back in the chair with the notebook open on my lap and stared into space. Did teenage girls really work in shops all those years ago when Rose was young? I supposed they must have. I wished I had concentrated more in my history lessons at school.

  Daniel, who was trying to balance the week’s takings, looked across at me from where he was sitting at the table. “You look serious.”

  I smiled at him. Things had been good between us this evening. He had come home early and played with Leah before I put her to bed and then, while I was settling her, had heated up a lasagna he had brought home from our specials counter and opened a bottle of wine. He hadn’t mentioned Millie Carter once either, so with no reason to stoke up the feeling of resentment I’d been nurturing all week, I told him about Rose’s diaries. He was more interested than I expected him to be, and we spent the rest of the evening looking at various history sites on the Internet as we tried to buff up our knowledge of the past.

  Chapter Ten

  When I woke up the following morning Daniel wasn’t lying in bed beside me like he usually did on a Sunday. I could hear him moving about in the kitchen and I stretched luxuriously, sure that he was treating me to breakfast in bed. He had obviously realized how unfair it was to abandon Leah and me each morning just so Millie Carter could get her children to school, and this was his way of saying sorry. Deciding to be gracious about it, I plumped up the pillows and waited.

  I was still waiting when I heard Leah stir. I let her whimper for a minute or two, so sure was I that Daniel would fetch her, but when she started crying in earnest I threw back the bedcovers and went into the nursery. Rose was already there, leaning over the cot, although she backed off when she saw me. I scowled at her.

  “Stop telling tales.”

  Her beautiful dark eyes widened into a question. “You told Grandma about Robbie Parker,” I said, completely unfazed by the fact that I was arguing with a ghost, although admittedly it takes two to argue and, true to form, Rose wasn’t saying anything. Briefly I wondered why I could hear her speak when I slipped through whatever time warp it was that took me back to her childhood, but not in the here and now, then I shook my head.

  “None of it is true…well not in the way you seem to think. It’s not like it was when you were my age. In the twenty-first century it’s possible to be friends with someone of the opposite sex without it meaning a thing, and that’s what Robbie is, he’s just a friend. Actually he’s not even a friend really, he’s just someone who is going to be working next door for a while, so I can hardly ignore him, can I?”

  To my amazement her eyes filled with tears. Even though she had started it all, it still made me feel a bit mean. I tried again. “Look, I don’t know how you manage to talk to Grandma when the rest of us have trouble getting her to understand a single word we say, but I’d rather you didn’t. She is confused enough as it is. I’d rather you stopped dropping in on Leah too…”

  I was still talking to her when Daniel came into the nursery. He grinned at me. “That sounded a bit of a deep conversation you were having with Leah. I know you don’t believe in baby talk but she’s probably a bit young to share the family’s angst over your grandmother.”

  Wondering exactly what he had heard I watched him lift Leah out of the cot and saw the delight on her face as he jiggled her up and down. “I was talking to myself really,” I said, and because Rose had disappeared the moment Daniel entered the room, I wondered if that was closer to the truth than I cared to admit.

  Maybe I was still suffering from the after effects of the anti-depressants I had taken after Leah was born, pills that had over-stimulated my imagination. If I had never seen Rose’s photo or read her diary I probably wouldn’t be staring at the space where she’d been standing a few moments before, wondering where she had gone. It would explain why Daniel and Ma couldn’t see her, either. It didn’t explain Leah though. Leah had stopped crying and was smiling up at Rose when I walked into the nursery, and Rose was smiling back at her. Surely I hadn’t imagined that as well. There was Grandma too. Even Ma had heard what she said although she’d dismissed it as confused nonsense. I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

  Daniel saw me and frowned. “Are you okay, Rach?”

  I forced a smile. “Never better. What are we having for breakfast?”

  He looked shamefaced. “Um…I need to talk to you about that.”

  I knew what he was going to say, so I said it for him. “I know, you’ve got to go and see Millie Carter’s granddad because he wants to talk about paint colors or something equally important.”

  “Don’t be like that. He rang yesterday to say could I show a builder around to get an idea of costs. I’ll only be an hour or so.”

  “But why Sunday? It’s the only day we have together, Daniel. Didn’t you think of that when you agreed?”

  “I know I should have, bu
t this builder guy is doing it on the cheap as some sort of favor. Apparently he has a big building contract somewhere else in the village which keeps him busy during the day but he’s offered to work at the shop in the evening and at weekends.”

  A dim light bulb flickered in the back of my brain. “Have you met him?”

  He shook his head as he hoisted Leah into a more comfortable position. “Not yet and I’ve just had a very good idea. Why don’t you come too? We can skip breakfast for brunch at the pub instead.”

  “What about Leah?”

  “I’ll spoon baby rice into her while you get ready, and then you can breastfeed her while I load all her paraphernalia into the van.”

  For a moment I was tempted to throw his offer back in his face, so disappointed was I that, far from preparing a surprise breakfast, he had been making arrangements to go out. I didn’t though because I didn’t feel inclined to cut off my nose to spite my face. Besides, if this mystery builder turned out to be Robbie Parker, then an official introduction would be a good idea. Maybe I could choose some of the paint colors too. After all, it was our shop, Daniel’s and mine. Millie Carter would just be living there.

  * * *

  When we met him outside the shop, Robbie took my hand in his large one and gave me a slow smile.

  “Rachel and I have already met. Leah too.” He turned to Daniel. “And I’m afraid I drank one of your cans of beer on that very hot day last week.”

  Seeing the wicked twinkle in his eye I realized he had no intention of explaining himself further so I dived in, babbling more than necessary.

  “Robbie is working on the house next door to ours,” I said. “You remember I told you about it, how the new owners are American and they are having the whole thing gutted and refitted before they move in.”