Remembering Rose (Mapleby Memories Book 1) Page 9

  I wasn’t at all sure I’d told him any such thing and I knew, from the expression on his face, that he was doubtful too. He wasn’t about to say so in company though, so he merely nodded, smiled, and shook Robbie’s hand.

  “I guess that means we’ll be seeing quite a lot of you over the next few weeks, what with you working next door as well as renovating the rooms over the shop.”

  * * *

  An hour later, I found myself sitting next to Daniel and opposite Robbie while we waited for our Sunday brunch to arrive. Leah was sleeping peacefully in her pram beside us. I had no idea whether Robbie had invited himself or if it was Daniel who had suggested it, but I felt very uncomfortable.

  I was the only one who did, though. The men were already bonding over football as they picked apart the results of the season’s matches and forecast what would happen next year. Neither of them appeared to take any notice of me when I left them to it and went over to the bar to see Tom.

  “Any news from Ella?” I asked a bit too brightly because I had just caught sight of Robbie Parker’s reflection in the mirror behind the bar and I could see he was watching me.

  “Yes, she’s somewhere in the Caribbean until the end of the month, then it’s back to London for a week or so before she flies to Paris.”

  “You sound like her diary secretary,” I teased, and then wished I hadn’t been so flippant when I saw the misery in his eyes.

  He shrugged. “That’s what it feels like, Rachel. She’s very good at keeping me up to date with her travel plans. I can’t fault her for that. I just wish her phone calls and emails were a bit more personal. She never tells me anything about what her life is like when she’s not working. Does she ever talk to you about it?”

  I shook my head, wishing I could say yes. “She doesn’t really talk to me at all Tom, not since I had Leah. I guess we don’t have much in common now I’m a stay-at-home mum.”

  He sighed as he filled a glass with orange juice and pushed it across the bar towards me. “Here, have that on the house. If I can’t feed Ella at least I can look after you.”

  I thanked him and then, taking a sip, asked a question that had been on my mind for quite a while. “You don’t think there’s anything wrong, do you?”

  He stared at me and I could see the panic starting to build. “In what way?”

  I shrugged it off. “Don’t mind me. Since I had Leah I worry about everything. It drives Daniel mad. I’m sure Ella is fine. Busy, but fine.”

  He gave a reluctant nod. “You’re probably right. I’m just glad her mother isn’t here to see how she’s changed because if she was it would break her heart. Between you and me I think it was Ella who kept her going for so long. She was so brave when Ella went to London, waving her off with such a big smile so no one would know her heart was breaking.”

  Remembering how quickly his wife had succumbed to the cancer that had stalked her for years once Ella had left Mapleby, I patted his hand. “She was very proud of Ella, wasn’t she?”

  He gripped my fingers and I was surprised to see how knotted with arthritis they were. To me Tom had always been a big, burly rugby player, someone whose natural place was behind a bar once he could no longer run as fast or score the tries that had made him a local hero when I was young. When had he started to get so old?

  “You’re right. She was very proud, but she would have been just as proud if Ella had decided to stay in Mapleby and settle down like you and Daniel.”

  As I walked back to the table I pondered his remark. Ella had never talked about settling down and having children. Instead she had played the field, laughing at me because I only wanted Daniel.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to marry the village shopkeeper,” she said, the night I told her we were getting engaged. She liked Daniel well enough, even admitted that as local catches went he was up there with the best, but I had always known I’d disappointed her. Meeting Robbie’s eyes and seeing the shadow of a question in them, I crossed my fingers as I slid into my seat. I hoped I wasn’t going to be disappointed that I had chosen Daniel too.

  Nobody said anything until the waitress had placed plates piled high with bacon, eggs, tomatoes and hash browns in front of us, then Daniel raised an eyebrow. “How is Tom?”

  I shrugged. “The same as usual.”

  “He hasn’t heard from Ella then.”

  “It’s not that. He says he hears from her all the time, it’s just that she never really tells him anything.”

  Robbie squeezed a sachet of brown sauce onto his plate and looked interested. Daniel explained. “Tom’s daughter, Ella, is a make-up artist who spends most of her life working on various film sets around the world.”

  “It sounds exotic.”

  “I guess it is but it doesn’t suit Tom. His wife died shortly after Ella moved to London so now all he has is the pub, and he’s lonely.”

  “Doesn’t she ever come home?”

  “Not often. It upsets you as well, doesn’t it, Rachel? Rachel and Ella were almost inseparable when they were growing up. Without Ella’s approval I don’t think I would have stood a chance!”

  I laughed as I tried to make light of it because I didn’t feel comfortable talking about Ella to a stranger. I searched for a way to change the subject without being rude. “Don’t take any notice of Daniel. He likes to exaggerate. I was only friendly with her because she had a bedroom of her own while my house was so full of Pavalaks that I never had more than five minute’s privacy at any time.”

  “Pavalaks?”

  “My maiden name.”

  “So you’re Rachel Pavalak.”

  A curious inflection in his voice made me respond more sharply than I intended. “I was Rachel Pavalak. Now I’m Rachel Ryan.”

  He smiled. “Sorry. It’s just that it’s a very unusual name.”

  For a moment I was convinced that he meant something else entirely, then I remembered that, thanks to my recent experiences with Rose, I couldn’t even trust my own thoughts any more let alone someone else’s, so I changed the subject. For the rest of the meal we talked about the house next door to ours. Robbie told us how the nameless Americans were going to transform it into a house of such beauty that, just by living next door to them, our own cottage would double in price. Daniel laughed when he heard this.

  “Except we don’t want to sell it, do we, Rachel?’

  I shook my head, mute as I thought what more money would mean to us. Despite me fighting it, I knew the rent from the rooms over the shop was going to make life a bit easier, and now it seemed as if our new neighbors were going to help us make our fortune. Well, maybe fortune was a bit optimistic but, according to Robbie, it would make us enough money to spread our wings a bit if we ever decided to sell. At the very least we could holiday somewhere exotic and experience how Ella lived every day of her life. I wondered whether I would ever be able to persuade Daniel to consider the idea.

  * * *

  “So you already know Robbie Parker,” Daniel said as he reversed the car out of the car park.

  I shrugged. “Not really. He asked for a glass of water one day when he had been knocking things about a bit, and because he looked really hot I offered him a beer instead.”

  “It’ll be interesting to see next door when it’s finished although I’m afraid our cottage is going to look a bit pathetic beside it.”

  I didn’t tell him I had already seen the plans and was green with envy. Instead I just shrugged again and turned to talk to Leah who was securely strapped into her baby seat.

  When I turned back to the front again the car was just beginning to climb Packhorse Hill. I frowned. “Where are we going?”

  “I think it’s time we shared some of our memories with Leah, don’t you?”

  I laughed, and Robbie, Millie, and the house next door were all forgotten as I tuned into Daniel’s quirky take on fatherhood. “Personally I think she’s a bit young although they do say children grow up faster these days.”

  He c
huckled as our old car made that peculiar whining noise it always makes when it approaches the brow of a hill. “Not Leah. We’re going to keep her locked up until she’s at least twenty-five.”

  “A bit different from me then.”

  He glanced across at me and I could tell from the expression on his face that we were caught up in the middle of the same memories: me at sixteen, hanging around the shop waiting for Daniel to finish in the days when he was still an assistant, and then both of us lost for words as I pretended I was just passing; or me at seventeen refusing to consider any job unless it was close to Mapleby and Daniel. There were other memories too, more intimate ones. Daniel and me sharing our first kiss behind the barn when he walked me home from the cinema. The first time we made love, in a sunlit hollow at the top of Packhorse Hill, our suntanned legs sprawled across the blanket we had brought specially.

  “Ah, but you matured exceptionally early,” he teased as we trundled down a rough track towards our past. When he finally stopped the car we unclipped our seat belts and turned to look at one another.

  “You’ve hardly changed at all, you know,” Daniel reached out a hand and traced the curve of my lips before letting his fingers dip further, to the scooped neckline of my t-shirt. As they whispered across my skin I felt a tide of passion rising and suddenly I was eighteen again, and unable to think about anything except making love to Daniel. He saw it in my eyes as he leaned forward to kiss me.

  “Bringing Leah was a mistake,” he murmured. “We should have left her with your mother.”

  From behind us Leah gurgled her agreement and we drew apart laughing. Showing our baby daughter some of the places where we had made our memories was one thing, demonstrating them to her was quite another.

  * * *

  We passed the rest of the afternoon sitting and admiring the view while Leah lay on a blanket and watched the leaves flutter overhead before turning her attention to her favorite pastime of trying to wriggle forward.

  “We’ll need to pick up a playpen from the barn soon because it won’t be long before she’s crawling,” I told Daniel.

  He watched her for a minute or so, his arm around my shoulder, which is where it had been for most of the afternoon. Then he jumped up and held out his hand. “There’s no time like the present.”

  I let him pull me to my feet. He was right. It would be better to get Leah used to the playpen before she could crawl because then she might be happy to stay inside it while I did my chores. The thought of her careering around the cottage with no possibility of restraint didn’t bear thinking about.

  Between us we collected all the paraphernalia that comes with a small baby and returned to the car. Then, with Leah firmly strapped into her seat, Daniel pinned me to the side of the car and proceeded to kiss me so thoroughly that I wasn’t in any doubt about what was going to happen between us once Leah was in bed and asleep. Enjoying the titillation, I let my hands and tongue match his promise until our daughter’s impatient wail from inside the car brought us back to the here and now. With a rueful grin, Daniel slid into the driver’s seat. “Maybe we could get her to use the playpen this evening,” he said.

  We didn’t though because, as is often the way in the Pavalak family, there was a crisis. This time it was Grandma. Apparently she had had some sort of funny turn in the middle of her lunch and become so agitated that the nurse had been forced to call out the duty doctor. She had called Ma at the same time and asked her to come over straight away. By the time we rocked up at the farm, full of sunshine, passion and fresh air, Ma was on the phone to Pa giving him an update. Several of my sisters were sitting at the kitchen table and a posse of very noisy children were running riot in the garden. When I walked in Pa waved me over to where he was standing beside the sink as he continued to talk to Ma.

  “You don’t need to do that because she and Daniel have just arrived. I’ll pass you over so you can tell her yourself.”

  Mystified, I took the phone. Ma sounded relieved on the other end. “Thank goodness you’ve turned up, Rachel. We’ve been calling your cell phone for hours.”

  “Sorry Ma, but we were on Packhorse Hill and there’s no signal up there.”

  She wasn’t interested. All she wanted to know was how soon I could get to the nursing home.

  “I can come now,’ I said, bewildered by the sudden urgency and aware, too, that at least one of my sisters was feeling aggrieved that it was me and not her who Grandma wanted.

  * * *

  When I reached the nursing home Ma was pacing up and down outside, her cell phone clamped to her ear. She cut the call when she saw me and came hurrying over to where I’d parked the car.

  “She’s on about Rose again,” she said, “and as you’re the only one who seems to have a clue what she’s talking about, maybe you can decipher what she’s trying to say.

  My heart sank. I had managed to forget about Rose for the whole afternoon while Daniel and I began to pick up where we’d left off when Leah was born, but now, when every nerve ending in my body was taut with anticipation, Rose had come calling. I sighed as I followed Ma into the building. So much for romance. So much for passion.

  Grandma was sitting up in bed, her eyes tight shut and her cheeks a hectic red. Her thin, blue-veined hands were plucking at the bed covers as she repeated a short phrase over and over again. Ma gestured towards her in despair. “She’s been doing that since two o’clock this afternoon and nobody knows what she’s trying to say.”

  I walked across the room and perched on the edge of the bed. “Hello Grandma. Has Rose been talking to you again?”

  She opened her eyes immediately and stared at me. “Rose?”

  “No, Grandma, it’s Rachel. I’m Rachel.”

  She stopped pulling at the bedcovers and seized both my hands with surprising strength. “Rose is in trouble and she wants you to know.”

  Now I was at a loss too. I might be able to get Grandma to talk to me about Rose but it didn’t mean I could decipher her cryptic messages. My confusion must have shown in my face because, with that sudden lucidity that occasionally visited her poor confused brain, she shook my hands impatiently. “Read it,” she said, her voice as clear as a bell.

  “So that’s what she’s been trying to say all afternoon,” Ma said, coming to stand at the foot of the bed. “It’s those damned diaries, Rachel. Why did you ever tell her about them?”

  I knew I hadn’t but I wasn’t about to tell Ma that. Besides, how could I say that a woman from another century was visiting Leah as well as having conversations with Grandma? If I didn’t want everyone to start to look at me sideways again then it was better keep that to myself.

  I patted Grandma’s gnarly old fingers. “I’ll read it,” I promised and then watched the rosy flush fade from her cheeks as she fell asleep.

  * * *

  By the time Ma and I got back to the farm, Pa and my sisters had pulled together a scratch meal that mainly consisted of bread and cheese. I tucked in while Ma brought them up-to-date. When she finished, everyone except Daniel rounded on me. With my mouth full they had to wait for an explanation. When I gave it, I made it sound as plausible as possible.

  “All I’ve done is shown her some of those old photos like the nurse suggested. Unfortunately, they seem to have triggered a fixation on Granny Rose.”

  I didn’t need to say another word because Ma took over, explaining how I had found the diaries too, and talked to Gran about those as well. “And now that’s all she thinks about,” she said.

  I didn’t waste my breath trying to correct her.

  “It really is too bad that you’ve stirred her up like this, Rachel. Surely you should have handed those diaries over to a professional, to someone who knows what they’re doing.” Hester seemed to be speaking for almost everyone sitting around the table because they all glared at me with varying degrees of disapproval. Ma, however, stood up for me.

  “It’s not Rachel’s fault. She’s just been doing what we all agreed, and she’
s already got more out of Grandma than any of the rest of us have in a long while.”

  “So what’s going to happen now the damage is done?” Hester asked sourly, clinging onto her belief that it was somehow my fault regardless.

  “I guess I’m going to carry on reading the diaries,” I said, and reached for another piece of bread.

  Chapter Eleven

  We were late home of course so Leah was fractious because she had fallen asleep while we were still at the farm and had been woken up twice, once when we strapped her into her car seat, and then again when we got home. By the time I finally settled her, Daniel was half asleep in front of the television and I had all but forgotten that rush of passion from earlier in the afternoon in my eagerness to discover what had upset Grandma. I changed into my very unsexy pajamas, ignored the milk stain on my dressing gown, and headed for the kitchen where I’d put Rose’s diaries in a drawer.

  Opening one at random I noted with interest that the handwriting had changed yet again. Written in black ink, it was bolder somehow, more mature. I turned to the first page where Rose appeared to be continuing a conversation she had obviously started in an earlier entry.

  2nd September

  Arthur and I picked blackberries on Packhorse Hill today. May says I shouldn’t waste my time on him because he isn’t ambitious. Honestly, ever since she started walking out with Archie Meads she has an opinion about everything, including how I should live my life.

  I put it back on the pile while I made a mug of cocoa for Daniel and one for me, then, balancing the whole lot on a tray, I carried it through to our small sitting room. Daniel was too engrossed in his program to do more than mutter his thanks but for once I didn’t care because I was on a mission. Making myself comfortable on the sofa, I reached for the first diary and flicked through to the last page I’d read, the one where Rose was hoping she would eventually get a bedroom of her own.