Chapter Twenty

I was standing in Boots looking glumly at the shelves waiting for super strength conditioning extra volume mousse to be invented … and lemon cuticle cream … and high definition lip liner … and summer glow body moisturiser … and lustrous length waterproof mascara … and smoky grey eyeshadow … and skin serum … and whitening toothpaste … and long-lasting luxury lipstick, and gloss, and concealer, and … oh … everything really.

‘Hi Rosie!’

I turned around to see Carol standing there clutching a package. ‘Home perm,’ she said. ‘Going round to do my mum’s for her.’

‘Oh right.’

‘How are you then, Rosie? Still enjoying The News?’

What do I say? Do I say, ‘Hello Carol I’m in love with your husband and I think he might fancy me’? or, ‘I’d really love it there, Carol, if I could just work with your husband all day, gaze into his eyes and get a bit too close to him as he explains something in the diary to me?’

No, you’re right, I didn’t.

‘Fine, fine.’

‘I heard Peggy got married to George.’

‘Yes, just a few days ago.’

‘Well, she’s a dark horse, isn’t she? They kept that quiet. Did you go to the wedding?’

‘Yes. It was low-key, you know, but very nice.’

I was torn. I longed to have a coffee with Carol, sit and gossip, tell her all the details, the way I would with Caz. And I wanted her take on it all too. Not that I would tell her the Henfield involvement. I couldn’t believe everyone would have been as po-faced about it as the Browns. Carol was good company, kind and funny … I wanted her as a friend.

And I wanted her husband. And if I felt that so strongly, how could I be friendly with Carol? She was standing smiling at me. She might have mousy hair and crooked teeth, but that was still Caz’s cheeky grin, and I missed her.

‘Got time for a coffee? Look – no kids!’

Well, why not?

I abandoned any hope of buying anything I wanted and followed Carol out of Boots. We slid into a booth at Silvino’s.

‘Come on then,’ said Carol, ‘tell me about the wedding. I didn’t even know Peggy was going out with George. She must be six or seven years older than him.’

‘Six.’

‘Well,’ she grinned, ‘he obviously knows what it’s all about then. Never had Peggy down as a cradle snatcher, still he’ll have plenty of energy for her. So tell me all about it. Did they have a do?’

‘Yes, at The Fleece.’

‘Oh very grand.’

So I told her about Peggy’s dress and jacket, and about the meal and the ‘champagne’.

‘Ooh,’ said Carol, hungrily. ‘There’s posh. When Billy and I got wed we just had sandwiches and cake at my mum’s, while Billy’s gran sat and looked as if there was a bad smell under her nose.’

‘Didn’t she approve?’

‘No, thought it was all my fault. But, as my dad said, it takes two to tango … Still it’s worked out OK and even Billy’s gran thinks I’m all right now, and she worships Libby, really spoils her.’

She spooned some of the froth from her coffee in its shallow Pyrex cup. ‘Have they gone on a honeymoon then?’

‘Yes, a few days in London. Peggy has an aunt who lives there, so they’ll see the sights, but they’re back tomorrow. George is in work on Monday.’

‘Where are they going to live?’

‘With George’s mum. I’m not sure where she lives now, but I know it’s in the line of the bypass, so they’ll all be moving up to The Meadows. It looks as if everyone will be up there.’

‘That’s good. I like Peggy. It’ll be nice having her near. Anyway … tada! I’ve finished the dress!’

The dress. The dress she was making to go to the mayor’s ball with Billy.

‘Oh great. Does it look good?’

‘Yes I’m pleased with it. In the end I had to take it up to my mum’s to finish it, I just couldn’t get the light in our house.’

The little dark house with no electricity and a smell of earth and damp.

‘Does Billy like it?’

‘He hasn’t seen it yet. I’ve decided he’s not going to see it until we go out. I’ve got it all worked out. My mum’s coming down to ours to babysit, but we’re going to go up there at teatime, so we can have baths and I can wash my hair and dry it properly, not like in our house with the tin tub in front of the fire. I’ll take Billy’s suit up there so he can come in from football and have a bath too and we can go out from my mum’s. See, all organised. I’m really looking forward to it.’

‘It should be a good evening.’

‘It’s a shame you can’t come, Rosie. They’ve got a proper dance orchestra and everything.’

‘Haven’t been invited. Don’t know the right people.’

‘And at the end apparently they have a great net of balloons that come down from the ceiling. It’s going to be lovely.’ Her eyes were shining. I thought of Caz. Caz would hate going to a mayor’s ball. Wild horses wouldn’t drag her there. But for Carol it was the height of sophistication, the social event of the year. I wanted her to enjoy it. I tried to forget that she was going with Billy and just hoped she would have a good time.

‘Oooh, it will be lovely when we’re up at The Meadows and can have our own bathroom. I shall have a bath every night, with lots of bubbles like a film star.’

I laughed.

‘What’s funny?’ asked Carol.

‘My friend Caz – the one who’s so like you. She loves relaxing in the bath, and the funny thing is, she switches the lights off and just lights scented candles around the edge of the bath.’

‘What’s the point of that if she’s got electric light?’

‘It’s more romantic.’

Carol snorted. ‘She should try it in the tub in front of the fire with a draught howling under the back door and mice scurrying past. That would be romance for her. Anyway, this won’t get the baby bathed, time I wasn’t here.’

She picked up her shopping bag.

‘Maybe Phil could get you an invite to the ball and you could both come with me and Billy? That would be good, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, maybe,’ I said, but dismissed the thought instantly. In any case, I wanted to keep Phil at arm’s length, as a friend. I think he was beginning to get ideas.

‘Are you seeing Phil this weekend?’

‘No. Well, we haven’t arranged anything.’

He’d asked me out for Saturday night and I’d turned him down vaguely. I regretted it now. Without Peggy, the house was already feeling empty.

‘Blooming heck! It’s raining and I haven’t got a brolly!’

Standing in the doorway of the café, Carol tugged a scarf from her coat pocket and tied it over her hair. Then, with her head down, she dashed out into the crowds.

‘Tara Rosie. Maybe see you in the week!’

I pulled my coat around me and splashed through the puddles, headed for home.

There was no smell of cooking, not even the lingering smell of something drying up in the oven. Instead Mrs Brown was looking busy and harassed.

‘You can have bacon and eggs and a bit of mash for your supper. I’m making a start on Peggy’s room.’

‘Making a start on what?’

‘Well we’re going to be moving soon. That first phase is just about finished up at The Meadows. Frank heard from his mate Les that the decorators are starting on Monday and that’s the last thing to be done. They’ll be allocating them soon. I don’t suppose we’ll get first phase, but we’ll probably get second if they want us out of the way to start on their precious new road. And there’s a lot to be done.’

I realised she had been struggling with an old suitcase, on which the zip had broken as it was tied together with a dressing-gown cord.

‘All these are clothes ready for the jumble sale. I’ll leave it in the scullery and if anyone comes around – I think the Guides are due one day soon – just give them that will you, love. Now where’s Frank? He’s late this evening. Just as well as I’m not ready for him.’ And she struggled with the case through the kitchen and into the scullery.

With that, Mr Brown came in, stamping the rain off his shoes.

‘You’re late, Frank,’ said his wife.

‘Yes and for a very good reason.’

There was a silence.

‘Well aren’t you going to ask me what that reason is?’

‘Oh go on then,’ said Mrs Brown, not looking at him, but tipping potatoes into the sink and turning the tap on. ‘Why are you late?’

‘I’ve bought a car.’

There was a very satisfying clatter as the potato knife dropped into the stone sink too. ‘You’ve done what?’

‘I’ve bought a little car, a Morris Minor.’ Mr Brown looked very pleased with himself.

‘A car! Us?’

‘Why not? I’ve been thinking about it ever since it took us all day to get to that christening and all night to get back from it. If we had a little car, we could have done it in an hour.’

‘Can we afford it?’

‘I had a bit of money put by for our Peg’s wedding and well, in the end it didn’t cost as much as I thought, so let’s spend it on something we can enjoy.’

‘What do you know about cars? Do you know how to drive one?’

‘Course I do. Learnt in the army, didn’t I?’

She bombarded him with questions over kind, colour, cost.

‘And have you got it here now?’ Mrs Brown darted out to the front, to see if it was in the street.

‘No, no. It will take a few days to get the paperwork arranged and everything done.’

‘Well, well,’ said Mrs Brown, finally absorbing the idea. ‘Fancy that. A new house, a new baby, and a new car, all at the same time. We are going up in the world, aren’t we?’

‘If you want to put it like that,’ said Mr Brown, looking pleased with himself. ‘Right then, where’s my supper?’

Mrs Brown scuttled back into the scullery and started speedily peeling potatoes.

As we sat down to bacon and egg, with the egg yolk mopped up by the mash to fill any gaps, Mrs Brown was still dreaming of the difference a car would make.

‘We’ll be able to go to the seaside. And for drives out in the country. Oh, Frank, we could go on a holiday, a touring holiday. You see it in the papers, don’t you, in the wedding reports. “The couple will spend their honeymoon on a touring holiday of the West Country.” We could do that -a touring holiday along the open road.’

She cleared our plates and brought out some fruit cake for pudding. ‘Cornwall, now I’ve always wanted to go to Cornwall, they say it’s very quaint. Can we go to Cornwall, Frank?’

‘Why not?’ Mr Brown was beaming like an indulgent uncle.

Janice came in later to finish the fruit cake and her English homework (‘Describe Shakespeare’s use of the imagery of blood in Macbeth’), and was very impressed to hear about the new car.

‘After all, Mr Brown,’ she said solemnly, ‘we are the New Elizabethans, and we have to explore our world.’

Mr Brown laughed, ‘Well pet, I think I explored more than enough of it in the desert with Monty, but yes, we’ll explore a bit more now.’