Mr. Rosenblum's List: Or Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman (26 page)

When Jack reached home, he did not park in the garage or lovingly cover the Jag with the horse blanket but stalled it on the driveway and went straight inside. The house was quite still; Sadie must have given up waiting for him and gone to bed. He hoped that his late return might have prepared her for the worst. Only a few hours ago he had left in high spirits, full of optimism that a well-placed backhander would secure the necessary planning permissions and work could start again. He felt ill at the thought of telling her what had transpired. Guiltily, he remembered the last time he had sold her house, in London, over a year before. He wanted to pursue a dream and had been relentless in his ambition. Everything had been sacrificed for his golf course and finishing his list: the London life, the successful factory. They had given up their friends and Sadie had even abandoned her kosher kitchen for him. Shamefully he considered how poorly he had repaid her – he could not make it up to her, as he had nothing left. After nearly twenty years in England, he was once again as poor as he had been when they first arrived, only now he was old and without hope.

Jack wandered forlornly into his study to write one last letter, and for the final time he pulled out a piece of heavy white paper from the sturdy desk. He grabbed his whisky and drank straight from the bottle as he wrote.

Dear Mr Jones,

My heart is broken. After all this time, after all my letters, how could you agree to design Sir William Waegbert’s course? You did not even write to tell me yourself. Sir William Waegbert has betrayed me. But your betrayal is worse. I thought golfers were honourable men. True gentlemen.

I am finished but alas my golf course will never be finished. I am empty. There is nothing left at all.

This is my last letter.

Jack Rose

With that, Jack sealed the envelope, put it out to be posted and wearily climbed the stairs to bed. Sadie was fast asleep, sprawled on top of the covers, her hair fanned out across the pillow and her mouth slightly open. Her breath made a curl of hair move up and down with each exhalation. Jack slotted his body in beside hers, slid an arm around her waist and laid his head on her pillow.

‘I am so sorry,’ he whispered.

When they heard the awful news, the village suddenly remembered that Sir William was poor and had wasted his fortune on horses. They discovered that they had always suspected him; they guessed that the estate was bankrupt and Lady Waegbert gambled. With each telling the tales grew; Sir William turned into a vagabond who owed all the shopkeepers money and had letched over every daughter in the village. Lady Waegbert, it was said, was forced to pay her vast gaming debts in obscene favours, but none of this comforted Jack – he listened to half of it and believed less. It could not help him now. He had no pity left for Sir William – he needed it all for himself.

Jack lost his exuberance like a balloon the day after a birthday. He sagged and stooped so that Sadie felt she was watching him wither before her eyes. At first she baked him ‘cakes to heal a broken heart’ but either the recipe was faulty or he would not eat enough, not even when she decorated them with sugared violets. The course was silent; no one returned to complete the last fairway and the flags drooped in the stillness of the May afternoon. Inconsolable, Jack wished that the fields and hedgerows would acknowledge his despair. He wanted the flowers to shrivel on the bushes and the cherry blossom to fall to the ground in a pink snow shower, but to his disgust the starlings continued to sing, and the fish swam around the pond like slices of oranges amongst the weeds. He refused to see any of his friends and when Basset arrived to offer words of condolence he stole out to the course and would not be found.

 
Determined to reason with him, Sadie hunted him down to his favourite spot, hunched on a patch of grass by the fifth hole. In a single week, the fairway grass had sprouted thick and lush, and barely resembled anymore the neat crop of a golf course. Jack’s trousers were dark with dew and he tore the petals off a daisy, all the while muttering incoherently under his breath. Sadie smoothed her skirt and sat down carefully beside him, wishing that she had remembered to bring a Mackintosh square, ‘Why don’t we stay in the village?’

Jack looked at her with mild surprise but said nothing.

‘I mean, the house must be sold, but there might be enough left over to buy another place, a small cottage perhaps.’ Sadie took his hand and rubbed the back of it with her rough, gardener’s palm. ‘We could be happy in a little whitewashed cottage. There are only two of us after all and I’m sure we could afford a box room so that Elizabeth could visit.’

Jack gave an unhappy cry, ‘I can’t do it, Sadie. I can’t.’ He could not bear to remain and watch new people desecrate his golf course, his dream of England. ‘And really darling, what can we afford to buy? We’ve not even two hundred pounds.’

He tenderly removed a red money spider dangling from a curl of her grey hair. Undeterred, Sadie reached into her apron pocket and took out a copy of the
Blackmore Vale Gazette,
which she
unfolded to reveal an advertisement in bold letters. ‘See here.
Wilson’s Housing Corporation is delighted to offer for sale charming bungalows with super meadow views. All mod cons. Deposit only one hundred pounds.
You see Jack, we can afford to stay.’

He tried to suppress a shudder and failed. With a bitter laugh, he took the paper from her and read the advertisement for himself.

‘So, after all this time and effort, all we can manage is one of those concrete huts despoiling the water meadows. I can’t do it. I can’t. I’m sorry, dolly. I gambled and I lost.’

He did not need to say it. They both knew that the price of defeat was to leave, never to return.

Sadie did not raise the topic again and, since they must go, it was her task to organise the unhappy journey. She booked the removal company, began to pack up boxes and wrote to Elizabeth of the change in circumstance, but even then none of it seemed quite real. Slowly, they began to change the habits formed over the last year; they stopped sitting outside in the evening – in the city they could no longer stretch to the expense of a garden and so must wean themselves off fresh air.

‘It will be good to be back in town,’ said Sadie, trying her best to be cheerful, as they sat in the airless living room.

‘Yes,’ answered Jack. ‘I’ll go to the beigel shop each morning. No more stupid plans. No more lists.’

Sadie stifled a sigh and went back to packing boxes. She did not know what to do with Jack – his unhappiness was as relentless as his cheery optimism had been before and she longed for the old Jack to return. There was a knock at the front door that nearly made her drop the china bell she was holding. ‘Can you get it? I’m busy.’

Jack scowled. ‘I don’t want to see anyone.’

With a huff, Sadie abandoned the packing box and went to the front door, where Curtis was standing on the porch.

‘I ’as come t’ see Mister Rose-in-Bloom.’

‘Of course, come in,’ said Sadie ignoring her husband’s stipulation, rather hoping that the old man might be able to raise his spirits, but Curtis hesitated, pointing to his mud-caked feet.

‘They is awful mucky.’

‘Don’t worry. We’re leaving – let the new people clean it up.’

She ushered him into the living room but Jack had gone, leaving his half-finished whisky tumbler on the floor. She puffed up a cushion on an armchair and motioned Curtis to sit. ‘May I get you a drink?’

‘No thank ee.’

Curtis patted his pocket where he kept his hip flask of special cider. They sat there awkwardly, talking about the weather.

‘Lovely and sunny.’

‘Aye.’

‘Though a trifle windy.’

‘Aye.’

Curtis took a swig from his flask and offered it to her, but politely she declined.

‘Let me find Jack.’

She went upstairs to the bedroom, to find Jack hiding in the corner.

‘What are you doing?’ she hissed, not wanting Curtis to overhear.

‘I won’t see any of them. I can’t bear it.’ He made no effort to keep his voice down.

Sadie frowned, folded her arms and shot him a look of fierce resolution. ‘Mr Curtis is a guest and you are being rude. The English are always polite and welcome their guests.’

She added this last part in an effort to cajole him but Jack merely scowled at her and climbed into bed fully clothed, pulling the covers over his head.

‘I’m not English and I’m not coming down.’

The following evening Sadie persuaded Jack to take a walk around the village, on the condition that it was late and the working folk were all in bed. The cherry blossom was nearly finished and it landed in her hair like brown confetti. Blue tits zoomed to and fro taking constant meals to their hungry chicks. The grass had sprouted and was the glossy green of early summer and she could hear the evening rattle of crickets in the fields. Out of habit they walked down to the parish notice board at Charing Cross but they were both too melancholy to talk. A smart poster painted blue, white and red was carefully pinned to the board and the second she saw it Sadie tried to turn back. But it was too late: Jack began to read.

Coronation of Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth the Second,

Tuesday, 2nd June 1953.
Golf Match at

‘The Queen Elizabeth Golf Club’. Tee off 6 am.

Celebrations Pursebury Ash Village Hall, 11 sharpish.

Latecomers not admitted.

Due to unforeseen circumstances the golf match is cancelled.

 
He stood bewildered, then rubbed his eyes, gave a loud cough and cleared his throat, ‘Must be making hay nearby. Always bothers my eyes.’

Sadie looked at the forlorn figure and decided she could bear it no longer.

‘I’ve had enough, Jack. The sooner we leave the better. I think we should simply pack up and go.’

‘Yes. No goodbyes. We’ll just disappear.’

On her way through the kitchen garden, Sadie noticed her sweet peas were beginning to form their first buds – in a week or two they would be flowering. A month ago Jack had cut hazel twigs and hammered them into the earth for her to twine the fragile stems of the seedling sweet peas around. She had ground up seashells and sprinkled them about the young plants to ward off slugs and snails but now they would flower once and go to seed.

Jack brought the car to the front door and loaded the cases. Sadie came scurrying out, locked the front door with the giant iron key and hid it in a flowerpot. As the car bounced along the uneven driveway Jack peered into the gloomy trees on either side and tried to resist taking a last look at the house. This part of his life was finished. He mustn’t look back, he mustn’t.

The car snaked along the narrow lanes as the moon caught the last of the cow parsley frothing in the hedgerows and the white wings of flitting moths. The night was thick with the scent of flowers; every garden seemed to have a lilac tree bursting into bloom and the air was heavy with sweet lavender. In his pocket, Jack had the brown envelope with all their remaining money: one hundred and twenty-nine pounds six shillings and ten pence. He had already decided how to spend it – they would take a room at the Ritz. The old, confident Jack would have spent all his money in the belief that more would come, and so he decided to feign optimism in the hope that it would return to him, along with his good luck.

They drove in silence as the car purred towards the main roads and the city. ‘Do you want to stop for dinner?’ Jack asked, puncturing the quiet, as they passed through a small town crouching amongst the hills.

‘No. Let’s just get there.’

Dorset smoothed into Wiltshire; then they were in Hampshire and the first of the Home Counties. The roads widened and they began to see other cars. Villages became towns, and then swelled into suburbs, until at last they were in London. The streets crawled with vehicles: taxis honked and red double-deckers cut in front of them. The sky disappeared behind the buildings and it was a starless dark. The city was a vast construction sight: blocks of flats sprouted like weird concrete plants and great cranes hung over the West End. They tried to drive up the Mall but it was already cordoned off for the coronation. Thousands of flags lined every street and hung from all the windows, and each display in the elegant windows of Harrods and Fortnum’s celebrated the great event. They waited at lights on Piccadilly and then, at last, they reached the Ritz. A bellboy held open the car door and Jack handed his keys to a porter wearing a smart pillbox hat, who swiftly unloaded the car and then whisked it away to be parked out of sight.

Sadie wanted to be thrilled by the glamour and decadence of the hotel and managed a smile. ‘Well, this is a treat,
Broitgeber.
’

Jack offered her an arm and, each acting a game of jollity for the benefit of the other, they went into the smart lobby of the hotel. The tiled floor shone with polish, a new and sumptuous red carpet accentuated the curve of the room and a magnificent vase of exotic lilies rested on a circular table. They weren’t a native variety and must have been flown in especially at huge expense, decided Sadie. This opulence was not really to her taste – all she wanted was a comfortable bed. The clerk at reception, stiffly clad in tails, bowed his head as he saw Jack.

‘Good to see you again, sir. It’s been a while.’

‘Too long. It’s good to be back.’

‘Clarence.’

The receptionist gestured to the bellboy, who ushered them into the lift and shut the cage, which with the stutter of machinery carried them to the fourth floor. He showed them into an elegant room, the ceilings high and the bed neatly turned down. The moment he left them alone, Sadie flopped onto the soft mattress and nestled into a pile of cushions, and watched as Jack went to the window and wrenched it open. Instantly, the sound of the city poured into the room, along with a dark ooze of smog. Sadie coughed. ‘Close it, Jack.’

Jack shut the window with a bang. ‘I wanted some fresh air.’

‘Darling, this is London.’

He went to the drinks cupboard, ‘Toast our return?’