Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams (24 page)

‘Gah?’ came out. Clearly disorientated, he stared at her through bloodshot eyes. His face was bleary and unshaven, and a half-empty whisky bottle and a dirty glass sat next to him on the wooden kitchen table.

‘Now now,’ said Rosie, suddenly overcome by a wave of sympathy for this young wreck of a man. ‘What’s this?’

The apparition blinked at her, then rubbed at his bristle. A practical person, Rosie filled a glass of water at the sink – it was freezing cold – and handed it to him. He drank it in one gulp and his eyes gradually began to focus.

‘Stephen Lakeman,’ said Rosie. ‘This is getting out of hand.’

Stephen sighed. ‘Oh
God
. What do I have to do to get people to leave me alone?’

‘Your physiotherapy exercises?’ said Rosie tartly.

Stephen looked at her. ‘Are you the one who’s just turned up in the village, can’t ride a bike and is flirting with all the local men?’

‘I have no idea why they say the countryside is a hotbed of gossip,’ said Rosie, huffing. ‘And I am
not
flirting with all the local men.’

‘Maybe that’s why you’re in my kitchen,’ said Stephen wonderingly.

‘No, it is not. I’m in your kitchen because I have some antibiotics for you and I need to make sure you take them.’

‘How will that work then?’

Rosie took a look at the whisky bottle.

‘How often is that going on?’ she said softly.

Stephen gave her a challenging stare.

‘Why? Planning on what to haul me off for first – leg rehab or booze?’

‘I’m sure I can find somewhere that’ll do both,’ said Rosie. ‘You won’t like it.’

Stephen held her gaze for a long time. His eyes were very blue and direct, and the shadows underneath them contrasted with his too-pale complexion and black stubble. Rosie didn’t care. She looked around. Once again, the kitchen was tidy, with one plate in the sink and only the empty glass out.

‘Mrs Laird looks after you,’ she observed. ‘So obviously
some
help is OK.’

‘Why are you here again?’ said Stephen. ‘Is this some volunteer programme for nosy people who like to be annoying?’

‘What would you care?’ said Rosie. ‘Just drink another bottle of whisky, that will make it all go away.’

Stephen breathed a heavy sigh and glanced longingly at the kettle.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Are you going to make me make it?’

Rosie weighed up the options. Ideally, he ought to make it. Anything that got him moving around was a good thing. On the other hand, the chance to talk to him a little, find out what was going on might be better.

‘I’ll make it,’ she said finally.

In fact, Stephen had to get up to go to the loo. She pretended to be busying herself at the sink, but instead watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was very thin, even
though his frame was big – she felt, suddenly, as if she should be feeding him up, like Lilian. His navy blue T-shirt was hanging off him, his flat stomach visible as it flapped up. But though his torso looked young and taut, his gait was an old man’s. It was pitiful to see.

Ten minutes later, with the tea brewing nice and strongly in a brown pot, Rosie had found fresh milk, an untouched box of eggs and an unopened packet of bacon in the fridge. She lit the range (which took a couple of goes; Rosie had never used an Aga before), located a frying pan and started to cook up what she decided to call brunch. Stephen came back to find the kitchen warm and smelling good; Rosie turned round to see him scrubbed and looking a lot better, in a clean T-shirt, with wet hair.

‘That’s more like it,’ she remarked.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘I was hungry,’ said Rosie. ‘I’m eating your food. You are quite at liberty to attempt to perform a citizen’s arrest.’

Stephen sniffed. ‘And is that all for you? Is that how you keep your sweetshop-based figure?’

‘Can we keep the personal remarks to your health please?’

‘Sorry,’ said Stephen, looking a bit sheepish, as if he’d overstepped the mark and knew it. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your figure. In fact …’

‘
Ahem
,’ said Rosie.

There was a silence while Rosie dished up two platefuls. The bacon hadn’t been in a packet, but simply wrapped in wax paper. Rosie wondered if it was from a pig he had actually known. That would have made her feel a bit awkward, until she started cooking it. It smelled heavenly. She set down two huge earthenware
mugs filled with strong tea. She’d added sugar to Stephen’s. In her experience, everyone liked sugar in their tea really. Anything other than milk and two was just a nod to convention. She saw Stephen look at it, weighing up his need to be ornery and difficult against his obvious hunger and a bit of a hangover.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I won’t tell anyone that you lowered yourself to actually eating. I’ll tell them you wouldn’t talk to me and turned away and went boo-hoo in a corner.’

‘Is that meant to shock me out of my latent depression?’ said Stephen lazily. ‘Congratulations. You’re clearly an eminent psychiatrist. Why didn’t I think of that?’

‘No, it’s meant to get you to eat your breakfast,’ said Rosie, putting out some ketchup.

Sighing heavily, Stephen sat down, carefully favouring his injured leg. Once again, Rosie found herself desperate to take a look at it. He was being so stupid and bloody-minded, as if ignoring the problem would make it go away. And it was so pointless and attention-seeking. She wondered idly if this was what having children was like, as she put her hand on his fork.

‘But first,’ she said, handing over the antibiotic.

‘More pills?’ groaned Stephen. ‘You came all this way just to give me more pills?’

‘No,’ said Rosie. ‘I came for your wit, charm and conversation. Now, do I have to make my arm into an aeroplane?’

Stephen looked longingly at his breakfast.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Are you sure?’ said Rosie. ‘Bbbbbrrrrmmmm … bbrrm …’

‘Stop it! Shut up!’

At first Rosie thought he was joking with her, then she realised, somehow, that he was genuinely distressed.

‘Could you stop that noise please?’ He pulled himself together, then, quickly and without comment, swallowed the pill and started to eat his breakfast, shovelling it in like a man who hadn’t eaten properly for a long time.

Rosie sat back, staring at him. There had been genuine anger – no, fear, of course. Anger was just fear made loud. About what, her pretending to be an aeroplane? That was daft. And serious too. He needed help.

They sat in silence, eating, Stephen’s ears a little pink as he cleared his plate at rapid speed, then sat back swallowing his tea. No words were spoken till Rosie finally said, ‘Thank you, Rosie, for the delicious breakfast.’

‘Thanks,’ mumbled Stephen, who had gone completely into himself again. Rosie picked up the pills.

‘One three times a day with meals,’ she said. ‘I’m going to talk to Mrs Laird and make her pop in every five minutes if I have to.’

‘Please don’t do that,’ said Stephen. ‘I need some time to myself.’

Rosie thought that was the precise opposite of what he needed.

‘And you have to finish the packet,’ she said. ‘If you don’t, it’s pointless, and it makes antibiotics weaker and less likely to work. That means, now you’ve started the course, that you have to finish it, or you’re basically killing future generations with invisible bugs.’

‘Is that so?’ said Stephen, with a twinge of his former sarcasm.

‘Yes,’ said Rosie. ‘And also, it takes five seconds for infections to take hold in poor-healing wounds, of which you undoubtedly have one. And if you want to be alone, you don’t want an infected wound. Because you will be spending
months lying in a bed surrounded by old men telling you their prostate problems and coughing all night every night.’

Rosie listened to the quiet of the house for a second, took in the small piles of books around the room.

‘I just don’t think you would like it.’

Stephen sat still, and Rosie took the plates over and put them in the dishwasher, as he made a half-hearted attempt to tell her not to do that. Then she picked up her bag. Once again, she got the feeling that, although he couldn’t possibly articulate it, he would rather she didn’t go – better a bossy, judgemental presence in his kitchen than no one at all.

Rosie turned towards him, just at the same moment as he turned towards her, and they found themselves in awkward proximity. It had looked like Stephen was about to say something, but instead Rosie took a step back and he stopped himself. So she leaned towards him instead.

‘This … hiding up here,’ she said, softly but clearly. ‘It won’t make it go away, you know. There are ways to make it go away, and I can help you with them, but you’re going to have to reach out to somebody. At some point.’

Even as she said it, she didn’t quite know why; after all, she’d be gone in a few weeks, once she’d sorted out the shop and got someone else to run it. Lilian was looking better already. Gerard needed her … Well, maybe not needed her exactly, but missed her. She missed her home. She needed to go home, not waste time here.

Anyway, it hardly mattered, as Stephen didn’t bother to reply.

Chapter Nine

There is no doubt about it, with the possible exception of rock, which is unpleasant in any case and only truly useful as a sword substitute for small boys, peanut brittle is the worst killer as far as teeth are concerned. Which would be absolutely all right, if it wasn’t such an average slice of confectionery. Its continued existence in a world of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, possibly the only good invention to come out of America since the potato, remains a mystery, perhaps a nostalgic throwback to pre-decimal money. The crunchiness of the toffee is liable to send shards into the gums, or at least make the experience painful, while the peanuts have the ability to root in between the teeth and nest there, attracting bacteria like a coral reef, for weeks on end. Peanut brittle, as well as being slightly unpleasant to eat, is probably responsible for more dental visits than any other sweet, with the possible exception of the unwisely bitten molar-cracking gobstopper. Still, what is life without a little danger?

1943

If there were a worse way, a worst possible way for Lilian to see Henry Carr again, she couldn’t begin to imagine it. It was gruesomely, disgustingly horrible; the connection forever in her mind between the man she loved and the brother she had lost would, whenever she looked back on it, make her burn with shame
.

Three days after the telegram, the shop was still shut, the drapes down. The people of Lipton, whether they had a penny to rub together or not, had been by, leaving pies and cabbages on their doorstep; letters and notes of condolence were arriving. Alerting Gordon and Terence junior was a horrible task made worse by an army bureaucracy that, despite having to do the same thing thousands of times a day, still endeavoured to make it as soul-sapping and difficult as possible. Finally, from the private phone box at the post office, she spoke to a kindly woman who promised to link her message through to Tripoli, where Gordon was stationed with a tank unit, but had less luck with Terence, shepherding the merchant fleet on the Atlantic, impossible to contact in any way. After an hour, Lilian stumbled out into the street, shocked, suddenly, to find the town the same as always; the same villagers going about their business, when she had been trying to connect to an entire world; a whole world in torment and disarray. Of course Lipton was affected by the war. They all were. But until now, it had been possible to carry on, to take up the slack left by the men, to husband the land, to feel the sun on your face, to think about the normal, everyday events of living
.

Until now. Now everything was rotten and stupid and changed and no one appeared to be paying the least bit of attention. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they know there was a war on and anyone could die and anything could happen, and everything was awful? Suddenly, in the middle of the street, without thinking how it would look, Lilian burst into heart-rending sobs
.