Welcome To Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop Of Dreams (3 page)

But still, at the end of that long, long day, when her mother had called, she couldn’t deny that she was annoyed, cross, feeling hard done by, backed into a corner and emotionally blackmailed – and a teeny tiny part curious.

Their last night had been sweet and sad all at once.

‘It’s only six weeks or so,’ she’d reminded Gerard.

‘Yes, so you say,’ he said. ‘You’ll be round-the-clock caring from now till the end of time. And I shall stay in London and waste away.’

Gerard rarely looked like he was going to waste away. Round of head and tummy, he had a cheery countenance, like he was always on the verge of a laugh or a joke. Or a sulk, but only Rosie got to see those.

Rosie sighed. ‘I wish you’d come. Just for a bit. A long weekend?’

‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ said Gerard. He hated any change to his routine.

Rosie looked at him. They’d been together so long now
she could barely remember when they first met. He’d been at her very first hospital, when she was just out of a nearly all-female nursing college and dizzy with excitement at having a little money and a job. She’d hardly noticed the small, jolly pharmacist, who turned up occasionally when drugs were late, or rare, or urgent, and always had a quip, although she saw he was kind to the patients. He’d make silly remarks to her and she dismissed them as standard banter, until one night he’d joined them on a work night out and made it clear that he was actually a bit more serious than that.

The other, more experienced nurses had giggled and nudged each other, but Rosie hadn’t minded about that. She was young, she’d had some pink wine and she was open to new people, and at the end of the night, when he offered to walk her to her tube stop, then tentatively took her hand, she suddenly felt alive with possibility, excited that someone could be so clear about fancying her. She’d often found that kind of thing confusing before; crushing helplessly on men who were out of her league, ignoring chaps with whom she later realised she might have had a chance.

Rosie often felt that she’d missed a meeting every other girl in the world had had, when they were about fourteen, in which they’d learned how the boyfriend-and-girlfriend thing actually worked. Maybe the PE teacher had taken everyone aside, like she did with the period-and-BO talk, and briefed them all thoroughly. This is how to tell who fancies you. This is how to talk to a guy you like without making a complete idiot of yourself. This is how to politely leave a one-night stand and find your way home. It was all a bit of
a mystery to Rosie, and everyone else seemed to find it so easy.

Meeting Gerard at twenty-three seemed like the answer to her prayers – a real, proper boyfriend with a good job. At least it would get her mum off her back for once. And right from the start he’d been keen. She was a bit taken aback to learn he was twenty-eight and still lived with his mother, but hey, everyone knew how expensive London was. And she enjoyed, at least to begin with, having someone to look after; it made her feel grown-up to buy him shirts, and to cook. When, after two years, he suggested they get a place together, she’d been absolutely delighted.

That had been six years ago. They’d bought a tiny grotty flat that they both felt too tired to do up. And since then, nothing. They were, if she was totally honest, in something of a rut, and perhaps a little separation might just … She felt disloyal for even thinking it. Even if her best friend Mike was always rolling his eyes. But still. It might just shake them up a little bit.

The bus driver grunted. Rosie jumped up, reaching for her bag, and followed his beard, which he’d nodded in the direction of a tiny pinpoint of light, far away. Rosie realised this must be the village, and that they must be at the top of a big hill. Cripes, where were they, the Alps?

That agency day, Rosie had been looking at the pepperoni pizza box and wondering for the thousandth time how she
could expand Gerard’s diet. She liked to cook but he complained that she didn’t make anything quite like his mum did, so they ate a lot of takeaways and ready meals. She was also thinking about her job.

She had absolutely loved working in A&E as an auxiliary nurse. It was busy and exhausting and sometimes emotional, but she was never bored and always challenged; occasionally ground down by working at the sharp end of the NHS, but often inspired. She loved it. So of course they closed the unit. Only temporarily, then they were going to reopen it as something called a Minor Injuries Unit, and she was offered the chance either to stay on for that, which didn’t sound very exciting, or to relocate, which would mean a longer commute. She’d suggested to Gerard that they move, but he wanted to be close to his own hospital, which was fair enough. Even though an extra bedroom, maybe a little bit of outdoor space, might be … Gerard didn’t like change, though. She knew that about him.

So, in the meantime, she was doing agency work, filling in for sick or absent auxiliaries wherever she was required, often at only minutes’ notice. It had a reputation of being easy money, but Rosie knew now that it was the opposite. It was a grind – everyone used the agency staff to do the absolutely crappiest jobs that they might ordinarily have had to do themselves – the travelling was murder, she often worked double shifts with no days off in between, and every day was like the first day at school, when everyone else knew where things were and how everything worked, and you were left scrabbling in their wake, desperately trying to catch up.

Then, that day, the phone rang.

‘
Darling!
’

Rosie’s mother Angie – there was only twenty-two years between them, so sometimes she was Mum and sometimes she was Angie, depending on whether Rosie felt like the younger or the older person in the conversation – still, after two years, found it difficult sometimes to coordinate telephone calls from Australia.

When Rosie called, early in the morning was usually best, but sometimes she caught her mum and her younger brother Pip at the thin end of a long afternoon’s barbecuing and beer-drinking in the sunshine, and the children would be yelling down the phone too. Rosie felt sorry for them – she’d only seen Shane, Kelly and Meridian once and they were constantly forced to make conversation with their auntie Rosie, who for all they knew might have a huge wart and grey hair – and it was tricky to chat. But now, with Gerard having his pudding, a large bowl of Frosties, it wasn’t a bad time at all.

‘Hi, Mum.’

Four, Rosie had recently found herself thinking darkly. Four. That’s how many of her friends had met someone and got married during the period she and Gerard had been dating, before they’d even moved in together. And she’d ignored every single alarm bell. She’d been young and carefree when they met, it seemed now (though at the time she’d been desperate to meet someone). Looking at it today, from the wrong side of thirty, the idea that all that time and all that love might not be leading anywhere sometimes gave her vertigo.

Rosie had heard her family all talk about the good life down in Oz, the swimming pools in the back gardens and the lovely weather and the fresh fish. Her mother, whose patience was constantly stretched by Pip’s three children, and whose unflattering opinions on Gerard (not Gerard himself, he was perfectly pleasant, but his seeming unwillingness to marry, provide for and impregnate her only daughter, preferably all by last Thursday) she rarely hesitated to share, was always trying to persuade her down under for a year or so, but Rosie loved London. Always had.

She loved its bustling sense of being in the middle of things; its people, all nationalities, hugger-mugger on the crowded streets; theatre and exhibition openings (although she never went to any); great historic monuments (although she never visited them). She had absolutely no desire to give up her life and move halfway around the world to where, she was sure, cleaning old people’s bums was much the same and cleaning her nieces’ bums for free would be thrown in.

‘Darling, I have a proposition for you.’

Angie sounded excited. Rosie groaned mentally.

‘I can’t work down under, remember? I don’t have the qualifications or the points or whatever it is,’ she’d said.

‘Ha, oh well, who cares about that,’ said her mother, as if there was no connection between her dad leaving and her failing half her A levels that year. ‘Anyway, it’s something else.’

‘And I don’t want to … be a nanny.’

According to comprehensive emails from her mum, Shane was a thug, Kelly was a princess and Meridian was developing an eating disorder at the age of four. And since she’d moved in with Gerard and they’d got a mortgage, Rosie hadn’t been able
to save even the tiniest bit of her salary. She couldn’t afford the ticket in a million years.

‘I don’t think so. Mum, I’m thirty-one! I think it’s time I stood on my own two feet, don’t you?’

‘Well, it’s not that,’ Angie said. ‘This is something else. Something quite different. It’s not us, darling. It’s Lilian.’

Chapter Two

Fudge

The facts are that fudge (and its northern, crunchy variant, tablet) appears to be an addictive substance and should be handled with extreme care. Overconsumption will result in illness and premature death.
*
There are those who say that eating a tangerine or other citrus fruit when one first starts to become nauseous will freshen the digestive system and allow it to consume yet more fudge: these people are pushers and enablers and should be avoided. Fudge should also be eaten in private, as the ideal method of consumption (inserting three large pieces into the left-hand, right-hand and central areas of the mouth simultaneously, then allowing them to warm and melt there) is considered impolite in many societies.

Here are the acceptable flavourings for fudge: none. Are you talking nonsense? Fudge as a flavour is one of the most divine creations in the pantheon of human endeavour. Would you colour in a Picasso? Would you add a disco beat to Fauré’s Requiem? No? So keep out the vanilla and, heaven help us, raisins. There is a time and a place for a raisin. It is called ‘in the bin’. As for liqueur fudge, it is an aberration of a level undreamed of …