Forever Rose Read online

  ‘Love to everyone,’ said Caddy hurriedly. ‘Are they all OK?’

  ‘Except for Mummy’s cold,’ I said. ‘Everyone else is fine and it is Sunday Lunch at Sarah’s today, we are all going except Mummy. She thought she would rather work. Saffy and Indigo are there already. Sarah’s mum is making something called Snow White Christmas Pudding so what do you think that is?’

  Caddy said she had no idea, but Sarah’s mum’s cooking was always superb and she was sure it would be utterly yum. And then she hurried off to feed the animals and I rushed too, first to tell Mummy that Caddy had re-emerged with practically an address (Wildlife Park, Not America, Northern Hemisphere) and then down the road to Sarah’s house with the same good news.

  Caddy was right. Sarah’s mum’s cooking was superb. Only I would have enjoyed it much more if Saffy and Sarah and Indigo had not complained so much at me for not finding out one useful thing about Caddy. Because, unlike Mummy who had been very thrilled, they were not at all impressed at my detective skills and they said the address I had found could be easily shortened to Almost Anywhere.

  I had to change the subject by producing (between dinner and pudding) E H Gombrich’s enormously heavy and tightly bound The Story of Art.

  ‘How far did you get?’ asked Sarah’s mother, and I said that by skipping the preface and the two introductions I had made it to the cavemen which everyone thought very funny indeed.

  ‘Didn’t you even flick through and look at the pictures?’ asked Sarah.

  I said no, because there were too many and Sarah’s dad said he completely understood.

  ‘Art galleries have exactly the same effect on me,’ he said. ‘The only thing I look for in them is the Exit signs. You come with me, Rose, I’ll show you a proper picture.’

  So I went with him into the hall and admired (for about the hundredth time in my life) Sarah’s dad’s most favourite picture in all the world. Which is an aerial photograph of a Scottish golf course with him actually in it, wearing a bright red jumper he bought specially to show up.

  ‘Lovely,’ he murmured, stroking it lovingly. ‘I could have had a Canvas Effect and then it would have looked just like an oil painting but some of the detail would have gone. Mind you, we had to work for it, Rose. Stood there all morning, waiting for the plane! Best spot on the whole course. That’s my mate Graham in blue. He had a good place too, but I did better. We tossed for the 18th…That bit of black by the gorse is my jacket, I took it off you see…What’s the matter with them in there?’

  He meant Sarah’s mum and Saffy and Sarah and Indigo, who were all dying with laughter at this Commentary on Art. Because all of us have heard it many, many times before. We love it. It is as good as a bedtime story. Also it goes on for ages (once we encouraged him to keep it up for nearly an hour). However this time we only had the short version because Sarah’s mother interrupted by shouting, ‘Pudding!’

  Snow White Christmas Pudding is absolutely wonderful. You can eat much more of it than you can of normal Christmas Pudding. But it is only snow white if you do not count the cherries and the chocolate sauce. Sarah’s father had three platefuls with extra sauce and then he said it was very pleasant but he could see why it had never caught on.

  ‘You are utterly hopeless,’ said Sarah’s mother, hitting him with the entire Sunday Times (which is twice as big as Gombrich). ‘You can load up the dishwasher unaided, and don’t you go getting sorry for him, Rose!’

  ‘No I won’t,’ I said, but afterwards I did sneak into the kitchen to help. Because Sarah’s dad is very nice and very funny. And he said he thought I’d done remarkably well with Caddy.

  And so did I.

  Monday 4th December

  Throw the Book Away

  I forgot to take my PE kit into school today. This was Mr Spencer’s fault for ordering us to take them home at the end of last week and get them properly washed. As if anyone could get their PE kit washed in two days. In our house that sort of job takes all summer.

  Kai was not doing PE either because his mother had sent him in with a Note. So we had to sit on a bench together and watch the others do boring things with hoops and mats because Mr Spencer is too lazy to get out the ropes and wall bars and climbing frames. He makes us do Balancing on the Floor.

  (Ridiculous.

  How does he think we ever learned to walk if we could not balance on the floor?

  It is not as if there is anywhere to go to if you fall off.)

  Kai and I were supposed to be noticing and learning.

  So we did.

  I did anyway. I noticed how incredibly like each other all the boys looked from the back, and how Molly pointed her toes naturally as a result of too many ballet lessons, and how Mr Spencer (who was forced to give his orders standing around in socks because our gym floor is a sacred object hardly to be stepped on) left large damp footprints whenever he moved. Which was not very often, I am pleased to say.

  Then Kai disturbed my noticing with a furtive remark.

  ‘I feel sick,’ he said. ‘I’ve been feeling sick all morning.’

  I moved a little further away from him on the bench.

  ‘Mum said it was nothing but a headache and sent me in with a note.’

  ‘Go to the office,’ I ordered urgently.

  ‘No,’ said Kai. ‘Mr Spencer’ll never let me. Say things to stop me thinking about it, Rose.’

  ‘Look at Mr Spencer’s yuk footprints.’

  ‘I know. They make me feel terrible.’

  Oh dear. Not surprising though. I tried again.

  ‘What did you do at the weekend?’

  ‘Watched football.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Made a list of the girls I fancied.’

  ‘Is there anyone on it I know?’

  ‘’Course,’ said Kai. ‘All the girls in this class are on it…’

  Good grief!

  ‘Except you.’

  ‘Why don’t you fancy me?’ I demanded, forgetting to whisper because I was so astonished at this unfairness, and all the people near our corner fell out of their hoops with giggles.

  ‘Har, har, har!’ groaned Kai, doubled up with laughter. ‘Got you!’

  I pushed him backwards off the bench and he hit his head on the wall.

  ‘Rose and Kai!’ snapped Mr Spencer from the other side of the room. ‘I am watching you!’

  So we watched him back, staring meaningfully at his sweaty footprints, but he did not notice.

  Glum silence, broken by Kai who murmured, ‘Hit me on my nose.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hit me on my nose,’ hissed Kai.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Just do it, Rose!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re not scared of Mr Spencer, are you?’ taunted Kai, wagging his nose at me.

  So I hit it an unenthusiastic swipe and he groaned and grabbed it with both hands.

  OH NO!

  Red.

  A huge blooming patch of blood-red falling from his hands, and the walls of the room closing in around me and a dreadful weird hotness and coldness and lightness. Then darkness. No colour anywhere except for the running spreading scarlet…

  Fainted.

  I came round in the office to a voice asking if I had had any breakfast.

  Even after they explained that Kai’s sanguine catastrophe (Saffy’s words. Quoted in admiration) was nothing worse than a Trick Blood-soaked Hanky from the joke shop, breakfast was the last thing I wanted right then. So they rang Mummy to come and fetch me home and she didn’t answer. And then they tried Sarah’s mother who is my first emergency number, and she wasn’t there either. Obviously. Because she was busy being the Head of the very posh school she is the head of. After that they rang Kiran’s mother who is my second emergency number and got her answering machine. So then, in desperation they rang Daddy in London, and I could hear his voice saying clear as clear, ‘Oh God I am so useless. I should b
e there. What can I do? What can I do?’ and other helpless remarks.

  ‘Oh dear,’ they said in the office, and left me on a plastic sofa with a bucket and Molly and Kiran for company, and Kai to apologise. And it was while we were there that Kiran’s mother suddenly swirled in, swooped me and the bucket off the sofa, swished Molly and Kiran and Kai down the corridor in front of her (crying ‘Go along! Go along!’ as she went) and before we could say a word of protest (not that we thought of it for a moment) we were all four in her car whizzing away as fast as possible under the circumstances ie at 30.5 mph.

  I don’t know what school thought.

  That day turned out to be a very good one for several reasons.

  1. After five slices of toast and chocolate spread I recovered totally and completely and have never been ill since.

  2. Kiran and Molly and I made friends with Kai, and through him the rest of the boys in our class. Which turned out to be very useful (see Monday 18th December).

  3. Daddy was thoroughly frightened.

  When I finally reached home today Saffy and Sarah were waiting for me. Sarah had brought me another book.

  ‘I am determined to get you addicted to the things,’ she said, handing me a bright pink paperback. ‘I cannot bear for you to be missing so much. Try this. It is as unlike poor Gombrich as I could possibly find. Hardly any pictures (and then only black and white and of the crudest kind). Not heavy at all (observe the cheapness of the paper on which it is printed). And utterly relevant to You, Rosy Pose!’

  Oh good.

  ‘A family story, you see,’ continued Sarah. ‘Concerning (I gather, I must admit I only skimmed) a family very like yours. Absent father. Slightly daft mother. No cleaner. Large family of talented children with central focus on the youngest (a remarkable child)…’

  ‘Yucky pucky,’ I said. ‘I think Molly has read that book. I’ve seen her with something that looks just like it.’

  ‘Very likely,’ said Sarah. ‘They churn them out by the million. I can get you a never-ending supply if necessary.’

  I said she need not bother. It would almost certainly not be necessary. Then I attempted to change the subject by pretending to sneeze enormously into Kai’s fake blood-soaked hanky which he had very kindly lent for the night. It worked superbly. Saffy and Sarah shrieked like witches and hit me. But they did not forget the book.

  ‘Try it!’ ordered Saffron sternly, ‘Do not force us to resort to blackmail!’ while Sarah begged, ‘Oh please read it! Read the first page anyway. Just to get the page-turning habit. It might lead you on to better things.’

  After they had gone (Extra Spanish again) I tried to read that book. I really did. Sarah’s remarks about the remarkable youngest (to whom I shall refer as R Y) made me slightly curious.

  R Y was easy to find, there she was first page, second paragraph, very sorry for herself.

  Hmmm.

  I hunted her out halfway through and she was still having a bad time.

  By the last page R Y was occupying nearly all the print and a quick flick backwards showed that she had been doing this for some chapters. She was getting a lot of attention (lucky old R Y).Was she pleased at this unmerited rise to family fame? No. According to her final Big Moan absolutely nothing had improved.

  The End

  That book has nothing to do with me. Daddy is not absent; he is worrying about me in London. Mummy is not slightly daft; she is sensibly trying to keep her germs in the shed. I suppose Mummy’s pictures might really truly be described as daft, if that is all they were. Pictures. But of course, they are not.They are dinner money and bags of apples and car repairs and new trainers and Stay Fresh Muffins.And I am NOTHING LIKE that dismal remarkable youngest!

  Do you think I will still be moaning on the last page?

  NO!

  Throw the book away!

  Tuesday 5th December

  David really didn’t know what to do with his drum kit last Friday.

  And he wasn’t busking on Sunday.

  Today me and Saffy and Sarah and Indigo all arrived home together and found David on the doorstep, and the drum kit clearly visible through the living-room window.

  ‘I know it’s a cheek,’ said David, ‘but it came on very wet and I had to think of something.’

  He had not thought of anything for himself. He must have been outside for ages. He smelled of old damp clothes and his nose was running.

  ‘The rain started just as I got here,’ he said, fishing around in his pocket and coming out with a crisp packet and a handful of papier-mâché Economy Peach. ‘And the back door wasn’t locked so I put everything inside quick to keep it dry. I’ve told your mum. She came past while I was sitting round by the front, wondering what to do next. She was rushing for more paint before the shops shut, she said. She was dead nice and she gave me a pound but I don’t know how much she took in of what I said.’

  Mummy never did quite get the hang of who David actually was. And she always gives money to people who sit around in doorways wondering what to do.

  ‘When it started to rain again I thought it would be all right if I went back in,’ continued David. ‘But she’d locked up so I didn’t like to. Though she’s left the key in the door…’

  So she had: there it was, with its ancient Greenpeace key ring, dangling from the back-door keyhole. What if burglars had come?

  ‘They’d have seen me,’ said David.

  Yes, I must admit that would probably put most people off. Especially if he had been trying to wipe his nose on a crisp packet like he was doing now.

  Anyway, we said he had better come in.

  We did not realise until we got in how much space that drum kit took up. It took up all the space. It was an impossible thing to have in the house.

  David said he had nowhere else to keep it.

  This Is a Short Version of the Story of Why David Had Nowhere Else to Keep His Drum Kit

  David used to keep his drum kit at his grandad’s house. David’s grandad has always been by far David’s best relation. His mum has never liked him much, and neither does his mum’s boyfriend who lives with them. They cannot forget David’s awful past when David used to beat people up and vandalise things and cause them shame and disgrace with the neighbours. This is a thing that for a long time I could not forget either. I used to be very frightened of David. I used to try and make him dead by wishing. I used to hate him. You do hate people who frighten you.

  But that is all over now. David has changed.

  He still looks the same: big and beached and slightly bemused, like a sea creature that a badly cast spell only just managed to turn into a boy. He still gobbles sweets and puffs when he walks and gets jokes so slowly you wish you had never spoken. But inside he is completely different.

  The opposite of what he was.

  There is nothing about David to be afraid of any more.

  In fact, we all quite like him.

  So we sat him down and listened to what he had to say.

  About drums.

  I have heard David playing drums and it is very loud and very monotonous and he never seems to get to the end of a section, or a phrase, or whatever you call a patch of drumming and this is very difficult to bear. Because always, just as the pattern begins to emerge, and the rhythm is finally there, and the big climax is being built and the triumphant crash of the end is in sight…

  Nothing.

  Nothing – like a missing stair.

  It is like being jerked flat on your face.

  After the nothing there is a hesitating, scratched-together shuffle of bumps and bangs. A go on the cymbals. Heavy breathing over the written down version of what he is trying to play which he does not quite understand.

  And then you are dragged all the way back through the beginning again.

  Torture.

  David’s mother could not stand this torture from the first, and so David kept his drum kit at his grandad’s and the neighbours said they could feel their windows vibrati
ng but his grandad said, ‘You sound champion, boy, and don’t let anyone tell you any different.’

  It made David warm inside when he heard this, and that was quite often because he practised nearly every day.

  But David’s mother said, ‘He has always spoiled you.’

  And, ‘If you put half the energy into your school work that you put into those drums you might make something of yourself. Although I doubt it.’

  And, ‘It is mixing with that Casson lot that has given you these inflated ideas and what are they anyway? The stories I have heard about those girls would curl your hair, not to mention that mother of theirs who dresses like I shouldn’t like to say what. No wonder he cleared off.’

  She also said, ‘When I was your age I was at work. Sixteen. Yes I was. Working.’

  And, ‘Your grandad is an old man you know. It’s stressful. Stressful for him to have to put up with.’

  But worst of all, ‘I’ll tell you one thing. What with the late hours and the neighbours and the worry you give him with that noise you’re going the right way about giving him a heart attack. The right way. Yes.

  ‘And then don’t you come crying to me!’

  Of course David did not go crying to her. He came crying to us. Because (this is so unfair I hate to even think the words) David’s mother was right. David’s very nice grandfather had a heart attack, just as she predicted, fortunately not actually during a drumming recital, but all the same (as she did not hesitate to point out) not long afterwards. And it killed him.

  Oh dear.

  This story gets worse.

  On the awful day when David heard that his grandfather was dead (and that it was probably his fault) and that therefore his mother would now have the enormous job of emptying his grandfather’s house of all it contained because the house would be wanted for new people, what did David say?

  ‘Poor Grandad!’? That would have been fine, but he didn’t.