Cuckoo (27 page)

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Authors: Julia Crouch

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BOOK: Cuckoo

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Nico, who had a pencil in his hand, leaned forward and prodded the thing in the pan.

‘Get off him!’ Anna roared, darting in and pulling him away.

‘Anna, what happened?’ Rose said.

‘She’s thrown him down the toilet,’ Anna wailed, darting round Polly and throwing herself into Rose’s arms.

‘Who threw who down the toilet?’ Rose asked.

‘Jason,’ Anna sobbed. ‘She’s just thrown him down the toilet. I went in for a pee and I saw him there.’

Rose and Anna both looked up, horrified, as they heard the sound of the toilet being flushed. Polly came out, brushing her hands, followed by Nico and Yannis, their eyes round with a mixture of shock and suspense, their hands over their mouths.

‘What? It was dead,’ Polly said, looking at Anna and Rose.

Anna wailed. ‘I couldn’t save him, Mum.’

‘She thinks she’s failed.’ Polly smiled at Rose.

Rose stroked Anna’s hair. ‘Oh darling, he was very young. It’s almost impossible to save a baby bird like that once it’s fallen from its nest.’

‘I told her that,’ Polly said.

‘But he was doing so well . . .’ Anna collapsed into sobbing again, and Rose held her close.

‘It was a bit insensitive, just throwing him away,’ Rose said to Polly. ‘I think we would have preferred a funeral or something.’

‘Oh, good grief,’ Polly muttered, and started to go downstairs.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ Rose asked Anna.

Polly turned on the stairs. ‘He went down to his studio about an hour ago,’ she said. ‘He said to say hi.’

Rose said she would take the children to school, and by the time she had got Flossie wrapped up and strapped to her front, it was very late indeed.

‘It’s not the first time,’ Yannis said as Rose hurried them across the field. ‘We’ve sometimes not got there till gone ten.’

‘Things are back to normal now,’ Rose said. ‘This is the last late start.’

The two boys forged across the field, running from tree to tree, but Anna clung to Rose.

‘Jason was getting better, though, Mum. Yesterday he ate loads of worms.’

‘It’s just nature’s way.’ Rose squeezed her hand. ‘It’s cruel. But perhaps he just wasn’t meant to survive.’

‘I don’t know how he did that to his neck, though,’ Anna murmured.

‘What?’

‘It was all like this.’ Anna put her head over on one side. ‘Like it had snapped.’

‘Perhaps he tried to get up and stumbled,’ Rose said, not wanting to think anything else. She had noticed how fascinated Nico had been with the bird. He had even told Rose when he came into the hospital to visit that he was going to take it into school to show the teacher. Anna had turned on him like a little lion and roared, ‘No!’

Rose went into the school with the children to sign the late book. The boys charged off to their classrooms, but Anna hung back.

‘I don’t want to go to school,’ she muttered. ‘I want to stay home with you and Flossie, Mum.’

‘You know you can’t do that,’ Rose said, holding her. ‘You’ve got to be strong, and go to school and learn. If you mope at home all day, you’ll never get the bird out of your mind.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Yes, you do. Now get along, or you’ll miss assembly.’

Anna gave Rose one last hug then pulled her strength around her and walked off along the corridor. She looked back just once.

‘Rose. And Flossie! Welcome home.’ Janet put her head round her office door. ‘Have you got a moment?’

Rose went into the office and sat down in the armchair in the corner. Janet sat next to her.

‘How is our baby?’ Janet asked, stroking Flossie’s head.

‘Oh, fine now,’ Rose said. ‘Though she gave us the runaround.’

‘So I hear. It’s great to have you both back with us, in any case. I just thought I’d have a quick word. You see, things went a little . . . slack in your absence, Rose. The boys became – well, feral is the only word I have for it. Nico is a particular worry to me. There have been fights. And they’ve been late almost every day.’

‘Have you spoken to Polly about it?’

‘Not seen her. I’ve tried to phone The Lodge, but there’s never a reply.’

‘But surely you could get her in the morning?’

‘She doesn’t come in the morning. Or the afternoon.’

‘What about Gareth?’

‘The children came on their own, Rose.’

‘They walked here on their own?’

‘Yes. And from what I’ve managed to glean, when they do eventually turn up, it appears that they haven’t had any breakfast.’

Rose felt sick. She looked around. There was a sturdy wastepaperbin that she could vomit into if she had to.

‘Rose? Are you all right?’

‘What?’ Rose forced her attention back to the room. She swallowed. ‘Look, Janet, I can assure you that things are going to change. Nico can’t carry on like that, and I’m back in the driving seat. Don’t worry. Things will be back to normal in no time at all.’

‘Good. I knew it was only a matter of waiting till you got back. That Ms Novak, though – I know she’s had a rough time, but really. It’s unprofessional of me to say this, but to be honest, Rose, I view you as more of a colleague than a parent. She has two sons. She needs to put her own interests to one side and start thinking of them instead.’

Rose opened her mouth, starting to defend Polly, but no words came. She found she agreed entirely with Janet. She felt honoured that she had chosen to confide in her. So pleased was she, in fact, that she had to suppress a little shiver.

Thinking about what Janet had said, Rose crossed the field back to The Lodge.

‘Little cow,’ she said out loud, kicking at a brittle cow parsley skeleton.

She stopped short. There was a man sitting on her bench. Should she turn round and take the road? But then she saw with relief that it was only Simon.

‘Hi,’ she said, as she closed in on him. He was hunched over, hugging himself tightly, smoking a roll-up.

‘Rose!’ He unwound his arms and stood up to kiss her on the cheek. ‘And Floss. Thank God you’re both back. You’ve been sorely missed.’

‘You can’t believe how glad I am to be at home again,’ Rose said, sitting down next to him.

‘I tried to come in, but when I said I wasn’t family, they wouldn’t let me,’ he said, stroking Flossie’s head.

‘I know. And thanks for the card.’

‘How is she now?’

‘A bit dazed. But she’s getting over it. The docs say she’s got every chance of going on as if nothing ever happened.’

‘
What
happened, Rose?’ Simon said.

‘It was an accident.’ Rose found that this response came almost too automatically.

‘How can a baby take all those pills by mistake?’ Simon looked straight at her.

‘She puts everything she sees in her mouth.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘It’s what I want to think. It’s all there is to think,’ Rose said, closing the subject.

Simon sat back and rolled another cigarette. He offered the tobacco packet to Rose.

‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘Not with Flossie here.’

He lit his cigarette and blew smoke into the golden morning light. ‘Can I tell you something?’

‘OK.’

Simon paused. A crow rose from the grass and cracked the silence.

‘I think you know some of what was going on,’ he said eventually. ‘Between me and her.’

‘I suppose I do.’

‘You won’t mention it to anyone, will you? I mean, Miranda and I are, well, relaxed about that sort of thing, but, well, this got a bit tricky.’

Rose wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear what he had to say. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling the urge to jump.

‘That night I turned up. You know what I’m talking about, Rose. I saw Gareth switch off the kitchen light and you both were clearly silhouetted in the window. She took me upstairs, and, well . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘It’s extraordinary, Rose, what she does. What she wants me to do. It went beyond what I’m comfortable with. I’m gentle – I don’t like hurting people. But I couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t stop going back.’

‘Spare me the details, Si, please.’ Rose wasn’t sure she wanted to hear any more, especially with Flossie strapped to her chest. It seemed wrong, indecent. He gathered himself.

‘She made me do it, Rose. And every hour, every minute of the day I found myself wanting to be back there, doing it to her again and again. She opened something up in me that was – well, very dark. Something I didn’t want to know about myself.’

Rose was stunned. Too stunned to walk away.

‘Then she just shut the door. Last week. Said she didn’t want to see me any more. Said she’d had enough – I don’t know why.’

‘You’re not asking me to be your go-between, are you?’ The kernel of anger that Janet had planted with her news about the children was beginning to flare up again, hurting her, deep beneath her solar plexus. Why did everything have to get complicated?

‘I’m just trying to say that you may think you know that woman. But there’s part of her that is so dark . . .’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ Rose felt she needed to go home now.

‘Just . . . Just, things aren’t always what they seem.’

Rose stood up. ‘She won’t sleep with you any more, Simon. She’s got bored with you. That’s all it is. I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t need to know all that. I don’t want to get tangled up in whatever games you and Miranda play around at. I don’t judge people, but I won’t be forced to understand what you’re getting up to, and I hate having to take sides or lie. So I’m not the best person to start confessing to. And Polly is – ’ and here she hesitated for a minute, trying to find the right term ‘ – my best friend. And her husband died not more than two months ago, so she’s bound to be a little messed up.’

‘Rose . . .’ Simon said, taking her hand.

‘You know what? I don’t want to know what you fancy or not about her.’

‘Please. I’m sorry.’

‘
No
, Simon. I’m going home now.’ She set off across the long wet grass, lifting her feet high to trample it down.

‘There was blood!’ Simon cried. ‘Lots of blood.’

Rose had stopped shaking by the time she got to The Lodge. Gareth was there. He jumped when Rose opened the kitchen door. She moved into the room and planted herself in the middle.

‘Gareth, what do you know about Simon and Polly?’

‘And good morning to you too, darling.’ Gareth went over and kissed her on the head.

‘Morning. What do you know about Simon and Polly?’

‘Well, nothing more than you, I guess,’ Gareth shrugged.

‘We saw them go into the Annexe that night.’

‘Yeah. So? They’re all grown-ups, aren’t they?’

‘It’s just . . .’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I’ve got to get back to work, Rose. You OK?’

‘Do you want coffee?’ she asked from the middle of the kitchen floor.