Cuckoo (52 page)

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Authors: Julia Crouch

Tags: #Fiction

BOOK: Cuckoo
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They dozed there in the baking sun, breathing in the sweet, faintly indolic scent of the hawthorn.
 
‘Summer’s really here,’ Anna said happily.
 
‘I hope so,’ Rose said.
 
Then, one by one, they all dropped off, floating away from the lush landscape into worlds of their own.
 
 
When Rose awoke, the sun was well along its path to the west. She felt a little pink and hot. To think that only a couple of weeks ago, she had needed a bulky jumper and her Barbour before she ventured out.
 
She looked down at her sleeping girls. Flossie had nestled right into Anna’s side; Anna had a protective arm around her little sister. Rose felt unimaginably sad for her daughters. They were going to be the long-lasting victims of whatever was to happen today. These girls were the collateral damage. However things turned out, they were going to suffer, one way or another.
 
Why couldn’t things ever stay the same? Why did they have a tendency to fall apart?
 
In a while, the girls woke up. Rose packed the picnic things, and they set off on their journey round the curving ridge, back to The Lodge. They would have walked a good six miles by the time they got home.
 
 
It was nearly four when they returned to the top of the breast hill. From here, they had an excellent view of the house and garden. Rose’s heart lurched as she saw the Galaxy sitting in the driveway. Nico and Yannis were playing on the swings at the back.
 
So this was it, then.
 
‘Daddy’s back,’ Anna said.
 
Rose looked down at her and wondered what was going on in her head. Whatever she was thinking, her face gave nothing away.
 
They stood there, holding hands, looking down on the scene below. The last thing Rose wanted was to take the girls down there, but she had little choice.
 
They edged their way down. This side of the hill hadn’t seen much sun, so the long grass was muddy and slippery, threatening to upend them and send them sliding down towards the house and their doom. Rose preferred a more controlled descent.
 
As they got closer to the house, Rose saw Gareth’s crossed legs in the kitchen window. He was sitting at the table, but not, thankfully, looking up in their direction.
 
Rose took the buggy, by now completely dry, and put Flossie in it.
 
‘Anna, why don’t you take Floss and go and play with the boys?’ she said.
 
‘But I want to see Dad,’ she whined.
 
‘You’ll have plenty of time for that, later,’ Rose said. ‘But first I really need you to help me out with Flossie.’
 
Anna rolled her eyes, but knew not to pursue it. She took the buggy and wheeled it round to the back garden. Thinking how mature Anna looked, stepping in there as big sister, Rose didn’t like to think how much growing up she would have to do in the next few months.
 
Taking a deep breath in and out from the tributaries of her lungs, Rose pushed open the front door into the kitchen. Gareth sat, mug of coffee in front of him, waiting. He turned to look at her, his expression as blank as a sheet of baking parchment.
 
‘Rose.’
 
‘Hello.’
 
There was a long pause. Eventually, he sighed.
 
‘What were you thinking, Rose?’ His voice was tired in a way that she had never heard it before, not even at any of his former psychological troughs.
 
‘What do you mean?’ she asked. It was a genuine question. She wanted him to take his pick.
 
‘Where do I start? You do a lot of increasingly crazy stuff including trashing my studio and MY WORK,’ he barked suddenly, standing up and thumping the table, making the spoon in his coffee rattle so violently that Rose was afraid the mug might break. He took a deep breath, and calmed himself. ‘You disappear for hours in Brighton with my daughters, then you set off in the middle of the night to God knows where, abandoning Polly and the boys, and embarrassing everyone.’
 
‘Embarrassing everyone?’ Rose said. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
 
‘That’s not an apology, is it?’
 
‘I’m not the one that needs to apologise.’
 
‘And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?’
 
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about.’
 
‘You have ruined everything, Rose. It’s all down to you, but you’re so far gone you can’t even see it. We’ve been watching you.’
 
Rose felt as if part of her were pouring out of the top of her skull. He stood there looking at her as if she was a crazy woman, as if it were she who was in the wrong, not him and his dog whore. She ran for him, her hands extended in front of her, her claws out. She wanted to push him over, out and away.
 
But instead, with Gareth being so tall and her being of only average height, he stood firm. His body absorbed the impact of her charge, sending it down through his feet to the stone floor. He grabbed her wrists and held them so tightly that her bones ached, but he was still. He took a deep breath and held her away from him as if she were a dirty thing. He looked her straight in the eyes and Rose realised she was peering into the face of a stranger.
 
‘Rose. Rose. Polly and I are very worried about you,’ he said, trying to control his voice. ‘You haven’t been yourself for a long time. Not since Flossie was ill. And the things you have done recently – well, it’s not what you’d expect from someone with young children to look after.’
 
Rose shook herself free and looked up at him. ‘What are you trying to say to me?’
 
‘I’m worried about my children.’
 
‘
Your
children?’
 
‘Listen, Rose, and listen well. We’ve been talking, Polly and I.’
 
‘I’ll bet you have,’ she said.
 
He looked at her pityingly. She stared back at him, willing him to confess.
 
‘Polly called me from Brighton – she had forgotten her mobile – to tell me how worried she was about you and, as you can imagine, I was pretty concerned about you myself, given what you had done to MY WORK.’ He pointed through the kitchen to the studio, which stood despoiled and gaping at the end of the garden,
 
‘You do know that you might as well have cut my arm off as do what you did in there? You’ve never understood my work, Rose, have you? You’ve just seen it as a way for me to earn money so that you can go SHOPPING AT WAITROSE.’
 
He paused and ran his fingers through his hair. He took another breath and bit his lips. ‘You know what? I don’t think you’ve ever seen me as anything other than a meal-ticket, a sperm bank, a means to an end.’
 
Not this again, Rose thought.
 
‘Have you ever seen me as a man? As a sexual being?’
 
Rose snorted. That he should say such a thing!
 
He glared at her. ‘As anything other than second-best to Christos?’
 
Rose gasped. Any wind left in her sails was ripped away.
 
Gareth stopped and exhaled. ‘And, Rose, you have lied and lied and lied and lied to me. Polly’s told me everything.’
 
He sat down and stared at her: judge, jury and executioner.
 
‘See what you’ve done, Rose?’ Rose wheeled round. For the first time she noticed that Polly was there, sitting part-silhouetted in the corner armchair. Her face was serious, but Rose was sure she could see a trace of victory in her eyes.
 
‘I called Gareth and he told me what you’d done. We decided you needed to see a doctor, but that he should be with you when you did, so he set off to fetch you. Then you pulled your disappearing trick. With the girls, Rose.
With the girls
.’ Polly’s voice had taken on a deep, understanding tone, and she had shifted her position so that she rested in the chair, one hand under her chin, as if she were auditioning for the part of The Psychiatrist.
 
‘You understand that I had no alternative but to tell Gareth about your history, about the baby?’ Polly went on. ‘About poor Frank?’
 
Gareth raised his head. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Rose?’
 
‘I didn’t want to lose you,’ Rose said, in a small voice.
 
Gareth looked at her with a mixture of pity and disgust. ‘Don’t you think this is what all this is really about? The visit to Brighton tipped you over, didn’t it? Don’t you realise that if you lie all your life, it’s going to make you ill?’
 
‘I’m not ill,’ Rose yelled. ‘
I’m. Not. Ill!
’
 
‘We’ve been talking about it, Rose,’ Gareth went on. ‘I was angry. I wanted to take you to hospital, get you sectioned. But Polly here argued for you. She said that what you need is a rest, away from all your responsibilities, and she said that the girls should be able to see you as well. We have to think of them.’
 
He walked over and stood right in front of her. ‘So this is the deal. We’re going to move you up to the Annexe, get you enrolled with a psychotherapist and take it from there.’
 
‘You won’t have to do anything. No cooking, no housework,’ Polly said, smiling.
 
‘Polly has very kindly agreed to take all of that on. Which is very good of her, considering she has such a lot on her plate already.’
 
‘I’m going to be recording an album,’ Polly said. ‘But we can do it in Bath, so I can fit it around the house and the children.’
 
‘You just have to concentrate on getting better, then we’ll take it from there,’ Gareth said.
 
They both sat and looked at her, their eyes open wide, as if the plan they were proposing were the most simple and obvious thing in the world. As if they were offering her a kindness. Rose’s shoulders dropped, her brow lowered and she found it hard to catch her breath.
 
‘You know though, Rose, that it’s over. You know I can’t take you back now. Not after all your lies,’ Gareth said.
 
‘I know what you’re up to,’ Rose snarled at Polly. ‘Don’t talk to me about lies.’
 
‘Poor Mrs Maths,’ Polly said, standing up. ‘Always putting two and two together.’
 
Rose couldn’t take any more. She launched herself at Polly, dragging her fingers into her hair, tugging at it, snagging her nails in it. Polly was taken by surprise. She fell back against the armchair and Rose found herself laying punch after punch into Polly’s head.
 
Gareth jumped across the room and yanked Rose by her arm, pulling her up and away from Polly, throwing her so that she sprawled down onto the floor.
 
‘Leave her!’ he yelled. ‘Just leave her alone.’
 
‘Your precious Polly? Your little fuckwhore?’
 
Polly had got up and was standing by Gareth’s side, just behind him, looking down at Rose. She was still smiling.
 
‘Take that back!’ he roared. ‘Just leave her out of this.’
 
‘It’s OK, Gareth. She’s not well,’ Polly said, touching his arm.
 
Rose crawled across the floor to the dresser, where she pulled herself up. She had hit her head when she landed and was feeling dizzy, but she had a force propelling her so strongly that nothing could stop her. She reached up with both hands to the shelf on the dresser where Anna’s egg-basket lived. She found the two largest eggs, made of onyx and marble and so big that her hands barely fitted around them. She turned to face Gareth and Polly, who seemed suspended across the other side of the kitchen, watching her as if she were an animal in a zoo.
 
Then, in a heartbeat, she threw herself across the room with an egg in each hand. She flew at Gareth, reaching up and hitting his head with the stones. Taken by surprise, he tried to dodge her, but instead took a crushing blow to the temple, which sent him reeling towards the ground. On his way down, he hit his head on the upraised cover of the Aga. It was so quick that Rose had little idea what actually happened. She jumped back. He was slumped over silently, his face up against the burning hot-plate of the stove, a stream of blood sizzling as it flowed out of his nose.
 
For a second, both Rose and Polly stood there, frozen with horror. Then Rose rushed towards Gareth and tried to yank him away from the stove. He was a big man and now he was a dead weight. His face ripped as she pulled him off the hotplate, leaving behind a layer of burned skin. Sobbing and retching, she knelt over him and tried to revive him, beating his still chest, trying to get life back into his body.

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