Rescuing Rose

He clenched his jaw, as he does when he’s cornered, and a small blue vein jumped by his left eye. ‘It’s just…’ he sighed, ‘that I was feeling neglected and she –’

‘Paid you attention I suppose?’

‘Yes!’ he said defiantly. ‘She did. She talked to me, Rose. She communicated with me. Whereas you only communicate with strangers. That’s why I wrote you that letter,’ he added. ‘It’s the only way I could get a response! You’re…neurotic, Rose,’ he snapped, no longer contrite now, but angry. ‘Sometimes I think you need help.’

At that I put my J Cloth down and gave him a contemptuous stare. ‘That is ridiculous,’ I said quietly. ‘Help is what I provide.’

‘Look Rose,’ he said exasperatedly, running his left hand through his hair, ‘our marriage is not going well. We rushed into it because, being older, we thought we knew what we were doing – but we were wrong. And I found you so vibrant and so attractive, Rose – I still do. But I’m finding it hard to live with you, so for the time being let’s give each other some space.’

‘You want more space?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Space.’

‘Well you can have all the space in the universe,’ I said calmly, ‘because I’m going to file for divorce.’

‘Oh,’ he said. I’d shocked him. I think I’d shocked myself. But I knew exactly what ‘let’s give each other space’ really meant, and I was going to be the one to quit first.

‘We’ll discuss it tomorrow,’ he added wearily.

‘No,’ I said, ‘there’s no need.’ I’d been chewing so hard on my lower lip that I could taste the metallic tang of blood.

‘You want to call it a day already?’ he asked quietly. I nodded. ‘Are you really sure?’ I nodded again. ‘Are you quite, quite sure?’ he persisted. ‘Because there’ll be serious consequences.’

‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘I am.’

‘Right,’ he said faintly. He shrugged. ‘Right. Okay…if that’s what you want. Well then,’ he said bleakly, ‘I guess that’s…it.’ He inhaled through his nose, gave me a grim little smile then walked away. But as he reached for the door handle I said, ‘Can I ask you something Ed?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’d just like to know why you asked me to marry you?’

‘I didn’t, Rose. You asked me.’

Christ – I’d forgotten. How embarrassing! I could have sworn it was the other way round. I certainly don’t have any memories of getting down on bended knee. All I recall is whizzing round the London Eye, drunk as a monkey, and finding myself engaged by the time we got down. But if, as Ed ungallantly claims, I was the one who popped the question, then it’s right that I should also be the one proposing divorce.

I was thinking about all this as I emptied the last few packing cases and cleaned the house after the twins had gone. The interior isn’t bad – just a bit dusty, that’s all. Off-white walls, limed wooden kitchen units, cream silk curtains (included in the price) and a perfectly respectable oatmeal Berber carpet everywhere. The house is the colour of string. It looks etiolated. Drained. Like me. I quite like it, I thought as I scrubbed and swabbed – too much colour would get me down. I decided I’d redecorate it later; I could live with this for a while.

And now, bearing in mind what the twins had said, I prepared to expunge the memories of Ed. I’d given this very careful thought. I went to the Spar round the corner and bought a packet of party balloons. When I got back I laid them out flat, then wrote ‘ED WRIGHT’ in black biro on each one. Then I inflated them, watching his name grow and expand on the rubber skin. Ears aching from the effort I watched the balloons bobbing up and down on the sitting room floor. They looked incongruously, almost insultingly, festive as they bounced against each other in the breeze. Then I found my sewing box, took my largest needle and stabbed them, one by one. BANG! went Ed’s name, as it was reduced to rubbery shreds. CRACK! exploded the next. POP! went the third as I detonated it, feeling the smile spread across my face. I derived enormous and, yes, childish satisfaction from this – it gave me a malicious thrill. Ed was full of hot air – his vows meant nothing – so this was what he deserved. I burst nine – one for each month I knew him, then took the last one, which was yellow, outside. By now the wind had picked up, and I stood in the middle of the lawn for a moment, then let the balloon go. A sudden gust snatched it and lifted it over the garden fence, before it floated up and away. I could still make out Ed’s name as it rose higher and higher, bobbing and jerking in the stiff breeze. By now it was just a yellow blob against the sky, then a smudge, then a speck, and then gone.

I heaved a sigh of relief then went inside for Stage Two of my ritual. I took a piece of string and tied knots in it, one for each happy memory of my time with Ed. The first knot was for when we met, the second was for New Year’s Eve; as I tied the third I thought of our engagement party; I tied the fourth for our wedding day. As I tied the fifth I remembered how happy I had felt when I moved into his house. Then I lit the end of the string and watched a neat yellow flame take hold. It climbed slowly but steadily, leaving a glowing tail of embers and a thin coil of smoke. Thirty seconds later and my memories were just a thread of ash which I washed down the sink. Finally, I riffled through a wallet of snaps and found a photo of Ed. He’s usually extremely photogenic, but in this one he looked like shit. The camera must have gone off by mistake, because it was looking straight up his nose. He was scowling at something, it exaggerated his slight jowl, and his face was unshaven and tired. So I pinned it to the kitchen noticeboard and made a mental note to have it enlarged. Then I went into the bathroom to perform the final part of my cathartic rites. Suddenly my mobile rang.

‘It’s us,’ said the twins, one on each extension. ‘Where are you?’

‘In the bathroom.’

‘You’re not taking an overdose are you?’ they shrieked.

‘Not at the moment. No.’

‘And you’re not slashing your wrists or anything?’

‘Are you crazy – just think of the mess!’

‘Well what are you doing in the bathroom then?’ asked Bea suspiciously.

‘I’m doing my exorcises,’ I said.

I rang off, took my wedding ring out of my pocket, and looked at it one last time. Ed had had it engraved inside with Forever – I emitted a mirthless laugh. Then, holding it between thumb and forefinger, like a dainty titbit, I dropped it into the loo. It lay there, glinting gently in the shadeless overhead light. Now I took our engagement photo, ripped it into six pieces, threw them in, then pulled the flush. I watched the cauldron of water swirl and boil then it cleared with a glug, and refilled. Everything had gone – the ring and the photograph – all except for one piece. To my annoyance it was the bit with most of Ed’s face on and it was resolutely refusing to go down. It was unnerving, having him bobbing about like that, smiling cheerfully up at me as though nothing were amiss. So I flushed it again and watched the fragment spin wildly but, to my intense annoyance, it kept popping back up. After ten tries, defeated, I fished Ed’s still smiling face out with the loo brush, and scraped him into the bin.

‘Now Wash Your Hands,’ I said wearily; then I went downstairs.

I felt a little, well, yes, flushed from my exertions so I made a cup of tea. And the kettle was just boiling when I heard the loud clatter of the letter box. On the mat was a creamcoloured envelope, marked, To Our New Neighbour in a large, round hand. Inside was a floral card, inscribed, Welcome to Hope Street, from…Hey! I’ve got celebrity neighbours!…Beverley and Trevor McDonald.

Chapter Two (#ulink_05367600-121d-5650-a24a-e4b94d5a0170)

I realise, of course, that my neighbour is very unlikely to be the real Trevor McDonald. Why would a famous broadcaster choose to live at the wrong end of Camberwell? No, if Trevor McDonald had chosen SE5 then he’d have one of those vast Georgian numbers on Camberwell Grove. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about Hope Street, even if it is at the Peckham end. I had to move fast, it met my needs, and it has a kind of unpolished charm. And the mix of cars – Beemers and Volvos nose to bumper with clapped out Datsuns – suggests that the area is ‘coming up.’ But I guess my neighbour simply shares the same name, which must be a bit of a bore. Constantly being asked over the phone if he’s the Trevor McDonald, for example, or receiving the Trevor McDonald’s mail, or being introduced as ‘Trevor McDonald’ at parties and hearing everyone go ‘BONG!’ But on the other hand it’s probably useful for booking tables in restaurants, or getting tickets for Wimbledon.

This train of thought diverted me from my thermonuclear fury with Ed as I found my way to the bus stop this morning. And I was standing there feeling perfectly calm, mentally backing a steamroller over Mary-Claire Grey, when suddenly the man standing in front of me did this distressing thing. He took out a pack of Marlboro, peeled off the cellophane, screwed it up, then chucked it down. And as I watched the wrapper skittering about in the gutter I realised that I felt exactly like that. I feel as though I’ve been screwed up and discarded. Thrown away. You might find that weird, but after what’s happened to me I see rejection in everything.

So to keep negative thoughts at bay I started doing the crossword, as usual tackling the anagrams first. The skill with these is not in rearranging the letters – that’s easy – but in spotting them: you have to know the code. ‘Messy’ for example, usually indicates an anagram, as do ‘disorder’, and ‘disarray’. ‘Mixed up’ is a good anagram clue as well; as is ‘confused’ and also ‘upset’.

Doing anagrams makes me feel oddly happy: I often anagrammatise words in my head, just for fun. Perhaps because I was an only child I’ve always been able to amuse myself. I particularly enjoy it when I can make both ends of the anagram work. ‘Angered’ and ‘Enraged’ for example; ‘slanderous’ and ‘done as slur’; ‘discover’ and ‘divorces’ is a good one, as is ‘tantrums’ and ‘must rant’. ‘Marital’, rather appropriately, turns to ‘martial’; ‘male’ very neatly becomes ‘lame’, and ‘masculine’ – I like this – becomes ‘calumnies’, and ‘Rose’, well, that’s obvious. ‘Sore’.

At least my journey to work was going to be easy I noted as the bus trundled up Camberwell New Road. The Daily Post is bang opposite Tate Britain, in a brown smoked glass block overlooking the Thames. This is the home of Amalgamated Newspapers which also publishes Celeb!, and the Sunday Post.

I got the lift to the tenth floor, swiped my security tag (for keeping out nutters), then prepared for the fray. I passed the News Desk, the Picture Desk and the back bench where the sub-editors sit. I smiled at our gossip columnist Norris Hamster and our new features editor, Linda Leigh-Trapp; I said good morning to ‘Psychic Cynthia’, our astrologer, and to Jason Brown, our Chief Sub. Then right at the end of the huge newsroom, by the window, I reached my ‘pod’ with its cupboard and files. I know quite a few agony aunts – we have lunch sometimes – and we all claim to be marginalized at work. Our (mostly male) bosses seem to view us askance; we’re like the white witch who lives down the lane. But I don’t feel slighted at being sidelined like this, not least because it’s relatively quiet. There’s always such a noise at the Post. The day starts calmly enough, but by eleven o’clock as the stories firm up, the background babble builds. There are people arguing, shouting and laughing; the incessant chatter of TV screens; computers are humming, printers spewing, and there’s the polyphonic trill of mobile phones. But being seated about two miles from everyone else I don’t usually notice the din.

‘Hi Serena,’ I said brightly to my assistant. ‘How are you?’

‘Well…’ – I braced myself – ‘…can’t complain. And at least,’ she added, with a glance outside, ‘the weather’s nice for the time of year.’ Serena, let me tell you, inhabits Cliché City: she could win the Palme d’Or for her platitudes. She’s one of these people who are perennially perky; in fact she’s so chirpy I suspect she’s insane. Especially as she invariably has some dreadful domestic crisis going on. She’s late thirties and mousy with three kids and a dull husband called Rob (anagram, ‘Bor’).

‘How was your weekend?’ I enquired as I sat at my desk.

‘Oh it was lovely,’ she replied with a smile. ‘Except that Jonny got his head stuck behind the radiator.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘He was there for three hours.’

‘Gosh.’

‘He’d been looking for Frodo, his white mouse, but then, somehow, his head got jammed. We tried olive oil and butter, even that low-cholesterol Flora, but it just wouldn’t budge. In the end we dialled 999 and the fire brigade got him out.’

‘What about the mouse?’

‘Well, sadly, after all the palaver was over, we discovered he’d been eaten by the cat.’

‘Oh.’ I felt unaccountably crestfallen.