CHAPTER 49
With neither Josh nor Titch picking up in her hour of need, Rosa turned to her old friend Jack Daniel. She had never felt so betrayed in her whole life. She had trusted in Joe; properly fallen for him - shared things with him that she normally wouldn’t have shared with anyone else. And for what?
He was quite obviously happily married with a baby on the way. And with a teenage son too - so he had obviously lied about his age. What a complete and utter bastard! And what a complete and utter fool she had been!
What were the odds of her going to his house too? Imagine the scene if he’d answered the door . . . She had no idea how she had managed to control herself in front of his wife. Revenge was a dish best served cold on this one and Joe Fox would be getting large portions of it.
Rosa was amazed that no one in Cockleberry had outed him to her for having a wife and kids. But then again, nobody here actually knew she’d been seeing him. She’d been so wrapped up in him, so brainwashed by him telling her not to tell anyone, that she hadn’t even told Titch.
Why, oh why, did Joe have to come out with so many lies though? He could have said he had kids, it wouldn’t have bothered her, but all the bullshit about his wife having had an affair and that he wasn’t living with her any more . . . complete bloody projection, that’s what it was. He was the cheater! Rosa shuddered. That poor woman.
She grabbed the spare duvet, wrapped it around her and lay on the sofa. Hot wasn’t used to the sound of sobs coming out of his mistress, so at first he ran around barking, then on getting no reaction to that, he scrambled up on the sofa and dug himself in under the duvet, snuggling into her lap.
She had just sat up to pour herself another drink, when she noticed the screen on her silenced phone flashing. It was Mary. Rosa sighed. Mary never called her, but that was before she had lost Queenie - and Rosa had told her to get in touch whenever she needed to.
She greeted Mary with a slurred, ‘Hello.’
‘Rosa, dear, I was just taking Merlin around the block and saw that you’ve left the shop lights on. Is everything all right?’
‘Oh, thanks, Mary. I’ll go and turn them off,’ Rosa said shakily, and sniffed loudly.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
The sniff metamorphosed into a huge sob. ‘No, I’m not,’ she wept.
‘Why don’t you come here for a nice hot cup of tea, love?’
‘No, thanks. I’m better off alone.’
‘Come on. I’ve just put another log on the fire.’
‘No. I don’t want to leave the flat.’ Rosa suddenly had a vision of being twelve years old again, when her then foster-parents had informed her that, although they loved her with all their hearts, they weren’t strong enough to deal with her persistent tantrums: this meant she would have to go back into care.
‘Well, I’m coming to you then.’
Mary was greeted at the front door by a red, swollen-faced little girl. ‘I don’t know what you were on about, Mary,’ Rosa told her. ‘The shop lights weren’t on.’
‘Oh, I could have sworn they were.’
‘Drink?’ Rosa offered when they got upstairs to the kitchen. ‘Jack Daniel’s? Wine? Beer?’ She was staggering around. ‘Oh, you don’t, do you? Why don’t you drink, Mary?’
Mary straightened her chubby frame and went to the kettle.
‘Tea for both of us, I think.’
‘I don’t want tea.’
‘Well, go and sit down then, whilst I make myself one.’
Mary handed Rosa a large glass of water, then sat down on the opposite sofa.
‘You can tell me what it is if you want to, love.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Well, I can’t help you then.’
Jack Daniel had reached the sub-conscious level and there was no stopping Rosa’s demons from coming out, floating on a torrent of abuse.
‘Why would you think you could help me, Mary? You haven’t even had a boyfriend before, I expect, stuck living down here with your old gran in your witchy coven.’
‘You shouldn’t drink when you feel sad, Rosa.’
‘You sound like a bloody social worker. I shouldn’t do a lot of things, Mary, but I do, and I have. Somebody once told me never to trust anyone who doesn’t drink, you know.’
‘Did they now?’ Mary shut her eyes for a moment. ‘From that little outburst, I guess this is to do with a boyfriend? So you might as well tell me, now I’m here.’
Rosa rocked to and fro, then let out a massive sob.
‘I went to see the TV that was for sale in Polhampton.’ She ran her hands through her hair. ‘And - and well, there was no TV . . . but there was a wife.’ The word wife came out as a whisper.
Moving to sit next to her, Mary held Rosa’s hand as she howled: ‘He’d told me they were splitting up, but the wife is pregnant, so they can’t be, can they?’
‘Have you asked him that?’
‘Of course I haven’t.’
‘Give me your phone then.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Don’t call him tonight when you are not in your right mind, Rosa. Come on.’ Mary held out her hand. ‘Let me look after it, just for tonight.’
‘No!’ Rosa pushed her hands angrily through her messy curls. ‘I want to call him, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to know the truth, as once it’s out, I know that I can never see him again, and that hurts. That hurts so much.’ She began sobbing again. ‘Why does everybody leave me, Mary?’
Gulping down her own emotions, Mary awkwardly crooked Rosa in her arms and began rocking her gently. Rosa was in too much of a state to resist.
‘Do you think it might be a terrible mistake, Mary? Maybe his wife is the liar?’
Mary carried on her rocking motion. ‘Hear these words, young Rosa. Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. The deeper the sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balance.’
‘Is that some kind of spell?’
‘No, Rosa. They are the words of a man called Kahlil Gibran, from a book called The Prophet. I know you’ve had a tough life, dear, but you’ve got room now for so much joy. People, men . . . will come and go, but take heart from the good ones - because although it may not seem like it at the moment, there are decent people out there. You just need to let them in.’
‘A bit like Hot, I guess. He was badly treated, but look at him now.’ Rosa sniffed loudly.
‘Exactly. All that love you’ve given him, it shows. So don’t you miss out on love for fear of being abandoned. Promise me, Rosa.’
The girl wiggled free from Mary and sat up. An idea had come into her head
‘It was you! You led me to the wrong house on purpose, didn’t you, Mary?’
Mary stood up. ‘No, my child. I led you to the right one.’