Time of My Life. Sharon Griffiths
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hadn’t. We’ve planned holidays and weekends away but no more than that, not what you would call a proper, grown-up, till death us do part future. Maybe it was too frightening to contemplate.
‘Well let’s talk about it now. Come on, Rosie, what do you want? What do you want from me? From us?’
‘I don’t know.’ And that was honest. I had sometimes daydreamed of marrying Will. Not the big white wedding, but just being married to him, having him there all the time. He was the only person I’ve ever daydreamed like that about. The only one.
But I had never told him. Because there were times that the same dream could terrify me. The thought of being with just one person for ever. Well, it’s seriously scary, isn’t it?
And Will … well, he wasn’t exactly husband material. I mean, he was nearly thirty and he still acted like a big kid. Away from work all he and Jamie cared about was football and drinking and playing computer games and the bloody grand prix and flash tellies.
‘You don’t know?’ he repeated, still waiting for my answer.
I looked up at him. ‘Will, I love my job and I’m just beginning to get somewhere. I want to see how far I can go.’
‘Fair enough. You’ll go far, Rosie. We both know that.’ Full of angry energy, he was pacing up and down the tiny sitting room. ‘But I don’t know if I’m part of your plan. Frankly, Rosie, I haven’t a clue where I am with you. You want everything your own way.’
‘But it’s not like that …’ I was stunned, struggling to find ways of saying what I thought. And then he nearly floored me with his next question.
‘Tell me, do you see yourself having children?’
‘Hey!’ I tried to joke. ‘You can’t ask questions like that at interviews. Not allowed.’
Will wasn’t laughing. ‘I want to know.’
‘Well yes, since you ask, one day, probably,’ I said. I’d daydreamed about that too. A boy and a girl, with Will’s blond hair and big brown eyes. But not yet. Maybe I’d have them at some vague point in the future.
It was time for me to go on the attack. ‘And what about you? Do you want children?’
‘Maybe, one day. Depends.’
‘Depends on what?’ I asked. And the Devil got into me, because I snapped, ‘On whether you can fit it in between the PlayStation and the plasma TV? Or another new car? You’ve got to be a grown-up to be a parent, Will, not an overgrown bloody kid yourself.’
Of course it all went downhill from there. We’d both had too much to drink and said too many things that shouldn’t have been said and that I’m not even sure we meant.
I called him spoilt, immature and childish, among other things. He called me a selfish, unthinking control freak, among other things. It didn’t get us anywhere. In the end I went off to bed and I could hear Will still crashing around the sitting room, impatiently flicking through the TV channels, until he finally went to sleep on the sofa. My new sofa.
And me? I lay in bed and tried to re-run the row. Did I really want to be married? Yes of course. Maybe. But now? Frankly, the thought frightened me. What if Will went to Dubai? What if I went to London?
What if?
My head was thumping. I hardly slept, and in the morning my head was worse … which is why when we got to The News on Monday morning – in Will’s car, in silence – I’d been hoping to crawl quietly to my desk and just plod through the day – but the editor, Jan Fox, known to all as the Vixen, spotted me.
‘Rosie! A word please!’
The Vixen was standing at her office door, eyes glinting, coppery highlights shining. In one hand she held a large sheet of paper, on which the perfect scarlet nails of the other hand were lightly drumming. It was not a happy drumming.
I realised that the piece of paper she was so obviously hacked off about was a proof copy of the next day’s feature page. A feature on childcare, one I’d written. My heart sank even further. Happy Monday.
‘Do you realise,’ she said, shooting me one of her fierce looks, ‘how incredibly young and silly this makes you sound? It’s written as though everybody in the world has a responsibility to look after children with the sole exception of their bloody parents.’
‘But I was just quoting from the reports and the government spokesman …’
‘Yes, I know you were,’ she sighed. ‘I just wonder about your generation sometimes. You must have had it easier than any other in the history of the world, and it’s still not enough, you’re still asking for more.’
I just stood there, waiting, longing to get to the Ibupro-fen in my desk drawer.
‘OK, I’ve marked up some ideas. Get that done. And then there’s something else I want you to have a go at.’
Just what, I found out at the morning conference.
The News Editor, Picture Editor, Chief Photographer, and others all crowded into the Vixen’s office, with mugs of coffee and piles of notes balanced on their knees. Will was there too, not looking quite as polished as usual. I don’t know if he was trying to catch my eye. I didn’t give him the chance. I just kept staring at the photos of all the old editors on the wall above him. George Henfield, fat and bald, Richard Henfield with his pipe.
We’d whizzed through the plans for the following day’s paper and much of the week’s ideas, but the Vixen was still talking. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Now what about The Meadows? It’s fifty years since the first families moved in and I think we should have a good look at it. At the time it was revolutionary, homes of the future, the perfect place to live.’
‘Bloody hell, they must have been desperate,’ muttered Will.
The Vixen, of course, heard him.
‘Will, you haven’t a bloody clue, have you?’ she said in withering tones, which cheered me up.
Will tried to score some Brownie points. ‘We’ve done quite a lot on the way the school’s improved,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a few interviews with the new headmistress who’s working miracles, Rosemary Picton, and we’re always doing picture stories there.’
‘Yes,’ said the Vixen briskly, ‘and I’m sure we’ll be back to her. An amazing woman. But, as you know, they are using one of the houses on The Meadows for a new reality TV series, The 1950s House, so we need a good look at why people were so pleased to move there. What it was like at the beginning. Why it went wrong in parts. Why other parts are flourishing.
‘We’ll want to take a good look at life in the 1950s. It could make a series of features, but I want some meat on it, not just nostalgia. The Meadows seems a good place to start.’
By now I’d finished gazing at the old editors and was working my way around the myriad awards that The News had won under the Vixen. Suddenly I heard her mention my name. I sat up and tried to take notice.
‘Rosie? Are you with us? I said I think this is something for you. If you wait afterwards, I’ll give you some contacts.’
She always had contacts. I swear she knew everyone in town, not to mention the country. As the others picked up their notes and went back to their desks, she scribbled a name for me.
‘Margaret Turnbull was one of the first people to move in to The Meadows, and she’s lived there ever since. Nice woman, good talker. And she’s actually Rosemary Picton’s mother. When you’ve met Margaret you might get an idea of why her daughter’s so determined to help the children of The Meadows. Anyway, here’s her number. She’ll get you off to a good start.’
With that she gave me an odd look. But her eyes, in that immaculate make-up, were unreadable. ‘I think you might find it very interesting,’ she said.
Dutifully,