The Bookshop on Rosemary Lane: The feel-good read perfect for those long winter nights. Ellen Berry
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dependent on a husband, doing what he wants, not having any independence at all …’
‘You’re right, of course you are. I know you’ll never be like that.’
‘I won’t, Mum. God, they’re like the, the … I don’t know. People from the nineteen fifties!’
Della gulped her water. While she was impressed by her daughter’s fiercely feminist streak, she couldn’t help reflecting that, really, her own and Mark’s marriage wasn’t so different. They had remained in Heathfield because Mark’s podiatry practice was here, as was Sophie’s life – friends, school, the tennis and gymnastic clubs she had belonged to until sipping a caramel frappé in Starbucks with a gaggle of friends began to hold more appeal. However, while everything rolled along reasonably happily, Della had often caught herself thinking, is this it? She worked full-time in Heathfield Castle’s gift shop and, whilst she didn’t despise it exactly, never once had she thought, This is what I was made to do. It had never been her life’s ambition to sell polyester tabards and chain-mail snoods.
Sophie swung morosely on the fridge door as Della made a pot of tea. ‘Grab a tray, love,’ she said. ‘Hopefully this’ll stop Uncle Jeff slugging down any more wine. And put out some more cookies, would you?’ Sophie snorted in derision and selected the cheapest packet of biscuits from the cupboard, tipping them haphazardly onto a plate. As they made their way back to the living room, Della could hear Tamsin’s shrill tones: ‘What was that woman’s name, the one with the awful peachy-coloured hair?’
‘Oh, God, Irene Bagshott,’ Jeff groaned, ‘nosying into everyone’s business.’
‘Is her hair dyed that colour,’ Tamsin mused, ‘or is it naturally a sort of washed-out, faded ginger?’
‘You mean the one with the hairy mole?’ Isaac asked. For all their expensive education, the boys hadn’t learned much in the way of manners.
‘Er, yes, I did notice that,’ his mother tittered.
‘Could hardly miss it,’ Jeff added.
‘Is her hair a wig, Mum?’ Noah wanted to know.
‘Honestly, sweetheart, I have no idea,’ Tamsin replied. ‘I didn’t examine her that closely.’
Isaac jabbed Jeff’s arm. ‘Dad, what’s that little fruit, the furry one with a stone inside?’
‘Peach, son.’
‘Nah, nah, the other one.’
‘You mean apricot?’ Tamsin asked.
‘Yeah!’ Isaac spluttered. ‘Apricot wig and a hairy mole!’ Somehow, he managed to fit this instantly into a jaunty tune, reminiscent of an ice-cream van jingle, and now he and Noah were singing it in what felt like an endless loop.
Apricot wig and a hairy mole,
Hairy mole, hairy mole,
Apricot wig and a hairy mole …
Della felt as if a clamp was being applied to her skull. Let’s run down the whole village while we’re at it, she thought tersely, checking the wall clock and trying to calculate how long it might be before she could curl up on the blow-up mattress, which she planned to jam in between the two sofas, and go to sleep. When everyone else had gone to bed, she supposed.
Roxanne turned to her as Della set the tray down on the coffee table. ‘So, what are we going to do, Dell?’
‘You mean, tonight? Well, you’re in the spare room and Mark and I are sleeping down here. Jeff, Tamsin and the boys can have our room …’
‘We’re not staying,’ Terry cut in.
‘No, that’s fine, you did mention it,’ Della said kindly.
‘We can only sleep in our own bed,’ Val added.
‘Okay, Mum,’ Mark said rather curtly. ‘We’re not going to force you to stay.’
Della threw him a quick glare and, as Terry and Val prepared to leave, she found them their coats from the pile in the spare room and escorted them, with Mark hovering distractedly at her side, to the hired Renault they had parked a little further down the street. She felt Mark emit a little sigh of relief as they drove away.
‘I meant,’ Roxanne said, as Della and Mark returned to the living room, ‘what are we going to do about Rosemary Cottage?’ Silence settled around the room. The twins, mercifully with headphones plugged in now, munched absent-mindedly on the remaining biscuits.
‘There’s no rush, is there?’ Sophie asked with a frown. ‘I mean, we’ve only just had Grandma’s funeral.’
‘Yes, but there’s no point in letting things drift on.’ Ignoring the pot of tea Della had brought through, Jeff topped up his wine glass. ‘When winter comes,’ he continued, ‘we’ll be talking frozen pipes and slates falling off that godawful roof.’
‘But it’s only September,’ Sophie countered.
‘Actually,’ Della remarked, ‘Jeff’s right. We might as well deal with it now, rather than putting it off.’
‘I think you’re right, darling,’ Mark said.
‘Yes,’ Roxanne remarked, ‘delaying things will only make it more horrible for all of us.’
Although Della nodded in agreement, it wasn’t quite that. It was this: the gathering of the Cartwright clan, the way Jeff assumed authority as if he were still twelve years old and issuing library fines, and his wife’s snidey remark about Irene’s hair when she had been nothing but kind to their mother, making actual pastry leaves for the lid of that chicken and leek pie, for goodness’ sake. It was as if all that kindness counted for nothing. And what about Len from Burley Bridge Garage who’d fixed Della’s car for virtually no money? It made Della cringe, the way her brother and sister swept in and out of the village as if staying a moment longer would somehow taint them with its ugly, countryish ways. She couldn’t bear the thought of endless meetings and wranglings as the Rosemary Cottage business rumbled on.
‘You think we should put it on the market?’ Roxanne ventured.
‘Yes, I do,’ Della replied firmly.
‘We’ll have to clear it out, of course,’ Jeff added, glancing at Tamsin. ‘There’s nothing we need, is there?’ Good lord, he was mentally divvying up their mother’s possessions already. Della bit fiercely into a Rich Tea.
‘No, no.’ Tamsin shuddered visibly.
‘What about the watercolour over the fireplace?’
‘It’s terribly drab, darling. It won’t go in our place.’ Tamsin turned to Roxanne. ‘What about you, Rox?’
‘I don’t need anything,’ she said, unsurprisingly: her tiny two-bedroomed Islington flat was a shrine to minimalism.
‘Well, I can’t imagine anyone would want all that hefty old furniture,’ Jeff added, raking back his dark hair.
Mark put a hand on Della’s knee. ‘Isn’t it a bit too soon to start thinking about clearing out all your mum’s things?’
Della shook her head. ‘No, we need to get on with it. There’s that auction place in town, some of the furniture and paintings could go there.’ She paused. ‘And while we’re all here together we should look through the smaller things – the mementoes – and decide what we’d like to remember Mum by.’ She glanced at Sophie. ‘You should have something of Gran’s, love.’
Sophie nodded. ‘I’d like that, Mum. Maybe just the plain gold chain she wore all the time.’
‘Oh, the jewellery,’ Tamsin exclaimed, eyes gleaming, then, colouring slightly, she added, ‘Although I expect you’d like to have a rake through it first, Rox.’