Magic Sometimes Happens Part 28

'I see.'

'We meant it to be kind of special. We had this little fight around about a week ago. He was tired and I was tired, we both got scratchy and this is his way of making up.' Lexie looked at me with pleading eyes. 'But if you won't watch Polly, seems like we'll miss out now?'

'Lex, don't look at me like that.' I sighed. 'Oh, what the h.e.l.l you go have your fun weekend with Mr Wonderful. I guess Poll can do some guy stuff, too.'

ROSIE.

Granny Ca.s.sie was so pleased to see me.

She had been quite ill. She'd had a bad reaction to a new arthritis drug and ended up in hospital. But she was getting better now, was home again and she was very bored. 'So come on, Rosie tell me everything?' she wheedled.

'All my secrets, Granny?'

'Yes, of course!'

'Why don't you have another violet cream?'

We were eating chocolates. I'd bought them from a shop in Piccadilly. We both knew they were evil, far too high in fat and sugar, so she shouldn't have too many. But they were so delicious that we scoffed them anyway. Mum could read the riot act to us later, after the event poor Mum.

'How's your new job?' she asked.

'It's going really well. I'm getting lots of new accounts and f.a.n.n.y's very helpful, always putting work my way.'

'But it's not your job that's made your pretty face light up.'

'What do you mean?'

'You can't fool me, my girl. I've been there, got the silky knickers and the lace suspender belt.'

'Granny, you're so naughty!'

'You're in love.'

'Mum told you she met Patrick?'

'Your mother tells me nothing. She thinks I'll have a heart attack and die if I hear anything exciting. What do I not know?'

'When Mum came to London, this man was at my flat.'

'You mean in your bedroom?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, I see,' said Granny. 'I dare say that was interesting for everyone concerned?'

'It was beyond embarra.s.sing. Do please stop giggling, Granny. You sound about fourteen.'

'Why should I not giggle if the two of you are happy? As I a.s.sume you must be?'

'Pat is an American who lives in Minnesota and he's married with two children.'

'Oh, I see.'

'I don't know what to do.'

'What does he want to do?'

'He hasn't told me, so perhaps he doesn't know. Or perhaps I'm just a blip and maybe he will go back to his wife. Do you think I'm wicked?'

'No, of course I don't, my darling. You're incapable of wickedness. But please don't let him hurt you. I don't want you to be hurt again. You've been hurt more than enough already.'

'Pat isn't going to hurt me.'

'Good,' said Granny. 'What about a game of Scrabble? I could fancy that. You'll have to sort the letters out for me.'

'She's very up and down,' my mother told me when I said Granny didn't seem too bad in fact, she seemed quite chirpy. 'She's on such a mix of painkillers it's hard to get the dose exactly right.'

I don't know if in this life anybody can get anything exactly right?

But Granny had seemed bright and cheerful when she'd talked to me. Or maybe she was being determinedly jolly because I had come home? She always knew exactly what to say to me, and sometimes that was nothing.

But my mother wasn't as intuitive as Granny, wasn't into intuition, never had been, never would be. Mum was into confrontation, self-expression, talking it all through.

On Sunday afternoon, while Granny was asleep and Dad had gone to see a golfing friend about some boring tournament, Mum followed me into the sitting room. I saw she had that look upon her face. The look which was accessorised by we must have a serious talk in flas.h.i.+ng neon letters on her forehead.

'How are you, Rosie?' she began as I was gathering up the Sunday papers, hoping Mum's interrogation wouldn't last too long and I could have a quiet read.

'I'm fine,' I said and forced a smile. 'I have a bit of indigestion. I ate too many Yorks.h.i.+res. I can't resist your Yorks.h.i.+res.'

'You're coping, are you, darling?'

'Yes are you?'

'I'm asking about you. Do you want to talk about it?'

'No.'

'Do you get nightmares?'

'All the time.'

'You could still have some counselling, you know.'

'Mum, could we change the subject?'

Big mistake.

'That man I met in London,' said my mother. 'Who exactly is he?'

'Patrick Riley. I introduced him to you, didn't I?'

'I mean, what is this man to you?'

'He's just a friend.'

'But he's married, isn't he? I saw his wedding ring. He's an American, as well.'

'Well done, Mum. Ten out of ten for noticing his accent. But don't worry, I'm not having s.e.x with aliens. It's rumoured that Americans are human beings, too.'

'Rosie, please don't be facetious. You know what I'm trying to say. I'm aware that nowadays things must be quite difficult for you, trying to get your PR business off the ground, and-'

'f.a.n.n.y's being very helpful: brilliant, in fact. She sends you all her love. She said to tell you when you're next in town-'

'Darling, I'm a magistrate.' Mum put on her kind and caring face. 'So I'm very well aware that when a person has a bad experience, it can be hard to cope with normal life. People get confused. Go off the rails a little. It doesn't mean they're bad-'

'Mum, I'm not a teenage hoodie who's been doing drugs because his father beat him when he was a little boy. So please spare me all that Social Services and Probation Officer rubbish?'

'Rosie, listen-'

'If I go to bed with married men, it's because I fancy married men. Or a particular married man. It's not because of Charlie or what happened and it definitely isn't about you.'

As I said it, I regretted it. I knew it was cruel, spiteful, hurtful, all those things. So why didn't I apologise? Why didn't I go and sit beside my mother, hold her hand, tell her that I knew how much she must be hurting and I hadn't meant to make it worse?

I didn't know.

I drove back to London Sunday evening really looking forward to seeing Pat again, to finding something like a truth a certainty with him. But whatever Pat was offering, I knew deep in my heart it wasn't certainty.

He spent a lot of evenings at my flat.

Most of the time, it was all fine. We talked, we joked, we laughed, lay on the sofa entwined with one another, drinking wine and watching tripe on television, mocking idiots on game shows, planning where we could take Joe and Polly when he had them next.

But he had a streak of melancholy in him half a mile wide. He was sometimes silent and so totally preoccupied that I learned to leave him to it, not to ask if anything was wrong or if he fancied going for a drink, to see a film.

He was certainly a workaholic, on his laptop all the time, writing emails, grading coursework, skyping colleagues, students and other academics all around the world, doing his job in Minnesota at long distance, somehow fitting in his London lectures and research, seeing Joe and Polly and also seeing me.

It was just as well I was so busy with my own new company, that my flat was full of samples, folders, files, promotional material (both edible and hopefully-intended-to-be-edible-but-actually-inedible. What were some people thinking? Anyone for birch bark biscuits, pansy cookies, hedgerow harvest pies?), carrier bags and boxes which needed my attention.

I can't pretend he didn't take a lot of interest in me and my not-exactly-n.o.bel-laureate-level work.

'What's all this?' he asked one evening, walking in to find me sitting on the floor and trying to play a board game which was meant for ten-year-olds, surrounded by a mess of cards and spinning tops and counters and failing to get anywhere.

'It's the next big thing,' I told him. 'Hamleys will go mad for it. Come on, Pat, why don't you play with me?'

'Okay, if you insist. But let's play in your bedroom, not in here with all this garbage on the floor. Those spinning tops look more than capable of doing serious damage to a guy.'

'Pat, this is important! This game could be the next Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit. It could make some people millionaires. One of them might be me.'

'No kidding, Rosie? Maybe I should take a closer look?' He hunkered down, examined all the bits and pieces, read the rules and then he shook his head. He pointed out some fatal flaws of logic. Unless this and this and this were fixed, unless one player cheated, the game would be impossible to win. It always would be stalemate.

'You give that to a bunch of kids without doing a lot more work on it, there will be blood,' he told me. Then he grabbed a notebook. He started drawing diagrams and doing calculations, explaining very clearly what was wrong and how to put it right.

Blood and stalemate.

Pat could fix the board game, but could he fix my life? Or had he stalemated it for good? What if one of the players cheated what would happen then?

June.

PATRICK.

I guess in Britain summer doesn't happen?

But it didn't matter. Rosie was the suns.h.i.+ne in my life. She made me smile. She made me laugh out loud. She raised my spirits, and just thinking of her always put me on a high. I told her that I loved her half a dozen times a day.

'But what is it you love about an idiot like me, Professor?' she enquired one evening as I fixed her laptop yet again, explained again why she should choose some stronger pa.s.swords so that her accounts would be less likely to get hacked.

'You crack me up,' I said, as she keyed in patwasbornaw.a.n.kerin1978 and shrekthe3rdsgreena.r.s.e.

'You mean you find me frightfully amusing?'

'I suppose I must.'

'You mean you guess you do?' She grinned at me. 'Your Britglish, mate it's coming on a treat.'

'Your Amglish has a way to go.'

'I'm not trying to learn Amglish. I speak seven languages already.'

'Do you fluently?'

'If we're going to insist on fluency, I suppose it's three. But that's two more than you and no, computer languages don't count.'

'You're fluent in three languages, you have a quarter blue in tiddlywinks, whatever that might mean Tess mentioned it one time you dazzle me.'

'You're such a sarcastic git.'

'I know. Lex and Mr Wonderful are flying up to Scotland on the weekend. Okay if I bring Joe and Poll to visit?'

'Yes, of course. Do bring the children round. I'd love to see them. What shall we do with them?'

'What's Alton Towers?'

'It's a theme park full of noisy rides and shrieking kids.'