Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams
Page 76

‘Bacon sandwich?’ said Hetty, clasping her hands round Rosie’s shoulders so the photographers could get another shot. After that the crowd drifted away, leaving Hetty, Rosie, Edison and the pig.
Edison was absolutely fascinated with the creature. He would approach within a few centimetres of her – it was a her; she had two long lines of little teats running down her stomach – and they would go nose to nose and regard each other seriously, then he would back off again.
‘What am I meant to do with this?’ said Rosie. ‘Would the children’s home like it?’
‘That’s a very valuable animal,’ said Lady Lipton. ‘I’d hold on to it if I were you.’
Rosie looked at it mulishly. The pig looked back and made a small grunting noise. It was, she supposed, rather cute.
Lady Lipton let out a sigh.
‘So. It appears that my son. And the, ahem, the entire town. Thinks I owe you an apology.’
Rosie looked at her. ‘But you don’t.’
Lady Lipton shrugged. ‘I was … I was upset. It appears that … yes. Without you … well. He is up. And about. And outside. So. Thank you. Thank you for what you did for Stephen.’
‘And Bran,’ reminded Rosie, with a slight twitch of the lips. It was such an unusual sight to see Hetty cowed, she was attempting to prolong the experience.
There was a pause.
‘So how’s—’
‘Bran’s fine, thanks,’ said Hetty.
Rosie smiled to herself. She had walked into that.
‘My son? Well, I wondered when you were going to ask.’
‘I was going to ask before someone handed me an incontinent pig,’ said Rosie. ‘Then I got distracted.’
The pig obligingly started peeing again. Rosie was past caring by this point.
‘He’s fine. He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be all right,’ said Hetty, wonderingly, as if she couldn’t quite believe it.
Rosie bit her lip.
‘But why weren’t … why weren’t you … Sorry, but I have to ask.’
‘Why wasn’t I looking after my only son?’ said Hetty. There was no one else in the tent now except the two of them and Edison. Hetty turned away.
The tombola stood there quietly, and Hetty flicked it, quickly, with her fingers.
‘You don’t have children, do you?’ she said.
‘Edison, could you go and play outside for a moment?’
Edison shook his head instantly. ‘I’m not lowed outside. Stranger danger!’
Rosie rolled her eyes. ‘All right, sunshine. Go play over in the very furthest corner of the marquee.’
Edison bit his lip.
‘Then I’ll buy you a gluten-free ice cream.’
Edison scampered away.
‘I do, kind of, appear to have children,’ said Rosie ruefully, looking after him.
‘Until you do,’ Hetty said, smiling tightly and sitting down. Rosie sat down too; her feet were killing her. Not knowing what to do with the piglet, she put her on the floor, where she instantly squealed until Rosie picked her up again.
‘I definitely do already,’ said Rosie.
‘Until you do,’ went on Hetty imperiously, ‘you can’t know. You can’t know how much you love them.’
Rosie thought of her mum, madly in love with Pip’s brats, even when they treated her like a serf.
‘Hmm,’ she said.
‘And when you’re a family … you just try as hard as you can to hold it all together. And when you’re part of a certain type of family …’
‘You mean posh?’ said Rosie, wondering if Hetty was about to explain away her own behaviour as the result of having too much money and too big a house.
‘No … I mean, having a responsibility for something. Like you have a responsibility towards the shop. In our case, Lipton Hall. Try to preserve our heritage and not throw everything away. We got plenty of offers to turn it into some tacky hotel or horrible old people’s home, you know.’
‘People need hotels and old people’s homes,’ said Rosie.
‘That’s not the point,’ said Hetty. ‘Rosie, don’t you understand what I’m saying? I don’t even know why I have to justify myself to you. I lost my husband. And my son. Even though I bounced between them for years trying to make it right. Even though I tried everything. You have no right to march in here with your big city ways and think you know about us. No right at all.’
Rosie felt ashamed suddenly, as Hetty’s face manifested how deep was her grief.
‘I’m sorry you lost your husband,’ she said. ‘So sorry. But that night … I still can’t get my head round how quickly you came running when it was your dog and how late you were when it was your son.’
Hetty turned on her, suddenly furious once more.
‘Bran loves me back,’ she said, imperious. Rosie cast her eyes to the ground. ‘And don’t you ever think I stopped trying,’ Hetty added. ‘Not for a second.’
She turned and stormed out of the tent in her wellingtons. Rain had now come on properly, and the drops trickled down her large waxed hat. Rosie watched her leave, feeling awful. She glanced down. Edison was back at her side.
‘That looked awkward,’ he observed.
‘How old are you?’ she grumbled.
Rosie went out in search of lunch – she felt like she’d been up for hours – and someone to give the pig to. The fête was in full swing; dogs were showing off their prowess at jumping obstacles round what looked like a miniature race course; people walked about proudly wearing large rosettes that they’d won for different competitions, marmalade and pickles being one she saw prominently displayed. The photographer from the local paper was taking a picture of Roy Blaine handing over a winner’s cheque to someone with an entire flock of lambs in front of him. Roy was displaying all his gnashers for the benefit of the camera. It was lucky the sun had gone in, thought Rosie savagely. He’d blind half the crowd. It occurred to her that she hadn’t had enough sleep.
She found him – and realised instantly it wasn’t really lunch she’d been looking for – in the corner of the flower tent, of all places. It was practically deserted, and a shocking display of incredibly vulgar dahlias had taken first place. But on the floor was possibly the most even surface in the entire place, green Astroturf. Stephen was crossly, and painfully, inching his way up and down it with a large stick.