Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams
Page 77

‘Nice stick,’ she said. Stephen’s back stiffened, then he turned. Rosie realised she’d never seen him standing up properly before. He was taller than she had thought.
‘Nice pig,’ he said. Then he sniffed. ‘Can I smell …?’
‘It’s the pig,’ said Rosie.
‘Well, that’s good.’
‘There’s flowers everywhere. That should mask it.’
As if in response to this, the piglet leaned over and started eating one of the more gaudy arrangements.
‘So, how are you?’ Rosie asked, carefully. ‘Were they happy to discharge you?’
‘I’m not in the business of making nurses happy,’ said Stephen, a fact with which Rosie could not disagree. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m pretending I’m Charlie Chaplin. Plus, they gave me good drugs.’
‘Well, that’s nice,’ said Rosie. Even so, she saw him wince and look around for a chair. ‘I saw Hetty,’ she added.
Stephen winced again. ‘Oh yes? Did she tell you all about her hideous ungrateful son who killed his own father? I kind of liked it better when you didn’t know who I was.’
He sat down. ‘Do you have any sweets?’
Rosie nodded and felt in her pocket. The piglet immediately started snuffling at her hand.
‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘Naughty girl.’
‘Is that really your pig or did you put a magic spell on my mother? And it’s true,’ he said, ‘I did like it when you didn’t know. You can’t imagine what it’s like around here, everybody knowing everyone else’s business. And now the news is out, ooh, Stephen’s OK again. The jags will be out in force.’
‘What are jags?’
Stephen looked at her wryly. ‘You don’t know? Uhm, they’re like wags. But for chaps they think have big houses.’
‘Really?’ said Rosie. ‘I’ve never heard of them.’
‘You’re lucky,’ said Stephen, grimacing. ‘Neither side tends to come out of it well.’
Rosie shot a look at Edison, who was touching a cactus.
‘I can imagine,’ she said.
‘Sometimes it’s easier to have secrets,’ Stephen mused. ‘I mean, you might have disliked me because I was an oaf, but you didn’t dislike me because I killed my dad.’
‘It was definitely the oaf thing,’ said Rosie. ‘But, Stephen, you didn’t kill your dad.’
‘She thinks I did. So I imagine half the town thinks I did. And look at me now, still not facing up to my responsibilities.’ He bit his lip. ‘He meant to disinherit me anyway.’
Rosie absent-mindedly ate a marshmallow. It helped her to think.
‘Did you love him?’ she asked, finally, swallowing. She gave piglet one too.
‘Of course I did!’ said Stephen. ‘I loved him however he was. Unfortunately he didn’t extend the same courtesy to his son. You can’t make people be how you want them to be!’
They both looked at Edison, who had pricked his finger on the cactus but was trying to cover it up and not cry in case he got a telling-off.
‘And she backed him all the way.’ Stephen rubbed the back of his head, then smiled, cynically. ‘Just because they were right doesn’t mean I’m not still pissed off about it.’
‘How were they right?’
‘Because if I’d been clearing land mines it could have saved my leg and … and …’ His voice trailed off.
‘Did you like it in Africa?’ Rosie asked him gently.
‘Some of it,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Well, I stayed eight years. I loved the people – no jags! – and building the school, and the children … The children were so amazing. They didn’t care that they didn’t have big houses or computer games or fucking liberal arts degrees … All they wanted to do was learn, and play, and be kids.
‘I didn’t want to stay there for ever,’ he said. ‘But yes, I was happy. I didn’t want to think about bloody Lipton and bloody Lipton Hall and all the dreary day-to-day penny-pinching stuff of it. Paintings and rugs and roofs and taxes and all of that. Out there we hardly had anything, but it was real life, you know?’
In a funny way, even though their experiences couldn’t have been more different, Rosie did know. To leave behind everything you had in the world: your home, your friends, your job. It was something she knew a bit about too.
‘I would have come back one day,’ said Stephen. ‘You must think I’m such a child.’
‘Families are families,’ said Rosie. ‘Always complicated, no matter how old you are.’
‘But to get stretchered back here in disgrace, without Fe … Dad. Without Dad.’ Stephen stared at the floor. ‘I think anyone would have found it difficult.’
‘I agree,’ said Rosie.
‘But if I’d been better suited to the army, I’m sure I’d have got over it a lot quicker.’
Rosie shook her head. ‘You know, when I was in A&E, we got a lot of poor sods and drunks in. Half the broken-down creatures we saw in there were ex-military men. They feel it too. They’re just not allowed to show it.’
‘Whereas because I’m a spoilt sissy with a free house, I am?’
‘Yes,’ said Rosie. Then she tried to put the piglet down again. ‘I wish all old soldiers were.’
The fête was quietening down outside, the overloud PA system finally silent. Stephen looked miles away.
‘Akibo,’ he said, ‘and his brother, Jabo. Akibo was really serious, all the time. Had a million questions about all sorts of things. Was obsessed with Manchester United. There was one TV in the village, but it didn’t show the football of course. But sometimes I could get up to town and go to an internet caff, and I’d check out the scores for him. He was delighted. Once a charity sent us down some clothes, and I looked the shirt out for him. It was like I’d got the whole team to stop by and do a kickabout with him.’
‘Probably better,’ said Rosie. ‘They’re not that nice.’
‘He was thrilled. Didn’t have a clue really, what it meant, or what it was. Just something to be obsessed by.’
‘I think I know someone he’d have got on with,’ said Rosie. Edison was playing a very complicated game involving leaf spaceships divebombing over the cacti.