Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams
Page 98

‘No,’ said Tina. ‘They hate each other.’
Roy shrugged.
‘It really was just the computer saying no. Because of my “bad credit history”.’ She dissolved into sobs once more.
‘Well, I,’ said Roy, ‘have a perfect credit history. There’s a reason dentists pay very, very low car insurance.’
‘They’re too stupid to drive?’ asked Rosie.
Roy’s lip curled. ‘I think you have some early-onset gum issues with your upper bicuspid,’ he said. ‘I can see it from here. Doesn’t bode well for the future. You’ll look like one of those horses with the great big long teeth.’
Rosie shut her mouth with a click.
‘Well, you have my offer,’ said Roy. ‘And for the back too. I’m going to add some huge signage, then tarmac the lot for easy parking.’
‘In the garden?’ said Rosie.
‘Well, it’s just weeds in the end,’ said Roy. ‘Anyway, won’t matter to you. You’ll be hotfooting it back to London the second you can. Not a lot of gardening down there, I hear.’
Rosie didn’t quite know what to say to this, so kept quiet.
Roy took one last look around and sneered. ‘Well, anyway, I’m making my offer. Valid till the end of the week. Then I’ll go elsewhere. Had lots of other interest?’
He paused.
‘Thought not. Well, up to you. Spend your whole life buried here then. Doesn’t mean anything to me.’
And he was gone.
‘He’s doing it on purpose,’ said Tina. ‘He didn’t really mean that end-of-the-week stuff. It’s not like he’s going to go anywhere else. Nobody likes him.’
Rosie shrugged. ‘He’s right, though. Apart from you and him, no one else has shown the least bit of interest.’
‘Do you know what sweets Roy Blaine used to eat as a child?’ came the voice crackling over the intercom.
‘No,’ said Rosie. ‘Poison frogs?’
‘None,’ came the tired-sounding voice. ‘None at all.’
Moray had come up trumps with the Land Rover again, thankfully. After squinting at the map, Rosie settled Lilian in carefully, propping her up on cushions, otherwise she was barely large enough to see out of the windscreen. She looked tiny in Moray’s huge car.
In fact, as it turned out, the map was almost unnecessary. Lilian knew everywhere they were going: the home that had once been a cottage hospital where half the babies in town had been born; the old hotel; the army training centre. It felt as if everything now had a different purpose. Every home that once had a heart and a reason for existence had been turned into a holding pen for the elderly; as if the ancient were spreading over the country, swallowing everything in their path like an advancing tidal wave.
‘No wonder Hetty doesn’t want to convert Lipton Hall,’ said Rosie, after their third visit. She had decided to start at the bottom and work up. The first two were absolutely horrible, degrading places that smelled heavily of disinfectant and sadness. In one, a woman with almost no hair sat in the front room by herself, tears coursing down her cheeks, like a child abandoned by her parents. The woman showing them round didn’t even notice. In the second, the rooms they saw were tiny dark cupboards; even though the building was set in the countryside, there were no views from any of them.
‘There are some rooms with views at the front,’ said the stout woman, when she saw them looking doubtfully at the little cells. ‘We give those out on a rotation basis.’
‘You mean,’ said Lilian, ‘as someone dies, you get a bit closer to the front.’
The woman ignored her. ‘We also have children come and sing at Christmas,’ she said. ‘People like that.’
Rosie and Lilian swapped glances. ‘Children hate that,’ whispered Lilian when they were back in the car.
‘I remember,’ said Rosie. ‘All those old fingers wanting to poke at you.’
They both shivered.
‘I wouldn’t put a fox in there,’ observed Lilian after a while.
‘Neither would I,’ said Rosie. ‘Don’t worry.’
But inside, she couldn’t help worrying. This was just about what they could afford if they rented out the cottage and let Tina keep running the shop, which covered its costs and paid for staff and made about five pence more after that. She didn’t see how she could afford anywhere nice enough for Lilian. There wasn’t enough money. There just wasn’t.
The next two homes were similar, and Rosie felt herself beginning to panic. Every time she seemed to be moving on in her life, all the obstacles she thought she’d defeated came popping up again. This ‘little job’ her mother had sent her on had turned out to consume her utterly.
The last place on her list, Honeysuckle House, had had a very bare website. All the others were full of jaunty promises they hadn’t even looked close to being able to fulfil. But as they drove up towards this one, the gardens were tended, and there were even a few people out in the greenhouses – old people, not staff. Rosie snuck a look at her great-aunt, who was affecting not to have noticed them.
A tired but pleasant-faced woman met them at the door.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Come on in.’
As they walked – slowly, of course – the lady, whose name was Marie, didn’t stop doing other things for a second – checking a light bulb, answering queries from a junior, straightening a painting, smiling at everyone she passed, pulling up a cleaner on her uniform. Rosie recognised the style immediately. It was the style of the most successful hospital matrons, those for whom nothing escaped their gimlet eye. The house, once a barracks, was unfashionably furnished, but its parquet flooring gleamed, and although there was a faint trace of disinfectant, it was almost entirely overpowered by the scent of beeswax, and the bonfire smells coming through the open windows. Lilian was very quiet as the tour continued; the rooms were simple but comfortable, with lots of space for photos and clothes.
‘This is the first place I’ve seen,’ said Lilian, when Rosie asked her what she was thinking, ‘that has the windows open.’
The residents were having lunch. Rosie sniffed.
‘Is that …’
Marie checked the schedule. ‘Coq au vin,’ she said. ‘The residents complain something awful. A lot of them don’t like foreign muck,’ she said, then lowered her voice, ‘but they still clean their plates. Sometimes people like to have things to complain about. And I don’t blame them. But we do try our best.’