Chapter 4
Rosehill, my family home, was, and still is, the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.
I don’t say this to be conceited, nor do I have a particular proclivity for beautiful houses, but the fact remains—it was a spectacular home.
A grand Edwardian estate with a ballroom, a conservatory, a pool, and a separate guesthouse.
The walls were wallpapered and wood-paneled, the ceilings were high and papered, the cornices intricate.
The lush gardens and expansive lawns were famously the site of the parish Easter egg hunt and had been long before the home was ours.
But while it’s fair to say there was a lot of love for Rosehill in our community, no one loved it more than my father. During parties, he’d hold court, telling stories of its history, his personal favorite being his own history with the house.
“When I was a boy, I used to walk past Rosehill every morning on my way to school. Rosehill wasn’t on the way to my school, mind you—it added a half-hour round trip to my morning—but day after day, I did it.
“Usually, I peered at it from across the road, but once, I was there when the iceman came in his horse and cart, and the gates opened so I could see right up the driveway. I thought it must be a castle because there was a princess right there in the window”—here he would turn to my mother, tipping his glass in her direction—“my future wife.”
That part always got a reaction—an awww from the women, a teasing remark from one of the men, and, as expected, the faintest blush from my mother.
“I think even then, I knew Rosehill would be mine one day. I knew that I’d be the prince.”
It was a long time before I realized the love story wasn’t between my mother and father at all. It was between my father and a house.
I noticed it in small ways first—how he would run a hand along the banister absentmindedly as he walked down the staircase, how he took his morning tea on the veranda, not for the sunshine but to admire the grand columns that framed the entrance.
I started to see how he spoke of Rosehill, not as a place where we lived, but as something he owned, something he had conquered.
And my mother? She was part of the story, but not in the way I had thought. She was the girl in the window. The princess in the castle. Not loved, exactly. Just … there.
In the corner of my mother’s bedroom was a dressing table with a large oval-shaped mirror in the center, and two smaller oval mirrors on either side.
It had an upholstered bench seat that nestled underneath.
The dressing table was a polished wooden piece, with rounded edges and delicate, carved legs.
I knew enough from picture storybooks that a girl was supposed to sit at it of an evening while taking off her jewelry, after which she’d brush her hair a hundred times.
I spent a large chunk of my early childhood sitting at this dressing table among the luxurious Lanc?me lipsticks, compacts from Yardley, and delicate glass perfume bottles from Shalimar—watching Mum get ready for an evening out and listening to Blue Hills, her favorite serial, on the wireless radio.
“When Blue Hills starts,” she used to say, “the world stops.”
Mum drank sherry, or sometimes gin, while she got ready for an evening out.
Sometimes she drank both, and a lot of it.
This could be a good thing. It was a good thing on the days she decided to give me a makeover.
(I wasn’t interested in makeup, but I was very interested in my mother’s attention, so this was most welcome.) Occasionally, she’d keep my back to the mirror until she was finished so she could do a “reveal.” She’d curl my lashes, pinch my cheeks, and carefully apply a dash of lipstick—Red-Red by Tangee.
“It’s the perfect red,” she commented every time. “Blood red.”
I always gasped and clapped when she finally spun me around, and Mum would watch me with a small, pleased smile.
On bad days, instead of watching me with a smile, she began to cry. Some days she cried so loud and for so long that the entire house pulsed with it. One day she became so upset she put her fist clean through the large oval mirror, all the way to the other side.
She was right, I thought, as I watched the blood run down her wrist. It was the exact color of Red-Red by Tangee.