Chapter Forty #2
Patrick was waiting for him in the main reception area. Their terse conversation the previous day had left Connor with a feeling of remorse, and irrespective of whether Patrick was angry with him or just stressed, he deserved more support. He greeted his brother warmly.
‘Thanks for coming back, Connor. I know you’re in the middle of filming and it’s not as simple as just hopping on a plane.’
‘Although that’s more or less exactly what I did do, hence the lack of luggage,’ said Connor, pointing at the small holdall at his feet. ‘Grandad is more important than whether or not we finish episode eighteen this week.’ He looked around. ‘So which way is it? You lead the way.’
He followed Patrick through a maze of corridors and then to a lift that took them to the third floor.
A set of double doors led onto a ward, but Patrick steered him into what looked like a small windowless waiting room.
Half a dozen plastic chairs lined the room and a water cooler stood on a table in the corner, surrounded by some ancient looking magazines.
‘Do we have to talk to the doctor or something?’ Connor asked. ‘It’s just I’m dead tired, but I want to say hello to Grandad before my head hits the pillow.’
Patrick gestured for him to sit down. ‘There’s no easy way to say this, Connor—’
‘No!’ Connor shook his head as panic shot through him. ‘No, don’t say that. Anything but that.’
‘I’m sorry, Grandad passed away this morning. I was with him the whole time.’
Connor felt hot. And sick. He let his head drop into his hands.
Patrick sat beside him and put a comforting arm around his brother. ‘He knew you were trying to get home,’ he said gently.
Hot tears splashed Connor’s palms as he tried to take it in. Grandad had gone. He would never see him again. His dutiful brother had sat by his dying grandad’s bedside while he had been sitting waiting for a studio medic to patch up Bonnie’s miniscule knife wound.
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Sorry for everything.’
Patrick rubbed his shoulder. ‘You’re exhausted. We can’t do any more here, let’s go home.’
‘I don’t have one,’ Connor replied in a small voice, rubbing the tears from his face with the heels of his hands.
‘Of course you do. You’ll stay with Lisa and me until you’ve had a proper sleep and something to eat. And then if you want to go back to the flat you can stay there.’
Connor looked at his brother. ‘I thought your friend was renting it? The one who was coming back from abroad.’
‘He did ask before Christmas, but when I contacted him after you left for America, he said he was renting a place over in Cotlington. I’d hoped to do a bit of decorating before looking for another tenant but there hasn’t been time, so it’s empty at the moment.
The thing is, I wanted you to get on and do something with your life, not sit around and wait for that one perfect job that might never arrive.
I thought if you knew I needed the flat you would feel more motivated to get a job.
Just anything to get you started again.’ Patrick’s voice was full of emotion as he spoke.
‘I was annoyed, and people don’t say things the right way when they’re angry. I’m sorry.’
‘But what’s happened to the garden? Is Rosie still looking after it?’
‘No one’s looking after it. It’s rather a mess.’
Connor wasn’t sure whether his tears were for Rosie’s garden, or for Grandad, or for himself, or all three. He felt like a child again, crying because everything had gone wrong, only it was of his own making. His choices.
After he’d composed himself, Patrick phoned for a taxi to take them both home. He must have texted Lisa as she had a bed made up in Brendan’s room, and Connor dropped into it almost fully clothed.
He was woken several hours later by the soft stroking of a furry animal. Connor opened his eyes and saw what looked like an animal glove puppet, although at point blank range it was hard to identify what species it was.
‘Mummy says dinner’s ready,’ announced its human operator in a quiet voice. The animal tapped him again and he sat up, rubbing his face. After a few more seconds of persuasion, he followed Brendan downstairs.
Lisa greeted him with a hug. ‘You poor love. It’s not the news you wanted to come back to, but we’ll all get through this together. As a family. Now, you sit there at the table and your dinner will arrive in a minute. You don’t want to sleep too long or else you’ll be awake half the night.’
Connor would have preferred to sleep, but he was too tired to argue. It was as if his brain had been replaced with sawdust, and it was easier to follow instructions than think about what to do next.
He picked at his food but he managed to eat something and shortly afterwards, headed back up to bed accompanied by Brendan.
‘Isn’t it funny that we’re going to bed at the same time? Grown-ups usually stay up for ages!’
‘This grown-up is very tired,’ replied Connor with a yawn.
He dropped his clothes at the bottom of the camp bed and crawled gratefully under the duvet. The last thing he heard was a small voice whispering from the other side of the room, ‘Night, night, Uncle Connor.’
*
Over breakfast, Patrick and Connor discussed the urgent arrangements, which were to contact the funeral directors, get the death registered, and set in motion all the other formalities.
At some point Grandad’s house would need to be cleared and then put on the market, but that could be done a bit further down the road, Patrick decided.
Connor was happy for him to take charge; not only did he have more idea about how officialdom worked, he was better at organising.
However, Connor was clear on one thing, and that was he wanted to go back to the flat.
He needed to be alone for a bit and think things through.
Patrick offered to drive him there, but Lisa insisted that he stayed for some lunch first. She also packed up a small food parcel for him of essential items so he didn’t have to go shopping immediately, and Brendan insisted he took the glove puppet with him in case he got lonely in the night.
Connor was touched by his thoughtfulness and promised to look after it.
It felt strange to be back in the flat again.
Unlike the day he had moved in back in early September, full of anger and bitterness, today he felt comforted, like he was reaching out to the past and finding everything as he remembered it.
Outside though would be a different matter.
Connor sighed. There was one large piece of the jigsaw missing.
‘I hope everything’s okay. I’ve stacked up the boxes so they’re out of the way. I also found this behind a pile of boxes.’ Patrick handed a piece of paper to Connor. ‘I wasn’t sure whose address it was, but I kept it just in case.’
Connor stared in amazement. Rosie’s address! After all this time. In spite of everything, he wanted to cheer. Instead he threw his arms around his surprised brother. ‘You don’t know how much this means, thank you, Patrick.’
‘Whose is it?’
‘Rosie’s.’
‘Have I met her?’
Connor put the kettle on and then explained all about how he had rented out the garden, and how, in turn, she had transformed the garden and made friends with all the neighbours, until he too had fallen under her spell.
He told Patrick about the party at Malbury Hall, and his unwelcome conversation with Stefania, and how Bonnie’s offer had been announced two days early and torpedoed his relationship with Rosie.
Over the last couple of months, Connor had often wondered what would have happened if he’d accepted the offer without mentioning Rosie in the negotiations, and part of him suspected that bringing forward the press releases wasn’t completely accidental.
Patrick listened for the most part, interjecting the odd question here and there, as Connor explained how he’d tried and failed to contact Rosie in the days before he left for America.
‘Okay, let me get this straight: Bonnie wants you only because she needs her cheffy partner; Stefania seems to be an unwelcome complication with a bit of a grudge, and this Rosie wanted you because, by all accounts and correct me if I’m wrong, she’d fallen in love with you.
Sounds like a bit of a no-brainer to me, little brother. ’
‘It is,’ agreed Connor miserably.
After Patrick had gone, Connor unpacked a few things, plus Lisa’s food parcel, then decided he wanted to see his garden. He could remember so clearly his first meeting with Rosie, here on this doorstep. What he wouldn’t give to have that time over again, and to correct his past mistakes.
He pushed open the gate with some difficulty as the grass was getting long again.
Several of the plants Rosie had put in were doing well but the thistles and nettles were making a comeback and the grass had crept into the flower border.
The flowers that had come up were looking thin and limp, and her seashell planter that had been full of alpine plants now looked dried up and very straggly.
Worst of all, her beloved greenhouse was full of seed trays containing row upon row of dried, dead seedlings.
A lump lodged in his throat. Rosie would be heartbroken to see her garden looking like this.
‘Hello, stranger! It’s nice to see you back,’ said a familiar voice behind him. ‘I thought you were going away for longer.’
He remembered how Rosie always used to say that Dorothy could spot someone to chat to from several miles away.
‘Hello, Dorothy. I’m actually only back for a week. My grandad died yesterday.’ It hurt even saying the words.
Dorothy’s face was a picture of concern. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that. Were you close?’
‘Yes, we were. I should have been there with him.’ Connor kicked his foot against the grass.
‘It’s always harder for the ones left behind. I know that all too well.’ For several seconds neither of them spoke, and both fixed their attention on the garden.
‘Have you heard from Rosie recently?’
‘No.’
Dorothy sighed. ‘What a shame, she was a lovely girl.’
She was. But she was more than that. She was wonderful, lively, funny, sexy, and just thinking about her caused a feeling of utter helplessness to swell inside him.
He had promised to help Patrick, but he made another silent promise to himself; he would find Rosie and beg for her forgiveness, even if it took him the rest of the year.
Or the one after that. In the meantime, he would try and tidy up her garden even though he didn’t have the foggiest idea of where to start.