Chapter Forty-Four
The bell above the door and a gust of wind announced Grace’s arrival. Nothing more had been said about Rose joining them but Sariah had hoped the sisters would come together, but there was Grace on her own, doing battle with a retractable umbrella.
‘Sorry, am I late?’ she asked, seemingly unaware of the drips of rainwater she had scattered onto the table and Sariah’s sleeve.
‘No, I was early.’ Sariah discreetly placed a hand over her sleeve and wiped it dry.
As Grace settled in, Sariah noticed that for once her mum wasn’t carrying her voluminous, unattractive black bag, the one with chain handles and a chunky zip, and she felt the cold drop of disappointment: it meant she hadn’t brought Grandma Karensa’s cookery book.
They kept their order simple, a pot of tea, and chatted about the weather and Sariah’s tentative plan to go in with Della and launch The Cake Shed together.
‘If the council lets you stay,’ Grace reminded her.
‘Yes, Mum. If they let us stay,’ she replied, biting back her irritation.
In a way, Sariah reasoned, it was better that Rose wasn’t coming, because there were plenty of bridges for her and Grace to mend. One step at a time, she told herself.
‘So,’ Sariah said.
‘Yes, so.’ Grace cast a look around the still-empty tables, as if to make sure no one had crept in to listen to their conversation while she was pouring the tea. ‘You must have questions.’
‘Yes I do. Lots of questions.’
In that moment, Sariah felt all her patience and understanding evaporate into the stuffy café air.
‘It doesn’t feel very nice, you know, to be told you were passed around like an unwanted parcel.
That Grandma and Grandpa were so ashamed that some story had to be concocted. I mean, it wasn’t the 1950s, was it?’
Grace looked down at her lap and squeezed her eyes together tight.
‘No, it wasn’t, but it sometimes felt like it.
You grew up here, in Redruth, but me and Rose came from somewhere much smaller, where everyone knew everyone.
Your grandma had been brought up with chapel twice a day on Sunday, hymn practice on Wednesdays.
’ She got a scrappy tissue out of her pocket.
‘Later, she admitted she’d made mistakes.
She told me she shouldn’t have interfered, that it had damaged Rose and made her leave. And none of it was fair on you.’
Sariah sat very still, her arms crossed. ‘So, how did it happen, the switch? Did Grandma sit you and Dad down and suggest it? Did Rose ask you?’
Grace shook her head. ‘No, it wasn’t like that.
It was more of a gradual thing. Rose stayed in Plymouth for six weeks and when she came home it was clear she couldn’t cope.
I mean, she was a child herself. Me and your dad were still living at Grandma’s so, often as not, it was me or Grandma that got up for you in the night. ’
She sighed. ‘A few weeks later me and your dad got our own place and Grandma said, “Just take the baby for the weekend, give Rose a break.” So we did. And then on the Sunday evening I brought you back and Rose was sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework like any other schoolgirl and I thought, no, this is all wrong. I’d always tried to look out for my little sister, but when she fell pregnant, I felt like I’d failed her.
I thought, if I did this thing, it would make up for it. ’
She wiped her cheek, hard. ‘You came back with us and never left. Grandma was pleased as Punch, said it had all worked out for the best. First time we introduced ourselves to our new neighbours, it was with you in your pram.’
Sariah tried to imagine the logistics. ‘But what about my birth certificate, all the official things?’
‘Mum got the lady in Plymouth to help. She said it was an early home birth that she’d attended, as a friend of the family. She said it was just the sort of outcome she liked to hear.’
‘And what did Rose think?’
‘I wish I could tell you, but the fact is we didn’t speak of it again, not directly. We all just got on with things. Rose did her exams and then her A levels and before long she was off to university. And each time she came home, she was more like a stranger.’
Grace swivelled round to peer out of the steamy windows, as if weighing up whether to make a dash for it, now she’d said her piece.
‘It’s easing off, the rain,’ Sariah said tightly, but her mum wasn’t paying attention.
‘You’d think she’d be punctual, wouldn’t you, what with her job, but she could never be anywhere on time,’ Grace said.
Sariah wasn’t sure she understood.
‘I know she’s late, but don’t take offence.
It’s just her way,’ Grace added and then the tinkle of the bell above the door rang out and they both looked up to see a tall woman in the doorway.
She unbuttoned her coat in a methodical way, then untied the pink bow under her chin and removed a plastic rain hat.
Beneath, her hair was fixed in a neat, dry bun.
Then Rose was sitting down at the table, reaching out a hand first to Grace and then to Sariah. ‘Thank you for inviting me,’ said this polite teacher, in a powder blue twinset. At her neck, a small gold crucifix glinted and Sariah noticed that her fingernails were shaped into perfect ovals.
‘She’s told you, then?’ Rose asked, giving Sariah a long, steady look. Sariah had imagined that she’d want to study every inch of Rose’s face, looking for a resemblance, but in that moment, it was too much, too soon. She found she couldn’t return her gaze.
‘Mum’s told me the bare bones,’ she replied.
Then Rose slipped her hands away and placed them on her handbag, which sat on her lap. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit nervous,’ she said. ‘Hard to know where to begin, isn’t it?’
Sariah nodded and so did Grace.
‘I thought it might be easier to start with this.’ Rose undid the clasp of her handbag and drew out a fat, tattered recipe book. It was Grandma Karensa’s.
She pushed it towards Sariah.
‘Thank you,’ Sariah mumbled and opened it up.
She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it but it seemed that the smell of butter and sugar and spices greeted her.
‘I’ve been trying to remember all these recipes,’ she said.
‘But now I can do them properly, Grandma’s way.
If our Cake Shed idea gets the OK, it’ll be so useful. ’
She turned another page and peered at the handwriting in the margin. It was a recipe for Bakewell tart and beside the pastry ingredients was written extra ground almonds.
She pointed to the page. ‘But does she mean for the topping or the pastry? It’s not clear.’
‘The pastry,’ Rose decided.
‘Definitely,’ Grace said.
‘Then there’s her other secret ingredient, that you won’t find written down,’ Rose said gently.
‘Oh?’
‘She always added a dash of cherry brandy to the mixture. But she never admitted it in case it set tongues wagging.’
‘Hmm. It’s a shame Grandma worried so much what people thought,’ Sariah said. ‘Would a bit of local gossip have been that bad?’
She closed the book, making it clear she was talking about more than Grandma Karensa being fond of a drop.
‘I wish it had been different,’ Rose said. Sariah could hear a choke in Rose’s voice and she was scared to speak again in case she welled up too.
‘There’s a lot to talk about and it’s going to take time. But if there’s anything you want to ask me now . . . ?’ Rose offered.
Sariah had been running her fingers back and forth over a crease on the cover of the recipe book, but at that she stopped. ‘There is one thing,’ she said. ‘Who chose my name?’
‘Me,’ Rose said. ‘I insisted. I thought it sounded exotic, different.’ She gave a soft smile. ‘What can I say – I was fifteen.’
‘That’s good to know,’ Sariah said. ‘And what can you tell me about my father?’ she added. Beside her, she felt Grace stiffen.
Rose let out a sigh. ‘Oh, he was just a boy, young like me. It was a mistake: kisses on the beach after dark that went further. It was the first time for both of us and I don’t think he had any idea that I’d got pregnant.
I was sent off to Plymouth and when I came back he’d left town.
He went to work for his uncle in Canada, who was a carpenter, and he never came back. ’
Sariah couldn’t decide if knowing this was a relief, or another loss.
‘But he was never the point, really. You were. We all just wanted the best for you.’
Grace cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel that way.’
Sariah swallowed down a dry sob. ‘Well, I probably wasn’t the easiest child. Especially when I was a teenager.’
‘Well, the women in our family are made of strong stuff.’ Grace dabbed her lips.
The waitress came and cleared away the teapot and two cups with rather more sighing and clattering of crockery than was strictly necessary and then flipped over the sign on the door.
‘Time to go, I think,’ Sariah said.
The three women stood up and Sariah couldn’t help watching in fascination as Rose did up the buttons on her coat and retied her plastic rain bonnet. A costume of respectability that she’d put on when young and grown into, she supposed.
‘What year do you teach?’ she asked as they came out to the wet pavement.
‘Reception,’ Rose said with a sad smile. ‘The littlest ones.’
And then, Grace, never one for shows of affection, surprised them all by pulling her sister in for a short, fierce hug. Next, she turned to Sariah and did the same. And finally, Sariah and Rose tentatively put their arms around each other.
All the way home, Sariah felt the ghosts of those hugs and they gave her hope.