Of course, we hadn’t heard the last of it.
Great-aunt Dodie appeared the next day saying that Godfrey and Evelyn hadn’t even been kept in prison for the night. There hadn’t been enough evidence to hold them. Nobody could relax with those two on the loose and, sure enough, within a week we received a letter from a solicitor called Carstairs, saying that my mum was ‘a drunkard and a moral degenerate’ and that they, as my grandparents, would be seeking custody.
There was an emergency meeting in the cafe, but Sharky was confident. ‘Ah, but what they don’t know yet, but will within the hour, is that Charlie boy sang like the chorus at Covent Garden. Word perfect he was too. They’ve caught Dave and Theresa. It seems that the lovely Theresa is somewhat disenchanted with our David and is giving the magnificient T.C. chapter, verse and page numbers even as I sit here gasping for my coffee.’
I wasn’t allowed to go to court when the case came up months later, but I heard plenty about it afterwards. I was sort of playing by the cafe window but really keeping a lookout for my tribe, so I was there when they burst in, gabbling with triumph.
‘Fancy him thinking he was Rosie’s father.’ My heart froze in my chest as Madame Zelda said those words. But she quickly thawed it again. ‘The numbers ain’t right, as he would know if only he’d asked when her birthday was. The look that wife of his shot him, he should have withered up right there. I reckon there’ll be trouble in paradise on visiting days, I do. That’s if she troubles herself with visiting days. If I was married to that reptile, it’d be ‘‘good riddance to bad rubbish’’ and I’d be away on me toes.’
‘No wonder our Cassie took off like that,’ Auntie Maggie cut in. ‘When T.C. got her to tell him what had happened back home he told her she could have charged that stepfather with rape. T.C. met her soon after she hit the Smoke. He found her soliciting near that bomb-site where Cliff’s bookshop used to be; felt sorry for her, he said. But she didn’t want to know about pressing any charges, just wanted to stay away from him, no matter what. Terrible really, when you think about the turn her life took and what she could’ve been.’ Auntie Maggie was crying with relief but mostly with sorrow for my mum.
I was supposed to be safely tucked up in my bed when the verdict came through and Godfrey, Charlie and Dave all went down. Theresa and Evelyn were let off with a caution on account of being coerced, or something like that. Everyone was celebrating and, of course, I wasn’t tucked up at all. I was in my usual position, earwigging on the stairs.
Then I heard Paulette’s voice and my heart nearly stopped beating all over again. ‘So, if that slimy git isn’t Rosie’s real dad, then who is?’
Great-aunt Dodie’s voice rumbled across the ragged chorus of ‘Who can say?’ Actually, she said, she rather thought Cassandra could. They’d talked over the very matter and she was quite certain that Cassandra knew but simply wasn’t telling. Not even to her favourite great-aunt.
By this time I was practically in the room, tongue hanging out, and I was able to catch a look that Auntie Maggie exchanged with Uncle Bert. It seemed very knowing, but they clamped their gobs shut and said nothing.
Soon after that, the party broke up and I was safely in bed when I heard Maggie and Bert climbing the stairs, whispering quietly.
‘I know what you mean, Maggie, I caught the likeness too, just for a second. It was the way that doorway framed ’em when he was holding her. Still, it’s likely we’ll never know for sure. Probably best if we keep our thoughts on that particular subject under our hats. What d’you think, old girl, eh?’
I heard a slap and a giggle. ‘Less of the ‘‘old’’, you. I’ll have you know that I’m in my prime and don’t you forget it.’
And Uncle Bert didn’t forget it. None of us did; my auntie Maggie wouldn’t let us. And we never forgot the summer of the Queen’s Coronation either, or its ending. We celebrate what we call Rosie Day every year and everybody comes, including the man everyone thinks is my dad.
THE END