I went back to my father’s house the next day, but Mrs Churchill had been before me: Rosa had gone. Father opened the door. He turned away from my bruised face and went back to the animals’ room. There was no Rosa sitting huddled over the dining-room fire, complaining and laughing and complaining again. I went up to her room. It was still all pink, but the bed was unmade and she wasn’t there. I opened the cupboard almost expecting her to jump out at me; but it was empty except for some dirty ribbon and moth balls. She had really gone, although I could still smell her scent. I opened the window and let the dark afternoon in, and, as I did so, I heard the front door slam. I knew Father had gone out and I was alone.
The days went on. I tried to look after Father well, so that Rosa didn’t come back. Mrs Churchill came every morning, and we sat in the kitchen drinking tea again; but now she didn’t talk about her garden: it was Christmas all the time. ‘You must see the novelties I’ve collected, you really should, and the little dolls I’ve dressed for the girls. Vera’s boy is to have a humming-top and my other grandson, handcuffs. Just toy ones, of course, but he may as well get used to them; you never know what may happen in life, do you?’
It seemed she always had about fifty people to her little house at Christmas, and they all had something to eat and drink and a present. I thought of our sad Christmas, when never a friend came to the house, or even a card through the letter-box; only enormous calendars, advertising cattle food and animals’ medicines.
I wrote a letter to Blinkers. Although it wasn’t very long, it took me two weeks to write because it was the first one I’d ever written – there had been no one to write to before. I told him that the weather was nice for the time of year, and that all the red-setter puppies had gone, and that Rosa had gone as well. I told him something terrible nearly happened to me in a saddle-room, but Mrs Churchill said I was still a good girl, and although I had nasty dreams at night, I did not have them so often as I did at first. I told him that I was quite well and always his friend. It wasn’t a long letter, but it did take so long to write; and afterwards I was worried in case I should have left out the part about the saddle-room, and I thought, ‘He’ll never want me to be Alice Peebles now.’
Every morning I did the shopping, and, although there were so many people in the streets, I was always afraid of seeing Cuthbert. Sometimes I thought I did, and I’d run into a shop feeling dreadfully sick and shaky; but when I looked through the door he wouldn’t be there at all. I expect I imagined him. Mrs Churchill said Father had complained to the hotel where he worked and he’d been sent away, but I worried in case he hadn’t been sent away far enough.
It was almost dark when I went to post Blinkers’s letter. I remembered how I’d once seen Cuthbert all green behind the scarlet pillar-box, so I went to one farther away. I took a little white dog with me for protection. He had been sent to Father because his ears stuck up like little sails instead of neatly folding down beside his eyes. Now his ears had lumps of lead fixed to them with cobbler’s wax and hung sadly down, and the poor dog kept shaking his head and trying to get the lead off with his paws.
In the dusk I suddenly came close to someone. I smelt Rosa’s scent, and in the greyness she was there. She touched me. I could see her face quite clearly and thought, ‘She is like a white negress.’ Then she put her sad clown’s face on and spoke with her refined voice with the twisted vowels, ‘Well, dear, I’ve been wondering if I’d see you. It’s quite a time since we last met, and I want to have a little talk.’
‘No, no, I don’t want to talk,’ I cried as I tried to free myself from her gripping fingers. But I knew I’d never get away. The little dog seemed to know it, too, and it sat at my feet shaking its weighted ears.
‘Christ! what’s wrong with that dog’s ears?’ Rosa muttered. Then she recollected herself. ‘I know you must feel a little annoyed with me, dear. But how was I to know Mr Cuthbert was only a porter? I wouldn’t have encouraged him if I’d known, but he told me he was a head waiter, and I must say he knew all about wines. Real deceitful, he was, to us both. He was a married man, too, with a wife and kids in Birmingham, but he told me he was single and I thought he was just the chap for you – liven you up a bit!’ She turned her head from side to side and her eyes became all crinkly at the corners. ‘Oh, but he was a scream! D’y’know, he could strike matches on his teeth!’
I turned away, but she gripped my arm again. ‘Don’t go, Alice, I’m really sorry about what happened. I meant well, and now Mr Cuthbert has been sent away, can’t we be friends? Tell your father you met me and say we are friends again. Tell him I miss him, and Alice…’
She suddenly began to cough, and her whole body was shaken by great husky coughs. Her grip on my arms relaxed and I was able to free myself. For a moment I stood still. Then I ran and left her there still in the dusk, still coughing. I felt ashamed of leaving her like that, all doubled up and helpless, but I had to escape. When I arrived home, the parrot’s cries greeted me from the hall. I remembered how Rosa had banished him to the lavatory and how depressed he’d been in there, pecking away at the floor-boards until large holes had come. I drew the dining-room curtains and stirred up the fire and looked at the empty leather chair where Rosa used to sit and complain, and I was glad it was empty and that she was out in the dark, coughing by herself.
I did not tell Father I’d met Rosa. In any case, we rarely spoke to each other – just now and then about the animals and meals. Often, when we ate our lunch together, we never spoke a word, and, when I went into the kitchen to fetch the pudding, I’d start talking to myself because I felt so stiff and nervous. I’d even talk to the pudding, ‘Come on, Old Apple Pie, you’ve got to be eaten now. I hope you taste better than you look. Now, Plate, I can’t possibly use you. Don’t you know you have a great chip on your side? Here’s a better one, but, now I see you properly, I find there is dried mustard on you – how provoking you are! Here you are, Tray, you have got to do some work for once.’ Then I would return to the dining-room, and there would be my father leaning back in his chair, biting his moustache and drumming his square fingers on the table. He always tucked a napkin in his collar, and against its whiteness his face was very sallow. It seemed to have grown smaller lately. In fact, he seemed to have shrunk all over, and I hoped it wasn’t my cooking that had made this happen.
I told Mrs Churchill I’d seen Rosa, and she said, ‘Oh, the perisher! Trying to come back, is she?’ She scrubbed the kitchen floor angrily, her square old face red and fierce. She knelt there in the dirty water, with her legs sticking out behind and pink bloomers showing below her knees, and muttered, half to herself, ‘They won’t take her back at The Trumpet and I don’t blame them: people know too much about her round here. She’ll have to get a job the other side of the river – and good riddance!’ Then she unexpectedly smiled as she plunged her brush in the bucket before smearing soap on it. ‘Do you know, they have Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs all made of soap in the window of a chemist in Lavender Hill. Really lovely thing it is. Just imagine rubbing a dwarf’s beard on your flannel!’ So Rosa was forgotten and it was Christmas novelties again.
That evening Lucy came to see me. While Rosa had been there, her mother wouldn’t allow her to visit the house, but now she came and we sat in the kitchen, looking at fashion-books that were no longer fashionable, and talking to each other with our hands. I heard the front-door bell ring, but Father answered it. Someone went into his surgery, and the heavy door closed.