Rosie Read online

  LESLEY PEARSE

  Rosie

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published 1998

  Published simultaneously by Michael Joseph

  43

  Copyright © Lesley Pearse, 1998

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN-13: 978-0-141-91069-7

  To Peter, Lucy, Sammy and Jo, with love

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Gerald Lockyer, retired Superintendent of the Somerset and Bath Constabulary, whose help, advice and knowledge of the police and their procedures during the fifties proved invaluable. Thanks also to News Beat, the Avon and Somerset Constabulary magazine, who so kindly helped put me in touch with Gerald Lockyer.

  Chapter One

  Somerset, 1945

  The privy stunk worse than usual because of the heat, so Rosie pulled her knickers down out in the orchard, before opening the rickety door. Then, holding her nose with one hand and her dress up with the other, she backed in, that way avoiding seeing the fetid, bottomless hole.

  A large brown spider weaving a web from one of the beams to a crack in the door swung past her right cheek. Rosie laughed. She considered all living creatures as friends, even the less attractive ones.

  ‘Hullo, Syd,’ she said in nasal tones, because she had to hold on to her nose. ‘Why d’you stay in this smelly place? You could catch just as many flies if you made your web on one of the apple trees, and you’d have a nice view of the moors too!’

  Rosie’s home, May Cottage, was at the heart of the Somerset Levels, a low-lying area of fertile moorland crisscrossed with rivers and man-made rhynes. For some, such an isolated place, however lovely, would be daunting, especially if they were forced to be entirely alone here as often as Rosie was. But she didn’t mind, not even when darkness fell. To her, each snuffling, barking, squeaking or grunting sound was the voice of a friend, whether it be rabbit, bird, bullfrog or hedgehog. They didn’t gossip or turn up their noses about the Parkers, unlike the people in Catcott village further up the road.

  The male Parkers intrigued, horrified, frightened and yet somehow excited their neighbours. Cole Parker, Rosie’s father, often remarked that if it wasn’t for him there would be no conversation in the Crown. He claimed too that they were jealous of him. There was an element of truth in this: Cole was a handsome man and had a way with the ladies. He also had the luck of the Devil. Somehow he’d managed to convince the conscription board he was unfit for active service, then spent the war years making good money out of it. But behind the envy was fear too; mysterious accidents seemed to befall people who spoke too volubly about the Parkers, especially those who dared say that Cole’s lads weren’t just wild, but twisted, and twice as dangerous as their father.

  As the war slowly creaked towards its end, however, even the people of Catcott had found something more to talk about than the Parkers. The men were expected home, rationing and the blackout would soon be just a distant memory. There were frantic preparations for the victory celebrations: chickens and pigs to be fattened, hoarded sugar, flour and currants dug out for cakes. Spring cleaning took on a new fervour, and in the village school there was a rash of compositions handed in based on childish sweet-toothed fantasies of a world where chocolate bars hung on trees, rivers flowed with lemonade and streets were paved with fruit gums.

  In the drunken revelry of the village Victory Party there had been a conviction that a wonderful new era was just dawning. But now in June, just one month later, that vision was already tarnished. Many servicemen were still overseas, and of those who had come home a great number were finding it hard to adjust to family life. Rationing was worse than ever and shortages of paint, bricks and building materials prevented city dwellers from repairing the war damage to their houses.

  Rosie was more aware of how it was for families in the big cities than any of her school friends, because her father often went to Bristol and London, fixing up deals to clear bomb sites. When she felt a little lonely, afraid or hungry she tried to remember stories her dad had told her about poor, skinny kids he’d seen scavenging wood and coal. In big cities they didn’t get the odd rabbit or duck to supplement their meat rationing like they did down here. They went hungry.

  Cole was in London now. At least he was on his way back after a three-day stay. He’d left Rosie in the care of her brothers. But Seth was seventeen, Norman sixteen and they had a great many better things to do while their father was away than to play nursemaid to an eight-year-old. So their little sister’s curly, coppery hair hadn’t seen a comb in days. Her bare feet and knees were ingrained with dirt, her dress so tattered it was only fit for the rag-bag, yet despite these clear signs of neglect, Rosie looked robustly healthy, if a little small for her age. She also had a remarkable air of happy self-assurance, even here in such undignified surroundings.

  A familiar distant rattling, rumbling sound made Rosie forget the spider and run out to the orchard, pulling her knickers up as she went. Jumping up on the log pile beside the chicken house, she peered across the moorland in the direction of Burtle. The shimmering heat and tall grasses growing along the rhynes and ditches prevented her from seeing if the approaching vehicle was definitely her father’s pickup truck. But it was unlikely to be anyone else’s; few trucks, indeed motor vehicles of any kind, came to this part of the Somerset Levels.

  Despite the beauty of the surrounding flower-speckled moors, May Cottage, the Parker home, was not the picturesque chocolate box cottage its name suggested. It was a dilapidated, turn-of-the-century farm labourer’s house, almost concealed by mountains of scrap metal flanking it on both sides. Old tractors, broken-down rusting cars and motorbikes, timber, filing cabinets, bedsteads, worn tyres and ancient farm machinery. Cole Parker saw nothing incongruous in piling such objects in a place where herons and kingfishers fished in the tranquillity of the ditches and rivers. He didn’t see his forest of junk as ugly or grim. It was his living.

  As the familiar rust-red cab of the pickup truck came into view, Rosie darted back up the orchard, scattering the hens, and through the side gate from the back yard, skirting round the piles of junk to arrive at the front of the cottage just as her father pulled up with a squeal of brakes.

  ‘Daddy!’ she yelle
d in welcome, waving both hands excitedly. She was just about to jump on to the running board, when she realized her father was not alone.

  A woman was sitting in the passenger seat beside him. Rosie backed away in fright to the shelter of the overgrown may trees in the front garden.

  Cole leapt from the cab, but instead of sweeping her up in his arms for a hug as he usually did when he’d been away for a few days, he stopped short and frowned at her.

  ‘Come now, Rosie. That’s no way to behave,’ he bellowed at her, his usually slow speech quickened with irritation. ‘Come over here an’ say hullo to Heather; she’s come all the way from London to be a ma to you.’

  Rosie stared at her father in stupefaction. Her father had never before encouraged visitors to May Cottage, indeed he’d brought her up to view strangers with suspicion. Now, with no advance warning he had brought home a new mother!

  ‘Ma, to me?’ she blurted out.

  ‘That’s right, so give her a welcome.’

  Rosie may have been stunned, but she knew better than to show her father up in public. So she took a few reluctant steps forward and forced a smile as the woman climbed down from the cab.

  On closer inspection she wasn’t that old, Rosie decided. She wore a crumpled floral dress and her bare legs were mottled as if she’d spent the winter sitting too close to a fire. She was nothing like the women Cole usually went for; there had been several of those over-made-up, brassy ones in the last two years. This one was hefty, with wide hips and a big plain face. The only remarkable thing about her was her hair; it was beautiful, thick, long and butter coloured.

  ‘ ’Allo,’ she said, her big face breaking into a disarmingly warm smile. ‘I’m ‘Eather Farley, and I’ve ‘eard all about you from yer dad. Don’t be scared of me, luv, we’ll soon be mates.’

  Rosie was amazed at the girl’s peculiar accent. ‘Why do you talk so funny?’ she asked, her timidity retreating in the face of curiosity.

  ‘ ’Cos I’m a cockney, ain’t I?’ the girl laughed. ‘Born in the sound of Bow Bells. We all talk like that. You and yer dad sound real funny to me an’ all!’

  Rosie looked into the girl’s warm brown eyes, then back to her father. He was smiling too, one of his rare, real, from-the-heart smiles. She instinctively knew he really liked this girl Heather, and that pleased Rosie because he didn’t take to many people. Although plenty of women took to him.

  Even at forty-one his hair was still as thick, black and glossy as it had been when he was eighteen. His body rippled with muscle, even though he had a slight paunch from the quantity of cider he drank daily. Dressed as he was now in his Sunday trousers and boiled white shirt, he was a handsome man. He often spoke laughingly of his mother’s claim that the gypsies must have taken her baby and replaced it with one of theirs, for his strong features and dark skin tone were more Romany than English.

  ‘Come on now, lass,’ he said to his daughter in a softer voice, catching her up in his arms and hugging her. ‘You’ve been too long without a ma, and Heather’s got no kin. Let’s be givin’ it a go, eh?’

  Looking across at Heather from the safety of her father’s arms, Rosie decided the girl would make a change from talking to chickens, spiders and birds. She looked and sounded jolly, and she was young enough to be a big sister. So after only a moment’s hesitation she slid down from her father’s arms and walked over to her. ‘ ’Lo, Heather,’ she said, blushing a little. ‘D’you wanna see the house and have a cup of tea?’

  ‘Not’alf,’ replied Heather as she took Rosie’s hand and squeezed it with real warmth. ‘I feel like me throat’s been cut I’m that thirsty.’

  Leaving her father to follow with Heather’s bag, Rosie led her through the maze of junk round to the back yard and into the kitchen.

  Heather gasped as she stepped over the threshold and stopped dead. Rosie couldn’t imagine why the kitchen evoked such a response, the dishes were all washed. Maybe she didn’t like chickens?

  Grabbing the brown hen which was pecking at a loaf left on the kitchen table, Rosie flung it out of the door and turned back to Heather. ‘They’re not supposed to come indoors. But that one’s a bit saucy. Did he scare you?’

  Today was the first time Heather Farley had ever been out of London, and she’d been enchanted at the sight of fields, rivers and wild flowers. She hadn’t been the least bit put off by the dilapidated outside of May Cottage, nor the piles of junk around it, because on the long drive down here Cole had explained he made his living from scrap metal. Besides, compared with bomb-damaged, dirty London houses it looked pretty enough to her.

  But her first glimpse of the kitchen stunned her. She had never ever before witnessed such filth, and she’d been brought up in the slums of Poplar, and seen sights that would make most people turn green. On top of the dirt it was blazing hot from a kitchen range, and it stunk worse than an abattoir.

  It was a large room with a low-beamed ceiling, and its furniture – a dresser, a large chest of drawers, central table and chairs – had probably been brought here at the time the house was built. Everything was covered in a thick film of grease, there were chicken droppings on every surface, and greasy cobwebs hung from the beams. The stone floor could not have been swept in weeks, let alone scrubbed, and the windows were so dirt-encrusted it was difficult to see through them.

  ‘No, I ain’t scared of the chicken,’ Heather said slowly. She guessed this child didn’t get invited into other people’s homes very often and she probably had no idea what a clean house looked like. ‘It’s just so ‘ot in ‘ere it gave me a turn for the moment.’ She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand to illustrate this point.

  ‘I lit the stove ‘cos Dad was coming home,’ Rosie explained. ‘I thought he’d want sommat hot to eat, and a bath, after London.’

  Cole stepped into the kitchen, his towering frame blocking out the light from the doorway. ‘You did right to light it, Rosie,’ he said. ‘We’ll be needing lots of hot water tonight.’

  Rosie sensed that Heather was shocked and disappointed, whatever she said. But her father’s expression and behaviour puzzled her still more. He looked almost cowed and he was shuffling from one foot to the other as if he were embarrassed. She had never seen him like that before.

  ‘Rosie does her best, but she’s only a babby,’ Cole continued. ‘Me boys are lazy buggers an’ all, can’t get’m to do a hand’s turn without a stick to their backs. Where’re they too, Rosie?’

  ‘Gone to Bridgwater on the motorbike,’ Rosie replied, hoping he wouldn’t grill her about what they’d done every day since he’d been gone. If he discovered the truth he’d lay into the boys with his belt the second they walked through the door. And Seth would round on her later in retaliation. ‘I’ll just fill up the kettle,’ she added and grabbing it quickly, scuttled past her father out into the yard to fill it from the pump.

  Over the splashing of the water from the pump Rosie couldn’t hear what Heather and Cole were saying in her absence, but she had a creeping feeling it wasn’t happy chat. So it was a surprise when she walked back into the kitchen with the kettle to find Heather bending over by the range, twiddling the tap on one side experimentally. Furthermore she had tied her hair back with a ribbon and put on an apron.

  ‘So there’s ‘ot water, that’s sommat,’ she stood up, putting her hands on her hips. ‘This place needs a good bottoming, and something stinks an’ all, so you two ‘ad better clear off and get some grub and cleaning stuff in, while I do it. Never mind the tea. I’ll make do with water.’

  Rosie looked to her father expecting him to say something sharp. He didn’t like bossy women. But to her surprise he took the kettle from Rosie’s hands and placed it on the hotplate.

  ‘I didn’t mean you to start working today, Heather.’

  ‘Well, I can’t sit about in this midden,’ Heather laughed and the sound rang out around the gloomy kitchen. ‘And you’ll be wanting a meal soon too. So let me get cracking.’

  R
osie wondered what a ‘midden’ was, but she had a feeling it was better not to ask, so she followed her father out to the truck without another word.

  Once Cole and Rosie had gone, Heather stood in the middle of the kitchen and sniffed. The foul smell was strongest away from the range, but it was a minute or two before she realized that the open back door, in fact, concealed another door, and it was from behind this that the stink was coming.

  Holding her nose, she pulled it open, jumping back in horror as a dozen fat bluebottles came shooting out like fighter planes. There, on a shelf, was the source of the smell: a piece of meat left so long on a tin plate that it was alive with wriggling maggots. She gagged, slammed the door shut again and ran out the back door for fresh air.

  Heather Farley was a little slow, in so much as she had never quite mastered reading and writing. But what she lacked in education she made up for in common sense. As she filled her lungs again with sweet-smelling air, she took stock of her situation.

  The rest of the house was probably even worse than the kitchen. The little girl Rosie looked like a tinker’s kid; she might even have lice. It had to be at least two miles to the nearest house; it didn’t bear thinking about how far it was to the closest town. She was a city girl and she didn’t know the first thing about country life. It was only today that she’d seen her first cow. How could she even think of staying here?

  On the other hand she was a hundred miles from London and she had nothing but a few shillings in her purse. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had anyone or anywhere to run to! In any case Cole Parker hadn’t lied to her. He’d said again and again that his cottage had no modern conveniences, and that he and his boys couldn’t cope with looking after it alone.

  But, above all, there was the little girl. Heather smiled to herself as she remembered how rough Rosie’s hand had felt in hers. She seemed a nice little thing, even if she was filthy, and she needed someone to look after her. Wasn’t that good enough reason to stay?