A few moments later she carried the laden tray to his table and quickly unloaded it: one teapot, a cup and saucer, a small jug of milk and a plate with a lonely slice of cake on it. Despite its size, it screamed that she had refused to join him. They both stared at it as Rose’s stomach rumbled loudly. She glanced nervously at him to see if he had heard, before spinning on her heels and seeking refuge in the back kitchen again.
* * *
Rose peered around the corner to see if he had left yet. She felt terrible. She had refused to eat with a soldier who had fought for his country and her churlish behaviour was unlike her. The soldier had politely accepted her refusal without question, which made her feel even worse. And why had she refused? It certainly wasn’t because she had no appetite. A slice of cake would have been very welcome, her stomach taunted with another quiet growl. The soldier appeared to have gotten over her refusal far quicker than she had. He tucked into the cake and, to Rose’s relief, appeared to enjoy it. He stood up, taking her by surprise. She hadn’t realised he had already drunk his tea and would be leaving so soon.
The soldier put on his hat and greatcoat. ‘Goodbye,’ he called in his usual cheerful way. Rose caught herself lifting her hand clumsily to wave goodbye and stopped just in time.
‘Goodbye,’ she replied in a voice far shriller than she would have liked. He smiled in return and bowed his head slightly, touching his cap as he did so, before leaving the shop. Rose followed in his wake to the door, turned the closed sign over and locked it. She leant her head on the glass and let out a loud, cathartic sigh. What a fool she was. She couldn’t even behave civilly to a well-meant request. Rose pushed herself away from the door and returned to the back kitchen. ‘He probably won’t visit again,’ she muttered to herself as she cleaned the last of the dishes and tidied the kitchen. But there was no point agonising over what she should or shouldn’t have done, she told herself, as she gave the table a final wipe. Satisfied that everything was in order for an early start tomorrow, Rose put on her hat and coat and looked in the mirror.
A sad, young woman stared back at her wearing a hat and coat that had seen better days. It would have been unpatriotic and wasteful to replace them during the war, but now the war was over there still seemed little point in buying a new set. Whowould appreciate them? Her thoughts turned to Sam as they so often did and she wondered what he would say if he’d witnessed her refusal to eat cake with a fellow soldier. Would he have minded? Probably not. ‘It’s only cake,’ he would have teased her. She turned off the lights, unwilling to look at the familiar face any longer. Best to forget about the soldier. She probably wouldn’t see him again anyway, which was fine by her.
Rose followed her usual route home, past the shop windows decked with holly, and across the fifteenth-century stone bridge which spanned the wide River Camel. She had been born in Wadebridge, just as her parents and their parents before them. Her ancestors had seen it grow in size over the years, thanks to the tidal river that ran through it. The Camel River had provided the perfect form of transport, by way of barge and ship, resulting in the town becoming one of the leading ports for exporting corn. Transportation of locally mined granite and slate soon followed leading to another quay being built on the opposite side of the river to help meet the growing demand. Large prominent buildings soon sprung up, commissioned by the wealthy, but the town mainly grew on the backs of its workers, giving rise to numerous terraced houses lining the network of narrow streets. It was a small town, compared to many, but it was still growing — and growing fast.
Rose lived with her parents in an end-of-terrace house. The small, but well-proportioned row of buildings had been constructed for the labourers who worked on the quays. As her father was one of them, just as his father had been before him, it was only natural that the tenancy should pass to him. Rose had known no other home, although the home she remembered as a child was very different to the one she had now.
Rose arrived and mounted the single step to her house. She reached for the door handle and the familiar feeling of dread swept through her body. The sensation was becoming a habit, aninnate instinct to help prepare her for what would greet her on the other side. ‘I should be used to it by now,’ she told herself, but she still found it difficult to face. She breathed in deeply and released the breath with a slow, controlled sigh, before turning the handle.
Piles of clothes, boxes and objects, in varying states of repair, greeted her. Her childhood home had been neat and tidy, with everything in its place, but the death of her brother had brought about a change in her mother, which was both sudden and hard to understand. She began to collect things and despite Rose’s attempts to question her increasingly odd behaviour, her mother refused to be parted from the clutter she brought into the house, often flying into a rage if challenged. There was no sense to what she chose to bring home and Rose had eventually given up trying to persuade her to stop. Gradually more and more arrived, crowding the narrow hall and the floor space of the rooms. Objects lay on every surface and every step, as if carelessly tossed aside. A fine film of dust had begun to gather and was testament to the strange paradox of her mother’s mind. No one must move or tidy the objects, yet they were no longer used and piled haphazardly. And no one must know, ever, for the shame was too great.
Rose’s father did not seem to notice. He navigated the mess as if it had always been there and Rose found herself secretly envying his ability to ignore problems he did not wish to face. How much easier life would be if she could do that too? Living amongst so much clutter was not how she wanted to live, and she took great pains to protect her own bedroom from her mother’s compulsion to hoard. She had once shared her bedroom with her older sister, Martha, but Martha left at the outbreak of war and rarely visited now. She had married a farmer and preferred her new existence on a rural farm ten miles away. Rose thought shewould be married to Sam by now too, not drowning in this chaos of mess which was so hard to understand.
Rose took off her hat and coat, as she had done a thousand times before, and navigated her way past the first two piles on her way to the kitchen. She was in mid-step, balanced precariously between a pile of newspapers and a child’s toy that her mother had recently scavenged, when her mother’s voice called to her from the backyard.
‘You’re late!’
Rose glanced at the clock. She wasn’t late but there was no point in arguing. She was finally growing accustomed to her mother now, who found it far easier to complain than say an encouraging word. Let her say what she wanted, she must not let it affect her anymore. She had her own life to lead now, which seemed to stretch out before her — straight, unexciting and with no change in sight.
Her mother appeared in the doorway. Wisps of her grey hair stood up at odd angles, whipped up by the breeze in the backyard. She’d once had a radiant smile which lit up her eyes, although Rose could not recall the last time she had seen it.
‘What has been keeping you? What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ Rose replied as she navigated the last pile of clutter before entering the kitchen.
‘Your face could curdle milk,’ her mother called after her.
Rose had heard that particular comment before and tried to ignore it. She set about preparing her parents’ meal but, just like all of her mother’s caustic comments, it stuck to her heart and weighed it down just a little bit more. Christmas was fast-approaching, but Rose had a feeling it would pass this house by.
She heard her mother walk away, but tried to remain focused on her task. As she worked, her mind wandered back to the soldier with the smiling, dark eyes. He’d asked for two slices of cake and she had spurned him. Why? It would have been agood opportunity to have some fun with someone her own age. Then she thought of Sam and instantly felt a stab of guilt that she should consider such a thing while he lay cold in the ground somewhere in France. No, this was her life now, living in a dark, old house in need of repair, with two aging parents who were still trying to come to terms with the fact that their son was never coming home from the Western Front.
The tea shop had belonged to her brother, Arthur. He had rented it with big plans for the future. While he ran the shop, their mother made the cakes. Her baking was the talk of the town and drew customers from the first day it opened. Rose sometimes helped out, although at the time she was no more than a child, but she was eager to learn all her mother’s secrets that would turn ingredients into mouth-watering cakes. Then war broke out and Arthur’s mind-set changed. He no longer wanted to be a shopkeeper. He wanted to fight. The same enthusiasm and self-belief which helped him open his own shop now had a new focus. To their mother’s horror, he was one of the first to volunteer.
Looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, it now seemed absurd how excited Arthur was when he told them all he had registered his name to fight. He told them that he saw it as an opportunity to have a brief adventure before finally settling for the humdrum life of a shop owner in a small rural town. His eyes glinted with excitement as he spoke and, for the briefest moments, Rose felt envious that he was leaving at a time when she was finally helping out full-time at the shop. How wrong she was. There was nothing to envy about where he was going.
Rose was left to run the shop with her mother until he returned. Only Arthur’s adventure was cut prematurely short and he never did come home. It was then that the real meaning of war was finally brought home to them. The night her parents were informed of his death, her mother went out to the backyardand returned with an old pair of Arthur’s boots which had been in the outhouse since the winter before. The following day she felt unable to bake or accompany Rose to the shop. Rose and her father did not realise it at the time, but it was the beginning of what was to come and she would never step foot in the shop again. Everyone’s life had changed in that instant, yet for Rose there was still more heartbreak to endure.
Chapter Three
Friday, 5th December, 1919
Nicholas paused in the doorway. His mother was sitting on the floor, a slight smile curving her lips as she wrapped his father’s present in the soft, amber glow of the open fire. He wondered what she was thinking. Was she remembering the past or thinking of the future? How he envied his parents’ love for one another. It was deep, affectionate and absolute, remarkable considering all they had to endure to be together. Their love was as strong today as it had always been and he hoped one day his marriage would be the same.
Nicholas had never felt that way about a woman. Before the war his relationships had not been serious, during the war they were brief, ill-judged and best forgotten. At least he had not sunk so low as to visit the numerous brothels that had sprung up along the Western Front. He had quickly realised he wanted more than just a physical, hurried encounter. He wanted something deeper and more special. Sam had had that. He’d been engaged to a young woman named Rose.
His mother looked up and beckoned him over.
‘Put your finger on that while I tie a knot,’ she said, indicating to the centre of the ribbon which lay on top of the perfectly wrapped parcel. He dutifully obeyed.
‘Have you been to Carrack House yet?’
