drowning rose

Drowning Rose

MARI KA COBBOLD

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To Michael,

my common frame of reference

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1

One

Eliza

What do you say to a man whose life you destroyed? . at

was the question I asked myself when, out of the blue, my

godfather phoned just as I was leaving work at the museum.

‘Am I speaking to Eliza?’ It was the voice of an old man,

a little hoarse, trembling on the last syllable. ‘. is is Ian

Bingham.’

What sun there had been, pallid and diQ dent, had set a while

ago but darkness was banished by the street lamps and cars and,

since the weekend, the Christmas lights in the trees and round

the ice-rink further up by the Science Museum. I loved that

artiS cial brightness; it softened the blow of night and winter.

My bus drove past, pulling in at the stop just a few yards

away but I stayed where I was on the front steps of the build-

ing. Sleet was falling from a low sky but in my mind I saw

wind-blown ripples of water lapping against a wooden jetty in

the monochrome light of a spring evening.

‘I expect you’re surprised to hear from me.’

Oh yes. . e last time we had seen each other had been some

moments after he had admitted he couldn’t stand the sight of

me. He had been inside the house, talking to my mother. I had

been sketching in the garden on the bench right outside the

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2

open window. Even now, twenty-S ve years later, I could recall

his words precisely; they weren’t the kind that you forgot.

‘I know it’s unfair, Olivia, and I’ve tried my best, but the

truth is that I can barely stand to be in the same room as her.

I can’t stand looking at her, or hearing her voice.’ . ere had

been a pause before he added, his voice lower but not too low

for me to hear. ‘And the worst of it is I S nd myself wishing it

had been her.’

I didn’t blame him for feeling that way; in fact I felt pretty

much the same way myself. But it was still hard to hear him

say it. For a while, following the accident, the friendship

between my mother and Uncle Ian had dragged along, like an

injured fox trying to reach the safety of the roadside, snarling

and biting at anyone trying to get close. But at that moment,

with those words, it died.

‘Eliza, are you there?’ Uncle Ian asked.

My voice seemed all bunched up in my throat and I had to

take some extra breaths before managing a feeble ‘Yes.’

‘Your mother gave me your number.’

‘Oh. She didn’t tell me you’d been in touch.’ I paused before

asking, ‘Are you in London?’

‘No, I’m at home. In Sweden.’

I hoped he hadn’t heard my sigh of relief. A wet snowU ake

landed on my lashes like an insect and I wiped my eye, smudg-

ing the back of my hand with mascara.

‘I didn’t know you’d moved to Sweden.’

‘. ere’s no reason why you should know.’ . ere was a pause.

. en he said, ‘You’ll no doubt be wondering why I’m calling.’

I nodded before remembering the obvious fact that he

couldn’t see me. ‘Well yes, I am. Although it’s lovely to hear


3

from you. I mean there doesn’t always need to be a reason for

calling other than the call itself. If you see what I mean.’ I was

making the kind of conversation Uncle Ian used to compare

to an idling engine.

‘I never intended for us to lose touch in this way. Still, better

late than never, eh?’ He gave a forced laugh.

‘No’ would have been my honest reply, but as every child

knows, there was a time and a place for honest answers

and quite often that’s a diV erent time and a diV erent place.

‘Absolutely,’ I said.

‘I would very much like to see you.’

‘You would?’

‘I was hoping you might be able to come over for a visit?’

I switched the phone from my right to my left ear and

then back again. My voice sounded like someone else’s, high-

pitched and anxious as I said, ‘A visit? To you?’

‘Well, of course to me.’

Annoyance made his voice younger and I thought it was

quite comical how, after a quarter of a century, we had managed

to pick up where we had left oV ; as Irritated and Irritant.

‘And don’t worry about the tickets. I’ll arrange all that.’

‘I’ll get tickets.’

‘I am inviting you.’

‘Really, I’d prefer to get them myself.’

He sighed. ‘You always were stubborn.’

I thought that as reconciliations went this one was deS -

nitely not up there with the greats. A second bus passed, its

massive wheels squelching.

‘My bus is here. May I call you back?’ But I didn’t board

this time either. I needed to stay out in the open. My

entire body was itching as if ants were using my veins as


4

motorways. My chest was aching from all the swallowed

words and most likely, once this conversation was over, I

would have to shout and scream and swear which, were I

on a bus, might cause alarm. So instead I sat down on the

museum steps, not caring about the cold and wet while all

around me the city I thought of as my friend carried on as if

nothing had happened.

My phone rang a second time. ‘It’s, me, Ian. Are you on your

bus?’

‘Didn’t make it.’

‘I realised that of course you won’t have my number and it

won’t have come up on your phone as it’s a trunk call.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t think about that.’

‘So, you’ll come?’

. ere was a pause and then I asked the obvious question.

‘Uncle Ian, what made you decide to get in touch, now, after

all this time?’

It was his turn to hesitate before saying in a pre-emptive

voice, as if he expected to be challenged, ‘It was Rose.’

My heart leapt like a S sh in my chest. ‘Rose?’

‘. at’s what I said.’

I scrunched up my eyes and the headlights of the passing

traQ c elongated and merged into a stream of golden light.

I pushed a strand of damp hair from my face. ‘How do you

mean, Rose?’

‘I saw her.’

He’d gone mad. Or senile? Please let it be senile. Senile

wouldn’t be my fault, but grief could make you crazy. ‘You’ve

seen Rose?’

‘. at’s what I said.’ I could hear he was trying to stop

himself from snapping. ‘She’s angry.’


5

Rose was angry. Of course she was. I put the mobile down

on the step, having decided against throwing it into the road.

I pushed my head between my knees, taking deep breaths, one

after the other.

‘Eliza, Eliza, are you there?’

I realised that I’d been rocking back and forth like some

crazy woman. I straightened up and picked up the phone. ‘I’m

here.’

‘As I said, she’s angry with me.’

‘With you?’

‘. ere is no need to repeat every word I say. It’s all perfectly

straightforward. Rose came to see me. And she is angry with

me for neglecting you all these years. She told me to get on

and sort it out.’

. at last bit dispelled any doubts I might have had as to the

state of mind of my godfather. He had gone mad. Rose would

never tell him or anyone else to ‘get on and sort it out’. Getting

on was not what Rose did. Rose rested and she hesitated, she

shook her head and hid her face, she wandered and U oated but

she did not get on with it. Nor did she sort things out. Instead

she smiled sweetly at a problem. Sometimes she laughed at it.

She walked round it and over it and under it. She did not sort

it out. . at’s what the rest of the world had been for.

‘Uncle Ian, Rose can’t be angry.’ I paused. It was hard to go

on. ‘She can’t be anything.’

‘I’m telling you that I saw her. You can believe me or not.’

. is was a man who had worn two watches, each for a diV er-

ent time zone. A man, who when he closed a factory, closed

a town; a man who had never to my knowledge sat in a soft

chair. I should not let the voice that had become as unreliable

as that of an adolescent boy mislead me, nor the fact that he


6

seemed to be seeing ghosts; Uncle Ian remained the kind of

man who brooked no arguments.

‘She told me to get in touch with you and she was right

to do so. My neglect of you, my betrayal of your dear father’s

trust, has weighed heavy on my conscience and . . .’

‘But you were entirely right to feel the way you did.’ I must

have been shouting because the woman hurrying past, laden

with Harrods bags, stopped abruptly and stared. Seeing noth-

ing out of the ordinary, just a woman speaking too loudly on

her mobile, she hurried on, her expression once more reU ect-

ing only the usual despair of the Christmas shopper.

‘Rose doesn’t think so. She wants me to make amends. And

I agree with her.’

I looked around me for reassurance but the world had slipped

out of focus and for now, remained that way. . e people, the

cars, the buildings, all appeared distorted, like reU ections in a

funfair mirror, the kind that were supposed to make you laugh.

Never being able to make amends, I thought, was a particular

kind of hell. I said, ‘Of course I’ll come.’

‘. ank you, Eliza,’ the old man said. ‘I’ll tell Rose. She will

be very pleased.’


‘This wonderful Swedish novelist weaves tales of intellectual and emotional subtlety with her uniquely

mischievous wit…’ Helen Brown The Daily Mail

‘No one writes about life quite like Marika Cobbold; no one combines light and dark, humorous and profound,

joyous and sorrowful quite so expertly’ Guardian Readers’ Books of the Year

Drowning RoseMarika Cobbold

http://www.bloomsbury.com/Drowning-Rose/Marika-Cobbold/books/details/9781408821947

http://www.bloomsbury.com/Drowning-Rose/Marika-Cobbold/books/details/9781408821947

a note on the author

Marika Cobbold was born in Sweden and is the author

of six previous novels: Guppies for Tea, selected for the

WH Smith First Novels Promotion and shortlisted for

the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award; � e Purveyor

of Enchantment; A Rival Creation; Frozen Music; Shooting

Butter# ies; and most recently Aphrodite’s Workshop for

Reluctant Lovers. She lives in London.


by the same author

Guppies for Tea

A Rival Creation

� e Purveyor of Enchantment

Frozen Music

Shooting Butter# ies

Aphrodite’s Workshop for Reluctant Lovers

800g Drowning Rose (final).indd ii800g Drowning Rose (final).indd ii 20/05/2011 11:41:5820/05/2011 11:41:58

First published in Great Britain 2011

Copyright © 2011 by Marika Cobbold

. e moral right of the author has been asserted

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4088 0817 7

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, EdinburghPrinted by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

www.bloomsbury.com/marikacobbold

800g Drowning Rose (final).indd iv800g Drowning Rose (final).indd iv 20/05/2011 11:41:5820/05/2011 11:41:58

drowning rose

Documents

indd v800g drowning

uncle ian

voice lower

ian bingham

old man

low sky

pause en

science museum