Dearest Rose by Rowan Coleman Page B

quick cup of tea, though,’ Rose said. ‘I have to go out in a little while.’
    As Rose opened the front door and set her keys in the little dish on the smoked-glass-topped telephone table, which Richard had chosen, she wondered why she’d felt the need to lie. And it was then that she realised that her marriage wasn’t totally normal, that she knew instinctively that if Richard found out she’d invited an old friend into their home he would be angry with her, even if Shona was gone by the time he came back.
    ‘There’s a loo under the stairs,’ Rose told Shona, as she went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Pork chops and mash were what she’d been planning for tea, with frozen peas. She could peel the potatoes while Shona drank her tea, and still be on schedule, just as long as Shona left well before six o’clock.
    ‘Two sugars, cheers,’ Shona said, as she returned from the loo, with decidedly dry-looking hands, nodding at the mug of weak tea that Rose had hurriedly made her.
    ‘So no kids, then?’ Shona asked, looking round the spotless kitchen.
    ‘No, not yet. We’re enjoying each other,’ Rose said, repeating what Richard always said in response to similar enquiries.
    ‘Ew,’ Shona said, wrinkling her nose. ‘I can’t wait to be a mum. It ’s going to be so perfect. I’m down for a flat, when one comes up, so I have to keep quiet about Ryan for a bit. I get one quicker if it’s just me. I’d feel bad about it, but they hand out housing to flipping Poles like there’s no tomorrow. I mean, what do I pay my taxes for?’ Shona grinned. ‘If I paid any, that is.’
    She looked tired for a moment, the unsympathetic strip lighting on the winter afternoon adding depth to the shadows under her eyes and around her mouth, making her look much older than her twenty-something years. ‘Anyway, Ryan will see us right, I know he will.’
    Shona beamed again, and Rose smiled, self-consciously taking the potato peeler from the drawer, and beginning to peel the potatoes.
    ‘You’re a proper little housewife, aren’t you?’ Shona said, nodding at the pile of vegetables. ‘Don’t you work at all then?’
    ‘No.’ Rose shrugged, uncertain why the admission made her feel uncomfortable. She’d been working up for several months to asking Richard to let her look for a part-time job, but whenever she attempted to raise the subject, he promptly changed it or cut her off with, ‘Why? There’s no need.’
    ‘Lucky cow! You’ve really fallen on your feet, haven’t you? I’ll have to go back to work when I can, even with Ryan’s wages. Who knows if that old perv Harley will give me my job back when I’m a mummy. I only got it the first time round because I let him look down my top. Do you remember that time he had me trapped in the office, saying he wanted to make sure my uniform fitted? He had his hands all over me. Thank God you walked in when you did!’
    Rose did remember that Mr Harley was rather inappropriately taken with Shona and many of the other girls’ physiques, always thinking of reasons to touch them in places that he shouldn’t. She had been so slight and slim that apart from one fleeting palm grazing across her backside one afternoon, she had fortunately escaped his attentions.
    ‘Right, I’d better get back. I’m staying with my mum until a flat comes up and she still gets a strop on if I’m not home for tea. Thanks for the use of your bog.’
    ‘No problem,’ Rose said, feeling a flood of relief as she checked the clock. Richard wasn’t due home for ten more minutes. She’d have plenty of time to wash up Shona’s mug and make it look as if no one had been here at all.
    ‘Hey, you know what, you and me should go out for a drink some time, have a laugh!’
    ‘Yes, great – we should,’ Rose said, although she knew it was unlikely she’d ever see Shona again.
    ‘I’m going to need your number then,’ Shona stopped dead in the hallway, so that Rose walked into her