Patrick George Callaghan

Episode 16…Rose

She would fuss and worry over him. The eggs must be soft! The toast must be light! The bacon must not be salty! She would pour hot green tea for him only, into an important blue and white china cup. One morning on entering the breakfast room, Esme thought she had heard the mention of ‘a photographer’… but it trailed away on the lips of Rose, hunched as she was, in her usual stance; over Edward, and his must be ‘perfect breakfast’. But the mention of a photographer had moistened arid seeds within Esme’s mind and later, when Edward had left the house, she sat for an hour in the upstairs room with the pale red curtain, and wept herself to normality.

This particular morning she possessed a certain peace. A man required flaws in a woman for the benefit of his pride, she had told herself this… But had she flaws? She was not aware of any. Edward seemed to think that she had many! And would scold and abuse her in meridians of sexual indulgence! Some evenings he would spend hours with a coveted book, its pages depicting scenes of sadistic rape and sullen buggery.

Rose, it seemed, slept heavily to any sounds of gratified pleasure that could have parroted along the upstairs landing and settled to her ear in the long dark hours of the night. She was complacent in her slumbered indifference, in her small bedroom, overlooking the silent, dim garden of Primula and Pride.

Episode 15…Housekeeper

When her toes touched the carpet she felt the cold emptiness of a hollow bottle of wine beneath her feet. Rose had not bought her tea, and Edward must be at breakfast by now. In the dimness of her bedside alarm clock it looked like ten minutes to eight. In moments she had crossed the adhesive lino-floor barefooted and into the bathroom. She drew water to the bowl and sunk her face into its icy coldness. In the bedroom she pushed her feet into fluffy lilac slippers and lifted her nightdress over her head. The tingle of its folds caressed her pert breasts like erotic fingers and she sat nude on the satin-laced stool and gazed into the gilt ornate mirror placed on the onyx dressing table. That reflection had not been uncomfortable to her lately. She lifted the lid of a blue powder box and with her fingers gently blotted areas of suspect skin. Calmness came with the heavy red bruises around her painful lips that brought a reminder of that midnight passion. She put on a lace bra and silk panties and spread her legs into a pair of light blue slacks and a delicate white blouse wrapped over her flesh with renewing comfort… Now she was mistress of this house, an instigator perhaps of her own destiny.

Rose had accompanied Edward to their new home, in a way she was like an arbitrary counsel. She had been his housekeeper to his failed marriage and had stayed on with him after the break-up. It was obvious to Esme that this woman had not great respect for the previous Mrs. Corton and it would seem she viewed Esme with a certain amount of dislike, although, her devotion to Edward was very apparent. She addressed him as Mister Edward which seemed to fit this squat-mouthed, angular woman in her mid fifties. She strode around the rooms with a relentless face and a bun of grey unwashed looking hair.

Episode 14…Marriage

He was older than Esme by at least fifteen years and had made a bad marriage of a woman in North London, yet he was cheerful, unaffected, and inexplicably likable. He paid great detail to Constance and made Esme smile at a time when she needed to. His hair was wavy and sandy coloured and his eyes searched you like a little boy. His mind was speculative, thoughtful and engaging, and with his visits that followed his pedigree became more and more acceptable. It further seemed that his parents had property in many of the more fashionable parts of London and rented out to a number of well-heeled and well-to-do families.

It is likely that Esme was never really in love with him, although she may have thought she was! Perhaps she was flattered by him after those months of austere exile and a simple biased breath went a long way. In their relationship there grew a sort of touching erotic need, a kind of understanding of cause and need.

Then quite suddenly they married! Those guests that attended Marylebone registry office in April 1929 wished them all the very best in their future happiness and they took up home just a few streets away from Constance in what was a large white-faced Georgian villa with high pillars and endless creeping Acadian Ivy and as Spring moved towards Summer they seemed to be happy.

That certain morning his side of the bed was still warm. Esme thought he must have only just got up and perhaps tried not to wake her in doing so. The pale red curtain that seeped light because it would not close properly against the bedroom window and noted for replacement was still drawn from last evening. The sound of water running in the bathroom confirmed her thoughts and her hand touched the silk nightdress he had tossed lazily to her side of the bed. She yawned and turned her head once more to the pillow. His enjoyment of her that night had been whole and brutal!