Rosie and Ruby: A Heartwarming Story about Family, Love and Friendship

By Patricia Dixon

The bonds of family face the ultimate test in this novel of class divisions and buried secrets among three interrelated households.
 
Together with her feckless, self-centered mother, Ruby lives one step away from poverty on a rundown estate in Manchester. In the quiet suburbs of Cheshire, Ruby’s cousin Rosie leads a charmed, middle-class existence—even as she feels suffocated by her own domineering mother. Then there is Olivia, a member of the elite Cheshire set, rattling around in her sprawling mansion, attending charity functions and hosting infamous bridge nights.
 
Olivia’s errant son Marcus lives his life in the fast lane, maximising the perks of the family firm, well away from the watchful eyes of his disapproving mother. When Ruby meets Marcus, her life begins to crumble—and one by one the secrets she has kept are exposed. Can Rosie and Ruby’s bond survive? And in Ruby’s hour of need, will her cousin keep her promise, and come to her rescue?
 
Rosie and Ruby was previously published under the title Three Mothers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781504070003

Patricia Dixon

Patricia Dixon lives in Manchester and is an international best-selling author of eighteen novels. She writes across genres including women’s fiction, historical fiction and psychological literary fiction. Her stories are often set in her home city and the Loire. Both places are close to her heart and from where she gathers inspiration for her characters and tales. In May 2017 she signed with Bloodhound Books, leading fiction publishers.

Book preview

Ruby 1998

Ruby lay underneath her cold blankets, mesmerised by the flashing blue lights that illuminated her bedroom walls. Sirens wailed and tyres screeched as the police pursued the thrill-seeking low life who obviously had nothing better to do on a Saturday night, other than pinch a car and race it around the estate. It wasn’t unusual to be kept awake and tomorrow there would probably be a repeat performance, or a different drama, played out in full view of the residents, albeit from behind closed doors and through murky glass. If not a car chase, then it would be Frank across the landing, shouting the odds because he’d been locked out by Carol, his long-suffering wife. Alternatively, there would be the sound of feet, running up and down the stairwell on their way to see Denzil, Openshaw’s very own small-time drug baron who lived in the flat at the end of their row.

There was always noise of some description: a drunken fight, car alarms, raised voices or taxis honking their horns until the early hours. Ruby thought it amazing that despite being skint and probably on the dole, so many of her neighbours could still afford to take a cab into Manchester every weekend and get wasted but then again, most of them were up to no good or on the fiddle. None of this bothered her unduly, it was just reality and a way of life that she had grown up with, and gradually, over time, she’d become accustomed to it.

Each day on her way to and from school, she crossed the rundown estate which was once a shining example of the government’s ideal; building pristine, futuristic streets in the sky. These days, it was no better than the post-war slums they had cleared to build the concrete monstrosity she called home. It was actually a glowing testament to social housing gone wrong and inhabited by people who had no interest in being part of normal society, something she realised when a bunch of scumbags burned down their community centre, signalling the end of the old folks meeting hall and her youth club.

The boarded-up windows covering the smashed glass of derelict family homes, and the rows of abandoned, empty shops told their own tale of hope having left. The only viable businesses remaining were the chippy and the off-licence. The latter had bulletproof glass protecting the staff inside and the mere fact that they passed your purchases through a safety hatch said it all really. Nobody dared to go into the park unless it was to buy weed, otherwise you’d get your head kicked in for straying onto somebody else’s patch. Then there was the local swimming baths – a long distant memory after being knocked down. The expanse of wasteland that remained was subsequently used for illegal fly-tipping and appeared to have been ignored by the council, despite it being a smelly eyesore and yet another blot on the landscape.

The only families that seemed to move here now were from far-off lands, some of which Ruby hadn’t even heard of, and who spoke languages that both isolated and alienated them from other members of the community. The even sadder truth was that nobody seemed to care. The foreigners had little in common with the original residents and neither had anything remotely uplifting to chat about either, so they all just got on with it and ignored each other, extinguishing any hope of community spirit.

Ruby was so cold. It was February and along with the incessant rain, the temperatures had dropped to single figures and the flat was freezing at night. The whole place had a tinge of dampness and the speckled patches of green and black mould seemed to be taking over the ceilings and walls, expanding and spreading their spores, along with the unmistakeable stench of poverty. Ruby was paranoid that soon her clothes would start to smell, too. That was the last thing she needed, turning up at school with a pongy uniform, so she did her best to keep herself clean and tidy albeit without the help of her mum. Ruby had become quite independent, more out of necessity than desire, however, she quite enjoyed her trips to the launderette mainly because it was warm inside and it meant a couple of hours away from home, reading magazines and listening to the idle chatter of the caretaker and her customers.

Unfortunately, Stella, her mother, was going through another very skint period at the moment which meant they now had to dry their washing on a maiden which took forever, especially in front of the most inefficient electric fire in the world. As for the central heating, it was permanently switched off and the flat was always dark and dingy. During the winter months, Ruby became obsessed with checking the electric meter. Her worst fear was being plunged into darkness, especially when The Perv was knocking about, so she made it her mission in life to squirrel away coins here and there, and keep it fed.

She had heard that to keep warm you should wear lots of layers, which was easy if you actually possessed multiple items of clothing, but as she didn’t, Ruby had wrapped herself in her dressing gown and kept her socks and fluffy slippers on. Keeping still didn’t seem to help either. She’d even tucked the duvet under her feet to seal in any heat, and her nose was cold and runny. She really wanted to put her head under the covers but that would mean taking her eyes off the bedroom door. Her mum would be back soon with The Perv and from the looks of them when they went out, they were half-cut before they even got to the pub so God only knew what state they’d be in when they got home. So much for being skint.

Ruby could hear the whirring of the police helicopter as it approached the estate. This was the norm and it would be up there for ages, tracking the stolen car, shining its light on the idiot thief while he made his futile bid for freedom. The chase would be the talk of her school on Monday and the culprit would no doubt turn out to be someone’s brother or cousin who’d end up being the star of the canteen and hero worshipped by all his brain-dead mates. Still, there was a small part of Ruby that wished she was in that car too, but she wouldn’t waste time taunting the police and bouncing up kerbs. Instead she’d head for the nearest motorway and keep on driving until she ran out of petrol, and get as far away from home as possible.

She was just nodding off when the sound of the front door slamming jolted her into a state of awareness. Ruby listened to her mother’s irritating giggling and the clip-clop of her heels on the lino as she opened and closed cupboard doors, not that there was anything inside them worth eating. They’d probably been to the chip shop, The Perv was very generous when it was in his own best interests and Ruby knew they’d soon be topping themselves up with the cans of lager they’d failed to guzzle earlier. Even though she was hungry too, Ruby would rather starve than go outside her bedroom door. The Perv would just love that, a chance to sneak a peak at her nightie and leer while her mum wasn’t looking. No, she would stay there, nice and still and pretend she was asleep and hopefully, they’d drag each other off to bed and spend the rest of the night comatose.

An hour passed and Ruby had monitored every single noise they made. She’d heard her mum go into the bathroom, and then, thankfully, the TV was switched off, signalling that they’d finally gone to bed. All was quiet outside her door. This didn’t necessarily mean she was out of the woods just yet. The worst-case scenario was that he’d got her mum so paralytic that she couldn’t come to Ruby’s rescue like last time, a thought which made her heart pound inside her chest and fear ripple through every nerve and sinew in her body. Almost paralysed by her own imagination, Ruby had no alternative than to lie in the dark, stay awake, and wait.

Two weeks earlier, on one normal Saturday night, almost the same thing had happened. Ruby had eventually managed to doze off despite the racket they were making, but later, she was woken from a fitful sleep by the creak of her door. As the light from the kitchen streamed into her room she could see the silhouette of Barry the Perv standing at the end of her bed, staring silently down at her. In the horrifying seconds before she screamed, she could have sworn he was holding something in his hands and whatever it was, was definitely sticking out of his trousers. It was also quite possible that every occupant in the block heard Ruby’s blood-curdling screams and, thankfully, so did her mum who was woken by the sound of her hysterical child and panicked calls for help from Barry. Ruby could hear him now, acting like he was totally innocent. Though it had to be said, he managed to put on quite a performance that night and had thrown Stella totally off the scent.

‘Stella! Stella! Come quick! I think your Ruby’s ill or something. She’s going bleedin’ daft in there. For Christ’s sake, hurry up!’

When her mother eventually staggered in, stinking of lager and kebabs, as Ruby gulped for air and tried to explain what had happened, Barry intervened and made out like he was the avenging angel.

‘I was sitting in there, minding my own business watching Match of the Day when she set off screeching like a banshee. Scared the shit out of me she did so I jumped up, thinking that someone had broken in and I legged it in here. She was raving on about someone being in her room but she must be having a nightmare cos I checked the window and there’s nobody about. I’ll nip outside and look around, just to be on the safe side.’

Ruby couldn’t believe what she was hearing when Stella fell for his lies.

‘No, love, it’s okay. Just stick the kettle on and make her a brew will you? It was just a nasty dream, wasn’t it, Ruby? You’ll be okay once you’ve calmed down. Did you have a cheese sarnie before you went to bed? That’s probably what did it. Now just try and forget about it and think of nice things.’ Stella stroked her daughter’s head and stood up before swaying slightly, then made her way to the door.

‘I’ll be back in a minute with your brew and I’ll see if I can find a couple of biscuits as well. Won’t be a min, and I’ll leave the door open in case you want me.’ Then she was gone.

Ruby sat in silence and disbelief as she heard her mum thank Barry for running to their rescue, then tell him how glad she was that they had a big, strong man to look out for them. By the time she came back with the tea and, inevitably, no biscuit, Ruby was pretending to be asleep. She waited for her mother to leave and the door close before bouncing out of bed. She tried to push the wooden chest, but it was too heavy so she removed the drawers and dragged it in front of her door, then put everything back inside before jumping back under her duvet. Ruby didn’t sleep a wink that night. The merest noise or creak made her panic, imagining Barry creeping about outside her door.

At thirteen she’d never had a boyfriend but her best friend, Crystal, had. Ruby listened on a regular basis to all the gory details of her teenage love life so had a very good idea what Barry was doing with his hand at the end of her bed. He made Ruby’s skin crawl and if she was honest, her mum was getting that way too. ‘Think of something nice,’ she’d said. Ruby would’ve laughed if the statement hadn’t been so pathetic. What the hell was there to think of around here that could vaguely squeeze into the ‘nice’ category? Nice wasn’t part of Ruby’s life or vocabulary. Nice happened to other people with normal mums, not those who lived at the arse end of a rough estate, surrounded by people who didn’t give a shit about anything other than their next benefit payment and watching Jerry Springer on the telly.

If she wasn’t careful, Ruby thought, she’d end up as a guest on that show. Her mother certainly fitted the bill and had been through so many blokes she’d lost count. They were all a bunch of desperate losers and all cast in the same mould: divorced or kicked out by their previous girlfriends, and usually looking for an easy leg-over and somewhere to kip. Stella gratefully provided both as she seemed incapable of existing without a man for any length of time.

At first, everyone benefited from the blossoming romance as the newbie fell over himself to get into their good books and make a positive impression, bringing presents for them both and laying on the charm. For a few weeks at least, the heating was turned on, the flat was clean and tidy and Ruby even got some nice treats and home-cooked food while her mother attempted to ensnare whatever low life she’d stumbled upon this time. It never lasted though, and once the shine had rubbed off, normality soon set in. Stella inevitably got bored of domesticity and her man. Once she bled him dry and he realised she was no saint, Ruby’s mother was off to pastures new and the Stag’s Head on the hunt for another victim. This time though, Stella had plumbed new depths because Barry was the worst of a bad bunch.

Ruby still remembered her mother when she was pretty. She’d always had bleached blonde hair but in those days it didn’t have thick black roots and resemble candy floss. Stella was the mummy in the school yard that stood out, always wearing brightly-coloured dresses and very high heels that matched her outfit. Ruby’s mummy wasn’t like the dowdy ones who came in raincoats and woolly hats in winter. Stella had lots of lovely make-up, black shiny boots, a see-through umbrella and a boyfriend waiting at the gates to zoom them away in his posh car and take them for tea in a restaurant.

Now, Ruby realised that what her five-year-old eyes looked up to as glamorous, the other mothers looked down on as cheap. As the years rolled by and Stella failed to find a keeper (or spoiled her chances by always looking for someone with a bigger car and a fatter wallet), time and too much vodka took its toll on her looks. In a continuous cycle of self-pity and desperation, she hoped to find salvation in another bottle from the off-licence and solace in the arms of anyone who’d have her.

Ruby continued to watch the door, recalling the first time Barry came into her room, and how afterwards she’d prayed really hard that he would dump Stella the very next day and be long gone by teatime. She had stayed in bed for most of that Sunday until she heard them leave, thus avoiding any contact and nearly fainted with relief when Stella came in that night alone. She looked tearful and was carrying a bottle of wine that signalled an evening of sorrow-drowning was on the cards.

‘Well, that’s it. He’s gone. Packed his bag and disappeared into the sunset. He’ll be miles away by now.’

Ruby would’ve done a cartwheel had there been enough space. In an attempt to feign interest and offer a smidgen of sympathy, she asked if her mum knew where he’d gone.

‘Only to Ireland, he’ll be back in a fortnight. He’s visiting his sister. Reckons she owes him some money so when he gets back, it’s party time! Anyway, there’s not much in so it’s soup for tea. I’d do you cheese on toast but you might have the screaming abb-dabs again and my nerves won’t take it, especially as Baz isn’t here to look after us. You’d best open a tin.’

But Ruby wasn’t hungry anymore and making her excuses she left Stella to drink herself stupid with the rent money. Sloping off to her bedroom, she buried her head in the pillow and cried herself to sleep.

Remembering the events of that night still made Ruby feel sick and brought her sharply back to the present. The noises from the street outside had died down and thankfully, so had the sounds of her mother repaying Barry for an evening on the tiles and a chippy supper. It was 4am. The boy racers had finally called it a night and the helicopter had flown off into the darkness. There was still the occasional slam of a car door and the odd siren in the distance. Ruby allowed herself to doze. Surely Barry would be snoring away by now and she could get some sleep. She was dreaming of being fostered by Pippa in Home and Away and spending days on a caravan park or hanging out on the beach. In her dream, she really suited the red tartan dress she wore for school… and then her bed jerked and the strategically-piled books and alarm clock tumbled noisily to the floor, warning her of imminent danger and importantly, waking her from her sleep.

Ruby’s eyes shot open. He was there, outside the door, silently trying to force it open but there was no way he could get in because jammed into the space between the door and her bed was a chair and a chest of drawers. Ruby’s heart pounded so hard she truly thought it would explode inside her chest.

‘Are you awake, Ruby? Come on, love, don’t be shy. I only want a little chat to say sorry for what happened last time. Go on. Open the door for your Uncle Barry.’ He gave the door one more push.

Horrified, Ruby saw his fingers appear as he squeezed his hand inside, feeling around for whatever was blocking his entrance. Leaping from her bed, sheer terror and adrenaline fuelling her movements, Ruby pounced onto the chair and then leapt on top of her cupboard before lunging at the door. Using her whole body weight she rammed it hard against Barry’s wrist, causing him to groan in pain.

‘You little bitch,’ hissed Barry. ‘I’ll make you sorry when I get in there, you cocky tart.’

Spotting her pencil case lying next to where her books had been, she rummaged inside until she felt her compass. Fury, shame and terror were coursing through her veins and without a second thought, gripping tightly, she rammed the steel spike into the back of his hand. Then Ruby started to scream. If they thought she was a banshee the last time, second time around she probably woke the dead, but most importantly of all, she woke Stella.

When her mum stumbled out of her bedroom, dragging on her dressing gown and trying to force open her bloodshot, mascara-streaked eyes, she was met by the sight of Barry in his underpants. He had one hand trapped inside Ruby’s bedroom while her daughter screamed hysterically from the other side.

‘Mum! Mum! Make him go away. He’s trying to get in my room. He’s a perv, Mum. Please just make him go away.’

Stella may have been many things but she wasn’t naive, and knew there and then that this time she really had picked a bad one. Without hesitating, she ran over to the draining board and grabbed the frying pan, grasping it firmly in both hands.

‘Get away from my daughter you dirty bastard. It’s okay, Ruby, I’m here, love.’ Stella tried to sound reassuring and in control, just before she lost it completely and smashed the pan into Barry’s head. ‘You dirty get! What the fuck do you think you’re playing at? Get away from my girl or I swear I’ll kill you.’ Stella was livid.

Barry didn’t know what hit him (literally) when the cold metal whacked the back of his head. For a moment he couldn’t figure out what hurt the most, his speared hand or dented skull. From between the crack Ruby watched as he slumped to his knees so she relaxed the pressure on the door as Barry’s blood smeared fingers left red tracks all down the woodwork. The next thing they heard was the doorbell ringing and someone shouting through the letter box. It was old Mr Kenyon from next door.

‘You alright, Stella love? D’you want me to ring the coppers? I heard you and your Ruby screaming.’

Stella ran to the front door, still grasping the frying pan, and flung it open to find Mr Kenyon in his pyjamas, holding a rolled-up newspaper and a plastic spatula.

‘It’s okay, Charlie, no need for the police, as long as this scumbag is out of here in the next ten seconds. He was trying to get into our Ruby’s bedroom, the filthy pervert. Go on, get your stuff and get out!’ Stella waved the frying pan menacingly as Barry scuttled off, holding his bleeding hand, too stunned and embarrassed to speak.

Returning within seconds, his shirt and jacket stuffed under his arm and holding up his trousers with his uninjured hand, Barry made his silent, shamefaced exit from the flat. Not daring to look anyone in the eye, he fled into the freezing night but not before Stella kicked him in the rear end as Mr Kenyon gave him one last jab with his rolled-up newspaper and a crack on the head with the spatula.

---

It was 7am and getting light. Ruby’s bedroom furniture was back in its rightful place and the blood stains had been wiped off the door. Her eyes burned in their sockets from crying and lack of sleep. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t banish the image of Barry’s hand poking through the door while her heart lurched when she imagined what would have happened if he’d managed to get in. Once Mr Kenyon had left, Ruby had repeatedly insisted that Stella checked the door was locked before she could relax. Every sound made her jump, fearing Barry had come back for revenge or his shoe, which Stella had chucked over the balcony when she’d found it on the landing. It must have slipped off in his panic to get away and now lay amongst the rest of the rubbish in the courtyard below.

When daylight finally peeked through her curtains and the party people of east Manchester began returning home, only then did Ruby feel able to settle. She was utterly exhausted, both mentally and physically but needed to get some sleep because later on that day she was going to go over to see Rosie, her cousin.

It was Aunty Doreen’s birthday and, as with any special occasion, Ruby and her mum would make the two-bus journey to the south side of Manchester and spend time with the upwardly-mobile section of the family. Ruby knew full well that Doreen looked down her nose at her sister, Stella, and had been ashamed when she brought an illegitimate child into the family. Out of duty, Doreen had fulfilled the promise she made to their dying mother that her wayward sister had to be looked after, not rejected, and baby Ruby was to be watched over and cared for. This was something that her Aunty Doreen did begrudgingly without grace or kindness, whereas Rosie offered it unconditionally, along with friendship and love.

Even though the Wilson’s home in Cheshire wasn’t the most cosy or welcoming of abodes, Ruby saw her visits to leafy suburbia as a breath of fresh air and a welcome break from the bleak greyness she saw on a daily basis. The garden was beautifully pruned and surrounded by privet hedges, and even though the interior screamed out for a dash of colour it was nevertheless tastefully furnished and coordinated using an unimaginative pale green palette.

Ruby embraced all of this. To her it represented stability, and was clean enough to eat your tea from the floor but above all, it was quiet and calm. Even Uncle Jim seemed to blend in with the house, never putting a foot out of place, seamlessly merging into his armchair and the wallpaper, nodding occasionally to agree with Doreen but for the most part he kept his opinions to himself, his head down and concentrated on reading the newspaper.

Despite the bland frugality of Aunty Doreen’s cuisine, Ruby knew that whenever she was invited for a sleepover or a few days in the school holidays, there would be three home-cooked meals placed before her on the starched white tablecloth and clean, fragrant sheets on her bed. But the icing on the cake was always Rosie. Never having siblings of their own, the two cousins saw in each other the sister and companion they never had. Ruby looked up to and adored Rosie while in return, being four years older, the elder cousin enjoyed her role as big sister to the fragile, wide-eyed, eager little girl who, when they were younger, held her hand tightly and hung on to her every word.

As they grew up, and despite the fact they lived miles apart, their bond managed to survive even when Doreen temporarily banned Stella from the house after her sherry-induced, bad behaviour on Christmas Day. Ruby’s frequent lack of bus fares to make the trip alone was sometimes a stumbling block, but nowadays Rosie gave her the money for a return visit which she stuck down her sock and hid from Stella. Even when she got her first boyfriend, it didn’t get in the way and Ruby wasn’t pushed out because Rosie wasn’t like that. She was Ruby’s rock, always there in a crisis, someone wise to confide in, a much needed escape route.

By the time Ruby eventually slipped into the land of dreams her heart had lifted slightly, and a small smile lingered on her lips because in a few hours she would be with her cousin, and then everything in the whole world would be okay.

Rosie 1998

Rosie dragged the heavy case along the pavement, its wheels getting caught between the cracks in the paving flags. Despite this and her vision being blurred by the hot tears that seeped from her eyes, she was undeterred, resolute. Her blood, which had reached boiling point a few minutes earlier, coursed through her veins, pumping her heart and fuelling the rage that burned inside. With every step, she became more determined, each stride led to freedom – a place where her mother’s cruel, spiteful words couldn’t hurt her anymore. The curtain twitchers would love this and Rosie was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t summer when the prim front lawns would’ve been occupied by dedicated Sunday gardeners. One of them would have nosily, but very politely, asked where she was going and then she could have told them in no uncertain terms that she was getting as far away from her stuck-up, narrow-minded, bigoted, control freak mother as humanly possible.

As it was, on this drizzly February day, most of the inhabitants of Sandringham Avenue would probably be on the way back from church or reading the Mail on Sunday. Or, as in her mother’s case, preparing for a birthday party that anyone with half a brain would try to avoid on the grounds it would be totally crap. Mind-numbingly boring, devoid of any life or soul and catered for by the woman with the tightest arse in Cheshire.

Rosie’s cheeks burned red from the exertion of her escape. Her blonde hair was soaked and her case was really heavy because it contained all her worldly possessions and had been packed hastily after the worst forty-eight hours of her life. If only she’d seen the letter from the college before her mother got to it, then she’d have been able to get away with her double life for a little while longer. On the other hand, maybe it was meant to be because deep down, Rosie knew she couldn’t live a lie forever and now it was all in the open. Decisions had been made, harsh words spoken and doors slammed shut.

As Rosie turned onto the main road and trundled towards the train station she suddenly remembered Ruby. She would be arriving in a couple of hours with Aunty Stella for the Grim Reaper’s birthday party and would be upset not to find Rosie there, a thought which for a second caused even more turmoil.

Due to Aunty Stella’s inability to manage her finances, their phone had been cut off ages ago so there was no way of ringing Ruby to explain about the row. Rosie made a mental note to save up and buy her cousin a cheap mobile phone. It was about time she had one and it would make keeping in touch a hell of a lot easier, but for now, she would just have to sit at the bus stop and wait for them to arrive. Then she could warn them about the party from hell and at least give Ruby and Aunty Stella her side of the story. She could only imagine how her mother would tell it and one thing she knew for sure, Doreen would be the victim and Rosie painted as an ungrateful, wayward daughter.

There was nothing for it. Rosie sat down on the bench, thankfully protected from the wind and the rain by the plastic shelter and waited patiently for the bus to arrive. It would be the longest, coldest two hours of her life but it gave her time to think and get her head straight and most tellingly, despite the freezing temperature, a numb bum and blue lips, during her time of quiet contemplation, not once did Rosie consider going home.

Rosie thought back to the day she started work at the hotel, maybe that’s when things really began to change, or had it been a slow creep; a mixture of age, angst and rebellion or just plain and simple growing up? Perhaps you didn’t have to settle for what your parents said you needed or should be grateful for. You didn’t have to live the way they had or follow in their footsteps, or even tread the path they had laid out for you since the day you were born. Rosie wasn’t ungrateful by any means. She knew she had a good life and certainly didn’t need reminding by the Sunday school teacher to give thanks in her bedtime prayers, or by Doreen for that matter, every sodding birthday and Christmas. Rosie only had to look at her little cousin to appreciate that she could’ve ended up with someone like Stella for a mother. Not only that, following rare visits to Ruby’s flat, Rosie was always truly grateful when she got home at night and rested her head on her pillow in the warmth and comfort of her clean and tidy, pastel pink bedroom.

Rosie suspected that Doreen had planned her future before she was even born and most likely kept another master plan in reserve, just in case she’d turned out to be a boy. Rosie was put on a carefully controlled, strategically thought out path that Doreen followed to the letter from day one. Sunday school, Brownies, Guides, riding and dancing lessons, a squeaky-clean life which was firmly rooted in a solid, Christian, middle-class upbringing surrounded by like-minded folk. She was privately educated at the local prep school, which hopefully would provide Rosie with an acceptable social circle and, with a bit of luck, a favourable gene pool for when she was married off to some poor boy Doreen had earmarked at kindergarten. Doreen had already settled on acceptable career paths for Rosie, all of which bordered on the far-fetched and were the polar opposite of anything her daughter was actually considering. Something senior in the medical profession was top of the list, a surgeon perhaps and then, what could only be classed in Rosie’s eyes as depressingly mundane, either a barrister or bank manager.

Doreen’s plans ran into trouble as soon as her daughter went off to the local high school, when it became clear that their finances didn’t run to a private secondary education and, worse still, Rosie failed to win a bursary to anywhere noteworthy. Meeting girls from other walks of life, especially those not vetted or approved of by her mother, gave Rosie an insight into how the other half lived. Her new friends didn’t have to conform to the nice girl image. They dyed their hair and got their ears pierced, drank cider on the park and snogged the face off unsuitable lads at the bus stop. For tea, her mates had pizza or lasagne, paella, curry or hot chilli and rice, foods from around the world that would never touch the lips of those living inside 42 Sandringham Avenue.

Doreen couldn’t abide foreign food, foreign people or probably anything that had the word foreign associated with it and therefore everyone else had to suffer. Rosie longed to go abroad, even on a day trip, to Spain or France or Italy, anywhere would do, but instead, each year they went to Scarborough for two long, dreary weeks. One summer, the mould was miraculously broken and they threw caution to the wind and tried Tenby, where sadly, the Welsh accent got on Doreen’s nerves so that was the end of that. Rosie could not understand why two people who were financially comfortable would want to spend a fortnight freezing their tits off on a windy east coast promenade. Not when there were passenger jets shooting across the sky whisking people to paradise – or Magaluf at the very least. Rosie still remembered sitting in the dining room of the same bleak, draughty hotel, waiting to see how the chef had managed to boil broccoli into submission and murder pork chops for the umpteenth time that week. As she picked at her tinned peaches and evaporated cream she swore that when she was old enough, she would buy a rucksack, get a passport and head for the sun and never come home again.

Maybe it was her Dad’s fault. If he’d stood up to her mother now and then perhaps things would’ve been different. Surely he had a pair of balls hidden somewhere down his perma-pressed slacks? If he had, Rosie surmised they were probably shrivelled up from lack of use. It was common knowledge that he had long since been banished to the Land of Lovelessness, sleeping in a satin covered twin bed, nicely separated from Doreen by a bedside table and a reading lamp. Maybe he got lucky on his birthday or Christmas as a special treat, however, Rosie was sure that, as with everything else in his life, he took the path of least resistance and stuck to reading his book.

No wonder he disappeared to play bowls at every given opportunity and volunteered for anything on the church committee. The only reason he got to vote for his party of choice was because he visited the polling station on his way to work, otherwise Doreen would be there, telling him exactly where to put his black cross. Stupidly, during yesterday’s battle she had hoped for some support but true to form, he just tutted and nodded, solemnly shaking his head in all the right places until predictably and on cue, he sided with Doreen.

Rosie knew she had toes but couldn’t feel them anymore. In an attempt to restore the blood supply to her feet she began pacing the bus stop, determined to stick it out and just to focus her mind, went over the events of Saturday, the day from hell. It was one she would never forget, when she had to face the consequences of deceit, the full force of Doreen’s wrath and her mother finally stepped over the line.

When she turned sixteen, Rosie and her best friend Laura decided they needed a holiday job. It was a threefold plan. Firstly, it meant Rosie had an excuse not to go to Scarborough, secondly, she got to stay at Laura’s house for two weeks which would be a holiday in itself and thirdly, they would have stacks of cash to fritter away during the summer months.

Rosie was still firmly on track and adhering to her mother’s grand plan that meant staying on at school to do her A levels after the summer. For this reason, Doreen didn’t put up much of a fight when both Rosie and Laura found work as chambermaids at Fairhaven Manor, a prestigious country hotel nestled in the heart of the Cheshire countryside. It was a popular venue for up-market weddings, business conferences, and romantic breaks, and used as a hideaway for anyone who was anybody.

Once a stately home, Fairhaven’s impressive sandstone walls were bordered by rolling hills, immaculate lawns and surrounded by a moat festooned with lily pads. It was picture-perfect and whilst its