Mr. Rosenblum's List: Or Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman by Natasha Solomons
Authors: Natasha Solomons
Ads: Link
their markings – they’re like wrinkles in an old face. I’ve got an old face and I don’t want someone to come and carpet over me.’
Jack chuckled; he liked it when she said surprising things. ‘My darling, you sound a little cuckoo-bird.’
‘Cuckoo?’
‘Yes, cuckoo-bird. Means meshugge . I heard it yesterday.’ He explained vaguely, having overheard someone describing his vision as cuckoo. ‘We don’t need to have carpets if you don’t want them. How about a tiger skin for the hearth?’
She ignored him pointedly. ‘I am going to take a bath.’
Until the new bathroom was fitted, Sadie had used the old system of strip washes over the sink and the pleasure of a hot, soap-filled bath had not yet lost its novelty. She climbed the stairs to her new bathroom with the same excitement Jack experienced each morning as he went to dig his golf course.
The bathroom had an elegant claw-footed cast-iron bath, framed prints of tea roses on the walls and a polished wood floor, but the best part of the room was the low mullioned window with a view across the Stour Valley. Sadie ran the bath, the water thundering against the metal sides like an express train, and poured perfumed salts into the steam. Slowly, she unfastened her blouse and unclipped her skirt. Out of habit, she folded them and placed them in a neat pile on a rocking chair. She stood there, naked, and stared at her face in the mirror – it was the face of a woman in middle age. There were lines around the eyes and mottled marks on her cheeks and neck. She wondered when it was that she got old.
The face didn’t feel like it was hers. It belonged to someone else; it wasn’t the face that her family had known. They wouldn’t recognise her now. She had never seen her mother as an elderly woman; soon she would be older than her mother had been when she died. She held out her own hands; they were beginning to display the thinness of an older woman’s hands and were slightly swollen around her wedding ring – she’d never be able to take it off now.
Sadie climbed into the hot water and shut her eyes. The glass in the windowpane misted up; she wiped it with her palm and looked out across the fields. She had been about to order curtains for the bathroom but Jack poked fun at her. ‘Who’s going to spy on you? Badgers and birds?’ Now she was glad the window was bare – the landscape already looked different from when they had first arrived. It had lost its bright June sheen; the verdant fields faded to a hot brown after the grass was cut for hay and the wheat stubble turned gold. She was aware of the weekly changes in the countryside in a way she had never noticed in the city. In London there were only four seasons, and she had handbags for each. Here, summer was a thousand shades; the elderflower bushes found in every hedgerow and copse smelled sweetly in the middle of June and now, a month later, they were all brown and withered. Yet, the honeysuckle and the jasmine were in full bloom and their scent lingered in the summer air. The foxgloves had drooped and been replaced by the flowering bindweed, which climbed up the stems of the dead plants.
The sun was low in the sky and the parched fields glowed pink in the evening light. At the edge of the garden, just beyond the orchard, she saw a deer nibbling the leaves of a hawthorn tree. It glanced up as if it sensed her staring through the window. Neither moved; the deer listening and Sadie lying naked in the warm water, watching.
As she got out of the bath and towelled herself off, she studied the large cracks in the wall, running all the way from the heavy oak beam in the ceiling right down to the floor. They had called in a builder when she first noticed them but he found their concern entertaining and explained, ‘They is like livin’ things these old houses. The stones move. It don’t matter. Supposed to. Those newfangled houses, they is no good. These old ’uns like to move. Stretch a bit.
Jack chuckled; he liked it when she said surprising things. ‘My darling, you sound a little cuckoo-bird.’
‘Cuckoo?’
‘Yes, cuckoo-bird. Means meshugge . I heard it yesterday.’ He explained vaguely, having overheard someone describing his vision as cuckoo. ‘We don’t need to have carpets if you don’t want them. How about a tiger skin for the hearth?’
She ignored him pointedly. ‘I am going to take a bath.’
Until the new bathroom was fitted, Sadie had used the old system of strip washes over the sink and the pleasure of a hot, soap-filled bath had not yet lost its novelty. She climbed the stairs to her new bathroom with the same excitement Jack experienced each morning as he went to dig his golf course.
The bathroom had an elegant claw-footed cast-iron bath, framed prints of tea roses on the walls and a polished wood floor, but the best part of the room was the low mullioned window with a view across the Stour Valley. Sadie ran the bath, the water thundering against the metal sides like an express train, and poured perfumed salts into the steam. Slowly, she unfastened her blouse and unclipped her skirt. Out of habit, she folded them and placed them in a neat pile on a rocking chair. She stood there, naked, and stared at her face in the mirror – it was the face of a woman in middle age. There were lines around the eyes and mottled marks on her cheeks and neck. She wondered when it was that she got old.
The face didn’t feel like it was hers. It belonged to someone else; it wasn’t the face that her family had known. They wouldn’t recognise her now. She had never seen her mother as an elderly woman; soon she would be older than her mother had been when she died. She held out her own hands; they were beginning to display the thinness of an older woman’s hands and were slightly swollen around her wedding ring – she’d never be able to take it off now.
Sadie climbed into the hot water and shut her eyes. The glass in the windowpane misted up; she wiped it with her palm and looked out across the fields. She had been about to order curtains for the bathroom but Jack poked fun at her. ‘Who’s going to spy on you? Badgers and birds?’ Now she was glad the window was bare – the landscape already looked different from when they had first arrived. It had lost its bright June sheen; the verdant fields faded to a hot brown after the grass was cut for hay and the wheat stubble turned gold. She was aware of the weekly changes in the countryside in a way she had never noticed in the city. In London there were only four seasons, and she had handbags for each. Here, summer was a thousand shades; the elderflower bushes found in every hedgerow and copse smelled sweetly in the middle of June and now, a month later, they were all brown and withered. Yet, the honeysuckle and the jasmine were in full bloom and their scent lingered in the summer air. The foxgloves had drooped and been replaced by the flowering bindweed, which climbed up the stems of the dead plants.
The sun was low in the sky and the parched fields glowed pink in the evening light. At the edge of the garden, just beyond the orchard, she saw a deer nibbling the leaves of a hawthorn tree. It glanced up as if it sensed her staring through the window. Neither moved; the deer listening and Sadie lying naked in the warm water, watching.
As she got out of the bath and towelled herself off, she studied the large cracks in the wall, running all the way from the heavy oak beam in the ceiling right down to the floor. They had called in a builder when she first noticed them but he found their concern entertaining and explained, ‘They is like livin’ things these old houses. The stones move. It don’t matter. Supposed to. Those newfangled houses, they is no good. These old ’uns like to move. Stretch a bit.
Similar Books
