Second Honeymoon Read Online Free PDF Page B

when it so plainly wasn’t justified and you were made a scapegoat. But it was just a job, wasn’t it? Not a vocation. Not even a career’.
    Rosa pushed her father’s plate aside.
    ‘It isn’t that’.
    Russell sighed.
    ‘No’.
    ‘You see,’ Rosa said, ‘I’m in debt’.
    ‘Ah’.
    ‘I owe nearly six thousand on my credit cards’.
    Russell leaned back. It occurred to him to ask how the situation had arisen, but then it struck him forcibly that he did not, somehow, want to become involved in thereasons because that would mean reaction and, even, responsibility. He loved Rosa. He loved her dearly, but she was twenty-six.
    He said, as gently as he could, ‘That will take a while to pay back’.
    She nodded.
    ‘Have you thought of that?’ Russell said. ‘Have you made any plans?’
    She said, in a small voice, ‘I’m beginning to’.
    ‘Economies,’ Russell said. He picked up his wine glass and put it down again. ‘My mother loved economies. If she could make one haddock fillet feed four she was triumphant. She thrived on economies’.
    Rosa said sadly, ‘Then I don’t take after her’.
    ‘Frugality was rather encouraged in the fifties,’ Russell said. ‘Post-war and all that. Now, it just looks as if you are crabbed of spirit and letting life pass you by’.
    Rosa leaned forward.
    ‘I think it was trying not to let it pass me by that got me into this mess’.
    ‘Josh,’ Russell said, without meaning to.
    ‘Oh, Dad—’
    ‘No,’ he said, hastily. ‘No. I shouldn’t have mentioned him. We must focus on what is rather than what was’. She gave a faint smile. ‘I knew you’d help—’ ‘It depends—’
    ‘On what?’
    ‘On what form you see that help taking’. Rosa said quickly, ‘I’m not asking for money’.
    Russell gave a little sigh.
    ‘I don’t want money,’ Rosa said, ‘I want to straighten myself out. I want to find another job and work hard and meet new people and make a plan and change the way I do things’.
    ‘Mmm’.
    ‘Don’t you think that’s right? Don’t you think I sound like you’d like me to sound?’ ‘Oh I do—’
    ‘Well, then?’
    ‘I’m just waiting,’ Russell said. ‘Patiently, fondly even, but wearily and warily, to see what it is you are working up to say’.
    Rosa fiddled a bit with the cutlery left on the table. ‘I’m not very proud of myself’.
    ‘No’.
    ‘I hate having to ask this—’
    ‘Yes’.
    ‘But can I come home?’
    Russell closed his eyes for a fleeting second.
    ‘I know it’s not what you want,’ Rosa said. ‘I don’t want it either, really, if you see what I mean, but it wouldn’t be for long, probably only a few months, but if I’m not paying rent, the rent money can go towards the credit-card debt, and it would make such a difference, it would make all the difference—’ She stopped. Then she said, much more slowly, ‘Please, Dad’.
    Russell looked at her.
    He said sadly, ‘I’m so sorry, darling, but no’. She stared at him.
    ‘No!’
    ‘I want to help you,’ Russell said. ‘I
will
help you. But you can’t come back home to live’.
    Rosa said, stunned, ‘But it’s my home!’
    ‘Well, yes, in a way. It was your childhood home, your growing-up home. But you’re grown-up now. You need your own home’.
    ‘Of course!’ Rosa cried. ‘In an ideal world, that’s exactly what I’d have by now! But I can’t, can I? I can’t have what I ought to have because of what’s happened!’ She glared at him. ‘I cannot believe you said no’.
    Russell sighed.
    ‘It isn’t about you. It’s about us, Mum and me. It’s -well, it’s
our
home’. ‘Your
family
home’. ‘Yes, when children are dependent—’ ‘Ben was allowed to stay, Ben was always—’ ‘Ben has gone,’ Russell said. ‘So there’s room for me’.
    ‘Rosa,’ Russell said with sudden force, ‘it’s not about room, it’s about distraction. It’s about Mum and me having time to be married again, it’s about us,