Read an Excerpt
Mornings with Rosemary
Step out of Brixton underground station and it is a carnival of steel drums, the white noise of traffic, and that man on the corner shouting, “God loves you,” even to the unlovable.
“Tickets for the Brixton Academy tonight,” yells a ticket tout at the station entrance. “Buying and selling, tickets for the Brixton Academy!” Commuters shake their heads at promoters and preachers who try to thrust leaflets into their clenched hands. You push through the crowds and walk past the Rastafarian selling incense and records outside Starbucks. Across the road is Morleys, the independent department store that has stood on the street for years. “Love Brixton” glows in neon lights in the nearby window of TK Maxx.
Today spring flowers bloom in buckets at the flower stand: daffodils, tulips, and fat peonies. The florist is an old man in a dark green apron with soil under his nails and a gold chain around his neck. Whatever the weather, he sells “Sorry”s and “I love you”s at a reasonable price. Wrap it in brown paper and tie it up with ribbon.
Next to the station is Electric Avenue: it heaves with people and market stalls selling everything from vegetables to phone chargers. The air smells of sweet melons and the tang of fish. The fish lie on beds of ice, turning it from white to pink throughout the day and reminding you that you should never eat pink snow either.
Market traders fling prices across the street at each other, discounts thrown like Frisbees. Catch it quick and throw it back.
“Three for a tenner, threeforatenner.”
“Don’t miss out, three for a fiver, THREEFORAFIVER.”
“Three for a fiver? I’ve got five for a fiver!”
On the other side of the street Kate walks quickly home from her job as a journalist at the Brixton Chronicle. She doesn’t have time to examine vegetables. Or maybe she just wouldn’t know what to look for. It may be spring, but Kate is living under a cloud. It follows her wherever she goes, and however hard she tries she can’t seem to outrun it. She weaves through the crowds, desperate to make it back to her house and to close the door behind her and climb into bed. When she is not at work, her bed is where she spends most of her time. On the street, she attempts to block out the sounds around her, trying not to let them fill her up and overwhelm her. She keeps her head down and focuses on the pavement.
“Excuse me,” she says, stepping past a plump elderly woman without looking up.
“Sorry,” says Rosemary, letting Kate pass. She watches the back of the young woman hurrying away—the woman is petite with a midlength light brown ponytail flicking behind her with the speed of her walk. Rosemary smiles, remembering what it was like to be in a rush. At eighty-six, she rarely goes anywhere fast. Instead she carries her shopping and walks slowly away from the market and toward her flat on the edge of Brockwell Park. She is dressed plainly but neatly in trousers, comfortable shoes, and a spring mackintosh, her thin, wavy gray hair pulled back from her face and secured with a clip. Over time her body has changed to the point that she barely recognizes it anymore, but her eyes are still the same—bright blue and smiling even when her mouth isn’t.
Today is Rosemary’s shopping day. She has made the rounds at all her favorite shops and stalls, said hello to Ellis the fruit and veg man, and collected her weekly brown bag of food. She has popped into the secondhand bookshop run by Frank and his partner, Jermaine. The three of them chatted for a while, Rosemary sharing the window seat with their golden retriever, Sprout, and looking along the shelves for something new or something she might have missed last week. She likes stopping there and breathing in the musty old smell of hundreds of books.
After the bookshop, Rosemary steps inside Brixton Village and is hit by the smell of cooking spices and the noise of people talking and eating at tables in the passageways—the same noises and smells she has become accustomed to through her weekly visits. The market is airy and some restaurants provide blankets that people drape over their shoulders or laps as they eat. Strings of lights hang from the high ceiling, making it feel like a Christmas market even in the spring.
To Rosemary and her friend Hope, whom she meets here for a weekly catch-up and slice of cake, it’s still Granville Arcade, the only place where Hope could find the Caribbean foods she so missed when she first moved to Brixton when she was twelve. It is now filled with independent restaurants, shops, and stallholders. The change still unsettles them but they like the coffee shop where the young barista knows their orders and starts making them as soon as he sees them approaching through the window. And the cake is delicious. Hope speaks proudly about her granddaughter, Aiesha, and her daughter, Jamila—busy as usual with work. When Jamila passed her final medical exams, Rosemary had sent her flowers with a card that read, “Dear Doctor . . .”
Hope and Rosemary reminisce about when they worked in the library.
“Do you remember the first time Robert plucked up the courage to ask you out?” says Rosemary with a laugh. Hope’s husband, Robert, had been a bus driver before retiring a few years ago, and when they were both young he would visit the library every few days after his shift, looking around eagerly for Hope’s hourglass figure.
“It took him long enough,” Hope says, laughing. “I’ll always remember how you used to disappear up a ladder and stack books when he was there so he’d be forced to speak to me.”
The two women chuckle together, both of them relishing this part of their week. But now Rosemary’s feet hurt and she is ready to be home.
“Same time next week?” says Rosemary as they part, hugging her friend and realizing that at sixty-eight, Hope, too, is now an old woman. She squeezes her a little tighter—to Rosemary she will always be the cheerful young girl who started at the library when she was eighteen and who Rosemary took under her wing.
“Same time next week,” says Hope, giving a final wave as she turns off down the street to collect Aiesha from school (the favorite part of her day).
Now, Rosemary passes the queues for the bus stops and crosses the junction where the old cinema stands on the corner, the names of this week’s films spelled out in white letters on the black board. Opposite is a large square where elderly men sit in chairs and smoke while teenagers skateboard around them.
As she gets farther away from the station, shops turn into terraced houses and blocks of flats. Eventually she reaches the Hootananny, the rickety old pub famous for its live music. A strong, sweet smell floats from the benches outside where people sit and drink pints and smoke. Here she turns left and follows the road that wraps around the edge of the park toward the mid-rise building where she lives.
The lift, often broken, is working and she is relieved.
Rosemary has lived in the flat on the third floor for most of her life. She moved there with her husband, George, in 1950 when the building was newly built and they were newly married. The front door leads straight into the living room, where the most noticeable thing is the bookshelf that runs the full length of the right-hand wall.
The kitchen next to it fits a table, two chairs, and a television that rests on the washing machine. When Rosemary has unpacked her shopping, she crosses the living room, opens the doors, and steps onto the balcony. Her navy swimsuit hangs from the washing line like a flag. There are plants out here: just a few potted lavender, nothing too extravagant—it wouldn’t suit her. Rosemary can see Brockwell Park stretching ahead of her, taking her far from the noise and the crowds at Electric Avenue.
Spring is in bloom and the park wears a new green coat. There are the tennis courts, a garden, and a small hill with an old house that used to be a manor and is now used for events and a concession selling ice cream and snacks to sticky-fingered children. Two sets of train tracks loop around the park: the real one and a miniature one that is only for the summer and very small children. The sun is just starting to set and Rosemary can see people, enjoying the lengthening days. Runners make their way up the hill and down again. And on the edge of the park closest to her balcony a low redbrick building wraps its arms around a perfect blue rectangle of water. The pool is striped with ropes that split the lanes and she can see bright towels on the decking. Swimmers float in the water like petals. It is a place she knows well. It is the lido, her lido.
