My Name Is Rose (8 page)

‘That's not very grateful, is it, Mummy?' Victoria scoffed.

‘Don't you like it, Anna?' Mrs Luca asked. ‘You choose something, then.'

Rose fixed her eyes on the floor. She had no idea what to choose and was sure that if she did take something from a rail, Victoria would laugh at her choice.

Mrs Luca called a shop assistant and spoke to her in English, pointing to Rose and explaining what they wanted.

When the assistant went away to fetch some items of clothing, Rose overheard Victoria hiss at her mother, ‘Don't call her your daughter. She's not your daughter.'

‘It's easier that way,' Mrs Luca replied.

‘
Don't call me your daughter
,' Rose wanted to say. ‘
I'm not your daughter. I'm Esme's daughter
.'

The shop assistant returned with arms full of clothes. She held them up in turn for Rose's approval. Rose nodded at every single one of them. She didn't care, as long as she didn't have to try anything on and as long as she could get out of the store without further embarrassment.

‘We'll just have to hope they fit you if you really won't try them on,' said Mrs Luca, while the shop assistant folded their purchases and put them into large plastic carrier bags.

‘She'll only have herself to blame if they don't,' said Victoria.

She disappeared into the first hall, and by the time Rose and Mrs Luca went back through, she had already picked out two blouses and two jumpers that she wanted her mother to buy her.

‘It's only fair,' she said, ‘and you promised if I helped Anna I could have something too.'

‘Just don't tell your father, that's all,' sighed Mrs Luca. ‘Things are a little tight at the moment.'

‘Daddy won't mind,' Victoria replied, and plucked a necklace from a stand to add to her selection, despite her mother's protestations.

Rose felt exhausted when they left the store. She wasn't as strong as she thought, but she had no intention of letting Mrs Luca know, because this would only lead to more unwanted fussing and pampering. She hoped they would soon be returning to the house, but her guardian turned into another enormous store.

‘Here we are,' Mrs Luca said. ‘Just what we need.'

Rose stared at the thousands of books and magazines that were stacked high everywhere she turned.
So many words
, she thought,
none of which would make any sense to me, even if they were written in my own language
. And there were pens and pencils and crayons in hundreds of different colours, shapes and sizes. Mrs Luca selected a variety of them before going to the checkout to pay.

‘Why can't you talk, then?' Victoria asked Rose out of the blue, while they were waiting for her to return. Her question wasn't voiced unkindly. She was curious. ‘Are you sure you're not pretending because you're scared?' she continued. She looked penetratingly at Rose, who blushed with discomfort. ‘Just try saying “hello”,' Victoria persisted.

Rose shook her head and moved closer to Mrs Luca.

‘I bet I can catch you out one day,' said Victoria. ‘And once I've done that we'll be able to find out a lot more about you, especially all your little secrets.'

Chapter 14

Mrs Luca scarcely left Rose alone during the next few weeks. She was determined that Rose should understand what she could and couldn't do. She enforced strict routines for mealtimes, lessons and bedtime, all of which were flouted regularly by Victoria, who only had to enlist her father's support in order to get her own way. Rose was amazed at how the girl could manipulate her father against her mother. She and Rani had been brought up to do as they were told, and Esme and Nicu formed a united front if ever there was any attempt at disobedience.

The rules of the house, and those that were specific to Rose, were many and comprehensive. Rose was convinced she would break several inadvertently. The main rules were that the kitchen, library and Mr Luca's office were out of bounds to her, as were all of the upstairs rooms apart from her bedroom. If she wanted a book to read, she must ask permission to go into the library.

‘We don't want to discourage you from reading – on the contrary – but the library is Mr Luca's pride and joy. Everything is precisely catalogued, so we don't want to undo all of my husband's hard work.'

Rose was forbidden from passing time with the servants, and on no account was she to do any of the servants' work. She would be allowed to watch tele­vision for a maximum of six hours in a week and not after seven o'clock in the evening.
That's no hardship
, Rose thought to herself,
since we didn't have a television in our wagon and only ever watched it at Uncle Aleksandar's
. She would be permitted to go riding, but only accompanied by Mrs Luca or Victoria. She would be expected to maintain a respectful silence around Mr Luca's office whenever he was working from home. ‘Well, that'll apply when you regain your power of speech.' Mrs Luca blushed when she realised her impropriety.

There were numerous petty rules as well. Rose was to refrain from running in the hallways and she wasn't allowed to play ball games in the gardens. At all times, she was to use the back door rather than the front, unless she was with other members of the family. At mealtimes, she would remember, please, to keep her elbows off the table, to use her napkin and to speak only when she was spoken to. Again, Mrs Luca added that she was meaning in the future, of course.

Rose was to have lessons for four hours a day, five days a week. Other than that, she was free to spend her time as she wished.

‘You're still so very young,' said Mrs Luca. ‘I want your childhood to be a happy one. We have so much to offer and I can see you'll thrive here.'

Finally, one of Rose's duties would be to take the dog for a walk every morning before breakfast. ‘A little bit of exercise first thing will set you up well for your lessons,' Mrs Luca remarked.

Rose thought she would hate it. She wasn't keen on dogs and had taken an instant dislike to Crumble, a small, wiry dog, who seemed to yap incessantly and who kept jumping up at people. However, she discovered that once she had got into a routine, she enjoyed setting out on her own with just the dog for company. She began to form a strong bond with Crumble, who stood eagerly by the door, head cocked, ears perked up, as she changed into her boots. Once they were away from the confines of the gardens and off down the road, he scampered ahead, waited for her to catch up, scampered ahead, waited for her to catch up, until they reached the stile that led into the fields. Crumble squeezed his way under while Rose clambered over, then she picked up a stick and hurled it for him to collect. Crumble never tired of collecting sticks, or conkers, or rose hips, or the ball Rose sometimes took with her. She learnt to stop him from barking by tapping him on the nose whenever he did so, and refusing to throw anything for him to fetch until he was quiet. And he quickly learnt not to jump up at her as soon as he understood that she wouldn't be his playmate if he didn't obey.

It took Rose a while to accept that Crumble was allowed to live indoors. None of the Roma families she knew would have allowed it. But once he had earned her affection she was happy for him to sit on her feet, which he insisted upon much to Victoria's disgust, while she sat in the television room in the evening.

‘You're obviously spoiling him,' Victoria said. ‘He doesn't do that with anyone else, stupid animal.'

Victoria watched television a lot, Rose discovered, especially if her parents were out – and not just during the evening. She even invited Rose to watch with her one afternoon when Mr and Mrs Luca had gone into town.
But what's the point
, Rose thought,
when I can't understand what anyone's saying?

‘Come on,' Victoria persisted. ‘Mummy and Daddy won't know. There's a really good film on.'

Rose hovered in the doorway, unsure what to do.

‘You're such a goody-goody,' Victoria said. ‘I won't tell if you don't, and you'll be bored stiff if you don't break the rules sometimes.'

Rose slowly shook her head. She didn't trust Victoria not to tell, and certainly didn't want to get into trouble when she had only been there a few weeks.

‘You'll have more fun here if you make friends with me,' Victoria said another time. ‘But if I take against you, I can make your life hell.'

Rose didn't doubt it, and knew that if she weren't careful Victoria would make trouble for her. The girl took delight in baiting her, then all of a sudden would transform herself into a model of amiability, acting as though she were Rose's best friend in the whole wide world.

Misconstruing this, Mrs Luca would say, ‘I'm so glad you're getting on so well. I hoped you would.'

To which Victoria would reply, ‘Anna will soon be like a sister to me, and I'm sure if she could speak for herself she'd say the same.' Or she would smile a fake smile, which might have fooled her mother, but not Rose.

It wasn't Victoria, though, who caused the first real upset for Rose. It was the fact that Rose couldn't write. From the moment Mrs Luca had bought the pile of notepads and pencils, Rose knew she would be found out. She resisted Mrs Luca's initial encouragements to jot down anything she needed, but when her guardian made a very specific request that required an answer, Rose could see that either her refusal to communicate would be taken as insolence or her secret would be discovered.

Esme and Nicu could scarcely read or write, only enough to sign their names and read maps. Esme had wanted both Rose and Rani to ‘have some education', and they had attended local village schools whenever they stayed in one place for long enough to make it worthwhile. However, Rose had always felt too much of a stranger among the gadje children to concentrate on lessons, and the teachers often picked on her because of her lack of what they considered to be basic skills and knowledge. She fared no better with the schoolchildren, who sidelined her or were openly unfriendly because she was different, particularly if their parents had told them that Rose and Rani were Gypsies and not to be trusted.

Mrs Luca wanted Rose to write down her five favourite meals. ‘I'll have Marina cook them for you every now and again,' she said, pleased with herself over the treat she was suggesting.

Rose looked at her blankly. Even if she had been capable of writing something down, nothing could compare to Esme's delicious meals.

‘Don't be shy, Anna,' Mrs Luca persisted. ‘Everyone has their favourites and I want to know yours. Here, take this pencil and notepad and make a list.'

Rose took the pencil and notepad and pretended she was thinking.

‘Surely it can't be that difficult,' said Mrs Luca, beginning to sound a little impatient that her treat was being rejected. ‘Write down just one meal, and we can come back to the others when you've had more time to think.'

Rose could feel herself becoming tearful. She took a deep breath and shook her head. She dared not look Mrs Luca in the face, so she stared fixedly at the floor, waiting to reap the anger that her action would undoubtedly cause.

There was no visible anger. Mrs Luca simply left the room.

Chapter 15

Rose's secret was finally uncovered by her English teacher. Mrs Conta was a short, round, bespectacled, no-nonsense sort of woman, who nevertheless had a twinkle in her eye and a big heart. She was English herself and married to a Romanian engineer, and therefore able to speak Rose's native language. When she was first introduced to Rose, she shook her hand warmly and expressed her wish that they would get on well and that, provided she studied hard, Rose would have a solid understanding of English in no time at all. Rose responded with a nod, which meant simply that she was listening, but nothing more.

‘Perhaps the first words we shall hear you say will be in English.' The teacher chuckled. ‘Wouldn't that surprise everyone, Anna?'

It would definitely surprise me!
Rose thought.

‘Don't worry,' said Mrs Conta. ‘You'll be under no pressure from me to speak if you're not ready to. There's plenty of written work we can do, and if you hear me saying the words frequently enough you'll begin to understand them and know how to use them when need be.'

She pointed to the door, a chair, a window, the clock, and said the name of each in English. She wrote the words on a whiteboard and asked Rose to copy them into a notepad. Rose didn't even pick up a pencil. She sat in her chair with her eyes lowered.

‘Copy what I've written, please, Anna,' Mrs Conta instructed.

When she saw that Rose was making no attempt to do as she was told, the teacher sat down next to her.

‘What's going on here, then?' she said. ‘Do I have a disobedient child in front of me? Do I have a child who doesn't want to learn? Do I have a child who is too unhappy to be bothered? Or do I have a child who, quite simply, can't write?' She watched Rose carefully. ‘Look at me, Anna,' she said gently.