Rosie by Alan Titchmarsh Read Free Book Online

feeble thing to say when you could be spinning around in that.’
    Nick looked back at the printout. It was indeed a lovely car. ‘I don’t know . . .’
    ‘Do it for me?’
    He folded his arms. ‘And if I don’t?’
    ‘I shall be unhappy.’
    ‘Where is this flash car?’
    Rosie pointed out of the window. ‘In Portsmouth. We could be there in an hour.’

  
6
The Doctor
    Should not be allowed to vanish into oblivion.
    I t was love at first sight. Oh, how could a man get so excited about a heap of metal? The rolling wave of the mudguard. The neatly spoked wheels. The crimson-reeded radiator grille. The gleaming chrome. Nick ran his hand over one of the bulbous, glistening headlights and Rosie knew he was enslaved.
    They hardly needed to take her out for a test drive. Nick knew how she would feel. Strong, but nimble. Spirited, but of a certain age. Obliging, as long as she was handled sensitively. The car had a lot in common with his grandmother.
    He felt embarrassed when she wrote out the cheque, and tried not to look like a little boy who had just been indulged by his granny. Which, of course, he had, although he tried to tell himself that
he
was indulging her.
    The salesman waved as they drove away, like an excitable couple of newlyweds. From her position deep in the bucketlike passenger seat, Rosie glanced at Nick as they sped towards the ferry. He was beaming from ear to ear. She had not seen him so happy for a long while. It made her smile, too.
    And then she remembered how it had felt to be taken for a spin in a fast car by a good-looking young man. She had been twenty-two. Her hair streaming out behind her, she was laughing and looking sideways at the handsome doctor, who brushed her knee lightly with his hand. For a month they were barely apart. Then he was called up, and she never saw him again. Six years later they engraved his name on the war memorial.
    ‘Can we stop for a minute?’ she asked.
    Nick had been lost in his thoughts. ‘Sorry?’
    ‘I just wondered if we could pull up for a minute. My eyes are watering.’
    He drew in to the side of the road. ‘Yes, of course. Are you all right?’ He watched her reach into her pocket for a tissue. ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Oh, yes. Just remembering.’
    ‘Happily?’
    ‘Very.’
    He leaned towards her, and kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you.’ He tapped the steering-wheel. ‘She’s lovely.’
    ‘Oh, she’s a she, is she?’
    ‘Of course.’
    She pushed the tissue back into her pocket, pulled out a brightly patterned headscarf and tied it firmly under her chin. ‘Come on, then, or we’ll miss the boat.’
    He started the engine again and the car growled softly out of the lay-by, then down the slip-road to the Isle of Wight ferry. For some inexplicable reason, Nick felt as though he was driving there for the first time.
    At six thirty the following morning he found himself leaning out of his bedroom window gazing dreamily at the car parked below. How long would Rosie want to stay? He enjoyed her company – which was just as well: she’d shown no sign of wanting to go home.
    He looked up at the sky, which was flushed with the amber glow of a clear morning. The sea was glassy calm, and there was no sound, except the distant kleep-kleep of half a dozen oystercatchers on the shore. He’d take himself off to Tennyson Down. No, it might be too breezy up there. He’d go to Sleepyhead Bay, find himself a quiet corner by some rocks, then paint the cottages and the little café. He hadn’t felt like taking out his brushes for the better part of a week. Today he was anxious to get started.
    ‘Will you be all right?’ he asked later, as he loaded his bag into the passenger side of the car.
    She was standing by the front door. ‘Of course I’ll be all right. Perfectly capable, you know . . . now that I’ve got my stick.’ It was only a mock admonishment, acknowledging their little joke – that everybody thought she needed taking care of, even him, but