It was in keeping with habit that Jackie would ask Rose, "Well, how was school today?" and in keeping to her habit Rose would say "Fine," meaning that nothing was really fine, but that nothing was important enough to share with her mum. Shareen's life had wandered off in a different direction with serial boyfriends and their resulting children. Mickey had dumped her for Trish, accusing her of getting airs and graces, and then discovered his own airs and graces when he was accepted into the competitive robotics programme at his polytechnic college. So Rose was left with her mum, Mo and her co-workers. Of course working under Stephen Willis was a unique experience, not the least of which was his attempts at setting her up with some of the younger single teachers he knew.
"Come on Tyler, you've got the youth, you've got the looks, don't be such as dead loss! I'm trying to arrange your future happiness." He said at lunch break.
"It's Thursday, day of domestics, little brothers, soggy bath times and not moping about my future happiness," said Rose.
"I'm sure Jeff Delobel over at Coal Hill would like some domestic responsibilities," he pestered her? "You remember, teaches French? He likes you."
"And I'm sure you are just making that up to have an excuse to declare a double date," Rose responded and felt a bit happy because Jeff was a little bit fit.
"Am not," Stephen replied. "He discretely asked about your availability – saw you with your brother and the age difference didn't add up in his head. He did want to assume you were taken already, but didn't want to intrude."
"Have him friend me on Facebook and we'll see if he'll chat, I cannot promise anything more than that. I could be teaching in Cardiff next Fall, or maybe something exotic like Guam, I hear they are desperate for anything that speaks English and has a degree." Having a date to distract her from her life as it was would be nice for a change.
She was pondering this same distraction as she waved her key fob in front of the security entry at Tony's childcare. On spying Rose he cavorted, skipped and hopped in quick succession up to Rose, before latching onto her with fierce hug. She was overcome with a fierce maternal instinct, like Tony was a sneak preview to a life she wanted, complete with adoring little boys who she may one day call her own. A life that was as present so far into the future she didn't even have the foggiest idea of the who, when and where of it. Fighting tears from Tony's attack of brotherly love she stuffed the feelings down inside herself to ponder at a later date.
"We've had a good day with little Tony," said Ms. Anna Marie, his lead teacher. "He's missing Hannah something fierce, she's at home with pink eye again, little dear," she ruffled Tony's hair. "Little Romeo, just four and has himself a little girlfriend," Anne Marie beamed. "Your mum is on pick up tomorrow, right? Make sure you tell her to check her account balance, the director is ..." She couldn't finish the sentence, she liked to think that paydays were something magical and that everyone stayed in a happy place, rather than stressing out already stretched families.
"Yeah, the 15th of the month, mum normally gets her check, if it comes..." Rose didn't want to finished the sentence, her father was more fairytale than reality these days. Her parents hadn't formally divorced, but the subtext of her conversations with her father implied that there may be another woman in his life and there was an inevitability to that change in her family situation.
"Well, time to go, Tony. Chicken and chips for you, then a bath and bed time." Rose was looking at Tony, still pondering the future son while looking at the current brother. His hair was their father's strawberry blond, with dark undertones. "We'll make mum a big bowl of salad, even though we know she'll just grab something unhealthy and greasy and I'll let you cut the carrots, eh Tony?"
It was just a short walk down a moderately busy side street from Tony's childminder to the Peckham Rd shoppes. Jackie worked an a tiny triangular kiosk at the intersection of Peckham High and Peckham Hill Streets. They catered mostly to a male clientele, much like the shoe-shine boys at the airport, and with a cleaver business forward name, Close-it Hair designs, Jackie was able to keep her little family afloat most months if the tips were good.
What was also beneficial was that the Main branch of the Peckham Public Library was right across the street. Rose's routine on Thursday: check up with Jackie, check out the library and get Tony books for the week, and check into the dinner specials at Cod Fellas. If the weather was nice, they'd play in the Belleden Junior School playground before going home.
A blast of cold institutional air welcomed her and Tony as they passed the IR security sensors and made a bee-line for the children's alcove. Rose helped Tony tip his illustrated book into the return slot before flashing a smile at Mrs. Hemmerling, the children's librarian. Rose wandered over to the DVD section, hoping to find the new release of the musical Allegro, Stephen has recommended it after he scored free tickets for a December show by winning the Pub Quiz, and he wanted Rose's opinion if it was suitable to present at the secondary level or if he should just recommend it for an adult group. She wasn't going to poor over it and do an in-depth score analysis, but is was nice that after twelve weeks on the job, that he valued her opinion.
Tony wandered up, two books selected and Rose added her DVD to the pile before spying the audiobook version of "How to Train Your Dragon". Snatching that, she took her little pile back to Mrs. Hemmerling's desk and dug around her bag for her library card.
"Stamp, stamp," pleaded Tony, thrusting out his hand for Mrs. Hemmerling to expertly place a smiling star stamp on his proffered hand. "Another," he pleaded, knowing somewhere in that desk she had a moon too.
Rose found her card and processed her books as another little family came up behind them. "Two hands?" Tony begged.
"Twice next week, I promise," winked the librarian. Tony sadly joined his sister as the walked out the door and into the near summer heat.
"My bare hand is sad, it wants a stamp too." Tony sighed.
"Next time, love," Rose anxiously guided across the intersection and onto the footpath. The were not the very edge of the commercial district. They stood under the verandah of the new agent's next to them was the old print shoppe now transformed into a brand new pizzeria with blinking neon signs, twittering with fat, cartoonish Italian bakers and there tacked on the end before the alley was the tiniest of buildings. It was a cupboard sized storefront, small display cases with shiny bits of tourist rubbish, clove cigarettes, and lottery tickets. It had been closed the last few years, but Tony had always stopped to look into the tiny window.
"My shop!" he believed. It was child sized and Tony assumed that it was his to run for other children. This evening it was surprisingly lit up, a sandwich board grandly proclaiming GRAND OPENING THURSDAY NIGHT. It's display cases cleaned and transformed filled with bits of hand crafted toys, marbles, big buttons, cakes of marzipan, truffles, vintage tops and vials of wooden beads and string. "In we go?" Tony questioned with a whoop and, of course, in he went.
LITTLE KNICKNACKS announced a banner across the window. Yet, once in the shop, Rose wanted to rush back out, for it reeked of the humid mint smell that had haunted her since this morning – the smell of something dead and rotting, but covered with a false perfume to conceal its wrongness. It has happened, it will happen, it is happening, her senses assailed her as she realized that the warning she had been preparing for was suddenly upon her. She was spinning apart at the seams as she watched in horror as her brother dove further into the shop, well beyond her reach.
"Tony, come back!" she yelled at her brother. "No one is manning the shop." But the moment she uttered those works, a man rose from the behind the display case where he had be apparently dusting or straightening, although very quietly. He was smiling, a thing smile over big teeth, yellowing lips to cover them. His eyes were sunken in giving the impression of a sock puppet pulled tight over a boney frame. What little hair he had was wisps above his ears and his skin was mottled with liver spots.
"Oh..." he whispered with a manic glee in his eye seeing Tony, "a baby1" He bleated the first syllable. "A baaaaab-y!" he squeaked and the air in the shop became overwhelmed with the stale mint that had been dogging Rose all day.
"He's four," said Rose. "Not a baby."
"Close enough for me," he exclaimed with a thin giggle. "I'm old, and you are all mewling infants to me. I look ancient, don't I?" he queried. Rose could not disagree.
"P-shaw, girl. You aren't supposed to agree with me. What a delight this little one is. So full of life, so little of that left at my age. I bet you he still hears the songs of the fairies and sees the colors of creation itself. So much to do, so much time to live."
Rose didn't mind hearing her brother admired so earnestly, but as the man leaned forward the smell of mint hit her full-force and she was reminded of nearly-spoiled milk, moldy basements, piles of leaves and trash, willful ignorance and rotting time. It had to be him, because nothing in her life had ever smelled like that.
"Doesn't like me?" he asked, skirting the counter top. "Doesn't like me one bit," he tittered. "Not fair, because I like him. Could consume his cuteness in one setting if it where a meal, I could."
"What's your name, child?" he asked.
"Tony," Rose found herself answering almost compelled to do so, but she didn't know why.
The man's had reached for Tony from neatly press cuff, discolored blotches on his skin that look like they were started to weep like sores. "We're leaving," Rose said. "We didn't bring any money."
My name is Prydon Burosa," the man went on, ignoring Rose. "Not unfamiliar in the business world. This is not a serious endeavor you know, just a storefront for baubles and trinkets. Here today..." he did not continue.
"Tony, time to go!" Rose yelled, wondering why suddenly her legs refused to work normally. "We just wanted to look around."
"You did, you shall," he simpered and continued with genuine generosity, "and I'll make it worth your while little man. Do I see a stamp on your right hand? Is your left hand jealous? Would you like another stamp to match?"
Tony was rarely shy, but he dug himself into Rose's leg, and temped by the stamp, half raised his left arm.
"Oh, hold it out proper. Offer it up or I can't make it stamp clearly," Borusa commanded. Tony thrust his hand forward, Rose found her arm rising up on its own accord too, quite unable to stop what was playing out before her eyes. Like a spider on a trapped fly, he pounced, a stamp inexplicably between his fingers and pressed into in the back of Tony's hand. Mission accomplished he made a grandiose swing of his arm upward and broke into a fit of giggles.
Tony screamed as if he had been burnt. "Look, so pretty," giggled Borusa. "Oh, for shame, most children like a stamp," he continued as Rose gathered Tony into her arms.
Borusa smiled down at them and Rose looked back into dark, fathomless and ancient eyes. His rheumy eyes, clouded with cataracts, simultaneously filled with triumph and a bottomless need. "Perhaps, it is time for you to go? Hmm?" he said. Rose found herself holding Tony on the sidewalk in front of the shoppe. Stupefied by the gumminess that the encounter left in her mind and quite sure she had lost the last few minutes of her life in a sticky mass of decay and stale mint. They had been lured in by babbles and thrust out again into the world having served some dark purpose.
"Wash it off!" Tony cried, furiously scrubbing at his hand. "Get if off, Wose'" he sobbed.
Rose searched trough her school bag and finally found a package of make-up wipes buried deeply in her purse. Outlined on poor Tony's hand was nothing other that the stylized face of Prydon Borusa himself, sunken eyes, prominent teeth and all. Scrub as she might, the stamp did not smear or fade, smirking and smiling like it could not be affected the efforts of a mere girl with an alcohol scrub. Rose had never seen such detail in a stamp, like it was three dimensional and textured on Tony's skin.
"Rose, I don't like it," Tony sniffed and leaned against her.
"He can bloody well take it off himself," Rose broke out in a fit of swearing that was not in character with her upbringing because she was well and truly frightened. But, when she looked back at the door of the tiny shop, it was shut up tight as a drum with a post it note saying 'Back in 10 minutes.'
"What a freak!" Rose huffed. "It just needs a good soaking, Tony – with a de-greaser and water and Tony cheered up, though he seemed a bit affected by the encounter as they made their way home. Rose was quiet too, for at the bottom of her very soul she was afraid that no amount of scrubbing would remove the stain of Prydon Borusa.
