Rescuing Rose Read online

  ‘Speak to us, Rudy,’ I heard Bella say.

  ‘Yes, say something,’ added Bea. I heard them trying to tempt him into speech with whistles and clicks but he remained defiantly purse-beaked.

  ‘Look, Rudy, we paid good money for you,’ said Bella. ‘Two hundred smackers to be precise.’

  ‘It was three hundred,’ Bea corrected her.

  ‘No it wasn’t. It was two.’

  ‘It was three, Bella: I remember distinctly.’

  ‘Well you’ve remembered it wrong—it was two!’

  I wearily opened the box labelled ‘STUDY’ because I’d soon have to get back to work. Lying on top was a copy of my new book—this is embarrassing—Secrets of Marriage Success. As I say, I do things very fast, and I wrote it in less than three months. By unfortunate coincidence it was published on the day that Ed and I broke up. Given the distressingly public nature of our split the reviews were less than kind. ‘Reading Rose Costelloe’s book is like going to a bankrupt for financial advice,’ was just one of the many sniggery remarks. ‘Whatever next?’ sneered another, ‘Ann Widdecombe on Secrets of Fashion Success?’

  I’d wanted my publishers to pull it, but by then it had gone too far. Now I put it in the drawer with my wedding photo, then took my computer and some files upstairs. In the study next to my bedroom I opened a large box marked ‘Letters/Answered,’ and took out the one on top.

  Dear Rose, I read. I wonder if you can help me—my marriage has gone terribly wrong. But it all started well and I was bowled over by my wife who’s beautiful, vivacious, and fun. She was a successful freelance journalist when we met; but, out of the blue, she got a job as an agony aunt and suddenly my life became hell. The fact is I hardly see her—answering the letters takes up all of her time; and when I do see her all she talks about is her readers’ problems and, frankly, it gets me down. I’ve asked her to give it up—or at least tone it down—but she won’t. Should I file for divorce?

  Clipped to the back was my reply.

  Dear Pissed-Off of Putney, Thank you for writing to me. I’d like to help you if I possibly can. Firstly, although I feel certain that your wife loves you, it’s obvious that she adores her career as well. And speaking from experience I know that writing an agony column is a hugely fulfilling thing to do. It’s hard to describe the thrill you get from knowing that you’ve given someone in need great advice. So my suggestion, P-O—if I may call you that—is not to do anything rash. You haven’t been married long, so just keep talking and I’m sure that, in time, things will improve. Then, on an impulse, which I would later greatly regret, I added: Maybe marriage guidance might help…

  It didn’t. Far from it—I should have known. Ed suggested we went to Resolve—commonly known as ‘Dissolve’—but I couldn’t stand our counsellor, Mary-Claire Grey. From the second I laid eyes on her she irritated the hell out of me, with her babyish face, and dodgy highlights and ski-jump nose and tiny feet. I have been hoist with my own petard, I thought dismally, as we sat awkwardly in her consulting room. But by that stage Ed and I were arguing a lot so I believed that counselling might help. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Miss Grey inspired any confidence, but the idiotic little woman simply did not. She was thirty-five(ish), divorced, and a former social worker she told us in this fey, squeaky voice.

  ‘What I shall do,’ she began, smiling winsomely, ‘is simply to listen to you both. I shall then reinterpret—or, to give it its technical name, reframe—what you both say. Got that?’ Catatonic with embarrassment, and already hating her, I nodded, like an obedient kid. ‘Okay, Ed,’ she said. ‘You first,’ and she actually clapped her podgy little hands as though this were nursery school.

  ‘Rose,’ Ed began quietly, as he looked at me. ‘I feel that you don’t care about me any more.’

  ‘What Ed is saying there,’ interrupted Mary-Claire, ‘is that he feels you don’t care about him any more.’

  ‘I feel,’ he went on painfully, ‘that you’re more concerned about the losers who write to you, than you are about me.’

  ‘Ed feels you’re more concerned about the losers who write to you, Rose, than you are about him.’

  ‘I feel neglected and frustrated,’ Ed went on sadly.

  ‘Ed feels neglected and—’

  ‘Frustrated?’ I snapped. ‘Look, my marriage may be a bit rocky at the moment, but my hearing’s perfectly fine!’

  And then, I don’t know, after that, things went from bad to worse. Because when it came to my turn, Mary-Claire seemed not to hear what I’d said.

  ‘Ed, I’m really sorry we’ve got these problems,’ I began, swallowing hard.

  ‘Rose admits that there are huge problems,’ Mary-Claire announced, with an expression of exaggerated concern.

  ‘But I love my new career,’ I went on. ‘I just…love it, and I can’t simply give it up to please you.’

  ‘What Rose means by that, Ed,’ said Mary-Claire sweetly, ‘is that she doesn’t really want to please you.’ Eh?

  ‘You see, until I became an agony aunt, I’d never really felt professionally fulfilled.’

  ‘What Rose is saying there,’ interjected Mary-Claire, ‘is that it’s only her job that makes her feel fulfilled.’ Huh?

  ‘And I guess I am a bit over-zealous on the domestic front,’ I went on uncertainly, ‘and I know that’s been an issue too.’

  ‘Ed,’ said Mary-Claire soothingly, ‘Rose is acknowledging that at home she’s been a’—theatrical pause here to signify sadness and regret—‘control freak,’ she whispered. What?

  ‘But I do love you, Ed,’ I went on, heroically ignoring her, ‘and I think we can work this through.’

  ‘What Rose is saying, there, Ed,’ ‘explained’ Mary-Claire benignly, ‘is that, basically, you’re through.’

  ‘I’m not saying that!’ I shouted, getting to my feet. ‘I’m saying we should try again!’ Mary-Claire gave me a look which combined slyness with pity, and Ed and I split up within three weeks.

  Looking back, I think I’d been semi-hypnotised by MaryClaire’s squeaky, sing-songy voice—like Melanie Griffith on helium—otherwise I’d have been tempted to give her a slap. But for some reason I found it impossible to challenge her bizarre interventions. It was only later on, that I twigged…

  Now, as I came downstairs again, I could hear Bella and Bea in the kitchen, arguing about flooring.

  ‘—hardwood would look good.’

  ‘—no, natural stone would be better.’

  ‘—but a maple veneer would look fantastic!’

  ‘—rubbish! She should go for slate!’

  They should call their business ‘2 Much’ I decided as I went into the sitting room. I unpacked a pair of crystal candlesticks which had been a wedding present from my aunt. Shift It Kwik had wrapped them in some pages from the Daily News, and as I unfurled the yellowing paper I was gripped by a sense of déjà vu. ‘AGONY AUNT IN SPLIT’ announced the page 5 headline in my hand. Rose Costelloe, the Daily Post’s agony aunt, is to divorce, it explained gleefully beneath. Her husband, Human Resources Director, Ed Wright, has cited ‘irreconcilable differences’ as the cause of the split. However, sources close to Miss Costelloe claim that the real reason is Wright’s close friendship with Resolve counsellor, Mary-Claire Grey (pictured left).

  ‘The bitch!’ I shouted as I stared at my rival.

  ‘She certainly is!’ yelled the twins.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Bella, as she came in and saw me clutching the article. ‘Want a tissue?’ I nodded. ‘Here.’

  I pressed the paper hanky to my eyes. ‘She was supposed to be neutral,’ I wailed.

  ‘You should have had her struck off,’ said Bella.

  ‘I should have had her bumped off you mean.’

  ‘But why the hell did you suggest marriage guidance in the first place?’ asked Bea.

  ‘Because I genuinely thought it might help! Ed had been going on and on about my job, and about how much he hated what I did, and about how he hadn’t mar
ried an agony aunt, and how he was finding it all “very hard.” And I’d been sent a book on marriage guidance that day so the subject was in my mind. So, in a spirit of compromise I said, “Let’s get some counselling.” So we did—and that was that.’

  As the twins disposed of the offending newspaper article, I agitatedly pinched a stray sheet of bubble wrap.

  ‘Miss Grey,’ I spat as the plastic bubbles burst with a crack like machine-gun fire.

  ‘Miss Conduct,’ suggested Bea.

  ‘Miss Demeanour,’ said Bella.

  ‘Miss Take,’ I corrected them. ‘I mean there she was,’ I ranted. ‘Smiling at Ed. Looking winsome. Batting her eyelids like a Furby. Sympathising with him at every turn, and twisting everything I said. By the time she’d finished you could have used my statements to take the corks out of pinotage. She knew exactly what she wanted and she went for it, and now thanks to her I’m getting divorced!’

  I thought of those embarrassingly abbreviated marriages you read about sometimes in Hello! Kate Winslet and Jim Threapleton—three years; Marco-Pierre White and Lisa Butcher—ten weeks. And Drew Barrymore split up with her first husband so fast they didn’t even have time for a honeymoon.

  ‘You got married too…’

  ‘Young?’ I interjected sardonically.

  ‘Er no. Soon, actually,’ said Bea. ‘But we warned you…’ she added shaking her head like a nodding dachshund.

  ‘Yes,’ I said bitterly, ‘you did.’

  ‘Marry in haste,’ Bea went on, ‘repent at…’

  ‘…haste. I’ll be divorced in just over six months!’

  But the twins are right. It had happened too fast. But then when you’re older, you just know. I mean I’m thirty-six…ish. Well, thirty-eight actually. Oh all right, all right—thirty-nine: and I’d never believed in instant attraction, but Ed had proved me wrong. We met at a Christmas drinks party given by my next-door neighbours in Meteor Street. I was making tiny talk by the Twiglets with this pleasant tree surgeon when I suddenly spotted Ed. He shone out of the crowd like a beacon, and he had clearly noticed me; because he came strolling over, introduced himself, and that was that. I was concussed with passion. I was bowled over. I was gobsmacked, bouleversée. I felt my jaw go slack with desire, and I probably drooled. Ed’s incredibly distinguished-looking; elegant, a young forty-one, with strong cheekbones and an aquiline nose. You can fall in love with a profile, I realised then, and I fell in love with his. As for the chemistry—there was enough erotic static crackling between us to blow the lights on the Blackpool tower. He told me he was Head of Human Resources at Paramutual Insurance and that he’d just bought a house near Putney Bridge. And I was waiting for some gimlet-eyed glamour puss to zoom up and lay a ferociously proprietorial hand on his arm, when he added casually, ‘I live there alone.’

  If I believed in God—which, by the way, I don’t—I would have got down on my knees there and then and thanked Him, but instead said a silent Hurrah! Ed and I talked and flirted for another hour or so, then he offered to take me home.

  ‘But I only live next door,’ I protested with a laugh.

  ‘You told me that,’ he smiled. ‘But I’m not having a gorgeous woman like you wandering the streets of Clapham—I shall see you safely back.’

  When you’re almost six foot one, as I am, you don’t get many offers like that. Men tend to assume you can take care of your-self—and of course I can. But at the same time I’ve always envied those dinky little girls who can always get some man to take them home. So when Ed gallantly offered to escort me to my door, I just knew that he was The One. After years of false sightings he’d arrived. Sometimes, in my single days, I’d been tempted to have him paged. Would Mr Right kindly make his way to Reception where Miss Costelloe has been waiting for him for the past fifteen years. Now, suddenly, there he was—phew! We spent Christmas in bed, he proposed on New Year’s Eve, and we were married on Valentine’s Day…

  ‘I had reservations,’ said Bella judiciously. ‘But I didn’t want to spoil it for you. Ed’s charming, yes,’ she went on. ‘Handsome, yes, intelligent yes…’ I felt sick. ‘He’s successful—’

  ‘And local,’ added Bea meaningfully.

  ‘He’s amusing…’

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  ‘He has, moreover, a magnetic personality,’ Bella continued, ‘and sex appeal in spades. But, at the same time there was something I didn’t quite…like. Something…I can’t quite put my finger on,’ she added thoughtfully.

  ‘I thought he was all right,’ ventured Bea. ‘And you can sometimes be a bit abrasive, Rose.’

  ‘That is hypocritical bollocks!’ I snapped.

  ‘But you didn’t seem to have much in common with him,’ Bea went on calmly. ‘I mean what did you do together?’

  ‘Well there wasn’t a lot of free time because we were so busy…’ I racked my brain. ‘We went swimming,’ I remembered, ‘and we played Scrabble. We did the crossword too. He was useless at anagrams,’ I added with a twist of spite, ‘so I’d do those. But soon all we were having were cross words.’

  The problems had started almost immediately—within a month of our honeymoon. Ed and I had gone to Menorca—not my first choice admittedly, but on the other hand it seemed perfect in some ways as the anagram of Menorca is ‘Romance’. Between you and me, though, I’d thought he might whisk me off to Venice, say, or Sandy Lane. But his mum has a little flat on Menorca and so we went there. We had a lovely week—it was too cold to swim, but we walked and played tennis and read.

  Then we went back to work—I was doing a stint at the Post—when this amazing thing happened to me. I was sitting at my desk one lunchtime, putting the finishing touches to a rather vicious profile of the P.R. king, Rex Delafoy, when suddenly there was this commotion. Doors were banging, people were running, and an air of tension and panic prevailed. It turned out that Edith Smugg, the Post’s ancient agony aunt, had gone face down in the soup at lunch. No-one knew quite how old she was because of all the face-lifts, but it turned out that she was eighty-three! Anyway, before Edith’s stiffening body had even been stretchered out of the building, I’d been deputed to complete her page. And I remember standing, shocked, by her paper-strewn desk and wondering what the hell to do. So I stuck my hand in the postbag and pulled out three letters as if drawing the raffle at some village fête.

  To my astonishment I found the contents riveting. The first was from a chap with premature ejaculation, the second was from a woman who’d sadly murdered her boyfriend five years before, and the third was from a seventy-three-year-old virgin who thought he might be gay. So I answered them as best I could and the next day I was asked to carry on. I didn’t mind at all, because I’d enjoyed it; in fact by then I was hooked. I didn’t care how many letters there were—I’d have done it for free if they’d asked. The feeling it gave me—I can’t quite describe it—this delicious, warm glow inside. The knowledge that I might be able to help all these total strangers filled me with something like joy. I suddenly felt that I’d been born to be an agony aunt: at last I’d found my true niche. It was like a revelation to me—a Damascene flash—as though I’d heard a voice. ‘Rose! Rose!’ it boomed. ‘This is Thy God. Thou Shalt Dispense ADVICE!’

  I kept expecting to hear that they’d hired some B-List celeb to take over, or some publicly humiliated political wife. I thought they’d be handing me my cards and saying,‘Thanks for helping out, Rose—you’re a brick.’ And indeed there was talk of Trisha from daytime telly and even Carol Vordeman. But a month went by, and then another, and still no change was announced, and by now they were putting Ask Rose at the top of the page, and my photo byline too. The next thing I knew, I’d got a year’s contract; so there I was—an agony aunt.

  I’d always read the problem page; it’s like the horoscope, I can never resist. But now, to my amazement, I was writing the replies myself. It’s a role I adore, and the sight of my bulging post bag just makes my heart sing. All those people to be helped. All thos
e dilemmas to be resolved. All that human muddle and…mess. There are lots of perks as well. The money’s not bad and I get to broadcast and I’m asked to give seminars and talks. I also do a late-night phone-in, Sound Advice, at London FM twice a week. And all this simply because I happened to be in the office on the day that Edith Smugg dropped dead! I thought Ed would be pleased for me, but he wasn’t—far from it. That’s when things began to go wrong.

  ‘Ed—what’s the problem?’ I asked, one Sunday in late June. He’d been in a funny sort of mood all day.

  ‘The problem, Rose,’ he said slowly, ‘or at least the main problem—because there are several problems—is other people’s problems. That’s the problem.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said uncertainly. ‘I see.’

  ‘I wish you’d never become an agony aunt,’ he went on wearily.

  ‘Well I’m sorry, Ed, but I did.’

  ‘And I don’t like you bringing your work home.’

  ‘I have no option, it’s a huge job. In any case I’d have thought you’d be understanding given that you work in Personnel.’

  ‘It’s called Human Resources these days,’ he corrected me stiffly.

  ‘So it is. But you sort out people’s problems too.’

  ‘I sort out “issues” actually,’ he said. ‘Not “problems”. And it’s precisely because I have to listen to people whining to me about their maternity leave or the size of their parking space, that I don’t want more whingeing when I get home. In any case I thought agony aunts made it all up.’

  ‘A common misconception,’ I said.

  ‘Well how many letters do you actually print?’

  ‘I answer eight on the page, twice a week.’

  ‘And how many do you get?’

  ‘About a hundred and fifty.’

  ‘So why bother with all the rest? I mean, why don’t you just put a line at the bottom saying, “Rose regrets that letters cannot be answered personally”.’