Her Name Was Rose: The gripping psychological thriller you need to read this year. Claire Allan
jolt myself into action, remember I was here to be professional.
‘You wanted to register your son?’ I muttered.
‘Is Donna here?’ he answered. ‘Or Owen himself? Or would he not come and talk to me, the husband of one of his most beloved employees?’ His voice dripped with scorn.
‘They’re with a patient just now, but I’m sure they would be happy to see you. In the meantime, I can help you with the paperwork you need to do?’ I offered a small smile, which wasn’t returned.
‘I know how to fill in a registration form,’ he said, as I attached one to a clipboard and handed it to him with a Scott’s Dental pen.
He stalked to the seating area. The two waiting patients gawked at him, having given up the pretence of looking at their phones to watch the scene unfolding before them. Tori, who was now singing ‘Humpty Dumpty’ to Jack, was lost in her own happy world. Clearly, she never really thought about how tragic it was when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.
To my shame I felt tears prick at my eyes and a lump form at the back of my throat. I realised my hands were clenched as a wave of anxiety threatened to buckle me. This was not the Cian I had come to know from his Facebook posts. This was not the man I had felt so sorry for. He was mean and cruel and I suddenly felt like the outsider again. How could he not be the person he let the world believe he was? Then again, Ben had turned out to be someone, something, I never could have dreamed possible.
When I heard the surgery door open and saw Donna walking out, leading a patient to reception, I sagged with relief. She could deal with him now. She could listen to his aggression about how Owen had the audacity to replace his dead wife, the dead wife who, the cruel part of me wanted to tell him, clearly wasn’t even one bit fit for work. I needed some air. I watched as Donna caught sight of Tori with Jack, how she looked at the waiting area where Cian sat with his head bowed over the form, scowling in anger. I watched as she turned back to me as if to give herself a chance to take in what she was seeing and I nodded.
‘I need my break, Donna,’ I said. ‘I’m feeling a bit faint,’ I lied, walking straight through the door to the staff kitchen and locker room before she had the chance to stop me.
I pulled my bag from my locker, rummaged through it until I found the strip of anti-anxiety pills that would bring me a little calm, and pressed two out into my hand. Running water from the cooler, I threw the pills back and gulped the water to wash them down and then sat on a chair, under the beatific picture of Rose, trying to still my hands from shaking.
I don’t think I ever thought I would actually come face-to-face with him. Of course, I knew he was a real person but he had taken on a different kind of status in my mind. He was my romantic lead. The man who wrote beautiful, heartbreaking, impassioned letters to his late wife. Not this gruff, wan-looking man with his steely eyes looking at me like I was a piece of shit he had just wiped off his shoe. Not this man who was angry at me just because I existed. Because I stood in the spot his wife once did. I knew he was grieving. I wasn’t stupid. I know grief makes you say and do things that perhaps you probably wouldn’t normally, but I hadn’t deserved for him to dismiss me in that manner.
I sipped from my glass of water and wondered whether it was worth going outside for a quick smoke. Remembering the sheets of rain battering against the glass front of the practice, I decided against it. Besides, I was really trying to cut down – the cool and beautiful girls of Scott’s Dental didn’t smoke. Two of them vaped but that was different, of course. That didn’t leave a funk of stinky smoke on their clothes. It didn’t turn their professionally whitened teeth yellow.
I was just about to put my bag back in my locker and return to work when the door to the staff kitchen opened and Donna shooed Cian in in front of her.
‘Emily, could you put on a cup of tea for Cian here? Just while Owen and I finish with our next patient.’
I wanted to scream, No! I wanted to say could they not find someone – anyone – else to do it instead of me, but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t throw a strop. It wasn’t befitting of someone in a white uniform with perfectly preened hair and a silver name badge. So I smiled and said yes, and set about my task without making eye contact with him. I heard Donna tell Cian she and Owen wouldn’t be long, and that the girls were having a wonderful time seeing baby Jack again and maybe a cup of tea would help him settle his nerves. Then she left, all soothing tones and hushed voice, leaving me wishing the kettle would explode and kill me outright and save me having to talk to Cian again.
‘Her picture,’ he said. I’m not sure if he was talking to me, or the room, or no one. I kept my back to him, setting out a cup and dropping a tea bag into it while waiting for the kettle to boil. I should offer him a biscuit too, I supposed. I lifted down the tin from the cupboard and took the lid off.
‘I’m sorry for before,’ he said to my back and I felt myself tense up. I walked to the fridge and took out the milk.
‘I … well … it’s been very hard even coming here. I didn’t know if it was the right thing. I don’t think I know what the right thing is anymore. Rose, she did all these things, you know. Dentists. Doctors. Childminders. And music with mammy classes. No one wants to see the sad widower come along with a grouchy toddler.’
I turned to face him then.
‘So I’m left to try and do all this and I don’t really know what I’m doing. I thought coming here might make me feel closer to her. That was stupid of me, I realise that now. I mean, Jesus, it’s just one more place she isn’t anymore, isn’t it? And I saw you, and you know, the world is moving on without her. Everyone else, they’ve cried their tears and worn their black clothes and, even here, they closed their doors on the day of her funeral, but life goes on, doesn’t it? Even the man who was driving the car – did you know the High Court let him out on bail? He’s walking the streets like he never hurt anyone in his life. And it’s only me, stuck in this fucking mess.’
He was swearing but his words weren’t angry. They were sad and his eyes had filled with tears. My earlier hurt evaporated.
‘It can’t have been easy, coming here,’ I said hesitantly. ‘People haven’t really moved on if that’s any consolation – everyone talks about her all the time, you know? They miss her.’
He put his head in his hands, running his fingers through his still wet hair. ‘I didn’t mean to come here and make a tit of myself. Rose would kill me if she could see me now,’ he said.
‘I’m sure she would understand,’ I offered. ‘Milk and sugar?’
He looked up at me as I poured the boiling water into his mug. He looked so wretched I had to fight the urge to put down the kettle, walk across the room and just hold him. He looked like he desperately needed to be held. To be comforted.
‘I’m sorry this happened,’ I offered.
‘Thanks,’ he said, sniffing, and I handed him a piece of kitchen paper to blow his nose with. ‘And no milk but two sugars. Rose used to give out about that. Working here and all.’ He forced a watery smile, which melted my heart even more as I spooned the sugar into the mug and stirred it.
‘Even Owen takes sugar in his tea,’ I said smiling, and offered him the cup.
‘I thought he would be sweet enough,’ Cian said, sipping from his cup.
I laughed at the remark. But he didn’t laugh with me. He just rubbed the stubble on his chin and sighed, before taking another sip of his tea. ‘You make a good cuppa,’ he said.
‘One of my few skills,’ I muttered, blushing, offering him the biscuit tin. He reached in and I noticed not only the glint of his wedding ring, but the solid strength of his hands. I sat the tin on the table, moved back across the room. A safe distance.
For a minute we said nothing. I tried to find something to say that wouldn’t make me sound like a complete eejit, but my tongue was tied. Every time something did enter my head it related to something