Page 2 of Rescuing Rosie
Frivolous Side answered back, a little more confidently this time:No – they’re joyous, cool, here-comes-spring boots! Everyone’s jealous.
She turned her face towards the sky, where the gap in the clouds had widened, enjoying the unusual sensation of warmth. But when her gaze returned to the path ahead, she realised she was approaching a certain canal bridge, and her mood took a dive as she remembered what was attached to those pretty iron railings.
Their lovelock.
It had been Reuben’s little surprise, to mark their one-year anniversary. They’d first met at a corporate event at London Zoo, escaped the function suite, bonded over the penguins, and finished the evening kissing on that bridge beneath a full moon. Twelve months later they’d returned and attached the padlock, which was engraved withREUBEN & ROSIE, the date, and a little penguin. Rosie had thought it a lovely gesture.
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. Reuben had been good at gestures. Flowers, jewellery, chocolates; a box of fancy cupcakes. Her father had called him ‘a bit flash’ but her mother thought he was ‘quite a catch’.
When Reuben had produced something from his jacket pocket on that bridge, following dinner at a Michelin-starred Primrose Hill restaurant, Rosie had thought it might be a ring. But it had been the shiny brass padlock.
Now, her new boots seemed determined she should relive that moment. They carried her onto the bridge, and as she approached its centre it came back to her – how she’d felt.She blinked away the tears and frowned.
Well well. I’d forgotten that part.
Maybe it was like they said in detective novels – that revisiting the scene of a significant event enabled buried memories to resurface.
She leaned on the railings, staring at the sluggish, emerald-green waters of the canal below, thinking back. A brightly painted barge had chugged beneath the bridge, its roof a riot of colourful flowers in tin buckets and planters, its owner giving them a cheery wave. Rosie remembered Reuben’s look of horror when she’d suggested what fun a narrowboat holiday might be, pootling along the English waterways, tying up at quaint canal-side pubs.
‘Speed limit four miles per hour,’ he’d scoffed. ‘That wouldnotbe my boat of choice.’ If there was one thing about Reuben, it was that he never took things slowly. Then he’d reached inside his Paul Smith jacket … and there had been a rush of joy, excitement;He’s going to ask me … !But it had been swiftly followed by a catch in her throat.Am I ready? Do I want this? Is he really the one?The surge of relief when it was a padlock, not a ring, had taken her by surprise.
It took her a while to locate their lovelock. On their anniversary it had been the only one, but now there were dozens, as if theirs had seeded a little forest of them.
She’s there. You know what to do, but tread carefully. Her heart was broken only days ago. And twice over.
After months dangling on the bridge exposed to the British winter, the padlock was no longer shiny.
Rosie was bending over, tracing the worn engraving, when a Cockney voice behind her said, ‘Bad news, I’m afraid – I’m ’ere on a mission,’ and she turned to see a man in a London Zoo uniform smiling at her. ‘Nice boots, by the way.’ He was probably in his late twenties, and his eyes were a similar shade of green to the canal.
‘Oh, thanks – I just bought them,’ she said. ‘I’m wearing them in. What do you mean, bad news?’
The man took a pair of long-handled pruners from a wheelbarrow beside him on the bridge.
‘Bad news if you’re a tree?’ said Rosie, looking at the profusion of budding foliage overhanging the towpath.
‘No – they’re bolt-cutters,’ he said. ‘The padlocks are starting to be a problem. They’re spreadin’ across the zoo’s railings like a rash. I said I’d deal with the bridges too, as a favour to the local council.’
‘Are you a zookeeper?’ Surely the best of jobs, second only to being a writer.
‘Gardener.’ He bent down to take a closer look at the padlocks. ‘It’s great timin’ – we can rescue yours and you can keep it. The rest will be recycled.’
Rosie wondered why he’d assume one of the padlocks was hers. The tears in her eyes could have been a sentimental response to this manifestation of deluded wishful thinking.
‘We can’t stop people doin’ this,’ he went on, ‘so we’re putting a special structure by the zoo entrance, as a fundraiser. It should be cool – a giant ’eart around a sculpture of two lovebirds, with wires for visitors to attach their locks to.’ His eyes scanned the jumble of padlocks on the railings. ‘Too late for this lot, though. Shall I snap yours first?’
Rosie pulled a face. ‘I don’t want it. My boyfriend just dumped me. I don’t even know why I’m here, prodding the wound.’ She pointed to the dull, brass padlock. ‘It’s that one.’
He took hold of it and tilted it towards him, reading the words. ‘Rosie. Good to meet you, Rosie. And Ben. Well, Ben’s obviously a bleedin’ idiot.’ There was a cheeky twinkle in those magnetic eyes.
‘Reuben,’ she said, feeling herself blush. ‘Not Ben.’
‘Oh?’ He looked again at the engraving. ‘In which case Reuben’s lost his Reu. Serves ’im right.’ He grinned. ‘He’s so going toruethat decision.’
Rosie grimaced, smiled, then peered at the engraving and saw that indeed, the first three letters of Reuben’s name had been worn away.
‘Please feel free to destroy it,’ she said.
‘Mind yourself, then.’ He quickly snapped the padlock’s shank with his bolt cutters. It fell to the ground, and he picked it up and handed it to her. ‘Yours to do with what you will. But please don’t chuck it in the canal.’
