I snap off a block and put it in my mouth. Let it melt.

part one

Howard

one

Summer, 1965

Kathryn worked in the library. She looked like she belonged behind that counter, smiling at the borrowers, stamping the books, answering the phone in one breathless phrase, without even thinking. She looked so capable there.

I wasn’t a library person, but that was the time of my first rose. It turned out to be a beautiful one, too, Rosa gallica, one of the oldest known varieties, deep red with generous petals. I hadn’t a clue what to do with it. It was an impulse buy on a visit to a nursery with Mum. I was seduced by the photograph tacked to the frame – all that promise. All that redness. I left it by the back door of the kitchen for a while, studying it every morning for signs of growth, afraid to leave it to its own devices in the garden. Mum suggested I consult a book. ‘Roses are for outdoors, Howard,’ she said. ‘It’ll perish inside.’

The library was new then. It was built to match the multi-storey next door. It was a sunny July day when I went down there; from the window of the bus I watched the cow parsley swaying in the verges.

When I opened the heavy library door it took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the gloom. Kathryn was behind the counter. She was wearing a red blouse; the white of her neck was startling against her scarlet collar. And I noticed her hair of course, all dark and wavy and resting there on her small shoulders.

I didn’t go to the counter straight away. I spent about fifteen minutes weaving in and out of the shelves, trying to decipher the shelving system on my own. (Kathryn later explained about the Dewey Decimal. Roses are 635.933.)

I could see that Kathryn was on the phone, so I hung about, looking at the noticeboard, until I heard her say goodbye.

I brushed my hands across my shoulders – in case of dandruff – and then I approached.

She looked up. Her nose was just that little bit too large for her face. But it matched her lips somehow, the size of it, because they were full and curvy, like the rest of her.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Roses,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for books on roses.’

We pretended not to recognise each other, although I knew who she was, and she told me later that she knew my face on that first day. ‘I knew who you were all right,’ she said.

She’d been married to Jack Welch. He was killed in a motorbike accident not six months after they were wed. They were quite the couple in their courting days, Jack with his winkle-pickers, and Kathryn with her shiny hair. You’d see them racing through the village, her hands tight round his waist, her skirt dangerously close to the back wheel.