“What ‘thing’ is this meant to be?” she asked him.
“Well, seems to me you’re not telling the story of you an’ Teo the way it’s meant to be told. If tha’s the case, somethin’s going on. ’Specially in light of the row you two had.”
He gave Solange a glance. “Seems things ’tween Rosie and her sister weren’t like how she wanted them to look. Seems like Rosie’s not telling the story like it should be told. That the case, something’s going on. ’Specially since they had a row heard on all sides of Teo’s flat.”
“A row? Rosie, what is this?”
“Rosie tol’ me it was ’bout Teo not coming round to see their dad often enough. But from talking to you, seems like that’s not the case, either.”
Solange took a step back from the worktop where she’d been standing since Katie’s arrival. She said, “Rosie, did you . . . ?” And then after a moment for thought, “Whyever would you lie to the police, Belle?”
“Because,” Rosie said, “what Teo and I talked about was none of their business. She’d thrown him away, Maman. She didn’t want him. All she wanted was Africa. Africa. And whatever else Ross ever was to her, he wasn’t Africa and he couldn’t begin to pretend he was. That mattered to her. It didn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to me and it never will.”
“What do you mean with this ‘doesn’t matter to me’ you speak of, Rosie?”
“Reckon it goes back to her sister’s marriage and to her splitting up with her husband,” Nkata said.
“Is that true?” Solange asked her daughter.
“He was over her,” Rosie said. “She didn’t want him, and he was finally over it, he was over her. I wouldn’t ever’ve thrown him away. He knew that and he still knows it. We’re together now and she can’t abide that. She didn’t want him but I wasn’t meant to have him, either. Only it doesn’t matter now because it’s too late.”
Solange went to the table beneath the kitchen window. She sat. Nkata remained where he was, leaning against the stainless-steel cooker, his arms crossed. Rosie clutched her dressing gown at her throat. She said, “I loved him first, Maman. He saved me. Remember? I would’ve drowned in the sea, but he saved me. He saw and he came into the water and I was floundering and no one saw but him. And he said ‘No worries, Rosie, I’ve got you,’ and from there, he saved me. I knew we were meant, after that. From that moment, I knew.”
Solange said, “You were six years old, Rosie. Everyone went into the water to help you. Ross got to you first. That’s all.”
“No! It was Ross. We were meant, him and me. And then Teo got in the way and she didn’t even love him. She never loved him and he threw away all his love on her. But that’s over now and I’m here, and I’m with him, and she can’t stand it. She never loved him but she doesn’t want me to love him either. But she’s too late to stop us from what we want, Ross ’n’ me. I can do what she can’t and what she never could and what she didn’t want to do anyway.”
Nkata looked from Rosie to Solange and then back to Rosie as Solange said, “What did Teo not want to do?”
With a glance at Nkata—perhaps evaluating his response to what she would say—she said, “I’ll tell you but we meant it for later, after all this, after Teo . . . It’s got all mixed up. We were both going to tell you. Me and Ross together. Ross and me with you and Papá. Teo didn’t want a baby, not Ross’s baby, not anyone’s baby. But I did and I do and it’s finally happening and that’s what I went to tell her.”
Nkata said, “You went to tell Teo that you and Ross’re having a baby?”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I did.” Rosie gave a defiant toss of her head, of the sort one saw in television dramas. It seemed more for effect than anything else. She said, “She was going to know sooner or later that Ross and I are together. We’ve been together for months and months. I wanted him. He wanted me. I’m giving him the baby he wanted from her.”
Solange, Nkata saw, had closed her eyes. She was sitting in the same position, save for her right hand, which she’d raised to her forehead. She murmured, “Rosie. Mon dieu, Belle.”
“What?” Rosie demanded. “Ross and I are giving you the grandchild you want and don’t lie and say you don’t want grandchildren because I know you do. Ross’s parents are just the same and they’ll be over the moon once we tell them.”