On the Other Side

  ‘I’m not going to apologise,’ Vincent said.

  ‘Then we’re not going to talk for a very long time.’

  ‘You heard what he said, Evie! You shouldn’t have to put up with that!’ Vincent was still enraged by the way Terry had spoken to Evie. He couldn’t believe she’d not mentioned how vile her colleagues at the paper really were. He’d had no idea what she had to put up with every day.

  ‘You’re right, I shouldn’t have to, but do you know why I do?’

  Vincent threw his hands in the air. ‘I honestly have no idea.’

  ‘To keep my job!’ Evie spun round so quickly that Vincent bumped into her. Sonny in turn bumped into the back of Vincent, slipped and landed on the pavement. ‘I put up with their vile remarks and my weird, creepy boss, I bite my tongue and get on with my job, because guess what, Vincent? I love you and I want to stay with you, and if I lose this job, I have no chance of getting a better one, and that is the only way we can stay together. And now you’ve ruined it. You’ve completely ballsed it up.’

  It was only at that moment that Vincent realised the gravity of what he’d done. Evie was certain to be fired from The Teller after Terry and Harrison printed their article, along with the picture that would make Vincent look like a hooligan. Especially as there would clearly be no mention of how vile Terry had been.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he muttered, the blood draining from his face.

  ‘Language!’ Sonny scolded.

  ‘Shut up, Sonny,’ Evie said.

  ‘Hey, I thought you were nice,’ Sonny mumbled, picking flowers from someone’s front garden next to where he sat.

  ‘Evie, I didn’t think,’ Vincent said, ignoring Sonny.

  ‘No, I know you didn’t.’

  ‘We can fix this.’ He didn’t know how, but if she gave him a chance, he’d do all he could to try.

  ‘I don’t see how, Vincent. I don’t have any friends at The Teller. There’s no one there to fight my corner.’ Evie felt helpless and drained. Vincent had sped up her life, but now the joyride had crashed she needed it to halt, just for an evening, so she could properly survey the damage. How could I have been so careless? she thought. She’d been so happy that she’d forgotten what was at stake. She looked at Vincent, and for a moment she saw him through her mother’s eyes, and all she saw was trouble. ‘I just think it’d be best if you took Sonny home.’

  ‘I would quite like to go home now.’ Sonny hugged Vincent’s right leg, but Vincent was too concerned about Evie’s cold, glistening eyes to think about anything else. He realised that her twinkle had dulled, and his heart cracked knowing that it was his doing.

  ‘Evie … I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So am I.’ Her voice wobbled.

  ‘We will figure this out,’ Vincent said, determinedly.

  He wanted to take her hands, hold her close, but she was radiating a vibe that told him to stay where he was. The lump in Evie’s throat was too big to talk through so she just nodded and let the tears spill over. When Vincent saw them glistening on her cheek, though, he couldn’t help himself. He took a step towards her with one hand outstretched, but she moved backwards, away from him, and his heart split perfectly in two.

  A Visitor

  There are times in life when two people who want to talk do not do so for no other reason than each of them fearing that the other person does not want to talk to them. Evie and Vincent found themselves in that situation for eight days after the school prom. Evie had taken a night to herself to figure out exactly what to do should she be fired, which come Monday morning she was, unequivocally and without ceremony. The only conclusion she had come to was that she had to prevent her mother from finding out. Besides that, she needed to find a new job that was better than the one she’d had at The Teller.

  While Evie busied herself writing more letters to publishers who might be looking for illustrators and animation studios that might be in need of artists, Vincent was sitting by the phone, willing it to ring – to be specific, willing Evie to call. The waiting drove him (and Sonny) mad, so eventually he decided it was time to take matters into his own hands.

  Evie had returned home after trying her luck at another newspaper. She had attempted to speak to the editor so she could show him her work in person, but she’d been turned away and almost thrown from the building when she’d refused to leave until someone, anyone, looked at her drawings. It was then that a woman from the offices upstairs came to explain that Terry Lark had called every newspaper in town to tell them what had happened at the school prom. Although he didn’t have the power to have her blacklisted, who would want to work with someone who’d encouraged her drunk musician friend to play in front of schoolchildren and then let her aggressive boyfriend break her colleague’s nose?

  Evie plonked herself down in the green armchair, still wearing her coat and shoes, and put her head in her hands as she felt the familiar prickle of tears. She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there before she heard the flutter of wings. She looked up. Through the window she could see a dove perched on the railings of her balcony. It was impeccably white, bar one little streak of black along its right wing. Leaving her troubles in the armchair, she opened the balcony doors very slowly, careful not to scare the bird, hoping she could get just a little closer and while away some time watching it. The dove didn’t flap or fuss when she clunked the windows open. In fact, it came closer, shuffling along the railings and bobbing its head towards her.

  ‘Hello there, little one,’ Evie sniffed.

  The bird cooed and stretched its neck in her direction. Evie held out a hand, and the bird happily let her stroke it with a finger. It closed its eyes and cooed a little more, like a cat would purr when tickled behind its ears. ‘You’re a funny one, aren’t you?’ Evie’s cheeks ached as they took on a shape they hadn’t experienced in over a week, and she remembered that was what smiling felt like. The bird turned away from her, balancing expertly on the metal railings with its scratchy feet, and stretched out its right wing. Evie thought for a moment that it was just normal bird behaviour; they flapped and stretched their wings all the time when she saw them in the park and on the street. It was only when it dropped its wing, turned its head to her, squawked and extended the wing again that she realised it was trying to show her something. She got down on her knees and finally saw what it wanted her to see. What she had thought was a black streak, natural bird colouring, was in fact ink. Ink forming words written in Vincent’s hand:

  Eight days of your silence has convinced me that your voice is the most beautiful sound I will ever hear.

  Evie read the sentence, and then she read it a dozen times more, until the bird’s wing started to droop a little, tired from holding it out for so long.

  ‘Thank you, Little One.’

  The bird tucked its wing away and turned to face her, and she could have sworn there was a smile upon its beak as it puffed its chest out proudly.

  ‘May I ask a favour?’ Evie was already writing a reply in her mind. She wondered if the bird might let her use its other wing and its powers of flight to deliver the message on her behalf. The little white dove turned around once more and produced its left wing happily, displaying its blank canvas. She scrambled back inside the flat to get a pen from her pencil case, excitement bubbling in her stomach as she wrote:

  Eight days of my silence has meant eight days of Sonny’s singing. No wonder you miss me.

  She thought it would probably be best to keep things light-hearted.

  Her mind wandered back to the last time they had spoken, when she’d practically shouted at Vincent in the street. A small flush of embarrassment rushed through her body, but then she remembered that Vincent had lost her her job that night, and felt the justification of her actions restored. That didn’t prevent her from loving him, though, nor did it mean she hadn’t missed him. Waking up thinking he might be there and remembering why he wasn’t had been a stab in the chest every morning. All she’d wanted to do was call him an
d ask him to come home, but she’d feared he might have been angry at her for the way she’d spoken to him, even if he had deserved it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said to the bird once she’d finished writing.

  It bobbed its head once, like a nod, then flew away. To Vincent, she hoped, though she wasn’t exactly an expert on the reliability of doves delivering private messages. She was still kneeling on the balcony with the pen in her hand, a few blobs of ink on the tips of her fingers, when a furiously fast knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Evie, if you’re in there, please open the door, and do it quickly. We don’t have much time.’

  Evie knew that voice, but … surely not? It was muffled through the door, so she might have been mistaken.

  ‘Evie, please.’

  This time there was no mistaking.

  ‘Jim?’

  Evie ran to the door and opened it to find Jim Summer standing on her doormat. Even though she had always thought of him like a brother, it didn’t stop her from going slightly weak at the knees at the sight of his handsome face. He looked like a sculpture of a man, too perfect to really exist, but then he moved and spoke and you realised why men and women alike drooled over him daily.

  Although Jim had turned up unexpectedly and urgently, he couldn’t help but smile when he saw Evie, and pulled her in for a tight hug.

  ‘Can I come in?’ He was jittery and spoke quickly.

  ‘What’s got you spooked?’ Evie laughed, but she was still a little worried. She’d never seen Jim so flustered.

  ‘Your mother’s on her way. She’s just seen this.’ Jim produced a newspaper from his pocket. Not just any paper. The Teller. He flipped it open to page 5, and there it was.

  Evie had avoided reading the newspaper since the prom. She’d thought maybe Terry wouldn’t be so cruel as to submit the story, let alone allow it to be published, but if he had, she couldn’t face seeing it in print. Now that she had, it was worse than she could ever have imagined. Vincent’s angry face and clenched fist, and Terry’s bloody nose. Complete with Evie in the background, wide-eyed and reaching out for Vincent. She found the armchair with the back of her knees and sank down into it.

  ‘Eleanor’s furious, Evie. She’s coming to take you home.’

  ‘This is my home.’ Evie looked up at Jim pleadingly.

  Jim knelt down beside her and put a hand on her arm. ‘Eleanor won’t see it that way, and you know it. To you, this was the start of a new life. To her … it was a silly escapade that had an expiry date, and that was only if it hadn’t ended in tears before then.’

  Evie was stung. She felt herself shrink inwards, seeing herself as her family saw her: a stupid little girl with stupid little dreams, and they were laughing at her pointless attempts to reach them. Like a toddler stretching for the cookie jar on the highest shelf.

  ‘You know I don’t think that, Evie,’ Jim said, more gently this time. ‘Don’t look at me like that. But with a mother like Eleanor, how long was this really going to last?’

  The weight of reality crushed Evie’s heart. Up until now she’d been trying her best to be optimistic, to think positively about the life she had in this flat with Vincent. Now she realised that it had all been make-believe, and the hope she had felt just moments ago was gone. She and Vincent had spent months pretending that life could continue the way they’d come to love it, but the last few days had proved that it wasn’t that simple. And Jim was right: Eleanor Snow was never going to let it work.

  ‘How long do we have before she gets here?’ Evie’s heart had started to pump harder, her breath short.

  ‘Maybe half an hour? I overheard her talking to my mother. I came straight away to warn you that she was on her way.’

  ‘Your mother? Why was she talking to your mother?’ Panic and anger formed a tight knot in Evie’s stomach.

  ‘Eleanor’s insisting that I … that we …’ Jim’s voice trailed off.

  Tears of rage spilled over on to Evie’s cheeks.

  ‘She wants me to propose. To you,’ Jim said finally. ‘And she wants you to say yes. No matter how … we feel.’ He couldn’t look at her.

  Marrying Evie was all he had ever wanted. But not like this. He’d fallen in love with probably the only girl he knew didn’t want to be his girlfriend, let alone his wife, but then again, perhaps that was why he’d fallen for her. Evie knew Jim. From the day they’d met as children, Evie made sure there were no pretences, no silly family traditions masking who they really were and no secrets. She’d always hated secrets. If she felt like he was hiding something, she coaxed it out of him one way or another and then didn’t speak to him for days simply because he’d kept something from her and shut her out. She had trained him to be honest but Jim knew Evie, too. He knew she wanted more from a relationship than swooning each time she saw him. She wanted conversations. Adventures. Love. Jim knew this and it was exactly the reason he didn’t want to marry the woman he’d already given his heart to.

  ‘I can’t …’ Evie whispered.

  ‘I know,’ Jim said. ‘That’s why I’m here. I didn’t want you to have to face her alone.’ He took her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Thank you.’ She squeezed back.

  Jim hesitated for a second before saying, ‘So, I have to ask …’

  Of course he does, Evie thought.

  ‘He’s called Vincent,’ Evie answered, even before he was able to voice the inevitable question. Jim looked at her, dumbfounded. ‘He’s a violinist. He busks on the underground to pay the rent on a flat he shares with a wannabe rock star who can’t actually sing.’

  ‘Well,’ Jim said with a small, sad smile, ‘you couldn’t have picked someone better to piss off your mother.’

  Evie laughed through her tears and Jim’s smile grew wider because he’d made her laugh despite everything. Jim didn’t need to ask whether she truly loved Vincent or not. He could see it clearly and after all, the only secret Evie had ever let Jim keep all these years was what she’d known all along: that he loved her. They never spoke about that. The least he could do was repay that kind gesture.

  ‘You need to be with him, this Vincent,’ he said simply. ‘And I will do all I can to make that happen.’

  Evie shook her head. This man had the kindest heart she’d ever known. Part of her wanted to love him as she knew he loved her, but the simple fact remained that he wasn’t Vincent, her full-of-flaws and terribly unsuitable Vincent.

  Just the thought of him and how far away he was made her body ache.

  ‘And here’s another thing. I’ve also essentially been barred from working for any newspaper in town, because who wants to work with the crazy girl with the angry friends who punch people in the face?’ Evie laughed at how ridiculous it sounded, but the look of pity that Jim gave her made a sob escape her throat.

  There was the clipped clicking of heels along the corridor outside, and Evie’s hand instinctively tightened around Jim’s fingers. Her stomach somersaulted as knuckles rapped on the door with three precise, evenly spaced knocks, each one making her flinch.

  ‘I’ll answer it,’ Jim said.

  ‘No. Let me.’ Evie stood up, wiped the tears from her face and straightened her dress. The few steps to the door felt like miles, and when she opened it and saw her mother’s cold eyes fixed into a hard stare that cut through Evie like she wasn’t even there, she wished she had let Jim do the honours after all.

  ‘Pack your bags. You’re coming home.’ To Eleanor, it really was that simple, but to Evie, those words meant the end of everything she’d always wanted.

  ‘This is my home,’ she said, feeling like a child stamping her feet. She wondered how many other twenty-seven-year-olds had to fight their mothers this hard for their freedom.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I said you had a year to climb to a higher position in your …’ she turned up her nose, ‘chosen field, and not only have you failed to get a better job, but you’ve lost the one you had!’

  ‘Mother, ple
ase—’

  ‘It serves you right for consorting with ruffians such as this one.’ Eleanor held up her own copy of The Teller. She’d even taken the liberty of circling Evie’s face and crossing out Vincent’s in hard lines with a red pen.

  ‘Mrs Snow, with all due respect …’ Jim began, coming to the door, but when Eleanor pierced him with her stare, he couldn’t help but stop mid-sentence.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘Evie and I are old friends, Mrs Snow. You know that. I … came to see how she was.’

  ‘How convenient that you happened to turn up mere moments, it seems, before I did.’ She eyed Jim’s attire, coat and shoes still on, much like Evie. Jim straightened, and in his mind Evie went from being his friend to his client and he adopted the tone he used in court.

  ‘Mrs Snow, with all due respect, last November you said Evie could have a year to make this life she’s created work. It’s not even August yet.’

  ‘Precisely. It is nowhere near the end of the year and look what a mess she’s already made!’ Eleanor declared.

  Evie hated that they were talking about her like she wasn’t stood beside them but she could barely speak. She wished her tears weren’t directly triggered by her anger. It made her look hysterical, and she was less likely to make sense to whoever she was arguing against. When that person was her mother, she stood very little chance as it was.

  ‘Surely you’re not going back on your word before Evie’s had a proper chance to prove herself?’

  ‘She’s proved that she’s more of an embarrassment than I first thought.’

  Jim was stunned into silence. How could a mother be so cruel towards her own flesh and blood?

  ‘You can’t mean that,’ Evie muttered.

  Evie’s relationship with her mother had never been warm. She and her brother had been raised by nannies and hadn’t seen all that much of their parents during their childhood, but Evie had always believed that, at the heart of it all, her mother loved her and wanted what was best for her. She didn’t believe that any longer. How could she, when her mother was trying to take away from her the only thing she’d ever asked for or had truly wanted?