Forgive Me

  She wished she’d thought to check into a bed and breakfast in Cheltenham instead of rushing off here. Then she could have gone into work in the morning and asked Olive’s advice about what to do. She didn’t have the first idea how to get the electricity back on. Or how to go about getting the boards off the windows and new glass put in. Misery overwhelmed her and she sobbed into the darkness, asking why she had been singled out for so much unhappiness.

  Rain beating against the window woke her. She looked at her watch and saw it was nearly eight o’clock. She got up and went to the bathroom, but hurried back to bed afterwards as there was nothing to get up for.

  She wanted to sleep and sleep, because in that way she could avoid thinking about anything. But a ball of misery was pumping away inside her like a second heart, growing larger and stronger by the minute, and it wasn’t going to let her sleep. It wanted to list and enlarge upon her problems, starting with being unlovable.

  She was jobless, in a place where she knew no one. And there was a multitude of things to be done to make this place liveable, most of which she had no idea how to do.

  As if that wasn’t enough, another voice was speaking loudly in her head, telling her she was worthless, stupid and plain.

  Olive glanced at the clock on Monday morning. She saw that it was now eleven o’clock and still Eva hadn’t rung in with an explanation as to why she wasn’t coming to work. Normally when staff failed to turn up she felt only irritation, but in this case she was worried. While she knew there was no phone in the house at Crail Road, she felt certain Eva was the kind to ask someone else to ring in if she wasn’t able to do it herself.

  By the end of the day, with still no news, Olive drove round to Crail Road on her way home. There was no answer to Eva’s bell so she rang some of the others. After what seemed like an interminable time a dark-haired girl wearing jeans and a sweatshirt opened the door. Olive asked if she knew where Eva was.

  ‘She left here last night,’ the girl said. ‘I’m in the room above hers, and I was looking out of the window about ten and saw her packing stuff into her car.’

  Olive was shocked. She explained she was Eva’s employer, stressing that she was concerned for Eva.

  ‘She had a row with Tod,’ the girl confided. ‘I heard their raised voices yesterday, early in the evening, and he went out later on his own. Maybe she’s gone home to her parents?’

  ‘She hasn’t got any,’ Olive said. ‘When does Tod get in?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘For the last couple of weeks since he’s been with Eva, he’s been coming in at half five, but if he dumped her I expect he’s gone straight to the pub.’

  Olive’s heart sank. She had seen the way Eva was about this young man, and if he’d let her down there was no knowing what she’d do.

  ‘Was Eva’s room this one?’ Olive pointed to the window nearest the front door.

  The girl nodded.

  ‘I’ll just get up on the window sill and see if she has taken everything,’ Olive said.

  The girl looked at Olive’s business suit and high heels. ‘I think you’d better let me do it,’ she said, and she nimbly jumped from the steps at the front door on to the wide window sill to peer over the short net curtains. ‘Everything’s cleaned out,’ she called back. ‘Her television, all her cushions and all the other bits and pieces.’

  ‘Is there anyone in the house she might have left a forwarding address with?’ Olive asked.

  ‘If she was going to leave one it would’ve been with me,’ the girl said. ‘I used to talk to her more than anyone else. I wish I’d come down last night when I saw her loading the car. But, to be honest, I didn’t know what to say to her. I wanted to warn her when Tod came on to her that he’s a womanizer and not to take him seriously, because he’s never with anyone for long. But I didn’t – I suppose I thought she might change him. I expect that was what the row was about. She must have found out he’d got someone else.’

  Olive was frightened for Eva now. She might only have been seeing this young man for a couple of weeks but Olive had seen the transformation in Eva since she met him. He’d given her hope for the future, taken her mind off her mother’s death and her stepfather’s nastiness. It wasn’t a casual fling to Eva; she’d pinned everything on him. And now that her dreams were shattered, she would be in pieces.

  ‘Could you let me have the landlord’s phone number then?’ Olive asked.

  There was a faint chance Eva might have had a personal reference from someone she was close to when she took the flat. If she told him why she was worried, he might pass on that person’s address.

  When Olive got home she rang the landlord. He was pleasant, but said he’d taken only a bank reference and a deposit from Eva. He said that he would relet the room when her advance rent ran out and that if Olive should hear from her, she was to tell the girl to get in touch so he could return her deposit.

  Olive wondered what else she could do. She didn’t know the exact address of the studio in London; she didn’t even know which solicitor had acted for Eva, so she couldn’t ask him. Andrew Patterson would know of course, but she was loath to inform him about this.

  He was hardly likely to care anyway.

  But she supposed it was a good sign that Eva had had enough spirit to take off. A weaker person would have just taken to her bed and stayed there. She had some money and a place to stay, after all.

  Yet all the same, Olive couldn’t bear the thought of her in a strange place, all alone and hurting.

  Eva was hurting. She stayed in bed all day Monday, listening to the rain beating down and wishing she could just die. The teddy bears on the wall were no comfort now, they were just another reminder of betrayal. Flora had ruined her life, and then foisted this hideous dump of a house on to her to create more misery.

  Evening came, and as it gradually grew darker she felt panicked that she would soon be plunged into complete darkness again. Later she heard people calling out to one another when the pub closed, car doors banging and the sound of them driving away, then silence fell, broken only occasionally by the tapping of heels on the pavement.

  The night seemed endless. The inflatable mattress seemed to be going down and she couldn’t get comfortable. At one point she thought of going out to her car and driving somewhere. But where could she go in the middle of the night?

  She was still awake at dawn; pigeons were cooing somewhere close by and she knelt up at the window, watching the sky gradually grow lighter. It had stopped raining and she recognized the climbing plant on the back wall of the yard as a clematis, because a few white flowers had opened up. In the half-light it looked pretty and it stirred something inside her, a feeling that if a plant could survive without anyone caring for it, so could she.

  When she went downstairs to find tea, milk and sugar, the sight of all her things dumped in that dark dungeon of a room nearly sent her running back upstairs to bed again. But she forced herself to find a mug, some tea bags, and to sniff the milk to check it hadn’t gone off. Fortunately it was so cold in the room that it hadn’t. She also found some biscuits – which reminded her she hadn’t eaten anything for two days.

  Two mugs of tea later, she sat up on the bed with a notepad and made a list of things she needed. The first priority was getting the electricity put back on. She dug out one of the old bills addressed to the previous tenant and found a telephone number on the back. She thought she would ring that when the offices opened, and give them the present meter reading.

  There was so much she needed. Plates, cutlery, saucepans had all been provided in Crail Road and she hadn’t any of her own. She’d have to get some boxes to put her clothes in, and one to keep food in. And then there were candles and a torch, just in case it was a few days before she had power.

  But it was the boarded-up window downstairs that worried her most. How much would that cost? How would she know she wasn’t being ripped off? Without a job her money wasn’t going to last very long. Should she ring Olive and te
ll her what had happened, and perhaps go back to Cheltenham and stay in a bed and breakfast?

  Cheltenham was a small place, though, and someone who knew Tod was bound to see her. Besides, it was a matter of pride not to go running back there, defeated. She would find a job here in London, get the house fixed up somehow and prove to herself she could be strong and manage alone.

  Did she have to ring Olive? Why not just write her a letter? She was more than likely to start crying the minute she heard Olive’s voice. How would she be able to explain properly then?

  But she owed Olive a great deal; she’d been there for her when no one else had. She also knew her boss would think Eva was spineless by not speaking directly to her. She would have to ring, even if she didn’t want to.

  As it began to get dark on Tuesday evening Eva was feeling a bit better. The electricity company had promised the power would be on again in the morning, and for tonight she had candles and a torch.

  Speaking to Olive had helped far more than she had expected. As always, Olive had been very blunt and told her in no uncertain manner that a broken two-week-old romance might hurt, but it wouldn’t kill her.

  ‘I know you feel used and forlorn, but better you discovered his true colours now than in a few months’ time,’ she said crisply. ‘Now, stop snivelling and tell me about the house.’

  She listened patiently to Eva’s story of what a mess it was.

  ‘So what should I do?’ Eva said as she finished her tale of woe and wiped her tears away with her sleeve.

  ‘You know what you’ve got to do. Stay there and fix it up. I know it’s a huge challenge, but you are bright and practical. You’ll find a way. As you said, you can’t let it to anyone in that state. And if you come back to Cheltenham, how are you going to oversee anyone doing the work on it? We are all missing you here, and I certainly didn’t want to lose you as an employee, but it seems to me that fate has stepped in and given you a chance to prove yourself. I’d be the last person to try to talk you out of that.’

  Eva phoned the electricity board after Olive, and that was surprisingly painless. Instead of going back to No. 7 afterwards she walked up to Notting Hill and then went on to Portobello Road, walking around in a big circle until she came back to Pottery Lane. The fresh air, time to think more calmly, and also having a proper meal in a cafe, put things back into proportion for her. Her heart wasn’t broken, just a bit bruised; she had money, and a roof over her head. She’d got to stop feeling sorry for herself.

  Later she drove to a branch of B&Q and bought some large plastic boxes and a dress rail for her clothes, two five-gallon tins of white emulsion paint, as well as paint brushes and a roller. While she was in Notting Hill she’d seen a shop that sold all kinds of china, glass, cutlery and other household essentials, and she intended to go back there once the electricity was back on.

  Maybe her improved spirits were because she was warming to the idea of the challenge before her.

  There was no doubt that this was an interesting area to live in. Beautiful houses which were obviously the homes of the super-rich were cheek by jowl with council flats. As she’d walked down Portobello Road she’d heard many cockney accents, along with West Indian voices, but just as many plummy public school ones too. There were antique shops selling fabulously expensive heirlooms, market stalls piled with rubbishy bric-a-brac outside them. Trendy health-food shops jostled between second-hand clothes and displays of local artists’ work. Every colour and creed were there: a group of black men were playing steel drums, South Americans were playing pan pipes, elegant girls who could be top models rubbed shoulders with skinheads, and there were a great many people who looked like they were stuck in the Peace and Love Sixties.

  She had found a second-hand furniture shop just off Portobello Road that had everything she needed to turn her house into a home, and the owner had even offered to do her a special price and deliver the furniture free when she was ready for it.

  Satisfied she was tired enough to sleep well tonight, she pumped up the inflatable mattress a bit more and made a cup of tea. Tomorrow she would phone around some of the numbers she’d found for window repairs and get some quotes.

  It was something of a surprise to wake the next morning and find it was after nine. The last thing Eva remembered was wondering how women back in Victorian times managed to do exquisite needlework by candlelight, as she couldn’t see to read even with four candles.

  To her irritation the milk had gone off overnight. But as she went to the bathroom to fill the kettle for a wash, to her surprise she saw the glow of an electric light downstairs.

  Despite being alone she cheered aloud, and the sour milk was forgotten. It was only when she tried all the other light switches in the other rooms that she found the light bulbs were missing. With trepidation she opened up the cupboard on the landing where the immersion heater was, half expecting that it wouldn’t work. But to her delight a little red light came on when she threw the switch, and she cheered again.

  The thought of being able to have a bath later lifted her spirits even higher. As she ran around plugging in her hair dryer, a bedside lamp and even the television, and finding they all worked – albeit there wasn’t an aerial lead to plug in the television and get a picture – she felt almost ecstatic.

  Within half an hour she was washed and dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt. She even put on some make-up. She thought she would have breakfast in the cafe along the road, then walk up to Notting Hill and get her hair washed and blow-dried because it looked so awful. While she was out she’d ring some of the window companies she’d got the numbers for yesterday, and also look out for some job agencies and see what they had on offer.

  In the cafe there was a young couple at another table, looking into each other’s eyes and whispering together. It was a sharp reminder that such a short while ago she and Tod had been like that too, and a lump came up in her throat. But she was determined not to get sucked into thinking about him again, so she opened the paper she’d just bought and studied the job vacancies while she waited for her breakfast.

  Chrissie, the girl who did her hair later, was warm and chatty and around the same age as her. When Eva told her she was new to London and looking for a job, Chrissie suggested she go to Kensington High Street to have a look around.

  ‘All the big-name shops are there,’ she said. ‘They always want new people, and there’s lots of agencies for office work too. Just cross the road and walk down Kensington Church Street, it’s not very far.’

  Eva was pleased with the way Chrissie had done her hair; it looked so shiny and bouncy and it instantly made her feel more confident. While she wasn’t dressed for job hunting, she thought she would go and take a look anyway. She crossed the road and, seeing a cash machine, drew out fifty pounds to tide her over, then she turned into Kensington Church Street.

  It was a busy street of smart restaurants, antique shops, jewellers and art galleries, reminding her of Montpellier in Cheltenham. But the shops here seemed to cater only for very rich people, with eighteenth-century desks and tables, chandeliers, and paintings in ornate gilt frames that looked like Old Masters.

  She was looking at a display of antique jewellery in a shop window when suddenly someone banged into her. As she staggered to right herself, she felt her bag being pulled from her shoulder. It was a scruffy-looking young lad trying to take it.

  ‘Get off,’ she yelled, clutching at her bag.

  There was a brief tussle but he punched her in the stomach, making her double up in pain, and ran off through the crowd towards Notting Hill with her bag.

  Despite the pain she still managed to shout out that he’d stolen her bag. When no one made any attempt to stop him, she shouted again and tried to chase after him. People moved out of the way, gawping at her like idiots. But although she yelled out for them to help her, they still didn’t react and the distance between her and the thief was widening by the second.

  All at once a man in white overalls appeare
d out of a shop doorway. He looked first at Eva and then at the lad fleeing up the road, and set off after him in pursuit.

  Eva had never seen anyone run quite so fast. His legs were going like pistons, then he lunged at the thief in a flying tackle and knocked him to the ground.

  Someone cheered loudly but Eva’s view was suddenly obliterated by the crowd. She hobbled nearer, holding her stomach, and saw that the man in overalls had the thief pinned down on the pavement, holding him there with his foot. When he saw her he waved her bag in the air, and grinned jubilantly at her.

  As Eva reached them her rescuer lost his hold on the lad, who wriggled away and ran for it.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Eva gasped out. ‘Gosh, you were marvellous, and so quick. My keys – and everything else – are in the bag. I don’t know what I’d have done without them.’

  ‘Shame I didn’t hit him harder, bloody low life,’ the man said. ‘But are you alright? Did he hit you?’

  He was around twenty-five and built like a rugby player. His dark hair was cropped and his stained white overalls suggested he was a decorator.

  ‘Yes, in the stomach,’ Eva said, still holding it with one hand. ‘It’s winded me. But that doesn’t matter now, I’m just so grateful to you for getting my bag back. I only just got some money from a cash machine.’

  He looked at her with concern and handed back her bag. ‘I expect he saw you getting it and followed you. They do that a lot around here.’

  ‘It was very brave of you to tackle him,’ she said. ‘He might have had a knife.’

  He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘He was just a druggy opportunist. I should’ve given him a good kicking, that might have deterred him from doing it again.’

  Perhaps it was the thought of what might have been if the thief had got away with her bag, money, door and car keys, her chequebook, and papers that had her address on, but all at once she felt faint.

  ‘Are you alright, love? You’ve gone white as a sheet.’

  The man’s voice seemed very far away.