Forgive Me

  Yesterday she’d been to a hairdresser’s that opened late and had blonde highlights and a new cut. She had been wearing her hair long and straight for the last couple of years, but in a moment of wanting an entirely new image, partly because of Tod, she’d decided a jaw-length bob and some highlights might suit her better.

  She was thrilled with her new look; her hair felt marvellous, so much thicker and bouncier. It made her brave enough today to try on the slinky turquoise sleeveless dress she’d admired in the catalogue at work. To her amazement it looked really good on her, as she appeared to have lost a bit of weight since her mother died.

  ‘No date. But I was hoping someone might ask me to go down the pub with them, as it’s my birthday.’

  ‘Oh shit, why didn’t you give me some warning so I could get you a card?’ he said as he came into the room.

  ‘I’m not so sad that I have to announce my birthday in advance.’ She laughed.

  ‘Fortuitous that I bought some vino then,’ Tod said, but stopped short when he saw the cards on the mantelpiece. ‘Double shit, it’s your twenty-first!’

  There were only three cards: the one from Mr Bailey, one from Ben and Sophie, and a third large one signed by everyone at work. They’d had a whip-round and bought her a Chanel No. 19 gift set. Olive had given her a lovely tan leather handbag.

  ‘It’s just another day in paradise,’ Eva giggled. ‘Now pour that wine.’

  She liked Tod so much. The day after she moved in, he’d knocked and said he was going to the launderette and asked if she would like to go with him so she’d know where it was. She had never expected that something as mundane as going to a launderette could be so much fun. Tod could talk about anything; he observed stuff about people and made her laugh with it.

  She could see from the small mountain of washing that he only tackled it when he’d got nothing clean left to wear. As she carefully smoothed out and folded his clean clothes, he watched her with amusement.

  ‘I bung everything in the bag as it comes out of the dryer,’ he said.

  ‘If you do it like this, nothing will need ironing,’ she said.

  ‘Ironing!’ he exclaimed. ‘What’s that?’

  Since then Tod had knocked on her door several times, mostly to cadge something – tea bags or some milk – but he usually stayed a little while for a chat. His visits shortened the evenings, and they took her mind off her mother’s death and Andrew being so nasty.

  She’d kept her resolve not to tell him about the recent events, portraying herself as a happy, independent career girl, and hoping that in time she would actually feel that was what she was.

  ‘Then I’d better take you down the pub, not just because it’s such an important day, but because you look so gorgeous,’ he said as he looked at her cards. ‘There isn’t one from your mum and dad. Why’s that? Surely they haven’t forgotten?’

  She said the first thing that came into her head. ‘I’m going there tomorrow for lunch. And I’d love to go to the pub with you. Now, about that wine? Are you going to pour me a glass?’

  It was a lovely evening. First, the pub where Tod announced to all and sundry that it was her twenty-first, and everyone bought her drinks and made a fuss of her. Then, when the pub closed, they went on to a club around the corner where the music was so loud it was impossible to talk to anyone and so crowded there was barely room to dance either. Eva was happily drunk, content to watch her new friends being silly together, yet feeling protected from approaches by predatory lone males, because she was part of a group.

  When a drunken man became very insistent that she dance with him, Tod stepped in.

  ‘Sorry, mate, she’s spoken for,’ he said and, putting his arm around her, he drew her on to the dance floor.

  He had been dancing ever since they got into the club. As he put both his arms around her and drew her to his chest, it felt like he was on fire. ‘Phew, you’re hot!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘And so are you,’ he said. ‘But not in the sweaty way, like me.’

  Eva giggled at the compliment.

  ‘You don’t know how lovely you are, do you?’ he said, catching hold of her face with both hands and looking into her eyes.

  No boy had ever said anything like that to her, but she assumed he’d only said it because he was drunk. Yet his hands on her face, lips so close to hers, were making her heart beat faster. It was so tempting to just sink into it, to let him kiss her, but she knew where that would lead.

  In the past she hadn’t had a place of her own to take anyone. But she’d been with boys to their flats, or in their cars, and afterwards it was always the same, they gave her that ‘What was I thinking of?’ look. The muttered ‘I’ll ring you’, which they never did. From sixteen to eighteen there had been so many shaming times like that. The last one, just before her eighteenth birthday, was the worst. He’d been so rough with her, virtually rape, and then after he’d had his way he turned her out of his car and drove off, leaving her to walk home alone.

  That was the wake-up call she’d needed and she realized she had to change or she would spend her life being humiliated. She looked at herself long and hard in a mirror, and accepted that she was short, rather plain, overweight, and that it was unlikely any boy was going to want her for anything other than casual sex. She realized too that the so-called friends she hung around with were toxic for her. She had copied their goth look, heavy drinking, drug taking and promiscuous behaviour in an effort to fit in, and if she didn’t break away from them she would end up in the gutter.

  She got the job at Oakley and Smithson a few weeks later. She had seen Miss Olive Oakley’s horrified expression when she walked into her office for the interview, and in that second she knew she had to reinvent herself if she wanted to get anywhere at all. But Olive must have seen something in her to like, because she got the job.

  Everything changed for her then. Her first port of call was to a hairdresser, where she got them to re-dye her hair to tone down the heavy black, get rid of the purple streaks and cut off all the straggly bits. Next out was the heavy make-up and the black grungy clothes. She turned up for her first day at work in a suit her mother had bought her, which at the time she had ridiculed as being ‘Normal Norah’.

  Olive’s smile of approval on Monday morning was enough to convince her that her new image was the right one.

  It was far easier living with approval than being nagged at constantly. She loved her job, started having driving lessons, and she found out that staying home at night to watch television with the family and helping around the house made for a more tranquil life.

  The girls at work often gently teased her because she hadn’t got a boyfriend, and she had learned to make a joke of it herself, claiming she was waiting for Mr Right. She’d been chatted up by the van drivers at work, and on nights out with the girls from work there had been a few blokes who bought her a drink and flirted with her. But she’d never once let it go further than that.

  In well over three years, Tod was the first boy she’d met that she really did want. She loved his sense of humour, his interest in people, the way he could chat about anything, and that he was a gentleman. But even now when it seemed that he really liked her, she was too afraid of waking up in her bed with him in the morning and seeing remorse or horror on his face to take a chance.

  So she just grinned at him. ‘And you are very drunk, Tod,’ she said. ‘It’s been a brilliant evening, but don’t get soppy on me now. I want to go home.’

  Tod lurched off to his room when they got back, and she went to hers. But once she’d got into bed she found herself crying. It seemed to her that she’d been lonely for most of her life. Not alone, because there had always been her family and other people around, but it was a loneliness that came of having no one to share her thoughts and dreams with, no one she could tell about moments like this, when she didn’t feel she belonged anywhere.

  She woke at half past nine the next morning with a thumping headache, and remember
ed she’d told Tod she was going to see her family to celebrate her birthday. She wanted to stay in bed, but she knew she must go out, and stay out all day. So she got up, made tea and took some painkillers, then showered, got dressed and put make-up on.

  Driving to Bath to have a look around seemed the best idea. Maybe she could buy herself a piece of jewellery, and when she got back she could pretend it was a birthday present from her parents.

  It turned out to be a long, dreary and lonely day. Bath was full of tourists, as it always was in the spring and summer, and though she’d always loved coming here for the day with her mother, wandering around the narrow streets with all the little specialist shops, checking out the vintage clothes shops in Walcot Street, or even going for a walk in Victoria Park, it was no fun on her own. Stopping to have some lunch in a cafe full of couples and friends only heightened the feeling of loneliness still more.

  She bought a silver bangle, a pretty tea towel and a tablecloth, and as the shops were closing she drove home. There was a traffic jam at Almondsbury interchange, an accident involving three cars on the slipway on to the M5. It took almost an hour to get past it, and by the time she got back to Crail Road it was after eight o’clock.

  Slipping her shoes off, Eva filled the kettle and had just put the new tablecloth on the table, when there was a knock on the door.

  It was Tod.

  ‘Good timing,’ she said. ‘I’ve just put the kettle on.’

  ‘Did you have a nice day?’ he asked, coming in and just standing there, as if he wasn’t sure he was welcome.

  ‘Lovely, thanks, but it’s nice to be home,’ she replied. ‘What’s up? You look a bit anxious. Or is that just because you’re still suffering from last night?’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me your mother died?’ he asked quietly. ‘Didn’t you feel you could trust me? I thought we were friends?’

  Eva was so shocked she nearly dropped the milk she was getting out of the fridge. ‘How did you find out?’ she asked.

  ‘Your brother called to see you, and I invited him in for some tea as he seemed upset you weren’t here.’ Tod held out a little parcel to her. ‘He brought you this for your birthday.’

  Eva took the present from him with shaking hands. ‘How did he come to tell you such a thing?’ she asked nervously.

  It had never occurred to Eva that Ben would turn up without ringing her at work first. And Ben wasn’t one to divulge anything to a stranger; he wasn’t even very forthcoming with people he knew well, so it was strange that he’d talked to Tod.

  ‘I told him we’d become friends, even told him what a good time we’d had last night, and that you’d gone home to see your folks today. He looked really puzzled, and he said you wouldn’t do that because you’d fallen out with your dad since your mum died. Then he told me how she died.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, suddenly feeling faint. ‘I mean, that I lied and said I was going home today. I only said that because you asked why there was no birthday card from my mum and dad. It’s not easy to tell someone that your mother killed herself. I’m shocked Ben told you.’

  ‘I think he needed to talk. He began by just saying he ought to have come round last night to check you were alright and not lonely, because birthdays are always tied up with your mother. But then he kind of blurted it all out. He said it was bad enough for him and your sister, but they didn’t find her dead in the bath, like you did, and he was frightened it might have pushed you over the edge.’

  Eva couldn’t speak; she felt stunned that Ben was mature enough to understand the complexities of how she might feel, and her eyes welled up with tears.

  Tod came over to her and pulled her into his arms. ‘So I’ve been worried sick since he left,’ he said, his lips against her hair. ‘I wish you had told me about it.’

  ‘I couldn’t bring myself to, I was afraid I’d seem tragic,’ she murmured against his shoulder. It felt so good to be held and to know he’d been worried about her.

  ‘I thought it was a bit odd that you came here to live when your home was so close,’ he said. ‘Ben hinted that your father was mean to you. Was he?’

  ‘Yes, really horrible. He informed me I wasn’t his child.’

  ‘He did what?’ Tod sounded incredulous. ‘Look, I’ll make the tea. You sit down and then you can tell me the whole story.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to be burdened with it?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s what friends are for,’ he said firmly, pushing her down on to the sofa.

  Chapter Six

  It took Eva some time to tell Tod the whole story, mainly because he wouldn’t accept the shortened version and kept stopping her for more details. But finally it was told and he cuddled her to him.

  ‘That’s truly awful,’ he said, looking really shaken. ‘You seemed so together, I would never have guessed you’d been through something so awful. You must be a very strong person.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, mostly I feel pretty feeble.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘I keep telling myself that I’m lucky I’ve got a job I like. And Mum left me the studio in London, so I’ve got a nest egg. But it is hard to deal with finding out that your dad, who you loved, and thought loved you, isn’t and doesn’t.’

  ‘People lash out when they are hurt,’ he said gently. ‘That doesn’t excuse him of course; he’s behaved appallingly. But once he’s had time to reflect on it, he might very well come round.’

  ‘At the moment I don’t care if he never does,’ she said. ‘But looking back, and that’s something I’ve done a lot of since it happened, I can see that he was never the same to me as he was to Ben and Sophie. He wasn’t cruel or neglectful, just uninvolved. But once I got into my teens, and I admit I did start acting up, he was always on at me. I couldn’t talk to him, he was so scornful about everything. I think that’s what made me want to be anywhere but home, and that sent me on a downward spiral, hanging out with all the wrong people. But even when I did get back on track, found my present job and stayed home at nights, he wasn’t really any nicer to me. I often felt he didn’t like me.’

  ‘What about the relationship with your mum?’

  Eva sighed. ‘When I was little it seemed pretty good, but it certainly had deteriorated by the time I was thirteen or fourteen. I don’t know how you judge these things. Most of the girls at school complained about their mums, so I don’t know if mine was better or worse. But I did feel she was distant – disappointed in me. In the last three years I tried my best to please her, but it didn’t make that much difference.’

  Tod nodded. ‘I know that feeling!’

  ‘You’ve had problems with your parents?’

  ‘Yes, I’m a disappointment to them too. But I want to know about you.’

  ‘Why do you think Mum kept so much hidden?’ Eva asked. ‘The art thing, and about her childhood, family and teenage years? Most mothers do tell their children stuff, even if they claim the kids couldn’t care less and aren’t even listening. The thing that upset me most at her funeral was feeling I didn’t really know her at all.’

  ‘Is Ben like her, or like his father?’

  ‘He looks like Andrew, but he’s far more sensitive and feels things deeply. I suppose that comes from Mum.’

  ‘I liked him,’ Tod said reflectively. ‘I suppose you take after your mum?’

  ‘I suppose so; she was short and had blue eyes. But her hair was red, and she had the pale skin to go with it.’

  ‘I think you should find this guy Patrick O’Donnell and check him out. If he’s an illustrator, it should be easy.’

  ‘It’s odd that both my parents were artists but I can’t paint or draw,’ she said.

  ‘My father is a barrister and my mother taught maths. They produced a child who doesn’t like to argue and is useless at maths.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me your father was a barrister,’ she said in some surprise.

  ‘Well, we didn’t really do the “You tell me about your family and I’ll tell
you about mine”, did we?’ he laughed.

  ‘No, but now I’ve told you all my secrets, you’d better share yours.’

  ‘No secrets. Shipped off to boarding school at eleven, hated it and was bullied. So we’ve got that in common. Dad wanted me to do law, Mum wanted me to be a doctor. All I’ve done is bum around since leaving uni. They’ve more or less washed their hands of me.’

  ‘I’d be proud of having a son who cared about other people as you do,’ she said.

  ‘They see it as having no drive,’ he sighed. ‘To them you are a failure if you don’t go into the “professions”. But it’s the way my dad is that put me off. I was about sixteen when I heard him telling Mum about a man he’d defended. The guy was charged with the murder of both his parents. It seems the parents did terrible things to their son, and in the end he set fire to their house and they died in the fire. I was listening hard, and I could feel Dad’s anger that he’d lost the case, but I didn’t sense any sympathy for his client being sentenced to life imprisonment. I wondered how Dad could be that way. He knew just what that poor guy had gone through during his life, he’d dug up every last piece of evidence to show the jury that there were extenuating circumstances and that the parents had driven him to it. Yet Dad switched off from the guy’s plight the minute the jury gave their guilty verdict. I suppose most lawyers are the same; it’s the nature of the beast. But it chilled me that my dad had so little compassion. So the thought of law as a profession flew out of the window.’

  They discussed things about their parents for a little while and then Eva offered to make some supper for them. ‘I can do cheese on toast or egg on toast,’ she offered. ‘I should’ve bought some food today.’

  Tod chose cheese on toast, and while she was preparing it he asked her more about the studio. ‘Is there a tenant in it?’

  ‘No, not now, apparently the last one did a runner. My solicitor told me to be prepared to find it in a mess. It will all be finalized this week. I ought to go down there and look next weekend.’