Did The Earth Move? (13 page)

Before she knew it, it was October and she was faced with going back to college for the first time in seven years. That very first morning, when she registered for her classes, she heard herself telling the clerk that there had been a mistake, she was no longer going by the name of Evelyn Leigh, she was
Eve Gardiner.

That she wanted to revert to her maiden name was not so hard to understand – but
Eve?
She had always secretly called herself Eve, but only now at the age of 26 was she allowing herself to grow into it, let her public self become a bit more like her inner, real self.

Walking into the big refectory with her new classmates and their friends for lunch, she realized how much had changed for her in six short months. Here she was, eating a plate of subsidized macaroni cheese with a group of other women – some her age, but most younger, all in the kind of hippie chic groove-nick clothes, which made her polo neck, jeans and anorak seem so incredibly square. They were talking films and rooms and rents and boyfriends and her past life as Evelyn Leigh – tennis and boutique shopping, private schools and dinner parties – seemed so far away, it was almost as if it had never happened. This was her first day of training to be a probation officer. What would

Delia and company ever, ever make of this? If they ever took the trouble to find out what had happened to her.

'I'm going to have to miss the last class every afternoon to go and get my kids,' one woman was telling a friend. 'I'll have to borrow someone's notes to keep up.'

'Me too,' Eve told her.

Very quickly, she and this woman, who was studying midwifery and introduced herself as Jenna, 'but everyone calls me "Jen"', were doing the bonding mummy chat.

'How old are yours?' Eve asked her.

'Terry is five and John is nine months. I am dragging myself out of the house to do this course.'

'I've got two boys as well, Denny's six and Tom's nearly five. I love boys,' Eve confided with a smile. 'All that footballing and cars and trains and rushing around.'

'Yeah! But they're bloody exhausting,' Jen laughed. 'So where are you from, then?' She had a slight London accent and a tired face set off by unruly dark hair bundled into a ponytail. She looked about Eve's age, maybe a little older, maybe a little more careworn.

Eve told her, skating over all but the merest of details, how she'd been living in Surrey but had moved back to London 'when my marriage ended'.

'So you're a single girl again?' Jen asked.

'Oh, I don't think of it like that, because of the boys.'

'You will,' Jen smiled. 'And you've come to the right place. I've never been anywhere more obsessed with sex. Look around you – couples coupling, flirts flirting, lecturers leching . . . You're going to have a great time. Too bad I've got the old man at home, that's what I say.'

Eve just laughed at this.

'Where are you all living then?' Jen asked and as Eve told her, Jen nodded and asked her the street name, then smiled, telling her. 'That's round the corner from my place! I'll have to take you out and show you the sights.'

And because they left college at the same time and took the bus back to Hackney to collect their kids from the same school, and because they lived just round the corner from each other and had two sons each, it felt inevitable and right that they became firm friends.

Over mugs of undrinkably strong tea in Jen's flat or the college canteen, they talked and gradually learned a lot more about each other.

Jen hadn't always lived in London; at 17 she'd followed a boyfriend down from a small town in the north-west. She'd worked long hours in a clothes shop while he played drums all day, gigged, got drunk at night and never paid his share of the rent. 'I just drifted through my twenties,' she'd confessed.

She'd moved from shop to shop, from flat to flat after a string of hapless boyfriends called Dane, Shane, Wayne and so on until she'd met Stavo, a Slav who at least seemed to have some goals, ambitions, some reason to get up in the morning. But his reaction to her pregnancy announcement had been to head-butt her in the face. She'd knocked him out cold with the first heavy object to hand, the bathroom scales, then packed her bags and left.

She'd had baby Terry, all alone, apart from a midwife holding her hand and buying her flowers in the hospital shop.

'He's named after my dad and John is named after his grandfather,' Jen had explained.

Baby John's father was Ryan, the lovely Irishman who looked after Jen and toddler Terry, who got her out of the house and smiling again.

'You can't imagine how bad it was, Eve, stuck on the 18th floor of a dreadful block with a baby, all on my own. Living off benefits for the first time in my life,' Jen told her: but only the once, because she was a woman who had moved on, pulled herself through and didn't like to dwell on how bleak it had once been. 'Ryan was my reward for all the crap stuff. I've no idea how he finally persuaded me to have another baby, but he promised he would stick with us no matter what.'

In a delighted whisper, so her sons couldn't hear, Jen had confided: 'We're saving up to get married ... maybe when I finish my course and land my first job. When we'll have enough for a proper party.'

Jen had never forgotten the midwife who helped her through Terry's birth. She told Eve: 'She bought me flowers although she didn't know me from Adam. And I decided I wanted to do that job, give other women help through that terrible time, when you're straddling life and death and wondering which side you and your baby are going to end up on.'

As they got comfortable with one another, Eve had allowed little bits of her own life story to unfold. And eventually, the gilded life and times of Evelyn Leigh became a big joke between them.

'Oh darling, Ralph Lauren does one just like this,' Eve would swoon over Jen's latest market stall purchase.

'I don't know ... Does it come in suede?' was a catchphrase they used for all sorts of nonsense – dusters, children's underpants, baby's bibs, bin bags.

The Donna Karan evening dress, the silk curtains, the Range Rover with the leather seats – it was a fantasy world Jen loved to hear about.
It wasn't painful for Eve to reminisce. It was like
the memory of a dream. How she could now joke
at the pettiness of it all. She and her new friend
would shriek with laughter, as if this was the
most ludicrous world anyone could ever
imagine.

Eve Gardiner had such a new life now, to go with her new name, a life which revolved around the children, of course, but also college and hip student friends, flat parties, Sunday markets, charity shops and junk stalls, the library, museums, DIY, vegetarian cooking ...

Every single aspect of her life changed and by the end of her first term she didn't think Evelyn Leigh would even recognize the person she'd become. A better person, she was sure. She spent long hours with the children and rediscovered all sorts of things she'd liked doing as a child, but hadn't done since. She taught them how to knit and they sometimes spent whole afternoons painting: handprints, potato prints, glitter and sparkle paintings and home-made Christmas cards for all her new friends. She made a quick decision not to bother sending anything to the Surrey brigade. She couldn't see the point. Despite the fact that she'd paid to have mail forwarded from her old house to her father's, not a single one of her old friends had tried to get in touch.

About Dennis, Eve felt only a dull anger, but for the boys' sake, not really for herself any more. She put it to the back of her mind. In fact she was surprised at how little she thought about him now. Disappearing Dennis had become something that only troubled her at night as she was falling asleep – and not every night.

'God, you look so well, I can't believe it!' Janie was being ushered up the cramped staircase to Eve's one-bedroomed home for her first visit. Although she'd been dismayed by the dinginess of the street her sister was now living in, she was relieved to see that Eve did genuinely look better than she had done for ages, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

'Prepare yourself for the decor,' her older sister warned her with a laugh as she showed her in. 'I got a bit carried away.'

'Oh my God! But maybe you all needed cheering up.' Janie took in the lurid sitting room and kitchen, then poked her head into the bedroom and even the bathroom. 'It's good . . . cosy,' was her verdict. 'Where are the boys?'

'A friend's looking after them for a couple of hours. I wanted you all to myself just for a bit,' Eve told her, noting her sister's heavy, silk-lined coat and leather overnight bag and registering how out of place they were in this cheap and cheerful flat.

'Where do you sleep?' Janie asked.

"The sofa folds down. Tonight you get the lower bunk in the boys' room and I cuddle up with Tom, in case you're wondering!'

'It's fine, honestly.'

'So... what's the big news?' Eve asked, taking a good look at Janie now. 'Why the rush to come up here and visit us this weekend?'

'Well, I wanted to see you, of course and make sure that everything was OK. I've been so worried about you, but...'

It really wasn't hard to guess what else was going on in Janie's life. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were shining and she was finding it hard to stop smiling. 'David has asked me to marry him!' She gave a little scream and had to hug Eve all over again.

'Congratulations!' Eve told her. 'Really! I'm so happy for you! He's a very nice man. I don't think there's any danger of him turning out like Dennis,' she couldn't help adding.

'Well... I realize this must be hard. Me getting engaged, you . . .' Janie hesitated, wanting the right word . . . 'abandoned' was definitely not right... 'Separated'.

'No, you're wrong, Janie,' Eve replied, going into the kitchen for glasses so they could start on the bottle of champagne her sister had brought: 'I'll be the happiest guest at your wedding, honestly, we're doing really well.'

And Janie could see that it was true. Her sister looked scruffier, but more relaxed and happier than she had done for years. She looked
younger,
that was the strange thing. She'd been through all this terrible stuff, but she'd come out the other side looking a lot better. As Dennis's wife, all dressed up and blow-dried, she'd always looked well into her thirties.

'I think student life suits you,' Janie told her as they sat on the sofa together and toasted each other.

'Mmmm... beautiful,' Eve said after a long sip and swallow. 'It's been a long time since I've had a glass of champagne.'

'Well, drink up,' Janie told her. 'There's plenty more here.'

'OK and now I want to hear all about the proposal. Blow by blow. Don't leave anything out.'

Janie snorted with laughter here: 'Oh big romantic moment. David rolls over in bed and tells me "I was just thinking I'd like to marry someone like you." I say
"Someone like me?
What about
me?
Don't you want to marry me?" And he says "Well... yeah."

'"Well, yeah,"'
Janie repeated. 'Isn't that the most underwhelming proposal you've heard in your whole life? I burst into tears.'

'Oh no.'

'Don't feel too sorry for me though,' Janie added, sloshing some more champagne into their glasses. 'He now feels so guilty, he's buying me a ruby the size of a golf ball and taking me to Venice for Christmas. Well, I mean ... I wanted to check with you first,' she added guiltily. 'You know, if you're planning to be at Dad's and you want me there ...'

'Don't be silly, go to Venice,' Eve told her, from the dizzy haze of a champagne high. 'Make lurve on Christmas morning.' They both giggled.

'We're going to stay here, I've decided. In our cosy little home,' Eve said. 'Dad might come up and visit on Boxing Day.'

Once most of the bottle was gone, Janie quizzed her hard. Was she really OK? Were the boys coping? Did they need anything? Did she want to borrow some money?

'We're really fine. I promise,' Eve assured her. 'I know, it's hard to believe, but we're very happy. I like it, Janie,' she confided. 'It's very zen! No, honestly. Everything has changed and I needed that. A shake-up, a paring down... I've been thinking about it a lot.' Eve put her glass down, crossed her legs and faced her sister, fixing her cool grey eyes on her. 'I've lost so much: the baby, our home, our whole way of life, all the things I loved that I'd surrounded myself with, Dennis ...'

Dennis was last on the list, Janie noted with some relief.

'All I want now is peace, calm and the basics . . . it's hard to explain. I don't want anything right now that we don't need and I don't want anything that can be taken away. I suppose it's a security thing. I don't want any of us to be hurt any more.'

Janie thought she understood, but she still asked: 'But don't you miss so many things? It's worse than being a student because you don't even get to go home and stock up on all the nice stuff in the holidays.'

'Like what?!' Eve wanted to know.

'Marzipan, chocolates, expensive wine, gin and tonics ... fillet steaks ...'

Eve laughed: 'No, none of that, just perfume and my old face creams. The ones that cost £50 a jar. I mean it just seems crazy now!'

'I'll get you one for Christmas,' Janie chipped in.

'No, no ... It would feel all wrong. But it's funny, there are some things I still have to buy the expensive version of, like chocolate bars and washing powder. And I hate cheap shoes, so I have to wear these—' she pointed to her trainers. 'But I feel like I was the most spoiled little brat ever and now I'm coming back to reality. The boys, too. We'll all be the better for it.'

Janie thought of the price tag on the engagement ring she and David had already chosen and felt hideously guilty.

'What do you want for Christmas?' she asked Eve.

'New hair!' Eve joked, flicking at her overgrown, under-highlighted locks.

'OK. Well there's something I can sort out,' Janie insisted, 'Seriously.'

* * *

And that was how Eve had met Harry the hair.

Studying on her miniature budget, only too aware that Christmas was just around the corner, she had no idea how she was going to ensure that it wasn't one more big disappointment for her children.

The year before, Christmas Day had been the most incredible, over the top extravaganza. Dennis had gone overboard, buying the boys electric cars they could ride in, remote control trucks, a city of Lego, football strips, boots, signed footballs. Even at the time, in the depths of her affluent Surrey lifestyle, Eve had thought they were being spoiled. She had opened a small gold foil wrapped parcel to find her diamond-studded Cartier watch inside. Ha, things change. She couldn't help glancing at the black plastic £5.99 job on her wrist now. She'd even considered that an extravagance.

Anyway, she had no idea what to do this year. Especially as Tom at least still believed in Santa Claus and how would he cope with the fact that Santa's budget had dramatically shrunk?

She was saving very hard to get them some nice little things. That meant endless variations on beans and lentils for supper and lunch, homemade porridge for breakfast. Absolutely no money spent on anything unnecessary. But she was going to use just a little of Janie's generous 'hair' money to treat herself to a simple Christmas haircut. Her locks had been untouched since the Dennis bankruptcy crisis hit the fan and they looked awful. Her dark mousy-brown roots had now grown down past her ears and the remaining eight inches of expensive Surrey highlights were overgrown, split-ended and out of shape.

The plan was to have it cut into an above the shoulder bob and much as she detested the idea, she was going to have to dye it to natural. There was no way she could afford highlights now.

She'd made an appointment at the salon a few streets away because it was cheapish, but for Hackney, the interior looked surprisingly stylish.

Once she was inside, she'd been gowned up and led to a chair where she'd made the acquaintance of Harry, a solid, black-haired, East-End-Italian performer.

He'd flourished his comb, moved through her locks and given her his deadpan Michael Caine line: 'It's big hair but it's out of condition.' Followed by, 'Now darling, what are we going to do with it, because it's Christmas, every women needs to dazzle.'

So she'd explained the low-maintenance brown bob she'd decided on and he'd shaken his head sadly and said, 'Oh no, mamma mia, I think we need to bring back the blonde in you, dying to get out.'

In the course of explaining why she couldn't afford highlights because she was saving for Christmas presents for the boys and she didn't know how to stop Christmas being a disappointment for them this year . . . because their father had vanished and she couldn't afford anything like the nice things he'd given them ... oh boy, out it all tumbled and here she was sitting in a hairdresser's chair blubbing, but Harry, a lifelong comforter of sad women, handed her tissues and a cup of tea and told her, 'Now, now, my darling. It's Christmas time and you have to allow Harry to sort out your hair. And once we've done that, you'll feel much better and nothing will look so bad, I promise.'

So he'd cut her a snappy little shoulder-length bob and told her to come back on Thursday evening, training night, when he would do her highlights gratis while his two trainees watched.

'But I can't come in the evening, I haven't got anyone to look after the boys,' she'd protested, finding it hard to accept this kindness from a stranger.

'Bring the boys,' he'd said, waving his arms expansively round the salon. 'We have videos, we have swivelling chairs, bowls of sweets. They'll be fine.'

That was how she stayed blond while she studied. Harry, then the trainees, coloured her hair once every three or four months on training night. And when she got her job, she of course carried on at Harry's paying him as much as he would accept – always well below the list price.

But that wasn't the reason Harry had become a close friend. Harry was part of her closest circle because of what he had done for her and the boys that first Christmas. While he dabbed bleach carefully onto strands of her hair and watched her two sons climb over the salon chairs and munch all the sweets in his customer dish, he had told Eve that maybe what they needed at Christmas was not big toys but a little bit of magic.

'My mother was half Italian,' he told her, crossing himself, 'and we all used to go out to midnight mass on Christmas Eve and when we came back the house would be transformed. The tree would be up, the presents would be out – fresh tangerines, panettone, tiny chocolates, little wooden toys, balloons – the candles and little lights would be lit. It was magical. This was what our Santa Claus did, not this sinister coming down the chimney, leaving things from the Argos catalogue that goes on now. I still don't know how my mother did this, but my guess is she had everything wrapped and ready in a cupboard and while we were out, a good friend came in and laid it out.

'Now for the two fine boys you have, I would be prepared to be that good friend, Eve. It would make me very happy.'

It was a wonderful idea. And she couldn't think of a reason not to accept it. Harry was in his fifties, not married but with family, great-nieces and nephews he didn't see nearly as often as he would have liked to. Why shouldn't she let him be kind? Accept the hand of friendship being held out to her now.

'Well, I'm not sleeping with you and there's nothing in my flat worth stealing . . . Does the offer still stand?'

So on Christmas Eve Harry was entrusted with a key and after the tiny tree, lights, carefully chosen presents and treats had all been laid out under the bed and in the kitchen cupboards as arranged, Eve took her sons to the 11p.m. service which the school's church was holding.

Eve, not a churchgoer by inclination, was nevertheless quite taken with this church. It was run by a youngish trendy vicar type who was doing the best he could to maintain some interest in religion in the primary school pupils. The Christmas Eve service promised 'carols, old and new' plus mince pies and cocoa or mulled wine afterwards. The church was romantically dimmed and candlelit for the evening.

The boys, wound up way beyond tiredness with excitement, sang everything loudly, even the carols they didn't really know, and listened to the manger story and the short sermon without too much fidgeting.

Still, a quick glance round the congregation and Eve saw they were the scruffiest there. The pews were packed with respectable black families whose scrubbed and polished children sat in absolute stillness.

After the service, the boys had three mince pies each. They were amazed to find it was already after midnight and people were hugging them and kissing them and wishing them Happy Christmas.

'It's Christmas already, Mummy!' Tom had said with glee as they walked out of the church, his hand in hers.

'I know,' she'd smiled back.

'Does that mean Santa Claus will have come?' he asked.

'Santa Claus doesn't exist,' Denny had told him in a voice laden with gloom. 'It's just your mum and dad putting stuff there and there isn't going to be much this year, is there?'

Tom had looked up at Eve for reassurance.

'I don't know about Santa Claus,' Eve had said then, knowing she could hardly go back on the explanation she'd given Denny last year that it was a lovely story, based on a kind man who lived a long time ago, that you told little children. 'But sometimes, really magical things happen at Christmas,' Eve had said to them both. 'And I can't think of three people needing a bit more magic right now than us.'

'Shall I wish on a star, Mummy?' Tom had asked. But when they looked up it was a grey, overcast night and the sky mainly looked orange as it reflected back the streetlamps. No star could be seen.

'There's one,' Tom had said, pointing.