Never Close Your Eyes (58 page)

‘I can't be long,' she said, checking her watch in a very obvious way. ‘I have some work to finish before I pick up Michael.' She raised her eyebrows. ‘The school day's so short. I'm sorry I haven't time to make coffee.'

Carol stepped over the threshold. ‘That's all right, dear,' she said, ‘I don't want any coffee but I do have something to tell you.' She glanced around, clearly expecting to be invited to sit down.

‘In here,' Evie sighed, leading Carol into the sitting room. What on earth did the woman want?

Sunlight was streaming through the window and you could almost smell the hyacinths in the window box. Carol settled down on the sofa while Evie chose the Lloyd Loom.

Carol cleared her throat. ‘There's something you need to know about that man you're seeing: Steve.' She rubbed her hands on her legs as if to warm them, though it wasn't cold.

Evie's stomach flip-flopped.

‘I saw him with his wife – or girlfriend or whoever she is – and their baby.'

Well, so what? Evie knew about his ex and their little boy.

‘They're still living together, or they were up until this morning when she kicked him out for – excuse my language . . .' Carol lowered her eyes, ‘. . . “fucking around” and not paying the rent.'

Evie stared at Carol's lips. They were opening and closing but the sound seemed to be coming from somewhere else. ‘You must have made a mistake . . .'

‘No, dear, no mistake,' Carol said. ‘I saw him outside his house in Clapham. They were having an argument. She was using terrible language. He's definitely been living there up till now.'

Evie sat quite still for a moment, digesting the information. In a way this didn't surprise her. He'd always said that he didn't want her coming to his place because it was too small and poky. But she supposed she'd had her doubts, though she'd chosen to ignore them. Funny that she'd had that conversation with Zelda about him earlier. She wondered what Zelda would say about this. She frowned. She couldn't expect Evie to marry him now.

Marry. How foolish she was. She was never going to get married again. She wasn't the sort of woman you wanted to marry – that's why Neil had left her, that's why Helen was about to have his baby.

Carol's voice shattered the silence, making her jump. ‘I'm sorry to give you such a shock.'

Evie came back to the present. Who was this ugly woman with long grey hair? She shouldn't be here, she was intruding.

‘What business is it of yours what Steve does and who I go out with?' Evie said quietly. She started picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of her jumper. ‘I don't know how you know him but it's got nothing to do with you. You shouldn't poke your nose in where it's not wanted.'

‘Oh, but it is my business.'

Evie looked up. She didn't like the tone of Carol's voice. She wasn't an amusing eccentric, she was creepy. ‘What do you mean?' The hairs on Evie's arms prickled.

‘I mean,' said Carol, ‘that I'm your mother.'

Evie froze. ‘That's a wicked thing to say . . .' She wanted to get up but she couldn't. Something was binding her to the chair.

‘It's true, Evie,' Carol went on. ‘I was just sixteen when I had you. My parents – they weren't very nice people – wouldn't let me keep you so you had to be adopted.'

Evie stared at Carol. She wasn't joking. She was leaning forwards eagerly, almost excitedly, in her chair, her fingers working away like a tricoteuse.

‘It was the saddest day of my life when they took you,' Carol continued, ‘but I've kept an eye on you all these years.' Her face broke into a smile. ‘I was there on your first day at school, when you started Brownies, when you got married and had the children. You didn't know it but I was always there, making sure you were all right.'

The cord binding Evie to the chair snapped and she jumped up. ‘What are you saying? That you've been stalking me since I was a child?' She laughed. ‘I don't believe you. Is this some sort of joke?'

Carol fumbled in her bag and took out what looked like a small, pink notebook with a plastic cover. She opened it and out fell a pile of photographs.

‘Here,' she said, fumbling with the pictures, trying to sort them into a pile. Evie didn't want to look but she couldn't help it. Her eyes were drawn to them like magnets. She gasped. There was a fuzzy picture of a little girl in uniform coming out of school – her; another of a bride and groom standing on the church steps – her and Neil.

She snatched one of the photos that had fallen on to Carol's lap. ‘That's Freya!' she cried. ‘How dare you take pictures of my daughter. That's illegal. I could have you locked up.' There was another one underneath of Michael aged about two. Evie seized that, too, and held it to her chest.

Carol gazed at her sadly. Evie looked into the older woman's eyes for the first time, properly absorbing them. A spark of recognition shot through her that made her shudder.

‘I thought you might be like this,' Carol said, shaking her head. ‘I know it's a lot to take in. I just want you to know that I've loved you always and I still love you. I've only ever wanted what's best for you.'

Evie saw flashes of red and orange in the corners of her vision. ‘What's best for me?' she shouted. ‘Where have I heard that before? My parents were always telling me what was best for me only they didn't have a clue. They just wanted me to be something I wasn't.

‘I had a horrible childhood,' she went on, ‘and now you're stirring things up and claiming you're my mother and trying to tell me what to do about Steve. Well, I don't want another mother. One's more than enough for me. And I certainly don't want advice about Steve.'

Carol wiped a tear away with her hand. ‘I've only ever wanted to hold you in my arms and tell you I love you.'

‘You should have thought about that before you gave me away,' Evie shrieked. ‘It's too late now. Much too late.' She tried to pull Carol off the sofa but she was too heavy.

‘Zelda never told me about this,' Evie ranted. She was almost talking to herself. ‘Zelda said Steve was The One, too. I hate you, I hate everyone.'

Carol stared at her. ‘Zelda? When did she say that? You shouldn't listen to her—'

‘I've told you, stop telling me what to do,' Evie raged. ‘Get up.'

Carol managed to stagger to her feet and Evie half pushed, half pulled her to the door.

‘Get out of my house right now,' she yelled.

Carol was cringing like a cornered animal. She stumbled off the step and nearly fell. Evie stood with her hands on her hips while she tottered down the path. She was a pathetic sight but Evie didn't care. This was all too much.

‘Push off,' she roared at the top of her voice, ‘and don't ever come back.'

Carol glanced back, an injured look on her face.

‘I never want to see you again.'

Bill heard the commotion and came running out of his house. ‘What on earth . . . ?'

He saw Carol trying to unpadlock her bike and then start to cross to the other side of the street, but before he could say anything she'd pedalled off.

Evie heard her call something to him over her shoulder. She watched Carol's not insubstantial form getting smaller and smaller. She was wobbling rather a lot. Upset. Evie felt a twinge of guilt but Carol had given her such a shock. Evie couldn't believe it was true. There again, there was something frighteningly plausible about her story.

She flicked back through various scenes in her mind, remembering the way Carol had made a point, after one of the writing groups, of asking Nic and Becca to look after her. Evie had just heard that Helen was pregnant and must have been looking strained, but it had seemed odd at the time, over-friendly; Carol had also made that peculiar to-do in the pub before Christmas when Evie had told everyone about her feelings for Steve. They'd all agreed that Carol was way out of order.

Now Evie thought about it, Carol had always sat close to her in meetings, too, and asked so many questions about her and her family, and she always seemed to know little details about Evie's life that she didn't remember telling her, such as where her parents lived and which school she went to. Occasionally it would bring Evie up short, then she'd reason that she must have mentioned it to Carol at some stage and forgotten.

The truth was, Carol had always seemed unusually interested in and concerned about her but Evie had put it down to kindly eccentricity. And she couldn't deny that she had felt this strange affinity towards her. She couldn't quite put her finger on it but there was something about her that had seemed, well, familiar somehow. It was very strange.

She walked towards Bill, hugging her arms around her. She was shivering despite the mild weather. She must look a fright, she thought, all staring eyes and wild expression.

‘Are you all right?' he asked, giving her one of his intense looks.

Evie shook her head. ‘She just told me she's my birth mother,' she said, nodding in Carol's direction. She laughed. ‘Fancy coming round here and saying that. It's too much on top of everything else. I can't handle it.'

She started to cry. Bill put his arm round her and gave her a hug.

There was a pause.

‘It's true, Evie,' he said gently. ‘She told me on the day that Freya went missing.'

Evie gasped. ‘What?'

‘She came to your house – remember? – ostensibly to check you were all right because you'd left the door open. I told her about Freya and she was terribly upset. Then while Michael was upstairs in his room for a while, it all came out. Her facts were correct: your birth date, the names of your adoptive parents, where you lived as a child, everything.'

Evie broke away. She was shocked. ‘But why didn't you tell me? How could you keep it from me?'

Bill looked serious. ‘She asked me not to. She made me promise.'

Evie shook her head.

‘Also, I didn't think you were in any fit state to take on board something as big as this. You'd got enough to think about with Freya. You needed to be focusing on her. I thought it was best if Carol told you in her own time, as and when she felt the moment was right.'

Evie's face crumpled. ‘So she decided that the right moment was just after she'd told me that Steve was still living with what I supposed to be his ex-wife. And now you tell me that you knew all along and you were hiding it from me?'

Bill was about to say something when they were disturbed by a noise next door.

‘Bill? There you are! I didn't know where you had gone.'

Evie's heart sank. A tall young woman with long brown hair was advancing towards them. It was the Ukrainian student.

‘I'm sorry,' she said in a strong accent. She looked oddly at Evie. ‘Have I disturbed something?'

‘Not at all,' Evie said. She turned to Bill. ‘You'd better get back to your tutorial.'

He frowned. ‘Could you give us a moment, Galina?'

‘Of course.' The young woman pointed to his house. ‘Shall I put the kettle on?'

‘Good idea.'

‘I have brought cakes. We can have tea and cakes.' She smiled at Evie. ‘Would you care for a cake? They are chocolate eclairs. I had never tasted one until I came to England.'

‘I'm on a diet,' Evie snapped.

‘Oh.' The young woman's eyes widened.

‘That would be nice,' Bill said. ‘I'll just be a moment.'

Evie gritted her teeth, waiting for the Ukrainian to leave.

‘You were rather sharp,' said Bill, once Galina was out of earshot.

Evie felt uncomfortably hot.

‘Look, it's a bit difficult now but I'll come round later,' Bill said. ‘When I've finished teaching. We can talk things through then.'

‘Don't bother,' Evie said, deadpan.

‘It'll be all right,' Bill persisted.

Evie stared at him. His blue eyes were trying to convey something but her insides felt hollow.

‘I have to go now,' he went on. ‘It's not fair on—'

‘Just go then,' Evie snapped. ‘I've had it up to here.' She did an invisible sign on her forehead with her hand.

‘Evie?'

She turned on her heel and marched back into the house. She was aware that Bill was standing, watching her, right up until the moment that she slammed the front door.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Zelda was sitting on a wooden bench by the big round pond in Victoria Park, staring at the ducks and geese. She didn't look up when Carol approached. ‘I thought you'd come today,' she said, her eyes fixed straight ahead.