Never Too Late (12 page)

on gold-edged china platters she’d never seen before. Evie

hadn’t known he could make stuff like that. He must

have had help.

When she’d brought her luggage upstairs, she’d been

surprised to find a small blue and white china vase of

winter flowering jasmine on the bedside locker in the twin

room she was sharing with Rosie.

How sweet, she thought fondly, smelling the delicate

sprigs. Her father had never been much of a man for

flowers. He never painted floral still lifes in his watercolour class: he preferred rugged landscapes. Still, it was a lovely,

welcoming gesture. At that moment she heard the sound

of dogs barking, the slam of the back door and Rosie’s

voice raised in greeting. Dad!

She hurried downstairs, taking two steps at a time.

‘Dad, I was so worried about you,’ she said happily, but

the words died on her lips as she rushed into the kitchen to

find he wasn’t alone.

Rosie was crouched on the floor rubbing Jessie, an

ecstatic black spaniel, while Gooch, a golden retriever, was slurping water from his bowl, slobbering all over the stone flags and showering great lumps of white fur into the air as

his feathery tail knocked against the table. Her father was

taking off his dark green Wellingtons. And a strange woman

was filling the kettle at the sink, behaving as if she was

totally at home.

Evie stared at the stranger in surprise. Sophisticated

and elegant even in a heavy Aran sweater and dark

trousers wet from the knees down, she was tall with sleek

honey-gold hair tied back in a knot. Evie reckoned the

woman was in her late-fifties although there were

remarkably few lines around the clear grey eyes that

stared out from a fine-boned face dusted with the merest

hint of a tan.

As she stared at the woman, Evie had the strangest

feeling that she too was being appraised, as if the grey eyes

were sizing her up. She immediately felt podgy in her

jeans: jeans she’d worn because they’d been washed so

often they were incredibly comfortable, but which did

nothing for her short legs and pear shape.

‘Evie! Welcome. Sorry we weren’t here to meet you but

I had to take the dogs out for a walk or they’d have gone

mad.’

Her father grabbed her in a bear hug and the two dogs

started barking madly again, jumping up and down and

generally making an incredible noise. Evie was about to

yell at them to stop when the woman spoke quietly.

‘Gooch, Jessie, sit!’ she said in a crisp, clear voice. An American voice.

Instantly, the two dogs, who’d never obeyed a command

from anyone but Evie’s father in their entire lives, stopped

barking and sat, both gazing up with such adoration at the

woman that Evie gasped aloud.

Rosie laughed delightedly. ‘How did you get them to do

that?’ she asked, rubbing Gooch’s velvety ears.

Andrew Fraser smiled fondly at the woman, one arm still

around Evie.

‘Vida has them eating out of her hand,’ he said proudly.

‘They walk beside her without their leads and come when

she calls them.’

Vida! Who the bloody hell was Vida? Evie wanted to

know. As if answering her question, Andrew reached out

and took the woman’s hand, clasping it tightly.

‘Evie and Rosie, I want you to meet Vida Andersen, a

very, very special friend of mine.’ His eyes twinkled as he

looked at Vida. Not a ‘special friend’ sort of look, Evie

thought suddenly, eyes narrowing. More of a ‘lover’ look.

And that, she realised with shocking clarity, was exactly

what Vida was.

‘Evie, Rosie, I’m delighted to meet you,’ she said, in a low cultured voice. ‘I’ve wanted to meet you both for so long.’

She moved forward and kissed Evie on one cheek,

leaving a subtle trail of expensive perfume in her wake,

Then she did the same with Rosie, who was gazing with

admiration at Vida, taking in the long sweeping lashes, the

subtle make-up and the strand of gleaming pearls barely

visible under the sweater.

‘I’d hoped to be more presentable when I finally met

you both,’ she laughed, gesturing at the Aran sweater she

wore with such panache. ‘This old thing of Andrew’s isn’t

the sort of thing one wants to wear to meet future …’ she

hesitated briefly, ‘. . friends.’

She was even wearing Dad’s jumper, Evie realised with

outrage. I bought that for him. In the sales one January. Ten

percent off, it was.

‘We’re delighted to meet you, aren’t we, Mum?’ said

Rosie, appearing beside Evie and giving her mother a surreptitious prod in the ribs.

‘Yes,’ she said automatically, switching into her gracious

mode. ‘Will you have a cup of tea?’ She busied herself

looking for the tea pot, which had always been kept beside

the tea caddy but which had now mysteriously been

moved. Are you staying in the village for a few days or

have you just moved in?’

Evie turned around from the worktop in time to see her

father and Vida exchange glances.

‘I’ve lived here for nearly a year,’ Vida said in that low

voice of hers to which Evie had taken an instant dislike.

‘In one of the cottages beside the mill,’ added Andrew,

handing the tea caddy to Vida.

‘It’s a bit rundown but I love it,’ she said. ‘I’ve been

having a house renovated here and it’ll be ready to move

into within a few months.’

She produced the tea pot and quickly made tea with the

ease of one who’d performed the same task in the same

kitchen many times before. Evie stood to one side with a

strained smile on her face and petted Jessie as she watched

them move around each other as if they were used to

spending time together.

Evie felt like an interloper. The other three, Rosie, her

father and Vida, were all relaxed in each other’s company.

Rosie would fit in anywhere. She had that knack of

appearing totally at home, no matter where she was, while

Evie had never had the gift and now felt as if she stood out

like a sore thumb.

‘Where’s your new house?’ she asked brightly.

Her father and Vida exchanged another meaningful

glance.

‘On Bracken Road. The Grange at the crossroads.’

‘Oh.’ Evie knew the house, a large old manor not unlike

Olivia’s parents’ house. ‘It’s very big for one person,’ she

said absently. ‘Do you have family living with you? Your

husband?’

As soon as she said it, Evie realised how bitchy it

sounded. Have you got a husband or are you looking for one?

Is that why you’re dangling around my father? She hadn’t

meant it to sound like that.

If Vida thought the question was barbed, she seemed

unconcerned. She poured tea into the china mugs Andrew

had laid on the pine kitchen table.

‘No, my last husband is dead. He died a long time ago, in

America.’

Again, there was a pregnant pause.

‘Let’s take the tea into the sitting room,’ said Andrew

briskly.

There they sat around the fire Rosie had managed to

light and talked about the drive from Dublin, the weather

and what time the guests were coming for the drinks party.

“I said half-six for seven, which leaves us an hour to get

ready,’ Andrew said, with a quick glance at his watch.

‘Early drinks parties are better because then everyone

doesn’t sit around until the wee small hours getting

sozzled’

‘Which would be a huge waste of time,’ Vida said to

him, a warm smile lighting up her face.

She was beautiful, Evie realised with a pang, feeling like

a giant blimp in a room full of sleek specimens. She must

have been absolutely stunning when she was younger

because she was pretty stunning now.

‘We met at a cocktail party,’ Vida said in a confiding

voice.

Rosie grinned. “I didn’t know you were into cocktail

parties, Grandpops?’

Her grandfather grinned back. ‘I wasn’t, until I met this

lady. She’s teaching me lots of new things.’ They both laughed.

‘Not only about cocktails,’ murmured Vida, in a voice

she hadn’t planned on anyone else hearing, but which

Evie, who could hear a whispered comment across four

desks in Wentworth Alarms, heard only too clearly.

She couldn’t cope with this bizarre conversation any

longer. Nobody was telling her anything and she just had to

know.

‘So, you two are going out?’ she asked bluntly.

The beatific look on her father’s face told her everything.

‘More

than going out, darling Evie,’ he said slowly,

dragging his eyes away from Vida. ‘I know I should have

told you some of this earlier, but it all happened so suddenly and I wanted to tell you in person: Vida and I are getting married. I wanted to tell the three of you together,

you, Rosie and Cara, but since you’ve asked …’

Evie stared at him, feeling as if the bottom had fallen

out of her world. Married. He was getting married again?

She thought of the photographs on the card table, the

faded one of her parents in their wedding clothes, her

mother in an oyster satin dress with a bright stain of red

lipstick on her mouth. Her wonderful dead mother, whom

she’d never stopped missing; the person Dad had mourned

for so long. Didn’t that mean anything to him at all? How

could he even look at another woman, especially one like

Vida, with her calculating gaze and silky voice?

‘Married?’ said Evie blankly.

‘Aren’t you happy?’ said her father in a pleading tone.

‘Happy?’ said Evie, parrot-like. ‘It’s such a shock. You

should have told me.’ She stared at him, so many things

left unsaid. Like: ‘How could you do this to me?’

“I know.’ Her father gave her his mischievous grin, the

one he usually used when she was tidying the overflowing

magazine rack and found newspapers dating from six

months ago wedged in behind his bedraggled crossword

book.

She could barely look at him, she felt so betrayed, so left

out. ‘Why couldn’t you have told me before, Dad?’ she

asked hoarsely, feeling a well of emotion bubble up inside

her. ‘Why?’

Andrew Fraser rubbed his eyes wearily and leaned back

in his chair. He seemed to be about to say something but

didn’t. Evie looked up from where she was savagely

scratching at a piece of loose skin on her thumb so that it

was almost ripped off. She stared at him gravely, waiting

for him to speak. He wasn’t going to. That bloody woman

had brainwashed him.

She got up abruptly- ‘I’d better change my clothes. The

guests will be coming soon.’ Without saying anything else,

she went upstairs.

Evie sat on the bed in a daze. Her all-purpose black

velvet dress was hanging in the wardrobe for its second

trip out in as many days and she’d even brought her

cordless hot hairbrush in case she felt inclined to recreate

the loose curls she’d had done in the hairdresser’s. But

Evie didn’t feel like getting ready for the drinks party.

She didn’t feel like doing anything. She was stunned,

shocked. Her father was getting married: actually getting

married. After twenty years of mourning her beloved

mother, he was going to let another woman into their

home, into his bed, and Evie didn’t think she could cope

with it.

Especially not that woman. Who did she think she was making

herself at home in Evie’s mother’s kitchen and in

Evie’s mother’s bed.

‘You nearly ready, Mum?’ Rosie stuck her head round

the door.

‘Er … yes,’ she stuttered. Mechanically, she unbuttoned

her white blouse and pulled off her comfy jeans. She took

tights from her drawer, and a black bra to go with the

dress, and got dressed. Picking up her sponge bag, she

headed for the bathroom. Every visible surface needed a

good scrub, she noticed as she shut the door. Her father

had never been good at washing away the mildew you got

in the old house. And dear Vida obviously wasn’t much

good at getting those perfect nails dirty, she thought

bitchily.

She flipped over her father’s old shaving mirror and

stared at a face so like her mother’s. They both had the

same wide open gaze, the same rounded cheeks with

dimples, the same warm hazel eyes and upturned noses.

That woman was nothing like her mother. She was thin

where Evie’s mother had been softly rounded; Vida

Andersen was all cool self-sufficiency where Alice Fraser

had been warm and welcoming.

Evie sat on the side of the bath miserably, then stiffened

as she heard two sets of footsteps pounding up the narrow

stairs.

The door to her father’s room shut loudly and she could

hear Vida’s voice through the thin walls.

‘You should have told her before this, Andrew. It’s not

fair to give the poor thing such a shock. If she’d known

about me, she could have become acclimatised to the idea,

not found it such a surprise.’

Evie couldn’t hear what her father replied. Used to the

walls in the house, he knew that everything you said in

the front bedroom could be easily overheard from the