Every family has secrets … but some keep them better than others.

Eva has always felt like a disappointment in her mother’s eyes, but even more so now that she has failed her exams. She is working part-time while she studies for her resits, dreaming of when she can go to university, and get away from her family. Her mum, Kathleen, is drinking even more than usual these days, and the void between them is deepening.

They say you never get over your first love, and Kathleen knows that more than most. She met Rick when she was sixteen, and was swept away by his charm and charisma. But their romance stayed behind closed doors and, years on, Kathleen still bears the scars of what he put her through. And Eva has not been an easy child to love.

As Eva and Kathleen struggle to connect, will the very thing that drove them apart be the one thing that can finally bring them together?

Also available by Marian Dillon

Looking for Alex

The Lies Between Us

Marian Dillon

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © Marian Dillon 2015

Marian Dillon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9781474044851

Version date: 2018-09-19

MARIAN DILLON

Marian lives in Sheffield, and has been a writer since she was twenty-one. She has previously published several books for children and young adults, and in 2011 she completed the MA in Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. The Lies Between Us is her second full-length novel.

Marian is part of the Hallam Writers’ group, whose members meet regularly to exchange ideas and critique each other’s work. They also give readings at literary festivals.

As well as writing, Marian works as a counsellor. She is married, with two grown-up sons.

Thanks go to my writers’ group, the Hallam Writers, for all their support with this novel and to Janet Digby-Baker OBE, for her help with my research into mother and baby homes in the 1960s.

Dedicated to the memory of my brother, Peter, who always encouraged me to write

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgement

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Excerpt

Endpages

About the Publisher

1

Eva

1987

On my way home from my shift at the Prince Albert, if I choose, I can go down the road where I lived until I was ten years old. I don’t always go this way, it’s quicker along Weston Avenue, but sometimes I like to walk down The Parade and turn right towards the park, which takes me right past our old house; 1 Ivy Road. This is what I do tonight. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Or maybe I’m putting off the moment of going home. I don’t know.

The small semi looks exactly the same after nine years – mucky grey pebble-dash, black and white paintwork, and the narrow front door with its sunrise window. When I lived here, I didn’t see that it was small, and mucky-looking, and lacking the suburban smartness that my parents now embrace. It was home. Now I look at it and think, what would this house say if it could talk? When we lived here, was my mother already drinking too much, and was my father already under her thumb? Were these things that I just didn’t notice then, being younger?

I often think I’d like to look inside, to see if anything has changed. It’s a young couple who live here now, I’ve seen them outside once or twice, and one time I nearly asked if I could look round, but I thought they’d be embarrassed, so I didn’t.

The flickering light of a TV can be seen through the gaps in the curtains and I stare at the window, imagining myself aged two, four, six, eight, ten – lying on my stomach in that room, gazing up at The Magic Roundabout, Sesame Street, Blue Peter, Tiswas, Grange Hill. I could go on and on, could list them all as I watched them all, always on my own. I can’t remember ever having my mother by my side on the big settee, although my mother never worked and was always home. She preferred to stay in the kitchen, smoking and drinking tea at the little Formica table, and if I went in for a glass of squash and a biscuit the room would be a warm fug of cigarette smoke. She would lift her head from the magazine she was flicking through – Woman and Home, Home and Garden, Country Life – and say vaguely, ‘All right, Eva?’ God knows what she’d have done if I’d ever answered ‘No’; it hadn’t been part of the agreement. If I left my mother alone, I could watch TV till the cows came home, and have my tea on a tray. That would normally be at five o’clock, when John Craven’s Newsround came on, and while I ate my fish fingers or tinned spaghetti I’d hear the chinking of glasses when my mother set the Martini out, ready for when my father came in at six. A ritual that got steadily earlier, until she stopped waiting for my father, eventually.

Down the road a door bangs and a man walks out with a dog. He gives me an odd look, so I pretend I’m looking for something in my bag, and then move on.

From here to what I still think of as ‘the new house’ is a distance of maybe half a mile, but the streets change dramatically; they widen, they sprout trees, and acquire drives and double garages; they become Avenue, Drive, Crescent. I’m entering a different world, the one we moved to when my father stopped selling cars for other people, took out a bank loan, and began the business of selling cars for himself to the people of Harborough. A business he’s doing very well in, reflected in the house I’m now looking at, in leafy Park Vale. Across the curved lawn, lights blaze and figures are silhouetted in the big bay window – the house is lit up like a cinema screen, for one of my parents’ parties. I can hear music pulsing and shrieks of laughter and I know the booze will be flowing. Hopefully, it should be easy to slip upstairs unnoticed.

Letting myself in at the front door I make straight for the stairs, but my father sees me as he comes out of the lounge with empty glasses in his hands.

‘Eva, where are you going?’ He’s a little tipsy, his speech veering towards the Brummy drawl that he tightens up for his customers. My accent, like my mother’s, is more nebulous, more received pronunciation than provincial. ‘Don’t go hiding upstairs. Where have you been? You’ve been out all day.’

‘Just out, with Louise, and some others,’ I say. ‘We went to see a film. And then I was working. Dad, you know that.’

‘Of course, of course.’ He’s smiling at me fondly. ‘Come on, come and say hello.’

‘Not now. You go back in.’

‘No, no. You must come and meet everybody. Come on Eva, just for me – you know I like to show my lovely daughter off, hmmm?’

‘Dad, I’m tired, and I’m not dressed for a party –’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘You look lovely, you look … delightful.’

And at that I give in to being propelled into the lounge and towed around the people gathered there, some of whom I know, most of whom I would rather not spend time with. Self-conscious, embarrassed by my father’s attention, I smile and nod and give the right responses to the same questions, over and over. No, I found I hadn’t quite got the grades I wanted, when I opened up my results letter (which doesn’t quite reflect the cold shock of those stark letters, C, D, D, and the idea of another whole year at home stretching ahead of me). Yes, I am retaking my A-levels and hope to go to university next year. Yes, I quite like my part-time job behind a bar, but I’m looking for something better paid to tide me over the next year. And no, I don’t have a boyfriend, yet. (As if that’s your business, I think.)

When my father is distracted by some guests who are leaving my mother drifts over on a cloud of Dior and gin, glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She wears ski pants with a sparkly lurex top that leaves one shoulder bare, and her newly permed hair is caught at both sides in tortoiseshell combs, from which red curls spill extravagantly. (One day I will tell her that she should stop trying to look like Olivia Newton-John). But it’s her eyes that make my heart sink, with that glitter in them that comes with an evening of steady drinking. When she drinks my mother never trips or stumbles over her words; drink seems to have the opposite effect on her. She becomes harder, sharper. At least, until the hard look eventually becomes a glassy, unfocused stare.

‘Hi, darling.’ My mother’s eyes run swiftly over my clothes: a long black blouse worn belted over a very short denim skirt, and then black tights and pumps. My standard pub uniform. Tomorrow she’ll ask me when I’m going to stop wearing all that black. ‘Nice day?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

Her mouth twitches. ‘Yes, thanks. Is that it?’ I go over the same things I told my father, and she says, ‘Was James there?’

‘No.’ I frown, wishing I’d never mentioned my one date with James Gregory. ‘No, he wasn’t.’

My mother pulls a face. ‘Shame.’ She smiles at her friend Connie, who has wandered across and is drinking all this in. ‘Eva’s saving herself. She hasn’t met anyone good enough yet, but we have great hopes of James.’

Connie laughs some more, until I snap, ‘Shut up, Mum, you’re talking bollocks,’ at which Connie’s gaze whips back to my mother. She, however, seems unfazed, and gives me a bright smile.

‘I suppose you must be tired?’

‘Actually no, not yet.’ I look around. ‘I think I’ll get a drink.’ I head off to the kitchen, sensing her mild annoyance follow me across the room, and pour myself a large glass of red wine. For a while I stand in the doorway, drinking my wine and staring down at my pumps, which, even to me, look incongruous next to a trio of stilettos.

Another pair of feet, shod in dark brown leather, materialise at my side. My gaze travels upwards – past jeans, a check shirt and a soft leather jacket – to find a pair of serious eyes staring at me. These eyes are the colour of polished wood, set in a face that is long and narrow, like a fox, and the owner has thick, light-brown hair, cut short at the back, with a big fringe that falls over his eyes. He looks younger than the rest, who are all my parents’ age. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him here before, but then I’ve usually made sure I was either staying at Louise’s or upstairs in my room.

He waves his bottle of Buds in my direction. ‘You look like you wish you were somewhere else.’ He has a deep voice and the accent is northern; some has become soom.

I glance into the room, to see my mother and Connie swaying along to ‘Dancing Queen’, with their hands in the air and all the words on their lips. I look back at him. ‘Don’t you?’

He laughs. ‘I hear these parties are a regular event.’

‘Yes, but no one ever seems to have had enough. They all still come.’

‘Which must include you – to know that?’

I give what I hope is an enigmatic smile; he obviously has no idea who I am. ‘You remind me of someone,’ I say.

‘Oh?’

‘I can’t think who.’

He turns his head. ‘Try my profile. Does that help?’

‘Not really. It’s in the eyes. Shit, it’s going to annoy me now.’

‘Don’t think about it, then it’ll come to you. I hope it’s someone good-looking.’

‘Well, now you’ve said that, I will of course think of someone supremely ugly.’

We both laugh. He looks down at my nearly empty glass.

‘Can I get you a refill?’

I nod, and he takes my glass and disappears into the crowd in the kitchen, and as I wait for him to come back there’s a new jittery feeling in my belly that tells me I’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t. I glance across at my mother and see she’s taking all this in. For a moment we hold each other’s gaze, then he comes back with my drink.

‘Do I get to know your name?’ I ask.

‘I’m called Ed,’ he says.

‘Why? Isn’t that your real name?’

He gives me a close look. ‘As it happens, no.’

‘Is it that bad, the real one?’

He grins. ‘You don’t get it out of me that way, either.’ He takes a swig of his beer. ‘So,’ he says, ‘you didn’t answer my question.’

I frown. ‘Question?’

‘I was saying, you must come here a lot?’

‘Oh. No, I never come to these parties if I can help it.’

‘You don’t like the company?’

‘No. Not much.’

I’m looking at my mother, now given up dancing and talking to one of my father’s colleagues, standing close, too close, with her head tilted fetchingly to one side, laughing too much. Ed’s gaze follows mine.

‘Pretty obvious, isn’t she?’

It’s startling to hear someone say it out loud. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I think so.’

‘I wonder if it’s all show. Or if she really lives up to her reputation.’

My stomach churns a little. Somehow I thought that I was the only one who would find my mother embarrassing; I never thought that she might have a reputation.

‘Don’t you know, then?’

‘Me? I’m a newcomer. Just moved to town. I’m here with my mate, Steve, he works for Vince.’ He nods at a man talking to my father, across the room, but I don’t recognise him. Then Ed’s gaze travels back to my mother. ‘Word is …’ He stops. ‘Look, I might be speaking out of turn. I hope she’s not your best friend, or your sister, or something like that.’

I’m watching my mother, as she puts her hand on the man’s arm and says something in his ear. He laughs heartily. ‘I suppose you mean she sleeps around.’

Ed turns to me, squinting slightly as someone’s cigarette smoke drifts across our field of vision. ‘Look, I’m not saying …’ He’s backtracking now, probably wondering if he’s dropped himself in it. ‘Steve says he thinks she’s not very happy, a bit desperate.’

I look back at my mother. I’ve never thought of it in those terms, that my mother might be desperate. I’ve always seen her as being totally in control.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Maybe.’

Ed peers at me through another wreath of smoke. ‘So, do you know them well – Kathleen and Vince?’

‘Oh,’ I say, ‘sort of, yes.’

‘Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. That’s me all over, putting my size nines in it.’

‘It’s okay. I know how things are.’

He waits for me to elaborate, and when I don’t we fall silent; in the long pause I wonder if he wants to extricate himself now, but is too polite. My head feels a bit swimmy after all the red wine and the couple of Stellas I was bought at work, and I start to think I should go to bed and save myself the embarrassment of Ed sidling off at the first opportunity. Then I catch my mother looking our way again, and change my mind. For want of something to say I begin to interrogate Ed. I find out that he comes from Leeds, hence the accent; that he’s been living and working in Cambridge, but moved here for a job on the local paper; that he’s the youngest of four boys; and that he’s staying with Steve, an old school-friend of his older brother, while he looks for a flat to rent. I begin to wonder how old he might be, as it’s hard to tell.

‘Is this your first job?’ I ask, and he shakes his head.

‘No. I’ve served my time as junior reporter, not to mention office gofer. This is a promotion.’

‘Gofer?’

He laughs. ‘If someone wants something, you go fer it.’

‘Ah.’ I’m still calculating. Twenty-four, five? But before I can glean any more information my father appears in front of us.

‘Eva, can I borrow Ed for a minute? Someone wants to meet him.’

I shrug. ‘Okay.’

‘Hope you don’t mind?’ he says to Ed.

‘Of course not.’ Ed turns to me. ‘Excuse me.’

I watch him go, and tell myself he must be relieved. Of course not. I would have liked to carry on talking, but I doubt he’ll be back, and as a loud burst of laughter comes from the group he joins I decide there’s no point hanging around like a lemon. I should just go to bed.

Upstairs, though, I realise I’ve left my bag; when I go back down I see my mother has now commandeered Ed and is talking to him at the far side of the room. Talking is a loose term; there’s a lot of flirting going on, she’s laughing and standing close, the way she does, with her eyes hooked on his. It’s so naked it’s embarrassing, and I hate to think of what Ed might say about my mother now, with firsthand experience of how ‘desperate’ she is. I shouldn’t care, I really shouldn’t care what others think, but somehow I still do – I can’t bear to see my mother making a fool of herself. I wonder if I should go and interrupt her, somehow prise her away from him, but that will piss her off even more and I’m not prepared to get the sharp end of my mother’s tongue in front of Ed.

Back in my room, I stand listening to the babble downstairs. Someone has just changed the music, and ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ drifts up the stairs. She’ll take a tumble on you, roll you like you’re a dice. Would she? Does she actually do that? I can hear her laughter now, above the rise and fall of voices, and to shut it out I put my hands over my ears. I stand there, frozen, with my heart hammering and my eyes squeezed tightly shut. When at last I open them I stride to the door and run smoothly, quickly, downstairs. In the lounge my mother still has Ed cornered and I watch them for a moment, trying to read Ed’s body language, to decide if he’s lapping it up or attempting escape, then I whirl round and go in search of my father. He’s in the kitchen, stashing empty bottles into a box.

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Do you? What, right now?’

‘Yes. Right now.’

He picks up a box of empties and turns towards the side door. ‘Just open the door, will you?’

I follow him out, and I’m wondering what to say, because when I came back down I hadn’t got as far as that. ‘Dad, don’t you think you should wind the party up now? It’s late.’

He gives me a puzzled look. ‘Don’t be daft, Eva. It’s just getting going.’

‘Dad, listen, please. It’s Mum.’

‘What?’

‘She … she drinks too much.’

He laughs. ‘No more than anyone else. Don’t be daft.’

‘No, it is more, way more. And … Dad, you need to sort this out.’

‘Eva …’ He’s shaking his head, smiling. ‘You funny girl.’

My father puts the box down by the bin, the bottles chinking together. Then he makes to move round me, to go back inside. I put my hand on his arm. ‘Dad, please, just tell them all to go home. Make them go home.’

He pauses for a moment, caught by the threat of tears in my voice. He reaches up and smoothes my hair on one side. ‘What’s wrong, Eva? It’s only a little party.’

‘It’s a party every week, Dad, and she drinks as much on all the other nights. It’s out of control.’

He frowns. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous. Nothing’s out of control.’

‘Vince?’ My mother appears, framed in the doorway. ‘Steve and Amy are going. They want to say goodbye.’ She looks at me. ‘I thought you’d gone to bed.’

I tighten my lips and glare at her. She sighs, brushing back long wisps of hair that have come loose from one of her combs.

‘Eva thinks we should tell everyone to go home,’ my father says, and I flinch at the amusement in his voice. ‘You’re out of control, she says.’

‘Me? Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t be stupid, Eva. It’s a party, not Sodom and Gomorrah. Come on, Vince, you’re the host, you can’t stand out here all night.’ She goes back in to the party.

I stand looking at my father. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Have it your way. But I know you know what I’m talking about.’

Turning, I push my way rudely through some people coming into the kitchen, just in time to see Ed following Steve and his wife out onto the porch. My eyes meet Ed’s for a moment, and he raises a hand in a single wave, before the door slams shut behind them, and then I run up to my room and close that door too, leaning against it as if the whole houseful is behind me.

Pretty obvious, isn’t she?

So why haven’t I seen it?

***

At ten-thirty the pub is still filling up, and myself and the other two bar staff are working at full tilt. Occasionally the landlord pitches in, rounding up the empties, but mostly he chats to the locals and gets on with what he calls ‘keeping things sweet’. We should have had Jon on as well tonight, but no one predicted it would be this busy on a Wednesday night. There’s no reason we can think of – just one of those things. Maybe because it’s been such a warm day, the last day of September, making people feel nostalgic for their Spanish holiday and sending them in droves to the next-best thing, the great British pub.

My feet ache, and I’m so hot I can smell the sweat on myself. I’ve been pulling pints for four hours solid, and if I have to listen to Rick Astley singing ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ one more time I think I’ll throw up. As if that isn’t enough, I’ve just started my period and the heavy, dragging feeling between my legs is yet one more drain on my energy.

All in all, I’ll be glad when eleven o’clock comes round and the bell is rung, and that lovely phrase called out in the landlord’s husky, forty-a-day voice: Time per-lease!

As I look up from pulling a pint the door opens, and a large group of men crowd through. It’s obvious from the suits and ties that they started drinking straight from work; now, at the end of the night, they’re loud and full of drunken banter, although harmless enough. As I serve them I find myself laughing along at their stupid jokes, a bit of light relief. I know the landlord is keeping an eye on things, so I don’t have to think too much about it. Then the door opens again and three more squeeze through and struggle to the bar. When I glance up again I see who the last one is, before he sees me. And then he does, and quickly I look back down to the Snakebite I’m pouring – which is hard enough to do at the best of times. The man who ordered it is grinning at his mates, in a ‘watch her make a mess of this’ way, so I take extra care to dribble the Guinness slowly and thinly down the side of the glass, into the waiting cider, so that it doesn’t froth up and over. I’m glad to have something to distract me, and that I can blame the flush in my cheeks on the heat in the bar. When I’ve finished, and the pint stands there with its gold and dark layers, there’s a loud cheer. Despite myself I laugh, and give them a mock bow.

They drift away from the bar, finding seats when the group who have been sitting in the corner for hours decide it’s home time. I look around for Ed. He’s been served by someone else, and is now at the end of the bar talking to his friends. He doesn’t look my way, and I get on with serving, cleaning, washing up, collecting empties. I’m surprised to see him in here. The Prince Albert is on the main road out of town, about a mile or so from the centre. It serves office and shop workers at lunchtimes and locals in the evenings; with its fading seventies décor and keg beer it isn’t the kind of place you’d go out of your way for. I glance at him again out of the corner of my eye, not wanting him to see me looking. Anyway, he probably doesn’t remember me, as it’s a few weeks since that party, or if he does he isn’t interested in picking up where we left off. Maybe Steve will have told him who I am, and when I think of that, and how my mother was so ‘obvious’ that night, I wonder if I even want him to recognise me.

When the bell is rung and eventually the punters begin drifting off, I look despairingly at the mess that remains; far more than the usual half hour’s close will see to. The landlord sees my face.

‘Go on. You get off,’ he says. ‘You look dead on your feet.’

I started an hour earlier than everyone else, and the only time I’ve stopped was for toilet breaks, so I don’t think anyone can accuse me of skiving. My coat and bag are in the room at the back, and while I fetch them I decide that I will go and say hello to Ed, because why the hell not? I’ve got nothing to lose but pride. But when I come back through he’s gone, and I’m disappointed, kicking myself for not going over before.

Outside the air is still balmy; it’s hard to think that soon all the leaves will fall and winter will set in. Maybe that’s why there are still people hanging around, chatting and laughing; no one wants to go home to bed; they want to make the most of this Indian summer. I have to squeeze past a large group standing right by the door, but as I start the walk home I feel a hand catch my arm.

‘Hi, wait, I thought it was you.’

Ed’s there with his two mates, who immediately stop talking to look me up and down, but Ed says goodbye to them and thanks for something or other, and with more glances at me and big grins pasted on their faces they saunter off together.

‘I was going to come and say hello, but then you disappeared,’ Ed says.

‘You were with your friends, I didn’t want to interrupt.’

‘Nice work,’ he says, ‘with the Snakebite.’

I grin. ‘Yeah. I made sure of it.’

There’s a slight pause, when neither of us seems to know what to say next. A bus rumbles by. I could have caught that one, as far as the park. Although generally I like to walk, tonight my feet hurt. I’m about to say I should go when Ed asks if there are any fish and chip shops nearby.

‘There is one, yes, not far.’

‘Don’t suppose you fancy some as well?’

I can just picture them now, fat, greasy chips and white, flaky fish, and a hollow feeling drops into my stomach. I always feel hungry when I’m on my period.

‘I wouldn’t mind.’

‘Right. Lead the way then.’

I point in the opposite direction from home, towards town. ‘There’s a place along here.’ I giggle. ‘Sorry, no pun intended. They do the best chips.’

Ed is tall and his stride is long, and I find myself quickening my normal pace. ‘What were you doing in the Albert?’ I ask him. ‘It’s a bit of a dive.’

‘I don’t mind dives,’ he says. ‘But only if they have good beer. Pity that’s my local.’

‘Your local? Does Steve live round here?’

‘No, I’m not staying with him now, I moved into a flat, at the weekend. The two lads I was with, they’re from work, they helped me move a few things in this evening. I bought some second-hand stuff and hired a van to shift it all in one go.’

He tells me what he bought, and what a job they had getting some of it up the narrow stairs to his flat, and I like listening to him, to his northern voice with its abrupt endings and the t just a sound in the back of the throat. When we reach the chip shop we get served quickly because it’s empty, about to close, then we turn back the way we came, picking chips and bits of fish out of polystyrene trays, licking the grease off our fingers.

‘You were right,’ Ed says. ‘About the chips.’

My feet are really hurting now, and I say there are some benches a bit further along, where we could sit down and eat, and Ed says, yes, sure.

The benches are in some gardens, planted on the site of the old Co-op, which burnt down a few years ago; I remember seeing the orange glow in the sky from my bedroom window, the fire was that fierce. Behind the benches is a flower bed, whose leggy plants are still flowering. I recognise them, chrysanthemums, my father’s favourite and one of the few plants I know the name of. Their dank and earthy scent is in the air, and makes me think of a story by D.H. Lawrence, about the accidental death of a miner: Odour of Chrysanthemums. We read it in English, and I liked it so much I went on to read all his novels.

That’s the one thing I really regret, that C in English. It should have been an A. Then I would have already escaped.

We sit down, under a lamp post that casts a circle of brightness around us, and eat hungrily at first, not saying much. I start to wonder if my parents will worry that I’m not home, but then think that my mother is just as likely to be out of it, having drunk herself into one of her deep sleeps, and my father will probably assume I’ve gone off somewhere with a friend, forgetting that most of my friends have gone away to university. Except for Louise, who works in a bank and is all loved up with Tom, about to move into a flat with him. I don’t see much of her these days.

Every now and then my father says he ought to come and pick me up after work, but I tell him I’m all right and that Jon the barman walks me home. Which he does – some nights. I never say to my father that I don’t like climbing into a car with him when he smells of whisky, and when I think he might be over the limit. There’s no way of telling when that might be; if my mother is in one of her drinking moods my father usually has a few too, keeping her company. I think that way he can pretend my mother has it under control.

‘How’s your new job going?’ I ask Ed.

‘Okay. Hard work. I’d forgotten what it’s like, being new boy.’

‘What kind of stories do you cover? I mean, I suppose you don’t just do any old thing.’

‘In Cambridge I was a court reporter,’ he says. ‘But now I’m doing more investigative stuff, stories that are in the public interest, that kind of thing. At the moment I’m following the row about the new bypass they’re planning. Have you heard about that?’

‘A bit, yes. My dad goes on about it. He’s all in favour of it because it would bring traffic right by his salesrooms.’

‘You might have read one of my articles, without knowing it’s me.’

I shake my head. ‘My parents don’t buy the Echo. My mother says it’s too provincial. But then she reads the Daily Mail so her opinion doesn’t really count for much.’

‘Provincial is a dirty word to some,’ he says. ‘But a local paper needs to carry local news. De facto. Anyway, if you buy it yourself you’ll see my name there, most days.’

‘Ah – well, you’ll have to tell me your proper name then.’ I lick grease off my fingers. ‘I guess they don’t just put, by Ed?’

He winces. ‘Shot myself in the foot there, didn’t I? All right. But first an explanation.’ He gulps down a piece of fish. ‘My parents are called Rhona and Ralph. They decided we boys should all have a name beginning with R. So, there’s Robert, Richard, Raymond and … then they ran out of decent names. I’m Rupert.’

‘Rupert?’ Apart from anything else the name doesn’t go with the flat, northern vowels.

‘Yeah. Like the bear. Rupert Edwards – hence, Ed. Or Eddie the Teddy as my “friends” at school used to shout.’ I snort with laughter. ‘And no, you don’t have permission to call me that.’

He eats the last few chips and screws up the wrapper. ‘Your name’s unusual. I don’t know any other Evas.’

‘My mother named me after one of her favourite film stars. Eva Marie Saint.’

‘Never heard of her, but I like the name.’ He pauses. ‘So you still live at home? You said your parents don’t buy the Echo.’

I stare at him; I’ve almost forgotten that he doesn’t really know who I am.

‘I can’t afford to move out. I don’t earn enough.’

‘That’s your only job, at the pub?’

‘Yes, part-time.’

‘Right.’

I’m going to have to tell him. ‘I only just left school. I failed my A-levels – well, didn’t get the grades I needed for university. So I’m doing resits and hope to go next year.’ I see by his eyes that he’s registering my age, looking surprised; I know I look older than nineteen. ‘I’ll have to find something that pays more, soon. I want to move out, find a flat, if I can.’

‘It’s expensive,’ he says. ‘It costs more than you think.’

‘What’s yours like?’

‘Okay. Monochrome. Everything’s black and white. Apart from the bedroom, which for some weird reason has got shiny wallpaper and looks like the inside of a spaceship. But it’ll do. It’s not for long.’

When I’ve finished my fish and chips we look round for a bin, then leave the gardens.

‘I’ll walk you home,’ Ed says. I tell him there’s no need, but he insists, and to be truthful the streets seem lonely now, at nearly midnight. There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach when I realise what he’s about to find out, but I don’t know how to tell him so decide to just let it happen. As we walk along Park Vale I wonder if he will recognise the house. After all, he’s only been there once, as far as I know. But when we get near, when we come to a slow halt outside my house – unlit, a dark block of shadow against the inky-black sky – his mouth drops open.

‘This is your house? Your parents’ house?’

I nod, hoping he won’t think I’ve deliberately done this. I picture the little film show going on in his head: my mother drunkenly dancing; my mother close up to him, practically pinning him against the wall; the things he said to me right at the start. Word is… Steve thinks she must be a bit desperate.

Ed groans, and plunges his head into his hands. He stands very still, staring down at the pavement, then breathes in, breathes out, and looks back at me.

‘Sorry doesn’t go anywhere near, does it? That must have been … what I said, it was so offensive.’ He shakes his head. ‘How come you’re here? I’d have thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.’

I fiddle with a loose thread on the cuff of my jacket. ‘Listen, Ed, it’s what everyone thinks, that’s what you said. Including me. Although I guess, up to now, I’ve only ever thought of it as flirting – embarrassing, drunken flirting. Now …’ I shrug. ‘I’m not sure what I think. Maybe she does have affairs, sleep around, whatever you want to call it. She’s never worked, always been home, she’d have the opportunity, wouldn’t she?’

I glance behind, and see an open window at my parents’ bedroom, and possibly someone moving away from the window, just as I look up. I had spoken softly, but in the quiet of the night my voice seemed too loud. As Ed begins to answer I put one finger on my lips, and he lowers his voice.

‘But you don’t want to listen to gossip. People always exaggerate, make things up. Just because it’s what people think doesn’t make it true.’

‘No. But you listened.’

He gives a slight nod – yes.

‘And the way she behaves, it doesn’t matter what the truth is. The damage is done.’

‘Seems as though she doesn’t really care too much what people think.’

I shake my head. ‘I meant the damage to my father.’

He frowns, and remembering that Steve works for my father I panic at the thought I might be making things worse with my blabbing. ‘Look, this is just between you and me. Please don’t talk to Steve about it. He can think what he likes, but I don’t want my family being this week’s hot topic.’

‘Of course, of course I won’t.’

‘Thanks. I do trust you, Ed, which is weird because I hardly know you.’

He gives me a long, slow smile, which does two things to me, right at the same time; first it makes my stomach flip over with pure pleasure, and second it makes me feel intensely self-conscious, wiping out any thoughts of what to say next. Nervously I lick my lips, and hear myself say,

‘Well I’m going in now. Thanks for the fish and chips.’

‘You’re welcome. Maybe I’ll see you in the Albert – if I can bring myself to drink the beer.’

‘Right. Maybe,’ I say, as nonchalantly as I can manage. As he turns to go I put my hand on his arm. ‘I just worked it out,’ I say. ‘Who you remind me of.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. It’s one of those old pop stars, can’t remember the name, my mother has all his records. You look just like him. You’ve even sort of got a quiff.’

He laughs, then pats my hand, and walks away. I could kick myself. Why the hell did I say that?

Kathleen

1963

There’s always an ‘if’, isn’t there? But some ‘ifs’ seem more crucial than others.

If I hadn’t been so ill with measles just before the Eleven Plus.

If my parents hadn’t accepted my fail so readily.

If they’d insisted on my retaking it, or some special dispensation for my condition.

But no, you didn’t do that then; you took what came to you and got on with it, or the neighbours would think you were getting above yourself.

I wasn’t a really clever child, but I do think that if my head hadn’t felt like it was stuffed with cotton-wool I would have passed that exam. And maybe then life would have taken a totally different path.

My mother always said that I was lucky to have been at Page Road, as though I should have been grateful for the chance to learn to type. Unlike some secondary moderns, Page Road offered a few City and Guilds courses, for the boys in metalwork or woodwork, the girls in shorthand and typing. So when we left, most of us walked straight into a job.

In June 1963, at the age of fifteen, I walked through those school gates for the last time, having acquired a grand total of just two CSEs (in English and housecraft) and my City and Guilds. The following Monday I joined the typing pool of Harrison & Sons, an engineering firm. On that first day I was so sick with nerves I couldn’t eat breakfast, but I was excited too. I’d be a working girl, not a schoolgirl, I’d have my own money to buy what I wanted, and I’d be able to wear my own clothes and not that disgusting bottle-green uniform, with its skirt all shiny from sitting on hard, wooden chairs.

The expectation was that I’d stay at Harrison’s until I married and had kids. That was what my mother did, working in one of the shoe factories until she had me and my brother, John. ‘I couldn’t see any point messing about, looking for other jobs,’ she’d once told me. ‘I was happy there so I stayed put.’

At that point the idea of marriage was a very remote one – a desirable but far-off state that I might one day find myself in. Of course I’d had boyfriends; for most of us at school acquiring boys had been more important than acquiring qualifications. The one had brought kudos and immediate gratification; the other seemed unnecessary, promising us work that we were all expected to give up at the first sign of babies. Still, when I thought about marriage it seemed to have no connection with those boys, the shy, awkward ones or the brash, loud ones, all of whom seemed to laugh like braying hyenas. I couldn’t quite see how I was going to bridge that gap, but I did believe that somehow it would happen.

My first day at Harrison’s was spent trying hard to absorb a million facts, all the routines and procedures – where to find this, where to find that, which stationery to use for which purpose, who was who and how to find them and then how to address them, or not – until my head was clogged with facts like an overstuffed suitcase. I was shown round by the Personnel Manageress, a brisk, scary woman with a beehive hairdo. She said that I’d be working mainly for the draughtsmen, typing up the specs for their drawings, and that sometimes I would have to go down to their department to fetch last-minute jobs and alterations. We stopped off on our little tour to look down on the drawing room from a windowed corridor above, where twenty or so men sat in rows at their boards. One or two of them glanced up, and one put his thumb up and grinned. I gave a faint smile back. The idea of walking in there and asking for anything was terrifying.

The factory itself was huge, but the offices and drawing department were all huddled together at the front of the building, so I thought I’d find my way round all right. In the typing pool there were about nine of us, and one girl was assigned to look after me. She was called Mary, and I took to her straightaway. She had vivid green eyes and a gutsy laugh.

At first I was quite timid and hardly dared speak to anyone apart from Mary, let alone ask for anything I might need. When I had to go down to the drawing room it was all I could do to say what I’d come for. But gradually, as the weeks went by, I got to know the men and started to chat back to them. They relished having us girls come along to relieve the boredom, and it was all just a bit of fun, they weren’t rude or dirty… well, except for the odd one or two, and I tried to avoid them. I hated being made to blush, and then hearing them laugh when I went out.

I tried hard to save money, which is what my dad said I should do – for a rainy day, he said. But it wasn’t easy when every Saturday all I wanted to spend my money on was records and clothes, the only two things I was really interested in then. Beatlemania had swept the country (pushing out singers like my idol, Billy Fury, who I still adored) and fashion had hit the High Street. It was as if I’d been half-asleep, as if my life had just properly woken up and I could see my sedate twinsets and tweedy A-line skirts for what they were: staid and deeply boring. I even began to think I looked worryingly like my mother. So now, on Saturdays, I went shopping with Mary, who I’d become good friends with. There was a new shop in town called Lewis Separates, where you could try things on without the assistant looking down her nose at you. Everything in there was so new and fresh, it was as though colour had been thrown down from the sky and landed right here on our High Street. I can still picture some of the things I bought: a lilac dress and matching coat; a tight houndstooth skirt that came above the knee and which I could only take small steps in; a cherry-coloured blouse with a ruffled collar, which I wore over a pair of black ski pants that my mother denounced as ‘unfeminine’. I kept going back, and what I couldn’t afford to buy I eyed up for making. Then I would get cheap material and Butterick Patterns off the market and run things up on my mother’s old sewing machine. It was mostly shift-dresses, which were so easy to make. With each one the hems rose a little further above the knee, and the skirts got a little tighter. To complete the look I learnt how to backcomb my hair into a blonde bouffant, and experimented with make-up. I piled it on – heaps of mascara, thick black eyeliner and pale, glossy lips – until my father muttered that I looked like a panda and my mother said I was showing them up. I didn’t really care about that. I was sixteen now, and turning heads. I had my mother’s eyes (baby-blue), my father’s full lips and a swing to my hips that I practised at home.

It worked, the look I’d perfected. I got chatted up at work, or at the dances Mary and I went to, and was asked for dates quite often, some of which I accepted – to films, or to a milk bar, or maybe a walk in the park on a Sunday. It was all very tame, and I didn’t find any of the boys especially interesting. So I didn’t go for long with anyone; I was always looking for the next conquest.

Months passed like this. By Christmas, Mary was engaged to one of the engineers on the shop floor, who she’d had her eye on for some time. She said she was sure he was ‘Mr Right’ and that all she wanted to do was leave work and have children. Some people thought it was too quick and there were rumours about her being pregnant, but no bump appeared. I hoped she wouldn’t have babies yet; I thought I’d be lost without her at work.

In January 1964 a new junior manager started at Harrison’s. His name was Rick Boutell and his family had moved to Harborough from London, which gave him an air of cosmopolitan glamour. Not only that – he was achingly good-looking. He had thick, glossed hair swept up in a quiff and cheekbones a girl would die for. At a distance he could have passed for Billy Fury; that on its own was enough to get my pulse racing. He was twenty-one, and had what others called ‘experience’, which raised the glamour factor. Even his name sounded like a pop star’s; Rick Boutell. He was a far cry from the other men at work, and suddenly all my light-hearted flirting had found a serious target. But not an easy one.

Unlike the other men, Rick didn’t seem to notice me much, although I tried to catch his eye. In the canteen I would give him a little smile if he glanced my way. And if we happened to pass in the corridor I’d say ‘Hello!’ brightly, but not slow down at all, as though I was far too busy to stand and chat. I made sure to emphasise that little sway to my hips that I knew men liked. All of this had worked a treat before, but all I got from Rick was an amused stare or a quizzical look. It was as if he could see straight through my little ploys and was laughing at me. Mary said not to bother about him, that he was rumoured to be having an affair with a married woman, that he was a ‘bit of a one’. I wasn’t sure I believed this, but it only made me more determined.

Things went on like this for some weeks until finally I had to accept that he just wasn’t interested in a sixteen-year-old girl. I’d been asked out by someone else, someone more my own age. I was thinking about it, and had stopped trying to get Rick to notice me. Two days later, as I was coming out of the ladies’, I saw him loitering by the window, looking out at a sudden flurry of snow. It was late February. He turned as he heard the door.

‘Looks cold out there,’ he said, tilting his head towards the window. I said yes, it did. ‘So… I think maybe you’d like to go for a drink sometime?’ he went on, with such casual cheek it took my breath away. I just stared at him, feeling my face grow hot. He grinned. ‘It hasn’t gone unnoticed, you see. Your interest. Only I was waiting.’

I blinked, thinking maybe this was how they behaved in London; this was how you did it when you had ‘experience’.

‘Waiting for what?’

‘Until I was free, of course. I don’t like two-timing.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Better be getting back. What do you think then? Tomorrow at eight? I’ll meet you outside Boots in town.’

I was used to being called for, so that my dad could give them the once over. And I wasn’t used to it being assumed I’d say yes.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you tomorrow.’

I didn’t tell my parents, partly because of him not coming to the house, partly because I didn’t want to contaminate the nervous, fizzing excitement inside me with their inevitable questions. As far as they were concerned I was meeting a girlfriend and going to the cinema.

He was there at Boots before me and took me to the Fox and Hounds. I didn’t tell him I’d never been in a pub without my parents, and I wondered if he thought I was older than I was. I was so nervous I could hardly speak, hardly think what to say. Luckily he talked enough for both of us so I just sat and listened until a couple of Cherry Bs had loosened my tongue. But as the evening went on my heart began to sink when I realised what a gulf there was between us. Every topic of conversation seemed to show me up as naïve and ignorant. Like music. He was into jazz and blues and Bob Dylan, and thought the Beatles were a one-hit wonder. And films. I said I liked watching all the old black-and-whites on TV, and he looked scornful. ‘My all-time favourite’s Rebel Without a Cause,’ he said, and then that James Dean was his hero. I didn’t tell him I’d barely heard of the film, or James Dean.

Eventually we got on to our families, and the gulf widened until it yawned beneath my feet. His father was in property, he said. My face must have shown that I didn’t know what being ‘in property’ meant exactly, and Rick explained that his father bought, sold and rented houses.

‘He used to work in my grandfather’s business, in the East End,’ he said, ‘trading cloth. But the war saw off the business, my granddad retired on the proceeds of selling the building, and my old man turned to property.’

When his father had made ‘quite a bit of money’ they’d moved out of London to Harborough. I recognised the name of the road where they lived; there were some big houses down there by the park.

‘Why don’t you just work for your dad?’ I asked him. ‘Couldn’t he give you a job, if he makes so much money?’

Rick shrugged. ‘I will one day. He said I should do something else first. Another string to my bow, as he calls it.’

Rick asked me about my family, and miserably I told him that both my parents worked in a shoe factory, my father as a supervisor and my mother as a stitcher on the line. He didn’t say much to that, but I saw him reassessing what little he knew about me.

When Rick walked me home I stopped at the end of our street and said, ‘Well, here we are, this is where I live.’ I pointed to somewhere halfway along the terrace, deliberately vague. But then, feeling guilty about fobbing him off, I said, ‘Do you want to come in for a coffee, or anything?’ He grinned, and I regretted that ‘or anything’. Then regretted asking him at all, wondering how I’d explain it away.

‘Dad will give you the third degree, though,’ I added. ‘And my little brother will hang around and be annoying.’

‘Now that sounds inviting.’ He pulled his collar up a little higher and blew on his hands, then shoved them into his pockets. ‘I’ll see you at work then. Okay?’

‘Yes, sure,’ I said, and he turned and walked away, round the corner and gone. I was stunned. Given his reputation I’d imagined myself having to politely remove groping hands. Was that it? Not even a peck on the cheek? Had I not passed the test?

In bed, later, I thought back over the evening, convincing myself that everything I’d told him would have put him off. I felt stupid, like I’d somehow been found out, found wanting. And I was disappointed; it sat in my stomach like a bowlful of my mother’s porridge, because even though I could see he was a bit full of himself I liked him. He made me laugh.

Two days passed without another word from him, barely an acknowledgement when I saw him at work. On the third day, we happened to pass in the corridor above where the draughtsmen worked. When he saw me coming he stopped and leant back on the wall, his eyes looking me up and down. I got ready to give him a quick nod and carry on, but he put one hand up to stop me.

‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ he asked.

Tomorrow was Friday, and I was doing nothing. I looked down at the drawing room and saw two of the men staring up at Rick and me. One leant over to the other and said something that the other one laughed at. I ignored them and turned back to Rick. ‘I’m seeing a friend,’ I said. And then added, ‘Maybe.’

‘Well, don’t see her, see me instead. I’ll take you to a nice Italian restaurant I know.’

Italian? That was one up on the fish and chips I usually get offered. ‘What, you don’t talk to me for two days and then you want to take me out?’

Well, those were the words in my head, but what I actually said was, ‘All right then. Why not?’

2

Eva

1987

The next morning, I get up late, around eleven.

I’ve been lying in bed thinking about Ed. This is something new to me, as I don’t think I’ve ever found my attention so absorbed by anyone I’ve been out with. Sometimes I’ve wondered if anyone ever would get my attention.

Contrary to what my mother thinks, I have had boyfriends – all part of the same group of friends, boys I’ve known for ages. Mostly it was just a few dates, although Robin Phipps lasted for five months on and off; I lost my virginity to him. It was at a party, on a pile of coats in the bedroom, a deliberate decision on my part to seduce him – out of curiosity and the desire to be able to join in conversations with girlfriends. Then a few times we had sex at his house when his parents were out. I enjoyed it, up to a point, but there was lots of fumbling and not too much in it for me. I still somehow feel as though I haven’t experienced sex, although technically I think I once had an orgasm. And I definitely never lay in bed thinking like this about Robin, only about the act itself.

I feel teased by Ed, that is, I want to know him better. And I have to admit to a certain feeling of lust; I have a sense that sex with him might be entirely different to sex with Robin.

I wonder if he will come back to the Albert. Maybe I’ll see you around, he said. It wasn’t hopeful, even though when I think about our conversation I feel we sort of connected, and that he was interested in me.

But then there was the walk back here, until there was no hiding the fact of who I am: the daughter of his friend’s boss, whose mother he had to practically fight off at their party before leaving at speed. If Ed has any sense he’ll stay well clear, I think gloomily.

Flinging back the covers I emerge from the warm huddle of my bed and go to the window. The weather has changed, and yesterday’s sun has been replaced by a damp and grey sky, the colour of old washing-up water. It’s windy too. Leaves are coming off the trees and blowing around the lawn, skittering in little whirls, like tiny dancers. It looks chilly, and uninviting, and I feel as leaden as the sky as I wonder what to do with the day ahead. Maybe I should go into town, to one of those temping agencies, and try to find a job. And I have said I’ll enrol on a computer course; there’s one starting soon at the local library, something called CLAIT. I’ve used the BBC computers at school to type up the odd essay, whenever I could get on one of the few available in the library. But this course is supposed to teach things like spreadsheets and databases. I’m not too sure what they are or how useful they’ll be, but everyone is saying it’s the way things are going, and that soon everything will be done on computers. So if I want to be employable I should start learning fast.

And, of course, there’s always work to be done for my English and history resits, which I have to hand in tomorrow at college. I could go to the library and work there.

After my shower, instead of my usual big, baggy sweatshirt and leggings I put on some clean jeans, with the Fair Isle sweater I had last Christmas. It looks cold enough for that today, and the jumper is smart enough for job-seeking. On the way out of my room I stop to look in the mirror, not concerned so much with my body, which I quite like (enough, but not too much, of boobs and hips), but with my face, which I’m never sure about. I run my fingers through my hair – dirty blonde Louise calls it – lifting it up off my face, then I brush the fringe more to one side and stare into my eyes, large and grey-blue, with long lashes. These are my best feature. My gaze skips over my nose, which I think is too fat at the bottom, although an old boyfriend did once tell me he found my nose sexy. When I get to my mouth I pout, to make it seem fuller, then relax it and smile, to see how I look when I’m not just staring. But the smile comes out as a fixed grin, the sort I always have on me in photos. I hope I look more normal when I really smile.

Downstairs in our newly refurbished kitchen – all oak and cream, with the huge Aga that apparently everyone has now – my mother is sitting at the breakfast bar with a coffee and cigarette on the go. She too has just got up; in fact this is early for her. She must have eased off on the drink last night. She’s wearing her brightly printed kimono, and her hair – which is naturally the same shade as mine, but currently dyed mahogony – is caught behind her head in a clip, with wisps hanging down at the front. She’s flicking through a recipe book. She does this a lot, and then makes one of the same old dinners she always makes; she just seems to like looking at the illustrations. Sometimes she even gets as far as buying some of the ingredients – herbs and spices and special sauces – but then hardly ever gets the essential meat or fish to actually make the dish. On the rare occasions she does, she gets all flustered and het up and swears the recipe must be wrong because it isn’t coming out right. The Aga, I think, is wasted.

‘Look at this, Eva. Guacamole.’ She pronounces it ‘goo-acamole’; I have to stop myself from correcting her, because my mother really doesn’t like it if she thinks I’m trying to show her up. ‘It’s made from avocado pears. You put it on chilli. Sounds lovely. I think I’ve got some of that tabasco sauce.’ Suddenly she stops, and stares into space. ‘Avocado,’ she says, with a distant look on her face. That’s all.

I make tea and toast, while my mother carries on looking through the book. I smother the toast with raspberry jam then lean against the sink to eat it. I’m thinking of nothing in particular, staring absently at my mother’s hair. The red is growing out slightly, and I can see the roots, which somehow seem less blonde than I remember. When did that happen, that my mother’s hair began to fade? Otherwise, I have to admit, she could actually pass for younger than she is. Her jawline is still firm, and her skin smooth. Thirty-nine she was, last birthday.

‘Who was that that brought you home last night?’ The question shoots out of my mother, at the same time as she turns another page of the recipe book.

‘Jon,’ I lie smoothly, licking jam off my fingers.

My mother taps her cigarette on the ashtray then looks up at me.

‘No. That wasn’t Jon.’

It was her then, looking out of the window. ‘Okay, it wasn’t.’

‘So who was it?’

Usually when my mother is trying to get information from me about my friends, it’s in a silky, persuasive sort of voice, hoping that I will confide in her. I never do, just as I never brought friends home from school or invited them for sleepovers – especially after I went to All Saints, the private school my parents insisted I went to once they could afford it. It was hard to fit in there, and I chose to stay friends with people from my primary school – Louise and some others – although often it felt like I was tagging along, an outsider. So to ask a friend home became fraught with danger: with my old friends it was fear of being branded a snob, when they saw the size of our house; with the girls at All Saints I knew that one wrong move on my mother’s part would have been disastrous. It’s quite possible that she wouldn’t have touched a drop while they were here, that she would have been all smiley and chatty and laughed with them, and they wouldn’t have met her coming up the stairs with that glassy look in her eyes, the oone that comes after the final few drinks. But I never took that risk, and never relented in the face of my mother’s cajoling.

Today, though, she sounds almost angry. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’

I take a gulp of tea. ‘What does it matter?’

‘It matters. Let’s just say that.’

‘No. Let’s not just say that. Tell me why it matters who walked me home last night. And why you feel you have to spy on me.’

She snaps the recipe book shut. ‘I wasn’t spying. I couldn’t sleep, and I happened to hear voices and wondered if it was you, that’s all.’ I say nothing. ‘It was Steve’s friend, wasn’t it? Steve who works for your father.’

Still I keep quiet, feeling uneasy, as though guilty, with a dim sense that somehow I’ve crossed a line that until recently I hadn’t known was there; that I’ve trodden on my mother’s toes.

‘Well, your silence says it all.’

‘So? If it was?’

She stands up and begins clearing the breakfast bar, clattering pots and plates and banging cupboard doors. ‘It’s not a good idea,’ she says, pouring water into the sink. She adds washing-up liquid and swooshes the water until it bubbles up. ‘He’s too old for you.’

‘How would you know how old he is? He came here once.’ Although, as I picture her pinning him against the wall, I think she probably did get his entire life story.

‘He just happened to tell me; we were talking about big birthdays I suppose,’ my mother says, a little defensively. ‘She turns to look at me. ‘He said that next year he’ll be thirty. He’s ten years older than you.’

My gaze slides away from her as I chew slowly on a mouthful of toast. Ten years. Nearly thirty. Older than he looks, while I look older than I am.

‘And?’ I say.

‘It’s not right.’

I swallow my toast. ‘Not right?’

‘He’d be … taking advantage.’

‘What?’ I laugh. It’s such an old-fashioned phrase, and not one that suits my mother at all. ‘Like I’m some innocent.’ She doesn’t say anything, rattling plates and cups around in the bowl. ‘And anyway, you’re making a big assumption here. He walked me home, that’s all. I haven’t got engaged to him. He just happened to come in the pub and he remembered meeting me here.’ I put the last piece of toast into my mouth, look at my watch, then sling my plate into the bowl. ‘I’m going to get some work done, and then go into town, try a few agencies.’

As I walk out of the kitchen, my mother calls,

‘Are you seeing him again?’

I pause at the bottom of the stairs. On the few occasions that I’ve ever mentioned a boy’s name, my mother has asked that question with a little note of hope in her voice. This time, she is clearly not happy at the thought that Ed is interested in me.

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘You should know he has history. You should know what you’re getting into.’

I walk back towards the kitchen. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s married, left his wife. And there’s a child, somewhere.’

I feel a jolt in my stomach. ‘A child?’

‘Yes. A little boy.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

My mother shakes her head. ‘It was something your father said.’ She’s watching my face. ‘He kept that quiet then.’

I’m suddenly annoyed. ‘I don’t see why you’re telling me all this. It’s nothing to do with you.’ I turn my back on my mother and stamp upstairs, where I start gathering books to take to the library. Halfway through, I stop to stare out of the window, watching a squirrel climb the washing-line pole to get at the bird feeder, and hearing my father’s voice: Damn squirrels, just bloody rats with a tail!

I’m thinking about Ed, having left his wife and child, and trying to work out if that means something or nothing to me. You’d think such a man would be a bit of a bastard, but I didn’t think I could say that about Ed. But then I suppose it’s like burglars. They don’t go round in a striped jumper, holding a bag with SWAG written on it, do they?

***

I have to wait two weeks for Ed to come back to the pub, this time on his own. It’s a Friday, near to closing time again, and the pub is heaving – a fug of heat and smoke and noise. I give him a quick smile as he queues at the bar; after he’s been served by Jon he stands at one end, rolling up. I feel him glance my way every so often, but I’m busy, and we don’t talk until after the bell has been rung and things slow down.

‘I weakened,’ he says, when I go over. ‘I was going to walk to the pub up the road, see if the beer’s better, but it’s too wild out there.’

‘That’s what everyone’s saying. One man said it’s like a hurricane … but then he’d had a few.’

While I wash glasses and tidy the bar, Ed chats to a very drunken man who I think is probably trying to sell him something that fell off the back of a lorry, a man who’s well known in the pub. Occasionally the landlord will exercise his muscle and throw him out, just to let him know he’s got his number, but he keeps bouncing back. Now and then Ed looks across and gives me a wink and a grin, and each time I feel a muted flutter of excitement in my belly. If nothing else, I think, he’s not avoiding me, which if he had I would have quite understood; his friend’s boss’s nineteen-year-old daughter, whose own mother flirted so outrageously with him.

When I’ve finished for the night I fetch my coat and bag from the back, and he’s still there, waiting. The drunk has gone, and the last few punters are draining their glasses.

‘I was just thinking of going on somewhere,’ he says. ‘There’s the casino in town, they have a late bar. I sometimes go with Steve, I’m a member. You could be my guest.’

There’s no ‘if you like’, or ‘it’s just a thought’. This is what I want, do you want it too, is how I hear it.

‘Okay. Why not?’ I use the pub phone to ring home, so my father won’t wonder where I am. It rings for a long time, and then I’m thrown by a strange woman’s voice saying hello on the other end.

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s Pam.’

‘Hi Pam.’ Whoever you are. ‘It’s Eva. Can you get my dad?’ There’s a long pause. In the background I can hear music and voices, and loud laughter.

‘I can’t see him, love, not sure where he is. Or your mum. I only picked up in case it was an emergency. Is it an emergency?’

‘No. Just tell him I’ll be late, or I might stay at a friend’s house. Tell him not to worry. Will you do that?’

‘Of course I will. You enjoy yourself, love. Ta-ta.’

Outside the wind is as fierce as everyone has said. It makes me stagger at first, and Ed catches my arm to steady me. There are people bent double as they walk into it, or blown along with the wind behind them, and when I try to talk to Ed I find my breath taken away from me, the words lost. I shake my head and give up.

Ed spots a taxi and hails it, and the driver is full of how the wind is still picking up, and that someone has said there’s a tornado on the way.

‘That’s crazy,’ Ed says. ‘We don’t have tornadoes here.’

‘We do now, mate.’

We stare out of the taxi windows, fascinated by the sight of things whirling through the air and skittering across pavements – litter, old newspapers and carrier bags, snapped-off branches from trees, an inside-out umbrella, empty bottles and cans that roll into gutters. On one road a metal dustbin slides right across in front of us – the driver swerves and brakes, and the bin clips the bumper and then bounces and clangs away behind us.

‘Fuck,’ he says, and then, ‘Sorry, duck. I thought that was going to launch itself through me windscreen for a minute.’

He drops us outside the casino. I’ve never been here; it’s a square white building, with a flashing red sign and a big open square in front of it. We lean into the wind to cross this, nearly blown off our feet by a couple of strong gusts, finally tumbling through the door. Once inside the hush is extraordinary, as though someone has wrapped up all the noise of the storm and thrown it away; everything is suddenly soft and calm and quiet. I stare around the plush reception area, thinking how out of place I must look in my work clothes, but the deep-pile carpet under my feet seems to welcome me anyway. The carpet is chequered red and black, and all around there are arrangements of red flowers – carnations and roses – in black glass vases. The staff are colour-schemed too; the doormen wear lounge suits, and at the desk a Chinese woman with sleek, black hair wears a scarlet dress with a sequined collar. The dress has big, Dallas-style shoulders and is stretched tight across her slight figure; everything about her is smooth and groomed. I look down at my rather crumpled self. True, I’m all in black, and at least I’ve got my sheer, lacy shirt on tonight, over a cami, short skirt and leggings. But there’s nothing sparkly about me, and my feet look clunky in Doc Martens rather than elegant in stilettos. Ed’s wearing chinos, and with his leather jacket he’s more in keeping.

‘I don’t think this was a good idea,’ I mutter. ‘I’m not dressed right.’

‘Don’t worry. You look fine. And you’re twenty-one by the way. This is a private club with old-fashioned rules.’

The woman gives me a careful look as Ed signs us both in, but she doesn’t ask for ID. Maybe she thinks I wouldn’t dare to turn up so casually dressed if I really was underage. Ed leads me through to the bar, which is raised above the gaming room to give a view of what’s going on. He finds seats, and goes to get a bottle of red wine. While he’s gone I look down curiously at the tables. I know nothing at all about gambling; the only thing I recognise is roulette, and that’s from watching Bond movies. There are several tables with cards, and I study one game just below where I’m sitting. Each player is dealt two cards, then everyone takes a look except the banker. As the banker works the table, some players take more cards and some refuse, each time with a slight nod or a motion of their hands. It’s clear they’re playing against the banker rather than each other, and they either win some chips or throw their hand in.

‘Is that poker?’ I ask Ed when he comes back.

‘Blackjack. It’s what Steve plays. I’m more for roulette, if I’m in the mood.’

‘And are you?’ I ask, looking round the room, with its lowered voices and faces masked in concentration.

‘I don’t know. I think I just didn’t want to go back to the flat. I needed to do something, go somewhere.’

He drums his fingers on his thighs as he speaks. He seems jittery. I look at him, remembering what my mother told me, and wondering if, and when, he will tell me. But although he talks a lot about his work as a journalist – I picture him sitting in front of a typewriter, hands flying over the keys and only pausing to draw on a cigarette – and although he talks about his childhood in a suburb of Leeds – in a houseful of boys, the things they got up to sounding boisterous and fun and sometimes alarming – he gives away nothing of his recent life. He clearly loves his job, and is good at it, I realise, after I’ve been gently drawn into talking about myself. My childhood, my friends, my ambitions – he spools out questions and reels in the answers.

‘Was it a surprise to you,’ he asks, ‘when you didn’t get the grades you needed?’

I consider this. ‘A bit. I didn’t think I’d done that badly, although I knew I hadn’t worked hard enough.’

‘Too much having fun?’

This time I pause even longer. I’m sick of having to pretend; before I even speak I can feel the relief of saying out loud the things I’ve never said to anyone.

‘I didn’t want to be at home. Evenings are when my mother starts to drink. Well, to be honest, she can start any time. But evenings are when she gets argumentative with my father, and picks fights with him. And then me, if I get involved. And practically every weekend she throws one of her boozy parties and I can’t stand being around all that. It’s why I got a job where I’d be working evenings. The other nights I’d go to friends’ houses, or be out somewhere. So I never did that much revision, you see.’

I turn to look at the nearest roulette table, where a little coo of surprise has signalled someone’s good fortune, a man now grinning broadly as he scoops up a pile of chips. When I turn back Ed is watching me.

‘You’ve not had a good time of it,’ he says.

‘No. But then again, I’ve had a roof over my head and anything I asked for was mine, so it’s not all bad, is it?’ He shrugs. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ I say. ‘I’m not telling you to make you feel sorry for me. It’s just how it’s been.’

‘So how do you manage now?’ Ed asks. ‘The work for your resits?’

‘I go to my classes, and to the library. I’m pretty sure I’ll get through this time. And then I’ll be off.’ Ed raises his glass to that.

We drink the wine and then go on to whisky, another first for me. It makes me grimace, and Ed laughs at my face. Every now and then he rolls us both a cigarette, but I leave mine half-smoked, not used to their strength after the Silk Cut I sometimes buy or cadge. I’m feeling pleasantly drunk now, and comfortable with Ed; it’s as though I’ve pulled him on, like an old sweater.

It’s one-thirty in the morning when we become aware of staff doing the rounds and having a word with everyone. It’s like a hurricane outside, they’re saying. All taxis are finishing for the night, and anyone who wants to get home is advised to get one of the last ones, leaving now. The casino is closing early, they say, and already I can see that the tables are packing up – cards being folded, the roulette wheel stilled, the coloured chips stacked and boxed.

We make our way to the foyer, which by now is crowded with people shrugging into their coats and peering anxiously though the glass doors. The floodlights that illuminate the casino now also pick out things flying horizontally through the air, some of them looking more lethal than earlier. Once, what looks like the swinging bit of a metal shop sign flies past the doors and crashes into the wall at the far side of the square. Suddenly I feel a trickle of alarm. It’s becoming clear that the few remaining taxis won’t be able to take everyone, and we’re at the back of the queue. Some people are muttering about walking home, but it’s at least three miles to my house, and I don’t think I can manage that in this storm. When I say this to Ed he says I can come back to his flat and that he’ll sleep on the sofa, but, apart from any doubts I might have about that, it’s almost as far.

‘I don’t fancy walking anywhere with all this stuff flying through the air. And trees. That’s what kills people, isn’t it … falling trees?’

He doesn’t say anything; he’s staring through the doors at the wild night. Then he looks back at the waiting crowd. ‘Hang on. I’ve got to get this.’

He goes to the desk and talks to the Chinese woman, who seems to argue briefly, but finally searches around and hands him a pen and a pad of paper. I watch then as Ed moves down the queue, asking them questions, nodding as they talk, and scribbling things down; I can guess what he’s doing, and it looks like most people are eager to tell their story. At one point he goes out to a waiting taxi and I see him quizzing the driver, who leans out the window and shouts excitedly, waving his arms around. When he comes back in Ed holds one hand up to me, fingers splayed wide. Five minutes. Then he crosses to the payphone, and joins that queue. I chew on my lip, tapping my foot nervously, while the minutes tick away. The taxis are thinning out alarmingly, and little by little the groups of people either leave in one of them, or decide to take their chances on foot. Should we do that? Maybe we’ll have to.

When Ed has phoned he comes and stands beside me, squeezing into the queue so that his arm is pressed against mine. That’s when I realise I’m shivering.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks, taking hold of my hand, closing his own around it. Suddenly I’m intensely aware of how much I like being with him.

‘Sure.’

‘I just had to phone this story in. It was too good to miss.’

I shrug. ‘That’s your job. Anyway, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Look.’

Outside the two last taxis are pulling away, leaving us and everyone ahead of us stranded. Ed frowns.

‘Where do your parents think you are?’

‘At a friend’s house.’

He nods. ‘Right, let’s be logical. The taxis have gone, and walking home in this doesn’t seem like an option. How about we brave it up to Castle Square and hope to get a cab from the rank up there? It’s not too far.’

I hesitate, reluctant to go out at all, but with no other plan in my head.

‘Okay. Let’s go for it,’ I say.

The first obstacle is getting the heavy door to open far enough against the wind, and then we are practically pushed through it by a burly doorman. After that standing upright is a challenge. It takes all my strength to put one foot in front of the other, and to not pull Ed over with me every time the wind changes direction and throws us backwards or sideways. With each gust all the breath seems to be sucked right out of me. When an empty pizza box slams into my head I yell out loud; I’d never have thought cardboard could hurt so much. After what seems like miles, but is probably no more than a few hundred yards, we reach the square – only to find it deserted, empty of anything, taxis or people.

‘What do we do now?’ I shout, and then jump a mile high as a deafening crash splinters the air. Behind us, the plate-glass window of a boutique lies in pieces on the ground and, as we watch, clothes are being whisked out as if by a giant hand, whirling around in the air like some bizarre fashion show. Finally, the mannequins themselves tumble onto the floor of the window. Some bits of glass still shiver in the frame, all jagged, like little icebergs, and suddenly I imagine them being sucked up, then flying through the air and slicing into my skin.

‘Ed! We need to get back inside. We should go back to the casino.’

I turn, but Ed grabs my arm. ‘No, this way!’ He pulls me in the opposite direction.

‘Where to?’

He doesn’t answer, just tugs me along with him, and as we turn the corner I see where he’s heading. Ahead of us is the Carlton Hotel, its big gilt letters above the old metal canopy the most welcome thing I think I’ve ever seen in my life. Another crash comes from up ahead, and this time the glass from a bus shelter lies in pieces on the ground, twinkling under a street lamp. And then, as we stare, the street lamp goes out, along with all the lights in the square. There’s no moon, and the night is inky black. I feel panic bubbling up in my chest. The town is being smashed up around us, every huge gust of wind is like an assault on my body, and now we can’t even see where we’re going. Ed pulls me to him and we make our way down the street, clamped together like a pair from a three-legged race. The dark is absolute and scary, and I can hardly see where we’re treading, but as we stumble towards the hotel a few dim lights come back on inside. Ed says something about a generator, but I say I don’t care if they’re burning the furniture as long as we can be inside in the warmth and light. We climb the steps, and with amazing luck the door is unlocked; I think if it hadn’t been I would have just sat down and howled. As it is, once inside, I stand in the semi-dark of the foyer, shaking uncontrollably.

This is Harborough, I think. Things like this don’t happen in Harborough. It’s crazy.

A woman comes through from a room behind reception, and when she speaks it’s in a clipped and measured tone, as though weather like this happens every day.

‘Can I help you?’

‘We need a room,’ I blurt out. ‘I mean, two rooms.’

‘We’re stranded,’ Ed says. ‘Do you have two single rooms?’

The woman, tight-lipped and cold-eyed, nods at the storm outside, through a window that trembles and rattles in its frame.

‘Everyone’s stranded. We’re booked up. Practically.’

‘What do you mean, practically?’

‘Just one room left. Honeymoon suite.’ A small smirk now tips the woman’s lips up at one side. ‘That’s all we’ve got.’

‘We’ll take it.’ I turn to Ed. ‘Won’t we?’

He blinks, and clears his throat. ‘If that’s okay with you … sis.’

For a moment I stare at him, then grin as I realise he’s trying to save me embarrassment. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘We can afford it, can’t we?’ Looking back at the woman I catch a sly smile on her face. ‘My brother just won at the casino. Lucky for us.’

She narrows her eyes, not fooled for a moment, but not quite ill-mannered enough to say so. ‘Here’s the key, number thirty-three.’ With a sharp slap she places it on the counter. ‘Up those stairs, third floor.’ As we reach the stairs she calls after us. ‘Will you be wanting breakfast delivered to your room? It’s included in the rate. Or maybe you’ll be needing to get back home.’ She’s giving Ed a firm look as she says this.

‘No, breakfast please,’ Ed says. ‘Full English for both.’ He looks at me. ‘All right, sis?’

I nod, my lips clamped tightly together to stop myself from laughing. We climb three flights of thinly carpeted stairs, and when we reach the room and step inside, we just stand there, grinning at each other.

‘All right, bro?’ I say, and start to giggle, the relief of being safe making me giddy.

But Ed’s smile is fading. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘if you want, you can have the room, I’ll go downstairs and sleep on a sofa, or something.’

My stomach lurches. I’ve done the wrong thing. He’ll think I’m too pushy, even though it was Ed who came to the pub, Ed who suggested the casino, Ed who led us to safety in this hotel. ‘No, no, it’s fine. I mean, it’s just sharing a room, isn’t it?’

There’s a tiny pause, where I wonder if he’s thinking the same as me. Then suddenly I see what the wind has done to us, both of us, myself captured in the mirror behind Ed. ‘You look like you’ve had an electric shock! And I look like a crazy woman!’

He glances at himself, then back at me, and we explode into laughter, doubled up and helpless, until someone in the next room bangs on the wall.

But when the laughter subsides, and Ed moves to the window to look outside, I find I’m shivering. The room is cold, it’s true, but there’s something else, some mixture now of excitement and nerves, not helped by the foreign smell of the place; a harsh smell, of furniture polish or toilet cleaner. Better that than not having been cleaned, I think, and gaze around the chintzy room, with its flimsy four-poster bed and china figurines that twirl or posture on every surface. There are tasselled curtains at the window, which Ed is just closing, there are fringed cushions on the bed, invitingly plumped up, and there are little pink-shaded lamps on each table at the side. I find the switch for those on the back wall, and instantly the room seems cosier, friendlier, a haven from the wind that howls and shakes the old sash window until I think it might shatter like the one in the square.

‘Is that window safe?’

‘Should be. It’s got more give. It’ll just make a hell of a noise all night.’

I look back at Ed, to find him staring at me.

‘I know how this must look,’ he says. ‘It wasn’t meant to turn out like this.’ I’m about to joke that he must have seen the forecast and planned it all, but then I see that he is properly worried that he’s done the right thing, his eyes searching mine.

‘Don’t worry. We’re here. We’re safe.’

‘I’ll sleep in the bath,’ he says.

‘Don’t be stupid.’ I cross to where he stands. ‘Unless you really want to.’

When he doesn’t reply, and to make sure he knows I’m not just thinking of his comfort, I take his hands and kiss him on the mouth, slightly surprised at the risk I’m taking – of rejection, of getting it wrong. He returns the kiss, and I think there is some feeling in it; I haven’t got it that wrong. But afterwards he steps back a little. ‘This may sound ridiculously old-fashioned, but I don’t want to take advantage of you.’

I laugh. ‘That’s what -’ No, Eva, don’t bring your mother into this. ‘You won’t be,’ I say, serious now. ‘If we had two rooms I’d probably creep into yours. I’m not a virgin, Ed.’

He squeezes my hand. ‘That’s not the only consideration.’

‘What is then?’

‘You’re nineteen. I’m twenty-nine. Some might say I’m too old for you. Your parents, for one.’

I roll my eyes. ‘Let’s leave them out of it. My parents have nothing to do with this. I know my own mind.’

Ed stares at me gravely for several seconds. I think then that he will tell me about the divorce, and the ‘somewhere’ child, and that maybe he isn’t ready yet for another relationship. Stuff like that. But instead he pulls me to him, and kisses me sweetly. Then he tells me, straight out, that he doesn’t have any condoms. I find this reassuring in one sense – that he really hasn’t planned this – although worrying in another. AIDS is in the news constantly these days. Don’t take the risk, they say, be safe not sorry. I could though, take a chance …

‘I am on the Pill,’ I tell him, ‘but…’

‘I’ve not been with anyone,’ he says, ‘since I split with my wife, a few months ago.’ There, I’ve told you, now, his eyes are saying.

I give a tiny nod, and begin undoing the top button on my blouse. He takes off his belt, and unzips his fly. Slowly we undress, our mouths glued together, excitement building, then we fall onto the bed, its shiny satin cover momentarily cool on my bare flesh. Ed reaches down to caress me, gently at first and then more insistent, until I can hardly bear it. When he enters me his eyes are on mine, intent on each small movement; we are drinking each other in, that’s how it seems, the storm outside forgotten.

When we’re done Ed collapses slowly onto me, covering my face and neck with small, soft kisses, before rolling down onto the bed. He lies close to me, looping one arm over my stomach.

‘Eva.’ He says my name as if he’s just learning it, and looks up into my eyes; his own are flecked with gold in the lamplight. ‘You were lovely.’

I smile at him, a big, wide smile, my whole body still humming. ‘You too.’ Privately I’m saying thanks to the storm that stranded us here, that’s still howling outside.

Soon we make love again, this time a much longer affair, until finally we lie back, exhausted. Despite that, it seems impossible that I will sleep, what with the wind screaming like a banshee, and exhilaration pounding in my head.

But I do. A deep, dreamless sleep.

Kathleen

1964

We went on like that for weeks, me and Rick. I never knew when the next date would be. I tried so hard to be the sort of person I thought he would like, although the gaps in my knowledge were sometimes excruciating, like when he asked if I liked avocado, and I said what you mean the colour, and he said no, the pear. I looked at him gone out and he just shook with laughter. Then there was the time he said he’d got two tickets for the Rep to see a production of Look Back in Anger. He said something about the playwright being an angry young man and I said, how do you know? This time he shook his head in mock disbelief. ‘Don’t you know anything?’ he asked. I was so hurt I stalked off down the corridor. Much to my relief he called me back, said sorry, and promised I’d like the play. The only thing I was ever sure of was that Rick fancied me like mad. The second time we went out, he pulled me into a shop doorway on the way home, and we had a long, hot kissing session. By the time we’d finished my neck was aching from being pressed up against the corner of the doorway, but it was something I was prepared to put up with for the lovely, warm ache between my thighs. Rick didn’t touch me there, not that night, but I thought that I’d like it if he did; all my fears about ‘doing it’ with a boy were dissolving. Of course, I’m not going to go that far, I said to myself, but I was relieved to find I might want to. After that we always found a dark corner somewhere on the way home. I could see now that Rick had a winning combination. He’d keep me in suspense for days, not knowing when we might go out again, and then get me all worked up in the quiet dark of the doorway. I still thought of myself as a ‘nice girl’, but I let Rick’s hands rove until I was squirming and ready to explode, sighing when he stopped. He would laugh then, and give me a small, soft kiss. He knew what he was doing.

One night, when I was getting really steamed up, and I could feel him hard against me, he nibbled my ear and said, ‘We can’t go on like this, can we?’

‘What do you mean?’ I said.

His hand was up my skirt, fingers slipping inside my knickers. ‘You know what I mean.’

I saw my chance, and moved his hand away. ‘Not while it’s like this,’ I said. ‘Not when no one even knows we go out together.’ Rick had only been to my house once, calling for me one night when I’d insisted that my parents wanted to meet him, and getting away as quickly as possible before they had a chance to ask anything much. I’d never been to his. ‘Anyone would think you were ashamed of me.’

In the dark I sensed him thinking, weighing up what I’d said. I started to panic then, that he’d just turn and walk. But at last he said,

‘We’ll put that right then, shall we? Why don’t you come round on Saturday, meet my folks?’

‘Are you serious?’ I said.

‘Of course. Come for tea. Six o’clock all right?’

I just nodded, sure that if I spoke it would come out as a squeak. He told me the address and what bus to get. We fixed a time, then he gave me a long, hard kiss.

‘See you Saturday,’ he grinned, as he left.

Well, I walked home on air.

I got myself ready so carefully that day. Hair, make-up, new dress that I’d just hemmed up the day before, ladder-less stockings… all perfect. The last thing was to dab on some cologne, and then I ran downstairs, flung a cardigan round my shoulders, and shouted goodbye as I rushed off.

‘Make sure he walks you to the bus stop, later,’ my mother called, before I slammed the door. ‘And mind your Ps and Qs.’ She hadn’t said that to me since I was about twelve, but she knew where Rick lived, she’d got the measure of his family.

It was April, a mild, breezy sort of day. I caught the number twenty-one bus from the bottom of my road, and I sat up on the top deck, feeling slightly queasy. I was so nervous, it wasn’t like butterflies in my stomach, more like a bag of cats, all squirming around. I kept finding myself sucking in air and then having to let it out in a long, slow breath. I needed this evening to go right; I needed to not show myself up in front of his parents, not to say the wrong thing or show my ignorance. By now I had an image in my head of two rather grand people who lived in style, who bought brand-new cars and ate out at the drop of a hat. I was petrified of being somehow less than what was required.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I told myself. ‘He wouldn’t have asked you if he thought you’d let him down.’

Rick met me off the bus, as planned.

‘You look nice,’ he said, and put his arm around my waist. I thought then I was going to die and go to Heaven, walking along with my boyfriend, on my way to meet his parents. This was surely going to be the seal on our relationship.

We turned a corner onto Highbury Avenue, where every house was different – mock-tudor, red-brick, whitewashed, pebble-dashed – each one about three times the size of mine, and all of them nestling in their own grounds. It was so quiet; there was just the sound of a wood-pigeon cooing above us in one of the large conifers that stretched up to the sky everywhere you looked. I thought of Rick in our dolls-house terrace, with its handkerchief of grass at the front.

‘Here we are.’

He stopped, pointed. At the end of the drive stood a large house with latticed windows and gable ends, looking like something out of a movie – a Hollywood version of England. The sun reflected off the windows as we walked towards it, and gravel crunched beneath our feet. Rick unlocked the door and held it open.

‘Come on then, come in.’

The entrance hall was about as big as our front room. I stepped inside, onto polished floorboards and soft rugs. Rick took me into what he called the sitting room, a wood-panelled room with two sofas and a creamy, deep-pile carpet. It looked out over a garden whose end was hidden, but obviously some way off. By this point, before I’d even seen the leather three-piece suite in the lounge, the modern fitted kitchen, and the downstairs toilet with its quiet flush, I had gone very quiet. All my preparations for this evening seemed totally inadequate, because now I knew I couldn’t possibly live up to anyone who lived here.

Of course up to then I’d never been in such a spacious house, and maybe it wasn’t quite as large as I’m painting it. And the difference between us, me and Rick, I know now it wasn’t such a gulf as it seemed. But back then… I stood at that window in a state of awe.

‘Are you all right?’ Rick asked. ‘You’ve gone quiet. Do you want a drink?’

He walked over to a corner cabinet and began pulling bottles out. ‘Sherry? Vermouth? Whisky? What do you fancy?’

It wasn’t just me that was quiet. The house was too. It breathed silence.

‘Where is everyone?’

‘Oh, I forgot to tell you. My parents have gone to a charity ball. I’d forgotten when I asked you over. Sorry, but you won’t get to meet them tonight, they’ll be back late. You’ll have to come another time.’

My insides unknotted, very slightly. At least I wouldn’t have to make polite conversation now, and I wasn’t going to be judged today. ‘So there’s no one around?’

I knew his older brother was in the army, on a commission.

‘Nope. We can have a quiet evening in. And a bit of privacy.’

So now I knew. I wasn’t that gullible.

I sipped my drink, a Dry Martini, while Rick selected records to put on his parents big old gramophone, which looked like a sideboard till you opened the lid. He kept changing them, playing just one song from each and then moving on to something else. He kept that up until there was a pile of records on the floor, all out of their sleeves. ‘You’ll like this one,’ he’d say, each time. There were a few I’d heard – Connie Francis, the Springfields, Dean Martin – but now and then he’d lob a little jazzy number on. I didn’t really appreciate those. It wasn’t jazz like Acker Bilk who you saw on telly; they were names I’d never heard of and I couldn’t pick out the melody in half of them. I didn’t say I didn’t like them, but I think he could tell. By now I was sure I was flushed from the refills he poured every time my glass was empty. I hadn’t eaten, and the alcohol was rushing through my veins and invading my head, making me feel as though I was moving and talking faster than usual. Eventually I plucked up the courage to say,

‘Who’s going to cook us some tea then, if your mum’s out?’

‘Me,’ he said. ‘What would madam like?’

I giggled. ‘What have you got?’

We went into the kitchen and searched through the cupboards, ending up with a tin of meatballs and a pack of spaghetti. This, spaghetti, was something I had just persuaded my mother to buy, to vary our diet of meat and two veg, so I was pleased to be able to impress Rick in knowing how to cook it. The only problem was it was very messy to eat, so while Rick twirled it in a spoon with some success I chose to cut it up into small strands, and eat it that way. Rick laughed at me, but I didn’t mind. I was feeling far more sure of myself than usual, after all the Martinis and the bottle of red wine that he’d fished out of the pantry. The awe I’d felt earlier was shrinking by the glassful.

After we’d eaten Rick gave me a tour of the house, which was all as lovely as downstairs. When we got to his bedroom he pushed the door open, and I saw a very plain room, with regency-striped walls and a narrow, single bed, covered with a candlewick spread. There was a record player on the floor, and more LPs.

‘You like your music,’ I said.

‘Yeah. I’d like to have been a singer.’

‘Never too late,’ I said, and he started crooning loudly – ‘Who’s Sorry Now?’, or something like that. I pulled a face and put my hands over my ears.

‘Okay, okay, now I see why you aren’t,’ I laughed, and he suddenly stopped, put his arms round my waist and drew me to him. His face went all serious, and as I stared into his gold-brown eyes my whole body tensed. I waited.

‘You are gorgeous, do you know that?’

He kissed me, and it was different to before. Or maybe it just felt that way because I knew what was coming next. He didn’t waste time, undoing the zip on the back of my dress and unhooking my bra, then caressing my breasts and guiding my hands to his fly. Excitement caught in my throat.

‘Come on,’ he said. He pulled my dress right down, so that I stood there in my slip, then I stepped out of the dress and we tottered towards the bed. We more or less fell onto it, but as he began to run his hand up my leg I suddenly felt a little bit of panic. I wanted this to happen more than anything, I wanted him more than anything, and in my drunken state it seemed as though it would be a proof of his feelings for me. But all of that was pitted against my upbringing and the sort of talk I heard at work when the men had forgotten you were there – about girls who were ‘slags’, who ‘gave it out’.

‘Rick… wait.’ I put my hand on his.

He groaned. ‘What?’

‘You will still… I mean you don’t think I’m…’

He kissed my neck and his hand continued upwards.

‘I don’t think anything. I can’t think. You’re driving me mad, girl.’

‘But what about –’

‘I’ll be careful,’ he said, as his hand found its target. ‘Don’t worry.’

And I was lost.

It seems crazy now, from a distance of thirty years, to think that I would trust him. His parents were never there – he only asked me round when they were guaranteed to be out, with mine fondly believing I was having a nice family tea. Each time, we drank too much and played his records and then went up to his bedroom. We did use contraception. Mostly. Apart from that first time. And the day he didn’t have any. And then again when he said, please let me, it’s better without, I’ll pull out in time.

Nothing changed otherwise. I was still left wondering when we’d see each other again, and more and more it was just to go to his house for sex. At work he never openly acknowledged that I was his girlfriend.

Call me stupid. I have.

3

Eva

1987

‘Eva, wake up! Look at this!’

I wake with a start, blinking and disorientated, but within seconds it all comes flooding back; first the unbelievable chaos of last night, then Ed and me here, stranded together in this soft and springy bed, like a ship on the high seas. I stretch out luxuriously, my limbs heavy with sleep, then lift my head off the pillow to listen for the wind, and hear a silence so thick I think it could be the end of the world.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Come and look.’

Sliding from under the covers I suddenly feel self-conscious in a way that was notably absent last night. I pull off the top sheet and wind it round myself, then wiggle in it over to the window.

‘This is what they do in films,’ I say, ‘wrap themselves in a sheet and wander round in it. It’s harder than it looks.’ Ed has on his boxer shorts, and has tweaked the curtain aside.

The scene below is one of devastation.

‘Oh … my … God.’

It seems that everything is either broken, fallen, or leaning at a crazy, sometimes dangerous angle. Like the tree opposite that has crushed a car and is lodged on top of it, its branches spread all over the road. Or the canopy from a shoe shop that is attached only at one end, its other end lying smashed on the cracked pavement. Or the scaffolding from a building down the road, that has tumbled down around it like matchsticks. I have a faint recollection of hearing that metallic roll at some unearthly hour of the morning.

‘Jesus.’

For a moment we just stare, transfixed. Ed puts one arm around me and pulls me close.

‘We were lucky to get in here. It’s a solid Georgian building.’

‘If it had been full,’ I say, ‘I would have refused to budge and slept on the floor. There’s no way I would have gone out in that again.’ Then I add, ‘Wouldn’t have been as good though. Sleeping on the floor.’

He squeezes my waist, and we exchange a long, slow kiss that eventually takes us back to bed for a long, slow shag, and that’s where we still are when a knock on the door announces breakfast.

‘Leave it there,’ Ed calls. ‘We’ll get it.’

Later, we sit on the end of the bed to eat our cold full English, and watch Breakfast Time on the small TV that hangs on a bracket on the wall. It’s being broadcast from an emergency location because all the power is out at the BBC, and the presenters’ voices are shrill with a mix of disbelief and excitement. It seems that the winds ripped across the country in a swathe that travelled from south-west to south-east, gathering strength and causing more damage as they went. Some of the scenes pictured look like war zones; collapsed buildings, blocked roads, crushed cars and overturned lorries, and a forest in East Anglia that has been entirely felled. People interviewed talk of being ruined, their businesses destroyed, their houses without power or uninhabitable. There will be questions asked, an opposition minister says in a phone interview, about why the weather forecast spectacularly failed to forecast this. The words on everyone’s lips are what one weatherman said yesterday, about rumours of a hurricane on the way: Don’t worry, there isn’t!

‘He’ll never live that down,’ I say.

‘How could they have missed it?’ Ed looks at his watch, and puts his tray aside. Then he picks up the bedside phone, listens, presses buttons, shakes his head. ‘Line’s dead. I need to ring my parents, reassure them I’m still alive.’ From the news we’ve gathered that the north of the country escaped the winds, but he says they’ll be watching TV and getting worried. ‘And I’d better get home, see if my flat survived the night.’

I say yes, of course I need to go home too. Fleetingly I wonder if my own house has been damaged, and why I haven’t thought of that, or my parents, before now.

Then something occurs to me that starts to play on my mind. I know Ed moved here from Cambridge, which was badly hit last night. That’s where he had been living, and presumably where his ex still lives, with their child. Why isn’t he more worried? Why isn’t he trying to phone them now to make sure they’re okay? People have been killed, for God’s sake. I don’t feel I can ask, when Ed hasn’t even told me of the child’s existence, and maybe he won’t mention it for that very reason. But how can he just sit here, calmly eating breakfast, when anything might have happened? It nags away at me. I can’t be with a man who seems to have forgotten he has a child.

Then, listen to you, I think. Can’t be with a man. Who says you have the option?

We shower, and dress in last night’s clothes. Again, in the cold light of day, it’s somehow more challenging to be putting knickers on in front of Ed, than it was taking them off. I turn my back to him, and try to pretend I’m absorbed in the images on TV. There is no dryer, so I do what I can with my wet hair, and wish that I’d carried some make-up with me last night. Oh well, the natural look, I tell myself, wiping steam off the bathroom mirror, which is harshly lit and makes me look washed-out. I can feel a hangover kicking in.

Downstairs Ed pays up, while I loiter at the back of the foyer, avoiding the stare of the same unfriendly woman. She doesn’t refer to last night’s weather, as though every day she gives people shelter from the storm. And then we begin the walk home, as it seems that no buses or taxis are running yet. The air is still and calm; it’s as though the raging wind was never there, I think, as though some giant, malevolent hand created all this chaos as a joke. Picking our way around the debris, we take care to skirt anything that hangs or leans too alarmingly, sometimes having to step over obstacles in the road. We meet other people doing the same, and everyone seems to wear the same expression, of utter shock. Ed says something about the town centre being grid-like, and that it would have formed gigantic wind tunnels that the storm would have ripped along.

The shops that have escaped unscathed have opened up, their staff outside sweeping up rubbish and broken glass. There are stories being swapped, and people are beginning to joke, to make the best of things.

‘It’s that old wartime spirit,’ Ed says.

Although as we pass the boutique, on the other side of the street, we see a woman in a smart suit standing in the road, staring silently at the space where the window display was. She has both hands clamped over her mouth, and tears in her eyes. On the pavement the mannequins from the window lie bare, like casualties from some horrible accident; inside we can see that all the clothes rails are empty, not a single thing remains.

‘Been looted,’ Ed says.

‘Can you believe it? That’s awful.’

‘If being a reporter has taught me anything,’ Ed says, ‘it’s that people can be heroes, and they can be looters. Sometimes the same people.’ As we watch, the woman begins picking things up. ‘Come on.’

Two blocks on Ed finds a newsagent and buys the late morning edition of the Echo, which is full of photos of the storm. He finds his small report on page two. Stranded! is the headline, which Ed thinks is a bit unimaginative, but the report itself is faithful to how he told it over the phone. I take a look, and feel a small thrill of pride, that he wrote this.

‘It’s very good,’ I say. ‘I could almost imagine I was there,’ and Ed laughs.

The further we walk and the more we see, I begin to imagine myself caught in a little bubble of history, something I will tell people years from now. The great storm of 1987, and how I picked my way home through the rubble.

‘It’s like the world’s been shaken up,’ I say. ‘Like in one of those glass snowstorm things. And everything just landed anywhere.’

We reach the bottom of Ed’s road, a row of terraces on a slight hill, leading up and away from the main road. The street looks to be in one piece, as far as we can tell, apart from the now-familiar sight of rubbish, overturned bins, dented cars, and bits of vegetation strewn everywhere.

I’m wondering if he’ll ask me up to his house, and wait expectantly.

‘I guess you’ll want to get home, make sure your folks are okay,’ he says. I stare at him for a moment, then down at the ground, my throat tightening. There is a very long pause, during which I tell myself to just casually say goodbye, or, see you around, that kind of thing. ‘Eva.’ I look up. ‘I don’t know if it’s a good idea … for us to get too involved.’

‘You didn’t seem to think that last night,’ I say, screwing my fists tight inside my pockets.

‘Eva, last night wasn’t meant to happen. I was going to get us a taxi and take you home, I swear. But …’ He spreads his hands, as if to say, look what happened.

‘Well, I’m sorry for throwing myself at you,’ I say, hearing bitterness catch in my voice.

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