The Miseducation of Evie Epworth
Page 2
‘Laxatives Saga! What kind of name for a book is that? Laxatives Saga.’ She’s shaking her head in disbelief (I know the feeling). ‘Have you seen what she’s reading, Arthur?’
I think about correcting her but, from past experience, know that this probably isn’t a good idea. (I once pointed out her use of split-infinitives in Selby Woolworth’s and, after an initial confusion with split ends, it led to quite a nasty scene next to the pick ’n’ mix). Laxatives Saga it is then. The heroic tale of Unnr the Deep Minded, Hákon the Good and Olaf the Peacock as they set off in search of bowel Valhalla. A classic. I wonder what our Norse names would be . . . Arthur the Phlegmatic. Arthur the Put Upon. Arthur the Lost Soul. And his Brünnhilde? Christine the Acquisitive. Christine the Sausage Burner. Christine, Naggiest Nagger of the North.
And what about me? Who would I be?
*
‘What’s that, love?’ Arthur is miles away. At The Oval, to be precise, where someone has just bowled a flipper off a sticky dog and hit a Chinaman, or something like that.
‘I said have you seen what Evie’s reading? You’re not even listening, are you?’ Christine picks up a jar of pickled onions and unscrews it as if she were breaking the neck of a small animal. ‘I don’t know why I bother. I have to do everything in this house.’
(This isn’t strictly true as Vera, Christine’s mother, seems to be round here every day doing all the chores for her.)
Thump.
Slam.
Crash.
The ham looks like it’s been through the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. In fact, the whole kitchen has the feel of a crime scene. Even the potted plants look stressed. Christine picks up the bread knife and butchers a cottage loaf.
Trying to ignore the drama and concentrate on the radio, Arthur is now doing his best to hide behind a copy of the Yorkshire Post. He is a great believer in the if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist school of thought and is adept at using the large newspaper to block out anything he finds troublesome or stressful: a bad day on the farm; a poor cricket over; Christine in a funny mood. Life. Death.
‘Sorry, love. Barrington’s just hit a six.’
A noise like an angry gas leak spurts from Christine’s side of the kitchen.
I decide it’s best to leave them to it for a bit so I head to the downstairs loo. Not for any biological reason (I have the bladder control of a Shire horse) but because it’s a place of sanctuary and escape. Compact and safe. With a lock. For such a small room, there’s a surprising number of accoutrements. There’s a big pile of old Wisden magazines in the corner (Arthur), a pink knitted loo-roll cover in the shape of a doll (Christine), and, perched on the windowsill, an Oxford dictionary (me).
I love flicking through the dictionary. It takes me off to another world, a world where a mélange of esoteric people do pulchritudinous things meritoriously. Or at least a world with fewer doilies and hairnets. I sit down on the loo and open the dictionary at a random page.
Histrionic (adjective – theatrical performance, display of emotion for effect.)
Hmm, sounds like Christine.
Another page.
Jejune (adjective – lacking interest/significance, dull.)
Christine again.
You can see why I do this, can’t you?
When I come back into the kitchen, the conversation has finished and, unfortunately, an air of victory hangs over Christine. She’s sitting on Arthur’s knee and when they see me, they both look a bit sheepish. Arthur quickly taps Christine on the bum and she gets up and walks back to the table, looking over at me in a very cat-who’s-got-the-cream-ish way.
‘Your dad’s decided to run us to bingo after all,’ she says, smiling smugly (adverb – in a way that shows excessive satisfaction in oneself).
‘Oh,’ I say, looking over at Arthur. He’s retreated behind his Yorkshire Post and is doing a very good job of pretending he isn’t here. ‘But I thought he wanted to stay and listen to the cricket?’ I ask, knowing it’ll really irritate her.
Christine stops assembling the cold tea and puts her hands on her hips.
‘Well,’ she says, cracking the word like a whip. ‘He’s decided it’s much safer to take us in the car. There are a lot of nutters around, you see, and it’d be dangerous for us to be out on our own.’
Dangerous? For who? The combination of Christine, Vera and Mrs Swithenbank would be more than a match for most small armies, never mind one lone nutter.
‘You can’t be too careful these days, isn’t that right, Arthur?’ Christine goes on, smiling at him and wiping her hands on a Bolton Abbey tea towel.
Arthur looks up over his Yorkshire Post. ‘Of course. More than happy to run you there.’ He ducks back behind the paper and a disembodied voice adds, ‘No trouble at all.’
‘Such a gentleman, your dad,’ says Christine, more loudly than is strictly necessary. ‘They don’t make ’em like him any more.’ She smiles over at Arthur and then turns her attention back to the plates of ham, lettuce, pickle and tomato in front of her. I decide to do the sensible thing and get as far away as possible, heading off to my bedroom. As I leave the kitchen, Christine is doing something to a radish that she has seen Fanny Craddock, one of her heroines, do on TV. It involves a potato peeler and lots of patience. Christine has the potato peeler but not the patience. Sure enough, within a few seconds, the radish pings out of her hand and scuttles across the table. She takes another and exactly the same thing happens. It’s radish carnage. Christine, eyeing the radishes like a maniac, is muttering something under her breath. Walking up the stairs, I hear a muffled scream followed by the pained, manic cackle of a woman pushed to the edge by a punnet of small root vegetables.
*
Up in my bedroom, a Christine-free zone and general haven of loveliness, I lie on top of the soft, flowery eiderdown and begin to tally up the events of the past few weeks.
Dramatic car crashes: 1
Broken bones: 0
Hospital visits from Arthur: 18
Hospital visits from Christine: 2
Hospital visits from Margaret: 11 (I think she might have been bored)
Letters written to Adam Faith: 3
Replies from Adam Faith: 0
Disturbingly vivid dreams involving Mr Hughes and a cow: 5 (hopefully just a side effect of the tablets)
Ideas about what I could do in the future: 28
Decisions made about what I should do with the rest of my life: 0
The Future is strange. Before my O levels, it seemed far away, something that only other people worried about (scientists, politicians, old people). It was a hazy, unreal half-thought that involved weddings, jobs, babies and tailored suits, not necessarily in that order. But all of a sudden, it’s here. I always used to think of The Future as a happy, crowded, noisy place with lots going on, but now it feels big and empty, a huge silent space, like an enormous aircraft hangar with a tiny me rattling around it. What am I going to do in The Future? I still have no idea.
As an insurance policy, under Margaret’s guidance, I have put my name down for sixth form. I have no great burning desire to study A level English, History and French, but then again have no great burning desire to do anything else either. I am happy to be a little cloud and get blown more or less where the wind takes me. And at least sixth form means that I won’t get buffeted into any wholly inappropriate life by Christine (our very own gale). Christine has decided to take the idea of my return to education as some kind of personal insult. She is campaigning hard for my life in an ivory tower to end before it even begins. Torn clippings from the job section of local newspapers have mysteriously started to appear around the house (Shop assistant needed. No experience required). Every time I see one, I’m reminded of the small scraps of newspaper that Arthur sticks on his face when he cuts himself shaving. Christine thinks these clippings are subtle messages that will send me cartwheeling into the world of work, part of a subliminal arsenal to be deployed in her cunning psychological war. In
reality, they are as subtle as the Blackpool illuminations. Naturally, I ignore them.
Sixth form starts at the beginning of September. Today is 11 July. That leaves two months to find a Future. Easy. I can do that. Can’t I? Surely it can’t be that hard.
*
As I’m lying on my bed pondering Life and the unappealing prospect of Christine’s cold tea, I look up at the two big posters of Adam Faith on my wall. In one of them (a freebie from Melody Maker), Adam is staring at the camera, brooding and looking rugged and masculine. He’s wearing a mustard-coloured blouson (which matches his lovely blond hair) and his smile lights up the room like a million candles (well, perhaps not quite a million). In the other poster, bought on a day trip to Scarborough, he is the living embodiment of sophistication. He’s wearing a well-ironed white shirt, navy cardy and bow tie. A bow tie! He is pop aristocracy and I love him. No matter how bad things ever get, I’ll always have Adam.
Evie and Adam. Adam and Evie.
Together forever in our very own garden of Eden (otherwise known as Yorkshire).
I quite often speak to Adam on my walls. He can be a great help and, to be honest, he’s one of the better conversationalists in the village. Which Adam I speak to depends on my mood. Today I definitely need Sophisticated Adam.
I sigh (trying to catch his attention).
‘What would you do?’ I ask him. ‘It’s so confusing. There are all these different Futures. Which one’s best for me?’
I open the drawer of my bedside table, get out a list of jobs given to us by the careers service at school, and then read them to him.
‘Shop assistant, veterinary assistant, library assistant, dental assistant . . .’
(How come the only Futures open to women are always as someone’s assistant?)
‘Perhaps I could be your assistant?’ I ask Sophisticated Adam.
He doesn’t say anything. Perhaps I should have asked Brooding Adam instead.
I carry on working my way through the list (bookkeeper’s assistant, showroom assistant, clerical assistant), but before Sophisticated Adam can offer me any useful advice there’s a knock on the door.
‘Tea’s ready in five minutes,’ Arthur says, poking his head into the room.
‘Thanks, Dad.’ We both look at each other and smile. ‘So you’re going to miss the cricket, then?’
‘Miss the cricket?’ He arches his eyebrows in mock shock. ‘Certainly not. I’ll have the transistor radio with me. You don’t think I’m going to let bingo get in the way of Test Match Special, do you?’
I start picking at my corduroy skirt and let out a massive sigh, like a huge deflating beach ball.
‘Hey, what is it, love?’ says Arthur, coming in and sitting on the edge of the bed. When he sits down, I notice the light streaming in from the window glistening in the Brylcreem in his hair like flecks of stardust.
‘It’s Christine,’ I say.
For a moment there’s almost silence, the only sound coming from the distant clatter of tea assemblage downstairs in the kitchen.
I look at Arthur.
Arthur looks at me.
(We are experts of restrained communication, Arthur and me.)
And then he sighs – just a little one, not a beach-ball one.
‘Christine?’ he says. ‘Come on, love. We’ve spoken about Christine, haven’t we?’
Yes, we have spoken about her. Several times. The last time was on the way back from hospital when Arthur told me she’d moved in. Her moving in is good news, apparently, because:
1. She’s a big help around the house (this is not true – her mum does all the housework).
2. I need a female role model (again not true – I’ve got loads already: Charlotte Brontë, the Queen, Shirley MacLaine).
Arthur also keeps going on about how the farmhouse is plenty big enough for one more. This is true. But it’s also big enough for a herd of cows and Arthur hasn’t asked any to move in.
I stop picking at my skirt and look straight at him. ‘I don’t like how she bosses you around,’ I say.
‘Bosses me around? Don’t be daft! No one’s bossing anyone around.’ He pats my knee. ‘Look, it’s no trouble at all running Christine and the others to bingo. Better to be safe than sorry, isn’t it?’
He gives my leg a little squeeze and then looks out the window wistfully (adverb – with a feeling of regretful longing).
‘Sometimes it’s better not to force things,’ he goes on, turning back to me and smiling. ‘Just let things be. You know, let people be.’
He stands up and brushes his hands through his stardusty hair.
‘Now then, try and be nice to Christine. She’s doing her best – and even Christine can’t burn a cold tea,’ he adds, winking and walking out the door.
Alone again in my room, I lie back down on the bed and think about Arthur. When I was little, we’d go hunting for frogspawn and tadpoles in the stream, catching them in a mini-net and then keeping them in jam jars on the kitchen windowsill. We’d go off to the pictures in York and Leeds (he took me to see Lady and the Tramp six times) and he’d buy me chocolate ice cream in the intermission. We had days out all over Yorkshire. To Headingly cricket ground, where he’d buy me a comic and I’d read about ‘Belle of the Ballet’ and ‘Nurse Susan Marsh’ while he’d watch the Test match, or out on the Moors, where we’d fly my big red kite and climb over the rocks and eat crisp sandwiches and lemonade and butterscotch fudge. And he’d take me out on the farm, of course. He’d sit me on his knee on the tractor, driving around for hours, dodging cows and singing nursery rhymes. Later on it would be his Land Rover, where I’d sit and move the steering wheel while he controlled the pedals (perhaps, in hindsight, not the best way to learn how to drive).
I pick up my favourite photo of Arthur. It was taken before the war, when he was really young, not that much older than me now. The photo’s black and white but you can tell he’s wearing a pair of baggy white shorts and a coloured T-shirt with a white collar. His football kit. He’s running, leaning into the future, and behind him you can see hundreds of flat-capped men standing on a terrace watching him, row after row of little white faces all staring at him and the ball at his feet. There would have been thousands there, close to twenty thousand, Arthur thinks. That’s forty thousand eyes all looking at Arthur.
A Yorkshire gladiator. Dynamic and unafraid.
But what happened? That’s what I don’t understand. How did someone who plays in front of twenty thousand men every Saturday, week in, week out, become the man who hides behind his Yorkshire Post and goes along with pretty much anything Christine says?
INTERLUDE
2 May 1936
It was the final day of the season.
The final minute of the final day.
Arthur Epworth, the new signing that year, was running up the pitch with the ball. The Yorkshire flyer, that’s what they called him. The fastest man in the league.
He was just outside the 18-yard box now. He chose his spot then blasted the ball past the keeper into the back of the net.
The crowd exploded, the roar barrelling round the ground. A heaving mass of noise and waving caps.
The ref blew his whistle. Full time.
‘Well done, lad,’ said Mr Barrett, the team manager, putting his arm round Arthur’s shoulders as he reached the side line. ‘Great game.’
‘Thanks, Mr Barrett,’ said Arthur, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his shirt. ‘We didn’t do too bad, did we?’
‘You did very well, son. We’ll be joining those buggers up in League Two next season. Anyway, get yourself inside now,’ Mr Barrett went on. ‘You’d better get tidied up. We’ve got a posh do later at the Mansion House, remember.’
At the end of every season, the mayor put on a civic reception for the club. This year, with promotion secured, it would be an especially grand affair.
Arthur grimaced. A posh do at the Mansion House was not his idea of a good Saturday night. He wasn’t one for fuss.r />
‘Do I have to go?’ he asked.
‘’Course you have to go, son. It’ll be bloody good. A real celebration. Now come on, get yourself in there,’ he said, gesturing towards the players tunnel and the changing room just inside.
‘And anyway,’ shouted Mr Barrett, as Arthur walked off, ‘you might just enjoy it. You never know who you might meet, lad!’
THREE
Wednesday 11 July 1962
Tea was uneventful, a relatively quiet affair involving quite a bit of surreptitious gristle-removal thanks to Christine’s poor hambuying skills, plus some polite conversation about:
1. Mrs Bridewell’s dog (pregnant again)
2. Harold MacMillan (looking old)
3. The new village postmaster (a bachelor)
Afterwards, the three of us settle into our usual pre-bingo routine. For Christine, this involves retreating up to ‘her’ bedroom for half an hour’s ‘titivating’, for Arthur it means falling asleep listening to the cricket, and for me it means waving Evie’s Wand of Brilliance over the kitchen and tidying up the tea things.
I have a routine, built up from years of experience. First I clear away all the glasses and cups and saucers (you can’t eat anything in Yorkshire without an accompanying cup of tea). Then I get the plates, stacking them up as I go around the table, the big plates at the bottom and the smaller ones on top, carefully scraping any leftovers onto the top plate to create a pyramid of crockery and unwanted food. This is easy with something like a cold tea – what can go wrong? – but far more challenging when Christine has actually cooked something, which greatly increases the likelihood of leftovers and potentially risks leaving a pile of food so large that balancing it all on a small plate requires the engineering skills of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Suddenly there is a cheer on the radio and a voice from The Oval says something about someone being bowled for nine. Arthur twitches and drops the Yorkshire Post onto the floor. The grandfather clock in the hall strikes six deep, pendulous chimes and I hear Christine slam the bathroom door upstairs (she has the lightness of touch of a heavyweight wrestler). Outside, the cows are starting their evening mooing and then . . .