by Adele Geras
‘What?’
‘I was doing my face the day I brought you the magazine and burst into tears all over you. I saw someone in my make-up mirror.’ Megan laughed. ‘I thought I saw someone, of course nobody was actually there. How could they have been?’
Angelika, Eva told herself. Angelika had been there. A chill fell on her. She can’t be a figment of my imagination if Megan has seen her. She said, ‘I suppose you must have been feeling very emotional that day. I’ve long thought that what everyone calls ghosts are simply our guilty feelings made real in some way. They’re real to us, in any case. But that can’t be right because you haven’t got anything to feel guilty about, I’m sure.’
But to Eva’s surprise, Megan turned her face away, and began to cry.
‘God, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what …’
Eva stared at her for a moment, not sure what to do, not knowing the right thing to say. She opened her handbag and took out a white cotton hankie.
‘Here, Megan. Take this. Better than a tissue. Take it. Dry your eyes.’
Megan took the hankie. ‘Oh, God, Eva … honestly, it’s nothing. I’m truly sorry. It’s just—’
‘Don’t speak. Calm down. Take your time. We’re not in any hurry. I’ll order some more coffee.’
‘I’ll go and wash my face.’
Megan fled to the Ladies and a nervous-looking waitress approached the table.
‘Will the young lady be all right?’ she asked.
‘She’ll be fine,’ Eva said. ‘Could we have two more cappuccinos, please?’
The woman hurried off and Eva waited. They’d been talking about guilt. What on earth could Megan have done that a mere mention of it reduced her to tears? Eva had been living for so long with her own burden that she was used to it. The memories were painful but she’d learned how to divert them; how to turn her mind to something else. For many years her work had been a blessing. While she was absorbed in sketching the clothes and then overseeing the translation of the drawing from the paper image to a real garment, everything had been, if not fine, then at least manageable. Since her retirement and then Antoine’s death, it had become harder and harder to find distractions. The births of Dee and Bridie had helped. Small children are labour-intensive and Eva, who’d always thought of herself as having been a bad mother, was surprised to find that at one remove, so to speak, everything about childcare she’d previously thought of as mind-numbingly boring was actually not as bad as she remembered.
*
‘Sorry, Eva,’ I said. I slid into my seat and part of me was hoping I could just forget about what had just happened but I had to say something. ‘I don’t know what happened to me. I thought I had it all … well. I didn’t mean to burst into tears.’
I was trying to smile but I don’t know how convincing I was. Eva said, ‘You can tell me, you know. If it’ll make you feel better.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘What is worrying you. Why you’re feeling guilty.’
It came out before I could stop myself. ‘I killed a baby.’
Eva was silent for a bit and I began to wish I’d never said a word. ‘I didn’t hear you properly. Did you say you’d killed a baby?’
‘Yes.’
She said, ‘Do you mean … forgive me, but do you mean you had an abortion? Is that what you’re saying?’
I never thought of that. I realized with horror that I’d let my abortion slip so far to the back of my mind that I’d practically forgotten about it. I couldn’t think of what to say at first, and sat in silence, unable to gather my thoughts together properly. I can’t, I told myself. I can’t tell Eva about it. Never. In the end, I said,
‘No. No, I’m sorry. I should’ve made it clearer. I killed someone else’s baby. Not my own.’
‘How? How did it happen? You can’t have meant to kill it, surely? An awful accident of some kind.’ Eva looked as though someone had struck her across the face. ‘Oh, my God. A hit-and-run accident.’
I shook my head. ‘No, not that. On the night when Simon broke up with me, I rang him up. Much later. He was at home. I shouted at him. His wife, who was pregnant, must have heard some of it. She was in bed next to him. I meant her to hear. I wanted her to know about us, about me and Simon. I was yelling. It made me feel better to think of Simon and his wife having a blazing row after my call. It was awful of me, I know, but …’
Eva nodded. She didn’t speak and I couldn’t bear the silence so I just carried on talking. ‘That day, when I brought you the magazine and you found me crying in my car, do you remember? I’d just had a phone call from him. He was completely drunk, but he told me his wife had lost the baby. They must have had a row after that phone call. A dreadful one. It was probably what led to a miscarriage. I know when I’m being rational that it maybe wasn’t my fault, but in my heart, that’s what it feels like. That I was responsible. So. That’s it. I feel … I know it sounds melodramatic but I really do feel … that I’m a murderer. That this poor little baby’s blood is on my hands.’
Eva put her hand out across the table and took mine, ‘Oh, Megan!’ she said, ‘Poor, poor Megan, I’m so sorry. Oh, I know exactly how you must feel but your phone call, the row he had with his wife … you don’t know that that had anything to do with the miscarriage. Millions of women have dreadful rows in pregnancy without such consequences, and miscarriages happen even to the happiest and most harmonious of couples. I think – I know you feel differently because you’re emotionally involved and guilt in any case isn’t a thing that you can get rid of by applying logic – but I think that it’s a horrible coincidence and no more than that. You’ll come to see that in time, I’m sure. You shouldn’t blame yourself. You shouldn’t. Simon is the one who’s guilty of adultery. Guilty of letting down his wife. It’s not your fault.’
I couldn’t agree with her. I could have stepped back from the relationship and I didn’t. I’d brought everything on myself.
I was silent for so long that Eva said, ‘Have I said something to hurt you, Megan? I didn’t mean to.’
‘Oh, God, Eva, no … no. No one’s ever been as nice to me as you. I feel … Well. And perhaps you’re right. I should try and think of it like that. But it’s hard when I feel that sometimes the baby is watching me. Talking to me. I’ve heard a baby crying. I feel that he’s … don’t think I’m mad, please, Eva. I think the baby’s haunting me.’
Eva put both her hands over mine then, and squeezed them. ‘Try not to torment yourself, Megan. And thank you for telling me. I won’t say a word to anyone else, I promise.’
‘It’s good of you to listen. I feel better, just knowing that you know. And I’ll think about what you’ve said. I’ll try to believe it.’
‘We should go now, Megan, if you’re okay to drive. Rowena won’t forgive me if we don’t look at those places she wants us to see.’
I stood up. I made an effort to smile and tried to bring myself back to what we were meant to be doing. ‘We might be about to find the flat of your dreams. Fingers crossed, eh?
We walked to where the car was parked on a side street. Low clouds filled the sky, threatening rain.
*
‘I don’t think this is too bad, is it?’ Megan whispered to Eva while the young estate agent made himself as scarce as it was possible to be in such a cramped flat. Poor Megan! She was trying to sound cheerful but Eva herself was dismayed. She was still getting over what they’d already seen. Someone had made an attempt to plant trees, but they were spindly and seemed out of place in a street where most houses kept their wheelie bins in the front garden. This block of flats (an ugly, sixties, box-like structure) had a purpose-built lean-to arrangement at the side of the building where all the bins were housed. Eva tried to imagine herself going out there in all weathers carrying binbags tied up at the top and recoiled from the thought. As they walked into the entrance (dirty concrete-like floor, with a bank of letterboxes on the wall to the left of the door) her heart sank. I can’t
live here, she told herself and that was before the estate agent had even opened the door to the flat.
‘You have to imagine it with some furniture in it,’ Megan continued. Eva nodded as she took in the dun-coloured carpet, the walls which were once cream but were now scattered with rectangles of various sizes, where pictures had hung. In order to take her mind off the squareness of the room, the undersized and badly framed windows which gave way to a view of a scabby bit of lawn edged with weed-filled borders and roses that couldn’t have been pruned in the last decade, she thought of other rooms she hadn’t much liked. There was Agnes Conway’s front room with the red swirly carpet and the brown armchairs sporting crocheted antimacassars. Her first flat, before she’d moved in with Antoine, was in Chelsea. ‘World’s End, really,’ Antoine used to say. ‘But you are what makes it Chelsea, darling!’ Well, Eva thought, that was true in its way. It had been a horrid flat, and on the third floor, with no lift. The radiators had a mind of their own. The walls were dark red and you felt as though you were in a gothic horror film sometimes but still, she’d made it liveable. Artist friends had painted murals on the walls. She’d filled it with people and food and tables piled high with photographs and fabrics and it was a flat she now remembered with affection though at the time she’d moaned about it constantly.
‘Yes,’ she said now to Megan. ‘That’s partly true. If I’d been shown this flat when I was young then maybe I’d have had the energy and the incentive to work on it. Fix it up. Fill it with so many beautiful things that it might have been all right. But as it is,’ she smiled, ‘I don’t have the energy. I don’t feel like decorating. I want … well, what I really want is to stay in Salix House but if that’s not going to be possible, then I want somewhere I can walk into and say: this is lovely. I don’t need to do anything except move my own things into it.’
‘I see that,’ Megan said. ‘I know what you mean. This is a bit …’
‘Ghastly,’ said Eva. ‘That’s the word you’re looking for.’
‘You sound quite cheerful, Eva. Doesn’t it depress you, seeing places like this?’
Megan was whispering to spare the feelings of the estate agent.
‘It does make me feel oddly cheerful,’ Eva said. ‘I mean, it’s so awful that I know Rowena wouldn’t make me come and live in it.’
‘Well, ladies,’ said the estate agent. ‘Have you had a good look round?’
For a moment, Eva considered saying something bland and non-committal. Then she changed her mind and decided to put the young man out of his misery.
‘I’m afraid this isn’t the kind of flat I’m looking for. Not at all. I’m sorry you’ve had to come and meet us here for nothing. Thanks very much for showing us round.’
‘Well,’ the young man looked at her in surprise. He was wearing a badge that said his name was Nigel Farron. ‘We have a great many other flats on our books. You’ve only got to say what it is you are looking for and I’m sure I can find you at least half a dozen properties that will be just the thing—’
‘Then that will have to be on another day, I’m afraid. We have to go now. We’re meeting my daughter for lunch. I’m sure she’ll be in touch with your firm very soon.’
Their escape from the flat was very swift indeed. Before poor Nigel could regroup and say another word, Eva and Megan had made their way down in the (inadequate and faintly smelly) lift and out on to the street.
‘I’ve rarely,’ said Eva, waving at Nigel Farron as he pulled out in his car with almost indecent speed, ‘been happier to be out of a flat in my life.’
‘Yes, you’re right. Of course you’re right. It’s like a student flat, really. I suppose I wasn’t as shocked as you because lots of my friends in London live in places like this.’
‘I know. I know. I’m being fussy. Other people don’t have the luxury of such fussiness. They’re short of cash, they’re at the mercy of the landlords and so on. I will have the means to live in a much nicer place, once Salix House is sold.’
‘Rowena says Luke Fielden’s interested in it. He really does seem to want to buy it.’
And are you interested in Luke Fielden? Eva wondered, but did not say. The story she’d told in the café was horrifying. Poor thing. It was a lot to have to deal with. Eva could see that Megan was feeling a bit better now, but she knew from long experience how hard it was to get rid of guilt. However much you tried to push it to the furthest corners of your mind, it was still there. Look at me, she told herself. I’ve lived with it for more than seventy years. Poor Megan! Should I tell her what I did? Eva said nothing. The habit of silence had been too deeply ingrained in her and besides, the fact that someone else has done something terrible – or thinks she has – doesn’t alter what you think about your own mistakes.
She said, ‘Megan, I’ve had enough of standing around looking at flats. I told a lie about lunch and now we ought to go and make it true. Let’s go and find somewhere nice to eat.’
‘Do you have the energy to go and see another one?’ Megan asked as they finished up their meal. ‘This one is very close by, if you feel up to it.’
‘I’m up to it,’ Eva said, trying to sound as keen as she could. She was perfectly sure that this one would be no more suitable than the last but if you could lift your mind away from your own predicament: that of facing old age in a place you hated and that was nothing like the home you loved, then there was a kind of gruesome pleasure in seeing just how horrible a home could be. She said as much to Megan, who nodded, so they paid up and walked to the address they’d been given.
‘At least there won’t be an estate agent to deal with here,’ Megan said. ‘It’s a Ms Clifford, apparently.’
‘She’ll be older than I am and the flat will smell of dog and there’ll be dried-out pot plants everywhere. You’ll see.’ Eva tried to make light of it, but she could feel herself growing more and more anxious as they approached the front door. The house was Victorian and not very well maintained. The paint on the front door was faded and scratched. You had to press one of six buttons on a silver intercom panel to get inside. The name Clifford didn’t inspire confidence. It was written in scribbly pencil on a torn piece of paper which had then been stuck into the available space on the panel.
Eva was on the point of saying: Let’s leave it, but Megan had already pressed the button and a tinny voice told them to take the lift up to the second floor as the door buzzed open. Eva didn’t pay any attention to the lift beyond noting that it smelled revolting.
Ms Clifford turned out to be a blonde, wispy woman with a toddler clamped to her side. The child looked well cared for but was nevertheless whining loudly enough to make speaking difficult. This, Eva reflected, may turn out to be a blessing.
‘So sorry about this,’ said Ms Clifford. ‘And do call me Betty. She’s off nursery today. Don’t know what can be wrong with her, but you go ahead and look at the place and I’ll keep out of your way. That’s always the best, isn’t it?’ She laughed as though she’d made an amusing remark, but Megan was smiling at her and saying yes, yes, looking around alone was always easier. Eva drifted towards the bedroom and let the two young women go on talking.
She didn’t need a second opinion. Betty Clifford wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world and the state of her bedroom depressed Eva more than she could say. It wasn’t a question of money. If you had taste and knew how to clean things, you were well on the way to a perfectly decent house. Taste … that was the thing. Who decided what was good and what wasn’t? Eva had no idea. She only knew that rayon curtains in a shade that was exactly what Antoine used to call ‘mustard if you’re feeling kind and shit if you’re not’, at windows that were far too small for the proportions of the room were not a good look. The paintwork was pink, which made everything worse. The room she’d just left was a combined sitting room/dining room. The kitchen was in an alcove that would be clearly visible if you were, say, watching the television. No. A thousand times no. Eva glanced into the bathroom and shuddered
and closed the door firmly on a panorama of drying nappies strung out on a pulley above the bath. She breathed deeply so as not to lose control of herself and faint. In the sitting room, Betty and Megan were chatting. The child was still whining: a thin, droning sound like a disheartened bee.
‘Thank you, Betty,’ Eva said in the tone she sometimes used in the old days, when she was annoyed with any of her staff. ‘I’ve seen what I need to see. We should be getting along now, Megan.’
‘Oh. Right. I s’pose we should,’ Megan said and followed Eva out of the flat.
Once they were safely in the car and on their way back to Salix House, Megan said, ‘I know, I know. It was dreadful, right?’
‘Worse than dreadful. Throat-cuttingly horrible. Oh, this whole thing is a nightmare, Megan. I don’t know how it’s going to be resolved.’
Eva steeled herself for some cliché, but Megan didn’t say a word.
‘Thank God you didn’t say anything along the lines of: you’ll find the right place eventually. I think I’d have screamed.’
‘I nearly did say that. Glad I didn’t now, as it turns out.’ She smiled at Eva. ‘But you know, you probably will. Find somewhere nice. In the end.’
‘If this goes on I’ll be dead before I do.’
Megan laughed as though this was a joke. She doesn’t realize, Eva thought. Nobody realizes how hard this is for me.
‘I’m serious,’ she said. ‘I sometimes think I’m more attached to my home than most other people because of … my history.’
‘I know a bit about that,’ Megan said, as the car joined what looked to Eva like an endless line of slow-moving traffic. ‘I know you had to leave your home when you were very small. That must have been so awful. I find it very hard to imagine it.’
Eva looked down at her knees. ‘It was. We had such a lovely home, when I was small. I may be making up most of my memories because I’ve had years to think about it, and it’s quite likely that I’m embroidering or misremembering to suit myself. Things like the dark furniture in my parents’ flat. The room I shared with my sister—’ Eva’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my God.’