by Adele Geras
‘I don’t need an escort, Conor. I’d rather be on my own if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course, of course,’ he said. He had to say that, Eva told herself as she strode much more quickly than she’d intended down the drive. I have to get away and think. She’d never done it in her life: walked out like that. Rowena used to storm out of rooms all the time when she was a teenager. Whenever something annoyed her, off she’d go, slamming the door and leaving a kind of backwash of resentment or fury behind her that Eva could almost see.
I ought to have managed the financial side of my business better, Eva thought. I ought to have branched out into perfume or scarves or something, instead of running away and burying myself in the country so that now I’m forced to find somewhere small and cramped with no garden to live in till I die.
She walked along, kicking a stone with the toe of her boot from time to time. This was supposed to make her feel better but all it did was add to her worries. Was she wrecking her boots? It wasn’t worth it because she wasn’t feeling better. The more distance she put between herself and Salix House, the worse she felt.
*
I found Eva after I’d been driving for about five minutes. She was walking slowly along the side of the road, dressed in flat suede boots and one of her dramatically coloured coats. This one was a dull fuchsia and from behind, with her white hair hidden in the folds of a bitter-green and fuchsia shawl, she looked about twenty. She walked gracefully, like a ballerina or a model, I noticed, but she didn’t look as if she was going anywhere. I tooted gently on the horn as I drove up beside her and wound down the window.
‘Hello, Eva!’ I said.
She stared at me for a moment, as though she didn’t recognize me. Luckily, there was a place at the side of the road where I could stop, so I drove up to that, parked and quickly sent Conor a text saying I’d found her. Then I got out. I made my way back to where Eva was standing, looking bewildered.
‘What’re you doing here, Megan?’
‘Well …’ I didn’t know if I should tell her that I’d been looking for her. She noticed my hesitation and said something that might have been ‘Pah!’ or some other expression of disgust.
‘You’ve come after me, haven’t you? He’s sent you after me. Oh, my God. I can’t even go out now without a bloody search party on my heels. Who was it? Conor? Phyllis? I waited till Rowena had gone before I escaped.’
‘What are you escaping from?’ I asked. She’d stopped in the road briefly to speak to me but now she was striding along again, faster than before and I quickened my pace to keep up with her.
‘Why aren’t you taking the girls to school?’ She turned her head to look at me.
‘Conor wanted to.’
‘What lies! Conor wanted you to come and find me. Am I right?’
‘Okay, yes. He said you’d run out of the house during breakfast and that you didn’t normally go walking at this time of day.’
She nodded. ‘I don’t. I don’t usually only I just … I was overcome with … I don’t know. Something.’
Her voice shook. Was she crying? I didn’t feel I could ask. I was just trying to think of what to say next. I was staring at my own feet as we walked along, because I wanted to give her time to recover. She didn’t say a word and for a while we walked together along the road. Then she turned up a tree-lined lane and I followed her.
‘I’ve never been up here,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty.’
‘In the spring, it is. Everything’s a bit wintery now. Not enough green anywhere.’
‘I like the bare trees,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind the winter.’
‘This is a lovely view,’ she said. We were beside a gate that led into a field where some cows were idly chewing at the grass. ‘I like cows.’
‘Eva, what’s wrong? Why did you run away? Why did you say: escaped?’
I was taken completely by surprise by what she did next. I’d been expecting all kinds of reactions: It’s none of your business, there’s nothing whatsoever wrong, I’m afraid I can’t talk about it … anything except what happened. She let out a howl, like a child, or a wounded animal, and then she covered her face with her gloved hands and burst into tears. People say that a lot: burst into tears, but I’d never actually seen it happen before. It was as though a tap had been turned inside her head and suddenly, tears were flowing from her eyes, rolling into her mouth, just pouring out of her. I didn’t know what to do. For a mad second I wanted to laugh, to say: No, this is wrong Eva. You’re the one who cheers me up when I’m weeping. But I couldn’t say that and I had to say something. I didn’t stop to consider whether what I was doing was right or not, but I went and put my arms around her and hugged her.
‘Don’t cry, Eva! What’s happened?’
I let her go after a bit and she sniffed and reached into the pocket of her coat and found a hankie and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
‘Oh, God Megan, I’m sorry. I never cry. I don’t know why today—’
‘It doesn’t matter, Eva. Come home now and get warm. We can talk there. You can tell me what happened.’
‘Nothing happened. It’s nothing new. It’s nothing mysterious. I just can’t … I can’t bear the thought of it, that’s all.’
‘The thought of what?’ I asked, though I knew exactly what she was about to say.
‘The thought of leaving Salix House,’ Eva said as new tears gathered in her eyes.
*
‘I don’t want to go back yet,’ Eva said. I’d persuaded her to come back to the car. ‘Can you drive around a little? I’d rather talk here than at home.’
‘No problem.’ I knew what she meant about talking in cars and I couldn’t stop my mind from going back to the first journey I’d ever taken alone with Simon. How the darkness shut us into a tiny little space where nothing but the two of us existed. I remembered other trips we’d been on together. Other things he’d said to me, simply because he knew that we were cut off from the rest of the world, which seemed to be flying past the windows. I shook my head. Jesus, I told myself. Eva’s the one with the problem. Not you. I deliberately didn’t turn my head in her direction but I started driving and pretended to be extra vigilant about the road ahead of us. I knew that she’d be more likely to talk if I said nothing so even though I was dying to prompt her, I kept quiet.
‘I know all the arguments for us moving, you see,’ she began. ‘Rowena is right and there is no way on earth that we can afford to keep Salix House. It’s just that the other places we’ve seen are so horrible that I’ve lost heart. I don’t believe I will find anywhere. Not anywhere I’d really like to live. Nothing that would make up for having to leave Salix House.’
I knew exactly what she meant and as she spoke I began to feel worse and worse on her behalf.
I thought of each room in the house, how beautiful everything was, how full of Eva’s taste and character, even in those parts of it which were shabby and could have done with a coat of paint. I couldn’t truthfully have said that I’d been happy there, but that was more to do with me than the house.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, ‘that I understand myself why I’m quite so attached to it. I’ve been unhappy here too, you know. The memories I have of my time here aren’t all good, by any means. I only know that for a long time I didn’t have anything. Do you know what that’s like? Nothing. Not parents, not a house, not … well, nothing. Then I had some things, that were … not foisted on me exactly but which weren’t really me. Not anyone’s fault, of course and my adopted mother did her best but still I didn’t feel … it’s hard to explain. I only began to be happy when I started making my clothes. That was a real thing that I could imagine in my head and then make with my own hands and that a woman could put on her body. I knew that this or that arrangement of fabrics would make her beautiful and I’d made it and that satisfied me.’
I nodded and didn’t answer. I didn’t want her to stop talking. She went on, ‘Then I met Antoine and everything changed. Love
changes everything. It sounds like the name of a song.’
I laughed. ‘It is the name of a song!’
‘Really? I don’t know it. I know very little about today’s songs. That’s the awful thing. I’m not really part of anything that’s going on. I’m … well, history, I suppose.’
‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘Knowing or not knowing an Andrew Lloyd Webber song doesn’t matter, Eva. Trust me.’
‘I’ll take your word for it. But it’s not just songs. I can’t understand why everything has to be … well, perfect. Rowena wants her life to be exactly right. It upsets her that the garden isn’t as tidy as it could be. She resents not being able to employ a couple of people to come in and help Phyllis. She’d like the whole of Salix House to be redecorated. But me, if I could be allowed to live there till the end of my life, I wouldn’t care how much of a wreck it was. We could moulder together … oh God, what am I saying? I would hate that. I do hate it. Rowena is right. We can’t afford to keep the poor old place properly so we’ve got no business living there. Even Phyllis wants to leave it. She’s as old as I am and has a sister in Lyme Regis. She deserves to live by the sea if that’s what she wants. Rowena’s right. It would be like throwing money away to continue in the same way for ever. I’ll find somewhere.’
‘That’s true,’ I said and I believed it, but that wasn’t the point. I decided to talk to Rowena. It wouldn’t hurt to give it a go, for Eva’s sake. Perhaps she might consider taking it off the market and putting it on again once they’d found somewhere suitable for her mother. I could suggest it, in any case.
*
This was, Eva thought, a ridiculous time of the day to be lying down, but she was tired and one of the good things about growing older was that no one batted an eyelid if you said you were taking yourself off to your bed. She hadn’t drawn the curtains, proposing to enjoy whatever the winter sunset might produce. Megan had understood her very well, but she hadn’t been totally honest. When she was being rational, sensible, grown-up, Eva acknowledged that it wasn’t only happy memories that linked her to the house. The unhappy ones; the terrible things that she’d felt and seen here; the presence of Angelika even when she didn’t show herself: all those were like creepers of some kind, binding her to the house, attaching themselves to her skin.
She tried to make her mind blank, to rid herself of thoughts and worries about moving house and everything else as well, but the trouble with closed eyes, with trying to clear your mind, was that other things came into your head to fill the space. As a girl, Eva used to imagine her head as a kind of snow globe. Instead of white, pure flakes falling over everything when you shook it, she had something dark and sooty lying at the very bottom of the glass ball, waiting to drift down over her whole life if she thought about it too hard. This darkness, like a layer of thick black mud, had been with her for as long as she could remember. It sat there quietly and didn’t get stirred up very often, but when it happened, her whole being became clouded with sorrow. When she felt better again, it was as though the snow globe was settling into stillness and clarity.
Eva feared that if she fell asleep now one particular nightmare she’d often had as a child would come back to trouble her. As a girl, she used to try and stay awake as long as she could, to defeat the bad dreams, but it never worked because in the end, she always fell asleep.
Think about anything, she told herself, but not the game we played. The game was what she dreamed of, all the time. She closed her eyes. Immediately, she was back there, in the black place between the crates piled up on a German station platform and words were being whispered in her ear. Cover your eyes. Count to a hundred. I didn’t know how to count to a hundred, she thought. I knew how to count to ten, that was all. I was worried. Worried that I wasn’t going to be able to do what she said. What Angelika said. I didn’t even know what a hundred was, except that it was part of the game. Eva had kept on counting to ten, over and over again. How many times? She couldn’t remember after so many years, but much more than a hundred. She stayed there in the dark and the cold and she didn’t move. The voice said nothing else. Eva thought she knew who’d been speaking, who had told her to hide her eyes, but sometimes she believed that the words had come from her, out of her own mouth. That she’d spoken them. Cover your eyes. Count to a hundred.
It was Angelika. Eva had been almost sure of that for most of her life, but now she was far less certain. It could have been me, she decided. It could have been, when you think what happened to each of us. Eva had become so used to the fact that no one except her knew about Angelika that for years at a time she’d managed to smooth over what she’d done and push it out of her mind; obliterate and deny it entirely. What she’d told herself over and over during her lifetime (I was only four years old) was true but still she couldn’t forgive herself. You shouldn’t have done it. You shouldn’t have left her there. Left her to die. You knew England meant being safe. Mama and Papa had told you. It had been drummed into you. Just as Angelika had been told, constantly told: Look after Eva. You’re the big sister. She would never have disobeyed Mama and Papa. Would she? No, never. So it must have been me. I must have done the bad thing. I left her there. I left her there and she died because I did that.
Since that night and until just the other day when she’d let slip her name in front of Megan, Eva had managed never to speak of Angelika. It was as though she’d never existed. By the time the transport arrived in England, she’d been beyond speech, traumatized into silence and sickness. All her energies had turned to erasing that memory and she’d done it so well that until quite recently she thought about it only rarely. Because Agnes Conway had known nothing about Angelika, it was easy never to speak of her and Eva had trained herself into a willed forgetfulness. She had tried not to dwell on the past and most of the time she’d succeeded. But now, because she was so worried about leaving this house, because Megan had been so kind to her, things were creeping back into her head which she’d thought were banished for ever. When she came upstairs a few minutes ago, she was sure that Angelika was there, in the mirror, even though Eva wasn’t able to see her. Sometimes, it didn’t matter how many scarves she threw over the glass, she could still sense her sister’s veiled presence. However the story twisted itself up in her dreams, she had left her there. Eva had taken the lady’s hand and let herself be led on to the train bound for Holland. She’d looked out of the window and seen the station getting smaller and smaller. I knew I was alone, she thought. She hadn’t meant to do it, but she’d done it; she was still a murderer and she’d never forgiven herself. You can’t ever rid yourself of a thing like that. You can suppress it but it will come out. Somehow. It will float out of the glass and stand in front of you, dressed in brown buckled shoes and a brown coat with a black velvet collar. Your sister.
*
After Eva and I got back to Salix House, she went to lie down till lunchtime and I went to check my emails. I knew there would be a message there from Tom and there was. You okay? Can’t write much. In staff room. Missed you this morning. Tom x.
I answered him: Had to talk to Eva this morning so couldn’t come into school but will see you at 3.30. Love, Megan x.
I thought about the message for a while before I sent it. I was determined not to lie to Tom. I felt that perhaps he was right and life might be changing but I didn’t know how or if I liked it changing, not yet. As I thought about it, I remembered how we were on Saturday and found myself quite eager to see him. I sent the message and then I went and lay down on the bed and tried to think about Eva. Stop thinking about Tom, I told myself, and work out what you’re going to say to Rowena.
*
Eva stood on the flagged terrace outside the drawing room watching as Conor dealt with the bonfire, the fireworks and managed at the same time to keep the girls under control and out of danger. He was at his best on such occasions. He’d have been a perfect primary school teacher, Eva thought, as she’d thought many times. He was friendly, cheerful, helpful and even
quite handsome if you liked the rather hearty, pink-cheeked sort of man who would probably get a bit stout in his old age. Rowena had surprised her when she announced her engagement to a young computer programmer she’d met at a party, but the marriage was happy, as far as she could tell and certainly she couldn’t have wished for a better father for her granddaughters.
‘Right, now,’ he said to Dee, Bridie, Megan and Rowena, who were standing together at a safe distance from the row of bottles with fireworks stuck into their necks that he’d set up earlier in the afternoon. ‘You stand back and watch these go up! See how high they go. Ready?’ He lit the fuses and the rockets flew up over the garden, leaving sequin-like trails across the night sky. The girls laughed with pleasure. ‘More?’ Conor asked. ‘Yes!’ came the answer. ‘Yes!’ Another fusillade exploded, and then more laughter. The fireworks ran out then, for which Eva was grateful. The first few times were a happy surprise but after a while, when it came to fireworks, she started to calculate the cost of the bright glittering and usually came to the conclusion that sending money burning up into the air was something of a waste. What a killjoy you are, Eva! she told herself. The girls are so happy. Conor and Rowena are happy. Surely that’s worth a great deal of money?
‘Okay, my darlings … and that includes you, Eva,’ said Conor, coming up to her and taking her by the arm. ‘Let’s go down to the kitchen garden and light the bonfire.’
On the way, with the girls skipping ahead of them and Megan not far behind, Conor turned to her and looked at her more solemnly than he normally did.
‘Are you feeling more yourself, Eva? After this morning, I mean?’ He seemed genuinely concerned. ‘I know you’re not happy with the moving idea and all but—’
‘Don’t worry, Conor,’ said Eva. The last thing she felt like doing was rehashing her feelings now, after going over everything with Megan. ‘Let’s catch up with the girls.’
*
At seven, I found Rowena alone in the kitchen. The girls were watching television with Eva. ‘I never mind what it is,’ she’d told me soon after I got here. ‘I just like sitting on the sofa between the two of them and hugging them if they’ll let me. I like seeing how much they’re enjoying themselves.’