A Winter Flame

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I’ve bought her a necklace,’ said Eve. ‘And matching earrings and bracelet. It’s a bit of bling for her cruise. And some flowers as well.’

  ‘What do you buy the woman who has everything, eh?’ laughed Susan.

  Violet didn’t say a word on the twenty-minute journey, but looked out of the window, face still obscured by her scarf and hat, as if she hadn’t quite defrosted from waiting on the doorstep for Eve to arrive. They pulled up outside the impossibly neat semi, on an estate of other pristine houses with bleached nets, scrubbed front doors and families of gnomes strategically placed in the garden borders.

  ‘Come on,’ Susan geed up her girls. She wasn’t looking forward to it either, if the truth be told. Her mother had been a horror-story that made her determined to grow up and be the total opposite sort of parent and woman. Pat Ferrell’s house had always been immaculate and showy, but when Susan was growing up there was never any food in the cupboards or clean clothes in the wardrobe. As a result, Susan’s cupboards had always been stuffed enough to face a four-month siege, and she washed and ironed every two days at least. Ruth hadn’t rebelled against the pattern, however.

  Susan knocked on the door, then walked in. ‘It’s only us,’ she said. ‘Mum?’

  ‘In here,’ said Pat Ferrell, in the faux-elocution-lessons voice she had worked on over the years.

  Susan felt a familiar knot in her stomach as she remembered growing up in this house and all the different men’s shoes by the door. Unpleasant memories always came rushing at her whenever she stepped foot in 14 Riffington Road.

  ‘Happy Birthday,’ Susan said, pushing open the lounge door to find her mother sitting in the big, plush red armchair with the gold-tasselled trim. It looked like a throne. She leaned over and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, something that only ever happened on birthdays and Christmases, and always given from daughter to mother. Eve and Violet followed suit, touching Pat’s stiffly proffered cheek with a brief, dry kiss and handed over their presents, resting the two bouquets on a nearby console table. Pat, fit as she was, didn’t offer to get up and make them a drink. Anyone visiting Susan’s house would have been sitting with a three-course meal five minutes after being admitted.

  ‘Shall I make some coffee?’ asked Susan.

  ‘If you like,’ said Pat, slitting open the first card with her fingernail.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want us to take you for something to eat, Mum?’

  ‘No, I said I didn’t. Eric and I are going to The Twelve Acres tonight,’ she patted her very well-preserved flat stomach. ‘I don’t want to look bloated in my new dress from Pellyfields.’

  Pellyfields was the poshest shop for miles. It cost fifty pounds just to window-shop. Eve had bought a number of suits and dresses there for work, even though she had always been happiest at home in her jeans – as Jonathan was. She had once bought him a shirt from there. Soft grey, the same colour as his eyes.

  ‘What’s your new dress like, Gran?’ Eve asked.

  ‘Navy and very classy,’ said Pat, primping the back of her newly permed, short blonde curls. ‘Frank Usher.’

  ‘Very nice,’ said Eve, watching Pat skim read the long poem on the front of the card and turn to the inside quickly, before putting it on the chair arm and opening the second and doing the same.

  ‘I’ll put your cards up for you, shall I?’ said Eve, picking them up and standing them next to the large flowery ‘I love you, darling’ card on the mantelpiece from Eric.

  ‘I expect you’ll have more to come with the post,’ Eve commented.

  ‘Post’s been,’ sniffed Pat. ‘I wasn’t expecting anything.’

  ‘I like your flowers, are they from Eric?’ called Susan from the kitchen. ‘And shall I put them in a vase for you?’

  ‘Would you?’ asked Pat. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got one big enough. I can’t stand faffing about fitting flowers in vases.’ And whether she meant to or not, she gave the two nearby bouquets a mini sneer.

  ‘I’ll go and do it for you,’ said Violet. ‘And I might as well put these in a vase for you whilst I’m at it and save you the trouble.’ And she swept up the flowers and disappeared into the kitchen, watched intently by her grandmother.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ said Pat to Eve, through a shrivelled moue of a mouth that reminded Eve of a cat’s bum.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Eve, wondering what Pat was talking about.

  ‘She’s got a face like a wet weekend in Grimsby,’ Pat sniffed. ‘Though she never was the life and soul of the party, was she?’

  Eve ignored that unfair remark and asked, ‘Have you heard from Mum?’

  ‘Have I heck. She’s too busy enjoying herself.’ Pat was smiling as she said that and Eve felt a stab of envy by proxy; not for herself, but for her lovely Auntie Susan. She had never heard Granny Ferrell give Susan a scrap of affection or a word of credit, and yet selfish, self-serving Ruth remained the apple of her eye.

  Susan brought a tray of mugs through, and a plate of biscuits. Bone china, all very posh and matching.

  ‘New crockery, Mum?’ said Susan, setting the tray down on the coffee table.

  ‘Eric bought me a tea service,’ said Pat. ‘Have I told you we’re going on a cruise at Christmas?’

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ said Susan. ‘Just a few hundred times.’

  ‘He made his money in plastic injection moulding,’ said Pat, taking the cup from Susan. ‘His factory made cat litter trays and poop scoops. Where there’s shit there’s brass.’

  Well, your accent might be posh, but you certainly aren’t, thought Eve. She wondered if Eric knew he was going to get his financial gonads ripped off over the coming months.

  ‘What’s up with yond?’ Pat pointed over her shoulder to the kitchen. ‘She’s got a face like a slapped backside.’

  ‘No she hasn’t. She’s had a bug,’ replied Susan, rearing in obvious defence. ‘There’s something going round.’

  That was a lie, thought Eve. As far as she knew Violet was perfectly well. She had looked okay the last time she had seen . . . Halfway through that thought, Eve realized that actually Violet hadn’t looked okay the last time she had seen her. In fact, Violet had looked awful and started to tell her what was wrong when the printers had phoned. And Eve had promised to go and find her when the call had finished, but never did.

  ‘She looks a shadow of a shadow of her former self,’ said Pat, delicately sipping her coffee.

  ‘Mum, there’s no need for that,’ snapped Susan.

  ‘I’m not daft,’ sniffed Pat. ‘She doesn’t look under the weather to me. She’s been crying – over a man. You can tell a mile off.’

  ‘No she hasn’t,’ said Eve. Has she? Is that why she came to see her that day?

  ‘That’s what you get for going with a young one,’ said Pat, putting her cup precisely back on her saucer. ‘I should know. He was four years younger than me.’ She never referred to Grandad Ferrell by name. ‘Older ones are more grateful.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Susan twisted around to make sure that Violet wasn’t overhearing any of this. She steered the conversation away from her daughter. ‘Anyway, have you heard from Ruth?’

  ‘I’ve just told you, no,’ said Pat.

  ‘No, you told me. Auntie Susan was in the kitchen,’ Eve defended.

  ‘Oh. She’ll be enjoying herself.’ Pat reached for a shortbread round. She’d had her nails done – long pink talons that looked eagle-like on her bony fingers. ‘She never moped over men. She just moved onto the next one and bugger ’em.’

  Susan didn’t comment, just drank her coffee in silence.

  ‘Anyway, when are you getting married to this butcher bloke?’

  ‘We haven’t fixed a date yet,’ Susan answered. ‘Next year sometime. We might even get married in Eve’s wedding chapel.’ She winked at her niece and Eve tried to smile back, but she didn’t want to think about wedding chapels today. She had thought of nothing else since she and Jacques had stopped speaking.


  Violet came back into the room carrying a vase full of red roses, which she set down on the coffee table alongside the tray. Eve watched her and was instantly ashamed that she hadn’t seen that there really was something very wrong with her. Violet looked terrible. Her skin was dull, there wasn’t even that customary shine to her lovely white-blonde hair and there were dark shadows under her eyes.

  ‘There’s twenty roses,’ said Pat. ‘One for every week we’ve been together.’

  ‘One for every thousand pounds of his money that she’s going to spend,’ Susan whispered to Eve.

  Violet went back to fetch the second vase of flowers, combined from their two bouquets.

  ‘What do you think about your mother getting married again then?’ asked Pat, also watching Violet through her small, bright eyes. They were the eyes of a sparrowhawk who had just viewed a garden full of prey.

  ‘I think it’s lovely,’ said Violet. ‘He’s a good man. Kind heart.’

  ‘Nice bank account,’ said Pat, spraying shortbread crumbs.

  ‘For some of us that isn’t a priority,’ said Susan, trying to keep the snap out of her voice.

  ‘Well, it should be. You’ve heard that song by Shirley Bassey, haven’t you? Diamonds don’t hurt you or lie to you.’ Pat flicked her finger at her daughter. ‘Take him for all he’s worth, just in case he decides to go for a younger model. Or dies before your name’s on the will.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Mother.’

  ‘Honestly,’ Pat laughed and adjusted the cushions at her back. ‘You three are sad cases, aren’t you? You’ve been on your own taking care of a senile old woman who wasn’t even any relation to you. When Jeff died you should have shoved Nanette Flockton in a home, but no – you have to go and martyr yourself.’ This she directed at Susan before swivelling her neck around to Violet. ‘You are looking like death warmed up. That’s what happens when you go for younger men. Younger men want younger women.’

  ‘Violet, I swear I didn’t say anything to her,’ said Susan, watching her daughter’s eyes turn to her and fill with tears.

  ‘You didn’t need to,’ said Pat. ‘It’s written all over her face that she’s got man trouble. And then we come to this one,’ and her dangerous, predatory eyes fixed on Eve. ‘Moping like that bloody silly bugger Evelyn. “Oooh, my soldier was lovely and he died and I’m sat here killing time until I can drop off me perch and go to him!”’ It wasn’t clear if that wicked impression was of Eve or Evelyn, but Eve felt the thump of it in her gut anyway.

  ‘Mum, shut up,’ said Susan, standing, but Pat was on a roll and wouldn’t be silenced.

  ‘He’s dead, be telled,’ said Pat, her posh voice plummeting into broad Yorkshire. ‘He’s gone for good – dead, ash, dust, worm food. What, are you waiting for him to rise like bloody Lazarus? It’s pathetic. You’re a laughing stock.’

  Eve wanted to move, but she couldn’t. Susan’s angry voice was in the distance, but her grandmother’s words were reverberating at a thousand decibels through the very epicentre of her.

  ‘Evelyn Douglas. The woman who discovered life when she was over ninety and lived it for about a fortnight, the stupid old bugger. Sat in her house with Christmas trees and her bloody photographs of a dead man whom she’d only known for a spit. And this one’s going to end up like her. Who does she think she and him were – Victoria and Albert? At least my Ruth has a bit of spunk in her.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ spat Susan. She could have said more, but dignity prevailed.

  ‘My Ruth is off living a life and you’re here dying a death. You make me sick. I wish I could swap places with you. All that life going to waste. I’d suck it dry if it were mine. And this one here, dopey Dora, she’s going to end up by herself an’ all before long. You should start a club.’

  Violet’s head had dropped, and she was quietly sobbing.

  ‘You’re evil, Mother,’ said Susan, putting her arm around her daughter. ‘I think we’ll go before any more is said.’

  ‘Aye, piss off,’ laughed Pat Ferrell as Susan pulled Violet, then a stunned Eve, to their feet. ‘Look at you all. Zombies. I’ve seen more life in a dead crow.’

  ‘Have a lovely birthday, Mum,’ Susan threw behind her as she pushed her girls towards the door. ‘Don’t get up.’

  ‘I’d no intention of.’

  Susan slammed the door shut and dropped her own head into her hands. ‘I know she’s my mother but I hate her,’ she said. ‘God help me if she ever needs twenty-four-hour care. I couldn’t do it. I’d have to shoot her.’

  ‘Violet, what’s wrong?’ asked Eve, putting aside what her grandmother had levelled at her because it was too painful to deal with right now. She turned her attentions to her cousin, who looked totally felled. Violet walked into Eve’s arms and her head banged down onto Eve’s shoulder.

  ‘She’s right, that’s the worst of it,’ cried Violet. ‘I know Pav is seeing someone else.’

  ‘What on earth makes you think that?’

  ‘I know, Eve. He rings her, he sneaks out to see her.’

  It was out before Eve even thought about stopping it.

  ‘Don’t be daft. He’s planned . . .’ she said. Shit.

  Violet’s head snapped up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Oh dear God. One paw of the cat was out of the bag and wouldn’t be pushed back in.

  ‘What were you going to say then? You said “he’s planned”.’ Violet jumped back from her cousin.

  ‘I don’t know what I was going to say.’ Eve cringed at her weak comeback.

  ‘No, you know something and you have to tell me what it is, Eve.’

  The cat had now totally clawed the bag to shreds. There was no going back.

  Eve watched a huge tear roll down Violet’s cheek, and the sight of it stabbed her deep inside. Violet was in real pain.

  ‘Please.’ The single word carried a whole heartful of sadness and hurt.

  ‘Oh hell fire.’ Eve dropped her head into her hands. ‘Pav’s planned a secret wedding for you both.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?’ Susan echoed the word.

  ‘Oh Violet, I shouldn’t have said . . .’

  But Violet had a spark in her eyes – a hopeful light the colour of spring bluebells. ‘Eve, you have to tell me. You have to.’

  ‘He’s booked a date for your wedding in the chapel in the park. It was supposed to be a total surprise.’

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Susan, as Violet’s head turned to her. ‘I know nothing about it.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Saturday. This Saturday. The second of December.’

  Susan gasped. ‘Mine and your dad’s anniversary.’

  ‘Oh my God, my God,’ said Violet, starting to shake and cry, but this time the tears were very different. They were big, salty blobs of relief and she was laughing and hiccupping as she cried. ‘So all those phone calls . . . Eve, do you know someone called Serena?’

  ‘Serena Potts? She’s one of the wedding organizers. Why?’

  Violet didn’t answer the question directly but gave her another one.

  ‘Does she have a squeaky voice?’

  ‘Erm, yeah. High-pitched. She sounds very young but she’s in her late forties.’

  Violet started laughing almost hysterically, then she bounced forward and threw her arms around her mother and Eve with blessed relief. ‘I just can’t tell you how glad I am we came to see this old bat, because I wouldn’t have known all this if we hadn’t,’ she said. ‘Oh Eve, you don’t know what you’ve done for me.’

  ‘I really wanted to tell you before,’ said Eve. ‘I didn’t think you’d be happy with that sort of surprise sprung on you.’

  ‘Happy? Happy?’ beamed Violet. ‘I don’t know how I would have felt, but all I can tell you is that I’m the happiest woman in the world at this moment.’ All those fears and insecurities, which were hooked into her shoulders and weighed her down, had been flung off and destroyed. She noticed the look of gui
lty horror on Eve’s face and added quickly, ‘I am so glad you told me. I’ll have a hairdo.’

  ‘Oh Violet, please don’t do anything to make Pav suspect that you know. He’s planned everything – and I mean everything, because I’ve seen the notes. Just don’t do anything out of the ordinary. Trust me. And stop smiling like that. He’ll know if you turn up at home grinning like a Cheshire cat with a coat hanger stuck in its mouth.’

  Her cousin reined in the smile, but it popped out in sparkly form in her big violet eyes. ‘I can’t tell you how I feel. I’ve been so miserable. I thought he was leaving me.’

  ‘Well, he’s obviously not going to do that,’ said Susan. ‘I wonder if he was going to invite me.’

  ‘Leave it to Pav,’ said Eve. ‘Trust him.’

  ‘I’m going to have a stiff drink when I get in, early as it is,’ said Susan. ‘Fancy a sneaky gin?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m going to drop you two home and then go back to the office for a while. I’ve got some work to do before I finish for the day.’

  ‘Don’t take any notice of that old witch,’ said Susan, getting into the car. ‘She likes the sound of her own voice too much.’ Although, if she were honest, she wished she could have picked out bits from her mother’s tirade and presented them in a kinder way to Eve, because part of what she was saying was right. Everyone – except the woman herself – could see Eve wasting her life like old Evelyn had.

  Eve went into the empty, dark Portakabin office and switched on the light. It was unnaturally silent in there too as the coffee machine was switched off and not grumbling in the corner. She replaced the coffee filter and poured a jug of water into the top. The new machine on order had pods but it wouldn’t permeate the air with the strong coffee smell like this old one; it wouldn’t bubble and hiss and take the edge off the heavy quiet. The last thing Eve wanted at that moment was silence, because silence was a breeding ground for thinking, and she didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to replay the words her nasty old bugger of a grandmother had fired at her because they were too near the bone not to hurt. And what was worse, they echoed what Jacques had said to her on Monday. It was as if they’d swapped notes. Thank goodness at least what her grandmother had said to Violet had been proved wrong. As Eve poured out some milk into a mug, she felt ashamed that she hadn’t realized how upset Violet had been feeling recently.