Cupid's Way

by Joanne Phillips

  Evie lifted her hands off her gran’s shoulders and took a step back. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Twitter. That social mediums thingy. So, now there’s only one enemy to worry about, not two.’

  Evie tried to process this, her mind racing to keep up. ‘But how? I mean, how on earth did it happen?’

  ‘Oh, Evie, I’m just an old lady. I don’t know all the ins and outs. Tim came into the meeting the other day and said that he’d read a Tweetie or something, and that Dynamite Construction was in the process of buying out McAllisters. Something about a hostile takeover and saving them from receivership. Who’d have thought? Roy McAllister with all his front, trying to buy our little street when he hadn’t even had the funds to pay his own staff for three months. What? Why are you looking at me like that? Surely this is good news?’

  Evie nodded slowly. ‘Excellent news, Gran. Even though it’s the same enemy we’ve been fighting all along, and look how powerful they are. They walk all over the competition, even if that competition is a huge company like McAllisters.’

  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. She looked off for a moment, then turned back to her gran.

  ‘What meeting?’ she said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Just now you said Tim came into the meeting and told you about McAllisters. What meeting?’

  Mavis jerked her head back, then immediately fluttered her hands around her head as though confused. ‘Oh, I meant dinner. Lunch. Something. When Tim came over the other day.’

  ‘He hasn’t been over here. I’d have noticed.’

  ‘He must have.’ Mavis grabbed hold of Evie’s hand to pull herself to her feet. ‘Or else how would I know about it?’

  Evie held out her arm and blocked the doorway. With her other arm she pointed to the ravaged suitcase on the floor. She said,

  ‘Either you tell me right now what the hell is going on around here or I pack that bag and leave today. I mean it, Gran. I’m not taking no for an answer.’

  Mavis pushed against her arm, but her attempts were feeble and half-hearted. ‘Oh, okay,’ she said with a sigh. ‘We were going to tell you today anyway, you stroppy madam. But if you want to spoil your own surprise, that’s up to you.’

  Chapter 26

  It was dark in the Peacocks’ house, and there was a smell that made Evie think of stately homes – but not in a good way. She tried to recall coming here as a child, to play with Eloise or to eat one of Freda’s famous cakes, but she could only bring up images of the gardens outside and the playground at the end of the street. Rolo sat in the corner of the room in a chair that might or might not have been brown. He was surrounded by everything he could possibly need – remote controls for the TV, bottles of beer piled by his feet, magazines with their pages curling, a bin for the empty crisp packets and apple cores and discarded cigar butts. When Evie and Mavis arrived, Rolo had leaned over and said something to Stig, who was seated in a garden recliner by his side. He still hadn’t made eye contact with anyone else in the room so far as Evie could see.

  Stig was in his usual garb of tweed jacket and red neckerchief, but he’d combed his white hair flat to his head and looked to have scrubbed his hands raw. Freda, as Evie had already seen, was wearing her Sunday best of flowery dress and white sturdy-heeled court shoes, and Bob had donned some kind of carnival or ringmaster’s coat. Eloise and her boys perched on the sofa, Eloise managing to make the room seem a little less shabby just by the fact of her presence, and Alun Peacock lounged over by the kitchen door, also scrubbed and smartened up, but not quite so drastically as Eloise’s sons.

  The first thing Evie had noticed, after Mavis had finally persuaded Freda to let them in – apparently this was ‘hours ahead of schedule’, whatever that meant – was Sarah and Tim huddled together on the love seat by the window. Even in the dim light afforded by the heavy drapes, Sarah’s face gleamed. She gave Evie a warm smile – a smile Evie couldn’t bring herself to return. She was still too disorientated, too out of the loop. She’d expected her gran to deny any weirdness, to tell Evie she was being silly and childish and paranoid. She hadn’t expected her to confirm her suspicions, and then march her down the gardens to discover her ‘surprise’.

  Whatever that surprise was, it was clearly somewhere in this room. The sight of Cissy and Pip creeping in behind told Evie they were all present and accounted for, and when Freda dimmed the lights even further she looked around in confusion.

  ‘What is all this?’ she said. ‘Why won’t someone just tell me?’

  ‘She’s always been this way,’ Mavis explained to the watching faces. ‘You couldn’t plan anything for her when she was a child. Suspicious mind, she’s got. And impatient with it.’

  Evie threw her gran a withering stare and turned to Frank, who was sitting on some kind of milking stool by her feet.

  ‘Gramps, do you know what’s going on?’

  ‘Just wait and see, lovely. Wait and see.’

  The pride in his face reassured her, but Evie was still not mollified. Freda took her seat next to Eloise, and Bob knelt in front of a massive TV screen, fiddling with an ancient-looking video player. The screen took up half the wall, and as Evie surveyed the room again she saw excitement on the faces of everyone there. And something else. Something that could only be described as pride.

  Shaking her head, she turned back to the screen. Bob scooted away as a video began to play, black and white static giving over to a shot of Cupid’s Way taken from the south side of the gardens. The bunting fluttered in a light breeze, framing a perfect scene of English country garden life. As the camera panned from right to left, Evie drew in a breath, startled by how glorious the houses looked to this focused eye. Zac had done them proud – the window frames were cream and glossy, the roof tiles shone in the sunlight, and all of the guttering was straight and painted in a fresh coat of matt black.

  A new scene appeared, this one a close up of the allotment, where Cissy and Pip were working side by side, laughing and throwing back their heads. Evie turned to look at them and raised her eyebrows. Cissy nodded towards the screen. ‘Keep watching,’ she mouthed.

  On the TV, Cissy and Pip were turning to face the camera. Pip spoke first.

  ‘Cupid’s Way is special because it’s the first place my wife and I have ever felt truly welcome. We can be ourselves here, and that is a rare thing.’ He looked at Cissy, who snuggled into his side. ‘We want to save Cupid’s Way because this is the place we hope to bring up our first child.’ His hand dropped to Cissy’s stomach, which bulged slightly under her thin cotton smock. Cissy looked straight into the camera, which zoomed in for a close up.

  ‘Cupid’s Way is so special it’s where I want my baby to be born,’ she said, her eyes dewy. ‘Please don’t destroy my baby’s home.’

  As the camera panned out again, Evie turned back to the real-life renters, her mouth hanging open. ‘You’re pregnant?’

  Cissy nodded. ‘Four months,’ she said, her voice thick with pride.

  ‘I’m so happy for you both.’ Evie looked back at the TV, then glanced at Mavis who was wedged against her side. ‘Is this my surprise?’ she asked. Mavis nodded, then put her finger to her lips.

  ‘Watch first. Explanations later. Okay?’

  Evie nodded. Next up was Stig, standing outside his spruced-up house looking more lord of the manor than scavenger of bins.

  ‘Cupid’s Way is special,’ he began, ‘because it has been my family home for over a hundred years.’ His voice was smooth and compelling, and he played to the camera with winks and gestures, talking about the history he’d witnessed in his lifetime. ‘Although I sadly never married, I like to think my home, my little slice of England, will still be here for future generations. Please,’ he added, gazing into the camera with bright eyes, ‘please don’t destroy this slice of England.’

  ‘Oh, you’re good,’ Tim said to Stig, holding up his hand for a high-five. Stig took a little bow, then extended his arm towards Sarah.
r />   ‘I had help with my script, of course,’ he said. ‘Credit where credit is due, young man.’

  Tim gave Sarah a beaming smile, but Sarah kept her eyes down.

  ‘This is all really lovely,’ Evie said, smiling at Stig, ‘but could someone just tell me what it’s for?’

  ‘Wait and see,’ Mavis hissed. ‘I’m on next.’

  Evie rolled her eyes towards the ceiling and returned her attention to the TV, where Mavis’s powdered face loomed large next to Frank’s. This was the first shot filmed indoors, and Evie recognised her grandparents’ living room with the raft of photos behind their heads. When had they done this? she wondered. It could only have been recently – there was the photo of Tommy in the corner. They must have been desperate for her to go out on one of her walks, just so they could grab Bob and his bonkers camera and get started.

  Mavis began with the same ‘Cupid’s Way is special because,’ but then she paused and looked sideways at Frank. She seemed to be struggling to speak. Evie reached out for the hand of the real-life Mavis and held it tightly. On the screen in front of her, her gran finally found her voice.

  ‘This is something I haven’t talked about in years,’ she said. ‘Not even to my dear Frank here. But lately, with the threat to our homes becoming more and more imminent, I realised I couldn’t keep my story to myself any longer. First, I found the courage to tell my wonderful granddaughter, Evie. Evie made me see that I shouldn’t have to face this alone, that I wasn’t just a silly old woman still living with her ghosts. Cupid’s Way is more than special – Cupid’s Way is my lifeline. And this is why.’ On screen, Frank slipped his arm around his wife’s shoulders. His face was grave. She spoke to the camera, but Evie had the sense that her words were for him and him alone. ‘Many years ago I had … I had a son. And he lived here in this house. In Cupid’s Way.’

  While Mavis shared her story, Evie let the tears run down her cheeks. No one in the room moved so much as a finger, and the silence was so absolute it was as though they had also forgotten to breathe. When her gran finished talking, Evie looked around. Mavis, sitting by her side, was the only person with dry eyes. Evie guessed her gran had cried enough by now.

  ‘There’s more,’ Bob said, standing, ‘but I think now would be a good time to take a break.’ His voice was thick with emotion. Evie nodded and got to her feet.

  ‘I need to go outside,’ she said.

  *

  ‘Come on, then,’ Evie said, leaning against the back of the painted bench opposite the allotment. ‘Let’s have it.’

  Mavis and Frank put on their innocent faces and looked at each other. ‘Whatever does she mean?’ Frank said.

  ‘Enough,’ Evie told them. ‘I’m sick of all this. For days now you’ve been shutting me out, and I’m guessing this is what you’ve been up to.’ Although why they’d kept it from her was still a mystery. Couldn’t she have had the chance to record a slot? Say why she thought Cupid’s Way was special? Even though they’d all been excited to show it to her, the fact she’d been excluded still hurt. ‘Your video is very sweet – okay, it’s more than sweet. It’s touching and beautiful and –’

  ‘And you haven’t even seen it all yet,’ Bob said, grinning. ‘It gets better.’

  Sarah laced her hands together and stepped forward. ‘Evie, the fact is, we’ve been doing all this for a reason. Now that Dynamite Construction are back in the frame, so to speak,’ – Tim laughed uproariously, until Sarah threw him a look – ‘we thought it was time to take action. Our own kind of action, doing something that makes us feel in control.’ She must have caught the hurt in Evie’s expression, because she hurriedly added, ‘Not that what you’ve been doing for us all wasn’t incredible, Evie. You took us down the official channels, and that’s what we wanted – needed – from you. Our very own expert. Our girl in the know.’

  Evie glanced over at Mavis and Frank, wondering if they’d told the others about her lack of architectural qualifications. Judging by Sarah’s words, they hadn’t, and she was grateful for that. There would be time enough for her to tell her friends, in her own words and in her own way, but right now it was no one’s business but her own.

  ‘So,’ she said, finally finding a smile for Sarah, ‘what is your plan? And what part does this video play?’

  ‘We’re going to send it to the TV stations,’ Sarah explained. ‘It’s pretty hard-hitting, when you consider that the council are proposing to use compulsory purchase laws to get these houses out of the hands of their rightful owners. Public opinion locally is pro the new medical centre, and of course they’re not interested in our little street.’

  ‘But elsewhere in the city, people are outraged,’ Tim said, butting in.

  ‘We’ve been gathering signatures,’ said Pip.

  ‘So that’s where he was the other day,’ Evie said to Cissy, who smiled and stroked her tummy.

  ‘We have over a thousand signatures so far,’ Sarah said, ‘and that’s without the Twitter campaign that Tim’s set up. We’ve got a Facebook page, and a Pinterest board with photos of Cupid’s Way and profiles of all the residents. That, together with the video – once it goes live on YouTube – should bring a hell of a lot of attention our way.’

  Evie nodded. She felt an odd sort of pressure on her chest, like the air was getting thinner. She could have done all of this – social media, a public campaign, getting opinion on their side. Had she tried to be too clever? Had she been so tied up in her opinion of herself as the person in the know, their expert on the ground, that she’d lost sight of the bigger picture?

  There she’d been, trying to ride to the rescue, and all along they’d been perfectly capable of rescuing themselves.

  ‘You still shouldn’t build your hopes up,’ she said. ‘This kind of thing, the publicity and all, the council will be expecting it. They won’t expect the development to be popular with everybody. Councils can be pretty robust, even in the face of negative public opinion.’ She saw the expressions around her droop just a little and wondered why she was still trying to be the voice of reason. ‘I’m not saying it won’t work,’ she added. ‘Just that you should be prepared that it might not.’

  ‘We are,’ said Sarah. ‘And that’s why this video and the internet campaign is our Plan B.’

  ‘Right.’ Evie waited, her head tilted to the side. ‘And? What’s your Plan A?’

  Sarah looked at Tim, who looked at Mavis and Frank, who looked around then turned their gaze back to Sarah. She sighed and pulled a face.

  ‘You are, Evie. You’re our Plan A.’

  Chapter 27

  ‘It won’t work.’ Evie’s voice was resolute. ‘You’re totally barking up the wrong tree here.’

  Standing once again outside the offices of Dynamite Construction, Evie watched the glass doors revolve with dizzying speed after a high-heeled woman in a tailored skirt suit burst out of them. She looked down at her own scruffy attire – jeans and a faded T-shirt, with a red and blue flowered scarf grabbed in haste from the back of the door to try and smarten herself up a bit. She noticed the scuffed heels of her Converse look-alike trainers and sighed. This was a place she’d had no intention of visiting ever again, and she still wasn’t entirely sure how she’d allowed herself to get talked into it. But now, with the towering facade reflecting the eager faces of her escort, Evie decided enough was enough.

  ‘I’m not doing it,’ she told them. ‘I’m not going in.’

  Sarah stepped forward, her manner brisk as though she’d been prepared for this eventuality. ‘Right, here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll all go up together, and if Evie still doesn’t want to see him then one of us will step in.’

  Evie stared at her friend like she was a crazy person. ‘Sarah, this man is the CEO. You can’t just walk up to his office and knock on the door. There’s a receptionist, and there’ll be security in place – and he might not even be here. You do realise it’s very likely he’s not here, don’t you?’ She latched onto this thought with ent
husiasm, but Sarah shook her head.

  ‘He’s here,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, really? What – have you phoned ahead and made an appointment?’ Evie’s laughter sounded shrill and more than a little hysterical.

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah told her. ‘Yes, we have.’

  Evie’s mouth dropped open. ‘What?’

  ‘Stig organised it.’ Sarah turned and regarded the old man thoughtfully. ‘Stig’s been quite key, as it happens. He phoned through yesterday and arranged an appointment. And with what he found out about Zac and McAllisters … I don’t know what we’d have done without him, frankly.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ he said, waving his hands. But his eyes glittered with mischievous pleasure.

  Mavis’s expression mirrored Evie’s. ‘You? How do you know Mr Andrews?’

  Evie, just as desperate to know the answer to this question, noticed Stig recoil at the emphasis. But then something occurred to her.

  ‘Hold on just a bloody minute. You said Stig arranged this meeting yesterday? Like, before you’d even asked me if I’d do it?’

  Sarah nodded, clearly deciding honesty was the best approach, but the others demurred, claiming innocence. Evie dismissed them, and focused on Sarah and Stig.

  ‘You two. Come here.’ They moved to stand in front of Evie: Sarah at least a foot and a half taller and standing proud and unapologetic, Stig shuffling and fiddling with his neckerchief. ‘So, you planned all this – the video, the “What’s special about Cupid’s Way” stuff – with the sole intention of getting me to take it to Michael?’

  ‘As I said, it was our Plan A, yes.’ Sarah managed to sound both bored and breezy, as if going over all this again was a complete waste of time. But Evie wasn’t finished with her yet.