Evie poked her head into the great gaping mouth and shouted, ‘Hello!’ The sound of her voice echoed right the way down Horace’s throat. Horace rolled his tongue into a tight bundle and then flung it over his bottom teeth so that it unravelled on the basement floor like a red carpet.
‘He must think highly of you, Evie. This looks like VIP treatment!’ Lieffe could barely keep his voice steady and his face straight.
‘That’s enough from you,’ Evie said sternly. She took a step on to Horace’s tongue, trying to be careful not to hurt him. Horace lifted her a few inches off the ground and slowly started to pull her into his open mouth. Evie turned her head to Lieffe, keeping her balance. ‘If I come out Horace’s … other end, there will be hell to pay when I get back.’ She ducked as she passed through the cat’s teeth, then sucked in a breath and held it as he gently closed his mouth around her.
Horace winked at Lieffe, who was watching in fascination, then closed his eyes and the giant face melted back into the wall, which turned from ginger back to cream. If it wasn’t for the few stray hairs left behind on the concrete floor, he might never have been there at all.
Jim
James ‘Jim’ Summer was a respectable man from a well-connected family. When his father retired, he would take over the family business, and when his parents finally passed on, he would inherit the Summer fortune and estate. Until then, his father and mother, James and Jane Summer, controlled every move Jim made. His mother even went so far as to lay out his clothes for him each morning.
Although he knew no different, he was aware that there was something wrong with the way the Snows and Summers functioned. From the way they picked their partners to the way they named their children, everything was too coordinated, too pristine. Neither family had any warmth, not even an ember, which led to them being terribly sinister and avoided by most. If it weren’t for the fact that they were incredibly well off, Jim supposed, they probably would have been isolated from society altogether. And the only reason he knew all of this was because one person opened his eyes to the madness when he was eight years old, and that person happened to be a Snow: Evie.
Although Evie might have literally been the girl next door, she was far from that stereotype. When she was younger, she was round and gawky. She never wore glasses or braces, and she always had quite a pretty face, but she couldn’t hold herself properly. She looked uncomfortable in everything she wore and out of place in every setting, and when she ran, which she did often, she looked like a newborn giraffe trying to find its feet. Her mother tried to encourage her to be ladylike, but Evie resented the idea that to be considered a lady you couldn’t behave the same way as all the young boys were encouraged to do. Her brother Eddie and Jim were almost forced to play and be boisterous, while Evie had to sit still and be boring and pretend she was elegant when clearly she was itching to gallop as fast as possible through as many muddy puddles she could find. She saw nothing wrong in being elegant if that was what you wanted, but it wasn’t what she wanted.
As she got older, she lost most of the gawk but kept most of the round, and even though she grew into an odd but beautiful young woman, to her family she was the ugly duckling. However, unlike most women who were partial to cake and cups of tea with three sugars, she embraced her extra weight. Partly because she knew those few extra pounds annoyed her mother, but mainly because she was healthy as she was and couldn’t stand the thought of exercising any more than walking up the seven flights of stairs to her flat on the occasions when the lift broke down – though luckily this very rarely happened as Lieffe kept the building in such good order.
As children, Jim and Evie were pushed together, their families set on them getting married when they were older, but then as they did get older, their friendship suddenly became ‘inappropriate’. They were now too close, according to their parents, so their time together was cut down and limited to the weekends. Jim didn’t understand why, but Evie did. It was because Jim had fallen in love with her and it was plain for everyone to see. Neither set of parents understood love, or marrying someone you had fallen for, because neither pairing had any affection for their spouse whatsoever. They’d been married off because it was smart and strategic and made the most sense. Jim and Evie had been paired together for the same reasons, so watching Jim fall in love with the woman they’d chosen for him to marry, something they didn’t understand, terrified them and they tried to put a stop to it. But all that really did was made Jim love Evie more. And all would have been well if Evie had fallen for Jim too, but her heart didn’t long for him the way his called out for her. She often wished it did, but Jim just wasn’t the man for her and they both knew it.
Evie often wondered whether she should keep her distance from Jim, to avoid giving him the wrong idea and getting his hopes up, but even though she didn’t love him, it was clear to both of them that their souls were made of the same stuff, and no matter what, at every stiff upperlipped gathering, at every family event and even just for the weekends, they ended up side by side. He was the best friend she’d ever had. Maybe even the only friend she’d ever had, and because of that she couldn’t let him go, nor did he want her to. Jim might not have been very good at communicating how he felt, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand. He knew full well that Evie would probably never love him, but it was enough just to be near her and to hold her affections in one way, if never in the other.
Now, however, Jim sat in the drawing room of the Summer family home, in his father’s armchair by the lit fireplace, holding a small green velvet box in his palm. He opened it, took out the engagement ring and examined it in the light of the fire. A white-gold band held a large glinting emerald at its centre, with smaller diamonds surrounding it shining just as brightly. Jim sighed. It was the perfect ring and he knew Evie would love it, but even just the act of giving it to her could be the end of any affection between them. If she said yes, she would be doing so out of obligation rather than choice, and if she said no, her family would disown her. His would most probably disown him too, for embarrassing them. Whether he asked or whether he didn’t and whether she said yes or whether she said no, both Jim and Evie weren’t destined for happiness. No, now it was simply a case of deciding which path would cause the least damage to their hearts.
Jim heard the front door close and voices twittering. He snapped the ring box shut and slid it into his trouser pocket. He’d started to feel light-headed, so he doused the flames of the fire and went to fetch his jacket to go for a walk, but when he got closer to the door, the conversation out in the hall started to become audible. He pulled lightly on the doorknob and saw his mother, Jane, and Eleanor Snow taking off their coats and hats after a walk with the dogs. Jim didn’t make a habit of eavesdropping on conversations – it wasn’t the gentlemanly thing to do – but he knew that what he overheard might be of use to Evie, and he wanted to help her in any way possible.
‘Jane, you know as well as I do that my daughter will be home by the first of November,’ Eleanor said, unbuttoning her coat and hanging her scarf on the coat stand.
‘But what if she does find a new job, Eleanor? What then? We’ll have to marry Jim off to that ghastly Nelly Weathersby!’
Jim shuddered at the thought, then straightened his shoulders and took a deep, silent breath. If he had to marry Nelly Weathersby to let Evie live the life she wanted, then so be it.
‘Don’t be dense, Jane. I’ve given Evie three months of delusion, but she’s coming home at the end of it whether she’s found a job or not. I’m not having her roaming about making a mess of things all of her life. Especially not with that stray she’s taken in. A musician, of all things! I knew my daughter was stupid, but my God! And Eddie’s been acting strangely recently too. I do hope she’s not rubbed off on him too much …’
The two women disappeared further into the house, their conversation fading with them, but Jim had heard enough. His heart was bouncing around his chest as he flew out of the front door, not bothe
ring to grab his coat on the way.
The flat had been wallpapered with Evie’s art. There wasn’t an inch of space that hadn’t been covered in pages from her sketchbooks. She had poured herself into her ink pot and tried to push her worries for the future aside by drawing sketches and sending them to anyone who might potentially need an artist. Even companies she’d sent her drawings to before received more of them, just in case the first lot had been missed. Vincent lounged on the sofa filing sheet music into folders and writing music notes on the staves in his exercise books. He was now a mature student at quite a decent music school, and he was loving it. Learning was something he’d not done much of when he was younger, especially not of what he loved the most, so now that he had the chance, he had leapt at it and he wasn’t going to let it go. Evie, however, had started to resemble a parrot who had been pulling out its feathers, and there was little Vincent could do to console her, but today was one of their better days. She was consumed by her drawing and he quietly went about his business, occasionally playing a piece on his violin which entranced Evie, but like all storms, this was just the calm that came before.
The door to the flat rattled under Jim’s hand. Vincent looked at the back of Evie’s head, her curls barely contained by the hairband she’d used to tie them back from her face, out of the way of her artwork as she scrawled away at her desk. She hadn’t heard the door, so Vincent flipped his books closed and opened it himself, coming face to face with a man who looked like a model from a clothing advert. The ones that strangely often have no clothes on. Vincent felt a little warm under the collar for thinking that and instead turned his attention to what exactly this insanely gorgeous specimen was doing on his girlfriend’s doorstep.
‘Oh. Hello. Are you …?’ said the man, a little flustered. He knew Evie was still spending time with Vincent but he hadn’t ever thought about how he would feel should he meet him. Nor did he expect Vincent to be so tall. Evie looked up at the sound of his voice and ran to the door.
‘Can I help?’ Vincent said pleasantly.
‘Jim? What’s wrong?’ Evie knew that Jim wouldn’t make house calls unless it was urgent. He was part of the life she didn’t want but a life that was still on the cards and so until she’d had the chance to prove she was capable of getting a job and living with the man she loved, Jim would stay away. That was until he had learned that Eleanor never intended to let Evie keep this life whether she made it work or not.
‘Can I come in?’ Jim asked, looking down the hallway, convinced he’d find Eleanor at the bottom of the corridor, coming after them with a torch and a pitchfork.
‘Of course. Jim, this is—’
‘Vincent? It’s truly a pleasure to meet you.’ The two men shook hands.
Vincent stood protectively close to Evie, his shoulder slightly in front of hers. From the worry in his brow and the warmth in his eyes it was clear to Jim that Vincent really did love her, and although he knew that Evie had never needed taking care of, he felt comforted knowing someone good was keeping her company at the very least.
‘Vincent, this is Jim.’ Evie paused, trying to find a way to explain exactly who Jim was. A way to encompass everything Jim had been to her over the years and what he may still become in place of Vincent. After far too long of a pause, she settled for, ‘He’s my best friend,’ and Jim liked that a lot.
Vincent relaxed slightly, but he eyed Evie, wondering why she’d never properly talked about this Jim before.
‘Evie, we need to talk. I overheard my mother and Eleanor earlier.’
‘You need to stop eavesdropping, Jim.’ She tried to sound humorous, but her gut was churning and it sounded more like she was telling him off.
‘If it wasn’t for my overactive ears, I wouldn’t be able to warn you like this.’
‘Warn me?’
Jim looked uncomfortable. He subtly shifted his eyes towards Vincent.
‘Vincent, could you make us some tea?’ Evie said, taking the hint. ‘We’ll be on the balcony.’
Vincent didn’t take offence. He’d known for a while she was hiding something, and the sudden appearance of this childhood friend, whom she’d failed to mention looked like a demigod, made him a little nervous. He wished she’d just talk to him, though. Whatever it was, they could figure it out together.
Vincent disappeared out of sight, and Evie took Jim by the arm and led him out on to the balcony.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Evie … I hate to be the one to tell you this,’ his hands were shaking, ‘but I heard Eleanor saying to my mother that even if you do find a better job than the one you had at The Teller, she’s still going to make you come home and put a stop to all of this.’ He gestured inside to the flat – and to Vincent in the kitchen. Evie thought she might be sick over the balcony.
‘No. No, she promised …’
‘I think Eleanor’s surprised us all with how cold she can be.’
‘She wouldn’t.’ Evie could barely breathe.
‘If you fight her, you’ll lose everything. You’ll never see your parents again, which, arguably, wouldn’t be a huge loss … but you’ll lose Eddie too, whether you find a new job or not. If you do find work, you’ll still lose it all. And, this is nowhere near as important as the rest of it but, I doubt your mother will make it easy for me to see you either.’
Evie looked at him, wide-eyed and breathing heavily. Not seeing Jim any more would be like removing her lifeline. Through everything, Jim had always been there and she’d always turned to him when things were going right as often as when they were going wrong.
‘Look at me, Evie.’ He ducked a little so he could catch her eye. ‘If you choose not to come home, you’ll lose all of that, yes, but if anyone can make it work, you can.’
Evie shook her head but no tears came. She’d cried them all out every time she thought Vincent wasn’t looking but he’d always known. Her eyes were too big for him not to know that the happiness in them he’d fallen in love with had been, temporarily he hoped, replaced by sadness. Vincent appeared in the doorway, having abandoned the idea of making tea that no one would end up drinking.
‘Evie?’ He looked at the shivering woman on the balcony and even though he knew something was terribly awry, she still looked strong. She still had some fight left in her yet. ‘Talk to me.’
Jim didn’t want to, but he knew he needed to leave. He stood up. ‘I’m going to leave you to it. It really was a pleasure to meet you, Vincent.’ Vincent could see he meant it but he looked back to the almost unrecognisable, considerably less bouncy Evie, and wondered if he really had made her happy.
Jim looked back to Evie. ‘Think about what I said?’ he asked, before he let himself out.
Once Jim had gone, Evie went to Vincent and let him take her in his arms. She just needed a few moments of being held by the man she loved before she made him entirely miserable.
Evie made tea, sat Vincent down and told him everything. She told him about her mother’s visit to the flat, and about the promise Eleanor had made to let her try to find a better job by the time November rolled around. She also reminded him that no one had responded to her letters and her artwork and said she doubted anyone would in the time she had left. And then she told him how, despite all that, her mother was going to go back on her word anyway, whether she found a job or not. Eleanor would be the fatal gust of wind to their house of cards.
‘You don’t truly believe she’ll do that, do you?’ Vincent said, a little hysterically.
‘Absolutely I do. If you’d met her, you’d know. We’ve talked about some of this before.’
‘I know, but I never … This is ridiculous!’ He raised his voice. ‘You are a twenty-seven-year-old woman!’
‘I know, Vincent. But I come from a family of traditions. Arranged marriages. Business over pleasure. In my family, personal choices have always been limited, and if I don’t follow suit, I lose everything.’ Evie held on to her cup of tea as though it was a piece of floating dr
iftwood in the middle of the ocean.
‘Can’t you see how twisted that is?’ Vincent had risen to his feet and was pacing the floor around her as she sat on the rug. He ran his hands through his black hair over and over.
‘Of course I can. Believe me, I know how wrong it all is, but being able to see that doesn’t change it.’
Vincent stopped pacing and looked at her, completely lost. Then a spark flashed behind his eyes like a firework going off in his brain.
‘Let’s run away,’ he said.
‘Oh Vincent. Be serious.’ Evie swatted at the air like she was batting away his idea, but her heart had heard it and was holding on to it.
‘I am serious. Why not? What’s stopping us?’ He knelt down by her side and took hold of her shoulders.
‘Your education, for a start. It’s taken you how long to secure a scholarship? I’m not going to let you throw that away.’
‘But I would, Evie. We are more important. We’ll go somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere your mother can’t find us, and I’ll apply to schools there. I’ll … I’ll see if I can transfer!’ He was grabbing at anything if it meant they could stay together.
‘You’d really do that?’ Evie said, stroking his cheek.
‘For you, Evie,’ he mirrored her action, touching her cheek with his thumb, and she felt exhaustion overcome her, ‘I’d do anything.’
Eddie
Halloween had taken over in mid-September. Skeletons could be seen hanging in windows, it seemed everyone was adorned in something either orange or black, and everywhere smelled like pumpkin. Evie loved Halloween for two reasons. She’d never been allowed to dress up as a child, nor was she allowed to join Jim and her brother when her father took them trick-or-treating, so it became like forbidden fruit. Everything looked far more desirable and more fun than it probably was, simply because she wasn’t allowed to participate. As an adult, she felt too old to join in, but she loved watching all that fun from the outside. The other reason she loved Halloween so much was that Eleanor Snow just happened to have given birth to her daughter on the spookiest day of the year. However, the Snows weren’t big on birthdays so if it weren’t for Halloween marking the occasion, Evie doubted she would have noticed the day come and go at all. Evie had been worried that the festivities had started so far in advance this year that everyone would have Halloweened themselves out by the time her birthday rolled around, but now that the day was nearly upon them, excitement only seemed to be increasing. A few well-aimed eggs caught her balcony, but she had escaped the reams of toilet paper that now festooned the balconies of floors one to four. The world felt a little more hostile the night before Halloween, and for Evie things were about to get far scarier than she’d ever imagined.
On the Other Side Page 13