The Lies Between Us

Eventually we got on to our families, and the gulf widened until it yawned beneath my feet. His father was in property, he said. My face must have shown that I didn’t know what being ‘in property’ meant exactly, and Rick explained that his father bought, sold and rented houses.

‘He used to work in my grandfather’s business, in the East End,’ he said, ‘trading cloth. But the war saw off the business, my granddad retired on the proceeds of selling the building, and my old man turned to property.’

When his father had made ‘quite a bit of money’ they’d moved out of London to Harborough. I recognised the name of the road where they lived; there were some big houses down there by the park.

‘Why don’t you just work for your dad?’ I asked him. ‘Couldn’t he give you a job, if he makes so much money?’

Rick shrugged. ‘I will one day. He said I should do something else first. Another string to my bow, as he calls it.’

Rick asked me about my family, and miserably I told him that both my parents worked in a shoe factory, my father as a supervisor and my mother as a stitcher on the line. He didn’t say much to that, but I saw him reassessing what little he knew about me.

When Rick walked me home I stopped at the end of our street and said, ‘Well, here we are, this is where I live.’ I pointed to somewhere halfway along the terrace, deliberately vague. But then, feeling guilty about fobbing him off, I said, ‘Do you want to come in for a coffee, or anything?’ He grinned, and I regretted that ‘or anything’. Then regretted asking him at all, wondering how I’d explain it away.

‘Dad will give you the third degree, though,’ I added. ‘And my little brother will hang around and be annoying.’

‘Now that sounds inviting.’ He pulled his collar up a little higher and blew on his hands, then shoved them into his pockets. ‘I’ll see you at work then. Okay?’

‘Yes, sure,’ I said, and he turned and walked away, round the corner and gone. I was stunned. Given his reputation I’d imagined myself having to politely remove groping hands. Was that it? Not even a peck on the cheek? Had I not passed the test?

In bed, later, I thought back over the evening, convincing myself that everything I’d told him would have put him off. I felt stupid, like I’d somehow been found out, found wanting. And I was disappointed; it sat in my stomach like a bowlful of my mother’s porridge, because even though I could see he was a bit full of himself I liked him. He made me laugh.

Two days passed without another word from him, barely an acknowledgement when I saw him at work. On the third day, we happened to pass in the corridor above where the draughtsmen worked. When he saw me coming he stopped and leant back on the wall, his eyes looking me up and down. I got ready to give him a quick nod and carry on, but he put one hand up to stop me.

‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ he asked.

Tomorrow was Friday, and I was doing nothing. I looked down at the drawing room and saw two of the men staring up at Rick and me. One leant over to the other and said something that the other one laughed at. I ignored them and turned back to Rick. ‘I’m seeing a friend,’ I said. And then added, ‘Maybe.’

‘Well, don’t see her, see me instead. I’ll take you to a nice Italian restaurant I know.’

Italian? That was one up on the fish and chips I usually get offered. ‘What, you don’t talk to me for two days and then you want to take me out?’

Well, those were the words in my head, but what I actually said was, ‘All right then. Why not?’

2

Eva

1987

The next morning, I get up late, around eleven.

I’ve been lying in bed thinking about Ed. This is something new to me, as I don’t think I’ve ever found my attention so absorbed by anyone I’ve been out with. Sometimes I’ve wondered if anyone ever would get my attention.

Contrary to what my mother thinks, I have had boyfriends – all part of the same group of friends, boys I’ve known for ages. Mostly it was just a few dates, although Robin Phipps lasted for five months on and off; I lost my virginity to him. It was at a party, on a pile of coats in the bedroom, a deliberate decision on my part to seduce him – out of curiosity and the desire to be able to join in conversations with girlfriends. Then a few times we had sex at his house when his parents were out. I enjoyed it, up to a point, but there was lots of fumbling and not too much in it for me. I still somehow feel as though I haven’t experienced sex, although technically I think I once had an orgasm. And I definitely never lay in bed thinking like this about Robin, only about the act itself.

I feel teased by Ed, that is, I want to know him better. And I have to admit to a certain feeling of lust; I have a sense that sex with him might be entirely different to sex with Robin.

I wonder if he will come back to the Albert. Maybe I’ll see you around, he said. It wasn’t hopeful, even though when I think about our conversation I feel we sort of connected, and that he was interested in me.

But then there was the walk back here, until there was no hiding the fact of who I am: the daughter of his friend’s boss, whose mother he had to practically fight off at their party before leaving at speed. If Ed has any sense he’ll stay well clear, I think gloomily.

Flinging back the covers I emerge from the warm huddle of my bed and go to the window. The weather has changed, and yesterday’s sun has been replaced by a damp and grey sky, the colour of old washing-up water. It’s windy too. Leaves are coming off the trees and blowing around the lawn, skittering in little whirls, like tiny dancers. It looks chilly, and uninviting, and I feel as leaden as the sky as I wonder what to do with the day ahead. Maybe I should go into town, to one of those temping agencies, and try to find a job. And I have said I’ll enrol on a computer course; there’s one starting soon at the local library, something called CLAIT. I’ve used the BBC computers at school to type up the odd essay, whenever I could get on one of the few available in the library. But this course is supposed to teach things like spreadsheets and databases. I’m not too sure what they are or how useful they’ll be, but everyone is saying it’s the way things are going, and that soon everything will be done on computers. So if I want to be employable I should start learning fast.

And, of course, there’s always work to be done for my English and history resits, which I have to hand in tomorrow at college. I could go to the library and work there.

After my shower, instead of my usual big, baggy sweatshirt and leggings I put on some clean jeans, with the Fair Isle sweater I had last Christmas. It looks cold enough for that today, and the jumper is smart enough for job-seeking. On the way out of my room I stop to look in the mirror, not concerned so much with my body, which I quite like (enough, but not too much, of boobs and hips), but with my face, which I’m never sure about. I run my fingers through my hair – dirty blonde Louise calls it – lifting it up off my face, then I brush the fringe more to one side and stare into my eyes, large and grey-blue, with long lashes. These are my best feature. My gaze skips over my nose, which I think is too fat at the bottom, although an old boyfriend did once tell me he found my nose sexy. When I get to my mouth I pout, to make it seem fuller, then relax it and smile, to see how I look when I’m not just staring. But the smile comes out as a fixed grin, the sort I always have on me in photos. I hope I look more normal when I really smile.

Downstairs in our newly refurbished kitchen – all oak and cream, with the huge Aga that apparently everyone has now – my mother is sitting at the breakfast bar with a coffee and cigarette on the go. She too has just got up; in fact this is early for her. She must have eased off on the drink last night. She’s wearing her brightly printed kimono, and her hair – which is naturally the same shade as mine, but currently dyed mahogony – is caught behind her head in a clip, with wisps hanging down at the front. She’s flicking through a recipe book. She does this a lot, and then makes one of the same old dinners she always makes; she just seems to like looking at the illustrations. Sometimes she even gets as far as buying some of the ingredients – herbs and spices and special sauces – but then hardly ever gets the essential meat or fish to actually make the dish. On the rare occasions she does, she gets all flustered and het up and swears the recipe must be wrong because it isn’t coming out right. The Aga, I think, is wasted.

‘Look at this, Eva. Guacamole.’ She pronounces it ‘goo-acamole’; I have to stop myself from correcting her, because my mother really doesn’t like it if she thinks I’m trying to show her up. ‘It’s made from avocado pears. You put it on chilli. Sounds lovely. I think I’ve got some of that tabasco sauce.’ Suddenly she stops, and stares into space. ‘Avocado,’ she says, with a distant look on her face. That’s all.

I make tea and toast, while my mother carries on looking through the book. I smother the toast with raspberry jam then lean against the sink to eat it. I’m thinking of nothing in particular, staring absently at my mother’s hair. The red is growing out slightly, and I can see the roots, which somehow seem less blonde than I remember. When did that happen, that my mother’s hair began to fade? Otherwise, I have to admit, she could actually pass for younger than she is. Her jawline is still firm, and her skin smooth. Thirty-nine she was, last birthday.

‘Who was that that brought you home last night?’ The question shoots out of my mother, at the same time as she turns another page of the recipe book.

‘Jon,’ I lie smoothly, licking jam off my fingers.

My mother taps her cigarette on the ashtray then looks up at me.

‘No. That wasn’t Jon.’

It was her then, looking out of the window. ‘Okay, it wasn’t.’

‘So who was it?’

Usually when my mother is trying to get information from me about my friends, it’s in a silky, persuasive sort of voice, hoping that I will confide in her. I never do, just as I never brought friends home from school or invited them for sleepovers – especially after I went to All Saints, the private school my parents insisted I went to once they could afford it. It was hard to fit in there, and I chose to stay friends with people from my primary school – Louise and some others – although often it felt like I was tagging along, an outsider. So to ask a friend home became fraught with danger: with my old friends it was fear of being branded a snob, when they saw the size of our house; with the girls at All Saints I knew that one wrong move on my mother’s part would have been disastrous. It’s quite possible that she wouldn’t have touched a drop while they were here, that she would have been all smiley and chatty and laughed with them, and they wouldn’t have met her coming up the stairs with that glassy look in her eyes, the oone that comes after the final few drinks. But I never took that risk, and never relented in the face of my mother’s cajoling.

Today, though, she sounds almost angry. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’

I take a gulp of tea. ‘What does it matter?’

‘It matters. Let’s just say that.’

‘No. Let’s not just say that. Tell me why it matters who walked me home last night. And why you feel you have to spy on me.’

She snaps the recipe book shut. ‘I wasn’t spying. I couldn’t sleep, and I happened to hear voices and wondered if it was you, that’s all.’ I say nothing. ‘It was Steve’s friend, wasn’t it? Steve who works for your father.’

Still I keep quiet, feeling uneasy, as though guilty, with a dim sense that somehow I’ve crossed a line that until recently I hadn’t known was there; that I’ve trodden on my mother’s toes.

‘Well, your silence says it all.’

‘So? If it was?’

She stands up and begins clearing the breakfast bar, clattering pots and plates and banging cupboard doors. ‘It’s not a good idea,’ she says, pouring water into the sink. She adds washing-up liquid and swooshes the water until it bubbles up. ‘He’s too old for you.’

‘How would you know how old he is? He came here once.’ Although, as I picture her pinning him against the wall, I think she probably did get his entire life story.

‘He just happened to tell me; we were talking about big birthdays I suppose,’ my mother says, a little defensively. ‘She turns to look at me. ‘He said that next year he’ll be thirty. He’s ten years older than you.’

My gaze slides away from her as I chew slowly on a mouthful of toast. Ten years. Nearly thirty. Older than he looks, while I look older than I am.

‘And?’ I say.

‘It’s not right.’

I swallow my toast. ‘Not right?’

‘He’d be … taking advantage.’

‘What?’ I laugh. It’s such an old-fashioned phrase, and not one that suits my mother at all. ‘Like I’m some innocent.’ She doesn’t say anything, rattling plates and cups around in the bowl. ‘And anyway, you’re making a big assumption here. He walked me home, that’s all. I haven’t got engaged to him. He just happened to come in the pub and he remembered meeting me here.’ I put the last piece of toast into my mouth, look at my watch, then sling my plate into the bowl. ‘I’m going to get some work done, and then go into town, try a few agencies.’

As I walk out of the kitchen, my mother calls,

‘Are you seeing him again?’

I pause at the bottom of the stairs. On the few occasions that I’ve ever mentioned a boy’s name, my mother has asked that question with a little note of hope in her voice. This time, she is clearly not happy at the thought that Ed is interested in me.

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘You should know he has history. You should know what you’re getting into.’

I walk back towards the kitchen. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s married, left his wife. And there’s a child, somewhere.’

I feel a jolt in my stomach. ‘A child?’

‘Yes. A little boy.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

My mother shakes her head. ‘It was something your father said.’ She’s watching my face. ‘He kept that quiet then.’

I’m suddenly annoyed. ‘I don’t see why you’re telling me all this. It’s nothing to do with you.’ I turn my back on my mother and stamp upstairs, where I start gathering books to take to the library. Halfway through, I stop to stare out of the window, watching a squirrel climb the washing-line pole to get at the bird feeder, and hearing my father’s voice: Damn squirrels, just bloody rats with a tail!

I’m thinking about Ed, having left his wife and child, and trying to work out if that means something or nothing to me. You’d think such a man would be a bit of a bastard, but I didn’t think I could say that about Ed. But then I suppose it’s like burglars. They don’t go round in a striped jumper, holding a bag with SWAG written on it, do they?

***

I have to wait two weeks for Ed to come back to the pub, this time on his own. It’s a Friday, near to closing time again, and the pub is heaving – a fug of heat and smoke and noise. I give him a quick smile as he queues at the bar; after he’s been served by Jon he stands at one end, rolling up. I feel him glance my way every so often, but I’m busy, and we don’t talk until after the bell has been rung and things slow down.

‘I weakened,’ he says, when I go over. ‘I was going to walk to the pub up the road, see if the beer’s better, but it’s too wild out there.’

‘That’s what everyone’s saying. One man said it’s like a hurricane … but then he’d had a few.’

While I wash glasses and tidy the bar, Ed chats to a very drunken man who I think is probably trying to sell him something that fell off the back of a lorry, a man who’s well known in the pub. Occasionally the landlord will exercise his muscle and throw him out, just to let him know he’s got his number, but he keeps bouncing back. Now and then Ed looks across and gives me a wink and a grin, and each time I feel a muted flutter of excitement in my belly. If nothing else, I think, he’s not avoiding me, which if he had I would have quite understood; his friend’s boss’s nineteen-year-old daughter, whose own mother flirted so outrageously with him.

When I’ve finished for the night I fetch my coat and bag from the back, and he’s still there, waiting. The drunk has gone, and the last few punters are draining their glasses.

‘I was just thinking of going on somewhere,’ he says. ‘There’s the casino in town, they have a late bar. I sometimes go with Steve, I’m a member. You could be my guest.’

There’s no ‘if you like’, or ‘it’s just a thought’. This is what I want, do you want it too, is how I hear it.

‘Okay. Why not?’ I use the pub phone to ring home, so my father won’t wonder where I am. It rings for a long time, and then I’m thrown by a strange woman’s voice saying hello on the other end.

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s Pam.’

‘Hi Pam.’ Whoever you are. ‘It’s Eva. Can you get my dad?’ There’s a long pause. In the background I can hear music and voices, and loud laughter.

‘I can’t see him, love, not sure where he is. Or your mum. I only picked up in case it was an emergency. Is it an emergency?’

‘No. Just tell him I’ll be late, or I might stay at a friend’s house. Tell him not to worry. Will you do that?’

‘Of course I will. You enjoy yourself, love. Ta-ta.’

Outside the wind is as fierce as everyone has said. It makes me stagger at first, and Ed catches my arm to steady me. There are people bent double as they walk into it, or blown along with the wind behind them, and when I try to talk to Ed I find my breath taken away from me, the words lost. I shake my head and give up.

Ed spots a taxi and hails it, and the driver is full of how the wind is still picking up, and that someone has said there’s a tornado on the way.

‘That’s crazy,’ Ed says. ‘We don’t have tornadoes here.’

‘We do now, mate.’

We stare out of the taxi windows, fascinated by the sight of things whirling through the air and skittering across pavements – litter, old newspapers and carrier bags, snapped-off branches from trees, an inside-out umbrella, empty bottles and cans that roll into gutters. On one road a metal dustbin slides right across in front of us – the driver swerves and brakes, and the bin clips the bumper and then bounces and clangs away behind us.

‘Fuck,’ he says, and then, ‘Sorry, duck. I thought that was going to launch itself through me windscreen for a minute.’

He drops us outside the casino. I’ve never been here; it’s a square white building, with a flashing red sign and a big open square in front of it. We lean into the wind to cross this, nearly blown off our feet by a couple of strong gusts, finally tumbling through the door. Once inside the hush is extraordinary, as though someone has wrapped up all the noise of the storm and thrown it away; everything is suddenly soft and calm and quiet. I stare around the plush reception area, thinking how out of place I must look in my work clothes, but the deep-pile carpet under my feet seems to welcome me anyway. The carpet is chequered red and black, and all around there are arrangements of red flowers – carnations and roses – in black glass vases. The staff are colour-schemed too; the doormen wear lounge suits, and at the desk a Chinese woman with sleek, black hair wears a scarlet dress with a sequined collar. The dress has big, Dallas-style shoulders and is stretched tight across her slight figure; everything about her is smooth and groomed. I look down at my rather crumpled self. True, I’m all in black, and at least I’ve got my sheer, lacy shirt on tonight, over a cami, short skirt and leggings. But there’s nothing sparkly about me, and my feet look clunky in Doc Martens rather than elegant in stilettos. Ed’s wearing chinos, and with his leather jacket he’s more in keeping.

‘I don’t think this was a good idea,’ I mutter. ‘I’m not dressed right.’

‘Don’t worry. You look fine. And you’re twenty-one by the way. This is a private club with old-fashioned rules.’

The woman gives me a careful look as Ed signs us both in, but she doesn’t ask for ID. Maybe she thinks I wouldn’t dare to turn up so casually dressed if I really was underage. Ed leads me through to the bar, which is raised above the gaming room to give a view of what’s going on. He finds seats, and goes to get a bottle of red wine. While he’s gone I look down curiously at the tables. I know nothing at all about gambling; the only thing I recognise is roulette, and that’s from watching Bond movies. There are several tables with cards, and I study one game just below where I’m sitting. Each player is dealt two cards, then everyone takes a look except the banker. As the banker works the table, some players take more cards and some refuse, each time with a slight nod or a motion of their hands. It’s clear they’re playing against the banker rather than each other, and they either win some chips or throw their hand in.

‘Is that poker?’ I ask Ed when he comes back.

‘Blackjack. It’s what Steve plays. I’m more for roulette, if I’m in the mood.’

‘And are you?’ I ask, looking round the room, with its lowered voices and faces masked in concentration.

‘I don’t know. I think I just didn’t want to go back to the flat. I needed to do something, go somewhere.’

He drums his fingers on his thighs as he speaks. He seems jittery. I look at him, remembering what my mother told me, and wondering if, and when, he will tell me. But although he talks a lot about his work as a journalist – I picture him sitting in front of a typewriter, hands flying over the keys and only pausing to draw on a cigarette – and although he talks about his childhood in a suburb of Leeds – in a houseful of boys, the things they got up to sounding boisterous and fun and sometimes alarming – he gives away nothing of his recent life. He clearly loves his job, and is good at it, I realise, after I’ve been gently drawn into talking about myself. My childhood, my friends, my ambitions – he spools out questions and reels in the answers.

‘Was it a surprise to you,’ he asks, ‘when you didn’t get the grades you needed?’

I consider this. ‘A bit. I didn’t think I’d done that badly, although I knew I hadn’t worked hard enough.’

‘Too much having fun?’

This time I pause even longer. I’m sick of having to pretend; before I even speak I can feel the relief of saying out loud the things I’ve never said to anyone.

‘I didn’t want to be at home. Evenings are when my mother starts to drink. Well, to be honest, she can start any time. But evenings are when she gets argumentative with my father, and picks fights with him. And then me, if I get involved. And practically every weekend she throws one of her boozy parties and I can’t stand being around all that. It’s why I got a job where I’d be working evenings. The other nights I’d go to friends’ houses, or be out somewhere. So I never did that much revision, you see.’

I turn to look at the nearest roulette table, where a little coo of surprise has signalled someone’s good fortune, a man now grinning broadly as he scoops up a pile of chips. When I turn back Ed is watching me.

‘You’ve not had a good time of it,’ he says.

‘No. But then again, I’ve had a roof over my head and anything I asked for was mine, so it’s not all bad, is it?’ He shrugs. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ I say. ‘I’m not telling you to make you feel sorry for me. It’s just how it’s been.’

‘So how do you manage now?’ Ed asks. ‘The work for your resits?’

‘I go to my classes, and to the library. I’m pretty sure I’ll get through this time. And then I’ll be off.’ Ed raises his glass to that.

We drink the wine and then go on to whisky, another first for me. It makes me grimace, and Ed laughs at my face. Every now and then he rolls us both a cigarette, but I leave mine half-smoked, not used to their strength after the Silk Cut I sometimes buy or cadge. I’m feeling pleasantly drunk now, and comfortable with Ed; it’s as though I’ve pulled him on, like an old sweater.