скачать книгу бесплатно
He winces. ‘Shot myself in the foot there, didn’t I? All right. But first an explanation.’ He gulps down a piece of fish. ‘My parents are called Rhona and Ralph. They decided we boys should all have a name beginning with R. So, there’s Robert, Richard, Raymond and … then they ran out of decent names. I’m Rupert.’
‘Rupert?’ Apart from anything else the name doesn’t go with the flat, northern vowels.
‘Yeah. Like the bear. Rupert Edwards – hence, Ed. Or Eddie the Teddy as my “friends” at school used to shout.’ I snort with laughter. ‘And no, you don’t have permission to call me that.’
He eats the last few chips and screws up the wrapper. ‘Your name’s unusual. I don’t know any other Evas.’
‘My mother named me after one of her favourite film stars. Eva Marie Saint.’
‘Never heard of her, but I like the name.’ He pauses. ‘So you still live at home? You said your parents don’t buy the Echo.’
I stare at him; I’ve almost forgotten that he doesn’t really know who I am.
‘I can’t afford to move out. I don’t earn enough.’
‘That’s your only job, at the pub?’
‘Yes, part-time.’
‘Right.’
I’m going to have to tell him. ‘I only just left school. I failed my A-levels – well, didn’t get the grades I needed for university. So I’m doing resits and hope to go next year.’ I see by his eyes that he’s registering my age, looking surprised; I know I look older than nineteen. ‘I’ll have to find something that pays more, soon. I want to move out, find a flat, if I can.’
‘It’s expensive,’ he says. ‘It costs more than you think.’
‘What’s yours like?’
‘Okay. Monochrome. Everything’s black and white. Apart from the bedroom, which for some weird reason has got shiny wallpaper and looks like the inside of a spaceship. But it’ll do. It’s not for long.’
When I’ve finished my fish and chips we look round for a bin, then leave the gardens.
‘I’ll walk you home,’ Ed says. I tell him there’s no need, but he insists, and to be truthful the streets seem lonely now, at nearly midnight. There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach when I realise what he’s about to find out, but I don’t know how to tell him so decide to just let it happen. As we walk along Park Vale I wonder if he will recognise the house. After all, he’s only been there once, as far as I know. But when we get near, when we come to a slow halt outside my house – unlit, a dark block of shadow against the inky-black sky – his mouth drops open.
‘This is your house? Your parents’ house?’
I nod, hoping he won’t think I’ve deliberately done this. I picture the little film show going on in his head: my mother drunkenly dancing; my mother close up to him, practically pinning him against the wall; the things he said to me right at the start. Word is… Steve thinks she must be a bit desperate.
Ed groans, and plunges his head into his hands. He stands very still, staring down at the pavement, then breathes in, breathes out, and looks back at me.
‘Sorry doesn’t go anywhere near, does it? That must have been … what I said, it was so offensive.’ He shakes his head. ‘How come you’re here? I’d have thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.’
I fiddle with a loose thread on the cuff of my jacket. ‘Listen, Ed, it’s what everyone thinks, that’s what you said. Including me. Although I guess, up to now, I’ve only ever thought of it as flirting – embarrassing, drunken flirting. Now …’ I shrug. ‘I’m not sure what I think. Maybe she does have affairs, sleep around, whatever you want to call it. She’s never worked, always been home, she’d have the opportunity, wouldn’t she?’
I glance behind, and see an open window at my parents’ bedroom, and possibly someone moving away from the window, just as I look up. I had spoken softly, but in the quiet of the night my voice seemed too loud. As Ed begins to answer I put one finger on my lips, and he lowers his voice.
‘But you don’t want to listen to gossip. People always exaggerate, make things up. Just because it’s what people think doesn’t make it true.’
‘No. But you listened.’
He gives a slight nod – yes.
‘And the way she behaves, it doesn’t matter what the truth is. The damage is done.’
‘Seems as though she doesn’t really care too much what people think.’
I shake my head. ‘I meant the damage to my father.’
He frowns, and remembering that Steve works for my father I panic at the thought I might be making things worse with my blabbing. ‘Look, this is just between you and me. Please don’t talk to Steve about it. He can think what he likes, but I don’t want my family being this week’s hot topic.’
‘Of course, of course I won’t.’
‘Thanks. I do trust you, Ed, which is weird because I hardly know you.’
He gives me a long, slow smile, which does two things to me, right at the same time; first it makes my stomach flip over with pure pleasure, and second it makes me feel intensely self-conscious, wiping out any thoughts of what to say next. Nervously I lick my lips, and hear myself say,
‘Well I’m going in now. Thanks for the fish and chips.’
‘You’re welcome. Maybe I’ll see you in the Albert – if I can bring myself to drink the beer.’
‘Right. Maybe,’ I say, as nonchalantly as I can manage. As he turns to go I put my hand on his arm. ‘I just worked it out,’ I say. ‘Who you remind me of.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. It’s one of those old pop stars, can’t remember the name, my mother has all his records. You look just like him. You’ve even sort of got a quiff.’
He laughs, then pats my hand, and walks away. I could kick myself. Why the hell did I say that?
Kathleen
1963
There’s always an ‘if’, isn’t there? But some ‘ifs’ seem more crucial than others.
If I hadn’t been so ill with measles just before the Eleven Plus.
If my parents hadn’t accepted my fail so readily.
If they’d insisted on my retaking it, or some special dispensation for my condition.
But no, you didn’t do that then; you took what came to you and got on with it, or the neighbours would think you were getting above yourself.
I wasn’t a really clever child, but I do think that if my head hadn’t felt like it was stuffed with cotton-wool I would have passed that exam. And maybe then life would have taken a totally different path.
My mother always said that I was lucky to have been at Page Road, as though I should have been grateful for the chance to learn to type. Unlike some secondary moderns, Page Road offered a few City and Guilds courses, for the boys in metalwork or woodwork, the girls in shorthand and typing. So when we left, most of us walked straight into a job.
In June 1963, at the age of fifteen, I walked through those school gates for the last time, having acquired a grand total of just two CSEs (in English and housecraft) and my City and Guilds. The following Monday I joined the typing pool of Harrison & Sons, an engineering firm. On that first day I was so sick with nerves I couldn’t eat breakfast, but I was excited too. I’d be a working girl, not a schoolgirl, I’d have my own money to buy what I wanted, and I’d be able to wear my own clothes and not that disgusting bottle-green uniform, with its skirt all shiny from sitting on hard, wooden chairs.
The expectation was that I’d stay at Harrison’s until I married and had kids. That was what my mother did, working in one of the shoe factories until she had me and my brother, John. ‘I couldn’t see any point messing about, looking for other jobs,’ she’d once told me. ‘I was happy there so I stayed put.’
At that point the idea of marriage was a very remote one – a desirable but far-off state that I might one day find myself in. Of course I’d had boyfriends; for most of us at school acquiring boys had been more important than acquiring qualifications. The one had brought kudos and immediate gratification; the other seemed unnecessary, promising us work that we were all expected to give up at the first sign of babies. Still, when I thought about marriage it seemed to have no connection with those boys, the shy, awkward ones or the brash, loud ones, all of whom seemed to laugh like braying hyenas. I couldn’t quite see how I was going to bridge that gap, but I did believe that somehow it would happen.
My first day at Harrison’s was spent trying hard to absorb a million facts, all the routines and procedures – where to find this, where to find that, which stationery to use for which purpose, who was who and how to find them and then how to address them, or not – until my head was clogged with facts like an overstuffed suitcase. I was shown round by the Personnel Manageress, a brisk, scary woman with a beehive hairdo. She said that I’d be working mainly for the draughtsmen, typing up the specs for their drawings, and that sometimes I would have to go down to their department to fetch last-minute jobs and alterations. We stopped off on our little tour to look down on the drawing room from a windowed corridor above, where twenty or so men sat in rows at their boards. One or two of them glanced up, and one put his thumb up and grinned. I gave a faint smile back. The idea of walking in there and asking for anything was terrifying.
The factory itself was huge, but the offices and drawing department were all huddled together at the front of the building, so I thought I’d find my way round all right. In the typing pool there were about nine of us, and one girl was assigned to look after me. She was called Mary, and I took to her straightaway. She had vivid green eyes and a gutsy laugh.
At first I was quite timid and hardly dared speak to anyone apart from Mary, let alone ask for anything I might need. When I had to go down to the drawing room it was all I could do to say what I’d come for. But gradually, as the weeks went by, I got to know the men and started to chat back to them. They relished having us girls come along to relieve the boredom, and it was all just a bit of fun, they weren’t rude or dirty… well, except for the odd one or two, and I tried to avoid them. I hated being made to blush, and then hearing them laugh when I went out.
I tried hard to save money, which is what my dad said I should do – for a rainy day, he said. But it wasn’t easy when every Saturday all I wanted to spend my money on was records and clothes, the only two things I was really interested in then. Beatlemania had swept the country (pushing out singers like my idol, Billy Fury, who I still adored) and fashion had hit the High Street. It was as if I’d been half-asleep, as if my life had just properly woken up and I could see my sedate twinsets and tweedy A-line skirts for what they were: staid and deeply boring. I even began to think I looked worryingly like my mother. So now, on Saturdays, I went shopping with Mary, who I’d become good friends with. There was a new shop in town called Lewis Separates, where you could try things on without the assistant looking down her nose at you. Everything in there was so new and fresh, it was as though colour had been thrown down from the sky and landed right here on our High Street. I can still picture some of the things I bought: a lilac dress and matching coat; a tight houndstooth skirt that came above the knee and which I could only take small steps in; a cherry-coloured blouse with a ruffled collar, which I wore over a pair of black ski pants that my mother denounced as ‘unfeminine’. I kept going back, and what I couldn’t afford to buy I eyed up for making. Then I would get cheap material and Butterick Patterns off the market and run things up on my mother’s old sewing machine. It was mostly shift-dresses, which were so easy to make. With each one the hems rose a little further above the knee, and the skirts got a little tighter. To complete the look I learnt how to backcomb my hair into a blonde bouffant, and experimented with make-up. I piled it on – heaps of mascara, thick black eyeliner and pale, glossy lips – until my father muttered that I looked like a panda and my mother said I was showing them up. I didn’t really care about that. I was sixteen now, and turning heads. I had my mother’s eyes (baby-blue), my father’s full lips and a swing to my hips that I practised at home.
It worked, the look I’d perfected. I got chatted up at work, or at the dances Mary and I went to, and was asked for dates quite often, some of which I accepted – to films, or to a milk bar, or maybe a walk in the park on a Sunday. It was all very tame, and I didn’t find any of the boys especially interesting. So I didn’t go for long with anyone; I was always looking for the next conquest.
Months passed like this. By Christmas, Mary was engaged to one of the engineers on the shop floor, who she’d had her eye on for some time. She said she was sure he was ‘Mr Right’ and that all she wanted to do was leave work and have children. Some people thought it was too quick and there were rumours about her being pregnant, but no bump appeared. I hoped she wouldn’t have babies yet; I thought I’d be lost without her at work.
In January 1964 a new junior manager started at Harrison’s. His name was Rick Boutell and his family had moved to Harborough from London, which gave him an air of cosmopolitan glamour. Not only that – he was achingly good-looking. He had thick, glossed hair swept up in a quiff and cheekbones a girl would die for. At a distance he could have passed for Billy Fury; that on its own was enough to get my pulse racing. He was twenty-one, and had what others called ‘experience’, which raised the glamour factor. Even his name sounded like a pop star’s; Rick Boutell. He was a far cry from the other men at work, and suddenly all my light-hearted flirting had found a serious target. But not an easy one.
Unlike the other men, Rick didn’t seem to notice me much, although I tried to catch his eye. In the canteen I would give him a little smile if he glanced my way. And if we happened to pass in the corridor I’d say ‘Hello!’ brightly, but not slow down at all, as though I was far too busy to stand and chat. I made sure to emphasise that little sway to my hips that I knew men liked. All of this had worked a treat before, but all I got from Rick was an amused stare or a quizzical look. It was as if he could see straight through my little ploys and was laughing at me. Mary said not to bother about him, that he was rumoured to be having an affair with a married woman, that he was a ‘bit of a one’. I wasn’t sure I believed this, but it only made me more determined.
Things went on like this for some weeks until finally I had to accept that he just wasn’t interested in a sixteen-year-old girl. I’d been asked out by someone else, someone more my own age. I was thinking about it, and had stopped trying to get Rick to notice me. Two days later, as I was coming out of the ladies’, I saw him loitering by the window, looking out at a sudden flurry of snow. It was late February. He turned as he heard the door.
‘Looks cold out there,’ he said, tilting his head towards the window. I said yes, it did. ‘So… I think maybe you’d like to go for a drink sometime?’ he went on, with such casual cheek it took my breath away. I just stared at him, feeling my face grow hot. He grinned. ‘It hasn’t gone unnoticed, you see. Your interest. Only I was waiting.’
I blinked, thinking maybe this was how they behaved in London; this was how you did it when you had ‘experience’.
‘Waiting for what?’
‘Until I was free, of course. I don’t like two-timing.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Better be getting back. What do you think then? Tomorrow at eight? I’ll meet you outside Boots in town.’
I was used to being called for, so that my dad could give them the once over. And I wasn’t used to it being assumed I’d say yes.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you tomorrow.’
I didn’t tell my parents, partly because of him not coming to the house, partly because I didn’t want to contaminate the nervous, fizzing excitement inside me with their inevitable questions. As far as they were concerned I was meeting a girlfriend and going to the cinema.
He was there at Boots before me and took me to the Fox and Hounds. I didn’t tell him I’d never been in a pub without my parents, and I wondered if he thought I was older than I was. I was so nervous I could hardly speak, hardly think what to say. Luckily he talked enough for both of us so I just sat and listened until a couple of Cherry Bs had loosened my tongue. But as the evening went on my heart began to sink when I realised what a gulf there was between us. Every topic of conversation seemed to show me up as naïve and ignorant. Like music. He was into jazz and blues and Bob Dylan, and thought the Beatles were a one-hit wonder. And films. I said I liked watching all the old black-and-whites on TV, and he looked scornful. ‘My all-time favourite’s Rebel Without a Cause,’ he said, and then that James Dean was his hero. I didn’t tell him I’d barely heard of the film, or James Dean.
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 (#ulink_6fff8416-4b43-5568-a47c-2fee826647cd)
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.
