Forgive Me (14 page)

Three hours later she had filled sixteen
bags with rubbish, stacked the broken furniture and the mattress in the garage, and
swept right through the house.

The bathroom had been the hardest thing to
clean, and it had turned her stomach imagining the kind of people who had used it.
She’d heated up around six kettles of water on the little camping stove to scrub
it. But the limescale remover which had been recommended to her was very efficient on
both the bath and lavatory, though the fumes nearly knocked her out. She left it to work
further while she cleaned the inside of the upstairs windows, and by the time she went
back to the bathroom the last of the limescale had dissolved.

She tried hard to see potential in the house
while she was working, but apart from it being in a good area, and the rooms being a
good size, the scale of what was needed to make it habitable was frightening. A new
window was needed downstairs, not just new glass, because the frame was rotten. The
cooker was disgusting, and she’d have to get new kitchen cabinets and a fridge.
What if the immersion heater upstairs didn’t work, or the roof leaked? And who
could she go to for advice on these things?

With her savings she had almost £7,000. But
although she’d thought before she got here that this sum made her rich, she
realized now that it wouldn’t go very far. She couldn’t even let the place
to someone else until she’d made it habitable again.

Yet however horrible and squalid the house
was, it must
have been important to her mother, or she would have sold
it long ago. It was strange to think of herself living here as a baby: taking her first
steps, toilet trained in the bathroom, and playing out in the backyard. Had Flora been
happy here?

Later, Eva went along to the cafe in
Portland Road for tea and sandwiches, and then took a little walk around the
neighbouring streets.

However disheartened she was by the project
before her, she couldn’t help but be cheered by the area. There was a pretty park
nearby, and she found the huge bottle-shaped kiln which gave her road its name. A
middle-aged man she questioned told her that it was the only one of its kind left in
London. He said that back in the eighteenth century the area had been known as the
Pottery and Piggeries as so many people kept pigs here.

She bought a can of lemonade and some
apples, then went back to the house and sat down on the floor by the open window in the
little bedroom to think while she heated another kettle of water to mop all the floors.
The sun had been shining on the front of the house when she arrived here, and now it was
shining in the back bedroom and on the backyard. Looking out of the window, she could
see into the neighbours’ yards. The one on her right was a very pretty courtyard,
beautifully paved and with lots of exotic-looking palm-type plants in tubs. The one to
her left just had white painted walls, and a table and chairs painted blue. She wished
she could see into their houses to see what they’d done with them.

She wanted to feel excited at the challenge
of renovating this house, but instead she felt mostly dread as the problems appeared
insurmountable. The only real way they could be tackled was by moving here. But how
could she do that when she worked in Cheltenham? And then there was Tod. She
doubted he’d want to come here with her. But even if he did, it
wasn’t just decoration that this place needed. It required building skills:
carpentry, electrical and plumbing.

Looking out at the backyard, she wondered
what it had been like when her mother lived here. She had loved gardening, so it was
inconceivable that she hadn’t turned it into something beautiful. Had she sat at
this very window with Eva in her arms and planned it all?

Did she sleep in here with her? Or did she
have a bed in the studio?

Looking up, she noticed there was a trap
door in the ceiling, giving access to the attic. She wondered if there was anything in
there, and thought she would get the stepladder from the garage later to look.

Her mind turned to Patrick O’Donnell
then. In all the excitement of the love affair with Tod, she’d forgotten about him
until now. He’d lived here too. If she was to find him, would he want to know her?
But as Flora had thrown him out, the chances were he’d slam the door in her
face.

It was eight o’clock when Eva finally
caught the train back to Cheltenham. She was exhausted, filthy and she ached all over,
but she felt very satisfied at what she’d achieved during the day. She’d
left the bathroom sparkling and the whole house looked and smelled clean because
she’d mopped it all the way through with gallons of hot water, cleaning fluid and
disinfectant. She’d even cleaned up all the rubbish in the backyard.

But she didn’t know what to do next.
Even if she knew what was involved in getting a builder in to do the work needed to make
the house saleable or fit to be let, which she didn’t, how would she know she
could trust him? And she didn’t think £7,000 was going to be enough to pay for
everything.

She had picked over the mail that was lying
behind the door and found bills from the electricity board, as well as water and rates.
They were all red ones, addressed to the old tenant. Would she have to pay them?
She’d brought them back with her, and she hoped Tod might know what she had to do.
She hoped he’d know what to do about everything.

Perhaps it was just because she was so
tired, but all at once this legacy looked more of a burden than an asset. London was too
big and scary for her. She’d got yet another taxi back to Paddington, because she
couldn’t face trying to find her way on the tube. But she couldn’t do that
every time she went there, it would cost a fortune. How was she going to get rid of all
the rubbish in the garage? Until she’d done that, she couldn’t put her car
in there – and there were yellow lines on the street.

When she got back to Crail Road at ten
thirty, the house was silent and in darkness, except for one light in the window on the
top floor. Tod hadn’t folded up the sofa bed when he got up, but he had made it up
after a fashion. She drew the curtains and stripped off to have a shower, hoping that
would revive her enough to get dressed up and go and find him at the party. But it
didn’t, and the thought of walking down into the town alone so late at night was
too daunting. So she made herself some hot milk, left the door on the latch so that Tod
could get in when he came home, and got into bed.

She was woken the next morning by someone
talking in the hall. Tod wasn’t in bed beside her, and when she looked at her
clock she saw it was nearly ten. She guessed Tod had got so drunk last night that, out
of habit, he’d staggered into his own room when he got home.

Putting on her dressing gown, she went to
his room. She knocked, but there was no reply. She showered, washed and
dried her hair, put on jeans and a T-shirt and then tidied up her room and dusted.
There was a shared Hoover in a cupboard in the hall, and she really wanted to use it but
was afraid she might annoy the other tenants who were still sleeping. So she decided to
drive to the supermarket and get some groceries and the Sunday paper.

On leaving the supermarket Eva was still
immersed in thoughts about the studio. She was driving on automatic pilot, and found
herself turning the wrong way, going towards her old home. When she realized what she
was doing, she took a right turn to get back to Crail Road through the back streets.

As she drove down a street with small
houses, to her surprise she saw Tod up ahead, standing on a doorstep.

Excited to see him, she automatically slowed
right down. But as she did so, she saw he wasn’t alone. There was a girl with dark
hair, wearing a pink dressing gown and standing in the doorway talking to him. Her first
thought was that he’d just called at the house, but as she pulled up some twenty
yards away, to her shock he leaned forward to kiss the girl. It was not a kiss of
greeting but a full-on goodbye kiss, the kind that followed a night together.

Her heart plummeted, tears sprang into her
eyes and she watched in horror as they clung to each other. A flush of rage and nausea
rose up inside her and made her grip the steering wheel so tightly it hurt her
hands.

Tod took a step back from the girl, then
reached out and stroked her cheek in a gesture which, even from a distance, was clearly
full of tenderness. The girl stepped forward towards him, flung her arms around him and
kissed him again. They were locked there, so wrapped up in each other they were
oblivious to anyone watching.

Eva began to tremble. She had put all her
trust in him,
believed he felt the same way about her as she did about
him. Yet he’d gone to bed with someone else the moment she wasn’t
around.

Glancing in her rear-view mirror, she saw
another car coming up behind her. If she didn’t move the driver would beep his
horn, and Tod would turn and see her. But there was no parking space to drive into, so
she had no choice but to put the car into gear and drive on.

As she passed Tod and the girl she kept
looking straight ahead, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Tod look round. She
knew he would recognize the car – men always did. She didn’t know why she hoped he
wouldn’t.

At the end of the road she turned left, and
then right, tears running down her cheeks. She had no plan of where she was going, she
was just fleeing. It reminded her of the evening she’d run out when Andrew told
her he wasn’t her father. She had the same thumping in her heart, the same sick
feeling, and she knew she must park up somewhere before she had an accident.

There was a sense of irony when, for a
second time that day, she found herself driving towards her old home. For anyone else
that would be the right place to go and be comforted, but she wasn’t wanted there
either.

All at once she knew she was going to be
sick, and that forced her to pull in. She had barely got out of the car and round to the
pavement when she vomited into the gutter. She was vaguely aware of a man mowing his
lawn on the other side of his fence, but she felt so terrible she didn’t care what
he thought of her.

Forcing herself to get back into the car,
she drove past her old home and out into the countryside. Pulling into a lay-by, she
gave way to floods of tears.

Meeting Tod the night she moved into Crail
Road had
helped her to feel less lonely and bitter. His friendliness
had made her feel she was worth something. Since they became lovers he’d become
her whole world, and she’d felt that nothing could ever hurt her again.

But seeing him with that other girl was like
stepping on a trapdoor which opened and plunged her into a deep black hole of misery and
worthlessness. She had no idea how she could climb out of it, she didn’t even
believe there was a way.

They might only have been lovers for two
weeks, but just the thought of him with another girl was like having a knife twisted in
her belly.

How could he do that to her?

Putting her head down on the steering
wheel, Eva cried great heaving sobs that came from right down in her stomach. She felt
such utter despair that she could finally understand why someone would take their own
life.

She tried to convince herself that Tod might
not have betrayed her trust and that the girl she’d seen him with was just an old
girlfriend who he was being kind to. But she knew that was false hope; no one kissed in
the street like that unless they had a love hangover from spending the night together.
She knew this with utter certainty because she and Tod had been like that.

What was she going to do now? He’d
become the axis on which her world spun. Without him she couldn’t function, there
was nothing left but black emptiness.

She stayed there in her car, crying for what
seemed like hours. She tried to reason with herself that being with him for such a short
time didn’t give her the right to expect fidelity and that she was wildly
overreacting. But telling herself that didn’t help. She’d fallen in love
with him on that first lunch together, and she’d really believed he felt much the
same way about her, even if he hadn’t said so.

It was only a faint hope that she might have
been mistaken. But the possibility that she’d just seen someone who looked like
Tod made her drive home. As she drove she imagined he was back at Crail Road worrying
about her.

All hope of that vanished when she got in
and listened at his door. There was no sound, and no message stuck beneath
her door. If he had come back fleetingly, he’d rushed off again
to the pub or a friend’s house to avoid seeing her.

The rest of the day passed so slowly. Each
time she heard someone in the hall, she jumped up, only to hear another tenant’s
voice or the sound of their footsteps going up the stairs. She couldn’t read the
paper or watch television because of her tears. She just lay on the sofa, torturing
herself with the image of Tod making love to that girl.

One of the things she’d loved most
about him was that he was kind. He’d been so sympathetic about her mother’s
death, he’d cooked for her and made cups of tea. But now even that seemed to be
pretence – or surely he’d be concerned about her now? If he hadn’t been
serious about her, why see her every night for two whole weeks? If he’d said he
wanted to meet up with other friends too, that would have shown her that he didn’t
feel committed.

It was after seven in the evening when she
glanced out of the window and saw him coming in through the gate. Without stopping to
think, she rushed out and opened the front door to him.

He looked aghast. That confirmed he had
spotted her earlier. He also smelled like a brewery.

‘How could you do that to me?’
she said, and began to cry again.

He took hold of her arm and led her back to
her room, shutting the door behind them. ‘You don’t have a monopoly on
me,’ he said fiercely. ‘And why were you snooping on me?’