Never Too Late (74 page)

one you really liked … I fancy something with boats. Do

you think they have anything with boats in it? Dalkey

harbour, maybe?’

‘Simon, I don’t want to buy any paintings,’ Evie

announced. ‘I brought you here to talk to you. Let’s go into

the gardens.’

She led the way into the actual square, along the path to

a bench that looked out over a manicured lawn. Purple

and yellow pansies bowed their soft petals under the heat

of the sun. Evie wished she was a pansy: flowers never had

to break off engagements. She sat down and took a deep

breath. This was it: she had to do it now.

Looking a little bewildered, Simon sat down beside her.

He reached for her hand and stopped, his own hovering in

mid-air over Evie’s left hand which was bare apart from

her watch.

‘You’re not wearing your ring,’ he said in an accusing

voice.

‘No.’ She had it in its little box, nestling in the velvety

pink fabric. She hadn’t wanted to take it off her finger and

hand it back to him: this had seemed nicer. That way, he

wouldn’t fling it away with rage and then later regret it on

the grounds that it had cost a fortune and he could always

sell it and realise his investment.

‘I can’t marry you, Simon.’ There! She’d said it. Blunt

but truthful.

‘What?’ He shook his head, confusion and hurt written

all over his pale face.

There was no going back. ‘I’m sorry, Simon. I should

have said this a long time ago but I don’t want to get

married to you. I wish there was a nicer, less hurtful way of

doing this and I wish …’

He interrupted her, shocked. ‘But it’s less than a week

away. It’s on Saturday, next Saturday, Evie. You … you …

you’re joking, right?’ he stammered.

She didn’t want to face those hurt grey eyes but she had

to. Evie stared steadily at her fiance and said, ‘I’m not

joking, Simon. I can’t marry you.’

‘But I love you, Evie,’ he pleaded. ‘Say you’re only upset,

say it’s just last-minute nerves … please?’

‘I can’t,’ she said in anguish. ‘I wish I could but I can’t.

I’m calling it off. Simon. I’m sorry, there’s no other way.’

‘What about all our plans? I mean, can’t you think about

it, can’t you give me a few days and try?’

He didn’t get it, she thought in desperation. Closing her

eyes, she launched into the real reason why.

‘I’m in love with Max Stewart, Simon. That’s why we

have to break it off I’m not seeing him but I fell in love

with him and that means it would be wrong to marry you.’

She opened her eyes gingerly.

Simon wasn’t running his fingers through his hair or

shoving his glasses anxiously on to the bridge of his nose.

He was simply sitting there looking at her with an expression

of such desolation Evie thought she couldn’t bear it.

‘You did say you didn’t know if you believed in true love

and that people just sort of got used to each other and

learned to live with each other,’ she said desperately. ‘I

needed something more than that, Simon. I needed love,

true love, romantic love like in my novels. I’m sorry, so

sorry.’

‘I should have known that someone like Max would

steal you away from me,’ he said quietly. ‘What hope did I

have beside him? I can’t change your mind, I know. Not

when it’s someone like him.’

His voice was resigned. There was no question of her

staying with him, he seemed to be saying, when she’d

fallen for a man like Max.

Evie was stunned by his reaction, his passive acceptance

of the situation. How sad to accept that your own

girlfriend could quite easily find someone else more

interesting than you. Simon’s opinion of himself was so

low it seemed reasonable to him that Evie could fall for

another man.

She put her hand on his. He didn’t pull away or scream

abuse at her. He let her hold his hand quietly.

‘I don’t deserve how good you’re being to me,’ she said

truthfully. ‘I never wanted to hurt you, Simon. You’ve been

such a good friend to me. I just couldn’t marry you

knowing what I do. It would be wrong, it would destroy

both of us.’

He nodded numbly.

They sat like that for half an hour. Evie spoke about

cancelling all the arrangements as calmly as if she was a

third party brought in to deal with the fall-out of someone else’s shattered engagement. She said who she’d telephone and who Simon should telephone. She said he was to tell

people whatever he felt was right: if he wanted to say he’d

broken it off then he should. She didn’t mind. He

deserved to save face.

Finally, she fished the ring box out of her handbag and

handed it to him. There were no words for that sort of

thing, no script for the handing back of an engagement

ring. That was the way she left him: sitting with the little

ring box in his hand, gazing at the flowers with unseeing

eyes. Evie cried all the way home, barely able to see the

traffic lights or the other cars because of her tears. She

cried for poor Simon who’d loved her but who’d accepted

that she loved someone else. Guilt and self-hatred mingled

with sheer, blessed relief. She’d done it, it was over,

finally over.

At the sight of her mother’s tear-stained face, Rosie

had hugged her and made them tea, before making

something stronger with far too much gin and not half

enough flat tonic. Her face swollen with tears, Evie had

begged Rosie to tell no one until she told people herself.

She didn’t mention why she had ended the engagement,

she didn’t mention Max at all. Yet Rosie didn’t seem

surprised by the news.

‘He wasn’t right for you, Mum,’ she said earnestly. ‘I

always knew it. He’s a nice person but he was wrong for

you. You need someone heroic, someone like Dad was.’

Evie cried even harder at that. More guilt. She should

never have made Tony out to be this wonderful person.

She couldn’t tell Rosie what he’d really been like, that

she’d gone back to using her maiden name when he died

because she couldn’t bear to use his. Evie had always said it

was because the people in her office knew her as Eraser

and she’d never changed it. Only Olivia knew that Evie

would have killed herself rather than be called Evie

Mitchell, the name of the man who’d been in love with a

married woman when he married Evie. He’d married her

because she was pregnant and within a month, had made it

plain that he wanted a child but not a clinging wife. His

affair would continue and Evie could like it or lump it. No

wonder she’d never cried at his funeral.

Rosie should have known the truth but it was Evie’s

fault she didn’t. She felt like a congenital liar who ran

through life lying to everyone she cared about, telling huge

untruths. She was a terrible, terrible person.

‘If only Dad hadn’t died, none of this would have

happened,’ Rosie said solemnly. ‘What you need is somebody

like him.’

She went off to work reluctantly on Monday morning. ‘I

should stay with you, Mum,’ she protested. ‘You’re still in

shock.’

‘Please go, darling,’ Evie said, grey in the face after a

sleepless night where she’d thought of nothing but Simon.

‘I’m not going into work today. I’ve got to start cancelling

things, telling people. I’ll be OK on my own.’

She cringed at the thought of telling friends and relatives

that the great wedding was off, but the worst was over.

Telling Simon had been like hitting some trusting wild

animal you’d coaxed out of the woods to feed by hand.

Yet in the middle of her guilt-ridden misery, a spark of

pure unadulterated joy burned brightly in her heart. Now

that she was finally free, she could be with Max. It was the

one thing that had kept her going during the endless hours

of the night. Max … he’d told her he loved her, hadn’t he?

He’d told Vida he couldn’t bear to be around for Evie’s

wedding, so he couldn’t be with Mia Koen after all.

He was waiting for Evie, like the knight with a white

charger, all saddled up and waiting for the damsel to call him. It seemed terrible to be happy in the midst of Simon’s pain, but Evie was incredibly happy. She was free.

She fantasised about Max’s exultant cry when he discovered

she was his. ‘Evie, my darling, I can’t believe it! I’ve

dreamed of this moment for so long. I’ve driven past your

house and wondered what you were doing so many times. I we

rung your phone number a thousand times just to hear your

voice but I never spoke. I knew you had to come to me. Now

we’ll never be apart, ever …’

She found the number in her daughter’s diary. The

phone number Max had given Rosie in Spain so that she

could ring him and arrange the job in his company.

Evie wrote it down, replaced the diary in Rosie’s drawer,

and went downstairs, feeling as nervous as a kitten. She

dialled with shaking hands, wondering how she was going

to start the conversation. Hello, Max, I’m not getting married

after all. Does that invitation to lunch still stand?

After six rings, an answering machine kicked in: Max’s

voice filled her ears, his rich, gravelly tones telling her he

wasn’t in but to leave a message. Evie could have listened

all day. She smiled as she thought of him getting her

message. She waited for the beep, still smiling. Then the

phone was picked up.

‘Hello?’ said a woman’s voice. A soft Southern drawl

that sounded like icy Mint Juleps, ripe peaches and long,

sultry days in the Atlanta sun. Mia Koen’s voice. ‘Max, is

that you, honey? I can’t hear a thing. I bet your mobile

phone’s on the blink again. You’re in a bad signal area,

honey. Call me back in a minute.’

Evie put the phone down quietly. Thank God she hadn’t

left a message. Imagine Mia playing it and laughing to

herself, laughing at the idea that the hick Irish woman was

in love with her Max. Max who lived with her in some

luxurious loft apartment with wooden floors and exposed

beams. Imagine Max listening to it with her, both of them

laughing hysterically at the very idea.

Evie went out into the garden, put on her gloves and

began to weed the flower bed at the back of the garden.

When the tears began to drop relentlessly on to the hard,

baked earth, she didn’t bother to wipe them away.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Phoebe looked at herself sideways in the hall mirror. At

five months pregnant, her bump was visible but still small.

She was lucky she could still get away with wearing bigger

sizes of normal clothes instead of maternity things, which

all seemed to be horrendously expensive when she and

Cara trekked around the shops.

‘Maybe I do want to know if it’s going to be a boy or

a girl,’ she said thoughtfully, going back into the flat’s

sitting room which was crowded with shopping bags and

Christmas wrapping paper.

Zoe groaned from her position on the chair with the

dodgy spring, where she was eating crisps and reading her

horoscope. ‘Phoebs, every second day you want to know

what sex it is, and every other day you don’t want to know.

Make up your mind.’

‘It’s important,’ Phoebe protested. ‘If it’s a girl, perhaps I

should be doing something different from what I should be

doing if it’s a boy.’

‘If it’s a boy, you’d be ravenous for beer and pizza all the

time,’ Zoe theorised, ‘and if it’s a girl, you’d be getting

cravings for chocolate and re-runs of Dynasty.’

‘It’s definitely a girl, then,’ Cara said, returning from an

emergency trip to the grocery shop in Rathmines with

another box of Mars Bar ice creams and a lot of assorted

chocolate goodies. ‘They think we’re all mad in that shop.’

she said. ‘The woman behind the counter can’t understand

why we’re buying ice cream in December.’

‘Did you explain it was for a pregnant woman?’ Phoebe

grinned, ripping open the carton almost before Cara had

taken it out of the plastic carrier bag.

‘Phoebe, we were eating just as many last December

when you weren’t pregnant.’

‘True.’

They were all quiet for a few minutes, eating happily

and half watching The Sound of Music with the sound

turned down. Phoebe loved old films but Zoe said she

couldn’t bear to hear ‘Edelweiss’ one more time and could

they turn it down for a while?

Ice cream finished, Zoe went back to reading horoscopes.

‘Listen to this,’ she said. ‘ “Leos will find happiness away

from home this Christmas but be sure to think before you

speak.” I’m glad I’m going to your dad’s for Christmas, Cara.

I couldn’t bear another festive season with the boys and my

father killing each other.’

‘You’re sure your father and Vida are happy we’re

coming?’ Phoebe asked a bit anxiously.

‘Vida says that’s the whole point of the annexe, so guests

can stay and do their own thing,’ Cara pointed out

patiently. ‘There’s only two bedrooms so you’ll have to