I look above me and the sky has turned violet.
When I look down I see Silvia leaning against the wall, talking to Zeb.
Her feather boa is flung around her naked shoulders and her hand slowly strokes her other arm. She blinks slowly at him and smiles with her mouth open.
I look down. I look away. Everyone around me is talking and the music confuses me. I walk through the people into a dark corner. What if he likes her more than me? I stand there, breathing. They’re just talking, I say to myself. For heaven’s sake, Evie! and just as I turn round I feel the warmth of him, and he is holding both my hands.
‘Hello,’ he says, drawing me towards him and away from the dark corner. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you all evening,’ he says.
‘Hello,’ I say, looking up at him.
His face is in shadow but I can see the light in his eyes.
‘Shall we dance, d’you think?’ he says.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I feel like dancing.’
‘So do I.’
I put my arms round him and it’s like holding a tree that sways in the wind.
Stevie Wonder is singing sadly about an empty well.
‘Come on now, Stevie, cheer up!’ says Zeb, smiling down at me.
But Stevie goes on to shattered dreams and we start laughing at how miserable the words are. I feel his body trembling with laughing next to mine, and he holds me just a bit closer.
‘Now it’s worthless years!’ I say, looking up at him. He shrugs and looks down at me and that’s when it happens. Something slides down between us and collapses; a wall that has kept us apart. It crumbles, and suddenly we are in the same world. It is glowing. It must be one of Zeb’s dimensions that you slip into, and he looks at me with naked eyes, that say, ‘Here I am, this is me,’ and the look is so beautiful I cannot look away. Then my cheek is touching his cheek and my arms are circling his neck and I feel his breath by my ear. He holds me close to him so we are almost one person, and a river of light slips through us. Then his lips are on mine and we are kissing, and Stevie is singing, ‘it will be for ever,’ and circles of coloured light are exploding behind my eyes, because the world is being born.
Acknowledgements
With special thanks to Marigold Farmer, for helping me to finish this book, and to Richard Farmer, both for their kind hospitality.
Many thanks to Alexandra Pringle, as always, for her amazing ability to see the final book in the first chaotic draft.
Thanks also to my agent Victoria Hobbs, and my editor Victoria Millar, to Barbara Turner, Katy Noura Butler, Oonagh Harpur, Angel Green, Erica Jarnes, Audrey Cotterell, and everyone at Bloomsbury.
Many thanks to Buz de Villiers for helping me through the book’s darkness.
Thank you to the Hawthornden Foundation, the Royal Literary Fund, the Author’s Foundation, DW Gibson and Ledig House USA, and Arts Council England.
And thank you to Peter Ackroyd for his two wonderful books, London – A Biography and Thames – Sacred River, both of which feature in this book.
A Note on the Author
Helena McEwen grew up in Scotland and trained as an artist at Chelsea School of Art and Camberwell School of Art. She is the acclaimed author of The Big House and Ghost Girl. She lives in Scotland.
By the Same Author
The Big House
Ghost Girl
First published in Great Britain 2011
Copyright © Helena McEwen 2011
This electronic edition published 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
The right of Helena McEwen to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,
printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable
to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Bloomsbury Publishing London New York Berlin Sydney
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London Wc1B 3DP
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4088 1602 1
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