Forgive Me

by Lesley Pearse

‘He’s been struggling with it,’ Eva admitted. ‘But then he would, just like all of us. We didn’t see it coming. But there is one thing I’d like to ask you. Mum’s studio, do you know about it?’

  ‘Well, yes, of course I do,’ Lauren replied. ‘She bought it while we were all still sharing a house. That’s where I babysat you.’

  ‘She never said anything about it to me, and apparently she’s left it to me. That’s caused some hard feeling,’ Eva said carefully. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘In West London. Holland Park.’

  Eva didn’t know London at all, but she had heard of Holland Park being a smart area.

  Jack must have read her expression because he smiled. ‘Parts of that area were good even back in the sixties, but not where the studio is, that was virtually a slum. We all said she was mad buying it. But she’d inherited some money – from her father, I think – and she was determined. It wasn’t as if it was a real artist’s studio, only a little terraced house. I haven’t seen it since you were small, but I should imagine it’s been tarted up since then.’

  Ever since Eva had been told about this ‘studio’, she’d imagined it was just one big room, perhaps with an adjoining bathroom, because that was what estate agents called such places. She was very surprised to discover it was a house.

  Her earlier caution left her. ‘Do you know who my real father is?’ she asked. ‘I thought it was Andrew until Mum’s death, but he said he isn’t my father.’

  Jack and Lauren exchanged glances again.

  ‘She didn’t tell you before?’ Lauren said, and looked very uneasily at Jack. ‘I wonder if that’s why she never invited us here?’

  ‘You think she was afraid you’d let the cat out of the bag?’ Eva prompted.

  Lauren hesitated. ‘Maybe, dear. Flora always did play her cards close to her chest.’

  ‘So who is my father?’ Eva asked, keeping her voice down as she could see Sophie hovering close by.

  ‘Well, we’ve always assumed it was Patrick O’Donnell, the illustrator. He was part of our group and they were together for several years.’

  ‘You only imagine! Flora was your friend, surely you know for sure?’ Eva said a little sharply.

  ‘Look, Eva,’ Jack took over. ‘It was a strange time, with lots of things going on, and we weren’t always part of it. Flora was with Patrick for a few years, but she left him and later on took legal action to get him out of her place. Pat went off to Canada, tail between his legs, and Flora didn’t tell us anything, not even that she was expecting you. By the time we caught up with her again, you were a couple of months old.’

  Chapter Four

  Eva switched on the light and looked at the clock. It was after two, but she couldn’t get off to sleep. She could hear Andrew snoring – just a soft, distant rumbling because his bedroom door was shut. She’d listened to the sound a thousand times in the past and found it comforting that he was close by. But now she knew he wasn’t her real father she found it irritating.

  She almost wished she hadn’t spoken to Jack and Lauren today at the funeral. She’d hoped for some new understanding about her mother, but all she’d got was more puzzles. First, that she’d been a successful artist; Eva knew little about the art world but she did know that only a handful of artists made any real money from it. So why on earth hadn’t Mum ever told her that she was one of those few?

  Then there was the news about an illustrator called Patrick O’Donnell who might be her father. Jack had said he knew he was living back in England now, and had suggested she look him up. But how could she? If he didn’t want her as a baby he wasn’t likely to care about seeing her now.

  She had spoken to some of Flora’s other old friends too, and although she didn’t get as much from them as she did from Jack and Lauren, they had created a picture for her of the young Flora they knew. They all said how much of a party animal she’d been, the last one to leave, always up for anything. Someone said how she had mad ideas – camping in midwinter, skinny-dipping in the Thames – and she got people joining her with sheer force of personality. Yet none of this fitted the woman Eva knew; she’d always seemed rather reclusive, and certainly not bold or impulsive.

  There were also some pointed little remarks from a couple of people that hinted at Flora being mercenary, hard and devious. Eva thought that might be because as students they’d have all been on their uppers, and they were probably jealous of Flora’s success. It was clear from the clothes and the cars of these old student friends that they were still poor, and coming to The Beeches to discover Flora had never had to struggle financially, as they had, might have resurrected that envy.

  But why had Flora cut herself off from them? And why when she had been a successful artist had she given it up?

  Was it Andrew’s doing?

  Eva had watched him as these people tried to talk to him during the day and she could see by his strained expression and body language that he was struggling to be polite and had absolutely no interest in any of them. But then Andrew was a businessman through and through – his interests were the stock market, politics and sport, not art. Maybe when he found Lauren’s phone number in her mother’s address book he’d thought she was a more recent friend.

  Eva doubted he’d ever grown his hair long, worn tie-dye T-shirts or patched jeans. He’d never gone to a rock concert, was appalled at drug taking or even smoking cigarettes, and he sneered at New Age people, alternative lifestyles, astrology and vegetarians. In fact he was probably appalled that by contacting Lauren about Flora’s death he had unwittingly given an open invitation to a bunch of people he saw as just cranks.

  But if these people had been Flora’s friends, Eva wondered how and why she ever got together with Andrew. It was odd for a woman who had apparently seen life in technicolour to settle down with a man who only saw black and white and who lived his life through spreadsheets.

  Eva knew that Andrew hadn’t been wealthy when he married Flora; that came later, when they moved to Cheltenham. This house had been dilapidated at the time. It was selling off the land at the back of it which had enabled them to turn it into what it was today. Yet Flora was the creative one, so why did she always bow to Andrew’s taste?

  Eva was about sixteen when Andrew first came up with the idea of putting a swimming pool in the old stables. She remembered Flora gently pointing out that pools cost a lot to maintain. Nothing more was said about it for months, then one night Eva walked in the front door and overheard them in the sitting room having a row about it.

  She went halfway up the stairs, but stayed there to listen.

  ‘It’s just showing off,’ Flora insisted. ‘The stables aren’t big enough for a decent size one that you can really swim in. You just want the neighbours to be impressed. But they won’t be forking out for the heating bills, will they?’

  ‘It’s me that brings the money in, so I can decide what to spend it on,’ Andrew argued. ‘The kids will love it.’

  ‘They might at first. But they’ll be bored with it in no time. They aren’t that keen on swimming, and you’ve never been interested.’

  ‘I would be if it was right here,’ he said. ‘Besides, it’s a statement that I’m doing well.’

  ‘As I thought, you just want to pose,’ Flora snapped back at him. ‘It’s a waste of money.’

  ‘My money,’ he said, and with that he opened the sitting room door to walk out.

  Eva had no alternative but to flee up to her room before he caught her eavesdropping.

  They went on rowing for some time that night. Eva couldn’t hear what they were saying but at one point she heard something smash, then it went quiet.

  Flora was very silent and brooding for the next few days, and although Eva asked her what was wrong, she refused to say. As nothing further happened for a few weeks about the swimming pool, Eva assumed Andrew’s plan had been abandoned.

  When the conversion of the old stables finally got started, Flora didn’t protest, but Eva was aware she was s
till against the idea, because of her tight-lipped false smile. Eva, Ben and Sophie were all thrilled with the pool when it was finished. But, as Mum had predicted, it was a nine-day wonder. They had a few weeks of going in there every night after school and at the weekends, but gradually their enthusiasm tapered off, as did Andrew’s. Eva couldn’t remember when she’d last seen him use it.

  Was that what was wrong between them? Did Flora feel trapped in a middle-class world with a control freak – a man who liked to impress the neighbours with his ride-on lawn mower, his swimming pool and a new top-of-the-range car every year? He played squash with other men, occasionally went to watch cricket or rugby with someone, but Eva didn’t think he had even one really close friend. She remembered once, when he and her mother were planning a dinner party, Flora had complained that one of the couples he’d chosen were very dull. Andrew’s reply had been that they were ‘well connected’. Eva supposed that meant he thought they could be useful to him.

  None of these things had fully registered with Eva before today. About the only thing she’d really noticed was that Flora was at her happiest when she was gardening or being creative. She wished so much that she’d thought to ask her mother how she felt about things – deeper questions that might have given her some insight into what made her mother tick.

  Maybe that was part of the reason why Flora killed herself; because she felt her family took no interest in her as a person? It must have been very demoralizing to be thought of as just a mother and housewife, especially if she’d once been a successful artist.

  Only one certainty had come out of the events of today, and that was that Eva must find a place of her own as quickly as possible. Around six, after everyone had left, Andrew had totally ignored her as she was clearing up. She’d heard him praise Ben and Sophie for holding themselves together and acting with dignity, yet she didn’t even get a thank-you for buying and preparing the food.

  She wasn’t going to stay on here as an unappreciated skivvy. Tomorrow she’d make an appointment with the solicitor, and she’d start looking for a flat.

  On Monday afternoon, five days after the funeral, Eva left work early for her appointment with Mr Bailey, the solicitor. After seeing him she was going to view a bedsitter. She would take it, whatever it was like, as the atmosphere at home had become poisonous since the funeral.

  It was like walking on eggshells with Andrew. He snapped at her about everything – from moving his piles of paperwork from the kitchen to his study, to asking what he’d like for an evening meal. He kept saying the house was a tip, but he was as much to blame as Sophie and Ben. She was trying so hard to run the house, to keep up with the washing, ironing, shopping and cooking while working full time too. But all he did was complain and criticize.

  Sophie sucked up to him constantly, and continued to do nothing to help around the house. Ben escaped as often as he could.

  On Saturday morning Eva was just going past her parents’ bedroom when she saw Andrew pulling all their mother’s clothes out of the wardrobes and drawers and stuffing them into black bin liners. She was so shocked she couldn’t stop herself from asking what he was going to do with them.

  ‘I’m taking them to a charity shop,’ he snapped.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit soon?’ she ventured. ‘And some of her clothes were very expensive.’

  ‘I know that, I paid for them,’ he retorted, not even looking up from stuffing a beautiful brown velvet jacket into the bag.

  ‘What if I sorted them out and took the best vintage ones to sell back to that shop Mum bought them from?’ she suggested.

  ‘So you can have the money?’ he said with a nasty sneer. ‘My God, Eva, you are a piece of work!’

  She burst into tears, because nothing had been further from her mind. What she wanted was to see him treating her mother’s belongings, whether that was clothes, jewellery or other things, with respect because he had loved her. Shovelling them into bin liners without any thought for the memories they held was so cold-hearted. It was as if he hated Flora now.

  ‘That’s right, cry and make a big drama out of it,’ he said scornfully. ‘Your mother always did that too. She took her own life, Eva! I knew she was a self-centred bitch. But I never thought she’d put herself before the needs of her family. She didn’t give a toss for any of our feelings. So you tell me what possible reason could I have for holding on to this lot?’

  ‘Because it’s too soon to get rid of it all,’ Eva ventured through her tears. ‘You might be sorry later.’

  ‘The quicker I get everything of hers out of this house, the better I’ll feel,’ he said, stuffing more things in.

  ‘Including me, I suppose,’ she said and turned away, not wanting to hear his response.

  Yesterday she had cooked Sunday lunch for them all: roast beef, Yorkshire puddings and all the trimmings. Ben didn’t come back, Andrew put his on a tray and took it into the sitting room to watch TV, and Sophie ate hers in silence.

  Eva went up to her room after she’d cleared up, and she hadn’t been there long when the phone rang. She opened the door, intending to go and answer it if no one else did, but Andrew picked it up down in the hall.

  ‘I can’t talk now,’ he said in the kind of half-whisper that Eva had used in the past when speaking to people her parents wouldn’t approve of. ‘The kids are all here.’ There was silence for a few moments before he spoke again. ‘I know, but it won’t be long now. The wait is nearly over. I’ll ring you tomorrow night.’

  Eva closed her bedroom door very quietly. No one did that lowered voice thing unless they were afraid of being overheard and feeling guilty. She was sure it had to be a woman he was speaking to. So was he having an affair and Mum found out? Was that what drove her to suicide? And if it was, how could Andrew put on that huge display of grief?

  She stayed in her room until bedtime. No one came to see her, and she felt so terribly alone and uncertain about everything that she cried herself to sleep.

  She’d woken this morning feeling tougher and determined. She got the local paper on the way to work, saw the bedsitter advertised and rang to make an appointment to view it at six o’clock. Now as she drove into the car park of the solicitor’s, she told herself that even if one door was closing behind her, there was freedom behind the door in front of her.

  Mr Bailey was just as she imagined a solicitor to be – old, small, slightly stooped and with half-glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose. His office was lined with thick leather-bound books.

  ‘Do come in and sit down, Miss Patterson,’ he said after shaking her hand and offering his commiserations on the death of her mother. ‘It had been my intention to contact you right after your mother’s funeral, but you pre-empted that by calling me.’

  Eva suddenly felt she might cry, but took a deep breath and explained that Andrew had told her about a studio she was to inherit. ‘He seemed very cross about it,’ she added.

  ‘He had no right to be, or to be surprised by it. I drew up a will for your mother when they first moved to Cheltenham and the studio was left to you even then. He was here with her then, and she made the position quite clear. On that occasion she also changed your name by deed poll to Patterson.’

  ‘Until the night Andrew told me about her will, I didn’t even know he wasn’t my father,’ Eva admitted.

  ‘Oh dear!’ Bailey exclaimed, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on a handkerchief. ‘To have that revealed so soon after your mother’s death must have been very distressing for you.’

  ‘It was, but he seemed to think I had influenced Mum in giving me the studio. He didn’t believe that I didn’t even know Mum owned one.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have taken out his pique on you at such a time, but I dare say it was because of the nature of her death and because I had to reveal to him that your mother had recently changed her will without his knowledge. He was angry with me about that.’

  ‘You mean leaving her half of the house to Sophie and Ben?’<
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  ‘Yes, my dear. But she had every right to decide what was to become of her assets. These days it is becoming much more common for people to ensure that the remaining partner doesn’t have total control of them. Usually they are afraid their other half will remarry and the children of the new husband or wife will inherit the marital home.’

  Eva nodded and hung her head. She could feel tears welling up, and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry.

  ‘You poor child,’ Bailey said gently. ‘I only met your mother a few times, with a gap of many years in between the first and last couple of times, so I can’t claim I knew her well. But I did notice a difference in her the last time she came here. That was just before Christmas. She seemed to have lost the vibrancy I remembered; I wondered then if she was ill, and if that was why she wanted to change her will. In fact I asked if something was wrong, but she smiled and said there was nothing, and that she was just making sure all three of her children would be looked after, rather than just you. That was entirely reasonable in my view.’

  ‘My stepfather doesn’t see it that way,’ Eva said glumly.

  ‘I can imagine. But in fairness to him, he’d already had the shock of his wife’s death to contend with, and it must have been distressing to find that she didn’t consider what effect her new will would have on him, and on his security. He has worked very hard for years to keep you all in comfort, and now with your mother’s half of the family home being bequeathed to your brother and sister it means his finances are restricted. But even if he should choose to contest her will, it wouldn’t change anything. He still owns half the house, and any judge would see that as adequate for his needs.’

  Eva thought it served Andrew right, if he had been cheating on her mother. But she couldn’t say that without proof. ‘I can understand him being upset about that,’ she said. ‘But if Mum had always said that the studio was to go to me, and he never had any stake in it, why be mean to me about it now?’

  Mr Bailey made a shrugging gesture with his hands. ‘At times like this people don’t always think logically, my dear. I hope in time you can heal the rift between you, as I’m sure your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to fall out over it. Getting back to the studio, I have no idea of the condition it is in. Your mother did have an agent who took care of letting it, but apparently she dismissed him a few years ago. She had a building society account which rent money was paid into. I need to look into that for you because I have a note here that your name was also on the account. That was another thing she did to make certain it went straight to you.’