Forgive Me

by Lesley Pearse

  He had to go then; he said he had to see someone to give them a quote, but he’d call round when he’d spoken to his friends about the work she needed doing.

  ‘Would you like me to get you a takeaway?’ he said as he got up to leave. ‘I can see you’ve got nothing to cook anything in – or on.’

  ‘You’ve done more than enough for me already.’ She smiled up at him. ‘I’ve got some bits and pieces to eat. Tod may have accused me of being needy, but I’m not.’

  ‘We all have wobbly moments when we need a friend,’ he said. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a card. ‘So ring me if you need anything or just want to talk. But I’ll pop round again to tell you when I’ve spoken to the lads.’

  Chapter Nine

  Phil had left Eva with a great deal to think about. That same evening, and much of the next day, she walked about the house, looking, measuring and planning. From outside in the yard she could see how good French doors would look, just as from the street she saw Phil had been right in saying two smaller windows upstairs would make a vast improvement to the house.

  In the afternoon she paid a visit to the Notting Hill branch of her bank to arrange to have her account transferred there from Cheltenham, and she also made an appointment to see the manager the following day.

  On the way home she went round to the greengrocer’s in Clarendon Road, just a couple of streets away from Pottery Lane. Seeing a card in the window of an Italian bistro for a lunchtime waitress, she went in to ask about the job.

  A tall dark-haired girl who introduced herself as Marcia was laying up the tables for the evening. ‘Antonio, the boss, isn’t here right now,’ she said. ‘But could you come in for a trial tomorrow, about twelve thirty? He’ll be here then and he can see how you shape up.’

  Eva was glad to agree; the bistro was close to home, and it had a nice relaxed atmosphere. She might have only had experience of Burger King and KFC, but if she could handle working in those places, she was sure Antonio’s would be a pushover. As her appointment with the bank manager was at eleven, she could go to the bistro straight afterwards.

  Eva put on her black suit and white shirt the next morning and slipped some flat black shoes in her bag, as she didn’t think she could wait on tables later in her high heels. She arrived at the bank ten minutes early, fired up to convince the manager that she was worthy of a loan if necessary.

  Mr Dodds was a plump, bald and genial middle-aged man. Eva told him about the house and explained that she might need a loan later to get it fixed up.

  ‘Where do you work, Miss Patterson?’ he asked.

  She explained that she’d only been in London for less than a week but that she was starting a job that day. ‘I do have six thousand and forty pounds in a building society account,’ she said, showing him the passbook. ‘And you can see from my current account and the deposit account with you, that I’ve nearly another thousand there. I am intending to draw on my own funds to get the windows and the kitchen done, but later on I’ll need to put in central heating, and I might need a loan then. I thought once I’d got the house straight I could take in a lodger, which will create another income.’

  He wanted evidence that the house did indeed belong to her. She showed him letters from Mr Bailey, her solicitor in Cheltenham, which verified this and confirmed he was holding the deeds.

  He looked at her very intently for a moment or two. ‘Well, Miss Patterson, you appear to be a very level-headed young lady, and I can see from your account with us that you have always acted responsibly in the past. My only concern is your youth, and the fact that you have only been in London for a short time and won’t be able to supply a reference yet from your employer. I suggest you get the vital work done with your savings and come back to me in a couple of months if you find you do need more money. I can review the situation then, and possibly arrange a small mortgage for you that you can manage on your salary.’

  Eva left the bank feeling elated and proud of herself. She could hardly believe that in just one week she’d been on a white-knuckle ride, from excitement at going to see the house for the first time, to the shock of finding it was a wreck, then the terrible hurt of finding out Tod’s true feelings for her, and rushing to London.

  All the despair she’d felt a few days ago seemed ridiculous and over the top now. She’d made a friend in Phil, Mr Dodds had taken her seriously, and unless she made an idiot of herself at Antonio’s today, she had a job too.

  It was just after half past three when Eva got home from Antonio’s. Her feet ached from being on them for so long, but she’d got the job, and would start properly on Monday. It wasn’t very good money at £3 an hour, and for now Antonio only wanted her three days a week – from twelve to three – but Marcia said she should get at least £5 a day in tips. And as Rose, their cleaner at The Beeches, always used to say: ‘That’s better than a slap around the face with a wet kipper.’

  In the early evening Eva was scrubbing at the old cooker with a Brillo pad, wearing a pair of old baggy shorts and a scruffy T-shirt, when there was a knock at the front door. To her shock, when she answered it Phil was standing there; with him was an older man.

  Eva blushed scarlet at being caught looking such a fright. She had a scarf tied around her hair, no make-up, and she thought she must stink of oven cleaner.

  ‘Hi, Eva.’ Phil grinned. ‘I told you about my kitchen-fitter mate. Well, this is Brian and it just so happens he’s got a kitchen in his van that might be perfect for you.’

  ‘Excuse how I look,’ she blurted out, peeling off her rubber gloves. ‘I’ve been trying to clean the cooker. But I haven’t got any money here.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Brian said. ‘If you like it, you can have it and pay me later. I’ll have to dump it unless I find a new home for it in the next few days.’

  Brian had one of those round smiley faces that Eva associated with kindliness and fatherly qualities. She wondered if Phil had laid it on thick to him that she was in need of help, and she felt a bit awkward at being seen as a charity case. But Brian was already opening the back of the van and beckoned her to come and have a look. It was stacked high with kitchen units and wall cupboards all with white matt doors and brass knobs.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked as he pulled out a base unit for her to look at. ‘Nice, ain’t it?’

  ‘It looks brand new,’ she said. She couldn’t help but be suspicious of something that seemed too good to be true.

  ‘I know!’ Brian grinned at her. ‘Some folk ’ave more money than bleedin’ sense. Their puppy chewed one door. We ordinary folks would just replace the damaged door, but not these people – they wanted the whole lot ripped out.’ He climbed into the van and pulled out a long, pale grey Formica worktop stacked up at the side of the van, and passed it to Phil. ‘This came with it. Not a scratch on it and enough of it to fit out a huge kitchen. There’s a stainless-steel sink, a fridge and a washing machine too. I can do you a lovely job with these, if you like. All you’ll need to get is a new cooker cos they had one of them whopping great range things.’

  Eva was stunned. She hadn’t really believed that Phil would come up with anything, and at best she’d expected dark brown imitation wood from the early 1970s. She would have been glad of even that, but a lovely white kitchen was beyond her wildest dreams. ‘It’s marvellous,’ she said weakly.

  Brian moved the van right up against the garage so cars could pass by, and then the three of them went back into the house. She showed Brian a rough plan she’d made, telling Phil she thought his idea of French doors was what she wanted. Brian measured the space, did a few calculations, then began to draw a plan in chalk on the floorboards.

  ‘You can’t have it quite like you’ve drawn. It would mean two wasted spaces in the corners, and it’ll looked cramped,’ he said. ‘I suggest two lots of units facing each other. The stove, washing machine and sink unit will be at the back, with one other unit there. But the fridge needs to be opposite, under your break
fast bar. And you can have a couple of wall cupboards either side of the cooker.’

  ‘And you’ve got all that?’ she asked.

  ‘Sweetheart, I’ve got enough units to go right around the whole room, if you wanted them.’

  ‘It sounds great, but how much is it going to cost?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘Can you go to six hundred, including the fitting?’ he asked. ‘That’s including the appliances of course.’

  After seeing the price of new kitchens in a showroom, and the extra cost of having them fitted, Brian’s offer was like a gift from heaven and she wanted to hug him. But she controlled her glee and said that quote was very reasonable. And she asked him when he could start on it, as she had a job now.

  ‘I’ll fit around you, love,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I can’t do anything until that window is done, anyway. But I’d be obliged if I could leave the units and the appliances here to free up my van. If you change your mind, I can always come and collect them again.’

  She could hardly believe that anyone was so trusting. ‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ she assured him. ‘I didn’t even dare hope I’d get such nice units.’

  ‘Right, we’ll get them in then.’ He nodded to Phil to help him.

  The two men took about twenty minutes to bring everything in, stacking the units neatly away from the area where they would eventually go. Brian plugged in the fridge in the corner by the sink so she could use that right away. As soon as she heard it whirring away she ran upstairs to get the milk and other perishables to put in it. She felt she could even cook a meal on the old stove now she had somewhere to store her food.

  ‘I’ll be off now,’ Brian said, handing her his business card. ‘Just give me a bell when you want me to fit it. And you’d better get yourself a new cooker too, I’ll need to wire that in when I take the old one out.’

  Phil didn’t go with him; he said he would catch a bus home. After Eva had seen Brian out, she turned to Phil in some excitement.

  ‘You are a wonder,’ she said. ‘I can hardly believe you arranged that for me. Would you like a cup of tea before you go home?’

  He made a hangdog face. ‘I was hoping you might like to come to the pub with me for some dinner. I haven’t got anything in at home. And I bet you haven’t eaten anything much today?’

  ‘No, I haven’t, I’ve been too busy,’ she said. ‘But I’ll only come if you let me pay. I owe you a dinner for arranging this.’

  ‘If Your Ladyship insists,’ he said, making a mock bow. ‘To tell the truth, I’ve been worried about you. This dark room is enough to give anyone nightmares. Were you alright after I left the other day?’

  ‘I was fine,’ she said, touched by his concern and a little flustered at finding herself thinking how attractive he was. ‘No ill effects at all. But I’ve been more careful with my bag since, and I’ve been very busy making plans. I’ll tell you about them at the pub. But can I go and change first? I’m sure you wouldn’t be seen dead with me looking like this!’

  She scurried up the stairs, leaving Phil standing at the back door and looking out into the yard.

  It took her just ten minutes to have a quick wash and put on a pair of pink jeans and a white T-shirt. She’d bought the jeans in a sale at work when she embarked on the affair with Tod, but they’d been so tight she’d never worn them. To her astonishment they were perfect now, so she must have lost more weight. She had only a make-up mirror so she couldn’t see herself full length. She wished she could.

  Her hair was fine with just a brush. She hastily applied some make-up and perfume, then she slipped on a pair of pink high heels with ankle straps.

  Phil was perched on a wooden crate in the backyard. He looked up and smiled as she appeared in the doorway. ‘You look really nice,’ he said.

  ‘Well, thank you, kind sir. Of course I couldn’t have looked worse than I did when I opened the door to you earlier.’

  ‘You looked OK to me,’ he said lightly. ‘Before you came down I was just thinking that someone must have cared for this garden once, it’s got a good feeling.’

  ‘I think that was my mum,’ she said. ‘She loved gardening. Some of the plants like the clematis look old enough to have been planted by her. I removed a lot of rubbish and pulled up lots of weeds, but I want to plant up some tubs, get a table and chairs out here. It’s a real little suntrap in the afternoon.’

  He looked appraisingly at her. ‘You’re like a different girl today. Bouncy, smiley and – dare I say it? – happier!’

  ‘I am,’ she said with a wide grin. ‘You’ve been like a lucky charm to me. First, getting my bag back, then getting a job, and now the kitchen. So let me feed you as a thank you.’

  The Prince of Wales was a friendly pub. It had a very mixed clientele – mostly yuppie types in the thirty to forty age group, but a good proportion of working-class people too – and there was lots of banter between them. Eva mentioned to the landlord, George, that she had just moved into Pottery Lane, and he insisted on giving her and Phil a drink on the house to celebrate.

  ‘I used to eat here a lot when I was working down the street,’ Phil said when they’d been given a table for two in a corner. ‘The food’s not too poncey or expensive. They do a lovely Sunday roast, and the people who drink here regularly aren’t toffee-nosed either.’

  ‘If the boards don’t come down off that window soon, I might become a regular, propping up the bar every night,’ she joked.

  ‘You’ve got a lot of guts, and I like that,’ he said approvingly. ‘It must be tough to move to a new town when you don’t know anyone. And then to get your bag snatched!’

  ‘I wouldn’t have met you but for that,’ she said flirtatiously. ‘Thanks to your advice, I pulled myself together. I’ve found myself a job in a bistro – only part time, but it will do for now – and I think I’ve got my old optimism back. You and Brian have renewed my faith in people.’

  They ordered steak, chips and salad, and as they ate Eva told him about the job and visiting the bank.

  ‘I’ve got enough money for the kitchen and probably the windows, depending of course how much they’ll cost. But I thought it was best to see if the bank would lend me some more later so I could put in gas central heating and a new bathroom too. He seemed OK about it, and I can always get someone to share with me to help out, as this waitress job is really only a stopgap until something better comes along.’

  ‘I asked my mate John about doing your windows,’ Phil said. ‘I could bring him round tomorrow to have a look, if you like. He hasn’t got much work on just now, and I’m sure he’ll be happy to do it in stages to suit you. I’ll make good all the plaster for you. I’d like to help.’

  As the evening progressed Eva found herself becoming more and more attracted to Phil. He had a lovely sense of humour, he was interesting, and he was very interested in her too. He was comfortable to be with, as if she’d known him for a long time. And he had real opinions of his own, not half-chewed-over ideas gathered from other people – the sort she realized now that Tod had. The word she thought best summed up his character was: honest. He told it as it was, and he believed in doing a good day’s work for a day’s pay. He took pride in his work and had no understanding of people who were lazy, or those who expected something for nothing.

  She liked the respectful way he had been with Brian too – she’d sensed a strong bond between them, almost like father and son. ‘Tell me about Brian?’ she asked. ‘Have you known him a long time?’

  ‘He’s the salt of the earth,’ he said. ‘Happily married with two kids he adores, a real craftsman too. I’ve worked on lots of jobs with him, right since I was a stroppy young lad who thought he knew it all. He’s always even-tempered, calm, caring – and a laugh too. Trust him, Eva, ask his advice about stuff, he’s a really good man.’

  She had thought at first that his respect for Brian might be because he didn’t get on well with his own father, but she found that wasn’t so. He told her his father work
ed on the railways, and his mother had a few cleaning jobs, and he was proud of them.

  ‘When I was a little kid, I used to think we were rich just because our house was always neat and tidy,’ he chuckled. ‘You see, the estate we lived on was a bit rough, and most of my mates’ homes were squalid. Their mums had fags hanging out of their mouths, and their dads got drunk a lot. But our mum was always there when we got home from school, in a clean pinny. She baked cakes, knitted us jumpers, and our garden was really pretty with loads of flowers. I never realized that we were better off than others just because Dad did lots of overtime and didn’t drink, and Mum did all those cleaning jobs while we were at school. They were careful with what money they had – Dad even had an allotment and grew all our vegetables.’

  ‘They sound lovely,’ Eva said.

  ‘They are. I see that now of course, they’ve got all the right values. But I still went through a stage at fifteen or so of rebelling, wanting to be a hard case like some of my mates. I wanted a motor bike, to hang around on street corners, and I used to bunk off school too, sniffing glue and stuff. If Dad hadn’t come down on me like a ton of bricks, I would have ended up in serious trouble. But he talked to me, took me fishing and to football, and he got me an apprenticeship as a plasterer and talked me into playing rugby, going running and stuff.’

  ‘To keep you out of mischief?’

  ‘Partly that, but he also thought I could let off steam that way. I still play rugby for a local team and I still go running. But it was men like Brian that I worked with who really pulled me around. They teased me out of sullen moods, showed by example how to be a real man, and they kept an eye on me too. I found men like them could be a good laugh too, it was them who made me realize how lucky I was to have good parents.’

  Eva found it touching that he appreciated what others had done for him. It made her think of Olive and how, by taking her on at Oakley and Smithson, she’d been able to help Eva break free from people who were pulling her down.