Cupid's Way

by Joanne Phillips

  ‘Oh, he’s really fired up. It was so nice of you to include him. He needed something like this. Something to get his teeth into.’

  ‘I was surprised at how readily he agreed. It’s a lot of work. It would have been easier if you’d been able to work on it together.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said, gazing at Tim across the gardens. ‘It would.’

  She had that look again, the one Evie had seen on her first morning at Cupid’s Way. For the first time she wondered about the street’s unusual name. Cupid was woefully absent, judging by Sarah’s forlorn expression. She made a mental note to add research into the origins of the terrace’s moniker to Tim’s brief. Maybe thinking about the romantic side of things would help him open his eyes and notice this lovely woman who clearly had the hots for him.

  Emboldened by the punch, Evie said, ‘Sarah, have you and Tim ever, you know, dated or anything?’

  Even in the dim light, Evie could see Sarah turn the colour of Cissy’s strawberry mousse. ‘Oh, my,’ she said. ‘Well, no. I mean, I couldn’t possibly … Oh, look! Is that Mrs Dean’s daughter? I must go and say hello.’

  Evie sighed and returned to her vol-au-vent. So much for playing Cupid.

  ‘You shouldn’t be meddling into other people’s love lives, Evie Stone. Especially when your own is such a mess.’

  Evie wheeled around to find her gran at her shoulder. No wonder Sarah had made such a hasty exit.

  ‘For your information, my love life is not a mess. It’s merely resting. Like an out of work actor.’ The alcohol had transformed her voice into something both slurred and more distinct. She pondered the impossibility of this while Mavis carried on reprimanding her.

  ‘They’re good friends, and I’m sure they’re quite capable of getting together when they’re good and ready without your interference. By the way, have you seen Zac this evening?’

  Evie laughed out loud, sounding a little like a horse. ‘Oh, the irony! You’re lecturing me about interfering, while all the time you’ve got this agenda going on for me and Zac. It’s pathetic.’

  ‘I do not have an agenda,’ Mavis hissed. ‘He’s a perfectly nice man, in case you haven’t noticed. You could do a lot worse.’

  ‘Oh, I have done worse, Gran. I’ve done worse over and over and over. Anyway, I thought I told you – I’m off men completely.’

  ‘When it suits you,’ Mavis mumbled.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, for goodness sake. Look at the state of him.’

  Evie followed her grandma’s stare and saw Stig strolling along the candle-lit path holding a six-pack of bottled lager. As she watched, he slipped one free of the plastic casing, flipped open the lid with his teeth, and downed the entire bottle, casting it aside into the bushes.

  ‘He is disgusting,’ Mavis said, turning up her nose.

  ‘And he’s a guest at my party,’ Frank said, placing his hand on her shoulder. Mavis whirled around, nearly knocking Evie’s drink out of her hand. ‘So just try and make him welcome. Please?’

  ‘Of course, Frank, my darling sweetie pie. Today is all about making you happy.’ Mavis waited until Frank had wandered off, then she turned back to Evie. ‘Today is about making him happy, but tomorrow will be about making him suffer.’ She cackled with laughter, traipsing off along the path towards the food tent. Evie rolled her eyes. Her grandparents were incorrigible. She watched Stig approach. When he got close enough she stepped forward and held out her hand.

  ‘I’m Evie Stone. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.’

  The old man peered at her, screwing up his face. He looked at her hand as though he wasn’t sure what it was, then looked at the six-pack-now-five-pack in his. He looked back at her hand again, then placed the drinks carefully on the floor, spat on his hand, wiped it on his grubby trousers, and pressed it against Evie’s palm.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said. His voice was surprisingly cultured. ‘You’d be Angela’s daughter, of course. Although you don’t favour her much.’

  ‘You’re not the first to say that.’ Evie led him across the gardens to the food tent. ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked. He definitely looked like he needed feeding up. ‘I’m afraid most of the food is vegetarian. My granddad is not happy.’

  ‘Ah, yes. The renters. They are a little unusual in their tastes, aren’t they?’

  Evie laughed and clapped her hands together. Hearing Stig call Pip and Cissy “the renters” filled her with an inexplicable joy. When a country and western tune came on the stereo she had to repress the urge to grab the old man’s arm and start up a dosey doe.

  She piled a paper plate high with veggie vol-au-vents and tofu cocktail sausages, and left Stig talking to Rolo Peacock next to the beer keg. She made a mental note to talk to her gran again before she left tomorrow, and try and persuade her to keep an eye on Stig. A whiff of Rolo’s toxic pipe reached her nose and Evie moved further away. Disgusting. She sneezed, and reached into her pocket for a tissue. A sheet of paper fell out – the list of alternative sites Zac had put together. Evie unfolded the list and read it again. He’d identified three possibilities, all within a five-mile radius of Cupid’s Way. She looked up and scanned the party guests. She hadn’t seen him all evening, but the lights were on in his side-by-side houses. Evie thought it was sweet that he was doing one up for his mother and the other for himself. Perhaps his mum was infirm in some way, or maybe he just wanted to be close to her. Not everyone’s mum dumped their kids the minute they could get away with it and hot-footed it to Canada.

  Evie sighed and decided she needed another drink. But as she made her way back to the drinks gazebo, she couldn’t help noticing that everyone else was part of a couple. There were Pip and Cissy, standing proudly next to their buffet contributions; Sarah and Tim were talking to Bob and Freda Peacock; Mavis and Frank were sharing a plate and snuggling up like teenagers. Eloise had arrived with a man on her arm – they wore coordinating dusky pink shirts and sprayed-on white trousers and Evie had to stifle a giggle. Even Alun Peacock was with someone, his arm thrown casually around her shoulders, and Stig and Rolo made an odd kind of coupling of their own.

  Evie filled a plastic cup with white wine. She looked back at Zac’s house. Perhaps he’d taken her refusal to go for a drink with him as a rejection and was avoiding her. But then as she watched, Zac’s front door burst open and he rushed out, holding something in his hand, his arm raised high.

  ‘Look, look!’ he cried, running along the path towards them. ‘Look what I’ve found. You’ll never believe what I’ve found.’

  Frank was the first to reach him, with Mavis close behind. As far as Evie could make out, Zac was holding a piece of dirty pottery, and he was cradling it in both hands as though it was made of pure gold.

  ‘I think it’s Roman,’ he said, his voice awestruck. Frank took the browny-red object from Zac and held it up to the blue and red fairly lights.

  ‘I can’t tell what it is,’ Frank said. ‘We need to get a better look.’

  They all trouped back into the food tent. Frank stood under the hundred watt bulb Tim had strung up earlier, while Zac hung back with his arms folded across his chest. Evie registered his satisfied smile, then moved forward to see what all the fuss was about.

  ‘What is it?’ Cissy asked.

  Frank was brushing dirt off with his handkerchief. ‘It looks old,’ he said. ‘Like part of a bowl, maybe.’

  ‘Definitely Roman,’ Pip said, peering over Frank’s arm. ‘I’ve seen pieces like that in the museum.’

  ‘You know most of Bristol is built on Roman ruins, don’t you?’ Zac piped up. ‘I bet there’s more down there.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’ Frank said.

  ‘In the foundations of number six.’ Zac took the beer Mavis was offering him and glugged it down. ‘I’m installing a new sub-floor and some underfloor heating. When this turned up I didn’t think anything of it at first. But then I remembered watching that programme on Channel Fo
ur last year, do you remember it?’

  ‘The one where they found some Roman baths on the site of a new hospital?’ Pip said. ‘Sure, I watched that.’

  ‘I started thinking, wouldn’t it be amazing if …’ Zac shrugged. ‘Well, when I had a proper look I was gobsmacked. I’d bet a bundle there’s more where that came from.’

  Bob Peacock reached out and took the piece of pottery from Frank’s hand. ‘A real life, genuine Roman ruin right here in Cupid’s Way. You know what this means, don’t you?’ He held his arm up high, his eyes glittering in the white light. ‘This means we’re saved.’

  ‘Saved?’ Evie watched Bob give the relic back to Frank, who wrapped it carefully in his hanky. Bob laughed and did a sort of jig on the spot. His ginger hair flapped around his ears and even Freda seemed to find his smile contagious.

  ‘They can’t build a medical centre on top of a Roman ruin, can they?’ he said. ‘Zac, your find could be our saviour. Get this boy another drink!’

  Zac grinned and nodded, holding out his hands, palms up, while the residents patted him on the back and hugged each other. Bob rushed off and returned minutes later with an enormous video camera, which he balanced on his shoulder like a pro. He started trying to convince Zac to go back and recreate the moment he found the piece of pottery, but Zac was too busy retelling his story.

  ‘You don’t look too happy.’

  Evie swung around and found Sarah standing by her shoulder.

  ‘I’m ecstatic,’ Evie said. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s certainly good news. But …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’ Sarah shrugged. ‘It seems a little unlikely, that’s all. A bit …’

  ‘Convenient?’

  Sarah nodded. ‘I guess it could seem that way. But you know what Bristol’s like. They’re always unearthing something or other. Why not right here in Cupid’s Way?’

  ‘True. But then, wouldn’t that actually be a bad thing? I mean, they’d have to dig up all the foundations, wouldn’t they? How would that help?’

  ‘It would cause some disruption, but if there is a find of real significance here it would certainly put paid to Dynamite Construction’s plans.’ Evie looked back down the gardens and regarded Zac’s house thoughtfully. ‘You know, if it is genuine, at the very least it would certainly buy us some time. To get on with the listed building application, and for Tim to dig deeper with his research.’ She laughed. ‘No pun intended.’

  ‘Tim will be pleased about that. Maybe he’ll turn up something to support Zac’s find.’

  Evie sipped her drink and watched the residents celebrating. Tomorrow she was heading back north, back to normality, and it looked as though Cupid’s Way didn’t need her help after all. She wondered what Michael would say when he heard about this, whether he’d be angry or just move on to the next project.

  Bob hauled his camera onto his shoulder and began to lead the others, pied-piper style, down the cobbled path towards Zac’s house. Evie smiled to herself and watched them go. Mavis, more than a little tipsy, called out as she danced past,

  ‘Some birthday present for your Gramps, hey?’

  Evie nodded and blew her a kiss. It certainly was.

  Chapter 15

  This time, Evie didn’t fall asleep on the train. She was awake and ready with her bag and coat on her lap the minute the train pulled into Manchester Piccadilly station. The whole journey, Evie’s head had been banging from too much alcohol and too little sleep, but every time she’d tried to close her eyes they’d pinged open again as though her eyeballs were too big for her lids. By the time she stepped onto the platform, dragging her suitcase behind her like a stubborn pet, she was tired and wired and desperate for home.

  Home was a flat in the city centre – a featureless box in a complex of thirty-nine other featureless boxes, looking out over a seven-storey Travelodge and row upon row of dirty brick buildings. Evie walked in and flung her bags on her sofa, then sat down beside them and kicked off her shoes. The silence, after the noise and bustle of the journey – after her grandparents’ bickering and the renters’ wind chimes, and the birdsong and clanging gates and constant activity of Cupid’s Way – felt unnatural. She tried to re-tune her ears. The traffic noise. The thump, thump of music from the flat below. She listened hard, picking out all the individual sounds. But still the sense of silence remained. She felt as though she was in a bubble.

  She pulled herself off the sofa and turned on the TV, then began to unpack. Most of her smart clothes were unworn, but the two pairs of jeans and two jumpers she’d packed were in desperate need of a wash. After loading the washing machine, Evie turned her attention to her post, and then to her phone messages. The first was from work. Julia Meredith’s voice made Evie sit up straighter, and she unconsciously began to chew on a nail. She grabbed a pen and held it over the pad by the phone.

  ‘Phone me as soon as you get this message,’ Julia said. She sounded strident and slightly annoyed. It was how she always sounded, even if she was telling you you looked nice (which didn’t happen very often), but Evie felt her stomach churn anxiously. As soon as she got the message? Julia must know that would most likely be on the weekend she got back to Manchester – did that mean she wanted Evie to call her at home? On a weekend?

  Which could only mean it was very bad news indeed.

  Evie dropped the pen without writing anything, and listened to the next message. As soon as the woman started speaking, Evie let out a strangled sigh. This was going from bad to worse. There were only two women in the world who could force her shoulders up to somewhere just under her ears in three seconds flat and they had both left messages on her answerphone. Her mother’s message was just as insistent as Julia Meredith’s – Evie should phone her as soon as possible. She had some exiting news.

  Evie thought about Tommy, and then she thought about talking to her mother. Should she tell her about him? Maybe Angela already knew, and Mavis just didn’t realise. Whatever the situation, Evie knew she couldn’t face it right now.

  She decided the best thing to do was ignore both her boss and her mum, and go shopping. Frank had pressed a twenty pound note into her hands as she got on the train, and had firmly insisted she buy herself something nice. A treat, he’d said. To say thank you for all her help. Feeling like a complete fraud, she’d tried to resist, but Frank was pretty hard to say no to when he had his mind set. The whole street had come out to wave her off, even Zac, who was still looking very pleased with himself.

  ‘Come back soon,’ he said, holding on to Evie’s hand for a moment too long. ‘I’m missing you already.’

  Evie left her building and thought again about Zac. He’d seemed disappointed she was leaving, and in the melee she might have inadvertently agreed to go for a drink with him next time she visited. Which wouldn’t be for months now, most likely, once Julia forced her back into the thick of things at work.

  Outside, the noise of the traffic was deafening, and Evie welcomed it like an old friend. Better this than her own thoughts. She had the rest of the weekend to enjoy herself, and her number one mission was to try and forget that on Monday morning she’d be walking back into the offices of Lee, Lee and Meredith. And how lonely she felt now she was home.

  And most of all, to try and forget about Michael. He certainly seemed to have forgotten about her.

  *

  ‘Evie, my dear. Great to have you back.’

  ‘Hi, Harry.’ Evie hung up her jacket and smiled. ‘I’d like to say it’s great to be back ...’

  ‘But you’d be lying. Righto. I understand.’ Harry grinned, showing her a raft of uneven teeth, stained by smoking his favourite cigars. ‘How are things in Love Street?’

  ‘It’s called Cupid’s Way, Harry. Things are … I’d say, uncertain.’

  ‘The planning juggernaut still thundering onward?’

  Evie nodded. ‘But the listing status application is underway, thanks for your help with that. And there was
a bit of a left-field development just before I came home.’

  Harry settled back in his leather chair ready to listen, but before Evie could say anything else a strident voice called out from the other side of the office.

  ‘Evie. A word, please.’

  Evie pulled a face. ‘I’d better go. Any tips?’

  ‘Duck!’ Harry said. But then his expression turned serious. ‘Just don’t take anything to heart, Evie. It’s all just business at the end of the day.’

  Evie walked across the office, casting a perturbed glance behind her. What on earth had Harry meant by that?

  Julia Meredith was seated behind her desk – a contemporary oak design, with curved sides and a glass panel at the front. To Evie it screamed ostentatious, but it suited Julia perfectly. The senior partner was wearing her usual uniform of navy pinstripe skirt suit and fitted white shirt. Evie couldn’t help but envy Julia’s shirts – they clearly cost a fortune and were obviously made to measure. Evie wouldn’t be able to carry off a look like that even if she had the funds for it, which she didn’t. She was too short, for one thing. Julia had self-confidence stamped all over her.

  ‘Sit,’ she said. Evie sat. Julia wasn’t one for going around the houses.

  ‘You didn’t return my calls.’ It wasn’t a question so Evie said nothing. She laced her fingers together and waited.

  Julia said, ‘I’ve had reports of unprofessional conduct at the Go Green conference. Care to comment?’

  Evie shook her head. She had vivid memories of the conference, most of them involving Michael, but she couldn’t remember anyone acting in a particularly unprofessional way. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Some of the delegates were a bit hard on a few of the speakers. But they were okay with me.’

  Which wasn’t exactly true, but she wasn’t going to draw attention to her own fairly average, and somewhat flustered, performance.

  ‘I’m not talking about the other delegates, Evie. I’m referring to you.’

  Evie nodded and said, ‘Ah, right.’ It was a full thirty seconds before Julia’s words filtered through to her brain.