by Carol Mason
‘I’m not going to him. He has a wife and a daughter. If I go, I split up his family, and the one who would suffer most would be his child.’
He was slightly relieved to hear about this child. In fact, thank heavens there was a child! Evelyn did have a conscience. It was one of the things he’d always admired about her. ‘I’ve known for a very long time that you weren’t happy, Evelyn.’ He stroked the dog’s ears, and once again tried to picture life without her and felt intensely sad – sadder than he’d ever imagined. ‘I think you have mastered a way of being happy with your unhappiness, if that makes any sense. And I have just come to accept that this is how you are. And I’ve still loved you, despite it.’
She stared at him while he said this. It seemed he only ever told her he loved her when perhaps he sensed he was losing her. She felt he was coming back to her, and she to him. This evolution of theirs touched her soul. All this, to end where we started – or to start where we almost ended.
‘But I will say this. If you love him more, and he makes you happier than you think is in you to be with me, then you should be with him. I won’t stand in your way.’ What was he saying? ‘Or . . . if you feel you can forget about him and go on, then I shall forget about him and go on, too.’ He stopped talking to the dog’s ears and met Evelyn’s eyes. If choices were a set of scales, he certainly hoped he had weighted this one in his favour. ‘But I’m not going to try to win you back. I’ve been on similarly futile missions like that with you in the past. Trying to win a part of you that isn’t even available to be won.’ But he knew that if she stayed, he would never stop trying to show her that it had been the right choice.
I want to live two lives, she thought. One with Eddy that’s taken afresh without a history of disappointment. And this one, with nothing more to learn, and all its comfortable headway already made. I love two men, and I’ll probably end up with neither of them, the way I am behaving.
‘As I’ve said, I don’t want to leave. Unless you want me to go.’
They were being exceptionally polite and considerate. One of them ought to have turned it less civilised – and she might have craved that in the past: a rational discussion that would have progressed to the level of fighting baboons. But now she was glad of it.
Mark sat back in the chair and crossed his legs at the knee. His stomach let out a jungle-like growl that even made Harry pep up from the trance he was in from having his ears tickled.
It was 7 p.m. Usually, they would be eating dinner, then watching his favourite television programmes, which she didn’t care for: This Is Your Life, Benny Hill, and Sale of the Century.
She knew this was what he’d be thinking – about their routine. Once again, it awakened the soft spot she had for his foibles.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said. ‘For purely selfish reasons that have nothing to do with how you feel about me.’
She loved the sad truth of it. She loved him for the guilelessness of what he had said. It struck her again that no one knew her like he did, and his knowing her so fully added a vital dimension to her life. Eddy only knew the side of her that she gave him, the one that flourished in his presence. Even though Mark wasn’t romantic, wasn’t perceptive or overly sensitive to her emotions, it worked; their weaknesses and strengths struck a balance that constituted a marriage. Its currency wasn’t how hard their hearts throbbed for one another. It was the small daily revelations and reaffirmations of their quirky, entangled personalities.
‘Then I’ll stay,’ she said.
He really hadn’t thought for a minute that she would love this gardener person enough to want to leave her marriage for him.
But he was very – very – relieved to find that he had been right.
TWENTY-NINE
Alice
I’m just stepping out of my office to go and fill my water glass when I come across Michael standing there, almost loitering, by my door. We practically knock noses.
‘Ah! Michael!’ My flatness, the unflinching absoluteness of my misery, lifts slightly. ‘We didn’t have a meeting today, did we?’ I glance around for Evelyn.
‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m just popping in.’ He looks slightly shifty, and ruffles his hair. ‘I came by two days ago as well, but they said you were taking a few days off.’
‘I had a tummy bug,’ I lie.
‘How are you today, then?’ His concern touches me.
I am usually so good at putting on a smile. ‘I’m . . . coping,’ I tell him. I’m sure he must think I’m a little mad.
He looks at me kindly and says, ‘Well, I hope you feel better very quickly.’
He’s dressed more smartly today, in a black T-shirt and a loose, light-grey jacket. He’s had his hair cut, and must have finally found a stylist who knows how to work with crazy curls. ‘How is Evelyn doing?’ I ask. Then I realise: he’s popped in twice looking for me. ‘I hope she’s well?’
His limpid brown eyes latch on to mine again. ‘She’s fine. She’s been clearing out some things in her flat. She wanted me to give you something.’
He holds out a bulky brown envelope.
‘What is it?’
‘Letters, I think.’ He studies me closely. I know I have dark shadows under my eyes, and that I’m extraordinarily pale. It’s as though he notices this. ‘She told me to say these were what she was looking for the day you talked on the phone.’ He shrugs. ‘If that makes sense.’
‘Really?’ I take the parcel from him. ‘How intriguing. Letters, huh?’
‘We could find out who they’re from if you open them.’
I chuckle. ‘We? They’re meant for me!’
‘My mother brought me up to share.’
‘I bet you’ve read them already!’
‘No!’ His eyes smile into mine. ‘I must admit that on the way over here I was tempted to take a peek, but deep at heart, I’m really not that kind of low-life human being. You know, haven’t got a life yourself, so you steal somebody else’s?’
‘Ha!’
Still smirking, I slip a hand inside the package and pull out a stack of white, letter-sized envelopes tied with string. The top one bears Evelyn’s name and a London address – the address of a magazine. They’re definitely old: well handled, but clearly cherished, too. When I look up, Michael is observing my face, as though he actually couldn’t care less what’s in the package.
I skim through them. The ones that are addressed with a more cursive writing – Evelyn’s presumably – are to a man named Stanley. ‘Thanks for these,’ I tell him. ‘You can’t imagine how touching it is to me that she’d do this . . .’
‘If you want to know the truth, I think Evelyn is a little starved of female company. I mean, she sees a lot of women in the home, but most of them don’t even know their own name, let alone hers. She’s probably bonded with you because you’re the first compos mentis female who has paid her any attention in a very long time. And you’re kind, and she can tell.’
‘How do you know I’m kind?’
‘Aren’t you?’
I put on my best growly face.
‘Okay, then she knows you’re not kind, but she doesn’t care. She’s desperate. She’s going to foist her business on you, anyway. Because you’re there.’
I laugh.
‘Of course, if you ever get the burning compulsion to share what’s in them, I’m your man. In fact, maybe I’ll give you my contact details and my national insurance number before I leave. Just to make sure you can find me.’ He thrusts his hands into his trouser pockets, looks over his shoulders, sassily, and whistles, as though he really is looking for his ID in his pocket.
‘Ha! Thoughtful of you! Trust me, if I get the calling to blurt out Evelyn’s personal business, you’ll be the first person I’ll ring.’
He winks at me.
As I’m arriving home, oddly cheered up, I receive a text from Justin that sinks me all over again.
Deposited ££ into your account. What you spent on wedding + my share of
rent for next 6mths until lease is up.
Ten minutes later, another comes in.
I hope that one day you will be able to forgive me.
I deposit my pack of Marks & Spencer’s Food Hall Scottish salmon on the counter, no longer feeling like eating it. I check my bank statement online. The money is there; he’s right. I hadn’t even thought about the flat, or where I’m going to live next. But this text suddenly puts it on the agenda. For some reason, I think of all the houses Justin and I visited – ones we thought we might see ourselves buying after we moved out of here – how exciting it had felt. None we had fallen in love with, though. Perhaps it had been a sign. I can’t stop staring at the money. It’s a bit like being paid off.
Snap out of it, I can almost hear my mother saying. On this note, I pour myself a glass of wine, and shove the salmon under the grill. Sally texts to ask if I fancy a night out, and my first instinct is to say no, but I type, You’re on, instead. I eat my meal, sitting at the breakfast bar, with some pre-washed rocket I shake out of a bag. It’s surprisingly edible. After, I top up my glass and take the letters over to the window chair. Since Justin’s visit, I haven’t been able to sit in my normal chair and stare at the sofa where he sat, looking so distraught. I move around it, glancing at it, like it’s alive.
I start with the first letter – they have been arranged in date order. The one from Eddy begins:
I hope you will forgive me writing to you like this. I remembered the name of your magazine, and I enquired in a bookshop and found the address.
I read Evelyn’s reply, and the letters that follow. Several of them. Eddy talking about his dreams, his routine, his visits to tend to her mother’s garden, his seeing her there every time, in his mind’s eye. Evelyn describing her London life, signing herself as Your Constance Chatterley. What is it about the ability of letters to elucidate so much more than just words? I can feel Eddy’s impatience, his frustration, his suspense, his relief, his grace and gratitude. Somehow, in their handwriting, I see Evelyn and Eddy so vibrantly on those pages; I can almost hear their voices as though I have travelled back in time.
I get to that shocking one where Eddy says he can’t go on like this any more. Then Evelyn’s, saying she’s leaving Mark.
The next letters contain their plan. I practically ingest them. The correspondence ends here.
As does my breath. I am seized by What next? But no. I have missed one. Perhaps in my re-reading of them I have reorganised them in the process. This one I haven’t seen yet. On the envelope, Eddy has written Return to Sender.
Dear Eddy,
I’ve made a terrible mistake. I can’t do it, for everyone’s sake. I am so sorry.
I read it once, twice. I tingle with an eerie déjà vu.
I thought I could go through with it. I meant it when I promised you; I meant it with my whole heart. But when it came down to it, I just found myself in an impossible position. It takes a brave person to radically change their life, and someone else’s, and I suppose that person isn’t me.
I wish I had stayed all those years ago, then there would never have been a Mark to hurt. You would never have had a family to leave. And while I am a firm believer that we have to seize the day, and it’s never too late to follow our hearts and do what we must do, I do believe it is too late for us. We have loved others – perhaps in different ways to how we love one another – but who is to say that one kind of love is worth more than another? That our love devalues another? Love finds its own level where it can exist most true to itself. But I need to be true to myself, too. Even though I am distraught right now, and thoroughly and utterly broken-hearted, my decision to stay with Mark sits more comfortably on my conscience, as does knowing that if you do end up leaving your marriage one day, it will not be because of me.
All I know is that we have to make the most of the life we’ve made for ourselves, and try to focus on all the ways we are happy, rather than unhappy, with it. You have a wife who loves you, and a treasured child you never thought you would have, and I am married to a kind man who has given me a good life, and because of that I feel protective toward him; I can’t cause him pain. We have both been blessed in ways we have underappreciated. We should cherish what we shared, and carry it quietly and close, always. But if you can’t do that, then it’s best that you forget about me.
I do love you. I always will. But when it comes down to it, I can’t change who I am. I can’t break Mark’s heart, and I can’t live my life knowing I broke up your family.
I hope you will eventually forgive me.
Yours, in my memory and in my heart, always,
Evelyn
Through a veil of tears, I hurry back over words, over sentences, full of anguish for both of them. Evelyn didn’t do it. I just picture the older Eddy in his red shirt. Eddy talking about wanting Christina to choose. Eddy all those years ago, who would have been waiting for her, thinking she had chosen him, only to learn she had chosen someone else.
I go into the bathroom and fill the tub. I top up my wine glass, and light a group of three candles Justin and I always used to light when we bathed together. I strip off my clothes, and gingerly lower myself into the water. And as I sink deeper until I’m almost fully submerged, I play their story over, drawing out my favourite parts, and thinking about them. The sentiment, and the eerie familiarity of Evelyn’s words about the ways in which we love, send a chill down my spine. Hadn’t Justin said something similar?
I stare at the white-tiled wall. My feet propped against it. The nail polish I put on for Hawaii. No, I think. From the first time I heard about Evelyn and Eddy’s story, I realised Justin and I didn’t love one another as deeply and as definitely as that. Though I’m not sure many people do.
After I’ve lain there until the water has turned cool, a thought suddenly comes to me. So if she didn’t leave Mark, why is she here now? What terrible wrong did she allude to that day in the gallery? I should have things to worry about that are closer to home, but I am not going to rest until I know.
I look at my watch sitting on top of the toilet lid. Ten p.m. Too late to call her?
THIRTY
Evelyn’s is a ground-floor, period apartment in a former terraced house just a short walk from the Metro stop and shops. Its communal entrance serves all three units, with its black-and-white chequerboard floors, gilt mirrors and a vase of white lilies on a small reception table.
I sit in her lounge as she runs water in the kitchen for the flowers I brought her. ‘I thought this might be nicer than talking on the phone,’ she said when she let me in. The room is spacious, with high ceilings, decorative coving and sash windows. White carpets, white walls and minimal furniture make a stunning focal point of an ornate, brown-marble fireplace that has a beautiful oil painting of a garden above it.
‘I’ve never had it on,’ Evelyn says, coming back into the room carrying a tray of tea and biscuits, and catching me running a hand over the stonework. ‘I rarely feel the cold! And real fires look lovely, but they’re so messy to clean.’
‘I want to know the rest of your story, Evelyn,’ I say, once she’s poured tea.
Evelyn holds the teapot still and studies me like I’m under a microscope. ‘But first . . . you,’ she says.
‘Me?’
‘You’re not yourself. I’d like you to tell me why. In fact, I insist.’
Distantly, I hear the rumble of a train pulling into the station. I reach for a biscuit, noting the slight tremble of my hand. Something about that sound always haunts me. Trains are either arriving or they’re leaving. Lately, I can’t get the sight of Justin leaving out of my mind. I can’t imagine this emptiness is ever going to go. Whenever I arrive at the door to my flat, all I see is Justin turning and looking over his shoulder, meeting my eyes that last time, right after he’d moved the last of his bags out into the hallway. The face of there will never be any going back.
And so, I tell Evelyn. I tell her in so much detail that the tea turns cold. In a way
, it’s easier than talking to Sally; Evelyn has never met Justin, and she brings a certain objectivity that pares everything down to its simplest form. She makes a fresh pot, and by the time I go to drink this new cup, the sun has moved around to the west and is illuminating a different patch of floor.
I don’t think anyone has ever listened to me so thoroughly before. She seems to absorb my story with the complete cessation of thought.
‘What do you think I should do?’ I ask her. I catch myself realising that I actually love hearing what Evelyn thinks.
‘Do? There’s nothing for you to do. It’s done, Alice. You might not understand him or agree with his choice, but it doesn’t alter the fact that it’s his to make. It’s his own code he has to live by. He even said it to you: that he wants you to let him do what he thinks is right. So you have to have the grace to let him go, and to live with his choices. Don’t be a clinger. Don’t make it hard for him. Don’t behave in a way you’ll later regret. You can’t fight to keep him, because you won’t win.’
Her advice comes at me like a gentle hail of bullets. ‘I know that,’ I say, realising I didn’t actually know anything for sure until now. ‘I just don’t know how to let him go. That’s the part I am grappling with.’
‘You have to keep reminding yourself that it’s the right thing. That in four months’ time you will have reached a slightly higher level of acceptance. Then in four more, the pain won’t be nearly as sharp as it is today . . .’
‘I can’t decide if I should feel angry at him!’ I throw up my hands. ‘Should I? Would you?’
‘If you even have to ask me that, then you’re not angry. Not really.’ She studies me with eyes full of understanding. ‘From what you’ve told me of him, he did a hurtful thing, but he didn’t do it to intentionally hurt you. I think he’s probably a good man at heart, even though, of course, he could have perhaps handled it differently. But we could all handle things differently.’
‘I know I should be thinking about his little boy, but I just keep thinking about her. She loved him. She lost him. She got him back.’
