He continued to affectionately take stock of her. ‘I thought you married an earl.’
She tutted. He had always been a little fresh with her. ‘I didn’t marry an earl.’ Where was her wit when she needed it? To leave here was a mark of having bettered oneself, as though Northern England were somehow universally acknowledged by its inhabitants to be inferior to the rest of the country. It was a perception that the leaver could never live down, so there was no point in taking offence at it. ‘Do you think you could keep coming until I find new owners? Or should I get someone else?’ His presence was somehow reducing her to size, and she wasn’t familiar with feeling this small.
He frowned. ‘Why would you get someone else?’
‘No reason. Only if you want me to.’ She looked an inch or two past his head. He’d know she was being a little sparky with him.
When she met his eyes again he seemed a little disappointed in her. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I suppose I’ll see you again in two weeks.’
With that, he gave a curt nod and then was gone.
NINE
London. 1963
‘You have a delivery,’ Matthew, the cheeky young concierge, told her when she arrived on shift on the front desk at Claridge’s at 3 p.m.
On her twentieth birthday, Evelyn’s gran had pushed a tidy sum of her savings into Evelyn’s hand and said, ‘You can live your life or you can waste your life.’ She had squeezed her fingers tightly closed around Evelyn’s, like a clam. ‘Don’t waste your life.’
Her gran had always known her well. She had sensed a restlessness in Evelyn that didn’t seem present in other girls Evelyn’s age. Evelyn was world-weary of where she lived, given that she’d been visiting Newcastle bars since she was fifteen years old, and had tried on for size a variety of menial jobs that other girls seemed so satisfied with – hairdresser in training, hostess in a prim hotel restaurant, perfume demo girl in the region’s number one department store – jobs that she could never make fit. She should have gone to college, but grammar school had eluded her by a painfully narrow margin. She’d had some vague idea she’d quite like to write books, but whenever she’d voiced it, her family had scoffed at her, so she had learnt quite quickly to keep that sort of silly idea to herself.
As Matthew passed her the splendid bouquet of red and white roses, the knuckle of his index finger deliberately grazed her breast. To think she’d had a bit of a crush on him when she’d first arrived. She didn’t know what to do or say, so she pretended it had never happened. She clutched the flowers that burst with fragrance, anxious to open the small white card.
‘It’s from Mark Westland,’ Matthew informed her, petulantly, as though she should know the name. ‘Seems you’ve got yourself an admirer.’
‘What? Wish he’d sent them to you instead?’ she quipped. She was dying to ask him who Mark Westland was, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Walking into reception, she tore at the card, sensing the breathless weight of having been noticed by someone possibly important; the possible grand, great romance of it all. Since moving to London, into the flat-share of five girls that had been already set up before she’d even left the North, by the sister-in-law of a friend of a friend, her life hadn’t quite lived up to the hype she’d expected. It had so far been a lot of work for very little pay. Perhaps things were about to turn around.
Please have dinner with me this Saturday. Annabel’s. 7 p.m.
Yours, Mark Westland.
‘Yours, Mark Westland?’ Matthew put on a girly voice. He was craning to read over her shoulder.
‘Go away.’ She flapped him off. ‘It’s none of your business. You child!’
Matthew gave a mocking laugh, deliberately sweeping his eyes over her breasts again, as he stupidly blushed the colour of a beetroot. She suddenly despised him – all men. What right did they have to try to intimidate women and get away with it? Well, she despised all of them except, perhaps, for Mr Westland.
It was enough to be sent flowers. Let alone to be going to a posh new private members’ club. She didn’t realise it at the time, but for the however-many hours that Mr Westland’s invitation was in her head, Eddy wasn’t.
It was a shame that she had a train ticket to go back up North that weekend. She wouldn’t be going now. She only hoped Mr Westland wasn’t fat.
Or old.
Or had a wart on his cheek.
Holy Island. 1983
When she heard the knock shortly after dinner, she somehow knew it would be Eddy. She opened the door, and he was standing there, smiling.
‘Forgot my rake.’ He leant against the doorframe with his left shoulder. ‘Does that sound like a pathetic excuse to come back and talk to you?’
‘Extremely.’ She tried to sound like this sort of thing happened every day. She must have looked as red as someone being held over a fire.
He had changed into a long-sleeved, green jersey T-shirt that emphasised his muscular upper body. He was as fit as someone half his age. His black cap almost blended in with his dark hair, except for the few grey curls at his temples. She wondered what excuse he’d given his wife.
‘Did you really just come back here to see me?’ she asked, guilelessly.
‘Yes. From the minute I left here, it was all I could think about.’
They held eyes. Something in the way he was trying to lean casually against the doorframe told her that he wasn’t doing this quite as effortlessly as he would have liked. The tendon in his neck kept flexing.
‘You’ve brought a lot of memories back for me, Evelyn. I’ve been reliving them all afternoon.’
‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’