‘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.’
‘I doubt it’s anywhere near as simple as that. But don’t envy her. Envy is the most futile of emotions. Sometimes, you are envying an idea you have about someone, but you’re actually envying fiction.’
I think about this. Yes, the grey area between what we know and what we think we know. I think of how quickly I assumed that Justin was living in that house, happily ensconced in bigamy.
‘I wonder, though, if the baby dies – I mean, I really, really hope he doesn’t die; that would be absolutely awful – but if he does, will they still stay together? Is the baby the glue, and if the baby isn’t there, is he going to regret leaving me? Will it fall apart? Or will he somehow discover that he and Lisa had been right for each other from day one – more so than we were?’ I don’t necessarily believe it. I just want someone to tell me I’m wrong.
‘Who knows and who cares?’ Evelyn gives me a look that says, Come on! Way too much over-analysing! ‘You mustn’t wonder, Alice. Personally, from what you’ve said, I’d entirely believe him. He’s only thinking about his son right now. It’s guilt that’s driving him. Guilt and responsibility. And I, of all people, know what it’s like to drag around guilt.’
I have so many more questions. There is so much more I want to say. I’m a curious cross between burned out and fired up. ‘Guilt that you didn’t go to him when you said you would? Can we stop talking about me for a moment? I need to hear somebody else’s happy ending. Please.’
Evelyn cocks her head, and seems to contemplate this. She stands up. ‘I think perhaps we should take a short walk to the shops. Perhaps our legs need to be stretched before the next instalment of the mammoth talking session. What do you think?’
We take a pleasant stroll in the sunshine. At the corner shop, Evelyn buys a pint of milk.
‘You told him you couldn’t leave Mark for him,’ I say as we begin walking back. ‘That must have been so very hard.’ Was it hard for Justin? I would love to know how long he wrestled with his dilemma.
‘I told him it might be best he forget me – and he did. And now I’d give anything for him to remember me! Isn’t that ironic?’ She is slightly breathless, from emotion rather than exercise.
I stare at our feet – my blue-and-white Converse, and Evelyn’s neat little tan loafers; we are walking in perfect step. I watch our rhythm for a while. Evelyn tells me about the bomb, and how her doubts had suddenly crystallised in that moment. ‘He sent the letter back to me, along with all the others. His way of telling me that he was rather disgusted at me, I suppose.’
‘But it was your right to change your mind, Evelyn!’
She stops walking and looks at me. ‘But because of my actions, I ruined a man’s life!’ There are bubbles of tears in her eyes.
‘But . . . I don’t understand. How did you ruin his life? You just told him you weren’t leaving Mark for him.’
Evelyn goes to the wall, and perches on it, even though there isn’t much room due to an overgrown hedge. ‘I don’t know how well you remember the dates of the letters . . . I was supposed to move back there in December. The plan was that in the early new year he was going to tell his wife. But he jumped the gun. He told her while I was still in London, and then I didn’t leave Mark, and his wife booted him out.’
‘Oh. Oh my . . .’ I try to visualise this. I can imagine Eddy attempting to undo the damage he had done, and can see how that might not have worked.
‘It’s hard to live in a small town and be under the scrutiny of people who have nothing to do but interest themselves in your drama. His wife felt she’d been made a huge fool of. Everyone was talking. There was all kinds of tittle-tattle flying about . . . Maybe some women would have thought that Eddy should have been the one hanging his head, but I suppose everybody has their threshold for how much humiliation they can stand.’ She looks at me. ‘She must have just wanted to get as far away from there as possible. Which I can understand. She took their child away. She obviously wanted to inflict the ultimate punishment.’
‘That’s insane! How could she get away with doing that? He had rights!’
‘Alice, this was thirty years ago. Things were different then. And you have to remember you’re dealing with a Northern, small-town mentality. Back then, the women held a lot of power in these matters. If Eddy’s wife wanted to play hardball, there was precious little he could do. He didn’t have money to hire solicitors and fight his case . . .’
Something isn’t right here. ‘How do you know all this? About how it all played out?’
‘Eddy’s friend, Stanley. He was a very good friend to Eddy, and, in a way, to me.’
‘Ah! Stanley! Of the letters!’
Evelyn nods. ‘I could hardly write to him at home. So I wrote to Stanley’s address, and he passed them on to Eddy.’ Her face darkens again. A hedge presses up against her bare arms, and I see small scratch marks on her pale skin. ‘He was so impulsive! Stanley said he wanted to prove to me that he could really go through with it, because I’d had my doubts. But I thought we’d settled all that! I didn’t ask him to prove anything to me!’
I feel bad she’s so upset in the middle of the street. It’s truly incredible that this was thirty years ago and she’s as overwrought as if it had just happened yesterday.