Reluctantly Home(21)

A noise on the landing outside the flat brought her attention back to the present. She heard a key turning in the lock. It would either be Brenda or their landlord who, despite their protestations, seemed to consider it perfectly acceptable to come and go as he pleased with no concern for the privacy of his tenants. Evelyn’s heart gave a little flutter in her chest. She hoped it wasn’t him. She would have to skulk around in her room until he had gone, as she owed him rent that she currently had no means of paying. He wasn’t an unreasonable man and would give her more time if she asked, but she really couldn’t face having to throw herself on his mercy – not today, not now.

But then Brenda called out. ‘Evie? Are you here?’

Evelyn straightened her spine and sniffed back her tears. She leaned over to check her face in the age-spotted mirror, to straighten her hair.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Give me a mo. I’m just . . .’

But then the door of her room opened and Brenda’s face appeared, a heavy plaid scarf wrapped several times around her neck so her head appeared to have been planted on the top like a pineapple.

‘Hi, Evie. Only me. I was just . . .’ Brenda stopped mid-sentence and eyed her perceptively. ‘Is everything okay?’

For a split second, Evelyn considered telling her flatmate exactly how she was, what had happened and how she felt. Brenda was a good listener. She wouldn’t condemn her; she would understand that Evelyn had had no choice and what she had done had been the only path open to her. And it would feel good to talk to someone, wouldn’t it?

But then she thought about the rumours, the stories that might start to circulate about how she had got the part, and she decided against it. She pulled her face into a wide, bright smile, just like she had on stage countless times, and said, ‘Yes. I’m fine. I’ve just woken up, that’s all. And guess what? I’ve got some incredible news.’





13


Evelyn loved a wedding. Weddings were just like a stage performance, with everyone knowing their role, their lines and their cues. Never having starred in one herself, Evelyn was happy to sit with the other extras, looking lovely and reacting as required as the main players acted out their parts at the front. It was, she felt, a lovely way to pass an afternoon.

This ceremony was taking place at Camden Register Office. Evelyn much preferred a church wedding and that was definitely what she would have chosen if she were getting married, but Brenda and Jim were only doing this to appease their parents, and so long white dresses and bloom-adorned pews were not on their wish list.

It was, at least, a bright March day. The perishing cold of winter was slowly being replaced by something less bone-numbing but Evelyn, taking no chances, was wearing a maxi dress. It was an old favourite – she didn’t have the budget for anything else just yet – but she didn’t think she had ever worn it with Brenda. It had felt a little tight when she’d struggled into it this morning, however. She would need to keep an eye on that. Everyone knew that the small screen added at least ten pounds.

Evelyn reached the building and skipped up the steps. It was a challenge, being at a wedding without a plus one, but she was pretty sure she could pull it off. She just had to smile and look confident, and wasn’t that just what she had been born to do?

She followed the signs through the building until she found the right place. Guests in hats with flowers attached to their outfits mingled with others in bell-bottom jeans and platform shoes, making it clear which were friends of the parents and which of the bride and groom. Evelyn decided that her dress placed her in the no man’s land between the two, which was no bad place to be.

A minute or two later the doors opened and the guests filed into the official room. As a friend of the bride, Evelyn made her way to a chair on the left-hand side of the room and chose a seat about ten rows back. The dark wooden panelling was imposing and, she was prepared to concede, added a certain solemnity to the proceedings, but it wasn’t a patch on a church. Jim was standing at the front with a man Evelyn thought she recognised from a night out with Brenda. He was shuffling from one foot to another as if the floor were hot, and kept turning around to peer at the door.

The conversation around her began to drop and then hushed completely. Brenda must have arrived. Evelyn spun in her seat to try and get a glimpse of her. As she did so, a man in a brown pinstripe suit sneaked into her row and took the seat next to her.

He grinned wildly. ‘That was close,’ he whispered, one eyebrow raised. His eyes were a warm toffee colour that seemed to match his hair exactly, as if the same paintbrush had tinted them both.

‘Talk about cutting it fine,’ Evelyn whispered back. ‘Any later and you’d have been following her down the aisle, or whatever it’s called here.’

She smiled at him to show that she wasn’t being critical, and then turned her attention back to Brenda. She could see her now, waiting by the door with a round man who had what was left of his mousey hair combed over the top of his pate. He must be Brenda’s father, Evelyn decided, although she couldn’t see any family resemblance. He nodded to Brenda reassuringly and she nodded back, and then they set off towards Jim. The pulsing rhythm of Sylvester’s ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’ filled the room, and half the guests jumped visibly whilst the rest looked at one another and grinned. Evelyn wasn’t sure what she thought. It made a change from Mendelsohn, but she could sense a general feeling of disquiet in those around her.