Reluctantly Home(26)

‘Mum’s not as young as she was,’ he’d told Evelyn. ‘She can’t manage the stairs like she used to and the lift is always out of order. I’ve told the council to move her somewhere more suitable but of course, nothing’s happened. Lord only knows what would become of her if I wasn’t there to do her shopping, but no one seems bothered about that.’

The council’s failings, many and varied, made a regular theme for his complaints, but Evelyn now knew that Ted was devoted to his mother and would happily spend the rest of his days fetching and carrying for her.

It was a far cry from her relationship with her own family. This was also a subject they had covered at length over their cups of tea.

‘What I don’t get,’ Ted had said vehemently whenever the vexed subject of Evelyn’s relations had come up, ‘is why they couldn’t just accept that you wanted to be an actress and then help you get there. To my way of thinking it makes no sense, driving you away like they did.’

‘They didn’t exactly drive me away,’ Evelyn said. ‘I left of my own accord.’

‘But only because they weren’t there for you. If I had kids I’d make sure they knew that I’d back them to the hilt, no matter what they wanted to do,’ he replied, angry on her behalf and without any hint of a doubt about his own parenting skills, notwithstanding his distinct lack of children. ‘And,’ he’d continued, warming to his theme, ‘why Pete and Joan have continued in the same vein now that your mum and dad are dead is a total mystery to me. I mean, who are they to dictate to you how you should or shouldn’t live your life?’

It tickled Evelyn that Ted would talk so freely about her siblings, even shortening their names, without ever having met them. Her brother Peter had never, ever been a Pete. She also loved the outrage Ted seemed to feel about the injustices done to her, not least because it was unique.

‘Well, you can’t really blame them,’ replied Evelyn, although she did. ‘They never understood me, any of them. But it’s okay, because I don’t ever have to go back.’

‘And when this new TV programme hits their screens they’ll see that you were right all along and have to eat their words.’

Ted had sat back in his chair, triumphant, and Evelyn hadn’t had the heart to tell him that her sister Joan didn’t even own a television set and so would probably never see the show.

‘How did it go with Julian?’ Ted asked her now, shutting his newspaper and folding it up.

‘Really well,’ replied Evelyn, nodding enthusiastically as she nibbled on a biscuit. ‘Rehearsals start next week.’

‘Finally!’ Ted said, but Evelyn shook her head.

‘Actually, it’s all happened quite quickly for television. But yes, it will be good to get started.’

‘And then you’ll meet all the cast. You’ve met the director bloke already, haven’t you? What about the producer?’

Evelyn felt her stomach turn over at the mention of Rory MacMillan. ‘I’ve met them both at various stages,’ she said briefly.

Ted picked a bit of biscuit out of his teeth with a fingernail. ‘What are they like?’ he asked. ‘I’ve always imagined TV types to be a bit pleased with themselves.’

Evelyn paused as she decided which line to take. For a moment, she considered telling Ted what she really thought, and why. It would be so wonderful to have someone to tell about the afternoon in the hotel suite, about how it made her feel. But if she did that then she wouldn’t be able to put the whole episode in a box in her head and forget that it ever happened. As soon as she told someone else, the whole ugly situation became real.

‘Oh,’ she said in as light a tone as she could muster. ‘They’re all right really. You just have to know how to handle them.’

‘Oh, hark at her,’ laughed Ted. ‘Miss Worldly Wise over there.’

He was teasing her and that was fine, but she wasn’t sure when she had ever felt less worldly wise.





15





2019


The diary was dated 1983 and immediately Pip’s curiosity was piqued. Was the author a regular diary-keeper? Was this one of a set and if so, how come it had been separated from its companions? Maybe whoever had donated it made a choice to dispose of that specific year. She pictured a set of diaries on a shelf and someone selecting the year that they wanted to eradicate. This seemed an unlikely answer to the conundrum of why the diary had wound up at the shop, but the idea pleased her. What if it were that easy to remove the last six months from her own life? Would she do it? In a heartbeat, she decided. In a heartbeat.

However, it was far more likely to be by unhappy accident that this volume had ended up in the donation box. Well, unhappy for the owner, perhaps, but happy for her.

The diary was A5 in size and the cover was printed with tiny orange daisies, bright and cheerful-looking, and each with a yellow dot at its centre. Pip ran the pad of her finger over the embossed 1983 and tussled with the ethics of what she was about to do, concluding yet again that the contents of the diary couldn’t be that private if its owner had given it away.

In her heart, though, she knew this wasn’t right. No one would give away a diary on purpose. If you didn’t want it, then you’d destroy it somehow. The fact that this one had ended up in a box of books in a charity shop could only mean it was there by mistake. But, she reasoned, it was a mistake she might be able to rectify if she just read a little of its contents to see if she could identify the author. As ethical arguments went, this was thin at best, but what did it really matter? This wasn’t a court of law.