Reluctantly Home(63)

Pip had finished washing up now and began searching for a tea towel. Evelyn flinched as she pulled open drawer after drawer, all stuffed to the gunwales with rubbish, and was relieved when she eventually abandoned her quest, leaving the dishes to air dry. She wiped her hands on her jeans and came to sit down next to Evelyn at the piled-high table.

‘After Scarlet was born Joan continued to be scandalised. I thought that when the baby was here she’d mellow a little, but she never did. It was almost as if she wasn’t prepared to allow herself to love her niece. And she was so very loveable . . .’

There was a pause.

‘She died, didn’t she?’ asked Pip gently. ‘My mum told me.’

Evelyn nodded. Just thinking about Scarlet sent a stabbing pain straight to her heart, and she put a futile hand to her chest, as if that could ease it.

‘She was only three,’ she said. ‘Just a baby, and with her whole life ahead of her.’

‘That’s such a tragedy,’ Pip said.

‘Yes. You never get over the loss of your child,’ Evelyn added. ‘It haunts you forever.’

Evelyn watched as Pip ran her hand through her hair then closed her eyes, breathing slowly through her nose. She seemed to be struggling with some unspoken emotional response to what she had just heard. Had she lost a child, too? Was that what had brought her back from London? Evelyn was curious, but this was her story and so she kept going.

‘And then Joan died,’ she continued in as matter-of-fact a tone as she could manage so that she didn’t draw any attention to that part of the story. ‘And I just stayed here. I did mean to go back to London, to start working again, but somehow, I could never quite get myself together enough to go. And the years ticked by.’

It was such a long time since Evelyn had thought about her life in these terms, about how she had lost so many years. Now that she did, it felt like such a waste. She had only been thirty-four when Scarlet died. There had still been plenty of her life left, but she had let things get away from her. And then the years rolled by and picked up speed and nothing changed. And now it was all too late.

‘There’s only me and Nicholas left now. He’s my nephew, my brother Peter’s boy. Peter’s dead too, of course. A heart attack in his fifties. And soon I’ll die, and then the house will be sold, and no one will remember that the Mountcastles were ever here.’

‘I think you’d be surprised,’ said Pip. ‘I asked a few people about you when I was trying to find out where to return the diary to, and they all knew who you were.’

There was a warmth to her smile that spoke to the part of Evelyn that needed to be acknowledged, to be talked about. She hadn’t realised she still had that, but here it was. It must be the actress in her, she thought, that made her enjoy being the centre of attention. Fancy it still being inside her after all this time.

‘It’s just the gossip that makes people remember,’ she replied modestly. ‘There were two tragic deaths in this house in almost as many months. It’s a small town and people have long memories. They don’t forget things like that.’

Pip shrugged in a way that suggested she wasn’t convinced. ‘And do you ever go out?’ she asked casually, as if not going out was the most normal thing in the world.

Evelyn thought about this question. In her heart, she wasn’t the kind of person who allowed herself to be confined to a house, but actually she could barely remember the last time she had left it. Why was that? she wondered.

‘Not often,’ she replied. ‘There doesn’t seem much to go out for.’

‘Don’t you even walk along the beach, watch the waves?’ Pip sounded incredulous. ‘I mean, with it being just there, just across the street.’

When had she stopped doing that? Evelyn couldn’t remember. It hadn’t been a conscious decision; it had simply happened over time. And once she became stuck indoors she had lost the habit of going out. And then a winter had arrived, the wind coming off the sea cutting through her clothes and eating into her bones, so it had been easier to stay in. And then . . .

These were just excuses, of course, and although she didn’t feel like a recluse, she supposed she might be one, or at least appear that way.

‘No,’ she said to Pip. ‘Not any more. I used to, but then . . .’

‘And would you like to go out?’ Pip asked.

Evelyn paused. Would she? Did she feel that her life would be better if she ventured beyond her own front door again?

She was considering her answer when Pip added, ‘Because I could take you. I mean, we could go together. If you like.’

Again, Pip blushed, as if she thought she might have gone further than was appropriate. She was such a lovely girl, Evelyn thought. This afternoon had shown her that. She could tell she was caring and considerate simply by the way she had helped in the kitchen, quietly and with no fuss. Even knowing barely anything about her, Evelyn believed she had got Pip pegged.

‘Yes,’ she said shortly, her decisiveness surprising her. ‘I rather think I would. It’s not good for one, being cooped up all the time. Nicholas has offered, too,’ she added quickly. She didn’t want Pip to think she had been abandoned by the only bit of family she had left. ‘But he’s always in such a rush. And he doesn’t have that much conversation for an old woman like me.’