Reluctantly Home(7)

Away in the back room a teaspoon chinked on china as Audrey stirred sweetener into her drink. She would be coming back in to check up on her at any moment.

Pip had too many questions to leave the diary with the rest of the books. She’d take it back to the farm and have a flick through in peace. Then, if it contained anything that might identify the writer, she could bring it back and discuss what to do next with Audrey. If it turned out that the writer was a famous actress then it might even have some value, which would please Audrey no end. And if, as she suspected, it proved to be of very little interest, she would just put it back with the day’s donations and pretend it had only just arrived.

Quickly, she stuffed the diary into a plastic carrier and hid it in her bag, but as she did so she could feel her conscience pricking her. Was it theft to take the diary without paying for it? And what about the thorny issue of reading someone else’s private thoughts? Pip weighed the arguments in her head, but found her integrity to be intact. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, not really. The diary had been given away so the owner clearly wasn’t worried about what happened to it now, and if she was able to identify her, she could always return it. But actually, it was the prospect of spending an evening or two lost in someone else’s life that was too enticing to ignore – anything to escape the horrors of her own. This was the first time Pip had felt anything approaching excitement since the accident, and she liked it.

She began restacking the books in the box. It felt like such a pointless waste of time, but time was all she had. If her London colleagues could only see her now, she thought wryly.

‘How are you getting along with those donations?’ came Audrey’s shrill voice.

Pip jumped guiltily as if Audrey could see straight into her thoughts.

‘I’m working through them now,’ she replied, her smile painted on brightly for Audrey’s benefit. ‘Just the usual stuff. Nothing special.’

Audrey bustled over, looked in one or two of the bin bags with her nose wrinkled. Then she flicked open the lid of the cardboard box and tutted loudly.

‘Books. We’ve no space for more books. I don’t really know why people send them. But then again, I suppose they sell.’

Pip tipped the contents of the bag out on to the sorting table and tried to focus on the job in hand, but in her mind she was with Scarlet and Joan and the writer of the diary.





5





1979


Evelyn Mountcastle leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes. Her head was thumping. She focused on the orangey glow of the inside of her eyelids and breathed deeply, but the pummelling in her head continued. Drinking cheap champagne always did this to her. The pale bubbly liquid was so prettily innocuous that each time it passed her lips she seemed able to convince herself that this time it wouldn’t ruin her. It always did.

Groaning quietly, she felt the fountain pen slip from her fingers. For a moment, she let it lie as she concentrated on the pain in her head before realising, a moment too late, what the consequences would be. Her eyes snapped open and she scrabbled to retrieve the pen, but not before a bloom of purple ink had seeped from the nib on to the yellowing sheets.

‘Damn,’ she said as she swept the pen up and began searching for the lid. She would write her diary later when she could give it her proper attention. Hopefully by then her head would have stopped pounding.

The telephone began to ring in the corridor outside her room, and Evelyn sagged deeper into the pillows. She hoped that her flatmate Brenda would be there to pick it up, but as it rang on and on, she knew she was going to have to go. Swinging her legs out of bed, she moved as quickly as her nausea would allow, shivering against the freezing cold and worried that whoever it was would ring off before she got there, rendering the trip from her warm bed entirely futile. However, she got there in time and snatched up the receiver.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Evelyn Mountcastle speaking.’

‘Were you in bed? It’s virtually lunchtime, you know. The early bird and all that . . .’

Evelyn recognised the drawling voice of her agent, Julian, and her heart lifted a little. Julian never rang unless he had something to tell her, and that generally meant work.

‘Anyway, now that I finally have you, I have good news!’ he said, without waiting for an answer to his first question. ‘Come into the office later, darling, and I’ll fill you in.’

Evelyn wished he would just tell her now, but she knew he wouldn’t. Julian was all about the drama, and he wasn’t going to waste any opportunity to let her see how very indispensable he was to her.

‘Is it the Into the Blue audition?’ she asked hopefully.

‘See you at two,’ was all he would say, the old tease, and then he was gone.

At least she had time to get herself together before then. She scampered back to her room and hopped into bed, pulling the covers up around her chin against the ravaging cold. Her hangover felt a little better already. It must be the Into the Blue thing. She wasn’t up for any other parts at the moment, and anyway, she had a good feeling about it. It had her name on it.

She had met the programme’s producer, Rory MacMillan, at a rather tawdry New Year’s Eve party a few weeks before. He had cornered her and talked at length about his various projects, his head close enough to hers that she could smell the whisky on his breath, his hand planted firmly in the small of her back.