Reluctantly Home(76)

Back at the house, she sat at the kitchen table with the bags in a heavy roll in front of her, and despaired. What had seemed like a wonderful idea first thing that morning – clearing the kitchen so she could actually function – now felt akin to climbing Everest in flippers.

She sighed, defeated before she had even begun. How had she let things get so bad? There had been a time after Joan died when she had been on top of it all. She had even thought about re-engaging the cleaner that Joan had sacked. She had always liked her, and she missed having someone around the place to talk to.

But the weeks had rolled into months and then years, and she hadn’t done anything about anything. And this was the result. Chaos.

She took a deep breath, tore the first bag from the huge roll, and began. To start with, she checked each item before dropping it into the gaping mouth of the sack, but within ten minutes she took to simply sweeping the contents of each surface into the black void. It didn’t take long before she was quite enjoying herself, hefting the weight of the full bin bags as if that could determine their value. Soon she had ten filled to the top, and the floor was covered in things that hadn’t quite gone in the right direction when she whooshed them from the surface and into the waiting sack.

And it felt good. It was as if by clearing the backlog of stuff that had accumulated, she was also clearing her mind, her spirit. She felt lighter, less weighed down by it all. Maybe when she had the place straight, she could undertake a little refurbishment. She didn’t think she could bear the upheaval of anything major, but a fresh lick of paint and maybe a new carpet or two might be nice.

This was all Pip’s doing. The young woman had wandered into her life and, without meaning to, had turned something on inside her that Evelyn thought had been painted over and could never move again. Evelyn wished she could return the favour. The poor girl was in limbo, not able to move forward with her life and too scared to go back. There wasn’t much she could do practically, but she could talk to her, encourage her to address the things that were haunting her. Bottling things up was no way to carry on. That way madness lay, she thought knowingly as she cast her eyes around the devastation that was her kitchen. And after all, wasn’t that precisely what Pip had done for her? Talking about Scarlet for the first time in so very long had released fresh memories of her in Evelyn’s mind. She had been frightened of extracting them before, worried they might have fragmented into something irretrievable, but the Scarlet who had danced into her mind had been as vivid as ever and not at all tainted by time.

Talking to Pip had also altered her feelings towards Joan, from a blind fury to something less destructive. When Pip had voiced her anger at Joan’s behaviour, it had felt to Evelyn as though some of the burden she had carried for so long had been lifted. It was true what they said: a trouble shared is a trouble halved. Now Evelyn had to see what she could do to halve Pip’s trouble, too.

A knock on the front door rang out and made Evelyn jump. She clutched at her heart as she waited for its pace to slow. Her newfound freedoms weren’t all-encompassing yet, then. A visitor could still send her into a tailspin. She decided she would just ignore whoever it was and wait for them to leave. She made herself stand very still, even though there was no way the person at the door would be able to see her, while she waited for them to go away.

‘Evelyn?’ came the now-familiar voice through the door. ‘It’s me, Pip. Are you there?’

Evelyn let her breath out in a sigh of relief. Pip.

‘Yes,’ she called. ‘I’m just coming.’

With a final, regretful look at the mess she had made in clearing the mess that had been there before, she hurried to the front door and opened it.

Pip looked dreadful. Her skin was sallow and there were dark stripes under either eye but she was smiling like the cat who’d got the cream.

‘You look awful,’ said Evelyn. Being old meant she could enjoy a degree of honesty that other, less senior people had to restrain.

‘I’m hungover,’ said Pip, giving a smile a mile wide that brightened her tired features no end. ‘First one in as long as I can remember. I wondered if you fancied a walk, help me blow the cobwebs away.’

Evelyn cast a glance back towards the kitchen and Pip added, ‘But if you’re busy that’s no problem. We can make it another time.’ Her eyes followed Evelyn’s, and when they settled on the kitchen she let out a low whistle. ‘You’ve been hard at it,’ she said.

‘I’m having a bit of a clear-out,’ replied Evelyn uncertainly, ‘but I think I deserve a break. Let’s go.’

The walk led them back to the same café as before, and Pip ordered tea for two and two slices of banana bread.

‘I used to make a mean banana bread,’ Pip said as she bit into her slice. ‘I should do that again. Bake, I mean. There never seemed to be time before, but maybe now . . .’

They sat in companionable silence whilst the café hummed around them. It felt good to Evelyn, normal.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Pip asked, once her cake was gone.

A slight queasiness settled in Evelyn’s stomach. This modern desire to share was all very well, but it didn’t get any easier to deal with. ‘All right,’ she replied cagily, ‘but I reserve my right to silence should I not wish to answer your question.’

Pip nodded. ‘That’s fine. It’s just that I was wondering who Scarlet’s father was. Is he still around? I mean, alive?’