After You Left(21)

It was enough to be sent flowers. Let alone to be going to a posh new private members’ club. She didn’t realise it at the time, but for the however-many hours that Mr Westland’s invitation was in her head, Eddy wasn’t.

It was a shame that she had a train ticket to go back up North that weekend. She wouldn’t be going now. She only hoped Mr Westland wasn’t fat.

Or old.

Or had a wart on his cheek.



Holy Island. 1983

When she heard the knock shortly after dinner, she somehow knew it would be Eddy. She opened the door, and he was standing there, smiling.

‘Forgot my rake.’ He leant against the doorframe with his left shoulder. ‘Does that sound like a pathetic excuse to come back and talk to you?’

‘Extremely.’ She tried to sound like this sort of thing happened every day. She must have looked as red as someone being held over a fire.

He had changed into a long-sleeved, green jersey T-shirt that emphasised his muscular upper body. He was as fit as someone half his age. His black cap almost blended in with his dark hair, except for the few grey curls at his temples. She wondered what excuse he’d given his wife.

‘Did you really just come back here to see me?’ she asked, guilelessly.

‘Yes. From the minute I left here, it was all I could think about.’

They held eyes. Something in the way he was trying to lean casually against the doorframe told her that he wasn’t doing this quite as effortlessly as he would have liked. The tendon in his neck kept flexing.

‘You’ve brought a lot of memories back for me, Evelyn. I’ve been reliving them all afternoon.’

‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’

He laughed, perhaps recalling how they had joshed all those years ago. ‘Apparently not!’ His eyes were full of warmth for her – the warmth that speaks of a disarming narrowing of the distance between the past and now. ‘Actually, the older I’m getting, the more I tend to think about days gone by.’

‘You’re a bit too young to be doing the “in the olden days” thing, aren’t you?’

‘You’re right. Sad, isn’t it?’

She wasn’t sure if he was teasing. He would be in his mid-forties now. He was five years older than she was. Turning forty had been a wrench for Evelyn. Her thirties had blitzed by, and perhaps for the first time she had truly taken stock of her life. I’ll probably never bear children. We’ll probably never adopt. I’m sure we’ll stay together forever if we’ve made it this far. It’s unlikely I’ll ever fall in love again. The last one had been a rogue thought, and she had wondered why it had even entered her head.

‘Anita and Billy were only married for three years, you know. I knew it wouldn’t last,’ he said.

Eddy had been Billy’s best man. Anita was friends with Evelyn’s friend Elizabeth. ‘I wasn’t even supposed to be there!’ Evelyn found herself thinking back. It was as fresh as yesterday. ‘If Elizabeth’s boyfriend hadn’t run off with someone else, I wouldn’t have been dragged along in his place, and you and I would never have met.’ The past was hurtling back to her, details slightly softened by that one incandescent memory of how bowled over by him she had been.

‘Why did you do it?’ he asked.

‘Go to the wedding?’ She knew he didn’t mean that.

‘Stand me up.’

‘Eddy . . .’ It was so unsettling to find herself having to explain the unexplainable all these years later. She had often grappled with it: with why. ‘I don’t quite know how to say this,’ she said, honestly. ‘When I met you – that night – I was leaving for London exactly one week later. Through the very generous referral of a total stranger, I had a flat set up, and I’d paid a deposit on the rent. I had a job! When you asked me out, I should have just told you that, but in the moment, everything was so magical I couldn’t have it end on that note. You had made such an impression on me. I didn’t want to say goodbye.’

She was surprised to find herself becoming ruffled, slightly short of breath. She had time-travelled back to twenty years ago. She could recall the tug of her dilemma as though she was in the grip of it right now. ‘But then leading up to it . . . I just thought, there’s no point. It was the craziest idea for us to see one another again. I needed so badly to leave. Back then, and I know it sounds dramatic, I wanted to be so much more than there was opportunity for – even though, to be honest, I didn’t know what the hell that something was. So I just thought, why on earth would I risk going out with someone who . . .’

‘Might make you want to stay?’

‘Please don’t look at me like that.’ She shielded her eyes, briefly. She just remembered thinking, What if I fall in love with him? I can’t fall in love with him because I’m leaving. I’m twenty years old and my future can’t be here, for the simple reason that I’ve already decided it won’t be! How many times had she looked back over the years and been completely unable to identify with the girl who had thought that way?

‘I went back to your house a second time, you know. I knew that business of you having to work late was a lie. Your mother told me you’d moved to London. I’m sure she could tell by my reaction that you weren’t just a passing fancy for me. I think your mother was quite intuitive.’