After You Left(71)

‘Oh. Oh my . . .’ I try to visualise this. I can imagine Eddy attempting to undo the damage he had done, and can see how that might not have worked.

‘It’s hard to live in a small town and be under the scrutiny of people who have nothing to do but interest themselves in your drama. His wife felt she’d been made a huge fool of. Everyone was talking. There was all kinds of tittle-tattle flying about . . . Maybe some women would have thought that Eddy should have been the one hanging his head, but I suppose everybody has their threshold for how much humiliation they can stand.’ She looks at me. ‘She must have just wanted to get as far away from there as possible. Which I can understand. She took their child away. She obviously wanted to inflict the ultimate punishment.’

‘That’s insane! How could she get away with doing that? He had rights!’

‘Alice, this was thirty years ago. Things were different then. And you have to remember you’re dealing with a Northern, small-town mentality. Back then, the women held a lot of power in these matters. If Eddy’s wife wanted to play hardball, there was precious little he could do. He didn’t have money to hire solicitors and fight his case . . .’

Something isn’t right here. ‘How do you know all this? About how it all played out?’

‘Eddy’s friend, Stanley. He was a very good friend to Eddy, and, in a way, to me.’

‘Ah! Stanley! Of the letters!’

Evelyn nods. ‘I could hardly write to him at home. So I wrote to Stanley’s address, and he passed them on to Eddy.’ Her face darkens again. A hedge presses up against her bare arms, and I see small scratch marks on her pale skin. ‘He was so impulsive! Stanley said he wanted to prove to me that he could really go through with it, because I’d had my doubts. But I thought we’d settled all that! I didn’t ask him to prove anything to me!’

I feel bad she’s so upset in the middle of the street. It’s truly incredible that this was thirty years ago and she’s as overwrought as if it had just happened yesterday.

‘But Evelyn, he was a forty-FIVE-year-old man. It was his job not to screw things up for himself, not yours.’

‘I know. But I knew he was impulsive. I should have been more careful with my promises. You can’t mess with someone’s heart, make pledges and then just walk away and claim no responsibility for the fallout. If I had never let it get that far, none of it would have happened. My friend Serena was right. I should have walked away after the affair and let it stay a nice memory.’ She looks at me, candidly. ‘Those are the best memories, you know. Memories of things that end when they should. Always remember that.’

I think about this. Not sure how this will impact my memories of Justin down the road, but Evelyn’s distress stops me from dwelling on it for too long.

‘So that’s why no one ever visits him? Because, really, he has no family now? He only has you?’

Evelyn nods. ‘He only has me.’ Tears roll down her face. She determinedly pushes them away. Someone walks past with an off-lead Lab; the dog trots over to her, and she places a hand on its head. The owner smiles. When they pass, Evelyn says, ‘Oh, I felt such pressure! It was awful. I phoned him shortly after I sent the letter telling him I couldn’t go through with it. I just wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to hear that he wasn’t as devastated as I knew he was going to be, if that makes sense. But he was very short with me. He said never to phone him at that number again. He didn’t say that his wife had already made him leave – that he only happened to be there because he’d gone back to get some of his things. Stanley told me all this, but I had to press him.’

She gives a tiny whimper, like a small animal. It cuts my heart. ‘I felt this weight of what I’d promised. I remember, after the bomb, thinking, But I have to leave him! I have to honour my end of the deal, but I love Mark, too. Mark loves me and needs me! I can’t go!’

Her head has a slight tremor. I sit on the wall beside her and squeeze the top of her hand. ‘Evelyn, I understand you need to get this off your chest, but you have to let it go. It’s in the past. We have to make peace with our past, don’t we?’

I say it, but will I be thinking about Justin thirty years from now? Distraught with the memory of what he did? No, I vow. No matter what, I will not be like Evelyn.

Evelyn upturns her tiny hand so that her palm meets mine. The last woman I held hands with was my mother in the final hours of her life. I’d felt so desperate for us to somehow make our disagreements water under the bridge, in that short span of time, to make up for a lifetime of distance. I feel the firm press of her fingers.

‘I suppose I should have felt flattered that he was ready to leave his family for me. But, in a way, it made me think less of him. Deep down, I didn’t want him to be the kind of man who would put me ahead of his responsibilities. It struck me as a character flaw.’

She looks at me when I must appear momentarily lost for words at that. ‘Shall we walk again?’ She gets up. ‘I’d like to go home.’ We walk the rest of the way in companionable quiet.

‘I am a bit confused, though . . .’ I say when we are back in her sitting room. ‘When did you come back?’ There is a small photograph of a man on a walnut-coloured occasional table by the bay window. I noticed it earlier. I couldn’t quite make out who it was. My eyes fasten on it again. I wonder if it’s a young Eddy.