After You Left(92)

‘In a way, it feels like it should be. Something commemorative, anyway.’

‘Aw!’ I place a hand on my heart and feel happy tears come. ‘I’ve never had anyone light a candle for me for such a nice reason.’

‘You’ll have to let me do it again then, sometime,’ he says. And we smile.

We carry the cake in together.

‘Three cheers for Eddy and Evelyn!’ Michael pushes open the party room door, and we burst into ‘Happy Birthday’, along with the nurses. Very few of the patients seem to register the singing. It could well be the least jolly party on record. But Martin and Ronnie clap, and Evelyn is smiling.

‘Is it my birthday?’ Martin asks. ‘How old am I?’

‘It’s Eddy’s and Evelyn’s,’ Michael tells him.

‘Is it?’ Martin looks disappointed. ‘How old are they?’

‘How old do you think I am?’ Evelyn asks.

He studies her, then quite definitely says, ‘Fifteen.’

We laugh. ‘Evelyn is seventy, and Eddy is seventy-FIVE,’ Michael says.

‘I’m seventy-FIVE?’ Eddy repeats suddenly.

Evelyn takes hold of his hand. ‘You are. We were born five years and one day apart. We met at a wedding. Then we met again, properly, many years later.’ Evelyn winks at Michael. ‘But I think that’s where we’ll leave this story for now.’

Eddy looks at her as though he’s adding one more random clue to an ongoing mystery.

‘I’d like to stay here tonight,’ I tell Michael, as we eat cold pizza and drink a beer some hours later in the staff kitchen. ‘If it’s okay for me to sleep on the couch in his room.’

‘You might regret it. He wanders a lot. You might not exactly sleep.’

‘If he wanders, I’ll wander with him. If that’s all right.’

‘Of course. And we do have a spare room here for guests. If you get tired, you can always go in there and rest properly. No one will bother you – or at least, we can hope. It’ll be like a dry run for when you get old.’ He smiles, still looking at me with so much affection. ‘I’ll unlock the door for you and leave the key on the inside.’

‘Michael,’ I rest a hand on his pleasantly muscular upper arm, recognising, as I do, that I actually just want to touch him. ‘Why have you not been snatched up by some lucky young woman?’

‘I don’t know. Older ones seem to like me more.’ His face fills with devilishness.

We walk to Eddy’s room now. ‘Tell me,’ I say, because I have to ask this. ‘Did you know all along that Eddy was my dad? I think you must have done. The names . . . Evelyn’s stories.’

‘Ah!’ I see a tell-tale flicker of guilt in his expression. ‘I can’t really say. Remember I once told you I can keep a secret? But, say I didn’t know, I’d know, anyway.’ He smiles. ‘You look like him.’ He taps the end of my nose. ‘The hooter’s a dead giveaway.’

I laugh. ‘My hooter! How can you call my lovely nose that?’

‘Well, it’s the high cheekbones, too . . .’ He looks at me with a certain prolonged objectivity that makes me flush. ‘It’s obvious to anyone with eyes.’

‘That might well be the best thing anyone has ever said to me, Michael,’ I tell him, very quietly. ‘It actually makes me happier than you could ever know.’

We stop at Eddy’s door. Michael’s bare arm accidentally grazes mine; the warm brush of his fine hairs is a lovely static charge. ‘I’d like to make you happier than you’ve ever known,’ he says. And he says it so quietly that I have to stare into his eyes for a sign that I’ve heard him correctly.

All the things I should say line up. I’m not ready. It’s too early. How can I ever trust again? But he places one finger on my slightly parted mouth and presses there, his eyes busy telling me something. Michael isn’t in a rush. Michael is modestly saying, Fall for me in your own good time.

I kiss his finger and smile.





FORTY-FOUR


Evelyn is one of the most enigmatic people I know. Every time I see her, she has a surprise for me.

‘I found it!’ She gives a joyful little skip. ‘I’ve looked everywhere. I knew it had to be in one of these amazingly bountiful boxes somewhere.’

In the centre of Evelyn’s lounge are about eight storage containers with their contents – everything from a corset to ancient-looking magazines – strewn all over the place.

‘My gosh, it looks like you’re having a jumble sale!’ I laugh.

She hands me a book. It’s a glossy paperback with a simple, intriguing cover of a dark-red Venetian blind pulled part way down a window. At the bottom, in embossed gold, are the words: After You Left, A Novel, by Joanna Smart.

‘Who’s Joanna Smart?’ I ask, but immediately realise. ‘Oh gosh! You are!’

‘I was published in 1987 by one of Britain’s most venerated publishing houses.’

‘This is fabulous!’ I turn the book over and scan the blurb.

They meet at a wedding. They know each other for only one day. But it’s a day that changes the rest of their lives . . .

One magazine has called it, A modern-day Lady Chatterley’s Lover. ‘It’s the story of you and my dad!’