Forgive Me (18 page)

‘Then there’s a new kitchen
needed,’ he went on. ‘That can cost anything from two thousand upwards, but
if you didn’t mind a second-hand one, I’ve got mates who are kitchen
fitters. They are always ripping perfectly good ones out of big
houses
and replacing them with top-of-the-range ones. Mostly they just dump the old ones,
unless they know someone like you who wants one. They often get the sinks, the
appliances, the whole works. I got my mum one that way, cost me just five hundred for
them to fit it in. You just can’t be too picky about the colour and stuff. But my
mum got a lovely pine one.’

‘That sounds marvellous,’ she
said, suddenly feeling a surge of excitement and hope. ‘Would they come and give
me a quote? And your window man? Obviously I wouldn’t be able to go ahead until
I’d got the money sorted.’

‘Sure. I’ll ring around tonight.
Business is quiet at the moment. This slump thing is affecting the whole of the building
trade quite badly. Some of them are only working three days a week, so they’ll be
glad of a job on the side. But that downstairs window should be your first priority. You
can’t plan or do anything else until that’s done.’

He sat down again and stayed talking to her
for quite a while. He told her he lived in Acton in a flat he’d bought when he was
going to get married. ‘Then three months before the wedding I found out she was
having it off with her boss,’ he said with a rueful grin. ‘So I know how you
feel. It takes a while to pick yourself up after that. But my brother is sharing with me
now, and mostly I think I had a lucky escape.’

Eva felt a little buzz of pleasure to hear
he was single.

He asked about her family and, as he’d
been so open about himself, Eva felt she had to be honest too. She didn’t go into
much detail, only saying that her mother had killed herself and that she had to move
away as her stepfather was being mean to her. ‘Tod said he only went out with me
because he felt sorry for me,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘I think that was
the worst thing – to think all he felt was pity, when I believed he loved me.’

‘Well, I am sorry about your mum.
That’s a terrible thing for anyone to go through. But Tod sounds like a right
dickhead.’

Eva laughed. She liked Phil’s
directness. Tod had always wanted to analyse people, and that had fooled her into
thinking he was sincere, but she realized now that he hadn’t been – not about
anything.

‘I’ve been a bit of a dickhead
myself,’ she said. ‘If I’d stopped to think, I would’ve found
another room, carried on at work and seen to this place at weekends until it was
habitable. I can’t really believe I threw all my toys out of the pram for a man
I’d only known a few weeks.’

‘I did a bit of that too,’ Phil
admitted. ‘But then I got to thinking I’d show Claire what I was made of. So
I got the flat done up, went off on a holiday to Goa with the lads, and made sure she
knew how well I was doing without her. That’s what you’ve got to do too,
Eva.’

He had to go then; he said he had to see
someone to give them a quote, but he’d call round when he’d spoken to his
friends about the work she needed doing.

‘Would you like me to get you a
takeaway?’ he said as he got up to leave. ‘I can see you’ve got
nothing to cook anything in – or on.’

‘You’ve done more than enough
for me already.’ She smiled up at him. ‘I’ve got some bits and pieces
to eat. Tod may have accused me of being needy, but I’m not.’

‘We all have wobbly moments when we
need a friend,’ he said. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a card. ‘So
ring me if you need anything or just want to talk. But I’ll pop round again to
tell you when I’ve spoken to the lads.’

Phil had left Eva with a great deal to
think about. That same evening, and much of the next day, she walked about the house,
looking, measuring and planning. From outside in the yard she could see how good French
doors would look, just as from the street she saw Phil had been right in saying two
smaller windows upstairs would make a vast improvement to the house.

In the afternoon she paid a visit to the
Notting Hill branch of her bank to arrange to have her account transferred there from
Cheltenham, and she also made an appointment to see the manager the following day.

On the way home she went round to the
greengrocer’s in Clarendon Road, just a couple of streets away from Pottery Lane.
Seeing a card in the window of an Italian bistro for a lunchtime waitress, she went in
to ask about the job.

A tall dark-haired girl who introduced
herself as Marcia was laying up the tables for the evening. ‘Antonio, the boss,
isn’t here right now,’ she said. ‘But could you come in for a trial
tomorrow, about twelve thirty? He’ll be here then and he can see how you shape
up.’

Eva was glad to agree; the bistro was close
to home, and it had a nice relaxed atmosphere. She might have only had experience of
Burger King and KFC, but if she could handle working in those places, she was sure
Antonio’s would be a pushover. As her appointment with the bank manager was at
eleven, she could go to the bistro straight afterwards.

Eva put on her black suit and white shirt the
next morning and slipped some flat black shoes in her bag, as she didn’t think she
could wait on tables later in her high heels. She arrived at the bank ten minutes early,
fired up to convince the manager that she was worthy of a loan if necessary.

Mr Dodds was a plump, bald and genial
middle-aged man. Eva told him about the house and explained that she might need a loan
later to get it fixed up.

‘Where do you work, Miss
Patterson?’ he asked.

She explained that she’d only been in
London for less than a week but that she was starting a job that day. ‘I do have
six thousand and forty pounds in a building society account,’ she said, showing
him the passbook. ‘And you can see from my current account and the deposit account
with you, that I’ve nearly another thousand there. I am intending to draw on my
own funds to get the windows and the kitchen done, but later on I’ll need to put
in central heating, and I might need a loan then. I thought once I’d got the house
straight I could take in a lodger, which will create another income.’

He wanted evidence that the house did indeed
belong to her. She showed him letters from Mr Bailey, her solicitor in Cheltenham, which
verified this and confirmed he was holding the deeds.

He looked at her very intently for a moment
or two. ‘Well, Miss Patterson, you appear to be a very level-headed young lady,
and I can see from your account with us that you have always acted responsibly in the
past. My only concern is your youth, and the fact that you have only been in London for
a short time and won’t be able to supply a reference yet from your employer. I
suggest you get the vital work done with your savings and come back to me in a couple of
months if you find you do need more money. I can review the situation
then, and possibly arrange a small mortgage for you that you can manage on your
salary.’

Eva left the bank feeling elated and proud
of herself. She could hardly believe that in just one week she’d been on a
white-knuckle ride, from excitement at going to see the house for the first time, to the
shock of finding it was a wreck, then the terrible hurt of finding out Tod’s true
feelings for her, and rushing to London.

All the despair she’d felt a few days
ago seemed ridiculous and over the top now. She’d made a friend in Phil, Mr Dodds
had taken her seriously, and unless she made an idiot of herself at Antonio’s
today, she had a job too.

It was just after half past three when Eva
got home from Antonio’s. Her feet ached from being on them for so long, but
she’d got the job, and would start properly on Monday. It wasn’t very good
money at £3 an hour, and for now Antonio only wanted her three days a week – from twelve
to three – but Marcia said she should get at least £5 a day in tips. And as Rose, their
cleaner at The Beeches, always used to say: ‘That’s better than a slap
around the face with a wet kipper.’

In the early evening Eva was scrubbing at
the old cooker with a Brillo pad, wearing a pair of old baggy shorts and a scruffy
T-shirt, when there was a knock at the front door. To her shock, when she answered it
Phil was standing there; with him was an older man.

Eva blushed scarlet at being caught looking
such a fright. She had a scarf tied around her hair, no make-up, and she thought she
must stink of oven cleaner.

‘Hi, Eva.’ Phil grinned.
‘I told you about my kitchen-fitter mate. Well, this is Brian and it just so
happens he’s got a kitchen in his van that might be perfect for you.’

‘Excuse how I look,’ she blurted
out, peeling off her
rubber gloves. ‘I’ve been trying to
clean the cooker. But I haven’t got any money here.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’
Brian said. ‘If you like it, you can have it and pay me later. I’ll have to
dump it unless I find a new home for it in the next few days.’

Brian had one of those round smiley faces
that Eva associated with kindliness and fatherly qualities. She wondered if Phil had
laid it on thick to him that she was in need of help, and she felt a bit awkward at
being seen as a charity case. But Brian was already opening the back of the van and
beckoned her to come and have a look. It was stacked high with kitchen units and wall
cupboards all with white matt doors and brass knobs.

‘What do you think?’ he asked as
he pulled out a base unit for her to look at. ‘Nice, ain’t it?’

‘It looks brand new,’ she said.
She couldn’t help but be suspicious of something that seemed too good to be
true.

‘I know!’ Brian grinned at her.
‘Some folk ’ave more money than bleedin’ sense. Their puppy chewed one
door. We ordinary folks would just replace the damaged door, but not these people – they
wanted the whole lot ripped out.’ He climbed into the van and pulled out a long,
pale grey Formica worktop stacked up at the side of the van, and passed it to Phil.
‘This came with it. Not a scratch on it and enough of it to fit out a huge
kitchen. There’s a stainless-steel sink, a fridge and a washing machine too. I can
do you a lovely job with these, if you like. All you’ll need to get is a new
cooker cos they had one of them whopping great range things.’

Eva was stunned. She hadn’t really
believed that Phil would come up with anything, and at best she’d expected dark
brown imitation wood from the early 1970s. She would have been glad of even that, but a
lovely white kitchen was beyond her wildest dreams. ‘It’s marvellous,’
she said weakly.

Brian moved the van right up against the
garage so cars could pass by, and then the three of them went back into the house. She
showed Brian a rough plan she’d made, telling Phil she thought his idea of French
doors was what she wanted. Brian measured the space, did a few calculations, then began
to draw a plan in chalk on the floorboards.

‘You can’t have it quite like
you’ve drawn. It would mean two wasted spaces in the corners, and it’ll
looked cramped,’ he said. ‘I suggest two lots of units facing each other.
The stove, washing machine and sink unit will be at the back, with one other unit there.
But the fridge needs to be opposite, under your breakfast bar. And you can have a couple
of wall cupboards either side of the cooker.’

‘And you’ve got all that?’
she asked.

‘Sweetheart, I’ve got enough
units to go right around the whole room, if you wanted them.’

‘It sounds great, but how much is it
going to cost?’ she asked nervously.

‘Can you go to six hundred, including
the fitting?’ he asked. ‘That’s including the appliances of
course.’

After seeing the price of new kitchens in a
showroom, and the extra cost of having them fitted, Brian’s offer was like a gift
from heaven and she wanted to hug him. But she controlled her glee and said that quote
was very reasonable. And she asked him when he could start on it, as she had a job
now.

‘I’ll fit around you,
love,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I can’t do anything until that window is
done, anyway. But I’d be obliged if I could leave the units and the appliances
here to free up my van. If you change your mind, I can always come and collect them
again.’

She could hardly believe that anyone was so
trusting. ‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ she assured him. ‘I
didn’t even dare hope I’d get such nice units.’

‘Right, we’ll get them in
then.’ He nodded to Phil to help him.

The two men took about twenty minutes to
bring everything in, stacking the units neatly away from the area where they would
eventually go. Brian plugged in the fridge in the corner by the sink so she could use
that right away. As soon as she heard it whirring away she ran upstairs to get the milk
and other perishables to put in it. She felt she could even cook a meal on the old stove
now she had somewhere to store her food.

‘I’ll be off now,’ Brian
said, handing her his business card. ‘Just give me a bell when you want me to fit
it. And you’d better get yourself a new cooker too, I’ll need to wire that
in when I take the old one out.’

Phil didn’t go with him; he said he
would catch a bus home. After Eva had seen Brian out, she turned to Phil in some
excitement.

‘You are a wonder,’ she said.
‘I can hardly believe you arranged that for me. Would you like a cup of tea before
you go home?’

He made a hangdog face. ‘I was hoping
you might like to come to the pub with me for some dinner. I haven’t got anything
in at home. And I bet you haven’t eaten anything much today?’

‘No, I haven’t, I’ve been
too busy,’ she said. ‘But I’ll only come if you let me pay. I owe you
a dinner for arranging this.’

‘If Your Ladyship insists,’ he
said, making a mock bow. ‘To tell the truth, I’ve been worried about you.
This dark room is enough to give anyone nightmares. Were you alright after I left the
other day?’