Forgive Me (8 page)

Was it Andrew’s doing?

Eva had watched him as these people tried to
talk to him during the day and she could see by his strained expression and body
language that he was struggling to be polite and had absolutely no interest in any of
them. But then Andrew was a businessman through and through – his interests were the
stock market, politics and sport, not art. Maybe when he found Lauren’s phone
number in her mother’s address book he’d thought she was a more recent
friend.

Eva doubted he’d ever grown his hair
long, worn tie-dye T-shirts or patched jeans. He’d never gone to a rock concert,
was appalled at drug taking or even smoking cigarettes, and he sneered at New Age
people, alternative lifestyles, astrology and vegetarians. In fact he was probably
appalled that by contacting Lauren about Flora’s death he had unwittingly given an
open invitation to a bunch of people he saw as just cranks.

But if these people had been Flora’s
friends, Eva wondered how and why she ever got together with Andrew. It was odd for a
woman who had apparently seen life in technicolour to settle down with a man who only
saw black and white and who lived his life through spreadsheets.

Eva knew that Andrew hadn’t been wealthy
when he married Flora; that came later, when they moved to Cheltenham. This house had
been dilapidated at the time. It was selling off the land at the back of it which had
enabled them to turn it into what it was today. Yet Flora was the creative one, so why
did she always bow to Andrew’s taste?

Eva was about sixteen when Andrew first came
up with the idea of putting a swimming pool in the old stables. She remembered Flora
gently pointing out that pools cost a lot to maintain. Nothing more was said about it
for months, then one night Eva walked in the front door and overheard them in the
sitting room having a row about it.

She went halfway up the stairs, but stayed
there to listen.

‘It’s just showing off,’
Flora insisted. ‘The stables aren’t big enough for a decent size one that
you can really swim in. You just want the neighbours to be impressed. But they
won’t be forking out for the heating bills, will they?’

‘It’s me that brings the money
in, so I can decide what to spend it on,’ Andrew argued. ‘The kids will love
it.’

‘They might at first. But
they’ll be bored with it in no time. They aren’t that keen on swimming, and
you’ve never been interested.’

‘I would be if it was right
here,’ he said. ‘Besides, it’s a statement that I’m doing
well.’

‘As I thought, you just want to
pose,’ Flora snapped back at him. ‘It’s a waste of money.’

‘My money,’ he said, and with
that he opened the sitting room door to walk out.

Eva had no alternative but to flee up to her
room before he caught her eavesdropping.

They went on rowing for some time that
night. Eva couldn’t hear what they were saying but at one point she heard
something smash, then it went quiet.

Flora was very silent and brooding for the next
few days, and although Eva asked her what was wrong, she refused to say. As nothing
further happened for a few weeks about the swimming pool, Eva assumed Andrew’s
plan had been abandoned.

When the conversion of the old stables
finally got started, Flora didn’t protest, but Eva was aware she was still against
the idea, because of her tight-lipped false smile. Eva, Ben and Sophie were all thrilled
with the pool when it was finished. But, as Mum had predicted, it was a nine-day wonder.
They had a few weeks of going in there every night after school and at the weekends, but
gradually their enthusiasm tapered off, as did Andrew’s. Eva couldn’t
remember when she’d last seen him use it.

Was that what was wrong between them? Did
Flora feel trapped in a middle-class world with a control freak – a man who liked to
impress the neighbours with his ride-on lawn mower, his swimming pool and a new
top-of-the-range car every year? He played squash with other men, occasionally went to
watch cricket or rugby with someone, but Eva didn’t think he had even one really
close friend. She remembered once, when he and her mother were planning a dinner party,
Flora had complained that one of the couples he’d chosen were very dull.
Andrew’s reply had been that they were ‘well connected’. Eva supposed
that meant he thought they could be useful to him.

None of these things had fully registered
with Eva before today. About the only thing she’d really noticed was that Flora
was at her happiest when she was gardening or being creative. She wished so much that
she’d thought to ask her mother how she felt about things – deeper questions that
might have given her some insight into what made her mother tick.

Maybe that was part of the reason why Flora
killed
herself; because she felt her family took no interest in her as
a person? It must have been very demoralizing to be thought of as just a mother and
housewife, especially if she’d once been a successful artist.

Only one certainty had come out of the
events of today, and that was that Eva must find a place of her own as quickly as
possible. Around six, after everyone had left, Andrew had totally ignored her as she was
clearing up. She’d heard him praise Ben and Sophie for holding themselves together
and acting with dignity, yet she didn’t even get a thank-you for buying and
preparing the food.

She wasn’t going to stay on here as an
unappreciated skivvy. Tomorrow she’d make an appointment with the solicitor, and
she’d start looking for a flat.

On Monday afternoon, five days after the
funeral, Eva left work early for her appointment with Mr Bailey, the solicitor. After
seeing him she was going to view a bedsitter. She would take it, whatever it was like,
as the atmosphere at home had become poisonous since the funeral.

It was like walking on eggshells with
Andrew. He snapped at her about everything – from moving his piles of paperwork from the
kitchen to his study, to asking what he’d like for an evening meal. He kept saying
the house was a tip, but he was as much to blame as Sophie and Ben. She was trying so
hard to run the house, to keep up with the washing, ironing, shopping and cooking while
working full time too. But all he did was complain and criticize.

Sophie sucked up to him constantly, and
continued to do nothing to help around the house. Ben escaped as often as he could.

On Saturday morning Eva was just going past
her parents’ bedroom when she saw Andrew pulling all their mother’s
clothes out of the wardrobes and drawers and stuffing them into black
bin liners. She was so shocked she couldn’t stop herself from asking what he was
going to do with them.

‘I’m taking them to a charity
shop,’ he snapped.

‘Isn’t it a bit soon?’ she
ventured. ‘And some of her clothes were very expensive.’

‘I know that, I paid for them,’
he retorted, not even looking up from stuffing a beautiful brown velvet jacket into the
bag.

‘What if I sorted them out and took
the best vintage ones to sell back to that shop Mum bought them from?’ she
suggested.

‘So you can have the money?’ he
said with a nasty sneer. ‘My God, Eva, you are a piece of work!’

She burst into tears, because nothing had
been further from her mind. What she wanted was to see him treating her mother’s
belongings, whether that was clothes, jewellery or other things, with respect because he
had loved her. Shovelling them into bin liners without any thought for the memories they
held was so cold-hearted. It was as if he hated Flora now.

‘That’s right, cry and make a
big drama out of it,’ he said scornfully. ‘Your mother always did that too.
She took her own life, Eva! I knew she was a self-centred bitch. But I never thought
she’d put herself before the needs of her family. She didn’t give a toss for
any of our feelings. So you tell me what possible reason could I have for holding on to
this lot?’

‘Because it’s too soon to get
rid of it all,’ Eva ventured through her tears. ‘You might be sorry
later.’

‘The quicker I get everything of hers
out of this house, the better I’ll feel,’ he said, stuffing more things
in.

‘Including me, I suppose,’ she
said and turned away, not wanting to hear his response.

Yesterday she had cooked Sunday lunch for
them all: roast
beef, Yorkshire puddings and all the trimmings. Ben
didn’t come back, Andrew put his on a tray and took it into the sitting room to
watch TV, and Sophie ate hers in silence.

Eva went up to her room after she’d
cleared up, and she hadn’t been there long when the phone rang. She opened the
door, intending to go and answer it if no one else did, but Andrew picked it up down in
the hall.

‘I can’t talk now,’ he
said in the kind of half-whisper that Eva had used in the past when speaking to people
her parents wouldn’t approve of. ‘The kids are all here.’ There was
silence for a few moments before he spoke again. ‘I know, but it won’t be
long now. The wait is nearly over. I’ll ring you tomorrow night.’

Eva closed her bedroom door very quietly. No
one did that lowered voice thing unless they were afraid of being overheard and feeling
guilty. She was sure it had to be a woman he was speaking to. So was he having an affair
and Mum found out? Was that what drove her to suicide? And if it was, how could Andrew
put on that huge display of grief?

She stayed in her room until bedtime. No one
came to see her, and she felt so terribly alone and uncertain about everything that she
cried herself to sleep.

She’d woken this morning feeling
tougher and determined. She got the local paper on the way to work, saw the bedsitter
advertised and rang to make an appointment to view it at six o’clock. Now as she
drove into the car park of the solicitor’s, she told herself that even if one door
was closing behind her, there was freedom behind the door in front of her.

Mr Bailey was just as she imagined a
solicitor to be – old, small, slightly stooped and with half-glasses perched
precariously on the end of his nose. His office was lined with thick leather-bound
books.

‘Do come in and sit down, Miss
Patterson,’ he said after shaking her hand and offering his commiserations on the
death of her mother. ‘It had been my intention to contact you right after your
mother’s funeral, but you pre-empted that by calling me.’

Eva suddenly felt she might cry, but took a
deep breath and explained that Andrew had told her about a studio she was to inherit.
‘He seemed very cross about it,’ she added.

‘He had no right to be, or to be
surprised by it. I drew up a will for your mother when they first moved to Cheltenham
and the studio was left to you even then. He was here with her then, and she made the
position quite clear. On that occasion she also changed your name by deed poll to
Patterson.’

‘Until the night Andrew told me about
her will, I didn’t even know he wasn’t my father,’ Eva admitted.

‘Oh dear!’ Bailey exclaimed,
taking off his glasses and cleaning them on a handkerchief. ‘To have that revealed
so soon after your mother’s death must have been very distressing for
you.’

‘It was, but he seemed to think I had
influenced Mum in giving me the studio. He didn’t believe that I didn’t even
know Mum owned one.’

‘He shouldn’t have taken out his
pique on you at such a time, but I dare say it was because of the nature of her death
and because I had to reveal to him that your mother had recently changed her will
without his knowledge. He was angry with me about that.’

‘You mean leaving her half of the
house to Sophie and Ben?’

‘Yes, my dear. But she had every right
to decide what was to become of her assets. These days it is becoming much more common
for people to ensure that the remaining
partner doesn’t have
total control of them. Usually they are afraid their other half will remarry and the
children of the new husband or wife will inherit the marital home.’

Eva nodded and hung her head. She could feel
tears welling up, and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry.

‘You poor child,’ Bailey said
gently. ‘I only met your mother a few times, with a gap of many years in between
the first and last couple of times, so I can’t claim I knew her well. But I did
notice a difference in her the last time she came here. That was just before Christmas.
She seemed to have lost the vibrancy I remembered; I wondered then if she was ill, and
if that was why she wanted to change her will. In fact I asked if something was wrong,
but she smiled and said there was nothing, and that she was just making sure all three
of her children would be looked after, rather than just you. That was entirely
reasonable in my view.’

‘My stepfather doesn’t see it
that way,’ Eva said glumly.

‘I can imagine. But in fairness to
him, he’d already had the shock of his wife’s death to contend with, and it
must have been distressing to find that she didn’t consider what effect her new
will would have on him, and on his security. He has worked very hard for years to keep
you all in comfort, and now with your mother’s half of the family home being
bequeathed to your brother and sister it means his finances are restricted. But even if
he should choose to contest her will, it wouldn’t change anything. He still owns
half the house, and any judge would see that as adequate for his needs.’

Eva thought it served Andrew right, if he
had been cheating on her mother. But she couldn’t say that without proof. ‘I
can understand him being upset about that,’ she said. ‘But if Mum had always
said that the studio was to go to me, and he never had any stake in it, why be mean to
me about it now?’

Mr Bailey made a shrugging gesture with his
hands. ‘At times like this people don’t always think logically, my dear. I
hope in time you can heal the rift between you, as I’m sure your mother
wouldn’t have wanted you to fall out over it. Getting back to the studio, I have
no idea of the condition it is in. Your mother did have an agent who took care of
letting it, but apparently she dismissed him a few years ago. She had a building society
account which rent money was paid into. I need to look into that for you because I have
a note here that your name was also on the account. That was another thing she did to
make certain it went straight to you.’