Never Close Your Eyes (3 page)

There was silence.

‘Precisely,' Nic said triumphantly. ‘So I think Evie's perfectly justified in choosing the simile, even if you may have heard it once or twice before.'

Pamela's lips pursed, her mouth set in a thin, jagged line. Evie found herself wondering for a moment if she'd ever kissed anyone, really kissed them – a proper snog. She guessed not. There was nothing ripe and cherry-like about Pamela's lips. In fact she didn't really have any.

Neil, now, was a different matter. He knew how to kiss. His kisses were sexier even than making love. But when was the last time he'd kissed her? She scrabbled around her mind, like someone desperate to recall the blurred face of a long-dead loved one.

But Neil wasn't dead. Oh no. He was giving all his kisses to someone else. Evie felt a stab of misery. She straightened up, pulled down her shoulders, forced herself back to the present. No point dwelling on that. She must look forward to the future. Everyone said so.

‘Shall I continue?'

Tristram waved his hand grandly. ‘Of course, of course.' He glanced at his watch. ‘Good Lord, you'd better get a move on, too. It's half past nine. When I was at boarding school it was lights out at half past nine every night even in the sixth form. Of course we all read under the blankets until Matron came and smacked our bottoms and confiscated our torches.'

No one laughed.

Carol, a woman in the second row who was probably in her late fifties, clicked her tongue. ‘He's such a bore, isn't he?' she said loudly, flicking her straggly, shoulder-length grey hair off her face. Tristram didn't seem to hear.

Pamela scraped back her chair theatrically and turned away from Carol. The two women must be of a similar age, Evie guessed, but they could hardly be more different. While Pamela was outwardly genteel and damned only in snide, veiled terms, Carol had a wild, anarchic, tell-it-as-it-is streak.

She was quite batty, of course. She rode her bicycle in all weathers and wore ancient cardies covered in cat hair. There was always a faint whiff of something about her, too – cat pee? Evie didn't like to think about it.

Pamela, on the other hand, favoured neat slacks and twinsets and never had a hair out of place. She smelled of Yardley Lily of the Valley eau de toilette spray. She could scarcely bring herself even to look at Carol, let alone speak to her, and made no secret of the fact that she thought her a fool. But Evie rather liked Carol. She was eccentric but there was also something deep about her.

Evie caught Nic's eye and found herself starting to giggle. She sucked in her cheeks. She was aware of a few other titters coming from different parts of the room, like the beginnings of a Mexican wave.

Carol, picking up on the atmosphere, threw back her head and roared with laughter herself. ‘It's all right,' she snorted, showing off a set of yellowy, stained teeth, ‘the old fool's deaf as a post.'

‘God, I need a drink,' Nic whispered as she, Evie and Becca pushed open the heavy wooden doors of the church hall and stepped out into the night.

‘Me too,' Evie agreed. ‘I'm sorry but I loathe Pamela. She's a mean cow. It's not as if she's God's gift to writing either. She's got such a gloomy outlook on life. Her writing makes me want to slit my wrists.'

‘I know,' Nic agreed. ‘But don't let her get to you. You just keep at it. I love the way you describe how Neil – er, sorry, Spiculus the gladiator is suddenly seeing your heroine in a totally different light. It's as if he'd never looked at her – really looked – before.'

Evie pretended not to notice Nic's slip of the tongue. It's true, she did find herself thinking of her husband whenever she described Spiculus, Cornelia's dishy love interest. But she'd tried to make them different. For instance, Neil had dark-brown hair while Spiculus's was black. And the novel was set in Rome in 60
BC
, for heaven's sake, not London suburbia.

She hugged her cardigan around her. It was only September, but the evenings were getting chilly.

‘Hey, gurrrls!'

The women swung round. It was Russell, another member of the writer's group. Russell was small and slight, with pale skin, longish, thinning black hair and a wicked sense of humour. He had written several rather difficult literary novels, all unpublished.

‘Going for a beverage?' he asked, starting to unpadlock his bike, which he'd chained to a bike rack just beyond the church hall.

Evie smiled. ‘Fancy coming?'

Russell shook his head. ‘Nah, I should get back.'

‘How's the job?' Evie enquired. ‘Any interesting tales to tell us?'

Russell worked in a genito-urinary clinic or, as he preferred to put it, he was a ‘willy-and-fanny doctor'. He could be deliciously indiscreet.

‘Wee-ell,' he said, cocking his head on one side and fastening his helmet. ‘We had a newly pregnant woman and her husband in the other day. They were terribly worried because he'd lost his wedding ring in an awkward place and they were afraid it might strangle the baby.'

Evie squealed. ‘So what did you do?'

Russell grinned. ‘Oh, I just fished around a bit and got it out. It wasn't difficult. Then I gave them a quick anatomy lesson and showed the husband how to do it himself next time. Bob's your uncle!'

Nic guffawed. She had a surprisingly loud, dirty laugh for someone so small; she was only about five feet three and tiny with it, like a sparrow. ‘God, how embarrassing. Don't you find it embarrassing when people do things like that?'

Russell shrugged. ‘I'm used to it. I'll tell you about the bloke with the penile piercings next time – if you're good.'

‘Oooh, yes,' Becca giggled. ‘Where exactly—?'

Russell put his hand up. ‘Gotta shoot.' He swung a canvas bag over his shoulder and climbed on his bike.

‘See you next month,' Evie called out as he pedalled off down the street. ‘Lovely man,' she went on, turning to the others. ‘What a job, though. Wouldn't suit me. Shall we go to the Swan? It's not exactly glamorous but at least you can get a seat.'

‘Good idea,' Becca replied, in that rather precise way that she had of talking, as if she were reciting lines. ‘Don't let me stay too long, though. I've got a plane to catch in the morning. I'm hoping to clinch a multi-million-pound deal with a company in San Francisco.'

Evie whistled. Why wasn't she clinching multi-million-pound deals rather than fretting about how she was going to pay the gas bill?

Something had definitely gone wrong somewhere.

Chapter Three

The women strolled along the main road in the direction of the station before turning left down a narrow, cobbled side road which led to the River Thames. The pub, about halfway down, was set back slightly from the other buildings and had an old-fashioned-looking sign with a painted swan outside.

Inside there was just one dimly lit room and a few elderly men were propped up on bar stools in the corner. They looked up and stared when Becca, Nic and Evie strode in.

‘God, you'd think they'd never seen a woman in here before,' Nic whispered.

Becca smirked. ‘Praps they think we should all be at home washing the dishes and ironing shirts.'

Evie grinned up at her. At five feet ten, Becca was by far the tallest of the group. She had long, slim arms and legs but she wasn't model-perfect. She was a typical English pear, with a small bust and wider hips that she tended to disguise by wearing long jackets. She was very attractive, though, rangy, with a long, thin face that was interesting rather than beautiful, and a surprisingly small, upturned nose.

‘Ironing, what's that?' Evie quipped.

‘Evening, ladies, what can I get you?' The young barman gave them a pleasant smile.

Nic pushed forward. ‘Red or white?' she asked, turning to the others.

‘White,' they chorused.

‘A bottle of Pinot Grigio,' Nic said with an air of authority. ‘Actually, make that two.'

Evie started to protest. ‘We'll never—'

‘It'll be last orders soon,' Nic interrupted, pointing to the large square silver watch on her thin wrist. ‘They'll stop serving.'

They sat round a wooden table near the fireplace. Nic filled three glasses nearly to the brim and smiled. ‘I'm quite relieved there wasn't time for me to read what I'd written. I dread to think what Pamela would have made of my paltry offerings.'

Evie took a sip of wine. ‘How's it coming on?'

Nic grimaced. ‘I reckon it's the most unthrilling thriller ever. I read the first few chapters again the other night and decided it was a pile of poo.'

Becca put her glass down. ‘Don't be so hard on yourself, I'm sure it's not.' She smiled. ‘You should let Evie and me take a look sometime. We'll give you constructive feedback.'

Nic shook her head. ‘Thanks, but to be honest I've really not made much progress. For some reason I keep fannying around, finding other things to do and not getting down to it. I've started going for runs in the park and taking loads of time out for swims and walks with the dog. Dizzy's exhausted and the pair of us have never been fitter but the book's just languishing.'

Evie laughed, revealing a big gap between her front teeth. ‘I know what you mean. It is hard to get down to it even though once I've cleared the decks and made space in my mind to write, I absolutely love it. But hey, running sounds fab. I wish I could join you but my stupid boobs would get in the way.'

Evie glanced down at her ample chest. She was a 34DD. Neil had never complained but to her, they were the enemy. She'd always envied women like Nic and Becca who could wear T-shirts in the summer and strappy little dresses with no bra and look so free and chic.

Becca shook her head. ‘Honestly, Evie, all you need is a good sports bra.'

‘Too right,' Nic chipped in. ‘I wear two – and a support top as well. Workmen used to shout “they're bouncing well” even though I'm not exactly voluptuous. Not any more.' She leaned forward, glancing left and right to make sure that no one else was listening. ‘Guess what?'

Evie and Becca bent over, too; their three heads were practically touching.

‘I've had Botox,' Nic whispered conspiratorially.

Evie stared. ‘You haven't?'

‘No!' said Becca rather loudly. Nic's glare made her wince. ‘Sorry.'

Nic nodded. ‘I'm surprised you haven't noticed. It's not like either of you to miss a trick. There's this woman who does it really cheaply. She's a trained nurse – I think. I couldn't resist.'

Evie frowned. Cheap Botox didn't sound great. ‘Where did you have it done?'

‘Ealing.'

‘No, you moron, I mean where on your face?'

‘Oh.' Nic pushed her blond fringe up. ‘Here . . . and here . . . and here,' she said, pointing to her forehead, the gap between her pale eyebrows and her crow's feet, except that she didn't have any and her forehead looked baby smooth.

‘Hmmm,' said Evie disapprovingly. ‘You didn't need it. It's injecting poison into you. Gross.' She wrinkled her nose. ‘What does it feel like?'

Nic thought for a moment. ‘Well' – she put her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands – ‘I like the fact that the lines have gone but I can't move my forehead at all.' She tried to frown, by way of demonstration, but nothing budged.

Evie giggled. ‘That must feel weird.' She and Becca practised wrinkling their foreheads a few times to check that their muscles were in good working order.

‘And there's another thing,' said Nic. She looked embarrassed. ‘One eyebrow seems to be higher than the other.'

‘What?' said Becca and Evie in unison. They peered at Nic more closely.

‘Look,' she said, indicating. Her left eyebrow did, indeed, seem to have a more pronounced arch than the other.

Evie snorted; she couldn't help herself. ‘It doesn't show,' she lied.

Nic glowered. ‘Oh yes it does. And I'll have to wait three months now for it to wear off.'

‘Good job you've got a fringe,' Becca said seriously.

‘You could always try covering one of your eyebrows up with foundation and painting a new one on to match the other,' Evie said helpfully.

‘Or just shaving them both off and starting again,' Becca added.

Nic shot them a look. Her lips had gone very thin and slot-like.

‘Er, how's your journalism going?' Evie asked, changing the subject quickly.

Nic's shoulders relaxed. The others took a deep breath. ‘I'm stuck doing a piece on the best potties for
Mums
magazine at the moment.' She managed to raise her eyes ceilingwards despite the frozen forehead. ‘I do get some turkeys.'