Never Close Your Eyes (60 page)

‘Evie suggested the café in the corner of the market place. Eleven o'clock.'

‘Oh,' said Nic.

‘All right with you?' Russell asked.

‘I guess so.'

‘Don't forget it's the April creative writing group tonight,' he went on. ‘Would you like a lift? I can easily swing by. Seven thirty, say?'

‘Thank you.'

‘You haven't had a drink?' He sounded concerned.

‘No.'

Although Russell was a stalwart of the creative writing group, Nic had only really got to know him well in the past couple of months. He'd been kind enough to ring when he'd heard the news about Alan and read some of the lurid headlines about her. ‘If I can be of any help . . .' he'd said. ‘I'm a good listener.'

Well, she'd needed to talk all right and a doctor had seemed as good a person to confide in as any, even if Russell did have rather a peculiar specialism. In fact he was just about the only person she felt that she could open her heart to.

Evie, obviously, wasn't speaking to her and Becca, well . . . Becca had called round one evening about two weeks ago to drop her bombshell, but unfortunately Nic had already consumed the best part of her second bottle of wine.

She'd been drinking practically every night since the bonfire. She'd managed to restrain herself when Dominic was there, but as soon as he'd gone to bed she'd cracked open the wine. Sometimes she'd been able to stick to just one or two glasses, but often she'd drunk herself into a near-stupor. She hated herself for it, but she didn't seem to have the will to stop. She'd been in no fit state to listen to Becca's confession. Nic was ashamed of it now, but she'd actually laughed.

‘It's true, Nic.' Becca's eyes were pleading.

Nic felt sweaty. Trapped. ‘I can't talk about it,' she'd said, swatting an imaginary fly. She wasn't so drunk that she didn't register the look of hurt on Becca's face.

‘Please . . . ?'

‘I'll call you,' Nic had replied, using the arm of the sofa to push herself up. ‘I need to go to bed.'

Since then she'd gone ten full days without booze, not even a glass with her nighttime sleeping pill to knock her out. It was Russell who'd finally brought her up short. She owed him big-time.

‘You'll lose Dominic if you carry on like this,' he'd said a couple of days after Becca's visit. ‘Is that what you want?'

‘No.'

‘He's already lost his father. He needs you, Nic.'

Later, Marie, her oldest friend, had dropped by unexpectedly. The one she'd talked to in Paris that time, who'd convinced her that she wasn't an alcoholic. Marie was a big drinker; her father had died of it.

‘I've quit, Nic,' Marie had said. So she'd had a problem, too. She'd made out that she was fine but she hadn't been telling the truth. ‘I was worried that I was going to end up like Dad.'

Well, the penny had dropped. If Marie had packed it in then she could too. Nic had had her bender. It was time to get sober – for Dominic's sake. She'd started going to AA meetings again. She'd go every night if she needed to. No more excuses. She needed to sort this out once and for all; it was imperative.

She knew that Russell had been in touch with Evie after last month's creative writing group, the March one. Nic had thought about sending flowers, or presents for Freya, maybe. Her fingers had been poised so many times on the keyboard to look up suitable gifts on the internet. But it might seem to them so pathetically inadequate, an insult even. She didn't want to upset either of them more.

‘Go and see her,' Russell had urged. ‘Talk to her. You're friends, you need each other.' He'd had to act as intermediary, though, to set up the rendezvous. Nic was too scared to pick up the phone herself. She took a sip of tea from the mug beside the phone. It had gone cold.

‘Why are you doing this?' she asked.

‘Dunno really.' Russell laughed. ‘Must be mad. I guess I just like you both.'

She put down the phone, walked upstairs slowly and changed out of her jeans into a light-blue denim shirt dress, tied with a belt at the waist, and her flat brown suede boots; it wasn't quite warm enough for sandals. Then she sat at her dressing table and put on some make-up.

She wasn't looking too bad, she thought, pushing her blond hair off her forehead so that she could apply some light foundation. Not considering what she'd been through. Her face was a little gaunt, her cheeks rather hollow, but she seemed to have lost that ghastly, yellowish tinge. Even just ten days without alcohol must have done her some good.

She went back downstairs and checked her watch: 10.05 a.m. She'd better go. She didn't know how often the trains ran to Kingston. Everything took so much longer without a car. She checked through the window; it was drizzling. She put on her beige trenchcoat, a brown canvas hat with a little brim which, she hoped, would act as some sort of disguise, and grabbed her handbag. She had butterflies in her stomach. She felt as if she were about to sit a crucial exam, or attend a job interview. Or both.

Evie was already there, sitting facing the door at a table by the window overlooking the busy market square. She had a cup of coffee in front of her. She looked small and forlorn, Nic thought. Her fair hair was tied back in a ponytail and she was wearing little or no make-up.

‘I hope you haven't been waiting . . . ?'

‘No,' Evie said without smiling. ‘I was early.'

Nic went up to the counter and ordered a cappuccino. Most of the tables were full. She pretended not to notice when the woman making her coffee nudged the waitress next to her in the ribs and whispered something. She was getting used to being recognised. She just hoped they wouldn't cause a scene.

When she returned to the table, Evie was staring into space.

‘How's Freya?' Nic asked, sitting down with her back to the middle of the room, taking off her hat and running her fingers through her hair.

Evie started. She'd been miles away. ‘Not too bad,' she said, looking at her nails. ‘She's changed schools and she's finding the therapy helpful, I think. We all are.'

Nic nodded. ‘I wish I could turn the clock back . . .'

Evie shook her head. ‘Don't. It won't do any good.' She glanced at Nic for the first time, who noticed that there were tears in her eyes. ‘When I was waiting there in that police station for news,' Evie said, ‘I honestly thought I might never see her again. All I wanted was to have her back, hold her in my arms again. I realised that since Neil left I'd thought of no one but myself, really. I failed her big time.'

Nic's eyes pricked, too. ‘You're being very hard on yourself. You should blame me, not yourself.'

Evie's eyes narrowed. ‘I do.'

Nic stirred the froth in her coffee but didn't take a sip. ‘Can I tell you something?' she said at last.

Evie nodded.

‘I don't know how to say this. I don't want to cause you any more pain.'

Evie grimaced. ‘I'm getting used to it.'

Nic took a deep breath. ‘I'm not trying to justify what I did.'

‘Good.' Evie sounded hard.

‘I just want to say . . .' Nic told Evie about the magazines and how shocked she'd been. ‘Alan and I never had a great sex life but I had no idea he was interested in children – until then. And even then I thought it was just fantasy. I didn't imagine he'd act on it.'

She talked about her drinking and how frightened she'd been of losing Alan, that she feared without him she'd sink. ‘I know I was wrong to turn a blind eye. It's something I'll have to live with for the rest of my life.'

She recounted how she'd crept into his study and seen Freya's messages on his laptop. How at that point, she came to her senses and knew what she had to do. ‘If he'd done anything to Freya, hurt her, I honestly think I'd have killed myself.'

Evie was silent. They both were after that.

‘I went through hell,' Evie said finally. ‘Who knows what he might have done to Freya when he'd finished with her?'

‘Sorry's such an inadequate word,' Nic whispered. ‘But for what it's worth, I really am.'

The women stared at each other for a moment. Nic wished that she could open up her soul, spread it out in front of Evie for her to examine, turn over, pull apart. She could do anything to it, so long as she believed that Nic's remorse was genuine.

At last Evie took a deep breath. ‘How's Dominic?' she said quietly.

Nic was grateful. ‘He misses Alan terribly and he's also furious with him.'

‘How much does he understand?' Evie wanted to know.

Nic shrugged. ‘He's nine. You can't pull the wool over his eyes; he understands pretty much everything.'

Evie winced. ‘God, it must be terrible for him. Have you taken him to see Alan?'

Nic shook her head. ‘I won't – and anyway Dom doesn't want to see him. To be honest, he's in turmoil.'

Evie picked at a piece of thread on the cuff of her faded grey sweatshirt. ‘I'm sorry he's having to change school on top of everything else.'

‘It's so hard for him.'

Next, Evie told Nic about Carol's revelation.

Nic swallowed. ‘I'm really sorry.'

Evie waved a hand dismissively. ‘It's minor in comparison with this, with what we've both been through.'

‘But it must have been a terrible shock.'

Evie sighed. ‘I could have done without it,' she agreed. ‘I can't get my head round it, the fact that she's been following me all these years, spying on me.' She hesitated. There were so many issues swimming round her head, jostling with each other for space, such a lot to think about. ‘Becca's told you?'

Nic nodded. ‘It's hard to take in, isn't it? She must have been through hell all these years, hiding a secret like that. It sounds as if Tom is being amazing.'

‘Incredible,' Evie agreed. ‘I'm not sure if I could be so forgiving, if Neil had kept something like that from me. She looked straight at Nic. There were deep creases running from Nic's nose to the corners of her mouth. ‘You were very brave, to do what you did, to call the police. Thank you.'

Nic cleared her throat. It meant a lot, that.

There was another pause. Nic wondered whether to say it or not. She straightened her shoulders. ‘One good piece of news: I'm off the booze again. I'll never go back. That part of my life is over.'

Evie touched her arm and gave the flicker of a gap-toothed smile. ‘Well, thank God for that.'

Evie was pleasantly surprised as she kissed Nic lightly goodbye and stepped out of the café into the market place. The rain had disappeared and the sun had come out. There were quite a few people wandering around without coats. She took off her own dark-brown corduroy jacket and pushed up the sleeves of her grey sweatshirt.

She stopped at a market stall to buy some black grapes for Freya and Michael. Then she popped into a chemist's to buy hair conditioner for herself. All the while she found herself repeating the conversation with Nic in her mind, picking it apart, delving into her subconscious and marvelling at the green shoots of forgiveness that she discovered there.

It was only a fifteen-minute walk to her house and as she strolled up her street she spotted a tall man with silver-grey hair coming out of his house carrying a pile of things which he put in the boot of his car: Bill.

Her stomach lurched. She hung back for a moment waiting for him to finish. He went back into the house, only to come out a moment later with another pile of stuff. Damn. Since he'd dropped the bombshell that he knew about Carol somehow or other they'd managed to avoid speaking to each other. She'd seen him a few times and he'd looked as if he might have wanted to say something. But she'd scuttled off and he hadn't followed.

She imagined that he was too busy with his Ukrainian, who was still a frequent visitor, to bother about her. Evie missed him a lot – but it wasn't
her
job to grovel. As far as she was concerned he was the one who needed to say sorry but he was so arrogant, he probably never would.

She was wondering if she could time it so that he was going into the house again as she scurried into hers, when he turned and spotted her. She was only a few yards from him now. For a moment their eyes locked. She glanced down quickly and clocked that he was carrying a pile of books. He bent down and put them on the pavement in front of him.

When he got up she saw that his red and blue checked shirt was open. His chest had just a small amount of silver-grey hair on it. His khaki trousers, though belted, were falling off his hips and she couldn't help noticing that his stomach was lean and flat.

She looked up again quickly and swallowed. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead.

‘It's hot,' she said unnecessarily.

‘Yes,' he replied. ‘I'm taking a load of stuff to the dump.' He nodded at the books on the pavement in front. ‘Dunno why I've kept these old textbooks. They're out of date.'

‘Oh,' she said.

‘Doing a bit of a spring clean,' he went on. She glanced to her right, through his front door, and noticed that the hallway, once littered with books, was now clear. The wooden floor was a warm, honey colour and there was a little vase of bluebells from his garden on the oak table.

She often peeped out of the window at his back garden; it was a lovely, English cottage garden, full of rambling roses, foxgloves, lavender and hollyhocks at the right time of year. It was much loved but not over-tended, a little bit wild; a haven for birds and butterflies.