Cover Your Eyes (13 page)

‘Yes,' she said now to Megan. ‘That's partly true. If I'd been shown this flat when I was young then maybe I'd have had the energy and the incentive to work on it. Fix it up. Fill it with so many beautiful things that it might have been all right. But as it is,' she smiled, ‘I don't have the energy. I don't feel like decorating. I want … well, what I really want is to stay in Salix House but if that's not going to be possible, then I want somewhere I can walk into and say: this is lovely. I don't need to do anything except move my own things into it.'

‘I see that,' Megan said. ‘I know what you mean. This is a bit …'

‘Ghastly,' said Eva. ‘That's the word you're looking for.'

‘You sound quite cheerful, Eva. Doesn't it depress you, seeing places like this?'

Megan was whispering to spare the feelings of the estate agent.

‘It does make me feel oddly cheerful,' Eva said. ‘I mean, it's so awful that I know Rowena wouldn't make me come and live in it.'

‘Well, ladies,' said the estate agent. ‘Have you had a good look round?'

For a moment, Eva considered saying something bland and non-committal. Then she changed her mind and decided to put the young man out of his misery.

‘I'm afraid this isn't the kind of flat I'm looking for. Not at all. I'm sorry you've had to come and meet us here for nothing. Thanks very much for showing us round.'

‘Well,' the young man looked at her in surprise. He was wearing a badge that said his name was Nigel Farron. ‘We have a great many other flats on our books. You've only got to say what it is you are looking for and I'm sure I can find you at least half a dozen properties that will be just the thing—'

‘Then that will have to be on another day, I'm afraid. We have to go now. We're meeting my daughter for lunch. I'm sure she'll be in touch with your firm very soon.'

Their escape from the flat was very swift indeed. Before poor Nigel could regroup and say another word, Eva and Megan had made their way down in the (inadequate and faintly smelly) lift and out on to the street.

‘I've rarely,' said Eva, waving at Nigel Farron as he pulled out in his car with almost indecent speed, ‘been happier to be out of a flat in my life.'

‘Yes, you're right. Of course you're right. It's like a student flat, really. I suppose I wasn't as shocked as you because lots of my friends in London live in places like this.'

‘I know. I know. I'm being fussy. Other people don't have the luxury of such fussiness. They're short of cash, they're at the mercy of the landlords and so on. I will have the means to live in a much nicer place, once Salix House is sold.'

‘Rowena says Luke Fielden's interested in it. He really does seem to want to buy it.'

And are you interested in Luke Fielden? Eva wondered, but did not say. The story she'd told in the café was horrifying. Poor thing. It was a lot to have to deal with. Eva could see that Megan was feeling a bit better now, but she knew from long experience how hard it was to get rid of guilt. However much you tried to push it to the furthest corners of your mind, it was still there. Look at me, she told herself. I've lived with it for more than seventy years. Poor Megan! Should I tell her what I did? Eva said nothing. The habit of silence had been too deeply ingrained in her and besides, the fact that someone else has done something terrible – or thinks she has – doesn't alter what you think about your own mistakes.

She said, ‘Megan, I've had enough of standing around looking at flats. I told a lie about lunch and now we ought to go and make it true. Let's go and find somewhere nice to eat.'

‘Do you have the energy to go and see another one?' Megan asked as they finished up their meal. ‘This one is very close by, if you feel up to it.'

‘I'm up to it,' Eva said, trying to sound as keen as she could. She was perfectly sure that this one would be no more suitable than the last but if you could lift your mind away from your own predicament: that of facing old age in a place you hated and that was nothing like the home you loved, then there was a kind of gruesome pleasure in seeing just how horrible a home could be. She said as much to Megan, who nodded, so they paid up and walked to the address they'd been given.

‘At least there won't be an estate agent to deal with here,' Megan said. ‘It's a Ms Clifford, apparently.'

‘She'll be older than I am and the flat will smell of dog and there'll be dried-out pot plants everywhere. You'll see.' Eva tried to make light of it, but she could feel herself growing more and more anxious as they approached the front door. The house was Victorian and not very well maintained. The paint on the front door was faded and scratched. You had to press one of six buttons on a silver intercom panel to get inside. The name
Clifford
didn't inspire confidence. It was written in scribbly pencil on a torn piece of paper which had then been stuck into the available space on the panel.

Eva was on the point of saying:
Let's leave it
, but Megan had already pressed the button and a tinny voice told them to take the lift up to the second floor as the door buzzed open. Eva didn't pay any attention to the lift beyond noting that it smelled revolting.

Ms Clifford turned out to be a blonde, wispy woman with a toddler clamped to her side. The child looked well cared for but was nevertheless whining loudly enough to make speaking difficult. This, Eva reflected, may turn out to be a blessing.

‘So sorry about this,' said Ms Clifford. ‘And do call me Betty. She's off nursery today. Don't know what can be wrong with her, but you go ahead and look at the place and I'll keep out of your way. That's always the best, isn't it?' She laughed as though she'd made an amusing remark, but Megan was smiling at her and saying yes, yes, looking around alone was always easier. Eva drifted towards the bedroom and let the two young women go on talking.

She didn't need a second opinion. Betty Clifford wasn't the best housekeeper in the world and the state of her bedroom depressed Eva more than she could say. It wasn't a question of money. If you had taste and knew how to clean things, you were well on the way to a perfectly decent house. Taste … that was the thing. Who decided what was good and what wasn't? Eva had no idea. She only knew that rayon curtains in a shade that was exactly what Antoine used to call ‘mustard if you're feeling kind and shit if you're not', at windows that were far too small for the proportions of the room were not a good look. The paintwork was pink, which made everything worse. The room she'd just left was a combined sitting room/dining room. The kitchen was in an alcove that would be clearly visible if you were, say, watching the television. No. A thousand times no. Eva glanced into the bathroom and shuddered and closed the door firmly on a panorama of drying nappies strung out on a pulley above the bath. She breathed deeply so as not to lose control of herself and faint. In the sitting room, Betty and Megan were chatting. The child was still whining: a thin, droning sound like a disheartened bee.

‘Thank you, Betty,' Eva said in the tone she sometimes used in the old days, when she was annoyed with any of her staff. ‘I've seen what I need to see. We should be getting along now, Megan.'

‘Oh. Right. I s'pose we should,' Megan said and followed Eva out of the flat.

Once they were safely in the car and on their way back to Salix House, Megan said, ‘I know, I know. It was dreadful, right?'

‘Worse than dreadful. Throat-cuttingly horrible. Oh, this whole thing is a nightmare, Megan. I don't know how it's going to be resolved.'

Eva steeled herself for some cliché, but Megan didn't say a word.

‘Thank God you didn't say anything along the lines of:
you'll find the right place eventually
. I think I'd have screamed.'

‘I nearly did say that. Glad I didn't now, as it turns out.' She smiled at Eva. ‘But you know, you probably will. Find somewhere nice. In the end.'

‘If this goes on I'll be dead before I do.'

Megan laughed as though this was a joke. She doesn't realize, Eva thought. Nobody realizes how hard this is for me.

‘I'm serious,' she said. ‘I sometimes think I'm more attached to my home than most other people because of … my history.'

‘I know a bit about that,' Megan said, as the car joined what looked to Eva like an endless line of slow-moving traffic. ‘I know you had to leave your home when you were very small. That must have been so awful. I find it very hard to imagine it.'

Eva looked down at her knees. ‘It was. We had such a lovely home, when I was small. I may be making up most of my memories because I've had years to think about it, and it's quite likely that I'm embroidering or misremembering to suit myself. Things like the dark furniture in my parents' flat. The room I shared with my sister—' Eva's hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my God.'

‘What is it? What's wrong?' The traffic was crawling so slowly now that Megan was able to turn her head and speak directly to Eva. ‘You're as white as a sheet. Are you ill?'

Eva shook her head. ‘No, but I can't believe—'

‘What?'

Eva brought her hands to her face and covered as much of it as she could. Megan was speaking and Eva didn't hear the words, only the sound of her voice, which seemed to come from a long way away. How could that be? She was there, right next to Eva in the car.

‘What's wrong? Please, Eva, please tell me.' She paused and then continued as if a thought had just occurred to her. ‘I shan't tell a soul about this if you don't want me to. Not a soul. I swear.'

‘Oh no, you mustn't tell anyone. Promise me. Promise me that.'

‘I do promise. I have promised.' Megan was smiling. ‘What's wrong, Eva?'

Eva shook her head. ‘I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me. Can we just forget it? Forget I ever spoke about my home. Please?'

‘If you like,' Megan said. ‘Of course.'

The traffic began to flow more freely and for a few minutes there was silence in the car. How did I do that? she wondered. How could I let that slip after more than seventy years? And why had it come out now, when she was with Megan? She wasn't family. Maybe, she thought, it's precisely because she's not so close that I said it.

‘Eva?'

‘Yes?'

‘Are you going to tell me what happened?'

The traffic had thinned. A sleety rain began to fall and Eva stared out of the window at water racing down the pane in diagonal lines.

‘If I tell you, you won't say anything to anyone. Not ever, do you swear?'

‘I've sworn and promised already, Eva. You can tell me, you know. It's not as though you've committed a crime or anything.'

Eva laughed. ‘I have though. You don't know—'

‘Then tell me.'

Eva stared at her lap. ‘I came to England in 1938 on the
Kindertransport
. I was adopted by Agnes Conway. You know that. Everyone does, I think. What no one knows because I've never breathed a word to anyone is that I didn't set out by myself. My sister was with me. Angelika. I find it hard to say her name because I haven't spoken it for decades. Angelika.'

Eva waited for Megan to exclaim, but she was gazing at the road and said nothing. She went on, not sure how much to tell. ‘Angelika didn't come to England. She … she was left behind in Germany and then after the War, when Agnes started to look for my parents, they weren't to be found. You can probably guess what happened to them.'

‘Why didn't Angelika come with you? What happened?'

‘I left her behind. I got on the train to Holland without her and she stayed in Germany and …'

‘By accident?' Megan turned her head briefly to look at Eva, who didn't answer at once. Then she said, ‘I'm not sure. I can't be sure but I think not by accident. I think … well, I feel I ought to have told someone. Done something. As it was, she was left behind and I killed her. As good as killed her.'

‘But you were only four! Four-year-olds can't be held responsible.'

‘But it's not just that. I never told anyone, you see. Not when I was four, nor fourteen, nor twenty-four. I've just wiped Angelika and all memory of her as if she'd never existed. I knew I was guilty of leaving her there. I knew it in some way even then.'

‘But that's even younger than Bridie is now! Surely you wouldn't blame Bridie for doing something like that?'

Eva nodded vehemently. ‘I would. I certainly would. If Bridie left Dee in a place which she knew was dangerous, then yes, I'd blame her. I might decide not to punish her, but yes, she does know enough to know about danger and leaving her sister alone to face it. And I knew that. I knew we had to look after one another. My mother was always saying:
You've only got each other. Be good to your sister.
Things like that. And that's one kind of crime and another that's even worse is my not having mentioned Angelika's existence. Even if leaving her there was accidental, what do you call neglecting to mention you even had a sister for more than seventy years? Isn't that disgusting? Unnatural?'

‘Eva, it was a terrible trauma for you, no wonder you tried to shut it out. And you've mentioned her now to me and nothing bad has happened. Maybe you even feel better. Why don't you just tell Rowena and everyone what happened? I don't think any the worse of you, I'm sure they won't.'

Eva shook her head. ‘No. No I can't. I couldn't. Please don't try and make me … I'm so … I'm so ashamed!' The tears she'd been trying to hold back since she began to talk fell now and she brushed them away with her hands.

‘God, Eva, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me. Of course you feel dreadful and I'm not going to say a word. If you can't bear the thought of telling anyone then of course you shouldn't.'