Forgive Me (16 page)

Evening came, and as it gradually grew
darker she felt panicked that she would soon be plunged into complete darkness again.
Later she heard people calling out to one another when the pub closed, car doors banging
and the
sound of them driving away, then silence fell, broken only
occasionally by the tapping of heels on the pavement.

The night seemed endless. The inflatable
mattress seemed to be going down and she couldn’t get comfortable. At one point
she thought of going out to her car and driving somewhere. But where could she go in the
middle of the night?

She was still awake at dawn; pigeons were
cooing somewhere close by and she knelt up at the window, watching the sky gradually
grow lighter. It had stopped raining and she recognized the climbing plant on the back
wall of the yard as a clematis, because a few white flowers had opened up. In the
half-light it looked pretty and it stirred something inside her, a feeling that if a
plant could survive without anyone caring for it, so could she.

When she went downstairs to find tea, milk
and sugar, the sight of all her things dumped in that dark dungeon of a room nearly sent
her running back upstairs to bed again. But she forced herself to find a mug, some tea
bags, and to sniff the milk to check it hadn’t gone off. Fortunately it was so
cold in the room that it hadn’t. She also found some biscuits – which reminded her
she hadn’t eaten anything for two days.

Two mugs of tea later, she sat up on the bed
with a notepad and made a list of things she needed. The first priority was getting the
electricity put back on. She dug out one of the old bills addressed to the previous
tenant and found a telephone number on the back. She thought she would ring that when
the offices opened, and give them the present meter reading.

There was so much she needed. Plates,
cutlery, saucepans had all been provided in Crail Road and she hadn’t any of her
own. She’d have to get some boxes to put her clothes in, and one to keep food in.
And then there were candles and a torch, just in case it was a few days before she had
power.

But it was the boarded-up window downstairs
that worried her most. How much would that cost? How would she know she wasn’t
being ripped off? Without a job her money wasn’t going to last very long. Should
she ring Olive and tell her what had happened, and perhaps go back to Cheltenham and
stay in a bed and breakfast?

Cheltenham was a small place, though, and
someone who knew Tod was bound to see her. Besides, it was a matter of pride not to go
running back there, defeated. She would find a job here in London, get the house fixed
up somehow and prove to herself she could be strong and manage alone.

Did she have to ring Olive? Why not just
write her a letter? She was more than likely to start crying the minute she heard
Olive’s voice. How would she be able to explain properly then?

But she owed Olive a great deal; she’d
been there for her when no one else had. She also knew her boss would think Eva was
spineless by not speaking directly to her. She would have to ring, even if she
didn’t want to.

As it began to get dark on Tuesday evening
Eva was feeling a bit better. The electricity company had promised the power would be on
again in the morning, and for tonight she had candles and a torch.

Speaking to Olive had helped far more than
she had expected. As always, Olive had been very blunt and told her in no uncertain
manner that a broken two-week-old romance might hurt, but it wouldn’t kill
her.

‘I know you feel used and forlorn, but
better you discovered his true colours now than in a few months’ time,’ she
said crisply. ‘Now, stop snivelling and tell me about the house.’

She listened patiently to Eva’s story
of what a mess it was.

‘So what should I do?’ Eva said as
she finished her tale of woe and wiped her tears away with her sleeve.

‘You know what you’ve got to do.
Stay there and fix it up. I know it’s a huge challenge, but you are bright and
practical. You’ll find a way. As you said, you can’t let it to anyone in
that state. And if you come back to Cheltenham, how are you going to oversee anyone
doing the work on it? We are all missing you here, and I certainly didn’t want to
lose you as an employee, but it seems to me that fate has stepped in and given you a
chance to prove yourself. I’d be the last person to try to talk you out of
that.’

Eva phoned the electricity board after
Olive, and that was surprisingly painless. Instead of going back to No. 7 afterwards she
walked up to Notting Hill and then went on to Portobello Road, walking around in a big
circle until she came back to Pottery Lane. The fresh air, time to think more calmly,
and also having a proper meal in a cafe, put things back into proportion for her. Her
heart wasn’t broken, just a bit bruised; she had money, and a roof over her head.
She’d got to stop feeling sorry for herself.

Later she drove to a branch of B&Q and
bought some large plastic boxes and a dress rail for her clothes, two five-gallon tins
of white emulsion paint, as well as paint brushes and a roller. While she was in Notting
Hill she’d seen a shop that sold all kinds of china, glass, cutlery and other
household essentials, and she intended to go back there once the electricity was back
on.

Maybe her improved spirits were because she
was warming to the idea of the challenge before her.

There was no doubt that this was an
interesting area to live in. Beautiful houses which were obviously the homes of the
super-rich were cheek by jowl with council flats. As she’d walked down Portobello
Road she’d heard many cockney
accents, along with West Indian
voices, but just as many plummy public school ones too. There were antique shops selling
fabulously expensive heirlooms, market stalls piled with rubbishy bric-a-brac outside
them. Trendy health-food shops jostled between second-hand clothes and displays of local
artists’ work. Every colour and creed were there: a group of black men were
playing steel drums, South Americans were playing pan pipes, elegant girls who could be
top models rubbed shoulders with skinheads, and there were a great many people who
looked like they were stuck in the Peace and Love Sixties.

She had found a second-hand furniture shop
just off Portobello Road that had everything she needed to turn her house into a home,
and the owner had even offered to do her a special price and deliver the furniture free
when she was ready for it.

Satisfied she was tired enough to sleep well
tonight, she pumped up the inflatable mattress a bit more and made a cup of tea.
Tomorrow she would phone around some of the numbers she’d found for window repairs
and get some quotes.

It was something of a surprise to wake the
next morning and find it was after nine. The last thing Eva remembered was wondering how
women back in Victorian times managed to do exquisite needlework by candlelight, as she
couldn’t see to read even with four candles.

To her irritation the milk had gone off
overnight. But as she went to the bathroom to fill the kettle for a wash, to her
surprise she saw the glow of an electric light downstairs.

Despite being alone she cheered aloud, and
the sour milk was forgotten. It was only when she tried all the other light switches in
the other rooms that she found the light bulbs
were missing. With
trepidation she opened up the cupboard on the landing where the immersion heater was,
half expecting that it wouldn’t work. But to her delight a little red light came
on when she threw the switch, and she cheered again.

The thought of being able to have a bath
later lifted her spirits even higher. As she ran around plugging in her hair dryer, a
bedside lamp and even the television, and finding they all worked – albeit there
wasn’t an aerial lead to plug in the television and get a picture – she felt
almost ecstatic.

Within half an hour she was washed and
dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt. She even put on some make-up. She thought she would
have breakfast in the cafe along the road, then walk up to Notting Hill and get her hair
washed and blow-dried because it looked so awful. While she was out she’d ring
some of the window companies she’d got the numbers for yesterday, and also look
out for some job agencies and see what they had on offer.

In the cafe there was a young couple at
another table, looking into each other’s eyes and whispering together. It was a
sharp reminder that such a short while ago she and Tod had been like that too, and a
lump came up in her throat. But she was determined not to get sucked into thinking about
him again, so she opened the paper she’d just bought and studied the job vacancies
while she waited for her breakfast.

Chrissie, the girl who did her hair later,
was warm and chatty and around the same age as her. When Eva told her she was new to
London and looking for a job, Chrissie suggested she go to Kensington High Street to
have a look around.

‘All the big-name shops are
there,’ she said. ‘They always want new people, and there’s lots of
agencies for office work too. Just cross the road and walk down Kensington Church
Street, it’s not very far.’

Eva was pleased with the way Chrissie had done
her hair; it looked so shiny and bouncy and it instantly made her feel more confident.
While she wasn’t dressed for job hunting, she thought she would go and take a look
anyway. She crossed the road and, seeing a cash machine, drew out fifty pounds to tide
her over, then she turned into Kensington Church Street.

It was a busy street of smart restaurants,
antique shops, jewellers and art galleries, reminding her of Montpellier in Cheltenham.
But the shops here seemed to cater only for very rich people, with eighteenth-century
desks and tables, chandeliers, and paintings in ornate gilt frames that looked like Old
Masters.

She was looking at a display of antique
jewellery in a shop window when suddenly someone banged into her. As she staggered to
right herself, she felt her bag being pulled from her shoulder. It was a scruffy-looking
young lad trying to take it.

‘Get off,’ she yelled, clutching
at her bag.

There was a brief tussle but he punched her
in the stomach, making her double up in pain, and ran off through the crowd towards
Notting Hill with her bag.

Despite the pain she still managed to shout
out that he’d stolen her bag. When no one made any attempt to stop him, she
shouted again and tried to chase after him. People moved out of the way, gawping at her
like idiots. But although she yelled out for them to help her, they still didn’t
react and the distance between her and the thief was widening by the second.

All at once a man in white overalls appeared
out of a shop doorway. He looked first at Eva and then at the lad fleeing up the road,
and set off after him in pursuit.

Eva had never seen anyone run quite so fast.
His legs were
going like pistons, then he lunged at the thief in a
flying tackle and knocked him to the ground.

Someone cheered loudly but Eva’s view
was suddenly obliterated by the crowd. She hobbled nearer, holding her stomach, and saw
that the man in overalls had the thief pinned down on the pavement, holding him there
with his foot. When he saw her he waved her bag in the air, and grinned jubilantly at
her.

As Eva reached them her rescuer lost his
hold on the lad, who wriggled away and ran for it.

‘Thank you so much,’ Eva gasped
out. ‘Gosh, you were marvellous, and so quick. My keys – and everything else – are
in the bag. I don’t know what I’d have done without them.’

‘Shame I didn’t hit him harder,
bloody low life,’ the man said. ‘But are you alright? Did he hit
you?’

He was around twenty-five and built like a
rugby player. His dark hair was cropped and his stained white overalls suggested he was
a decorator.

‘Yes, in the stomach,’ Eva said,
still holding it with one hand. ‘It’s winded me. But that doesn’t
matter now, I’m just so grateful to you for getting my bag back. I only just got
some money from a cash machine.’

He looked at her with concern and handed
back her bag. ‘I expect he saw you getting it and followed you. They do that a lot
around here.’

‘It was very brave of you to tackle
him,’ she said. ‘He might have had a knife.’

He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘He was just
a druggy opportunist. I should’ve given him a good kicking, that might have
deterred him from doing it again.’

Perhaps it was the thought of what might
have been if the thief had got away with her bag, money, door and car keys,
her chequebook, and papers that had her address on, but all at once
she felt faint.

‘Are you alright, love? You’ve
gone white as a sheet.’

The man’s voice seemed very far
away.

‘I think it’s shock,’ she
said weakly. Her knees were buckling under her and she thought she might be sick.

She felt his arm going around her for
support. ‘Come with me and I’ll make you some tea. I’m working just
here, I came to the door when I heard the commotion.’

He led her into an empty shop and sat her
down on a stool beside some sacks of plaster. ‘Take some deep breaths, and
I’ll get you some water and put the kettle on.’

The wall that ran down the whole length of
the shop had just been plastered, and it was still wet and dark brown. But it seemed to
be spinning, as if she was drunk.

‘Now don’t you pass out on
me,’ she heard the man say as he pushed her head down between her knees. She felt
him lift her hair from the back of her neck and put a cold, wet cloth on it. She almost
asked him not to mess her hair up, but then realized if she could think of her hair she
couldn’t be in such a bad way.

After a few minutes he put his hand under
her chin and lifted it to look at her. ‘Try drinking some water now, your
colour’s coming back.’

Eva tried to smile. He had a nice open face
with dark brown eyes, and his wide full mouth turned up at the corners as if he was
permanently smiling. His gallantry and kindness on top of the shock made her eyes fill
up with tears. She didn’t want to cry; she was afraid if she started again she
wouldn’t be able to stop. ‘I’ve only been in London two days. Is this
what it will be like? Having to be on the alert all the time?’ she asked him.