Forgive Me (4 page)

Yet however hard-headed she usually was, she
had a real soft spot for young Eva. The girl acted like she was tough, but Olive knew
that was the armour she hid behind, and underneath she was very vulnerable and unsure of
herself. Nothing could be much worse than being the first on the scene of a suicide. And
if it was your own mother it was hard to imagine how anyone could recover from such a
trauma.

It was nearly three years ago that Eva had
arrived here for an interview, yet Olive remembered it as if it was yesterday.

On her way to her office to prepare for the
interviews she was holding that day, she had glanced at the three girls waiting in
reception and was appalled to see that one of them was a gothic horror. She had thick
black eye make-up, black and purple hair like a rat’s nest, and was wearing a long
scruffy black dress and Doc Marten boots.

Up in the office she looked at all the
girls’ application forms and decided, based on where each of them lived and the
school they’d been to, that the horror was Sharon Oates.

She decided she would interview the other
two, then tell Sharon the position was filled.

On paper the one called Eva Patterson looked
ideal. Good handwriting, school and address, she could type, and she’d had work
experience in telephone sales. It was a little worrying that the only real jobs
she’d had were in fast-food outlets, but at least that proved she had a work
ethic. She also liked the fact that the girl listed her interests as reading, fashion
and sewing.

She buzzed through to reception and asked
that Eva Patterson be sent in. To her utter dismay, the girl who came in was the
goth.

There was nothing for it but to carry on
with the interview.

Yet despite the way the girl looked, she had
good manners. She held out her hand and said, ‘Good morning, Miss Oakley. I had a
look at your catalogue while I was waiting and the clothes you sell are gorgeous. I
really want to work here.’

It was even more astounding that such a nice
voice came out of such a fright. It was well modulated, clear and with a sparkle to it –
all important attributes for someone wanting to work in telephone sales. So she shook
the proffered hand, and asked her to sit down.

She began the interview by asking why Eva
had had so many previous jobs.

‘Because they were all awful places. I
don’t even like eating that kind of food, let alone serving it,’ she said
candidly. ‘I kept moving on, hoping the next place would be better, but they never
were.’

‘But you got five Bs in your GCSEs.
Couldn’t you have aimed higher?’ Olive asked.

‘I got into the mindset that it was all I
could do,’ she replied and hung her head. ‘And I thought having any kind of
job was better than no job.’

‘So what finally made you lift your
sights a little higher and apply for this job?’ Olive asked with a touch of
sarcasm.

The girl blushed, visible even through her
ghastly thick make-up. ‘Because I suddenly saw how low I was sinking, and I was
determined to change my life.’

All at once Olive sensed the girl
wasn’t talking about just the jobs she’d had, but something more. ‘Was
this getting in with the wrong crowd by any chance?’ she asked.

The girl lifted her head and there was a
spark of defiance in her blue eyes. ‘Yes, it was. I was a fool. I let them lead me
around by the nose because I was desperate to have some friends.’

‘And now?’

‘I woke up and realized they
weren’t real friends, and if I carried on the way I was going, before long there
would be much worse coming to me. I want to turn over a new leaf, to get a job I could
love and make something of myself.’

Olive had interviewed dozens of people over
the last ten years but she’d never met any other interviewee who was so frank.
‘What do your parents think of this idea?’

‘I haven’t told them about
it,’ she said. ‘I thought action would speak louder than words. Besides,
I’m doing this for me, and if it does turn out that it makes them proud of me,
then that will be a bonus.’

Olive was reminded of herself at eighteen.
She’d been in one sort of trouble or another since she was thirteen, choosing the
roughest people in the neighbourhood to pal up with as a protest against parents who
ignored her. But the more trouble she got into, the more alienated she became. Finally
they threw her out, and but for her aunt who believed there
was good in
her and took her in, she could well have ended up in prison.

She had a strong feeling that Eva was in
much the same place.

‘If I was to give you this job,’
she said cautiously, ‘would you turn up on the first day in normal clothes,
without all that hideous gunk on your face, and with your hair neatly
brushed?’

She waited, expecting some sort of
protest.

But Eva surprised her. ‘Yes, I would.
You see, when I was waiting downstairs and I saw some of the other girls who work here,
I had a bet with myself that you wouldn’t even interview me because of the way I
look. But you did, and you have looked and sounded interested in me. I appreciate that.
Besides, if I’m going to turn over a new leaf, I need a new image too.’

Olive wanted to laugh, but she suppressed
it. The girl had spirit, and she liked her straight talking.

‘A month’s trial then,’
she said. ‘I do demand a smart appearance, good time-keeping, and politeness and
attentiveness to all the customers. Be here at nine sharp on Monday morning.’

Eva arrived ten minutes early in a neat
black suit and white blouse. Her hair had been trimmed, the purple tinge toned down, and
her only make-up was a little mascara and lipstick. For a moment or two Olive
hadn’t recognized her as the same girl.

That was nearly three years ago, and Eva had
never let her down.

Olive had started her mail-order business
ten years earlier in the back room of a dress shop in Cheltenham. Back then she’d
sold a limited range of fashionable clothes in larger
sizes. Such was
the demand for her clothes that she soon had to expand. Now she employed twenty people
here in a small industrial park just outside Cheltenham, and they used a factory in
Wales to make up their own designs.

Olive knew her success was mainly due to
excellent customer relations. Satisfied customers recommended their friends, so she
always had to be certain her employees understood this.

Eva grasped it immediately. She had only
been working for the company for about six weeks when Olive observed her jotting things
down in a notebook after some of the telephone calls. When asked about it she said she
made a note of the reasons a garment was being returned. If several people had said it
was larger or smaller than standard, or if a colour wasn’t quite true to the
catalogue colour, she advised customers of this.

Olive was impressed, and when she found
there were fewer returns from orders Eva had taken, saving the company money, she
implemented a policy that all new lines should be checked for size and colour. This
information was now given to all the staff manning the phones.

Eva was also excellent at dealing with
difficult customers; she could smooth ruffled feathers, charm the irate and was always
diligent in sorting out their problems. As she was also well liked by all the staff,
Olive had recently promoted her to be in charge of customer services.

But it wasn’t Eva’s value to the
company that Olive was thinking of now; she was concerned about what the tragedy would
do to her protégée. She was likely to be like a ship without a rudder. Drugs, drink,
promiscuous behaviour and dropping out of work were all traps she could fall into.

Olive wished she’d been able to
vocalize her concern better over the phone. She had expressed her shock, and said
that Eva could take as much time off as she needed, but that
wasn’t quite the same as asking if she had someone to talk it over with or
offering a shoulder to cry on.

Olive could only guess at what the girl was
going through. Her father, brother and sister would all be in pieces, and Eva was far
too young and distraught herself to be able to cope with everyone else’s grief.
She just hoped that Eva wouldn’t start thinking she was in some way to blame.

The phone call from Eva had come on Monday
morning, and Olive didn’t expect her to ring again until the following week. But
on Thursday morning of the same week, Olive arrived at work to find Eva waiting for her
in the car park.

She looked as if all the stuffing had been
knocked out of her; her shoulders were hunched and she was very pale. She was wearing a
black trouser suit, one of the company’s best lines, and a pink print blouse
underneath it. Olive assumed she’d called round to give her some idea of how long
she would be off work, but wondered why she felt she needed to dress so smartly for
that.

‘You didn’t need to come
in,’ she said. ‘You can take as much time off as you need. But how is it at
home?’

‘Awful,’ Eva replied. ‘I
wondered if it would be alright to come back to work?’

Olive noted the dark circles beneath her
eyes and knew she hadn’t been sleeping.

‘Are you sure you want to do that?
Don’t worry about losing money, I will make sure you get paid.’

‘It’s not about the money. I
just can’t make it any better for my dad or my brother and sister by being there,
and at least here I feel useful.’ Eva’s voice shook, as if she was
struggling not to cry.

‘Come and sit down here.’ Olive led
her to a bench. ‘Tell me all about it?’

‘Dad’s brooding and
drinking,’ she admitted. ‘Sophie keeps having hysterics. As for Ben,
he’s just terribly sad and bewildered. I don’t know what to say to them, or
what to do.’ She looked at Olive with haunted eyes. ‘Our doctor called round
on Monday morning, and I confided in him about it. He said it’s often like that
until after the funeral. That’s been arranged for next Wednesday, to allow time
for the post mortem to be done. There will be an inquest too. But I think that will be
much later.’

Olive took Eva’s hand and rubbed it
between hers. ‘I sensed three years ago that things weren’t great for you at
home. But you’ve been so happy since you’ve been here, I supposed things had
got better. But had they?’ she asked.

Eva’s eyes filled with tears.
‘They had in some ways. Mum and Dad used to always be on at me, but that got
better when I stopped going out all the time like I used to, and because I dropped the
goth thing. I crept around Mum, doing chores and stuff, so that kept the peace too. But
it still wasn’t great. I often felt I was a disappointment to them.’

Olive sighed. ‘How could anyone be
disappointed in you?’ she said, and she put her arms around the girl and hugged
her to her. ‘You are bright, funny, hard-working and you get on with everyone.
I’m very glad I took you on. You’ve certainly never disappointed
me.’

Perhaps it was because Eva hadn’t
expected to be hugged or praised that she burst into tears. Normally Olive
couldn’t cope with emotional scenes, but her heart went out to Eva and she held
her and let her cry. ‘I meant it,’ she said. ‘One of the nicest things
about you is that you are completely unaware that you have a great many special
qualities.’

‘I’m so sorry to burden you with
this,’ Eva sobbed out,
desperately trying to pull herself
together. ‘You’ll think I’m not fit to be at work now.’

‘I’d rather you were here crying
than doing it somewhere all on your own,’ Olive said.

‘It’s just that at home Sophie
and Dad are making me feel it’s my fault,’ she said, sniffing back her
tears. ‘Dad hasn’t once put his arms around me or said how awful it must
have been for me to find her. It’s like I don’t count for anything. Why did
she do it, Olive? She had everything any woman could want.’

Olive had driven past their house on several
occasions and looked at it with envy.

‘I don’t know, darling,’
she said. ‘Maybe something will come up in the post mortem to explain it. But even
if it doesn’t, you mustn’t think you are in any way responsible. People do
irrational things sometimes and there isn’t always a good reason. But as for your
dad and your sister, I dare say they are just confused and angry, I believe that’s
a common reaction to suicide. But if you need someone to talk to, I’m
here.’

Eva got up from the bench and attempted a
watery smile. ‘Thank you for the advice and the kindness. I’ll remember them
both. But there’s work to be done.’

Olive was impressed that, as bad as Eva was
feeling, she had kept her dignity and remembered that this was her boss she was talking
to, not an aunt or a friend she expected to be able to lean on. So she handed her a
tissue and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Now go and wash your face, put on some
lippy, and get yourself a cup of coffee. Let someone else deal with the difficult
customers for the time being. And when you need more time off, let me know. You will get
through this.’

Later that morning Olive watched Eva talking
to a customer on the phone, and she marvelled at the girl’s ability to
put aside her own troubles and do her job properly. She was very
tempted to phone Mr Patterson and remind him his eldest child needed some support from
him. But of course it wasn’t her place to interfere.

That evening as Eva drove home she felt a
little better for a day at work. It had made her believe she could get through this, and
that the sun would shine again before long.

From her first day with the company,
she’d loved it. It was only twenty minutes’ drive from home, a modern, light
and airy two-storey building in pleasant surroundings, and the other staff were all
warm, jolly people. Her parents had never taken any interest in her work; they never
even looked at the firm’s catalogue, and the implication had always been that it
was a dead-end job. But it hadn’t bothered Eva too much because she was happy
there.