Goodbye Ruby Tuesday (12 page)

‘Do you think we should walk down the whole high street, checking the shops, or go to the places I know she liked last time?’ she asked him, desperately wanting him to tell her what to do, and hating herself for it.

Killian grinned at her, looking behind her to the high street and pointing, ‘I don’t think we need to, look.’

She followed his gaze down the high street, to where she saw a tiny person with blonde fluffy hair carrying a Moroccan style footstool against her chest, stumbling as she tried to look over it to see where she was going.

Evie ran to her, ‘Ez! My god! Are you okay?’ She threw her arms around the little girl, and her treasure, sobbing against her.

‘I’m okay, I was just trying to be helpful. We need more seats downstairs in the gallery. I wanted to show you I could be useful.’ Esme said pointedly, raising her eyebrows at her godmother.

Evie pulled back and widened her eyes, ‘Come on, you know that no matter how big a butthead I’m being, you’re not allowed to wander off. Especially to a massive market in London without telling anyone!’

Esme did look slightly chastened, nodding as she looked at the floor, ‘Okay. Sorry. But look!’ She brandished the footstool, ‘I got a really good deal!’

Evie looked at the beautiful purple footstool, with the seat embroidered with gold and pink thread, edged with little gold coins. ‘It’s beautiful, Ez, really good choice, but…’

‘But I was very naughty, will never go off again without telling you, and you’re not gonna tell Mum because you really respect me as a human and not just as a little kid?’ Esme looked up, smiling hopefully at her godmother.

‘God, she’s good,’ Killian laughed, drawing Esme’s attention.

‘Why are you here?’ she frowned.

‘Killian very kindly agreed to help look for you when I turned into a panicking, crying mess,’ Evie said pointedly, raising her eyebrows.

Esme patted Evie’s shoulder sympathetically, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just tired of people treating me like a kid.’

‘You
are
a kid,’ Killian snorted.

Esme frowned at him, looking up in irritation, ‘Not your monkeys!’

Killian tilted his head at Evie, waiting for an explanation.

‘That old saying? Not my circus, not my monkeys? I think Esme is pointing out that you don’t get to decide how people treat her.’ Evie sighed, ‘But I’m very tired of being scared and worried and arguing, so how about we go home now?’

Killian held out a hand to Esme, ‘Would you like some help carrying that?’

Esme looked at him with suspicion, and he held up his hands.

‘It’s not because I think you’re incapable, it’s because you’ve been carrying it for quite a while, and I’m trying to be nice.’

‘Ooh,’ Esme looked at Evie, ‘that’s new. Okay. Thanks.’

Killian huffed a little, then took the stool, leading the way back to the gallery, so that the girls could talk.

‘Why’s he being nice?’ Esme whispered, way too loudly, taking Evie’s hand.

‘Because I was a wreck. I was crying and panicked. Ez, I just had to imagine telling your mum that you’d disappeared and we would never see you again. It can be dangerous in a big city!’

‘Okay. Sorry.’ Esme shrugged, ‘But now maybe he’ll stay nice?’

‘Weirder things have happened,’ Evie sighed, squeezing the little girl’s hand, ‘and I’m too tired to worry about them. Let’s go home and eat pizza, shall we?’

***

Evie was back for the summer. Nothing had changed in Badgeley, and all she had was the hope that one of the hundreds of internships she’d applied for in London would get back to her. She could travel in and out during the day. She had gone in to see the local pub landlord, Jason, and lined up a couple of trial shifts as a barmaid. Chelsea’s stepdad had put in a good word for her when he’d seen her around town with her CV. He wasn’t a bad old fella, for a gangster.

On her first shift she’d faced the usual barrage of bullshit from the football crowd – grabby hands and hollering. She was pretty sure she’d broken one of the bastards’ fingers, but Jason shrugged and told her to do what she needed to do, as long as he didn’t get sued.

‘Evie Rodriguez, how the mighty have fallen,’ a male voice called down the bar, but when she looked up, it was only Nigel and he was smiling.

‘All right? Still on the Guinness and black?’ she gestured. Nigel was the first boy she’d kissed, and he had always been there, hovering in the background. He still wore the same sad patterned t-shirts and his skin hadn’t cleared up, despite leaving puberty behind years before.

‘Nah, I’ve been informed that’s a drink for little bitches. Just a regular one’s fine.’

‘Did I say that to you?’

‘Yep, last day of school,’ he laughed at her, ‘you said “Well Nige, it’s been great but I’m off to London to make art and change the world, so I need to let you know to stop drinking Guinness and black, ‘cause it’s for little bitches, okay?”’

‘I did not!’

‘I might be paraphrasing,’ he grinned, leaning forward on his elbows.

‘You might be the only person in this pub who knows what that word means,’ she snorted, handing over his drink.

‘You’re a bit of a snob, you know,’ he said lightly, ‘just because some of us stayed here doesn’t mean we’re worthless. I mean, look at Mollie.’

She looked at him, ‘Mollie’s in Bristol.’

‘Why the fuck would she be in Bristol?’

‘Because she’s studying drama at the theatre school there,’ Evie frowned, ‘do you mean she’s back for the summer?’

‘Have you actually spoken to her since you left?’ Nigel frowned at her.

‘Yeah, texts and stuff. She always seems busy and never really replies… I didn’t want to bother her,’ Evie shrugged.

Nigel rolled his eyes, ‘She’s at her mum’s. Go see her.’

The next morning Evie woke up with a dull feeling in her stomach and walked across the estate. Mollie had been lying to her? Did she not get into theatre school? But she’d seen the letter. All those unanswered texts and simple answers to things. She trudged across and rapped on the door firmly. She knocked over and over until she finally realised no one was going to answer.

‘Hi,’ a voice came from behind her, and she turned to see Mollie, white knuckled hands grasping a pram, in which sat a sleeping, blonde haired toddler.

‘Holy shit.’

Mollie rolled her eyes. ‘You’d better come in then,’ she sighed, nudging her out of the way to move the pram and open the door. The toddler slept throughout the kettle being boiled, Evie twisting her fingers as she sat in the living room that looked so much like her own. Except there were boxes of toys, a drying rack with tiny outfits and a box of nappies in the corner.

‘So…’ she said, taking the cup of tea that Mollie handed her, sitting in the chair opposite.

‘So… which answer do you want first?’ Mollie said tiredly, her eyes checking the sleeping child.

‘Which question am I going to ask?’

‘She’s Jamie’s.’ she said simply. ‘Her name is Esme. She’s a year and a half.’

‘Where’s Jay?’

‘Gone,’ Mollie shrugged, ‘his parents shipped him off after they found out and I’ve never heard anything since.’

‘It can’t have been his choice,’ Evie said stubbornly, ‘he’d do anything for you.’

‘Well, it’s not like I’ve been hard to find, have I?’ she snorted.

‘Actually, when you think your mate is studying in Bristol, you don’t tend to go hang round her mum’s house in case she turns up. Why didn’t you tell me?’

Mollie shrugged, massaging her temples, ‘You were off to a new, exciting life – you and Chelsea and Ruby before that. I didn’t want to hold you back.’

‘I don’t buy it.’

‘I didn’t want the pity.’

Mollie’s gaze was steely and she dared Evie to say anything.

‘So what’s the plan?’

‘Work hard, save hard, give my little girl everything I can, make the most of a mother who doesn’t work so I get the childcare and then get the hell out of here.’

‘To go where?’

‘Anywhere that’s better than here,’ Mollie said simply, sipping her tea, determination in her eyes. Evie visited every day that summer, and even came back some weekends after university started again. Mollie and Esme were the only decent thing that Badgeley had to offer, and she had promised herself she would help them get out too.

***

After making dinner, which Evie couldn’t eat as she still felt so guilty, she set up Esme in her room and checked on her every thirty minutes until the little girl told her to calm down and leave her alone.

Evie focused on cleaning the kitchen, dealing with every small edge and polishing their very few glasses and pieces of cutlery. She washed the floor, and had just started cleaning the oven when Mollie stormed in.

‘What the fuck happened today?’ Her hair was even bigger than usual, the curls having been run through and frazzled with her fingertips.

‘Everything’s fine, we had a little incident
–
’ Evie started, holding her yellow-gloved hands up.

‘Everything is
not
fine Evie, could you stop pretending things are fine! I just spoke to Killian downstairs!’ Mollie flung her bag on the breakfast bar and put a hand on her hip. ‘When were you going to tell me?
Were
you even going to tell me?’

‘You weren’t home yet!’ Evie pulled off the rubber gloves and threw them on the side, not sure if it was the guilt or the fumes that were making her feel sick.

‘You could have called! Left a voicemail, something to keep me in the loop about our lives!’ Mollie’s voice was getting more high pitched.

‘What was I meant to do?’ Evie yelled back, ‘Leave a voicemail saying “Sorry Molls, lost your daughter, oh no, wait, found her again, no worries!” and leave it at that?’

Mollie’s jaw dropped, her eyes widened and she whispered hoarsely, ‘You
lost
Esme?’

‘Very briefly, she wandered off and I found her, and I was going to tell you tonight, look!’ Evie pointed at the bottle of Mollie’s favourite wine sitting on the kitchen table.

‘And when were you going to tell me that we don’t really have six months on the lease?’

Mollie’s voice seemed to echo around the room and Evie felt her heart thump desperately in her chest.

‘I can explain.’

‘For you to hide that from me, to put mine and Esme’s lives at risk just because you wanted to come here and play artist in the city… I honestly had no idea you were so selfish.’

Her light eyes were grey and cold as she shook her head.

‘I can fix it! I promise I can fix it!’

Mollie looked at her like she was a child, ‘You can’t fix everything Evie. Just because you want something to work doesn’t mean it will. I just… I need to not talk to you for a while. I need to figure out what I’m going to do to save my family, because you put us at risk.’

Esme was standing in the doorway, adjusting her glasses, ‘Don’t be mad at Evie Mum, it was my fault. I was bored and I wanted to be helpful, so I walked off to find stuff for the studio.’

‘We’ll talk about it in our room,’ Mollie said, walking across to her daughter and taking her hand, without a backward glance for her friend.

Evie didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t sit inside with that energy and guilt bubbling up as she listened to Mollie’s soothing tones through the door, telling her daughter that Auntie Evie was a failure and a selfish cow, no doubt. And maybe she wasn’t wrong. She stood in front of the canvas she’d worked on the evening before, thinking about how it would be better as a three-dimensional project, made from found objects., but her brain couldn’t hold onto the ideas for long enough to do anything. That sizzling in her stomach, the worry, was overwhelming. She decided to go for a run, probably not the smartest thing to do in Camden at night, but she knew she needed it. It was summer, still light in the evenings, and if something bad happened… well it was probably no more than she deserved.

She ran down the stairs to the studio, checking for the huge key that would thump against her chest if she put it around her neck. She decided to wrap the cord around her wrist instead. The door opened and Killian was standing there, a soft smile on his face.

‘How’s Esme?’ He leaned against the doorframe like they were friends now, but obviously all of this had been a plan to get them out. The sneaky bastard.

‘She’s fine. Her mother is pretty fucking angry with me, seeing as
you
told her the lease was shorter than I said. Using something I said when I was panicked and terrified that I’d lost a child. Nice.’ Evie started to walk away.

‘Hey, I told her you’d just found that out, and you were stressed and to be nice to you. I thought I was helping you out!’ His back straightened and his voice was louder. A small part of Evie longed for the confrontation, to shout at this man and feel better, but she knew it wouldn’t help at all.

‘Sure, of course you wanted to help. When we both know that if Mollie leaves, I can’t do this by myself, and you get your empty studio back, just the way you want. Convenient.’

‘I can’t believe you, I was trying
–
’

‘
–
to use my moment of weakness to destroy the only real family I have. Just because you don’t like to share.’

Killian’s eyes flashed, ‘Well if you were so worried about it, maybe you shouldn’t lie to the people you supposedly love.’

He slammed the door and she was left wanting to scream, to bang against the door and demand he come back so she could shout at him. But the problem was, he was completely right.

Chapter Seven

Evie woke the next morning, unsure of whether Mollie and Esme would still be there. She found a neatly written note in the kitchen.

I can’t find alternative childcare, the only reason I’m letting you look after Esme today. Try not to set her on fire or get her abducted. I will be back in the afternoon. Mollie.