Forgive Me Read online

  Looking out at the backyard, she wondered what it had been like when her mother lived here. She had loved gardening, so it was inconceivable that she hadn’t turned it into something beautiful. Had she sat at this very window with Eva in her arms and planned it all?

  Did she sleep in here with her? Or did she have a bed in the studio?

  Looking up, she noticed there was a trap door in the ceiling, giving access to the attic. She wondered if there was anything in there, and thought she would get the stepladder from the garage later to look.

  Her mind turned to Patrick O’Donnell then. In all the excitement of the love affair with Tod, she’d forgotten about him until now. He’d lived here too. If she was to find him, would he want to know her? But as Flora had thrown him out, the chances were he’d slam the door in her face.

  It was eight o’clock when Eva finally caught the train back to Cheltenham. She was exhausted, filthy and she ached all over, but she felt very satisfied at what she’d achieved during the day. She’d left the bathroom sparkling and the whole house looked and smelled clean because she’d mopped it all the way through with gallons of hot water, cleaning fluid and disinfectant. She’d even cleaned up all the rubbish in the backyard.

  But she didn’t know what to do next. Even if she knew what was involved in getting a builder in to do the work needed to make the house saleable or fit to be let, which she didn’t, how would she know she could trust him? And she didn’t think £7,000 was going to be enough to pay for everything.

  She had picked over the mail that was lying behind the door and found bills from the electricity board, as well as water and rates. They were all red ones, addressed to the old tenant. Would she have to pay them? She’d brought them back with her, and she hoped Tod might know what she had to do. She hoped he’d know what to do about everything.

  Perhaps it was just because she was so tired, but all at once this legacy looked more of a burden than an asset. London was too big and scary for her. She’d got yet another taxi back to Paddington, because she couldn’t face trying to find her way on the tube. But she couldn’t do that every time she went there, it would cost a fortune. How was she going to get rid of all the rubbish in the garage? Until she’d done that, she couldn’t put her car in there – and there were yellow lines on the street.

  When she got back to Crail Road at ten thirty, the house was silent and in darkness, except for one light in the window on the top floor. Tod hadn’t folded up the sofa bed when he got up, but he had made it up after a fashion. She drew the curtains and stripped off to have a shower, hoping that would revive her enough to get dressed up and go and find him at the party. But it didn’t, and the thought of walking down into the town alone so late at night was too daunting. So she made herself some hot milk, left the door on the latch so that Tod could get in when he came home, and got into bed.

  She was woken the next morning by someone talking in the hall. Tod wasn’t in bed beside her, and when she looked at her clock she saw it was nearly ten. She guessed Tod had got so drunk last night that, out of habit, he’d staggered into his own room when he got home.

  Putting on her dressing gown, she went to his room. She knocked, but there was no reply. She showered, washed and dried her hair, put on jeans and a T-shirt and then tidied up her room and dusted. There was a shared Hoover in a cupboard in the hall, and she really wanted to use it but was afraid she might annoy the other tenants who were still sleeping. So she decided to drive to the supermarket and get some groceries and the Sunday paper.

  On leaving the supermarket Eva was still immersed in thoughts about the studio. She was driving on automatic pilot, and found herself turning the wrong way, going towards her old home. When she realized what she was doing, she took a right turn to get back to Crail Road through the back streets.

  As she drove down a street with small houses, to her surprise she saw Tod up ahead, standing on a doorstep.

  Excited to see him, she automatically slowed right down. But as she did so, she saw he wasn’t alone. There was a girl with dark hair, wearing a pink dressing gown and standing in the doorway talking to him. Her first thought was that he’d just called at the house, but as she pulled up some twenty yards away, to her shock he leaned forward to kiss the girl. It was not a kiss of greeting but a full-on goodbye kiss, the kind that followed a night together.

  Her heart plummeted, tears sprang into her eyes and she watched in horror as they clung to each other. A flush of rage and nausea rose up inside her and made her grip the steering wheel so tightly it hurt her hands.

  Tod took a step back from the girl, then reached out and stroked her cheek in a gesture which, even from a distance, was clearly full of tenderness. The girl stepped forward towards him, flung her arms around him and kissed him again. They were locked there, so wrapped up in each other they were oblivious to anyone watching.

  Eva began to tremble. She had put all her trust in him, believed he felt the same way about her as she did about him. Yet he’d gone to bed with someone else the moment she wasn’t around.

  Glancing in her rear-view mirror, she saw another car coming up behind her. If she didn’t move the driver would beep his horn, and Tod would turn and see her. But there was no parking space to drive into, so she had no choice but to put the car into gear and drive on.

  As she passed Tod and the girl she kept looking straight ahead, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Tod look round. She knew he would recognize the car – men always did. She didn’t know why she hoped he wouldn’t.

  At the end of the road she turned left, and then right, tears running down her cheeks. She had no plan of where she was going, she was just fleeing. It reminded her of the evening she’d run out when Andrew told her he wasn’t her father. She had the same thumping in her heart, the same sick feeling, and she knew she must park up somewhere before she had an accident.

  There was a sense of irony when, for a second time that day, she found herself driving towards her old home. For anyone else that would be the right place to go and be comforted, but she wasn’t wanted there either.

  All at once she knew she was going to be sick, and that forced her to pull in. She had barely got out of the car and round to the pavement when she vomited into the gutter. She was vaguely aware of a man mowing his lawn on the other side of his fence, but she felt so terrible she didn’t care what he thought of her.

  Forcing herself to get back into the car, she drove past her old home and out into the countryside. Pulling into a lay-by, she gave way to floods of tears.

  Meeting Tod the night she moved into Crail Road had helped her to feel less lonely and bitter. His friendliness had made her feel she was worth something. Since they became lovers he’d become her whole world, and she’d felt that nothing could ever hurt her again.

  But seeing him with that other girl was like stepping on a trapdoor which opened and plunged her into a deep black hole of misery and worthlessness. She had no idea how she could climb out of it, she didn’t even believe there was a way.

  They might only have been lovers for two weeks, but just the thought of him with another girl was like having a knife twisted in her belly.

  How could he do that to her?

  Chapter Eight

  Putting her head down on the steering wheel, Eva cried great heaving sobs that came from right down in her stomach. She felt such utter despair that she could finally understand why someone would take their own life.

  She tried to convince herself that Tod might not have betrayed her trust and that the girl she’d seen him with was just an old girlfriend who he was being kind to. But she knew that was false hope; no one kissed in the street like that unless they had a love hangover from spending the night together. She knew this with utter certainty because she and Tod had been like that.

  What was she going to do now? He’d become the axis on which her world spun. Without him she couldn’t function, there was nothing left but black emptiness.

  She stayed there in her ca
r, crying for what seemed like hours. She tried to reason with herself that being with him for such a short time didn’t give her the right to expect fidelity and that she was wildly overreacting. But telling herself that didn’t help. She’d fallen in love with him on that first lunch together, and she’d really believed he felt much the same way about her, even if he hadn’t said so.

  It was only a faint hope that she might have been mistaken. But the possibility that she’d just seen someone who looked like Tod made her drive home. As she drove she imagined he was back at Crail Road worrying about her.

  All hope of that vanished when she got in and listened at his door. There was no sound, and no message stuck beneath her door. If he had come back fleetingly, he’d rushed off again to the pub or a friend’s house to avoid seeing her.

  The rest of the day passed so slowly. Each time she heard someone in the hall, she jumped up, only to hear another tenant’s voice or the sound of their footsteps going up the stairs. She couldn’t read the paper or watch television because of her tears. She just lay on the sofa, torturing herself with the image of Tod making love to that girl.

  One of the things she’d loved most about him was that he was kind. He’d been so sympathetic about her mother’s death, he’d cooked for her and made cups of tea. But now even that seemed to be pretence – or surely he’d be concerned about her now? If he hadn’t been serious about her, why see her every night for two whole weeks? If he’d said he wanted to meet up with other friends too, that would have shown her that he didn’t feel committed.

  It was after seven in the evening when she glanced out of the window and saw him coming in through the gate. Without stopping to think, she rushed out and opened the front door to him.

  He looked aghast. That confirmed he had spotted her earlier. He also smelled like a brewery.

  ‘How could you do that to me?’ she said, and began to cry again.

  He took hold of her arm and led her back to her room, shutting the door behind them. ‘You don’t have a monopoly on me,’ he said fiercely. ‘And why were you snooping on me?’

  ‘Snooping!’ she exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t. I took the wrong way back from the supermarket and just happened to go down that road. I thought you were still in bed in your room.’

  He leaned back against the door, folded his arms and looked at her contemptuously. ‘I don’t believe you. Far more likely you’ve been nosing around in my address book.’

  ‘I’ve never even seen your address book, much less nosed into it,’ she retorted with indignation. ‘But if that girl is in it, then you’ve been two-timing both of us.’

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic and needy,’ he said irritably. ‘I’ve never made a secret of having lots of friends. She just happens to be one of them.’

  ‘I’m not needy,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Neither am I being dramatic. How would you have liked it if I went out and slept with someone else?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have minded at all,’ he said airily. ‘That would’ve been a whole lot better than thinking I’d got to be with you seven days a week, just to shore you up.’

  ‘Shore me up?’ she questioned, not really understanding what he meant by that. ‘I never expected you to see me every day. It was you who instigated that.’

  ‘Only because I felt sorry for you.’

  Eva felt as if he’d slapped her. She stared at him in horror.

  ‘I asked you out to lunch that day after your birthday because of what you told me,’ he went on, not even looking directly at her, as if she was just some passing stranger. ‘It was just pity. You’d had such a bad time and I thought I could help you get over it. But you’re too buttoned up and prissy for me, you want someone to fill up all the holes in your life, and I can’t do that. That’s why I said I didn’t want to go to London. I hoped you’d become less clingy if you had something else to focus on.’

  She looked at his face, and all the warmth and eagerness she loved him for was gone. This man had made passionate love to her again and again; he’d talked about the future as if he intended them to share it. But his eyes were cold now and he was wearing the same scornful expression Andrew had worn when she left his house.

  It was unbearable, yet in just the same way that Andrew’s nastiness had stirred up anger in her, so Tod’s cruel rejection fired up the remnants of her spirit.

  ‘You flatter yourself, thinking I need you to fill holes in my life,’ she retorted, willing herself not to cry again. ‘I came back from London really excited by all the new possibilities for me there. In fact I was intending to tell you today that I’m going to move there. I had of course hoped that you would want to share in my good fortune and come and visit now and then. But, silly me, I hadn’t realized what an insincere arsehole you are. You belong in provincial Cheltenham with all those sad people who think you care about them. So bugger off and join them.’

  There was a slight satisfaction in seeing she’d surprised him. He scuttled out like the rat he was, and she slammed the door behind him.

  She leaned back on the door and cried, wishing she could turn off her feelings for him as quickly as she’d made that hasty declaration. She hurt so much inside that she felt she could die from it.

  Putting some music on drowned out the sound of her crying, but there was nothing she could do to fix her broken heart. His insulting words kept milling around in her mind, ‘dramatic and needy’, and what did he mean by her being ‘buttoned up and prissy’? Was it the way she looked, the way she was in bed, or did he mean she was dull company?

  But even worse was the thought that while she’d been weaving rosy daydreams about them being together for ever, he’d seen her as some fragile loony that had to be watched over. That was so insulting.

  She saw him going out again at eight; he had his suit on, and that meant he was going somewhere smart, perhaps with the girl she’d seen earlier. That was the final blow.

  It was a little later, almost nine o’clock, when she began to pack up her things. She had no choice but to leave. To stay, seeing his face, hearing his voice, would just be too painful. Besides, she wasn’t going to look even more pathetic by not sticking to what she’d told Tod she was going to do.

  Her belongings seemed to have multiplied in her time here, and she had to take more care packing them into her car. She also had to be quick – the last thing she wanted was to still be here when he returned.

  Stripping the bedding was the worst part; there was still a faint smell of him lingering on the duvet and pillows. But she bundled them into a bin bag and pushed it down hard behind the driving seat.

  By ten thirty the car was packed and she returned once more to the room for one last check. As she looked around she saw she’d made no lasting impression on it; the room was just as bleak and forlorn as when she’d first arrived three weeks earlier. Even the love she thought she’d found here was just a mirage.

  As she drove away towards the M5 her eyes kept welling up with tears, but she brushed them away angrily.

  By the time she reached the M4 there was little traffic on the motorway. She wondered if there was anyone else out there in the darkness, fleeing to another town because of heartbreak. But even if there was, she doubted they were going to such an unwelcoming destination as she was. No electricity or hot water, and if she hadn’t bought the inflatable mattress she would be sleeping on the floor. Would she even be able to find her way to the house? She hadn’t got a map – all she knew for certain was that the M4 went through West London.

  What was Olive going to think when she didn’t turn up for work tomorrow? She supposed she’d have to phone her. But what would she say? Somehow she knew her boss wasn’t going to think being dumped was a good enough excuse for running away without giving notice.

  It was nearly midnight when she saw a sign ahead which said the next junction was for Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush. Knowing Shepherd’s Bush was very close to Holland Park, she turned off there and followed the signs. She went the wrong way at S
hepherd’s Bush Green and stopped at a garage to ask directions, then turned round and got back to Holland Park Avenue. It all looked so different by night, but after a couple of wrong turns she saw The Prince of Wales and Pottery Lane.

  By day Pottery Lane had looked inviting, but now under yellowy street lighting it looked faintly menacing. Pulling up close to the front door, she unloaded the car and then drove down the lane to find somewhere to park without yellow lines.

  By the time she got back to the house it was after one, and on realizing that she hadn’t had the presence of mind to get candles or a torch, she began to cry again. The house didn’t smell evil any longer, but the image of maggots and filth was still in her head and she was scared. Fumbling around in the dark, she eventually found the camping gas ring with the matches beside it. She lit it, but as the blue flames lit up the graffiti-covered walls she felt even more frightened.

  Holding the gas ring in one hand, she carried the bag of bedding upstairs to the little bedroom where she’d left the new inflatable mattress, and set to work pumping it up. That made her cry even harder, because when she’d bought it she’d imagined doing this with Tod, laughing at the grimness of the house, and Tod throwing her down on the mattress to make love to her.

  She wanted a hot drink, and she realized she hadn’t had anything to eat since first thing that morning when she’d had a slice of toast. But unable to face going downstairs again and rummaging through bags of stuff to find biscuits, tea bags, milk and a mug, she made up the bed as best she could, tried to ignore the smell of Tod on the duvet, stripped off down to her underwear and crawled into it.

  Tired as she was, sleep wouldn’t come. The inflatable mattress felt very strange and smelled of rubber. Her mind flitted from imagining all kinds of creepy-crawlies in the room, to Tod with that other girl. This house might belong to her but it felt like a Dickensian prison, or one of those awful places where glue sniffers gathered, and she felt so terribly alone and afraid.