The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [107]
‘Have you been here long?’ I asked, limping finally to the wider extremities of my opening gambits, and also, rather gratefully, to a chair she'd pulled out for me at the table. I sat and rested my ankle.
‘Not really, we – oh, coffee!’ she yelped suddenly, rushing to a rather too ferociously bubbling percolator on the side. I gazed at her blue-jeaned bottom as she ministered to it. It reminded me of someone's… oh, yes, Kate Moss's. She poured the fresh coffee.
‘Two years, not long.’ She turned to flash me a smile. ‘We're still settling in, really, and it's quite a change from what we're used to. But we love it here.’
‘You were in the city before?’
‘Well, in the suburbs. Long Haden, d'you know it?’
‘Um, no.’
‘But – well, when we could afford a bit more, I thought, why not?’
She brought a tray of coffee to the table with a plate of cakes, clearly home-made, arranged on a plate, as if any of us could eat a thing.
‘We'd always wanted to live in the country, and we drove out here one Saturday afternoon, didn't we, Stace?’ She glanced across at her daughter but she was deep in whispered conversation with Anna at the other end of the kitchen. ‘Saw this place, and thought, let's have a look. It needed quite a bit of work – still does – and it's probably too big for the two of us, but we fell in love with it.’
She flushed and I flushed and then Ant did too.
Falling in love. Brought up, inadvertently, and really quite early on in the proceedings. I saw Ant watching her as she busied herself with cups and plates, and tried to interpret his look. Found it was one I wasn't familiar with. Or had I just not seen it for a while?
‘Well, I can quite see why,’ I rushed on approvingly, knowing, with an aching heart that I liked this girl, with her quick nervous manner, her obvious efforts to please me, and her blushing highly strung daughter; knew they were entirely my type: the sort of people who, had I met them first, I'd come rushing home to enthuse to Ant about. ‘Oh, you'll love them, Ant, they're a stunning mother-and-daughter act, clever, pretty, sensitive,’ as one does when one is secure in love, in a relationship, knowing they would pose no threat. And this was often the way in our marriage. I was the open gregarious one, the one who made the friends. I'd come home from a school coffee morning or lunch party and say, ‘She's divine, Ant, and he'll be heaven too, I'm sure. Let's have them over for dinner.’ And I'd invite this new couple, and invariably Ant would like them, but from a distance, cautiously; gradually getting to know them in a quieter, less headstrong way. Yes, I always paved the way, did the groundwork. But this time, Ant had done the groundwork. He knew this girl so much better than I did. She was his friend, his ex-lover and I felt the disadvantage keenly.
Suddenly I was determined to rise above it. Something in my character longed to be able to say to him tonight, as we got into bed, ‘Well, she's lovely, Ant, quite splendid. And did you know she's going to start Open University next year? Yes, and the watercolours in the hall are by a friend of hers in Leeds…’ to be the one informed, the informer, the chatty, gossipy one in control, whilst he smiled indulgently and sank back into his familiar role of slightly disinterested husband, in his propped-up pillows, reading Brecht, as I bustled around the room slapping cream on my cheeks, brushing my hair. But I would never be able to tell him about this girl, I realized with a jolt. It brought me up short. Except… he hadn't seen her, Bella, for over sixteen years, had he? She would have changed, and I'd be able to tell him how; fill in the gaps, help him understand