The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [15]
‘Caro too,’ he added.
‘Er, actually, Tim, she wasn't.’
‘What?’
‘Thrilled. I sort of broached it with her yesterday, and she was a bit… you know.’
‘Was she? Well, yesterday was a stressy day, Evie. But don't you worry. You get your horse and we'll give it a home. Anna can come at weekends, get the train over. Caro will pick her up. I must fly now, hon. Got to see a man about a bull.’
I opened my mouth to protest, but he'd gone. I put the phone down guiltily. I'd gone round Caro, hadn't I? Gone straight to Tim. But not deliberately, I decided. I'd actually rung to speak to her, to thank her for yesterday, seek her permission. It wasn't my fault Tim had answered, was it? I got out of bed and reached for my clothes. I'd ring her again later. When Tim had already broken it to her, told her it was a fait accompli, I realized with another guilty pang. Oh dear. But actually, Tim's response was the more natural one, I decided as I buttoned up my new Joseph shirt. The more mature, friendly response. And I'd do the lion's share of the work – I pulled on my jeans – of course I would. I'd enjoy it. I needed a project. I wouldn't ride it or anything, but I could – you know – lead it. In my mind's eye I was already strolling down a country lane in a spriggy summer dress and a straw hat with an old grey mare, flowers in its hair. The old grey mare, not me. And the old grey mare was the horse not—Anyway. Lovely.
Right now, though, I thought, darting round the room, popping in some sparkly earrings, finding my Italian mules, I needed to hustle. Maria would be here at ten to clean and I hated her to find me in bed. I had to get Ant's suit from the dry cleaners and pick up that clarinet music Anna wanted. I had a busy day ahead and I needed to get on.
4
Days passed and Friday found me cycling to meet Ant for lunch, under a cloudless sky, treats from the deli for the weekend safely stashed in my basket, long dark hair streaming out behind me. I'd suggested cutting my hair recently – shoulder length, I'd thought, in a bob – but Ant had been horrified.
‘Why?’
‘Because I'm too old for long hair,’ I'd protested.
‘Don't be ridiculous. It's you.’
He'd looked so upset, I'd left it. But perhaps I should tie it up, I wondered as I cycled behind a lady of a certain age with an elegant grey chignon fastened to her head with pearly combs. She turned left under the arch into Trinity and I smiled to myself. That was what I loved about this city: you never quite knew who you were cycling behind or sitting next to on the bus; a scientist working on the next cure for cancer, or an astrophysicist sending rockets to Mars?
‘Probably some poor devil off to restock the KitKats in the staff canteen,’ Ant would scoff.
‘Nonsense, you can tell. They have that vague, eccentric look, like they don't know what day it is.’
‘Ah, like your mother.’
He had me here. Mum rarely knew what day it was, sported a wispy grey ponytail and a charity-shop wardrobe, yet didn't have a scholastic bone in her body. Felicity, on the other hand, my stepmother, looked like she'd just stepped off a yacht in St-Tropez and was, in fact, a biology professor at Keble.
‘I rest my case,’ Ant would say smugly.
I smiled as I neared the end of their road: Mum and Felicity's. Not that they lived together or anything, but when Dad died, Mum had told her about a house that was coming up at the end of her street. Felicity, grief-stricken, and for once needing a bit of help and guidance, had looked at it and bought it immediately. Yes, odd, I mused, turning into it now as a short cut, how that had worked out. No one had been terribly surprised when, after Tim and I got married – and I do think she'd hung on until then – my mother left my father. They rowed pretty much constantly and had always had a tempestuous relationship, but the marriage really came to a head when, on one memorable occasion, empty gin bottles were thrown, of which, as Tim commented later, there were not a few. Mum had come