• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1725 0

to it in here, but it was a calm, soothing cabin; the only vestige of Jean's reign of terror being the old radiator in the corner, which hissed and spluttered, rather fittingly, like a ship's engine. Years ago, on Jean's days off, Malcolm and I would sneak in here and huddle around that radiator, daring each other to tuck into her secret stash of Walnut Whips in her bottom drawer. Malcolm would read out the problem page from her Tea Break magazine, mimicking her Sybil voice, and then answering in Basil's voice as the agony aunt, until I thought I'd burst, laughing. Best days of our lives. It was tidy now, which it never had been during Jean's chaotic regime. No unpacked boxes and books littered the floor, for Malcolm was supremely organized, and everything was dispatched tout de suite onto the shelves the moment it arrived: no backlog in this cabin. Just a simple cream rug on the polished wooden floorboards, and everything shipshape and tidy.

Malcolm broke the silence: ‘You've got the love of a good man, Evie, even if it does come with complications. Hang on to it. Don't doubt it now, just because you can. Because you think you've got just cause. It's a precious thing.’

I swivelled around slowly in my chair to look at him. Gave a tiny nod. I knew he was right. The voice of truth. Knew he was speaking from the heart too, as he gazed up at his map of Ancient Europe. Knew he'd give anything to have Didier back, his partner of four years, who'd been his lover, his soul mate, his everything, but who'd gone back to Montpellier, supposedly for a holiday, nine months ago, and never returned: had seemingly disappeared into thin air, not responding to calls, emails or letters. Malcolm had gone out there to look for him, and when he'd finally tracked down his village in the hills outside Aubais, had been met with the hostile, black eyes of his parents, who, peering round a door revealing a room heavy with crucifixes, had said that Didier was well, but married now. A baby on the way.

‘It's not true,’ Malcolm had gasped to me, when he'd returned, grief-stricken and brimming with tears. ‘It's so not true.’

‘Of course it's not,’ I'd murmured, holding him tight. I was inclined to agree, knowing Didier as I did. This was surely a big fat lie, but what could we do? Malcolm had gone back to France again and again, and finally found a girl purporting to be Didier's wife, with a very sour face, and no baby. ‘Ees gone,’ she'd hissed at him, those same black eyes. ‘Ees not here.’

Hope had sprung eternal for Malcolm, but then – despair. A trail of boyfriends.

‘Any word?’ I asked tentatively, now.

‘No. Well, a bit, I suppose. More of the same. He's moved on from the matador who ran with the bulls in Aubais, and is now apparently living near Biarritz with a toreador. Gone up in the bull world.’

‘Oh. I'm sorry, Malcolm.’

He shrugged. ‘Olé to the lot of them, I say. It happens. Shit happens.’ He gazed at his map, then back at me. ‘Which is why I say, Evie, hang on to what you've got. Spare Ant your righteous indignation – which of course you have every right to feel, but which he doesn't deserve. He made a mistake. There were consequences. He has to deal with it. Help him. Don't fight him.’

I swallowed. He was right. As he usually bloody well was. And I'd do that, I determined, when I got home. Later. I'd let Ant talk to Anna, and then I'd help too. We'd sit down as a family, as an adult family. Talk about it, about our fears and – yes, I'd express mine. Say I felt threatened, and they'd say, of course you do, Mummy, and then we'd hug big hugs, and we'd be like one of those right-on families in daytime TV dramas, Hollyoaks or whatever. And there'd be a moral in it. And we'd be stronger for it.

‘And maybe,’ I blurted out, ‘well, maybe Stacey and Isabella could become friends? Maybe we could all help each other?’

‘Easy, tiger,’ said Malcolm nervously. ‘There's a way to go before you're all holding hands and heading off to Center Parcs together. One step at a time, sweet Jesus.’

I nodded, but straightened up in my chair a bit; a regrouping