The Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliott [74]
Suddenly the blood surged to my head. In one deft movement I hoiked the picture off the wall and marched with it back to the kitchen. Ant had emerged from the utility room and was standing at the sink, hands in pockets, beer unopened, gazing out of the window at the backs of the houses that flanked ours, suffused in dying light. I flung the photo down on the kitchen table. Frisbeed it with such force that the glass shimmied in its frame but didn't break. It just stopped short of sliding off the other end.
‘Take it to work,’ I hissed. ‘Put it in your loo there, look at it as you do your trousers up, or pull them down, or whatever you do, but don't keep it here!’
And with that, fists clenched, and for the second time in not very many days, I marched down the corridor and slammed out of the house.
I fled down the steps to the car, knowing he was coming after me, feeling oddly, like a character in Brookside. Ours was a quiet, ordered household with rituals and routines – school runs, occasional outings to the theatre, opera, friends for supper – and our door opened and shut quietly to those ends. Never had these steps been tumbled down so dramatically, the door slammed so hard, and even in my despair, I felt I was watching myself from elsewhere: from a sofa – a settee even – in a leisure suit, with a can of Coke and a bag of crisps, observing myself with a slightly bored detached air, as perhaps, behind twitching curtains, our neighbours – in a less bored and more riveted way – were watching too, wondering what was going on, who was having the affair, who'd lost their job. It calmed me down just sufficiently, so that as I got in the car and drove off, too fast, and without my lights – stupid Evie, I flicked them on as someone flashed me – I went hot. What was I trying to do, kill myself? Be in Casualty as well as Brookside? Wheeled into A&E on a stretcher, the crash team poised to resuscitate me? I slowed down. And when my phone rang, instead of diving for it stupidly and reading the text, I pulled over and read it. It was from Ant.
I won't go. We won't go. I'll email and say I can't see her. Can't see them. I love U more than anyone in the world Evie. I'm just trying to do the right thing. Struggling to do the right thing. But if it means losing you I can't begin. Please come home. Ant x
I took a deep breath. Read it again. Then my thumb got to work.
Darling. I love U too which is why I'm behaving so badly. I'm scared. But of course you must go, with Anna. And Stacey must have her mother. I WILL get there. I WILL be fine. I just need time. And I need to be alone for a bit. Back soon. LOL Evie xxx
I sat there, in the dark, head back on the headrest, staring at the stars. All of us are in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars. Blimey, another one. I'd say Chrissie Hynde, but Ant would laugh and say Oscar Wilde. I took a deep breath. Let it out. Was there something wrong with me? One minute I was offering tea and biscuits to Ant's daughter, the next I was hurling pictures. It was being wrong-footed that sparked me off. Thinking I was in control, and the next minute, knowing I was so patently out of the loop it sent me careering off track. I added a postscript to my text.
You must tell me what's going on. When you email her, what you are saying, before you do it. It's finding out later and feeling excluded that throws me.
I stared at it. Then deleted it. Too needy. Too… helpless. And yet – why not be needy and helpless? He was my husband, for God's sake, not a boyfriend. But I was going to be strong, remember? Burning bright, like that tiger.
I drove through the city to the other side of town. Down George Street and Broad Street, past the Bodleian and New College, the bells tolling from St Michael's,