Chapter 10 #2
‘They’ve got fillet steak on the menu, Max.
’ When she spoke, Eve’s voice had a sing-song tone she barely recognised as belonging to her, and she kept her smile in place despite the half-hearted shrug he gave in response.
She resisted the urge to reminisce about the night they’d come to this same restaurant – his favourite anywhere in the world he’d told her – to celebrate their engagement, after his proposal at Halfmoon Cove, when they’d been down visiting his parents.
He’d had steak that night and they’d drunk champagne and planned a whole life together, one they’d had so much certainty they were going to have that Eve had almost been able to reach out and touch it.
Neither of them had known that a nightmare was just around the corner and that was something she was incredibly grateful for, because it remained the most perfect day of her entire life.
‘Well, I’m going to have the fish.’ Nigel was smiling now, too, both of them fighting hard to keep things upbeat. ‘If I can’t stop my face from wrinkling, I can at least feed my brain and stop that from shrivelling up as well!’
He laughed and the idea also seemed to amuse Max, making him join in. For a moment, as she listened to the sound, Eve allowed herself to believe that the old Max was back. It might have been his birthday, but that short-lived moment of make believe was her gift to herself.
* * *
After lunch, Annie had suggested that they drive to Port Agnes to take a walk around the harbour there, and Eve had hesitated.
It was less than two miles from the restaurant and only three from the hospital, which was on the outskirts of Port Kara, which meant there was a very good chance of her bumping into someone she knew.
As she’d admitted to Felix, she kept the part of her life that centred around Max a secret for her own sanity.
It was hard enough having to play the role of his fiancée for Annie’s sake, she didn’t want people at work to start asking how he was, or probing deeper into how his head injury had changed things, and maybe even questioning what that meant for their long-term plans.
She couldn’t have answered that kind of question, because the one thing she wanted – for life to go back to the way it had been before the assault – was impossible.
But her second choice of walking away, was never going to be an option either.
So for now all she could do was keep going and hope that fate, or the universe, or whatever it was that had let off the hand grenade in her life in the first place, would take charge again and map out the course of the rest of her life for her.
In the meantime, her job allowed her to play make believe, and pretend that there were as many options for the next phase of her life as people with a valued profession like hers usually had at their fingertips.
That’s why her first thought when Annie had suggested going for a walk was to say it was too cold, but then she’d realised they could just as easily have been spotted in the restaurant and that no one seeing them together would assume she was in a relationship with Max anyway.
The last time she’d tried to hold his hand he’d shoved it roughly away, and another tiny piece of her heart had broken off and floated into the distance forever.
Sometimes it felt as though she was the only person in the world experiencing this kind of pain and she’d spent countless hours, in the first year or so after Max’s assault, searching for information about head injuries like his, to try and find grains of hope.
That’s when she’d found a Louis Theroux documentary, about a woman who’d sustained a head injury after a horse-riding accident and whose husband had described her as having lost all her ‘squishy bits’; the soft and gentle side of her that had given and received physical and emotional affection.
It had felt as though someone was telling hers and Max’s story.
It didn’t make his rejection of her hurt any less, but she’d suddenly felt a tiny bit less alone.
‘I’m seriously thinking about getting a boat this summer, you know.’ Nigel made the comment as they approached the harbour. ‘You’d love that wouldn’t you, Max? The feel of the sun on your face and the wind in your hair. We could go fishing again, like we used to.’
‘Fish stink.’ Max wrinkled his nose and Eve could sense his twitchiness beside her.
She knew that despite it being a beautiful crisp spring day, with a bright blue sky stretching endlessly above one of the most beautiful villages in the country, that Max wanted to be in his room, on his PlayStation or Xbox, lost in a world where he didn’t have to interact in ways that required him to meet anyone else’s expectations.
He’d never been a gamer before the assault, at least not since his early teens according to Annie, but it had become his happy place since he’d moved to Oakwood Park.
‘I think you should get a boat, Nigel. Imagine all the wonderful trips you could take Annie on around this stretch of coastline. I still remember the first boat trip I took when Max brought me down here and I couldn’t believe that turquoise blue waters like that existed outside of an Instagram filter, let alone in the UK.
That first glimpse of Dagger’s Head, rising up out of the water like some kind of mythical sea creature, took my breath away. ’
‘Why can’t you just say you thought it was nice, instead of all that flowery crap?’ Max rolled his eyes.
‘Don’t be unkind, Eve is just trying to—’ Before Annie could finish, Nigel cut her off.
‘What Evie should do is write for the Cornish tourist board, or become a sales rep for the one of the boat building firms.’ Nigel blew her a kiss.
‘Either way you’ve sold me on buying one, Evie, I’m going to get a boat for the summer.
It’s time to seize the day, carpe diem and all that.
It’ll force Annie to take a bit more time to herself, too, if we’re out on the boat together. ’
Eve didn’t miss the look of hope in Nigel’s eyes and she knew he must miss the version of Annie his wife had been, before Max’s assault, not to mention the relationship he’d had with his son. They’d all lost so much, but Annie was already shaking her head.
‘If we’re out on the boat it needs to be all of us together.
As a family.’ She said the last part forcefully, as if it was some kind of solemn vow, and Eve would have sworn she could actually feel her heart sinking.
‘It will be lovely though and so good for us. All that sunshine and time outside is conducive to good mental health. We might even be able to use the boat for the wedding eventually. I saw a bride and groom here last year, arriving for their wedding at the church on the harbour, with a flotilla of other boats behind them carrying all the guests.’
‘Well, we don’t want Evie having to copy anyone else.
When she gets married, it’s going to be the unique and special day she deserves.
’ Nigel looked at Eve then, their eyes locking, and she knew without doubt that he understood.
He wasn’t talking about the fictional day that she and Max would get married and everything would go back to how it had been before.
He was talking about a real event, something he wanted for her, and something he knew would never involve his son.
‘Thank you.’ She stepped towards him, allowing herself to be folded into his arms and he whispered words meant just for her.
‘It’ll all be okay. I promise.’
‘God, this is so boring.’ Max had adopted the petulant teenager tone he frequently used and he looked like one, too, as Eve turned around to face him.
She might not be ready to put a stop to the full pretence yet, but Nigel’s words had given her more hope than she could remember having in a very long time.
She didn’t want Max’s mood to spoil that, so she decided to handle him the only way she knew how, by doing her best to give him what he wanted.
‘It’s your birthday. So you should get to pick what you do, Max.’
As he opened his mouth to respond, Max suddenly stopped and pointed in front of him. ‘It’s Felix.’
Eve spun round with much more haste than she probably should have done, to see Felix, Eden and Drew walking together side by side, with Teddie in his pushchair.
She didn’t want to acknowledge the quickening of her heart rate.
If it had sped up it was just because she was nervous about Eden and Drew seeing her with Max and his family, and uncovering the parts of her life she’d worked so hard to keep separate.
It couldn’t be about Felix, that was a complication she wasn’t going to allow herself to have.
‘Fancy bumping into you guys.’ Felix gave Max a fist bump, before hugging Annie and shaking hands with Nigel.
He didn’t make physical contact with Eve, something she was grateful for and yet somehow bereft all at the same time.
After a quick round of introductions, where Felix tactfully left out the bit about Eve being Max’s fiancée, he turned to look at Annie and Max.
‘How are the birthday celebrations going?’
‘It’s so nice of you to remember.’ Annie smiled, before being cut off again, this time by her son.
‘Boring as shit.’ Max shrugged and for a second Eve held her breath, wondering how everyone was going to react, but then Felix started to laugh and suddenly everyone else was joining in.
‘I know the feeling, mate, I mean imagine being dragged along for a Sunday afternoon walk by your sister and her boyfriend, when you could be spending it getting to the next level on Borderlands 4.’ Felix gave Annie an almost imperceptible nod, but Eve spotted it.
He knew exactly how to handle Max, who was already laughing again.
‘I just wish I’d blown the candles out on my cake so I could have made a wish to be back in my room playing that. What’s the point of getting a new video game for your birthday and then having to wait all day doing other stuff before you can play it?’
‘We’ll take you back now, son, don’t worry and before you ask the next bit, yes, you’ll still get your cake.’ Nigel put an arm around Max, who for once seemed genuinely happy at the show of affection.
‘Eve deserves the biggest slice, she bought the cake and it looks gorgeous.’ Annie beamed at her and Eve’s heart dropped again. The thought of going back to Oakwood Park and carrying on the ‘party’, while Max was sitting with his headphones on gaming, filled her with dread.
‘We can save her a big slice.’ Nigel’s tone was insistent, and he looked directly at Annie, clearly trying to cut off any protest she might make before she even had the chance.
‘Evie’s been working long shifts all week and she needs a bit of down time.
Max just wants to get on with his game, so aside from the cake, I think we can safely say the celebrations are over. ’
Annie opened her mouth and gulped a couple of times, like a fish out of water, but then Nigel took hold of her hand. ‘Come on, we can FaceTime Lily when Max does the cake and we can sing the birthday song. It’ll be just the four of us, like when the kids were little.’
Eve knew all about ‘the birthday song’, it was something Annie had made up to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday to You’, and the words were ingrained in her mind from all the times Max’s family had sung it.
‘We really love you, and you love us too. It’s your birthday darling Maxie, you’re the best son, it’s true!’
The words were tweaked each time for Lily and eventually for Eve, which was how she first became known as Evie, so that it would fit the rhyme.
Max had called her Evie most of the time before the assault, and his family had also used the pet name a lot.
Nigel still did, but Max never called her Evie now and Annie seemed to have stopped as well.
Eve suspected Annie was trying not to acknowledge that Max had changed in yet another way.
If he’d been the only one not to use the pet name any more it would have marked him out from the rest of them.
In the past, Eve would undoubtedly have felt sad at Nigel’s words about it being ‘just the four of them, like the old days’, but instead she was incredibly grateful to him, because Annie was nodding.
‘Okay, if you’re sure, Eve?’ Annie turned to look at her.
‘Absolutely.’ She squeezed the older woman’s hand.
‘All right then, darling, but I’ll save you the slice with the most icing on.’ Annie folded her into another hug. Then, in a flurry of hasty goodbyes, with Max tugging at his mother’s arm like an impatient toddler, they were gone. Leaving Eve standing with Felix and the others.
‘I know you’re probably exhausted from work.
’ Eden gave her a warm smile. ‘But we’re going back to Drew’s place and we’d love you to come over for a bit if you’ve got time.
We barely seem to get five minutes to catch up properly when we’re on shift.
No pressure at all. Although you would save my brother from being forced into spending the afternoon with just us.
Which apparently is just about unbearable. ’
‘Don’t come the wounded party with me, Eden Grainger, you know I was only playing along with Max.’ Felix nudged his sister and she laughed.
‘My feelings are deeply hurt, I’ll have you know. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it.’
‘Yeah, I can tell.’ Felix looked directly at Eve, still smiling, and she should have made her excuses, because the attraction she felt towards him seemed to be getting stronger all the time, but she didn’t.
The truth was, even though she was really tired, she wanted to hang out with them all.
The fact that Eden hadn’t led with a string of questions about Eve’s relationship to Max and his family just made her like Felix’s sister even more.
She trusted Felix when he’d said he hadn’t told Eden about Max, so she must have been curious about the set up.
Maybe she’d worked it out for herself, or maybe she was holding back on a string of burning questions because she’d sensed that Eve wouldn’t want to answer them.
Either way, Eden was respecting her privacy and ironically that was exactly what made Eve far more willing to let down the barrier she’d spent so long building up.
‘I’d love to come over, thank you.’ It was her turn to grin. ‘Anything to help dilute Felix’s presence, I know how tricky that must be to put up with!’