Chapter 30
Eve prepares herself carefully. Neutral T-shirt and skirt. Denim jacket. Hair up. She wants to look correct, but not as if she’s too worried about her appearance. ‘Why don’t you come?’ she asks Philippa, when she passes her on the stairs.
‘I’m not comfortable in a church. Not really the team I play for.’
‘Right.’
‘You have a good time though.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Expect you late, then. Or maybe tomorrow…’
‘Philippa—’
‘Kidding. I’ve wrapped you a sandwich, so you don’t have to go to the pub on an empty stomach.’
‘Bless you, thanks.’
‘We are blessed, aren’t we, Pye? I had a call from Tom, at the hospital. He’s feeling groggy but OK. The big worry is infection. They don’t think there’s likely to be any, but they want to be sure. That’s why they’re keeping him there.’
‘Good news, then. Overall.’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
Jack comes for her at seven, and is smirkingly admitted by Philippa.
Seeing that she’s in a mischievous mood, Eve grabs her bag and hurries Jack out of the house.
Outside, it’s warm, with the light fading.
Jack seems to be in no hurry to reach the church, and clearly feels no compulsion to make small talk, so he and Eve make their way along the pavement in companionable silence.
The church is cooler than outside on the street.
There are perhaps thirty people in the pews, none of whom Eve recognises.
A printed sheet lists the pieces to be sung.
The names of the composers – Byrd, Tallis, Taverner – are unknown to her.
There are six singers, four men and two women, and when the first piece starts, Eve feels a prickling sensation on the back of her neck.
Something in the soaring, intertwined voices touches her deeply.
It takes her back, like the chalk hills and the butterflies and the birds-foot trefoil, to a half-remembered childhood self.
Where did she go, that awkward, uncertain, free-spirited soul?
The programme lasts for fifty minutes, and for all of that time Eve is barely conscious of taking a breath.
The other listeners seem similarly rapt.
At one point she reaches into her bag for a tissue, and when her fingers encounter Philippa’s sandwich in its greaseproof paper, the tiny crackling sound makes her freeze.
As they leave the church Jack glances at her. ‘What did you think?’
‘Mmm.’ She nods, not quite trusting her voice.
‘Is that a yes?’
‘Yes.’
He leaves it there and steers her from the churchyard with a touch on the shoulder.
‘I loved it,’ Eve says. ‘Thank you for asking me. It was beautiful.’
‘It heals the spirit,’ Jack says, and something in his resolute smile twists her heart.
‘Do you mind if I eat my sandwich on the way to the pub?’ she asks. ‘We can share it, if you like.’
He grins. ‘Go on then.’
She divides the sandwich in half. Cheddar cheese and slices of pink onion. ‘Just as well we’re both having some.’ She hands Jack his half. ‘No one else’ll come near us.’
The White Hart’s busy. ‘Why don’t you sit?’ he says. ‘I’ll get the drinks. And choose them, if that’s OK?’
‘Sure,’ Eve says, surprised. ‘Surprise me.’
She lowers herself into a banquette, still savouring the weightless happiness that the music has bestowed on her. Life, she decides, is a mysterious thing.
Jack returns with two pints of something dark.
‘What’s this?’ she asks suspiciously.
‘Try it.’
She does so. It’s sharp and dizzyingly strong. ‘You’re kidding me, right? Snakebite? Guinness and cider?’
‘I thought you’d like a blast from the past.’
‘God, I haven’t tasted this since forever.’ She sips. ‘It’s not bad, actually.’
‘Said to be a guaranteed knicker-dropper, back in the day.’
‘Yes, we girls were well aware of that.’ Eve grins, and a small black-and-tan dachshund races across the floor and starts to bark at her. ‘Oxana hated dachshunds,’ she says. ‘It was one of her things. Her many mad things.’
‘Who’s Oxana?’ Jack asks.
Eve sits stock-still for a moment, drink in hand. ‘I didn’t tell you?’
‘Er… no. You didn’t.’
‘She was my partner. Until very recently.’
‘Ah.’
‘I should have said.’ She carefully puts down the glass. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t have to tell me anything, Eve.’
‘No, you… You should know.’
‘You said you left your husband for someone else. That was Oxana?’
‘Yes. It was.’
‘And that ended recently.’
She nods.
‘Painfully?’
‘Mmm.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I’m moving on. So many new things. Philippa and her witchcraft, meeting you again after all these years…’
‘And drinking snakebite.’
‘Drinking snakebite most of all. But thank you for the recital. I loved it, and it really helped me.’
‘Helped you?’
‘It reminded me who I am. Where I came from.’
Well, that was embarrassing. It’s not true that I thought I’d told him about Oxana.
I mentioned her by mistake. She was on my mind and I spoke without thinking.
Not that there’s anything wrong with him knowing about her.
She’s just a name; he’s never going to meet her.
But in the last few days I’ve had this uneasy sense of the barriers between my different lives dissolving.
Of the past and present bleeding into each other.
I didn’t want to bring my life with Oxana here.
I wanted to leave it, and her, behind me.
But coming here has taught me that you can’t ever really start again.
You can push the past away as forcefully as you like; it still catches up with you.
You can wake up in any amount of new places, but it’s still you gazing back at yourself from the mirror.
Where’s Oxana now? In danger? She must be getting closer to the moment when she has to break cover and risk everything.
I’m afraid that our breakup will be on her mind, distracting her from her already dangerous task.
I know that we’re over, and that she’s a world away, but I’m still terrified for her, and this stops me from seeing Jack clearly.
Seeing him for the decent, patient and yes, sexy guy that he is.
He’s tough – I’m under no illusion as to what soldiering in Afghanistan was like, and the brutality of those deployments didn’t break him, even if it fractured him – but he still sees so much beauty in the world around him, he’s kind to those frankly unprepossessing kids, and he seems, God knows why, to care about me.
Is it time to let go of the past? Is it time to move on?