Chapter Seven
Evelyn
Evelyn is having a splendid day. A slow awakening after a deep dreamless sleep, a delicious breakfast, and then a quiet morning by the pool. For lunch she enjoyed a Greek salad with a side of warm pitta bread and taramasalata, plus a chilled glass of white wine, so fresh and delicious that she savoured every mouthful. Why not? She’s on holiday and she’s determined to make the most of being here. Tomorrow she will start thinking in earnest about her last task but, after yesterday’s tiring journey, she fully intends to take it easy today.
With that in mind, she’s come to the so-called ‘sanctuary shed’, tucked away in the hotel grounds, which offers all sorts of indulgent treats. Forget the throat-clearing consultants who struggled to look her in the eye back in London, this is the only kind of ‘treatment’ she’s interested in now. She’d rather shuffle off her mortal coil moisturised and scented, her old limbs having been blissfully kneaded, than undergo another round of experimental medication. Waiting for her appointment in the small reception area, where a wooden fan spins slowly above her head, she finds herself thinking of the ancient Greek funeral rites Rose once described to her: the anointing with perfumed oils, the adorning of the body with wreaths or other tokens, sometimes a gold coin placed between the lips as an offering to the rulers of the underworld. ‘Like paying for a bus fare?’ Evelyn had joked, and Rose had pulled a face. ‘Iwon’t even dignify that with a proper reply,’ she’d tutted.
‘Evelyn?’ A pretty young woman in a flowing white dress stands before her. She has dark hair plaited around her head and large brown eyes. ‘I’m Jasmine. You’re here for a full body massage today, yes?’
‘Yes, please,’ says Evelyn, heaving herself to her feet. She follows the woman into a quiet, dimly lit room with a towel-draped bed. There is a wicker armchair in one corner, and a small unit holding a collection of lotions and potions. A drift of artfully placed tea-lights burn in rounded stone holders, and Evelyn immediately feels her breathing slow.
‘Any health issues Ishould know about?’ Jasmine asks, closing the door behind them. Her English is faultless, her manner calm. ‘Any allergies?’
‘No allergies,’ Evelyn says, opting not to answer the first question. Will it make any difference now anyway, other than to trigger an awkward hushed-tone conversation? Jasmine might even decide that Evelyn is too frail, and that the hotel can’t be held responsible if she takes a turn for the worse mid-massage. She remembers the nurse gently telling her last week that she had now reached what they termed ‘end-of-life care’. Evelyn can’t recall the other phraseology used, only that there was quite a lot about her ‘pathway’, the subtext being, of course, that it was a short pathway, unfortunately, in one direction only, and that she’d be reaching her final destination without much delay. No, she can’t face mentioning any of that to sweet-faced Jasmine.
The girl leaves the room while Evelyn removes her sundress and sandals, her bra and her watch. The latter was a present from Rose nearly twenty-five years ago and, although it has seen out several batteries and changes of strap since then, it still keeps perfect time, ticking away faithfully like her own heart. Sometimes she holds it up to her ear and remembers how she loved to hear Rose’s quiet rhythmic breathing at night in bed. How, the first time they kissed, there had been that shocking blood-roaring moment afterwards when they had looked at one another, eyes wide, as if to say, Did we really just do that? Then Rose had smiled, taking Evelyn’s hand and placing it against her own chest. ‘Can you feel how fast my heart is pounding?’ she’d asked.
There’s a soft knock at the door, and Evelyn clambers inelegantly onto the bed, pulling the towels over her. ‘Ready,’ she calls. Not the word she would have used at the time of that kiss, by any means. She’d been married to a man, then– they both were (their poor unsuspecting husbands)– and although Evelyn wouldn’t have said the earth had ever moved during her and Charles’s lovemaking, she had been very fond of him, nonetheless. (Still is.) Prior to that kiss, had she been ready to embark on a relationship with another woman? In truth, it had never so much as crossed her mind. But when Rose’s lips met hers, the universe had turned itself inside out, in a way she hadn’t even known was possible.
Jasmine comes back into the room and turns on some music– it’s that ambient stuff, pan-flutes and birdsong. Evelyn doesn’t mind it, as long as it doesn’t become sounds of waterfalls or rain; her bladder is not what it was, and she doesn’t want to be lying here the whole time listening to rushing water and wishing she could nip out to the loo. Stop thinking about that, she admonishes herself, and murmurs ‘Lovely, thank you,’ when Jasmine asks if she is comfortable.
Jasmine tucks the towels around her, presses gently between Evelyn’s shoulders and tells her to take three deep breaths. Lying there, warm and cosy, Evelyn finds her thoughts travelling back through the decades to when she had first met Rose, at her and Jonathan’s house-warming party. At the time, Evelyn and Charles lived in a quiet road in Harrow on the Hill, pleasant houses full of pleasant people, and Rose and Jonathan were their gregarious new neighbours. They’d moved in one Saturday and promptly invited everyone in the street round for drinks the following Friday. In hindsight, this was a very Rose and Jonathan thing to do, compared to Evelyn and Charles, who’d been there three years and still only knew a handful of people.
‘You must be the cello player,’ Rose said by way of introduction that evening. It was the mid-seventies and Evelyn, like many of the women present, was wearing a cheesecloth peasant dress with large hoop earrings. Getting ready in her bedroom earlier, she had felt as if she was pushing the boat out by daringly tying a rust-coloured scarf in her long hair to complete her look. When glamorous Rose appeared in her orbit, however, she found herself wondering regretfully if the scarf in fact made her look like a little girl with an Alice band. Her new neighbour was a traffic-stopping vision in jeans that moulded her tiny waist and bottom, flaring out around silver ankle boots. Her tight blouse was black and white satin, striped in a chevron-like design so that the points guided the eye towards her crotch. Her lipstick was juicy red, and her dark hair fell loose and free in cascades around her animated face, as if it would defy any scarf that tried to hold it back. ‘It is you, isn’t it? I’ve heard you playing when the windows are open. You’re smashing.’
‘Oh!’ Evelyn, never very good at accepting compliments, had blushed a delighted pink. They were in Rose and Jonathan’s living room at the time; the walls were hung with paintings she would politely have described as ‘experimental’, and there was a large empty space where the sofa and armchair had been dragged out into the garden. In one corner of the room teetered a stack of boxes yet to be unpacked, all of which were labelled ‘Rose– Books’. A record player was balanced on top of them, and Fleetwood Mac blasted from the speakers. ‘That’s very kind of you to say so,’ Evelyn went on. ‘Ihope the sound doesn’t disturb you.’
‘God, no, not at all. It’s nice to listen to you while I’m marking the hundredth uninspiring essay on the ancient Greeks.’ Rose bent down to stub out her cigarette in the soil of a large cheese plant nearby. She had freckles and a gap between her front teeth, and there was something cool and bohemian about her, something wild, that Evelyn, with her sensible husband and their neatly kept home, knew was beyond her own remit. Later, as Rose made her way around the room, chatting easily to one person after another, Evelyn found that her gaze was repeatedly drawn back towards her in fascination. Then came a moment when Rose glanced in her direction, saw her looking, and winked. Evelyn had blushed so deeply, Charles had asked if she would like a glass of water. ‘It is hot in here, isn’t it?’ he’d said.
‘Yes,’ Evelyn had replied, mortified at having been caught staring. It was like having a pash on a prefect at school or something, she chastised herself as Charles went off to get her the drink she didn’t even want.
‘Is the pressure okay for you?’ Jasmine asks just then, her soft voice returning Evelyn to the room. The massage has begun, without her really noticing– sweeping strokes with honey-scented oil up and down the length of her back. Birdsong twittering away in the background.
‘Yes, it’s wonderful,’ she says, shutting her eyes drowsily. Gosh, it is heavenly to be touched again, she thinks, tuning in to the nerve endings responding beneath her skin, the warmth that spreads through her body. How she has missed it in the eight years since she lost the love of her life. Oh, she fills her time as best she can, with concerts and matinees and get-togethers, but it’s rare that anyone ever touches her any more, other than a quick friendly hug, a peck on the cheek. A cashier’s hand brushing against hers as a receipt is handed over. The washing of her hair at the hairdresser’s, the stylist’s thumbs circling her scalp as the suds are rinsed clean.
On the plane over here, the tired-looking woman seated next to her had fallen asleep mid-flight, slumping against Evelyn’s shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry!’ she cried in embarrassment upon waking, jerking herself upright. But in truth, Evelyn had appreciated that small human contact, the press of another body against hers, however fleeting. These are the things nobody warns you about when you are bereaved.
A tear spills from her eye and leaks into the towel beneath her face, because she wishes that she could spool back through time for real: click her fingers and find herself there at Rose and Jonathan’s party all over again. The new Led Zeppelin album playing. The women drinking White Russians and chit-chatting about their children, the weather, each other’s outfits; the men with cans of Harp discussing West Ham’s recent FA Cup win. She and Rose exchanging that secret look; the wink, the blush. The frisson that kept her tossing and turning all night long afterwards.
She wouldn’t change any of what happened, not a thing. She has been the luckiest woman alive, merely to move in Rose’s orbit. If only she was there still.
The massage comes to a halt suddenly, Jasmine’s hand resting lightly on Evelyn’s shoulder. ‘Am Ihurting you? Are you all right?’ the younger woman asks in concern.
It’s only then that Evelyn realises her emotions have got the better of her, and the single tear of a moment ago has increased to a deluge. ‘I’m. . .’ She sniffs, gulps in air, gets a grip on herself. ‘Sorry, darling. I’m just. . .’ She searches for a way to explain, to give some context, but the words elude her. What words are there to convey something so seismic? ‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ is all she can come up with. ‘Do please carry on; I’m enjoying it, Ipromise. Thank you.’
Jasmine hesitates for a further moment but then continues pressing and kneading.
Evelyn breathes in and breathes out, in and then out, until she’s over her emotional glitch. She’ll try her best not to think about anything at all for the rest of the session, she decides. Sometimes it’s easier that way.