Eve was awake before the alarm went off. Rain was pattering against the window and she could hear the rhythmic swoosh of passing cars displacing puddles on the street outside.
Forty-five: she rolled the words around on her tongue. It sounded so old! Forty-five was an age by which you should know where you were going, have a definite game plan. An age by which you should be settled and content. But Eve felt like she was now in the wrong bit of her forties – hurtling towards fifty for God’s sake – out of control in a rusty car without a handbrake, and she still hadn’t got her life sorted.
She rolled over in bed, and her knee clicked, making her wince with pain. She kept meaning to get that checked out. Bloody forty-five. She was sure the bags under her eyes were bigger than they’d ever been, and it was getting to the stage where she might need some professional help covering up the wiry patches of grey in her hair. For the last few years, she’d kept it at bay by spending a fiver on the occasional box of hair dye from Boots. But she was rubbish at home root control. Last time she’d picked the wrong shade by mistake and the – rapidly growing out – roots were currently less her natural auburn, more a soft ginger. ‘Mummy,’ Daniel had said. ‘Why has your hair gone rusty at the parting?’
The door flew open, crashing against the frame, and her boy leapt onto the bed, winding her as his elbow landed on her chest. ‘Happy birthday!’ His breath was slightly sour, his lips dry as he planted kisses on her cheek, the corners of his eyes full of crusty sleep. He was far and away the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen.
‘Thank you, sweetheart. Wow, what’s this?’
He was pushing something against her chest, its cardboard edges scraping her skin. ‘I made it myself.’
‘Well, I can see that. It’s amazing!’
Turning over the piece of card, she saw glitter around a red felt tip border, with hap burday written across the top in uneven letters. She’d guessed there might be a card: last night there had been prickles of glitter all over the bathroom floor, together with a Pritt Stick, the end of which had been so badly mangled it looked like a melted candle.
‘Look at it!’ he shouted, bouncing up and down on her stomach.
She gasped as the breath was pummelled out of her and pulled him down onto the bed beside her as she opened the card, glitter tumbling onto her T-shirt. Daniel had cut out a picture of Doctor Who’s Tardis, and glued a photo of an overweight woman in a bikini onto the front of it. Next to her was a picture of Lassie and, further along, a very young George Clooney.
‘That’s you, Mummy, and that’s Daddy. And that’s the dog I want now – with that long hair.’
She laughed and pulled him towards her, kissing his cheek and burying her face in his hair, smelling the honey shampoo she’d massaged through it the previous evening. He’d been badgering her to get a dog for months now, ever since his friend Robbie had been given a kitten. At first, Daniel had demanded a spaniel, then he’d changed his mind and gone for a black Labrador. Most recently, it had been a Dalmatian, but he’d clearly moved on yet again. She dealt with the ongoing demands as she did with so many other things, by trying to ignore them.
‘Thank you, my lovely boy. What a brilliant card. I can’t believe you did this all by yourself. You are so clever.’
He grinned and pulled himself away from her arms. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said, jumping off the bed. ‘Going for breakfast.’
‘Okay, be careful when you get the cereal out of the cupboard. Don’t spill it.’
As she listened to his feet pound down the stairs, she looked at the card again, noticing that the overweight woman was carrying a bottle of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She peered more closely; it didn’t look anything like her. But it was even more irritating that Ben got to be George bloody Clooney.
She got out of bed and wandered into the bathroom, leaning across the basin to pull up the blind. She put her fingers to her face and patted the puffy skin underneath her eyes. Cucumber slices were meant to help. When was the last time she’d bought a cucumber?
‘Mummy!’ yelled Daniel from the kitchen. ‘The milk just dropped and went all over the floor, but it wasn’t my fault!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ She reached for her toothbrush. ‘Don’t step in it, I’ll be down in a minute.’
They were late leaving the house, as always, and the traffic was heavier than usual on the run into the city centre. It was well after 9am by the time she parked.
As she pushed open the door to the office, Caroline squealed from behind the reception desk and ran around to give her a hug. ‘Happy birthday! How are you feeling? Another year older!’
‘Ah, yes. Indeed,’ said Eve, disentangling herself and moving towards her desk. ‘That’s what tends to happen with birthdays.’
‘Oh Eve, you are funny!’ said Caroline. ‘Wait, we’ve got a surprise for you.’
As Eve shrugged off her coat and leant forward to turn on her computer, she saw Gav coming out from the kitchen at the back, holding something in front of him.
‘Happy birthday!’ he shouted. ‘Come on everyone…’
They clustered around her and launched into song, as Gav placed the cake on her desk. She smiled and waited patiently until the last ‘to yoooo’ had faded away.
‘Come on then, blow it out!’ Gav was still shouting, even though he was standing two feet away from her. He shouted at everyone. Caroline had a theory he used his voice excessively to make up for the fact that he was so short, but over the years Eve had decided he was probably just a bit deaf.
‘Not much to blow out,’ she said. There was actually only a single candle: a spindly gold one, planted right in the middle of the frosting.
‘You’re too old. We couldn’t fit that many on the bloody cake!’ yelled Gav, laughing uproariously at his own joke. ‘Come on, get on with it.’
Eve obediently blew out the candle, and smiled at the others while Gav cut slices, which were handed around on pieces of kitchen roll.
‘Mmm, delicious,’ she said. It actually wasn’t bad. It was a Tesco Finest Carrot Cake; she recognised it because she’d bought one exactly the same herself, a couple of weeks ago, to donate to a cake sale at Daniel’s school. She’d never got round to contributing to one of those before and didn’t know the form; she only realised she’d dramatically failed the Mummy test when she put the cake onto the table alongside the trays of home-baked delicacies. There were fruit muffins and chocolate brownies, cupcakes with coloured icing, slices of lemon drizzle with a crunchy sugar topping, flapjacks with raisins and chocolate chips.
And then there was one Tesco Finest Carrot Cake. Still in its box. How embarrassing. She’d ripped open the packaging and pulled out the cake, hastily combining two plates of biscuits so she could slide the empty plate under her cake. For good measure she used her finger to mess up the perfect buttercream frosting on top. It didn’t exactly look homemade but would have to do. Then she’d tugged up the hood of her coat and slipped back out of the school hall, hoping no one had seen her.
‘Right, that’s enough of all this partying!’ shouted Gav. ‘Back to work you lot, we’ve got maisonettes to market, semis to shift.’
He walked back to his desk at the far end of the office, chuckling to himself. He said this regularly, but was the only one who ever laughed.
Eve licked the remaining cake crumbs from her fingers and began to go through her emails. There was the usual mixed bag: conveyancing information from solicitors, new contact sheets of colour prints from the guy who took all the agency’s photographs, requests for updates from impatient clients.
‘There are some messages from Mr Timpson,’ called Caroline. ‘He phoned twice yesterday after you left and wants you to call him.’
‘I know,’ said Eve. ‘I’m reading his emails now. I’ve already had four from him this morning.’
Sometimes she hated this job. Mr Timpson was the owner of a particularly unattractive Victorian house on the outskirts of the city. He had insisted they market his property at £50,000 above Eve’s valuation, and was now incandescent because there’d been no viewings in the first fortnight. She would have to speak to him, but needed coffee first. Just as she sat down again, her phone rang.
‘Eve?’
‘Hi Mum, how are you?’
‘Not good. I’m not sleeping at all. I’ve been awake for seventy-four hours.’
‘Seventy-four, eh? It was eighty-three yesterday. I’m sure things will get better. You’ve only been there for a week. It’s bound to take time to settle in. What did you have for breakfast this morning?’
Flora sighed on the other end of the phone. ‘Cold toast. You’ve got your happy voice on – the one you use to jolly me along. But I don’t want to be bloody well jollied. I want to go home.’
Eve put her elbow on the desk and rested her head in the palm of her hand. ‘Mum, please don’t swear. Three Elms is your home now. You know this. Listen, I’m going to pop in to see you after work today – is that okay? Juliet is having Daniel for tea then dropping him home, so I’ve got a bit of extra time.’
‘Who’s Juliet?’ asked Flora.
‘Robbie’s mother! You know who Juliet is. Anyway, I’d like to see you later – it’s my birthday, did you remember? We talked about it yesterday. I’ve been given a lovely carrot cake here, at work, I’ll bring you a piece.’ There was silence on the other end of the phone. ‘So, if you haven’t got anything else on, I’ll pop in about half past four.’
‘What else would I have on?’ snapped Flora. ‘I’m always here. I’m stuck in this horrible place.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you later. I’ve got to go now, lots of work to do.’ She put the phone on her desk and brought up her on-screen appointment diary. This wouldn’t be the last of Flora’s calls she’d have to field over the next few hours. Yesterday, there had been five, the day before, seven.
There was a whoop from the other side of the office and Gav leapt to his feet, sending a box of paperclips flying onto the floor, the contents spilling out onto the carpet in a long silver arc, like a mermaid’s tail.
‘Get in!’ yelled Gav. ‘Four hundred grand asking price offer on Mountview Road!’
Everyone cheered and Caroline stood up behind her desk and did an awkward little dance, before sinking down into her seat again when she realised they were all looking at her.
‘Cash buyers, no onward chain,’ shouted Gav. ‘This, my friends, is how to work the property market.’
Eve smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. How did such an irritating little man manage to sell so many houses?
Gav was still on his feet, shuffling on the spot and looking like he was trying to do a robot dance. He saw her staring across at him and grinned, before putting his head on one side and looking at her quizzically.
‘You done something to your hair, Eve?’ he yelled. ‘You’ve gone all ginger on the top.’