The day started badly: by the time Eve rushed into the office, Gav was shaking hands with the man from Gleesons and showing him out of the door.
‘Sorry!’ panted Eve. ‘Dreadful traffic.’
Gav tutted, turned his back and walked away, going into his office and slamming the door behind him. She felt like running after him and kicking it open again, reminding him that her contracted hours were 9am to 3pm. But there was no point: Gav didn’t have children or a partner, or even a cat to worry about. He was never late to work because the only things he had to sort out every morning were himself, his lacquered hair and his extremely shiny suit.
Half an hour later, things brightened up considerably.
‘Eve,’ growled a voice on the other end of the phone. ‘It’s Mike Sewell. Now listen, that penthouse of yours in Clifton. I wasn’t keen myself, but we haven’t seen anything else that’s better and my Steph has fallen in love with the view. We’d like to make an offer.’
Eve had never expected to hear from the Sewells again. After she’d squeezed through the window of the utility room of the luxurious apartment and landed heavily on the floor, she had looked up to see the couple standing side by side in the doorway, staring at her with as much horror as if she had just stripped naked and danced on the fancy sun loungers overlooking the Avon Gorge. They had left shortly afterwards, without a backwards glance.
Now, she bent over her desk and clenched her fist in delight as she tried to keep the excitement out of her voice. His offer was a decent one, but Eve suspected he could afford more.
‘The thing is, Mr Sewell, it’s great to hear you like that apartment, but I’ve got another couple who are interested in it. I mean very interested. I’m expecting a call from them later today and – between you and me – I know their starting offer will be higher.’
It wasn’t exactly a lie: she had shown the flat to someone else the week before. She hadn’t heard from him yet, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to. Mike Sewell caved immediately, as she’d hoped he would, and upped his offer another £50,000 to just below the asking price.
‘I’ll do my very best,’ Eve told him. ‘No promises. But I’ll see if I can get that lovely place for you and Steph.’ As soon as he was off the phone, Eve phoned the owner of the Clifton apartment to pass on the good news.
‘Hey, guess what? I’ve sold 47a Sion Hill!’ she called out, standing up from her desk and doing a victory dance around the centre of the office. Caroline cheered and started applauding. The door to Gav’s office was now open again, but he was on the phone and just waved at her dismissively before turning away. Eve knew he’d be pissed off: this would be excellent commission, which was a relief – the latest bill from Three Elms was sitting on the worktop at home, waiting to be paid. The money from the sale of the flat would be in Flora’s bank account shortly but, in the meantime, Eve was robbing Peter to pay Paul and, having subsidised the care home fees for the last couple of months, her small savings pot was nearly empty.
At lunchtime she went out to get a sandwich, still bubbling with excitement at the sale, enjoying the sharp clack of her heels as she strode down to the café on the corner. Just inside the door, she stood behind an elderly man who was bent over a rollator, which he shoved forward as the queue moved, taking shuffling steps behind it. Maybe this is what Alan looks like now, she suddenly thought. Flora had been thirty-two when she got pregnant, and she’d always told Eve her father had been a similar age. But what if that wasn’t true and the real Alan had been a few years older than her? If so, he might not even be alive now.
Eve had still done nothing about this mystery man. Part of her yearned to trace him – not just to find out what he was like, but also to ask him why he’d treated her mother so badly. The problem was, of course, that if he’d ignored Flora’s attempts to get in touch with him, he clearly hadn’t wanted any contact with her or her child. So, there was nothing to suggest he’d be pleased to hear from either of them again now. He would also probably have had a family of his own in the intervening years. So, Eve might have half-brothers and sisters? But the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that Alan must already have been married when he met Flora that summer. Why else would he suddenly disappear from her life, and not be known at the address he’d given her in Brighton?
But, she kept reminding herself, if he had no longer been living in Lewes Close, maybe he had never known she’d written the letters – in which case someone else had scrawled Return to sender across the top of each envelope. He might have moved away for work, or had some sort of family crisis. In that case, surely he had a right to know – even after all these years – that he had a daughter?
She veered backwards and forwards: one minute determined to try and track down Alan Derek Baker, the next convinced it would be pointless and only cause herself – and everyone else – unnecessary stress and potential upset.
Even if she did go ahead, it was a daunting task: one evening she had typed his name into Google, watching as the search engine produced 24,175,644 results in 0.23 seconds. A quick look through the first two pages made it depressingly obvious that she would have to know an awful lot more to narrow down the search.
She had also typed the address on the envelopes into Google Maps; when the location came up, she’d zoomed in, as if looking at it more closely would throw up some clues about the sort of people who lived there. When she changed to street view, she saw there was a mixture of housing on the road – some modern blocks to one side, larger detached houses on the other, set back behind small neat front gardens. Had her father been in one of these houses? Was this where he’d lived with an entirely different family?
But all the online research was pointless, because it felt like Alan Derek Baker was a needle in a very large haystack. She had to speak to Flora: her mother was the only person who could throw some light onto any of this. Eve might be opening a can of worms, but she wasn’t going to get anywhere unless she tried. Just don’t get angry, she told herself. Whatever you find out, stay calm and be understanding.
She mustn’t make Flora feel guilty either. She just needed to know more about what had happened: how her mother had felt when Alan didn’t make contact, how she’d coped with the silence – and why she’d hidden the truth from her daughter and lied to her for all these years.
After work she drove to Three Elms and, picking up the bundle of letters from the passenger seat, went in search of Flora. Today, Barbara was nowhere to be seen, and her mother was sitting in the chair in her own room, watching an auction programme on the small TV in the corner. She took her eyes off the screen briefly when Eve came in.
‘Hello darling. This man is about to find out that he’s bought a house but all the wooden floors are rotten!’
‘Oh, that’s not good.’ Eve sat down on the bed. ‘Didn’t he have a survey done when he bought it?’
Flora looked at her in confusion. ‘I don’t know what that is. He’s a bit stupid though, because the voice has been telling him there’s a problem with the floorboards since he moved in.’
‘The voice?’
‘You know, the voice that comes out of the television to tell us what’s happening.’
‘The presenter, you mean?’
Flora shrugged. ‘This silly man should have been paying attention. It’s his own fault really.’
Eve sat watching the screen for a couple of minutes, unable to feel much sympathy for the property developer whose dry rot might bankrupt him. She had the bundle of letters in her lap, and realised there were butterflies churning in the pit of her stomach. Was there a right way to bring this up?
‘Mum, there’s something I need to talk to you about,’ she said, eventually. ‘When I was clearing out the flat, I found some letters, and I wanted to ask you about them.’
Flora turned to her, frowning.
‘There are lots of them,’ said Eve, holding out the top envelope. ‘They hadn’t been opened, but I took a look inside and read them. I’m sorry, I know they weren’t my letters to read.’ God, this did sound awful: she’d opened her mother’s private letters and read them and was now expecting Flora to not mind.
‘I was being nosy, I’m so sorry. I know they weren’t mine to look at, but I’m glad I read them, and I want you to know that I’m really sorry for everything you went through, when I was a baby.’
Flora had turned back at the screen, chuckling as the property owner stamped on his floorboards, his foot smashing through the wood with a crash. ‘Oh, dear me!’ she said. ‘Well, that serves him right for not listening to the voice.’
Eve reached out and touched Flora’s arm to get her attention. ‘Mum, will you look at these?’ She unfolded one of the letters and put it into Flora’s hand. ‘Just take a look, please?’
Flora squinted at the piece of paper and shook her head, tutting. ‘I don’t know what this is about, Eve. It’s not addressed to me.’
‘No, Mum. You wrote it. Don’t you recognise your own writing?’
Flora moved the letter closer to her eyes, then shook her head and held it out towards Eve. ‘You’re wrong, this is nothing to do with me. I’m not sure why you brought it here.’
Eve pushed the letter back towards her. ‘Look again, Mum. It’s your handwriting. This was a letter you wrote years ago, when you found you were pregnant. This is the first of the letters you wrote to Alan, my father.’
Flora’s head snapped up and she stared at Eve, her eyes wide. ‘I only ever wanted to do what was best for you!’ she said. ‘That was all that mattered.’
‘Of course you did,’ said Eve. ‘You’ve always done what’s best for me.’
‘I had to look after you. I had to make sure you were happy.’ Tears had welled up in Flora’s eyes, and her lips were quivering. The colour had drained out of her cheeks and she looked as shocked as if someone had smacked her across the face.
‘I know that. You did such a good job of bringing me up on your own. You were so strong and brave.’
‘None of it was your fault, you were just a baby!’ Flora’s voice was rising. ‘I just wanted to protect you, make everything all right for you.’
‘Mum, I know that,’ said Eve, leaning forward to put her hand on her mother’s arm. ‘But I just wondered if you’d remember sending these letters? There are more than twenty of them and they were…’
‘Stop it!’ shouted Flora, suddenly. ‘Stop talking about this!’ She threw the letter onto the floor and clamped her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear any more! Don’t say anything else!’
Eve put the rest of the envelopes onto the bed and knelt down beside Flora’s chair. ‘Don’t cry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘Stop it!’ screamed Flora. ‘No more!’
‘Mum, please. I’m sorry.’ Eve put her hand back on Flora’s arm but the old lady pushed her away and began battering at her with her fists.
‘Get away from me!’
Nathan appeared in the doorway. ‘What’s the problem, Mrs Glover?’
Flora had picked up the framed photo on her bedside table and now threw it at Eve. It hit her foot and when she bent down to pick it up, she saw there was a small crack in the bottom corner of the glass.
Flora fell back in her chair and put her hands up to cover her ears again, starting to rock backwards and forwards, sobbing.
‘She got upset, all of a sudden,’ said Eve. ‘It’s my fault, I’m sorry, Nathan. I showed her some old letters, but I only wanted to ask her about them – I didn’t expect her to react like this.’
Flora was moaning now, low wails of pain that cut through Eve’s skull. Her own hands were shaking as she held them out towards her mother.
Nathan moved across and knelt down on the other side of the chair, putting his arm around Flora and hugging her to his chest, making soothing noises as if he was calming a baby. ‘Hey now,’ he said. ‘What’s all this about?’
Flora was gasping for breath and looked up at him, panic scrawled across her face. ‘I don’t know what she wants,’ she whimpered.
‘You’ll be fine, Mrs Glover,’ he said. ‘Take some nice, deep breaths for me. That’s right. You’re quite safe here, with us.’
He looked back towards Eve. ‘What could have upset her like this? She’s normally such a calm lady. That’s good, Mrs Glover, keep breathing in and out, I’ve got you.’
‘I showed her these,’ said Eve, pointing to the envelopes on the bed. ‘They’re some old letters she wrote years ago. I didn’t know they were going to upset her so much.’
Flora’s sobs were softening, although her hands were still shaking. She put them on Nathan’s arm, as if clinging onto him for support. ‘No more,’ she whispered. ‘No more.’
‘I tell you what,’ said Nathan. ‘Why don’t you take all those away for the time being? There’s obviously something there she doesn’t want to talk about, so let’s not force it. Come on, Mrs Glover, I’m going to help you get onto the bed and you can have a lie-down. Your daughter will come back and see you another day.’
Eve scrabbled the envelopes into a messy pile and got up, backing away as Nathan helped Flora up from the chair and gently guided her towards the bed.
‘That’s it, just hop up here,’ the boy was saying. He eased off Flora’s slippers and lifted her legs up onto the bed.
‘Mum?’ said Eve.
Flora was lying quite still and had closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling unevenly as her sobs subsided.
‘She’ll be fine,’ said Nathan. ‘But I think you ought to go now. Maybe you can come back tomorrow?’
Eve nodded. She moved to the door and turned back to look at them. Nathan had pulled the chair up to the side of the bed and was sitting on it, leaning forward and gently stroking Flora’s forehead with one hand, holding her quivering fingers with his other.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eve whispered, so softly that neither of them heard.
She walked slowly down the corridor, realising she was still holding the photo frame as well as the letters, but not wanting to go back. It was awful, but part of her didn’t mind being sent away: thank God Nathan had arrived and taken over. She had never seen Flora so hysterical; it had been terrifying. If she’d known she would react like this, she would never have brought the letters. Or she would at least have worked out another way to bring up the subject. She’d been so thoughtless. Mind you, what other way could she have tackled this? Flora had been fine until Eve tried to make her mother remember something that was clearly so disturbing that she’d filed it away at the back of her mind.
When she got home, her hands were still shaking, her head thumping. She couldn’t get her mother’s face out of her mind: her mouth twisted into a scream, her cheeks hollowed by the trauma.
Daniel was at Robbie’s for tea and, by the time Juliet dropped him back, Eve had opened a bottle of wine and was on her second glass. She was furious with herself – she was a bloody appalling daughter.