‘Carry on,’ he urged when she’d stayed quiet for too long.
She looked at him briefly and then away again. ‘The cancer was bad, but Mum had the best hospital facilities, top doctors, she was cared for so well. She went into remission after a couple of years and I thought that was it, life would get back on an even keel.’
‘But it didn’t?’
She shook her head. ‘The world was going belly up and the business was one of the casualties. Money was tight and bills were mounting up. A couple of years later, the business was forced to shut down and my father was lost without it. He’d shut himself away, barely talking to either of us, and when he wasn’t doing that he was out goodness knows where. All we did was hope he was trying to find another job so things could go back to normal. But one day …’ She shook her head at how clichéd this sounded. ‘He went out and never came back.
‘Mum’s cancer returned soon after and took its toll on us financially and emotionally. Mum had been working a part-time job that just about covered our living expenses while I was at school and then college, but when she got sick she’d had to give it up. The cancer was worse this time. Mum was crying constantly because Dad had left, her world was crumbling around her, and because this was the end. She was dying and there was nothing anyone could do to fix it.’
She paused, looked into the depths of her coffee. ‘Mum was put on end-of-life care with end-stage breast cancer. We lost the house and I had no choice but to move in with Uncle Brett and my Auntie Mo. Mum had never liked my uncle much, but she was grateful there was someone there for me, a roof over my head. I always told her I was fine living there because I never wanted her to worry about me.
‘I visited Mum at the hospice every spare moment I could. I should’ve been applying for a real job, a proper paid job rather than the pocket money I was getting at a local fast food joint, but I wanted to spend every moment with her. You know, I always wished I’d had a sibling. I wanted someone else to be in the same position as me, to know exactly how I was feeling, the pain caused by Dad’s disappearance and Mum’s illness. None of my friends really got it. Their lives were so normal in comparison.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Jack wistfully. He tipped his head back to get the dregs from his coffee cup.
‘You have siblings?’
He smiled. ‘A sister, Cameron. She’s a giant pain in the ass sometimes, but her heart’s in the right place. And when Mom died, even though we rarely talked about it, it felt good to have someone there who knew what I was going through.’
Evie smiled back at him. ‘You’re lucky.’ It took her a minute or two to continue. ‘Before Dad left and Mum died, I’d been lucky. I’d never wanted for anything, except a bit of time with my father when he wasn’t working, but I’d always had food on the table, nice clothes—although designer outfits are wasted on kids, in my opinion—I was ferried around in top-of-the-range cars, taken on ski holidays in Aspen. My parents even put a pool in the backyard at the house, a tennis court that was rarely used. Mum would lie in the sun every day and we’d talk or we’d swim side-by-side, before she got sick and before the business began to fail. I loved the water, the way it made me feel free, the escape I felt when my face and ears were submerged and I could forget everything else.’
Evie took her coffee cup out to the kitchen and took out an ice-cube tray from the freezer. She emptied four cubes into the bottom of a tumbler, then half-filled it with gin and added a splash of tonic, but not so much it would take away the edge she needed. She held the gin bottle aloft to ask if Jack wanted to join her, but he shook his head.
‘There’s something you need to understand about Uncle Brett,’ she said when she’d slumped down on the armchair again.
Jack sat forwards, intrigued.
‘One day, not long after my twentieth birthday, my parents were out at a garden party. I’d been swimming and was getting changed in the outhouse. Mum had a thing about dripping through the house so had had a shower and change room built at the foot of the garden.’ She grinned. ‘Sometimes, in the winter when it wasn’t used much, I’d hide in the outhouse and read a book. They’d have no idea where I was. And for those moments it was like an adventure. I used to pretend I was in my own place, somewhere near the beach, with nothing but bookshelves keeping me company.’
She knocked back an enormous gulp of gin. ‘Anyway, this day when I was getting changed, I’d just taken off my swimming costume and went to grab my towel when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye, watching me from the garden through the window.’ She looked to Jack. ‘It was him, my Uncle Brett. I grabbed a towel, yelled at him but he looked like he wasn’t sorry at all. And he knew I wouldn’t say anything. He knew the problems with the business, he knew Mum hadn’t been well, and he knew how much I hated to rock the boat. From then on, I never changed in that pool house again. I didn’t even take a book out there for fear he’d show up and want more than a sneaky look at a girl a third of his age.
‘After Mum died and I was living with my Uncle Brett and Auntie Mo, it was fine for a while. At least with my auntie around I knew he’d never try anything, but I still hated being near him. All I wanted to do was get away, but finding a job was next to impossible. The fast food joint I’d worked at had shut up shop like many local businesses, and my job applications hadn’t hit the mark anywhere. I was lost. I’d spend hours at the library every day just to escape the house, and I’d hang around the shopping mall to pass the time.
‘One day in the mall, I was approached by a man. He was in a suit, designer, and said he was a photographer with an international modelling agency. He handed me a business card, asked whether I’d ever thought about modelling. Oh, he had all the phrases down pat, telling me I had excellent bone structure, the height they needed, dewy skin—whatever that means—and I had the “look” he was after. The next week, I had a job. And despite my reservations, it was a hell of a lot of money to turn down. I started working with him at the studios; mostly it was just us, but I was comfortable. He’d take my photographs in perfectly respectable outfits and I’d get a pay cheque at the end of each week. The money I earned would be my ticket out of the rut I was in and I wanted to come to New York, get a place of my own and find a job that would mean the start of a new life.’
When she paused, he asked, ‘Can I grab one of those?’ nodding at the gin in her hand. He stood up. ‘I’ll get it myself. Glasses?’
She pointed to the cupboard above the cooktop. ‘Plenty in there, ice in the freezer, gin in the bottle.’
Evie waited for Jack to fix himself a drink and took a swig of her own before she pressed on. ‘The modelling was going great and all I wanted was to save money. Since the day my uncle had spied on me when I was naked, he’d looked at me differently … you know, the look that tells you someone could cause a whole lot of trouble if you put so much as a foot wrong.
‘I cried myself to sleep more times than I can remember. I missed my mum more than I thought possible. You know, when it’s cancer you think you’re prepared, you think hearing the diagnosis is the worst part, but when you’re with someone day after day watching them fade away, it haunts you for a long time after; forever even.’
‘I’ll bet. It was different for me,’ said Jack. ‘I never had to watch my mom suffer. The heart attack was quick, one minute she was there, the next she wasn’t. Perhaps it was easier that way, although on the other hand, I would’ve liked a chance to say goodbye.’ He shrugged.
Evie shook her head. ‘There’s no good way to lose a parent.’
They both nursed their gin and tonics before Evie continued.
‘Do you know, I still remember her smell? She wore this perfume that was too strong for her kind-hearted nature, but it was her. And her hands were always so soft. I still remember what it felt like as a little girl clutching her hand when we went to the swings, when she’d take me shopping. Dad would laugh at her and her bottles of hand cream deposited around the house: in the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, the bedroom, one in her handbag, another in the car. In the hospice I’d rub her hand cream in for her, trying to keep some semblance of who she’d once been.’
‘It sounds as though you were close.’
‘We were.’
‘You know, it’s okay to miss her. I still miss my mother too and I’m a man, I’m supposed to be okay about it.’
Evie smiled, grateful his anger and accusations had subsided at least for now.
