‘Yes,’ I eventually say. ‘I’ll see you soon.’ And I exit the car before I get an attack of conscience and decide to confess all.
serena
Now
‘Evan Gillmare, I love you.’
I’m down on one knee beside Evan’s favourite chair in our living room. He has a beer in his hand and is watching a match on TV. I’m not sure which match it is, although I’m sure he told me earlier and asked me if I was going to join him. I love that about him – his unending optimism that after twenty-nine years of knowing me, twenty-five of them together, I may still say yes and watch the footy with him. Even when he and Conrad would spend most of the day chatting about the match, planning their snacks and drinks and what they’ll do during half-time, he’ll still ask me if I am up for watching the match with him. Sometimes I’ll join him for athletics, and the Olympics or global events, but never football.
My husband’s dark eyes study me for a moment, probably remembering the time ten years ago when he got down on one knee and began a conversation with very similar words. Neither of us realised then that it would be the start of our lives imploding, because the next day, Poppy Carlisle was released from prison and everything kicked off. Evan’s gaze darts back to the television screen, watching his team run around the pitch as they battle for a place in some championship or league or something. I haven’t quite got his complete attention. Maybe I should have waited, but what Verity was saying earlier today – no, not just what she was saying earlier, the way she looked at me – made me think I’d better check. Better make sure I’m not imposing my will on him.
I’ve been pretending for quite a while that my grown-up daughter hasn’t been looking at me in that way. It’s a sort of disdain, like I have done something to her that she can’t forgive. When she couples it with her clipped words and obviously bitten tongue, it makes me feel awful.
I haven’t asked her about it to any real degree because I’m too scared of the answer I’ll get. What it is that I’ve done wrong that has made my firstborn turn on me. Apart from a few incidents, Verity was the model teenager. She didn’t act out, she didn’t start huge rows, she was mostly pleasant to her brother. This has all been a shock, that she can be like this, that our relationship can feel like it is hanging on by a fast-thinning thread. I also don’t confront it because I don’t want to push her further away.
Easiest thing to do is to ask Evan about the party. Find out what he wants.
‘Evan Gillmare, I love you,’ I repeat to get his attention again. ‘And I know we’ve spent most of our lives together, but I want to celebrate you. I want to let every one of our friends know that I constantly celebrate you being in our lives, so for your birthday, your fiftieth birthday, I’d like to have a huge’ – I use my hands to emphasise the word HUGE – ‘party. You’re only going to be fifty once in your life, so I’d like to have a party. Well, to be fair, I’ve been organising said HUGE party but it was going to be a surprise and then it wasn’t going to be a surprise and then I’ve been wondering if there should be a party at all because Verity said you’d hate it.
‘And, technically, she has known you longer so she may well be right.’
‘How has she known me longer?’ Evan asks, eyeing me up like I’m out on the edge of a very high ledge and he’s wondering what he’ll have to do to coax me back in. ‘I have to have known you longer to have actually made her with you.’
‘Well, talk to our children and they’ll explain that, proportionally, Verity has known you all her life, that’s one hundred per cent, and I’ve known you something like sixty per cent of my life, so she wins. In the knowing-you-for-longer stakes.’
Evan abandons the football and stares at me hard and long, his forehead a concertina from his deep, confused frown. He’s still handsome, my husband. More handsome than the day I first spoke to him, I think. That was the time he threw his drink in my face and I thought he’d done it on purpose. From that moment on, when it turned out he hadn’t thrown his drink at me and he had no idea who I was, he had set me free. I thought he was good-looking then, but he has grown into his features now. His smooth skin and dark, brooding eyes, his wonderfully full lips, and his broad nose, are so him – so handsome – I find myself staring at him sometimes, amazed that he liked me in return, and perplexed that he’s stuck with me for so long. There are many women who would love to take dishy Dr Evan off my hands but he rarely looks twice at them.
Right this minute, though, he’s looking at me like I am a bit unstable. And like he’s trying to work out what to do about it. Does he deal with the crazy, or does he ignore it in the hope it’ll go away when I find something else to worry about. ‘So, this party, then?’ he says by way of telling me he’s going to ignore my comments about my daughter knowing him longer. ‘When is it?’
‘In three weeks, if you want it. You absolutely do not have to feel pressured into it. We can go out for a meal, just the two of us, we can drag the kids along, we can get my mum and my sisters down, your family down, have a big family meal. Whatever you want.’
‘I want what you want,’ he says.
‘Oh, please! You say that now, but when I start getting the bunting out and ordering the photo booth and making it fancy dress, suddenly there’ll be no “I want what you want.” It’ll be all “How old do you think I am, Sez?” So better you just tell me the truth about whether you want a party or not now.’
‘Yeah, no photo booth or bunting and definitely no fancy dress.’
‘See?’
I can see his attention is drifting, heading back to Football Land, so my window for getting this sorted is shrinking fast. ‘A party would be good,’ he states.
‘Only if you’re sure you want one.’
‘I didn’t know I wanted one until you asked me. Now I’d be offended if I didn’t get one.’
The relief. It’s so sweet it brings a sudden rush of tears to my face. I wasn’t imposing my will on Evan. I wasn’t being controlling. My husband notices the sudden emotion crowding its way into my eyes and turns away from the football again. ‘What’s going on with you and Vee?’ he asks.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask, knowing exactly what he means.
‘You wouldn’t normally be bothered by something like this. But you seem to have taken this completely to heart. What’s going on?’
I shrug, flop my arms up and down hopelessly. ‘I don’t know, Evan. We’re not connecting any more, if that’s the word to use. I thought going shopping together today would make things better, you know, bridge the gap that’s grown since she’s stopped coming over as much, but if anything, spending time with her has made it worse. She was categorical that you’d hate the idea of a party, let alone a surprise one.’
‘Do you want me to have a word with her?’
I shake my head and get to my feet, my knees creaking and complaining as I do. ‘No, no, it’ll just make it worse. She’ll think I’ve been complaining to you about her.’ I have to accept that it’s me she has the issue with. Not Evan and Con; me. I don’t know what I’ve done, but it has hurt her and she hates me because of it. ‘I suppose things seem worse, I guess, because my years of smugness have had to come to an end. I mean, I always thought I’d got it so right because she didn’t really rebel, she mostly talked to me or you, and we had no real dramas. I actually had the arrogance to think that was somehow down to me. Not, you know, just plain old luck. Trust me to end up with the twenty-four-year-old teenager.’