‘Cissy, is something going on? I keep seeing Bob creeping around in the gardens, and I’ve heard whispering under my window more than once these last few days. Is there something you’re not telling me?’
The mood in Cupid’s Way, even since she’d broken the news of English Heritage’s refusal to give them a lifeline, had seemed bizarrely buoyant. They’d taken the news so well, Evie had wondered whether anyone except her had ever expected a different result. Even Frank and Mavis seemed more upbeat, having resolved their latest argument in some unfathomable way out of Evie’s hearing. She’d found them hugging on the sofa this morning, and for once Mavis’s eyes were quite dry.
It was too weird.
Cissy pulled a face and shook her head. ‘Not sure what you mean, Evie. Hey – isn’t that Eloise and the boys?’
Certain she was being thrown off the scent yet again, Evie turned and waved. She did a mock double-take as her friend got closer.
‘Wow. Where are you lot off to? The Ritz?’
Eloise smiled and pulled her sons forward. Usually clad in dirty shorts and scruffy, ill-fitting T-shirts, the boys were hardly recognisable in their matching navy suits over pale blue shirts. The oldest one scratched his head self-consciously, while his brother paraded up and down, enjoying the attention.
‘Where are you going?’ Evie asked again.
‘Nowhere,’ Eloise said. ‘Just to their granddad’s for lunch. See you later, alligator.’
They left Evie and Cissy on the path and headed across the grass towards the Peacock house. Evie watched as Freda opened the door to let them in. She was also dressed to the nines. Freda gave the gardens a quick scan. When she saw Evie she jumped a little and closed the door with a hearty slam.
‘I’d better be going too,’ Cissy said. ‘I’ve got to take something to, erm, someone.’
Evie was about to offer to tag along, but then she realised that Cissy looked uncomfortable. She was eager to get away, to be out of Evie’s company. Just like Eloise. Just like everyone these past few days. She bit her lip and nodded to Cissy, saying a quick goodbye before she headed back towards the safety of home.
She’d given up everything to come here and help these people, her grandparents’ friends and now her friends too. Or so she’d thought. Friendships around here took years to build, unlike the paper-walled houses developers like Dynamite threw up.
They clearly didn’t see her as a friend. She’d failed them, and if they didn’t want to have anything to do with her it was nobody’s fault but her own.
Evie stopped on her grandparents’ doorstep and looked around. The gardens were deserted. She listened to the silence, broken only by birdsong and the muffled sound of traffic beyond the terraces. They gardens were beautiful today, more beautiful than ever, with the blossom and the spring flowers pushing up through hopeful soil. Evie took it all in, letting the sights and sounds and smells fill her heart. Then she stepped inside the house and closed the door.
It was time to move on again. There was nothing else she could do for Cupid’s Way, and nobody here needed her to stick around and remind them of how much they were about to lose. It wasn’t her home anyway, and now it never would be.
*
‘What are you doing?’
Evie looked up from her packing to find Mavis standing in the doorway. Her gran was wearing a leisure suit that was Evie’s favourite – cherry red velour with sunshine yellow trim. She’d had her hair blow-dried at the salon she’d been going to for over sixty years, and it sat on her head like a blonde helmet. Her lips were glossy with red lipstick and her eyes, crinkling at the edges, showed no signs of the stress Evie had come to expect.
‘You look nice,’ Evie said, stuffing a pile of underwear haphazardly into her suitcase.
‘And you look like you’re going somewhere,’ Mavis countered.
Evie shrugged. ‘Not much point me staying where I’m not wanted.’ Even to her own ears she sounded like a spoilt and sulky teenager. She tried again. ‘It’s time I found somewhere of my own to stay, Gran. I can’t keep imposing on you and Gramps. It’s better to start being realistic. Start preparing for what’s to come.’
She said this with a wince in her voice, a warm hug at the ready, waiting for Mavis to crumble at the thought of it, at the prospect of leaving her home. But Mavis only grinned mischievously.
‘We’ll see,’ she said, her eyes twinkling. ‘It’s not over till it’s over.’
‘When the fat lady sings,’ Evie said, pulling herself to her feet.
‘I don’t think Freda Peacock has much of a singing voice.’ Mavis bent from the waist and rightened Evie’s bright green wheelie case. Then she tipped it to the side, spilling the contents all over the carpet. ‘Better put that lot away. You’ve made a right old mess in here. Just like when you were a little girl.’
Evie put her hands on her hips and gave her gran a hard stare. ‘It’s taken me half an hour to pack that. Now I’ve got to start all over again.’
‘Come on, lovely. Sit down next to your old gran and tell me all about it.’ Mavis flopped onto Evie’s bed and patted the quilt by her side. Evie stood resolute, eyeing the mess on the floor.
‘Something’s brought all this on,’ Mavis said, holding out her hands, palms up. ‘Last night you seemed fine.’
‘I’m still fine,’ Evie said, dropping to her knees. She grabbed a handful of clothes and shoved them back into the case. ‘I just think it’s time to move on, that’s all.’
‘I need you, Evie. Please don’t go.’
Evie looked up. Her gran’s mouth, with its brave covering of lipstick, had started to sag at the corners. Her eyes were blurry with tears. ‘Oh, Gran. Come here.’ Evie pulled her into a hug. The old woman’s hair felt spiky against her chin and the sweet aroma of hairspray tickled her nose.
‘Is it something I’ve done?’ Mavis said, her voice muffled against Evie’s chest. ‘Have I become a burden?’
‘Gran, no! Of course not. It’s just … Oh, I don’t know. Everyone’s being weird with me. Here, in the street. Everywhere I go people are avoiding me or whispering or clubbing together in their houses and slamming the door in my face. It feels horrible. Like I’m on the outside now. And I know I shouldn’t think this way, but I’m angry with them. They could be a little more grateful, you know? I did my best. I did what I could. Okay, I failed. I didn’t manage to save Cupid’s Way, but you have to admit the odds were stacked against me. I couldn’t have known about McAllisters’ bid, or that Zac was buying up houses right under our noses. You liked Zac,’ she said, pulling back to look Mavis in the eye. ‘You were trying to get me to go out with him.’
Her gran sniffed. ‘We were all taken in, Evie. Not just me.’
‘Well, whatever. But it’s like everyone’s carrying on as though none of this is even happening. We’ve got two enormous developers vying to be the ones to flatten this street and what are that lot doing? Putting up bunting. It’s like they’re in some kind of extreme denial.’ She peered down at her gran’s face, which seemed surprisingly unblotchy for someone who’d just been in floods of tears. Had they been put on for Evie’s benefit?
‘You’re wrong about one thing, Evie,’ Mavis said, sitting up and fluffing her hair with her fingers. ‘We don’t have to worry about McAllisters anymore. They’ve been bought out by Dynamite Construction. Hadn’t you heard? It’s been all over Twitter, according to Tim.’
Evie lifted her hands off her gran’s shoulders and took a step back. ‘What did you say?’
‘Twitter. That social mediums thingy. So, now there’s only one enemy to worry about, not two.’
Evie tried to process this, her mind racing to keep up. ‘But how? I mean, how on earth did it happen?’
‘Oh, Evie, I’m just an old lady. I don’t know all the ins and outs. Tim came into the meeting the other day and said that he’d read a Tweetie or something, and that Dynamite Construction was in the process of buying out McAllisters. Something about a hostile takeover and saving them from receivership. Who’d have thought? Roy McAllister with all his front, trying to buy our little street when he hadn’t even had the funds to pay his own staff for three months. What? Why are you looking at me like that? Surely this is good news?’
Evie nodded slowly. ‘Excellent news, Gran. Even though it’s the same enemy we’ve been fighting all along, and look how powerful they are. They walk all over the competition, even if that competition is a huge company like McAllisters.’
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. She looked off for a moment, then turned back to her gran.
‘What meeting?’ she said.
‘Pardon?’
‘Just now you said Tim came into the meeting and told you about McAllisters. What meeting?’
Mavis jerked her head back, then immediately fluttered her hands around her head as though confused. ‘Oh, I meant dinner. Lunch. Something. When Tim came over the other day.’
‘He hasn’t been over here. I’d have noticed.’
‘He must have.’ Mavis grabbed hold of Evie’s hand to pull herself to her feet. ‘Or else how would I know about it?’
Evie held out her arm and blocked the doorway. With her other arm she pointed to the ravaged suitcase on the floor. She said,
‘Either you tell me right now what the hell is going on around here or I pack that bag and leave today. I mean it, Gran. I’m not taking no for an answer.’
Mavis pushed against her arm, but her attempts were feeble and half-hearted. ‘Oh, okay,’ she said with a sigh. ‘We were going to tell you today anyway, you stroppy madam. But if you want to spoil your own surprise, that’s up to you.’
Chapter 26
It was dark in the Peacocks’ house, and there was a smell that made Evie think of stately homes – but not in a good way. She tried to recall coming here as a child, to play with Eloise or to eat one of Freda’s famous cakes, but she could only bring up images of the gardens outside and the playground at the end of the street. Rolo sat in the corner of the room in a chair that might or might not have been brown. He was surrounded by everything he could possibly need – remote controls for the TV, bottles of beer piled by his feet, magazines with their pages curling, a bin for the empty crisp packets and apple cores and discarded cigar butts. When Evie and Mavis arrived, Rolo had leaned over and said something to Stig, who was seated in a garden recliner by his side. He still hadn’t made eye contact with anyone else in the room so far as Evie could see.
Stig was in his usual garb of tweed jacket and red neckerchief, but he’d combed his white hair flat to his head and looked to have scrubbed his hands raw. Freda, as Evie had already seen, was wearing her Sunday best of flowery dress and white sturdy-heeled court shoes, and Bob had donned some kind of carnival or ringmaster’s coat. Eloise and her boys perched on the sofa, Eloise managing to make the room seem a little less shabby just by the fact of her presence, and Alun Peacock lounged over by the kitchen door, also scrubbed and smartened up, but not quite so drastically as Eloise’s sons.
The first thing Evie had noticed, after Mavis had finally persuaded Freda to let them in – apparently this was ‘hours ahead of schedule’, whatever that meant – was Sarah and Tim huddled together on the love seat by the window. Even in the dim light afforded by the heavy drapes, Sarah’s face gleamed. She gave Evie a warm smile – a smile Evie couldn’t bring herself to return. She was still too disorientated, too out of the loop. She’d expected her gran to deny any weirdness, to tell Evie she was being silly and childish and paranoid. She hadn’t expected her to confirm her suspicions, and then march her down the gardens to discover her ‘surprise’.
Whatever that surprise was, it was clearly somewhere in this room. The sight of Cissy and Pip creeping in behind told Evie they were all present and accounted for, and when Freda dimmed the lights even further she looked around in confusion.
‘What is all this?’ she said. ‘Why won’t someone just tell me?’
‘She’s always been this way,’ Mavis explained to the watching faces. ‘You couldn’t plan anything for her when she was a child. Suspicious mind, she’s got. And impatient with it.’
Evie threw her gran a withering stare and turned to Frank, who was sitting on some kind of milking stool by her feet.
‘Gramps, do you know what’s going on?’
‘Just wait and see, lovely. Wait and see.’
The pride in his face reassured her, but Evie was still not mollified. Freda took her seat next to Eloise, and Bob knelt in front of a massive TV screen, fiddling with an ancient-looking video player. The screen took up half the wall, and as Evie surveyed the room again she saw excitement on the faces of everyone there. And something else. Something that could only be described as pride.
Shaking her head, she turned back to the screen. Bob scooted away as a video began to play, black and white static giving over to a shot of Cupid’s Way taken from the south side of the gardens. The bunting fluttered in a light breeze, framing a perfect scene of English country garden life. As the camera panned from right to left, Evie drew in a breath, startled by how glorious the houses looked to this focused eye. Zac had done them proud – the window frames were cream and glossy, the roof tiles shone in the sunlight, and all of the guttering was straight and painted in a fresh coat of matt black.
A new scene appeared, this one a close up of the allotment, where Cissy and Pip were working side by side, laughing and throwing back their heads. Evie turned to look at them and raised her eyebrows. Cissy nodded towards the screen. ‘Keep watching,’ she mouthed.
On the TV, Cissy and Pip were turning to face the camera. Pip spoke first.
‘Cupid’s Way is special because it’s the first place my wife and I have ever felt truly welcome. We can be ourselves here, and that is a rare thing.’ He looked at Cissy, who snuggled into his side. ‘We want to save Cupid’s Way because this is the place we hope to bring up our first child.’ His hand dropped to Cissy’s stomach, which bulged slightly under her thin cotton smock. Cissy looked straight into the camera, which zoomed in for a close up.
‘Cupid’s Way is so special it’s where I want my baby to be born,’ she said, her eyes dewy. ‘Please don’t destroy my baby’s home.’
As the camera panned out again, Evie turned back to the real-life renters, her mouth hanging open. ‘You’re pregnant?’