Paul Braddon: The Actuality

‘Je think Maman, that thees was not part of le plan,’ Sola murmurs, without yet understanding what she is witnessing.

Evie falters too. The legitimacy of her existence has been snatched away in a heartbeat.

Did Matthew know? Did he lie to her all these years or was he lied to himself? And why did Maier not say earlier that his daughter was alive? Evie realises as she thinks it that she herself said nothing to reveal the misapprehension. But from Evelyn’s point of view, it must be far worse – presented with a replica of her younger self with no opportunity to prepare. The theatrics of the introduction are insensitive at best.

‘What have you done?’ Evelyn asks of her father, while continuing to stare at Evie. ‘Is she yours?’

This accusation blindsides Maier and he is momentarily lost for words.

‘Did mother know? Where have you been hiding her all this time? Is this to mock me?’

‘No… no I mean, she is not that,’ he answers, stumbling. ‘I would never have done such a thing,’ he adds, horrified, or at least feigning it. ‘To your mother or to you.’

‘Then what?’

‘She arrived today unannounced. Until then I knew nothing about her.’

‘She arrived out of the blue, and you just let her in?’

‘How could I turn her away?’

‘And where exactly did she arrive from?’

‘From Matthew,’ he says.

Evelyn trembles. ‘I see,’ she mutters. ‘So this is to mock me.’

‘Evelyn, I had no idea,’ Evie murmurs, desperate to make amends for the appalling misunderstanding that she herself is at the heart of, while inside she seeks to adjust to the altered circumstances. It is not as hard as she might have imagined. She was written to believe she was Evelyn, but this was only ever an artifice which even early on proved unsustainable, and ever since she has been no more than playing a part. And not even one she has been very good at. Finding Evelyn alive may finally allow her to be herself.

Evie steps away from the table, emerging from the cocoon of warmth around the dining area into the night’s chill.

‘Where did he find her?’ Evelyn asks, her voice suddenly loud.

‘Let us sit down and talk and all will begin to make sense,’ Maier says, sounding slightly desperate, his magician’s reveal not having gone as well as he’d hoped. He tries to take Evelyn’s arm but she shrugs him off and, one step at a time, traverses the remaining yards unaided. The maid materialises from the shadows and pulls back a chair and Evelyn seats herself, wincing as she settles.

Maier rights Evie’s chair and she feels the shawl of warmth surrounding the table wrap her back around as he slides it in. He takes the remaining one for himself and unrolls his napkin, gazing at his elderly daughter and her youthful doppelgänger.

‘Enough games,’ Evelyn mutters. ‘Tell me who this is.’

‘It would be polite to ask her yourself, rather than pretend she is not there.’

Evelyn glares back. Her breathing is quick and shallow and her hand grips the table edge, dragging deep creases into the cloth.

‘Tell her, Evie,’ Maier says, ‘who you are.’

‘Who I am?’ she stammers.

‘How you know Matthew will do, as a start,’ he says gently. ‘We’ll take this a step at a time. There is a lot to absorb.’

Evie looks over to Evelyn, her look full of compassion and regret, ‘I am Matthew’s wife.’

Evelyn breathes in sharply and her knuckles whiten. ‘And what interest is this to me?’

‘I’m sorry, it’s just that I—’

‘I do not want your apologies. I do not ask for pity,’ she mutters. ‘Who do you think you are, coming here with your presumptions?’

Evie cannot hold her look and turns away, witnessing Sola’s face as she does so. Her mouth is open so wide that all her teeth, all the way back to the molars, are on show.

‘I didn’t mean anything,’ Evie says quietly.

‘And what are you doing married to an old man, you’re barely a child. What do you get from it? Money? That’s usually the thing, I believe?’

‘I had no choice.’

‘Is Eve even your real name?’

‘Evie,’ she corrects, her voice hollow.

‘You realise you look like me, when I was young, when he and I were… But I guess you know that. What did he do, pay for the surgery? It would have been typical of him. He altered me too you know, for life, but not in a positive way. I wasn’t always like this… a cripple.’

‘Evelyn dear, be generous,’ Maier says.

She twists to face him, revealing a crimson ribbon holding her greying hair off her neck. ‘Don’t “Evelyn be generous” me, when it was you who let her in.’

‘What did Matthew do?’ Evie asks tremulously.

‘You mean this?’ She holds up the handle of her stick.

‘Evelyn, all that was years before she…’

‘No! She should know about the man she’s married.’ Evelyn turns to face her. ‘I was your age or thereabouts. We were in England. Your husband and I had been friends but that was all in the process of changing. Spending time with him had become oppressive but he’d made the assumption he owned me already, he’d even bought a ridiculous house in the country to be my wedding present and was furious because I spoilt everything by rejecting his proposal.

‘We were returning from it in his car. He was driving down the narrow lanes like a madman to terrify me, and losing control we ended up crashing into a bank. The collision concertinaed the front against my legs, destroying me and his precious automobile in the same instant. Only, he got to walk away.’

Evie cannot look at either of them and stares at her napkin still folded on her place mat. Sola takes her hand underneath the table.

‘So no, I never died, nothing so romantic. Although over the years, suffering operation after operation as the surgeons spliced my splintered limbs back together, I have often enough wished I had.’

‘He left you?’ she murmurs, horrified that Matthew had deserted her so callously.

‘Oh, not quite. He briefly sentimentalised about nursing me himself, but when I returned home for treatment, it was the last I heard from him. And of course you know the final bit already, how he claimed the role of victim, spreading the lie that I had died… I tell you, if I had known he was doing that!’

‘I am so sorry,’ Evie murmurs.

This version of events has taken a ram to her happy memories of her husband. Instead, a recollection of falling short of his vision of perfection, of being abandoned outside his room trying to work out her mistake, rattles around her head.

‘You don’t look so pleased with yourself now,’ Evelyn says.

‘I never meant—’

‘How long have you been… married?’

‘Forty-one years, last autumn.’ Evie is close to tears, only just holding them in.

Evelyn snorts derisively. ‘You think this is amusing?’

‘No, it’s true,’ Maier murmurs. ‘Forty-one years. I was fooled too and that was in daylight. Our friend is, how can I put it, not quite what she seems.’

‘What are you saying?’ Evelyn’s eyes are suddenly wide. ‘That she’s a “bot”?’

She stares at Evie, then reaches across and takes her chin roughly in her hand and drags her face around to stare into her eyes. ‘Well, that just about sums him up. The only type of woman that would put up with him. And there I was taking you merely for an opportunistic little slut. So where is he now?’ she asks aggressively. ‘Why did he send you?’

‘He’s dead,’ she says, observing Evelyn, confronted by this revelation, momentarily brought up short.

The atmosphere around the table grows cold despite the fabricated heat. Everyone draws breath. Sola stares at each of them in turn, her mouth still agape.