Louise Hare - This Lovely City

Evie lit a cigarette and took a deep drag while she tried to think of something better to say.

‘Bad habit.’ Lawrie shook his head as she blew out smoke, though she was careful to angle her breath away from his face.

She grinned. ‘I never had a dad before and I don’t want one now, thank you very much.’

He put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him, pushing her nose into the wool of his coat. The wool held the scent of smoky bars and a faint hint of woody cologne that had belonged to a previous owner. He was a gentleman, was Lawrie Matthews. Too much so sometimes. He never made a move on her, was careful where he put his hands even when she could tell that he was holding himself back. ‘Sorry I don’t have much time tonight.’

‘Don’t worry about me. Only you shouldn’t be going out, not when you’ve had such a shock. You look exhausted. Like you could fall asleep standing up.’ She reached up and caressed his jawline; he hadn’t even shaved, which was most unlike Lawrie.

His chuckle was frail, the ghost of a laugh. ‘I wish I could tell Johnny that I’m staying home. If I could, I’d stay here with you. We never seem to get any time to ourselves these days.’

‘What about tomorrow?’ she asked hopefully. ‘Delia and I were talking and it seems ridiculous that we’ve never had a night out at the Lyceum. I know you’re playing, but you’ll have breaks, won’t you? I can come backstage and you can show me around.’

‘Your mother will let you?’

‘I don’t see why not.’ She sounded more confident than she felt.

‘And you’ll tell her that I’ll be there too? I don’t want her to think we’re going behind her back or she’ll not let you out again until we’re married.’

Evie’s heart almost stopped as he reached the end of his sentence. Was she reading too much into a single word? He squeezed her tighter and she threaded her fingers through his and tried not to show him what she was thinking.

‘I think Ma’s decided that she likes you, you know. She asked after you only this morning. I think she just likes to put on a show, making sure we don’t get ahead of ourselves.’

‘Conniving woman.’

‘Just be glad she hasn’t taken against you. If she had then she wouldn’t leave this house without locking me in my bedroom first.’ It was an exaggeration but not far off the truth. Evie had let her mother down before and it had taken months to earn back that trust.

‘She’s not so bad.’

‘She has her moments.’ Evie tilted her head towards his until he got the message and kissed her properly.

‘You think the baby’s mother is someone like yours?’ Lawrie pulled away first, his mind elsewhere. ‘I mean, a woman in a similar predicament, if you know what I mean.’

‘Left holding the baby after some chap’s done a runner? Only maybe she knew better than Ma did and got rid?’

‘Evie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’ His face was stricken with remorse.

‘It’s all right.’ She waved his words away as if they didn’t bother her. ‘Everyone else will be thinking the same anyway. It makes sense.’

She’d picked up a Standard on the way home but Lawrie had been able to tell her more than the short, hurriedly filed report. The paper hadn’t divulged that the baby was coloured but they had given an age. Evie had assumed on first hearing that the baby must be a newborn but apparently she – the baby girl – was almost a year old. Someone had cared for her for months before her death, had kept her fed and clothed and probably even loved her. Evie couldn’t imagine what must have come over the person responsible, to suddenly do such a thing. A baby was a precious gift. Not everyone had a choice in the matter, Evie knew, but Ma had coped on her own. And, as Delia had pointed out, there were institutions for babies who couldn’t be cared for at home. None of it made sense.

‘Do you think it could have been an accident? We’re assuming the worst but the baby could just have been ill. Maybe the mother panicked and didn’t know what to do. You said the blanket looked hand-embroidered.’

‘With flowers,’ he confirmed.

‘So somebody cared. Sometimes babies just die and it’s not anybody’s fault.’ Evie’s hand shook a little as she lifted the cigarette to her mouth.

‘What if it was someone we know?’

For so long the only other coloured person Evie had ever known was an intensely serious engineering student from Nigeria who had lived on the next street over when she was fourteen. He’d spoken to her sometimes if they’d been waiting at the bus stop, just chit chat, but she could sense within him the same loneliness she felt, knowing that she didn’t quite fit in. She’d never told him that her father had also been a student, just like he was. She worried that he’d ask her questions and she’d have to admit that her mother refused to talk about him at all.

‘How dark was her skin?’ Evie asked. ‘Darker than mine?’

‘I don’t know. It’s all mixed up in my head. If it weren’t for that Rathbone fella telling me that she was coloured I’d think I’d imagined it. I can’t believe that anyone we know would have done this, can you?’

‘’Course not.’ Evie ground out her cigarette on the step. She’d have to remember to take that in later and hide it in the bin, else Ma would have words. ‘You know, there are plenty of local women who’ve had a little secret flirtation. I mean, look at Aston. How many women have you seen leave on his arm at the end of a night?’

‘ Aston? That’d be even worse. An awful lot of fellas round here would not like the idea of one of their women being with one of us darkies .’ His mouth twisted into a grimace as he spat out the slur.

And if anyone knew about that it was Lawrie, Evie thought, suddenly sour. ‘You think there’d be trouble?’

‘Let’s just hope that it turns out like you said and the baby died of measles or some such illness.’ His lips brushed her forehead and she knew he didn’t want to talk about it any longer.

Evie’s grandfather had been in the police, not that she’d ever known him. Ma had gone alone to his funeral and afterwards they’d moved into this house – his house – which had been the Coleridge family home when Ma was a child, before she’d been thrown out for getting pregnant and bringing disgrace upon the family name. Evie had never really understood how a man could choose so easily to cut off his own flesh and blood, but she’d learned to give up asking questions after Ma had told her that if she brought the subject up again, she’d take her down to the graveyard and leave her there by his headstone until she got her answers. Ma did keep one photograph of the man on the mantelpiece, dressed in his full police uniform. His stern expression made her glad she’d not had to meet him. The thought of a man like that going after Lawrie made her feel sick.

She checked her watch. ‘Ma’ll be home soon. Are we just going to sit here talking?’ She placed a hand on his thigh and felt him jump as though burned by her touch. ‘You don’t want to…?’

‘I just – I don’t want you to feel like you have to is all. Not on my account.’

‘Will you ever stop thinking of me as a little girl?’ she snapped, her tone sharper than she intended.

‘I don’t.’

She refused to look at him until he reached over and turned her head gently with his fingertips.

‘I just want to do right by you, Evie, that’s all.’

‘Then stop treating me like I’m made of glass. I won’t break if you touch me. Properly I mean, instead of all this careful patting and stroking. Why do you have to be such a gentleman all the time?’