Harriet Evans - Love Always

Arvind opens his eyes. He looks at me, and at the pages I am holding.

‘I knew she’d kept it,’ he says. He does not register surprise or shock. ‘There’s more. She fil ed a whole exercise book, that summer.’

I glance into the drawer again. ‘Where is it, then?’ Arvind puckers his gummy mouth together. ‘I don’t know. Don’t know what happened to the rest of it. That’s partly why I went into the studio. I wanted to find it, I wanted to keep it.’

‘Why?’ I say. ‘Why, what’s in it? Where’s the rest of it?’ Suddenly we hear footsteps at the bottom of the stairs, a familiar thundering sound.

‘Arvind?’ a voice demands. ‘Is Natasha in with you? Natasha? I just wonder, isn’t the cab going to be here soon?’

‘Take it,’ he says, lowering his voice and pushing the diary into my hands. The footsteps are getting closer. ‘And look after it, guard it careful y.

It’l al be in there.’

‘What do you mean?’ I say. ‘Your grandmother, she must have kept it for a reason,’ he says, his soft voice urgent. He drops his voice. ‘This family is poisoned.’ He stares at me. ‘They won’t tel you, but they are. Read it. Find the rest of it. But don’t tel anyone, don’t let anyone else see it.’

The door opens, and Louisa is in the room, her loud voice shattering the quiet.

‘I was cal ing you,’ she says, accusatory. ‘Didn’t you hear?’

‘No,’ I say, lying. ‘I was worried you’d be late for your train—’ She looks at the open bedside table, at the painting at the top, the girl’s smiling face gleaming out. ‘Oh, Arvind,’ she says briskly, closing her eyes. ‘No, that’s al wrong.’ And she shuts the drawer firmly.

I slip the sheet of paper into one of the huge pockets of my black skirt and clench my fingers so she can’t see the ring. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m just coming.’ I bend over and kiss my grandfather. ‘Bye,’ I say, kissing his soft, papery cheek. ‘Take care. I’l see you in a few weeks.’

‘Perhaps,’ he says. ‘And congratulations. I hope that you can enjoy your freedom.’

‘Freedom?’ Louisa makes a tutting sound, and she starts smoothing the duvet out again, tidying the bedside table. ‘It’s not something to congratulate her on, Arvind. She’s left her husband.’

I smile. ‘Freedom,’ he says, ‘comes in many guises.’

My hands are shaking as I leave the room. I walk to the end of the corridor, to the staircase, past my room, which was also Mum and Cecily’s room, down the end, to the alcove that leads to the door of Granny’s studio. I stare at it, walk towards it, push it open, quickly, as if I expect someone to bite me.

It’s al glass, splattered here and there with seagul crap. A step at the end. The faintest smel of something, I don’t know what, tobacco and fabric and turps, stil lingers in the air. The moon shines in through one of the great glass windows. The world outside is silver, green and grey, only the sea on view. I have never seen the garden from this viewpoint before, never stood in this part of the house. It is extremely strange. There is a thin layer of dust on the concrete floor, but not as much as I’d have thought. A bay with a window seat, two canvases stacked against the wal and wooden boxes of paints stacked next to it, neatly put away, and right in the centre of the room a solo easel, facing me, with a stool. A stained, rigid rag is on the floor. That’s it. It’s as if she cleared every other trace of herself away, the day she shut the studio up.

I look round the room slowly, breathing in. I can’t feel Granny here at al , though the rest of the house is almost alive with her. This room is a shel .

Shutting the door quietly, trying not to shiver, I go downstairs, feeling the paper curve around my thigh in its pocket. There they are, gathered in the sitting room, the few who are left: my mother on the sofa next to Archie, the two of them sunk in conversation; the Bowler Hat, hands in his blazer, staring round the room as if he wishes he weren’t there and next to him his brother Guy, also silent, so different from him, but looking similarly uncomfortable. On cue, Louisa appears behind me, pushing her fringe out of her face.

‘Al OK?’ she says, and I notice how tired she looks and feel a pang of guilt. Poor Louisa.

I should just say, Look what Arvind’s given me. Cecily’s diary. Look at this.

But I don’t, though I should. It stays there, in my pocket, as I look round the room and wonder what Arvind meant.

Chapter Ten

Jay stands in the doorway of the house as Mike waits outside in his large people carrier, engine purring, and Octavia hugs her parents goodbye. ‘I wish you weren’t going,’ he says. ‘Cal me tomorrow and let me know how the meeting goes. And everything. Maybe meet up over the weekend?

Get some lamb chops?’

‘Sure,’ I say. I can’t see further than the next five minutes at the moment; the weekend seems like an age away, there’s so much to get through before then. ‘Lamb chops would be great, though.’

We are both obsessed, perhaps because of the birthplace of our grandfather, with the Lahore Kebab House, off the Commercial Road.

Neither of our parents wil eat there – it’s not posh enough for them. But we took Arvind once, when he was in London to receive an honorary degree, and he loved it. It’s huge and opulent, ful of lounging young men with gel ed hair in leather jackets scoffing food, eyes glued to the huge TV

screens showing the cricket. Jay often knows them. ‘Jamal!’ he cal s, as we sit down. ‘Ali . . . ! My brother!’ And they al do those young-men hand clasps, hugging firmly, patting the back. They look me up and down. ‘My cousin, Natasha,’ Jay says and they nod respectful y, slumping back down into the chair to eat the food. Oh . . . the food . . . Tender, succulent, chargril ed lamb chops . . . Peshwari naan like you wouldn’t believe, crispy, garlicky, yet fluffy . . . Butter chicken . . . I can’t even talk about the butter chicken. Jay jokes that I moved to Brick Lane so I could be near the Lahore.

One week, Oli and I ate there three times. It didn’t even seem weird.

As I stand outside Summercove, the wet Cornish air gusting into my face, the Lahore seems a long way away. ‘It would be great,’ Jay says. ‘I might have to go away for work but sometime soon, yeah? You’re not . . . busy?’

‘No,’ I say. Of course I’m not busy. I don’t do anything much these days. I go to the studio and stare at a wal , then go back home and stare at a TV.

Octavia moves towards me and we stop talking. ‘Are you ready?’ she asks briskly.

‘Yep,’ I say. ‘Bye, Jay.’ I hug him again. ‘Good luck, Nat,’ he says. ‘It’s al going to be OK.’

With Jay I feel calm. I feel that if he says it then it real y must be true. It wil be OK. This cloak of despair which I seem to wear al the time, it wil lift off and disappear. Oli and I wil work this out, and come through this stronger. The bank wil extend my loan and I wil have a means to live.

Someone wil give me a break.

And then I think about the diary in my bag. I frown. I nearly mention it to him, but I remember what my grandfather said. Guard it carefully .

Jay doesn’t see, he doesn’t know, how could he? He kisses me on the cheek, and I climb into the large vehicle. We’re right at the back. It is dark and it’s been raining.

‘Are we ready?’ Mike cal s in his soft, comforting voice. ‘Yes,’ Octavia and I say in chorus, and then someone thumps on the window and we both jump.

‘Nat darling, bye.’ My mother is standing in the driveway, her hands pressed against the wet windows of the car, her hair hanging in her face, peering through at us. ‘We’l speak. Keep me posted.’ She is speaking much too loudly, and I wonder if she’s drunk; she looks a bit hysterical. ‘I’m sorry.’