The Water's Lovely (20 page)

Yesterday's
Evening Standard
had described her as a socialite. Eva knew what the word meant – she was a frequent reader of
Hello!
and
OK!
magazines – but she would have preferred to have been described simply as ‘lovely' or ‘captivating'. She dropped the paper on the floor and got ready for her run.

The term ‘jogging' was unacceptable to Eva. It sounded like a heavy-footed animal, a hippo perhaps, or just a big person with thick ankles and a stomach. Others might jog; she ran – on light feet in Ruco Line silver trainers and very short shorts and a T-shirt as white as snow. Eva had a number of white and pale-coloured T-shirts which, instead of washing, she had dry-cleaned and which she threw away after the third wearing. Around St James's Park she ran each morning except Thursdays. On Thursdays she went swimming in the morning and to yoga in the afternoon.

Eva had never had a job or earned anything. She had no need to. When she came home from her Swiss finishing school her father handed over to her a portfolio of reliable but fairly adventurous stock and bought her the flat, which was the ground and first floors of a house in a street that ran parallel with the Vauxhall Bridge Road. It was very kind of Daddy, of course, but a pity it was in Pimlico. The only place to live really was Mayfair or, just possibly, Notting Hill, the Kensington end and well away from the route of the Carnival.

The diaphanous scraps she wore, see-through shifts, transparent drapery with hemlines to the middle of her slender white thighs, revealed the shape of the body beneath, milk-white as a marble statue. Eva's hair was no darker than barley stems, reaching to the middle of her narrow straight back, and she was as attenuated as a twelve-year-old, with tiny breasts and a stalk for a waist. She might have been a child star playing Tinkerbell in
Peter Pan
. When she went running she braided her hair, not into two but six plaits so that afterwards, when she undid them, her hair was crinkled from crown to tip like a Spanish infanta's. It framed her small flying-fox face in a pale golden mist.

Running round St James's Park, she followed the same route each day. If she had diverged from this itinerary she would have been afraid of getting lost. Although she lived in London and considered nowhere else in the British Isles a possible place to live, she knew only Bond Street and a few streets in Knightsbridge. When she ran, a bottle of pure spring water was all she carried. She paid no attention to the trees or flowers, scarcely noticed Buckingham Palace ahead of her and if anyone had asked her if you could see the London Eye from the bridge or if there were really pelicans, she couldn't have answered. The contents of her mind occupied her, whether she would have time for a pedicure as well as a facial later in the day, how little she could manage to eat when she had lunch with Mummy at Fortnum's and why they wouldn't let her have True, her Labrador, with her in London.

It was nearly nine when she returned to her car, the smart Mercedes Daddy had given her for Christmas, which she had left in Birdcage Walk. A parking ticket was on the windscreen. Daddy had said he would pay her parking fines but he had been difficult about it lately, she had so many. Still, she soon forgot it. After
all, it was only a ticket. She never took parking offences seriously unless she was actually clamped.

She was back in the flat, unweaving the braids, when the phone rang. Andrew, probably. She let it ring twelve times. Keeping men in suspense was her policy. Eva always answered it with her name, which she thought distinguished.

‘Eva Simber.'

The voice was a woman's. Strange because the only woman who rang on the landline was Mummy. ‘My name is Heather Litton. You won't have heard of me. You don't know me.'

‘No, I don't,' said Eva. ‘Look, I've just come in from my run and I need a shower. What do you want?'

‘My sister is called Ismay. Ismay Sealand. You'll have heard
of her
.'

Cautious now, Eva said in a way the Swiss finishing school would have deplored, ‘So what?'

‘You're going out with Andrew Campbell-Sedge, aren't you? No, I know you are. He was Ismay's boyfriend. They were practically engaged.'

When she paused, Eva said, ‘So?'

‘Are you in love with him?'

‘Am I
what
?'

‘I can't do this on the phone,' said Heather Litton. ‘Could we meet? I'd really like to talk to you.'

‘Talk about what? I don't
know
you. I don't know what you want.'

‘I want you to give him up.'

‘You're mad,' said Eva. ‘I'm going to put the phone down. Goodbye.'

Not as sophisticated and detached as she liked people to think, Eva felt rather shaken. When Andrew phoned should she tell him? Should she even break her rule and phone him? Pinning her newly crinkled hair
on top of her head, she stepped into the shower. She had long ago mastered the art of so twisting and contorting her body as to stand under the very hot cascade without wetting her head. You looked so ghastly in a shower cap even when there was no one to see you.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to phone Andrew and tell him or perhaps it would be better not to. Or should she tell Daddy? Daddy would tell her simply to forget it. He would treat this development the way he treated all her concerns and those of her mother and her sister. ‘Women's nonsense,' he called them. Or ‘a storm in a vodka breezer', which he thought very funny. He wanted her to marry Andrew. It would be what he, in his incredibly outdated way, would call a ‘good match'. Money should ally itself with money, in his view, and Andrew was the sort of person who would one day be on the Queen's Bench. Some other fine day, because he was made of the right material, he might become Lord Chancellor or, if this office no longer existed, Attorney-General. Eva didn't care. She didn't want to marry anyone but just have a good time with a lot of men and get her picture in the papers.

She dialled one-four-seven-one, proud of herself for remembering it, and was told that she had been called at nine thirty-one that morning and given the caller's number. She wrote it down, more to convince herself that she really was grown-up and efficient than for any use it would be. The last person she wanted to speak to was that woman.

Arranging their portable possessions in the two rooms over the shop in Rochester Row, Heather and Edmund had it all done by eight. They sat down side by side with mugs of tea on the table in front of them and Heather told him about the phone call she had made. ‘I'm determined to get to speak to her, Ed. I thought I
could do some running myself. We really ought to take some exercise, you know, you and I. We don't have any. I thought I could run round St James's Park. She'd just come in from her run when I phoned so I think she goes out at seven thirty and where she lives it's bound to be St James's Park.'

‘What are you going to say to her?'

‘Don't look like that. I'm going to be nice. I thought I could find out how serious she is about Andrew and if she's not, if it's just a bit of fun, I'm going to get her to give him up.'

‘Why should she?'

‘I don't know why, Ed, but I think I would if someone asked me the way I asked her and if I didn't love the man. Nothing would have made me give you up. Anyway, no one asked me. I wouldn't have if they had. But that's because I love you.'

After Edmund had finished kissing her and whispering that they ought to go to bed
now
, she said, ‘I'm going to appeal to her better nature. I'm going to tell her she's very beautiful – her picture's in the
Evening Standard
and she is – I'm going to say, you could have anyone, so please give him up for my sister's sake.'

‘You've no guarantee he'd go back to Ismay or she'd take him back.'

‘She would,' said Heather.

‘I'm doing my run,' Eva said in the indignant tone someone might use to say she had an appointment with the Queen. ‘I can't just stop in the middle.'

‘Five minutes,' the woman said. ‘We could sit on this seat for five minutes.'

‘You're the one who called me!'

‘That's right. You wouldn't talk on the phone so I came to find you here. Please sit down for a minute.'

Eva, who was dressed in a pink satin jumpsuit this morning, sat down reluctantly, first brushing fastidiously at the seat. This interruption of her morning workout she considered a great nuisance. The woman beside her belonged in a category she deeply disapproved of. It puzzled her that any girl in her twenties could set foot outdoors without eye make-up. And to have short fingernails that had never had the attention of a manicurist! She noticed the wedding ring on the left hand. Someone must have married her but surely no one Eva would have looked at twice. Only the very uncharitable would have called her overweight but she'd never get into a size ten again, if she ever had. Nice hair or it would be if she had it properly cut. Having summed up Heather Litton, Eva let her eyes come to rest on the woman's knees in what were probably Gap jeans and said, ‘Well? What is it?'

Instead of an answer she got a question. ‘Did you tell Andrew about my phone call?'

‘What's that to you?'

‘I'd just like to know if you told him.'

Eva shrugged. ‘No. No, I didn't. I thought it was all too stupid. I mean, asking me to give up my boyfriend just because of someone else he's got tired of. Why tell him?'

‘It doesn't matter. Do you love him?'

‘That's not your business.'

‘OK, it's not. None of it's exactly my business. It's yours and my sister's and Andrew's. I'm interfering, I know, but I think I've got good reason.' Heather was looking at her with deep earnestness and Eva recognised sincerity in her blue eyes. ‘But if you love him,' she went on, ‘if you mean to stay with him and maybe marry him – well, I'd understand. I love my husband and no one could make me give him up. He's the great love of my life. But if it's just a fun thing, if you fancy him and it's
sex and whatever and nothing more, couldn't you give him up and find someone else?'

‘Quite a speech,' said Eva.

Heather went on as if Eva hadn't spoken. ‘He was with my sister for two years and I think they'd have stayed together, maybe for always, if you hadn't come along. You met him at that Christmas party at his parents', didn't you?'

‘What if I did?'

‘I know you did. That's when he started – leaving Ismay. That was the beginning of it. It's not a very long time. You could give him up now and it wouldn't be much of a split. You've known him less than six months.' Heather looked into her face and Eva was very conscious of her superiority in looks over the other woman. ‘I'm pleading with you, Eva. He doesn't mean all that to you, does he? He means the world to my sister. She's breaking her heart. When he went he took away everything that made life worth living for her. He'd go back to her if you weren't there.'

Eva got to her feet, shaking her head vigorously. ‘I won't give him up. I don't
want
to.' She was aware she sounded like a petulant child but she didn't care. ‘If he knew he'd think I was mad. No one does that sort of thing. No one gives up a man because someone she doesn't know asks her to. It's crazy.'

‘You could be the first.'

Eva began to run. She called back over her shoulder, ‘Don't follow me. I don't want to see you again.' Inspired to utter the worst insult she could think of, she added, ‘You're such a
bore
.'

If Ismay could have heard Heather's words she would have agreed with them entirely. Of course she would take Andrew back. She loved him. Nothing could
change that. Eva Simber couldn't love him, not yet. She had only known him six months, if that. Ismay forgot that she had fallen in love with Andrew at first sight, the first moment she saw him across that crowded room – like in the song. As Heather had done, she found Eva's address in the phone book and looked up Sark Street, SW1 in her London atlas. Unlike Heather, she had no clear idea of what she would say to Eva Simber or even if she would go so far as to speak to her at all. Perhaps she would simply note where she lived, walk about a bit to catch a glimpse of her if she came home or went out. It was also possible, she thought miserably, that she might see Andrew. That would be terrible but it would be glorious as well.

Once her idea had taken shape she was unable to rest until she had put it into practice.

Now her ally, Pamela was the only person she discussed this with and she advised her strongly against it. ‘What good will it do? You'll only make yourself more unhappy.'

‘I couldn't be more unhappy.'

‘Then better stay the way you are. If she sees you she'll despise you and if he does he'll just be exasperated. People don't like being chased. It doesn't take much for them to call it harassment.'

‘You know something, Pam? I don't care. I just don't care.'

The next evening she had a reception she was organising for a client. It was in Westminster and it ended at eight thirty. The night was fine, still light at nine, and she decided to walk, to take the Horseferry Road and cross Vincent Square. The place was quiet and there was little traffic, Maunsel Street a garden of spring flowers and the grass in the square as green as a parakeet. Tears gathered behind her eyes and flowed silently down her cheeks. She
had nothing to wipe them away with but the backs of her hands. I shall be ‘all tears', she thought, I shall turn to stone like that woman whose children all died. The woman was in classical mythology but she couldn't remember her name or what had happened to her.

Emerging into the Vauxhall Bridge Road, tales of the West End Werewolf came into her mind. The girl he had tried to strangle had described him, young, not very tall, brown hair, clean-shaven. Thousands of men fitted that description. Anyway, he attacked at night and though after nine, it was still light. The only people about were a couple of middle-aged Asian men, a young girl on her own walking fast and a woman with a child in a buggy. She crossed the road and found Sark Street round the back of Pimlico tube station.