flickering light of a TV can be seen through the gaps in the curtains and I stare at the window, imagining myself aged two, four, six, eight, ten – lying on my stomach in that room, gazing up at The Magic Roundabout, Sesame Street, Blue Peter, Tiswas, Grange Hill. I could go on and on, could list them all as I watched them all, always on my own. I can’t remember ever having my mother by my side on the big settee, although my mother never worked and was always home. She preferred to stay in the kitchen, smoking and drinking tea at the little Formica table, and if I went in for a glass of squash and a biscuit the room would be a warm fug of cigarette smoke. She would lift her head from the magazine she was flicking through – Woman and Home, Home and Garden, Country Life – and say vaguely, ‘All right, Eva?’ God knows what she’d have done if I’d ever answered ‘No’; it hadn’t been part of the agreement. If I left my mother alone, I could watch TV till the cows came home, and have my tea on a tray. That would normally be at five o’clock, when John Craven’s Newsround came on, and while I ate my fish fingers or tinned spaghetti I’d hear the chinking of glasses when my mother set the Martini out, ready for when my father came in at six. A ritual that got steadily earlier, until she stopped waiting for my father, eventually.
Down the road a door bangs and a man walks out with a dog. He gives me an odd look, so I pretend I’m looking for something in my bag, and then move on.
From here to what I still think of as ‘the new house’ is a distance of maybe half a mile, but the streets change dramatically; they widen, they sprout trees, and acquire drives and double garages; they become Avenue, Drive, Crescent. I’m entering a different world, the one we moved to when my father stopped selling cars for other people, took out a bank loan, and began the business of selling cars for himself to the people of Harborough. A business he’s doing very well in, reflected in the house I’m now looking at, in leafy Park Vale. Across the curved lawn, lights blaze and figures are silhouetted in the big bay window – the house is lit up like a cinema screen, for one of my parents’ parties. I can hear music pulsing and shrieks of laughter and I know the booze will be flowing. Hopefully, it should be easy to slip upstairs unnoticed.
Letting myself in at the front door I make straight for the stairs, but my father sees me as he comes out of the lounge with empty glasses in his hands.
‘Eva, where are you going?’ He’s a little tipsy, his speech veering towards the Brummy drawl that he tightens up for his customers. My accent, like my mother’s, is more nebulous, more received pronunciation than provincial. ‘Don’t go hiding upstairs. Where have you been? You’ve been out all day.’
‘Just out, with Louise, and some others,’ I say. ‘We went to see a film. And then I was working. Dad, you know that.’
‘Of course, of course.’ He’s smiling at me fondly. ‘Come on, come and say hello.’
‘Not now. You go back in.’
‘No, no. You must come and meet everybody. Come on Eva, just for me – you know I like to show my lovely daughter off, hmmm?’
‘Dad, I’m tired, and I’m not dressed for a party –’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘You look lovely, you look … delightful.’
And at that I give in to being propelled into the lounge and towed around the people gathered there, some of whom I know, most of whom I would rather not spend time with. Self-conscious, embarrassed by my father’s attention, I smile and nod and give the right responses to the same questions, over and over. No, I found I hadn’t quite got the grades I wanted, when I opened up my results letter (which doesn’t quite reflect the cold shock of those stark letters, C, D, D, and the idea of another whole year at home stretching ahead of me). Yes, I am retaking my A-levels and hope to go to university next year. Yes, I quite like my part-time job behind a bar, but I’m looking for something better paid to tide me over the next year. And no, I don’t have a boyfriend, yet. (As if that’s your business, I think.)
When my father is distracted by some guests who are leaving my mother drifts over on a cloud of Dior and gin, glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She wears ski pants with a sparkly lurex top that leaves one shoulder bare, and her newly permed hair is caught at both sides in tortoiseshell combs, from which red curls spill extravagantly. (One day I will tell her that she should stop trying to look like Olivia Newton-John). But it’s her eyes that make my heart sink, with that glitter in them that comes with an evening of steady drinking. When she drinks my mother never trips or stumbles over her words; drink seems to have the opposite effect on her. She becomes harder, sharper. At least, until the hard look eventually becomes a glassy, unfocused stare.
‘Hi, darling.’ My mother’s eyes run swiftly over my clothes: a long black blouse worn belted over a very short denim skirt, and then black tights and pumps. My standard pub uniform. Tomorrow she’ll ask me when I’m going to stop wearing all that black. ‘Nice day?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
Her mouth twitches. ‘Yes, thanks. Is that it?’ I go over the same things I told my father, and she says, ‘Was James there?’
‘No.’ I frown, wishing I’d never mentioned my one date with James Gregory. ‘No, he wasn’t.’
My mother pulls a face. ‘Shame.’ She smiles at her friend Connie, who has wandered across and is drinking all this in. ‘Eva’s saving herself. She hasn’t met anyone good enough yet, but we have great hopes of James.’
Connie laughs some more, until I snap, ‘Shut up, Mum, you’re talking bollocks,’ at which Connie’s gaze whips back to my mother. She, however, seems unfazed, and gives me a bright smile.
‘I suppose you must be tired?’
‘Actually no, not yet.’ I look around. ‘I think I’ll get a drink.’ I head off to the kitchen, sensing her mild annoyance follow me across the room, and pour myself a large glass of red wine. For a while I stand in the doorway, drinking my wine and staring down at my pumps, which, even to me, look incongruous next to a trio of stilettos.
Another pair of feet, shod in dark brown leather, materialise at my side. My gaze travels upwards – past jeans, a check shirt and a soft leather jacket – to find a pair of serious eyes staring at me. These eyes are the colour of polished wood, set in a face that is long and narrow, like a fox, and the owner has thick, light-brown hair, cut short at the back, with a big fringe that falls over his eyes. He looks younger than the rest, who are all my parents’ age. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him here before, but then I’ve usually made sure I was either staying at Louise’s or upstairs in my room.
He waves his bottle of Buds in my direction. ‘You look like you wish you were somewhere else.’ He has a deep voice and the accent is northern; some has become soom.
I glance into the room, to see my mother and Connie swaying along to ‘Dancing Queen’, with their hands in the air and all the words on their lips. I look back at him. ‘Don’t you?’
He laughs. ‘I hear these parties are a regular event.’
‘Yes, but no one ever seems to have had enough. They all still come.’
‘Which must include you – to know that?’
I give what I hope is an enigmatic smile; he obviously has no idea who I am. ‘You remind me of someone,’ I say.
‘Oh?’
‘I can’t think who.’
He turns his head. ‘Try my profile. Does that help?’
‘Not really. It’s in the eyes. Shit, it’s going to annoy me now.’
‘Don’t think about it, then it’ll come to you. I hope it’s someone good-looking.’
‘Well, now you’ve said that, I will of course think of someone supremely ugly.’
We both laugh. He looks down at my nearly empty glass.
‘Can