teaches kids.’
‘Hey, we’ve fallen for it too.’ Evie shrugged, looking up at the narrow staircase, ‘So we’ve already met the troll under the bridge – how bad can it be?’
Two flights of winding, cramped stairs that seemed to get more uneven as you walked up, the threadbare carpet coming unstuck beneath their feet, and they were in the flat.
Apart from a faintly musty smell, it had a lot going for it. Light streamed through large bay windows, and there were skylights to enhance the effect. Whilst furniture was sparse, it was good quality. A solid coffee table and creamy sofa that Esme immediately sunk into. The kitchen had a breakfast bar, and each bedroom had beds with solid wooden bed frames. The bigger room had a four-poster bed with gauzy blue fabric floating from each corner, and Evie watched as Esme’s eyes widened with glee. The second room was even more sparse – a low bed set in a frame, close to the floor, that seemed to be made of pallets, sanded down until they seemed solid. Evie imagined the room with hanging canopies, and tea lights on the pallet edges, fairy lights beneath them. She could make this place magical.
‘So, what do we think? Can we make this home?’ she asked Esme and Mollie.
‘What do you think, Ez?’ Mollie directed the question at her daughter, anxious and unsure.
Esme beamed, ‘As long as we get the magical princess bed, this is going to be wonderful.’
***
The rest of the day passed quickly enough, lugging their furniture up the narrow staircase, unpacking and rearranging. Evie was shocked to find how few possessions she actually had. But there was her duvet cover on the bed, material draped from the huge bay window and, in the corner, a little table set up as her work station – her toolbox painted with purple glitter nail polish. It looked like a sixteen-year-old girl lived here; but she grinned, because that meant a trip to Camden Market for more pretty things. Esme would love it.
They found a stash of takeaway menus in the drawer and ordered pizza. Mollie had phoned Chelsea to invite her, but it went straight to voicemail. Evie stopped herself from commenting, just barely. It was starting to feel very much like Chelsea didn’t have time for them or Ruby. But that wasn’t much of a surprise, seeing as they hadn’t tried to get in contact with her for years. Maybe her life was exactly how she liked it.
Evie pounded down the stairs to get the pizza, and as she returned she paused outside Killian’s door, preparing herself for the treacherous climb up the stairs. Through the door she could hear the faint strum of Metallica. What was that guy’s problem? Usually people got to know her before she pissed them off. Like when a guy chases you for three years, knows you’re a selfish bitch, and then gets upset when you don’t want to marry him. That was usually how she upset people. Well, how she upset Nigel. Continuously. For many, many years. In general, she knew she was an ‘acquired taste’; she could be aggressively passionate about things, a little too focused, a little too desperate to get things done. She was not everybody’s cup of tea, she knew that. But damn, it wasn’t nice when someone disliked you for no reason. But maybe Killian was just a grouchy arsehole. Or maybe, it was about Ruby. Esme’s comment circled her brain – would Ruby have fallen for Killian? The connections listed by the tabloids usually included boyband members and reality TV celebrities. Could she have loved a carpenter from North London? Probably not. For Ruby, love was a stepping stone, not a place you stayed. But a man loving Ruby, and her enjoying the attention until she found something better? Well, that was Ruby all over.
Maybe she should be nice to Killian, maybe he was grieving and confused too. Or maybe, just maybe, he was an arsehole, and she had enough problems to deal with. She had to build this place in a couple of months, before Mollie could realise there was not quite as much money or time as she’d thought.
As she thundered up the stairs with the Veggie Supreme Esme had insisted on (she could now be a vegetarian as she was out of her grandma’s turkey twizzler clutches), Evie realised that everything she had ever wanted was completely possible. And as they sat on the floor of their new flat, making plans and laughing, Evie imagined Ruby with them, believing anything was possible.
‘Don’t get used to it, and don’t tell your mum,’ Evie grinned at her goddaughter as she handed her cold pizza for breakfast. Esme shrugged and raised an eyebrow, taking a delicate bite as if to check there were no consequences. She chewed and nodded.
‘Once, when Mum had an audition in London, Nanny gave me Pop-Tarts for dinner and told me not to tell.’
‘That sounds great,’ Evie shrugged, ‘I’d love to have Pop-Tarts for dinner, but when you’re an adult you start to feel guilty about that kind of stuff.’
‘The worst one was definitely the tin of sweetcorn and half a Mars bar,’ Esme rolled her eyes. ‘I’d said to Nanny a Mars bar wasn’t nutritious so she gave me a tin of sweetcorn and told me to stop being such a belladonna.’
‘Prima donna,’ Evie corrected with a frown. ‘Why didn’t you tell your mum?’
‘Because she’d stop going to auditions and then we’d never leave Nanny’s.’ Esme looked uncomfortable for a brief moment, but took off her glasses to clean them on the bottom of her t-shirt, ‘Doesn’t matter anyway, we’re here now.’
Evie wasn’t really sure how to handle this information, and decided the best course of action was to make Esme love her new home. She’d known living with Linda had never been the best of times; the woman had always been a pushy, loud drunk. But she’d managed to raise Mollie, who was sweet and kind and loving. Whatever she’d done, Evie had assumed Esme felt loved at home. But maybe they’d all been waiting for an escape. Ruby included. She’d got her escape, and then she’d passed it on to them. And Evie wasn’t going to waste it.
‘Well, seeing as your mum’s got her first shift at the new branch, I think you and I should properly look at this place and see what it needs to make it a home. What do you think?’
An hour or so passed with them walking around, Esme intent with her little notebook and pen, scribbling down every idea. A patchwork bedspread, a beanbag, plates with sunflowers on them. Anything they could think of to make it ‘theirs’. Things they didn’t even know existed.
They walked into Mollie and Esme’s room, looking at the tatty brown wardrobe up against the wall in disappointment.
‘It’s really ugly,’ Esme twitched her nose.
‘Maybe we could paint it? Put some flowers on it?’ Even Evie was doubtful, unable to visualise the awful cupboard being anything other than old-fashioned and vile. ‘What if we moved it over by the window? It’ll be out of the way at least.’
Esme shrugged, and together they started to push the huge thing across the floor. It squeaked as it scratched the floorboards and Evie winced, worried about the state of the wood. There less than a day and they were damaging things.
‘Evie! Evie!’ The little girl pointed as she did a little hop of excitement, pausing to push her glasses up. ‘Look, look!’
Where the cupboard had been was a doorway, small with a wooden panelled door. It looked like something out of Alice in Wonderland, and Evie had to bend to reach the brass doorknob.
Please don’t be full of dead bodies, please, please, Evie closed her eyes briefly, then twisted the handle, pushing the door open firmly. The room was normal, apart from its low ceiling and small door. Esme walked through comfortably, her little face lit up in wonder. At the far end of the room was a long window, and Esme peered down to the courtyard where the car was parked.
‘A secret room!’ She clapped her hands.
‘Better than that, Ez – your secret room!’ Evie squeezed her little shoulders, ‘You don’t have to share with your mum any more, you’ve got a room of your own!’
Esme launched herself at Evie in a rare