The Secrets We Left Behind (11 page)

Eve smiled. ‘I love the sea,’ she said. ‘Especially when the weather’s windy and stormy and the waves get really high. I grew up here in London, but I hated it, so now I
live quite near the sea with my boyfriend. I only come up here now and again to buy the bits and pieces I need for the jewellery. I can get crystals and beads and things locally, but not the clasps
and settings. We’re in Hastings, on the south coast. Do you know it?’

Jo shook her head. ‘I’m from Cornwall – Newquay.

‘Ooh, lucky you,’ Eve said. ‘I went to Cornwall when I was little, with my mum and dad. They’re dead now.’ A dark cloud floated across her face. ‘Are your
parents still there?’

‘They’re both dead, too,’ Jo said. It didn’t feel like a lie – she wanted nothing to do with her father, and she felt like an orphan, anyway. ‘My mum . .
.’ She felt her throat tighten and the tears beginning to gather behind her eyes. It was the first time she’d actually had to tell someone. She took a breath. ‘My mum died three
weeks ago. She had . . . something wrong with her liver.’

Eve’s eyes widened. ‘Just three weeks ago! Oh my goodness, you poor, poor thing. It’s so awful to lose your mum. And your dad, of course, but . . .’ She sighed. ‘I
was ten when my mum died. It was so’ – she looked away and then back – ‘so
unfair.
And then it was only a year later when my dad . . .’ She shook her head.
‘Sorry. I shouldn’t be going on about myself. We were talking about you.’

‘That’s it, really. My dad, well that was ages ago. But my mum . . . I still can’t really believe it.’

Eve was looking right at her, as though she was waiting for her to say more, but Jo didn’t want to talk any more today. Eve’s eyes were a deep violet colour and they were huge, so
big that when she blinked it took a long time for the lids to make their way over the surface of her eye and back again. Jo wished she had eyes like that.

‘So,’ Eve said, after a few moments. ‘Do you have anywhere to stay tonight?’

Jo looked at her tea. Part of her wanted Eve to think she was capable of sorting herself out, of getting everything organised; but the other part was desperate to admit that she was actually
quite scared. In the end, she didn’t even need to answer.

‘Look,’ Eve said. ‘Why not come back to Hastings with me? Scott won’t mind. It’s only a squat but it’s fairly civilised. You can see how you feel after a few
days. Stay if you want, go if you want. What do you say?’

Overwhelmed by gratitude and relief, she bit her lip and nodded, not trusting herself to speak in case she started crying again.

They hitchhiked as far as Crowhurst and took a train from there, but now they had to walk from the station. Jo’s suitcase felt as though it was getting heavier by the
second and the handle of her duffle bag was cutting into her shoulders; the sea wind was harsh and bit at her face. They paused for a breather before continuing up the hill past a sign saying
Unadopted road,
which Jo thought sounded rather sad and uncared for – another orphan. ‘Is it much further?’ she asked.

Eve shook her head and pointed to a flight of concrete steps that led up to more flights of steps and eventually to another road. ‘Just up here. Come on,’ she grinned.
‘It’ll be worth it; just visualise putting your feet up with a lovely hot cup of tea.’

By the time they reached the top, Jo’s heart was pounding. ‘Nearly there,’ Eve said as they turned into a wide, tree-lined road with big detached houses that were set back from
the street. Most had cars in the driveways and heavy curtains at the windows. Jo turned to look behind her – they seemed quite high up. There was the sea, a grey-green strip, slung like a
hammock between a gap in the rooftops. Just seeing it made her feel better.

‘That’s the one,’ Eve said, pointing to a huge Victorian house with steps up to the peeling front door. The house had once been white, but now it was stained with green where moss had
grown on the damp parts. It was the last one on the street, bigger than the rest, but in the worst condition, with chunks of the rendering missing, rotting window frames and a massively overgrown
front garden. It looked higgledy-piggledy; the House that Jack Built. On one corner, a turret with windows that went all the way round jutted out from the house. The main roof sloped this way and
that, with several chimneys poking up in the middle and a little wall running around the edge. Were those gargoyles looking down from the corners? They looked gruesome, although most of them were
broken, so they weren’t as frightening as they could have been. She turned to Eve. ‘This is a squat?’

Eve smiled. ‘We’ve been living here since last autumn. Gorgeous, isn’t it? Like our own castle. Come on. We go in round the back.’

The broken wooden gate squeaked as they went through into a large walled garden that was badly overgrown. An old, chipped bird-bath poked out from under the ivy that covered one of the walls and
had started to creep across the ground, and in the middle of the muddy, patchy grass stood a stone plinth supporting a sundial, which, like the bird-bath, was chipped and bartered but spoke of
better times. Jo tried to imagine what the ornamented garden would have looked like before the house lost its grandeur.

They walked past sacks of builders’ rubble piled against another wall alongside two broken bentwood chairs, an old armchair and a shopping trolley containing a plastic bowl and a headless
Sindy Doll. ‘We’re trying to clear this bit.’ Eve gestured towards a patch of partly dug soil. ‘We’re going to plant tomatoes, onions, potatoes, cauliflowers and peas.
And maybe some runner beans along that wall. There are allotments up the road, but we’ve got our own vegetable patch right here.’

Jo nodded. Her dad had grown runner beans; she remembered her mum making her a wigwam in the garden out of the bean poles. She followed Eve down some stone steps to a wooden door, where Eve
pushed the ivy aside and opened the door with a new-looking key. ‘First rule of squatting,’ she smiled. ‘Fit your own locks.’ The door opened into a dank, low-ceilinged room
with a hole in the floorboards that must have been four feet across. ‘Mind where you tread.’ Eve flicked a switch as she took Jo’s hand and pulled her inside. An un-shaded light
bulb dangled from the ceiling, casting a sickly light over the room.

‘How come there’s electricity?’

‘Oh, it’s perfectly legal. We just had a meter reading and got it turned back on. They’re not allowed to refuse to connect services just because you’re squatting. Some
people tap into the meter and steal the electricity, but we don’t think you should do that unless you absolutely have to do. Although we did give a false name for the bills.’ She
giggled. ‘Just in case. Anyway’ – she gestured with her arm – ‘this is it, home, sweet home.’

Jo could feel the cold air on her face as she picked her way across the rotting floorboards. The smell of damp was overwhelming. There was an orange fungus growing on the walls and the ceiling
had collapsed in one corner, leaving a hole where the joists showed through and a pile of rubble on the floor beneath it. She shivered; God, it was cold in here. That shop doorway was starting to
seem attractive compared with this mouldering basement. What had she done, coming here? Eve didn’t seem the sort of person who would live somewhere like this. But then they went up some
stairs and through another door into a large, bright hallway. The few remaining black-and-white tiles on the hall floor were cracked and broken, but you could see it must have once been quite
impressive – it reminded her of Eaton Place on
Upstairs, Downstairs. A
huge wardrobe had been pulled across the front door, which had planks of wood nailed across it anyway. Eve took
off her coat, revealing a long, emerald-green skirt with a man’s white shirt belted over the top. The black-velvet choker around her neck completed the romantic, gypsy look. She wore DMs,
too; Jo was glad she’d worn her own DMs and not the red platform boots with the black stripe down the side; she’d been so tempted to bring them, but they took up too much space and
anyway, they hurt her feet, so they’d gone in the jumble with the rest of her clothes.

‘This is the living room,’ Eve said, parting what looked at first like a bead curtain, but which, when you looked properly, turned out to be made entirely of tiny shells.

Jo took hold of one of the curtain strands and ran her fingers along its knobbly length. ‘There must be hundreds of shells here. I bet it would take ages to thread them all onto strings like
this.’

Eve nodded. ‘It did, but I think it’s rather pretty, don’t you? Definitely worth the effort.’

‘You made this?’

‘Created with my own fair hands.’ Each individual shell had been painted in graduating shades of yellow through to a deep, russety orange, and they’d been strung so that, when
you looked at the whole thing together, it resembled the flames of a bonfire. ‘It’s fab. It must be brilliant to be able to make stuff like that. To
create
something of your
own.’

Eve smiled. ‘I make loads of things – jewellery, bags, scarves, candles. It all sells well at the markets, especially in the summer. I’ve always loved making things, ever since
I was a kid. I used to make
everything
they did on
Blue Peter.
Drove my mum loopy.’

Jo smiled and stepped through the curtain into the living room. The floorboards were bare here as well, but they looked dry and in good condition, and with the squares of carpet here and there
it felt almost cosy. She walked over to the fireplace and looked into the mirror that was propped up on a wooden fire surround. What a state she looked. Her hair was greasy and there were dark
smudges under her eyes. She’d barely thought about her appearance for the last couple of weeks, but Eve was so pretty she felt dull in comparison.

In the fireplace stood a black iron grate in which were the remains of a fire – a few burnt-out lumps of coal, some charred wood and a lot of ash. To one side was an old tea chest full of
wood and newspaper and with a guitar resting against it, and on the other, a Calor gas heater, which Eve managed to light on the third attempt, filling the room with the smell of Calor gas. Eve
flopped onto the sagging sofa in front of the huge bay window, which had one cracked pane with a criss-cross of black tape holding it together, and old-fashioned wooden shutters on either side. Jo
had always wanted to live in a house with shutters, ever since her mum used to read her ‘The Night Before Christmas’ in a whispery, excited voice: . . .
Away to the window I flew like a
flash tore open the shutters and threw up the sash . . .

‘It’s not. . . what I expected. You know, for a squat.’

‘There’s no need to live in squalor, not unless you have to.’ Eve adjusted the brightly coloured scarves and shawls draped over the back of the sofa so that they covered the worn
bits. ‘The addicts who lived next door to us in St Leonards; they lived in squalor, but I suppose if you’re out of it half the time . . .’

Jo nodded. Her mum had been ‘out of it half the time’. They hadn’t lived in squalor, but things had changed. Her mum still wiped the kitchen table, ran the carpet sweeper over
the living-room floor and cleaned the loo, but it was Jo who’d kept the place generally clean and tidy for the last couple of years. Her mum still cooked, but it was usually beefburgers or
sausages with beans or chips. Now and again, she’d have a good day and fill the freezer with Bolognese sauce and chicken casserole. But a day’s proper cooking always meant she’d
start drinking earlier because she felt she deserved a ‘reward’, and by the time
Coronation Street
came on she’d be slurring her words. It seemed like a completely
different lifetime when they’d all lived in a nice house and her mum and dad had given dinner parties where there would be white wine in the fridge, gin and tonics before the meal and
brandies afterwards. She liked the smell of alcohol on her parents’ breath when they came up to tuck her in; it meant nice things, men in smart jackets, women wearing perfume and bracelets,
flowers in the dining room and leftover pudding in the fridge the next day. After her father left, her mother still had a gin and tonic before dinner, and on Sundays, she’d buy a bottle of
Blue Nun and even let Jo have half a glass with Sunday lunch. Later, when Jo was fourteen, she was allowed a glass of sherry or a Martini and lemonade on Friday nights, which became Pizza Night.
They’d buy cheese and tomato pizzas from Bejam and pep them up with olives and capers and little bits of ham. There was no telly on Friday nights – it was their night for talking, her
mum said, for spending time together. They’d sit in the kitchen with the cassette player between them on the table, singing along to Bonnie Rairt or Joni Mitchell, and they’d be having
a really nice time, then something would change very suddenly, as though her mother had become a different person. One night, her mum had been crying and trying to sing at the same time, the tears
running down her face and twisting her mouth out of shape. Jo didn’t want to have to deal with it, so she said she was going to bed. Her mum grabbed her wrist. ‘Not yet, Jo-Jo.
Don’t go yet.’ Her eyes were glazed and her hair was a tangled mess from where she kept running her hands through it. ‘You listen to me, Jo-Jo.’ She was slurring her words.
She wiped the tears with the back of her hand, streaking her face with mascara, but then she seemed to forget what she was going to say. Her upper body swayed as she tried to pour more sherry from
an empty bottle. ‘Shit shit shit. Where’s that other bottle? Sure I had another bottle.’

‘You’ve already drunk it, Mum,’ Jo said.

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re trying to make out I drink too much, aren’t you? And I don’t appreciate it, Joanna, I really
don’t.’ She picked up the empty bottle again and poured several drips into her glass. ‘I think it’s time you went to bed, young lady.’

‘I know. I just said I was going to bed, but you said—’

Her m um banged her hand down hard on the table, making the glasses jump and rattle. ‘Don’t try to be smart with me, missy.’