As I walk out of the kitchen, my mother calls,
‘Are you seeing him again?’
I pause at the bottom of the stairs. On the few occasions that I’ve ever mentioned a boy’s name, my mother has asked that question with a little note of hope in her voice. This time, she is clearly not happy at the thought that Ed is interested in me.
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘You should know he has history. You should know what you’re getting into.’
I walk back towards the kitchen. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s married, left his wife. And there’s a child, somewhere.’
I feel a jolt in my stomach. ‘A child?’
‘Yes. A little boy.’
‘Did he tell you that?’
My mother shakes her head. ‘It was something your father said.’ She’s watching my face. ‘He kept that quiet then.’
I’m suddenly annoyed. ‘I don’t see why you’re telling me all this. It’s nothing to do with you.’ I turn my back on my mother and stamp upstairs, where I start gathering books to take to the library. Halfway through, I stop to stare out of the window, watching a squirrel climb the washing-line pole to get at the bird feeder, and hearing my father’s voice: Damn squirrels, just bloody rats with a tail!
I’m thinking about Ed, having left his wife and child, and trying to work out if that means something or nothing to me. You’d think such a man would be a bit of a bastard, but I didn’t think I could say that about Ed. But then I suppose it’s like burglars. They don’t go round in a striped jumper, holding a bag with SWAG written on it, do they?
***
I have to wait two weeks for Ed to come back to the pub, this time on his own. It’s a Friday, near to closing time again, and the pub is heaving – a fug of heat and smoke and noise. I give him a quick smile as he queues at the bar; after he’s been served by Jon he stands at one end, rolling up. I feel him glance my way every so often, but I’m busy, and we don’t talk until after the bell has been rung and things slow down.
‘I weakened,’ he says, when I go over. ‘I was going to walk to the pub up the road, see if the beer’s better, but it’s too wild out there.’
‘That’s what everyone’s saying. One man said it’s like a hurricane … but then he’d had a few.’
While I wash glasses and tidy the bar, Ed chats to a very drunken man who I think is probably trying to sell him something that fell off the back of a lorry, a man who’s well known in the pub. Occasionally the landlord will exercise his muscle and throw him out, just to let him know he’s got his number, but he keeps bouncing back. Now and then Ed looks across and gives me a wink and a grin, and each time I feel a muted flutter of excitement in my belly. If nothing else, I think, he’s not avoiding me, which if he had I would have quite understood; his friend’s boss’s nineteen-year-old daughter, whose own mother flirted so outrageously with him.
When I’ve finished for the night I fetch my coat and bag from the back, and he’s still there, waiting. The drunk has gone, and the last few punters are draining their glasses.
‘I was just thinking of going on somewhere,’ he says. ‘There’s the casino in town, they have a late bar. I sometimes go with Steve, I’m a member. You could be my guest.’
There’s no ‘if you like’, or ‘it’s just a thought’. This is what I want, do you want it too, is how I hear it.
‘Okay. Why not?’ I use the pub phone to ring home, so my father won’t wonder where I am. It rings for a long time, and then I’m thrown by a strange woman’s voice saying hello on the other end.
‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s Pam.’
‘Hi Pam.’ Whoever you are. ‘It’s Eva. Can you get my dad?’ There’s a long pause. In the background I can hear music and voices, and loud laughter.
‘I can’t see him, love, not sure where he is. Or your mum. I only picked up in case it was an emergency. Is it an emergency?’
‘No. Just tell him I’ll be late, or I might stay at a friend’s house. Tell him not to worry. Will you do that?’
‘Of course I will. You enjoy yourself, love. Ta-ta.’
Outside the wind is as fierce as everyone has said. It makes me stagger at first, and Ed catches my arm to steady me. There are people bent double as they walk into it, or blown along with the wind behind them, and when I try to talk to Ed I find my breath taken away from me, the words lost. I shake my head and give up.
Ed spots a taxi and hails it, and the driver is full of how the wind is still picking up, and that someone has said there’s a tornado on the way.
‘That’s crazy,’ Ed says. ‘We don’t have tornadoes here.’
‘We do now, mate.’
We stare out of the taxi windows, fascinated by the sight of things whirling through the air and skittering across pavements – litter, old newspapers and carrier bags, snapped-off branches from trees, an inside-out umbrella, empty bottles and cans that roll into gutters. On one road a metal dustbin slides right across in front of us – the driver swerves and brakes, and the bin clips the bumper and then bounces and clangs away behind us.
‘Fuck,’ he says, and then, ‘Sorry, duck. I thought that was going to launch itself through me windscreen for a minute.’
He drops us outside the casino. I’ve never been here; it’s a square white building, with a flashing red sign and a big open square in front of it. We lean into the wind to cross this, nearly blown off our feet by a couple of strong gusts, finally tumbling through the door. Once inside the hush is extraordinary, as though someone has wrapped up all the noise of the storm and thrown it away; everything is suddenly soft and calm and quiet. I stare around the plush reception area, thinking how out of place I must look in my work clothes, but the deep-pile carpet under my feet seems to welcome me anyway. The carpet is chequered red and black, and all around there are arrangements of red flowers – carnations and roses – in black glass vases. The staff are colour-schemed too; the doormen wear lounge suits, and at the desk a Chinese woman with sleek, black hair wears a scarlet dress with a sequined collar. The dress has big, Dallas-style shoulders and is stretched tight across her slight figure; everything about her is smooth and groomed. I look down at my rather crumpled self. True, I’m all in black, and at least I’ve got my sheer, lacy shirt on tonight, over a cami, short skirt and leggings. But there’s nothing sparkly about me, and my feet look clunky in Doc Martens rather than elegant in stilettos. Ed’s wearing chinos, and with his leather jacket he’s more in keeping.
‘I don’t think this was a good idea,’ I mutter. ‘I’m not dressed right.’
‘Don’t worry. You look fine. And you’re twenty-one by the way. This is a private club with old-fashioned rules.’
The woman gives me a careful look as Ed signs us both in, but she doesn’t ask for ID. Maybe she thinks I wouldn’t dare to turn up so casually dressed if I really was underage. Ed leads me through to the bar, which is raised above the gaming room to give a view of what’s going on. He finds seats, and goes to get a bottle of red wine. While he’s gone I look down curiously at the tables. I know nothing at all about gambling; the only thing I recognise is roulette, and that’s from watching