Brenda shook her head. ‘Too cold,’ she said simply.
Evelyn pulled her thin robe more tightly around her slender shoulders and suppressed a shudder.
‘Well, it’s certainly freezing in here,’ she said. Ice had traced patterns on the inside of the window, like the whorls of so many fingerprints.
‘Mr O’Malley rang,’ Brenda replied. ‘Apparently he’s worried that the gas bills are going to be too high, so he says we have to ration our heating to two hours a day.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ complained Evelyn. ‘Does he know how cold it is?’
Brenda shrugged and Evelyn noticed that she seemed to be wearing almost every item of clothing she possessed. The inadequacies of her own glamorous but totally impractical coverings were suddenly writ large for her. It was turning out to be the coldest winter she could ever remember. It had been cold sometimes at home in Suffolk when she was a girl, but nothing to compare to this.
‘Right then,’ said Evelyn decisively, determined to put a positive slant on their predicament. ‘Black coffee it is.’ She flicked the switch on the kettle and reached for a mug and the jar of Nescafé.
‘Actually, Evie,’ Brenda began. She sounded tentative and unsure of herself, and Evelyn stopped what she was doing to listen. ‘There was something I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘If it’s about your shampoo, I’m sorry that I’ve been using it. I’ll replace it, I promise. It’s just that there hasn’t been much money coming in since Christmas.’
‘It’s not about the shampoo,’ said Brenda kindly. ‘Come and sit down.’
Evelyn abandoned her drink and pulled up a chair obediently. She looked at Brenda, waiting to hear what she had done wrong this time, her heart filled with trepidation.
‘So,’ Brenda began. ‘Jim has asked me to marry him and . . .’
She got no further before Evelyn was up on her feet again. She flung her arms around her flatmate and squeezed her tight. ‘Oh, Bren. That’s fantastic news. Congratulations! Have you got a ring yet? Have you set a date? Did he get down on one knee?’
It didn’t matter how modern Evelyn considered her attitudes to be. In the face of a good old-fashioned proposal, she reverted to the values she’d been brought up with – traditional ones.
Brenda shrugged. ‘It’s a bit of a farce if you ask me,’ she said. ‘We’re as good as living together as it is, but his mother has this idea that we’re not a “proper”’ – she made air quotes, her fingers laden with sarcasm, and rolled her eyes – ‘couple unless we’re married.’
Evelyn shrugged. Even though it would be very chic and Bohemian for Brenda and Jim to live together without the sanctity of marriage to protect them, she had some sympathy with Jim’s mother’s point of view, not that she would have said as much to Brenda. And there was the added delight of a wedding for her to attend.
‘Well, I think it’s lovely,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks,’ replied Brenda with another little eye roll, and Evelyn thought that maybe a little soup?on of excitement wouldn’t go amiss from the bride-to-be. ‘Anyway, that wasn’t what I needed to talk to you about, exactly. The thing is, I’ll obviously be moving out. Are you okay to take the flat over on your own?’
Evelyn’s panicking mind was going into overdrive. She could barely afford her share of the rent on this place as it was, but she could hardly tell Brenda that she couldn’t leave her, not when she was getting married.
‘Of course,’ she said with a beaming smile. ‘That’s absolutely fine. Don’t give it a second’s thought.’ Evelyn wasn’t an actress for nothing.
Brenda, happy with her response, thanked her profusely and then left her on her own at the kitchen table. Well, thought Evelyn, she was going to have to get the part now. She was down to the last few coins in her purse and all out of options. If some money didn’t come in, and quickly, then she might have to admit defeat and go back home to Southwold.
Actually, no, Evelyn corrected herself. Things would have to get a whole lot worse than this for her to contemplate going back. Southwold had never felt like home, even when she lived there. The youngest of three children and by far the most flamboyant, Evelyn had been born to strict Presbyterian parents who had actively disapproved of her life choices. They had both died young, however, leaving Evelyn’s elder sister Joan occupying the family home; the home that the three of them had inherited in equal parts but that Joan had commandeered. It ought to be an option for Evelyn to demand her share of the funds, but to do so would be to admit to her sister that she needed the money, and that was something Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to do. Her inheritance would come to her eventually. At least this way Joan had somewhere to live, and Evelyn could enjoy the warm glow that came from having done something nice for her sister, despite everything horrible Joan had done to her.