Talking to Pip had also altered her feelings towards Joan, from a blind fury to something less destructive. When Pip had voiced her anger at Joan’s behaviour, it had felt to Evelyn as though some of the burden she had carried for so long had been lifted. It was true what they said: a trouble shared is a trouble halved. Now Evelyn had to see what she could do to halve Pip’s trouble, too.
A knock on the front door rang out and made Evelyn jump. She clutched at her heart as she waited for its pace to slow. Her newfound freedoms weren’t all-encompassing yet, then. A visitor could still send her into a tailspin. She decided she would just ignore whoever it was and wait for them to leave. She made herself stand very still, even though there was no way the person at the door would be able to see her, while she waited for them to go away.
‘Evelyn?’ came the now-familiar voice through the door. ‘It’s me, Pip. Are you there?’
Evelyn let her breath out in a sigh of relief. Pip.
‘Yes,’ she called. ‘I’m just coming.’
With a final, regretful look at the mess she had made in clearing the mess that had been there before, she hurried to the front door and opened it.
Pip looked dreadful. Her skin was sallow and there were dark stripes under either eye but she was smiling like the cat who’d got the cream.
‘You look awful,’ said Evelyn. Being old meant she could enjoy a degree of honesty that other, less senior people had to restrain.
‘I’m hungover,’ said Pip, giving a smile a mile wide that brightened her tired features no end. ‘First one in as long as I can remember. I wondered if you fancied a walk, help me blow the cobwebs away.’
Evelyn cast a glance back towards the kitchen and Pip added, ‘But if you’re busy that’s no problem. We can make it another time.’ Her eyes followed Evelyn’s, and when they settled on the kitchen she let out a low whistle. ‘You’ve been hard at it,’ she said.
‘I’m having a bit of a clear-out,’ replied Evelyn uncertainly, ‘but I think I deserve a break. Let’s go.’
The walk led them back to the same café as before, and Pip ordered tea for two and two slices of banana bread.
‘I used to make a mean banana bread,’ Pip said as she bit into her slice. ‘I should do that again. Bake, I mean. There never seemed to be time before, but maybe now . . .’
They sat in companionable silence whilst the café hummed around them. It felt good to Evelyn, normal.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Pip asked, once her cake was gone.
A slight queasiness settled in Evelyn’s stomach. This modern desire to share was all very well, but it didn’t get any easier to deal with. ‘All right,’ she replied cagily, ‘but I reserve my right to silence should I not wish to answer your question.’
Pip nodded. ‘That’s fine. It’s just that I was wondering who Scarlet’s father was. Is he still around? I mean, alive?’
So this was it. They had arrived. Evelyn had known they would get to this point eventually. It was an obvious crater in the story she had told Pip so far. But the identity of Scarlet’s father was something she hadn’t revealed to anyone – not Brenda, not Julian, not even Ted, bless him, although it wasn’t for want of asking on his part. She hadn’t even confessed it to her diary, although there was a kind of code to some of her entries that might have given a clue if anyone had read them.
Her reasons for keeping her secret were manifold and had altered with the passing years. To start with, she had worried about getting herself into trouble, then getting Rory MacMillan into trouble, although for the life of her she couldn’t understand why she had ever thought that now. Then she had not wanted Joan to do anything rash. And finally she had worried that it would somehow be bad for Scarlet. And all this added up to not having ever told a living soul.
But what did she have to lose now?
‘He’s still alive,’ she began. ‘Or he is as far as I know, although I have no idea where in the world he might have settled himself. I haven’t seen him since the day Scarlet was conceived.’
It had always struck her as odd that Rory MacMillan had had a daughter and then lost her again, without ever being aware that such a thing was even a possibility. Her child probably hadn’t been the only one he had, in fact, given the way things worked back then. Scarlet had probably had half-siblings all over the place, although that was something Evelyn didn’t like to think too deeply about.
Evelyn had allowed MacMillan to cross her mind on and off over the years. She had wondered what had become of him, and if he ever thought about her, although she doubted that very much. For a while, she had tried to keep up with what was going on in the world of television, but then she had stopped punishing herself. It hurt too much to see other people having success when hers had been stolen from her. Then she had played an imaginary game in which she confronted MacMillan with Scarlet, showed him and the rest of the world what he had done. She had gleaned a dark satisfaction from the idea that she could use what she knew to undermine his world as easily as he had undermined hers. But in the end, she had abandoned the plan. It was all so very long ago. What was there to be gained from exposing him, and who would believe her anyway? Everybody knew the score in those days. Men had the power and women understood what had to be done in order to get what they wanted. She had just been one in a very long line.