A Rival Creation by Marika Cobbold

Author:Marika Cobbold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1994-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

On his way to work the next morning Oscar stopped at his aunt’s. It was only eight o’clock, but he knew Evelyn was an early riser. ‘By getting up at five,’ she had boasted the other day, ‘I’m prolonging my conscious life by two to three hours each day. Even if I only have one year left, that would still be a gain of at least seven hundred and thirty hours.’

Oscar had agreed it was an irresistible argument; if one cared for conscious life, that is. This morning he wanted to talk to her about the latest in her series of articles on local footpaths. Evelyn had become something of a local celebrity. Her nature columns were hugely popular, but they were also increasingly controversial. Evelyn was spreading it on ever more thickly: insinuations about pesticides in the river, damage done to wild-life through cutting down hedgerows, stubble-burning, more and more each time until this week, when she pointed the finger straight at Derek Campbell.

‘You can’t name him like that. He’ll sue and the Tribune can’t afford it. I’ll get the sack for a start,’ Oscar said, sitting down at the kitchen table and accepting a cup of coffee and a burnt croissant. ‘If an actor can be awarded fifty thousand pounds for being called boring, what do you think the going rate will be for being told you’re responsible for the birth of a two-headed sheep?’

Evelyn, dressed, but wearing her tartan dressing-gown on top for extra warmth, shrugged her shoulders. ‘Every word is true.’

‘I doubt you can prove it. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to tone it down a bit.’ He handed her the article feeling old, older than Evelyn, and gutless. And was that not what he had come down here for, to be old and gutless in peace? ‘I’ve marked the places.’ He put his hand over hers that was rutted like a dried-out river bed and stained inky-blue by permanent bruising. ‘I think you’ve made enough enemies, you know. I worry about you.’

Getting up to leave, he asked her, ‘You haven’t had any more of those letters have you?’

Evelyn looked away, scuffing her small, square men’s trainers against the flagstone floor. Finally she said, ‘Just one.’

‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’ Oscar slammed his fist down on the kitchen table.

Evelyn smiled impishly at him, giving Oscar a glimpse of the young Evelyn that lived just under the surface of the skin. ‘Because if I had, you would have stopped my articles. And you’re wrong, you know. If papers like the Tribune won’t stand up to be counted on local issues, who will?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Oscar said.

‘Very well.’ Evelyn stood up too. ‘Now we both have things to do.’ She pushed him off towards the back door. ‘I want to call in on Liberty in a minute. There is something the matter with that girl. I’ve hardly seen her in the last couple of weeks and when I have, she’s looked dreadful.’

Oscar wandered off to his car and had already put the key in the lock when he looked across to Laburnum Terrace.

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