Cupid's Way by Joanne Phillips

Author:Joanne Phillips [Phillips, Joanne]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Mirrorball Books
Published: 2014-06-22T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

This time, Evie didn’t fall asleep on the train. She was awake and ready with her bag and coat on her lap the minute the train pulled into Manchester Piccadilly station. The whole journey, Evie’s head had been banging from too much alcohol and too little sleep, but every time she’d tried to close her eyes they’d pinged open again as though her eyeballs were too big for her lids. By the time she stepped onto the platform, dragging her suitcase behind her like a stubborn pet, she was tired and wired and desperate for home.

Home was a flat in the city centre – a featureless box in a complex of thirty-nine other featureless boxes, looking out over a seven-storey Travelodge and row upon row of dirty brick buildings. Evie walked in and flung her bags on her sofa, then sat down beside them and kicked off her shoes. The silence, after the noise and bustle of the journey – after her grandparents’ bickering and the renters’ wind chimes, and the birdsong and clanging gates and constant activity of Cupid’s Way – felt unnatural. She tried to re-tune her ears. The traffic noise. The thump, thump of music from the flat below. She listened hard, picking out all the individual sounds. But still the sense of silence remained. She felt as though she was in a bubble.

She pulled herself off the sofa and turned on the TV, then began to unpack. Most of her smart clothes were unworn, but the two pairs of jeans and two jumpers she’d packed were in desperate need of a wash. After loading the washing machine, Evie turned her attention to her post, and then to her phone messages. The first was from work. Julia Meredith’s voice made Evie sit up straighter, and she unconsciously began to chew on a nail. She grabbed a pen and held it over the pad by the phone.

‘Phone me as soon as you get this message,’ Julia said. She sounded strident and slightly annoyed. It was how she always sounded, even if she was telling you you looked nice (which didn’t happen very often), but Evie felt her stomach churn anxiously. As soon as she got the message? Julia must know that would most likely be on the weekend she got back to Manchester – did that mean she wanted Evie to call her at home? On a weekend?

Which could only mean it was very bad news indeed.

Evie dropped the pen without writing anything, and listened to the next message. As soon as the woman started speaking, Evie let out a strangled sigh. This was going from bad to worse. There were only two women in the world who could force her shoulders up to somewhere just under her ears in three seconds flat and they had both left messages on her answerphone. Her mother’s message was just as insistent as Julia Meredith’s – Evie should phone her as soon as possible. She had some exiting news.

Evie thought about Tommy, and then she thought about talking to her mother.

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