The Miseducation of Evie Epworth by Matson Taylor

Author:Matson Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner UK
Published: 2020-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

Friday 20 July 1962

Battenburg cake slices eaten yesterday at the village fete: 3

Dances with Margaret to the South Pacific soundtrack: 5

Tombola prizes won: 1 (a family-size pack of Atora shredded suet)

Best in show for our cows: 0

Best in show for Christine and Vera: 2 (incredible)

Amazing new neighbours magically arrived to make the world a better place: 1

I’m in the kitchen, getting breakfast but also getting very excited. Today’s going to be brilliant. I’m off to Leeds. With Caroline Scott-Pym. In a Mini. I can’t believe it. I’m feeling slightly hysterical and think I might explode. It’s like birthday, Christmas and a new Adam Faith LP all rolled into one.

We arranged the trip at the village fete yesterday. Caroline walked straight up to me, through the crowd, right across the parade ring, and said, in a deep luxuriant purr, ‘Hullo, Mummy’s told me all about you. I think we’re going to be very good friends.’

She’s amazing.

Apparently she needs to go to Leeds to get some food (food! from Leeds!) and has asked me to go along with her to keep her company. I’d be pretty excited about a trip to Leeds at the best of times but a trip to Leeds with someone who wears huge black sunglasses and lives in London and does something in fashion has taken my excitement to a whole new level.

So I’m sat having a very quick brew and a couple of slices of toast, desperate for it to get to 9.30 so that I can go next door.

As I’m draining my mug, mid slurp, the creature from the pink lagoon walks into the kitchen. It’s Christine. Carrying a hairdryer. Her head is full of rollers and she’s wearing her pink baby-doll nightie complete with, inexplicably, a pink feather boa. One end of the feather boa is looped round her neck and the other hangs down her back, making her look like a frilly pink Godzilla.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You’re still here, then. I thought you were meant to be going out?’

‘I am,’ I reply, hoping (as usual) that she doesn’t sit down. ‘I was just about to leave. I’m going to Leeds with Caroline.’

Christine walks over to the cooker and plugs the hairdryer into a wall socket. Why is she doing her hair in the kitchen? Why can’t she just stick to her room? She’s spreading all over the house, squirting for territory.

‘Caroline? Ah, yes. Caroline Scott-bloody-Pym. Arriving like she owns the place, with her bloody London ways. Spoiling my announcement like that. I had the crowd eating out of my hand and then she turns up and everyone’s talking about her and not about me.’

(This is true. Caroline’s arrival sucked up all attention in the parade ring, forcing Christine to postpone her engagement announcement and slink off the podium unnoticed. It was like watching the Moon trying to outshine the Sun.)

‘She’s a stuck-up cow, you can tell,’ she goes on. ‘Just like her mum. I don’t like her.’

And she shakes her head, as if that’s the last word to be said on the subject.

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