‘Hello,’ the little girl said.
‘Hello,’ Eve replied and flopped back onto the bed.
‘Are you sick?’
‘Sick and tired,’ said Eve.
She could hear Flora walking around on the wooden floorboards, her feet making a very loud noise.
‘Why are you so loud?’
‘I’m wearing tap shoes.’ Flora gave a quick step ball change and Eve rolled over to look at the child.
‘Why are you wearing tap shoes?’
‘Hilditch found them at the charity shop and I like them. I’ve been teaching myself how to tap-dance. I watch videos on YouTube.’
‘Hilditch mustn’t like your dad very much, if she got you those shoes. They must be noisy when he writes.’
Eve looked down at her feet. ‘Daddy doesn’t write much now. Not since Mummy went away. He has no words left.’
Eve gave a small sigh. This poor child with such selfish arses as parents. She thought about her own parents – warm, present, always willing to lend a hand or an ear.
‘I bury babies out in the snow,’ announced Flora.
Christ on a bike,thought Eve.
‘That’s very Gothic of you,’ she muttered.
‘What’s Gothic?’
Eve sat up and adjusted her woollen hat. ‘It means mysterious, a bit gloomy.’
Flora shrugged. ‘I don’t think it’s Gothic then. I think I just like to find them out there and come and save them.’
Eve didn’t think she had to be a psychologist to work out what the child was seeking. Someone to come and rescue her from this cold house inhabited by her angry father.
‘Are you staying here? Hil said if you leave you’ll have to take the train tomorrow as it’s going to snow and she won’t drive in this bleeding weather.’
Eve stood up and started to do some star jumps to get warm. ‘I’m not staying,’ she said. ‘Your dad needs to do more work and I am not going to waste my time if he’s not prepared to sit down and do it.’ Eve looked out the window.
‘Do you want to come and look for dolls with me?’
‘It’s night-time. Do you go out at night?’ Eve was shocked.
‘Sometimes, when Hil has gone home and Daddy is in his study. He doesn’t know where I am. You can come if you want?’
‘No thank you but that’s kind of you to include me,’ said Eve shaking her head. This man was a terrible father, a lazy writer and a prick.
‘Another time then,’ said Flora as she tapped her way to the door.
‘Another time, then?’ Eve mumbled after the door closed. The kid was from another time.
Clearly Cranberry Cross was not a lucky place for her. She knew it gave her the creeps for a reason. Now she had to wait out the night until she could leave tomorrow. She wondered who else would hire her now, but she also knew that Serena would poison her name in publishing. She would have to go and work at a bookshop but knowing Serena’s reach they might not have her either.
She would just have to hide in her room until the morning and then escape Cranberry Cross as fast as she could.
7
