‘Come into my study, Eve. I need to speak to you.’
14
Fired for a second time, she thought as she sat on the sofa near Edward’s desk.
Edward sat in an armchair and crossed his legs.
He seemed to be thinking for a while and she said nothing. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him but she was also tired of the drama in this house. It was a collection of every crazy Gothic story rolled under one roof.
‘I can understand why you would think that Myles is being abused or kept away from the family on purpose,’ he said finally. ‘But that is the furthest thing from the truth.’
Eve looked at him.
‘It’s not normal to let a child live alone in a tower and keep the hours he obviously does,’ she said, crossing her arms.
‘I know.’
‘And he looks unwell.’
‘He is. He’s tired, depressed, he eats poorly, doesn’t get enough Vitamin D and he’s lonely.’
‘Yes, so he needs his family, his sister, his stepfather, his mother.’
‘I’m aware of that, Eve.’ He sounded impatient.
‘So why aren’t you doing something about it?’
Edward put his head back and let out a huge groan of frustration.
‘Don’t you think I’ve tried everything? I have tried to get him to doctors, had phone calls with therapists, tried to coax him to school, to find some friends. He will not engage with anything I’ve offered. I’m surprised he even spoke to you. Usually he would scream at you until he woke the house up and then have some sort of stress-induced fit.’
‘Like Colin Craven,’ she said aloud.
He frowned at her. ‘This isn’t a book, Eve; this is a real boy with real issues.’
‘So was Colin,’ Eve said. ‘In the end it was Mary and Dickon who gave him friendship and company to bring him back to himself.’
Edward rolled his eyes. ‘You think I need an angry little girl and a Yorkshire moor boy to befriend him and create a garden and everyone will live happily ever after? Get your head out of books for a minute and see what’s happening in real life.’
‘These stories, the books, they tell us what people need. And I think he needs friends.’
‘We all need friends,’ said Edward looking out the window.
Eve’s mind was whirring.
‘Besides, Colin had the love of his dead mother to guide him through in that story. Myles has a selfish, addiction-addled mother, with narcissistic tendencies who prefers to party in LA than be here with her husband and children, and even though he hates what she does, he loves her, he misses her, or perhaps he misses and loves the idea of her. It’s easy to do around beautiful women like Amber. You forget yourself for a while.’
Eve looked at her hands. She was quick to judge and did exactly as her mum had told her not to but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Listen. I played some guitar with him,’ she said.
‘You did?’ Edward was shocked.
‘Yes, I still play, just for me, for fun. I still practise. But I could tell this is more than just an interest. He seems to be really into it.’
Edward sighed. ‘It’s the only thing that makes him want to be alive, he told me.’
The threat hung over the room.
