Evie’s House
As soon as she arrived home, Evie disappeared into a bottle of red wine. She was so angry with herself for doing Amelia’s dirty work with that out-of-character display of anger and jealousy. She also realised, with a sharp pang of regret, she’d managed to fall out with the people who mattered most to her. It was such a mess, and she had no idea how to fix things.
Evie polished off the bottle far too quickly and then opened another. As she hadn’t eaten all day, she was soon blind drunk, feeling maudlin, weepy and sorry for herself. She sat slumped in her beautiful Orkney chair. Tears of self-pity rolled down her cheeks as she muttered to herself, “Oh Christ, I am so blootered. They all hate me and I’ve ruined everything and it’s all that Amelia’s fault. She’s turned everyone against me. I should never have answered her email.”
Evie vaguely remembered dragging herself to bed and going through the ‘whirlies’ as the room spun round before she crashed out. She woke up the next morning with a blinding headache and feeling sick to her stomach.
She squinted into the bright early sunshine beaming in through the window, and felt her heart sink as she remembered the events of the night before. She groaned and her cheeks burned with shame, but there was also cold rage in her heartagainst Amelia, who had spread her tentacles into every part of Evie’s life.
‘What am I going to do about her?’ she thought in despair. ‘What the hell is she up to? It’s creepy and scary and I can’t believe they are all on her side. How has she been able to turn them against me? Even Freya.’
She couldn’t forget Freya’s look of bitter disappointment as she told Evie to leave and go home. That really had been the final punch in the stomach. Evie couldn’t bear to think of Freya being angry and upset with her. She was always her staunchest supporter and ally.
She hauled herself up and out of bed with a loud moan and headed downstairs.
There was only one thing that would take her mind off her monstrous hangover and all of her woes. Evie had to paint. She went into her studio, took off the sheet covering her painting of Freya, and gasped in horror.
The portrait she had slaved over for months had been ruined, with red and purple paint violently smeared thickly all over the canvas. Great globs of angry colour had vandalised the paining. It was completely beyond repair.
Evie couldn’t take it in. This was to have been Freya’s precious birthday present. She had poured her heart and soul into the portrait and now it was utterly destroyed. She knew right away that somehow Amelia was responsible.
No one else would be so vindictive and she’d seen the painting the other day when she came to crow over the fact Ross had asked her out, pretending all the while she was there to ask for Evie’s permission. It must have been her.
The paintbrush and paints were scattered all over the floor, leaving trails of what looked like blood on the wood. Then Evie looked down at her hands. They were smeared red and purple,and when she ran upstairs to wash it off, she saw splotches of the same colours smearing the sheets.
Up until then, she had been certain Amelia had ruined the painting, but now it looked like she had blacked out and done it herself. After all, she had been completely drunk and beside herself with self-disgust, but even in that state, could she really have destroyed the painting of Freya?
She felt clammy and her stomach started to spasm, and she barely made it to the toilet before throwing up until there was nothing left but bile. Feeling shaky and trembling, she curled up into a ball on the cold stone floor of the bathroom and sobbed her heart out.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Freya’s house a week later
While Evie fretted and felt her world was collapsing around her, Freya was looking out of the window and counting her blessings on the day before her big birthday. Despite all the upset with Evie the week before, Freya was trying to focus on the positive. It had always been her way of coping with bad times in the past.
It was such a bright sunny morning and Orkney was putting on a real show. Soft light rain falling overnight had given everything a sheen; and when the sun broke through there was a vivid rainbow lighting up the sky. It was as though the whole island was getting ready to celebrate with Freya and wishing her happy birthday. The emerald-green fields, azure skies and silver seas had never looked more beautiful.
Freya had woken up to the arrival of Paul the postman, who was delivering an armful of carefully wrapped presents and a sackful of cards. “There will be more tomorrow on your actual birthday, Freya, but I thought I would get these to you now,” he said cheerfully.
Freya thought Paul looked just like a snowman. He was remarkably pale, but so chubby that his body was almost completely spherical. He seemed to have no neck, just a perfectly round face with coal-black currant eyes, and he wascompletely bald. The snowman look was complete with a floppy hat and a scarf. Freya honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if she had seen him ‘walking in the air’ above Kirkwall Cathedral.
They’d had a cup of tea together and a chat about Paul’s bunions. He was a martyr to his feet and last month Freya had given him a large bottle of homemade lotion to dab on them. He thanked her over and over again and said it had made all the difference. Wishing her many happy returns, he left with his pockets and cheeks bulging with homemade biscuits.
Freya decided she’d watch an old Bette Davis movie, probablyNow, Voyager, although she had watched it so often, she knew all the dialogue. She had her bath, painted her nails, attended to a few rogue hairs on her chin with her trusty tweezers, and gave her feet a going over in the foot spa Patsy had bought her for Christmas. It had been put in the cupboard under the sink and was being used for the first time. She popped on a bright-green avocado face mask and settled down for a much-needed chunk of ‘me time’.
Amelia had gone over to see Ross for a Friday-night date and planned to stay with him overnight. She would be back the next day in time to get ready for the ‘surprise’ party. This was going to bethenight for them both. To be honest, Freya was enjoying having her house to herself for a few hours.
Amelia was no trouble, but sometimes Freya just wanted to have a bit of time on her own, with beans on toast on a tray for her tea in front ofA Place In The Sun. With a guest you always had to make a bit of an effort, and even someone as sociable and gregarious as Freya needed a break.
On the upside, she knew when Amelia got home, she would get a full rundown of the evening’s events. She was surprised at how quickly Amelia and Ross had become a couple. Things had moved fast and they seemed besotted with one another. It had takenRoss a long time to find love, but he had seemingly fallen hard.
‘Perhaps we might be hearing wedding bells,’ thought Freya. ‘And then Amelia would stay in Orkney and build a life here.’
Freya tutted, ‘I’m getting ahead of myself again. I really need to just leave them be so they can find out whether they are meant to be together. It wasn’t all that long ago I was making plans for Ross and Evie. I had high hopes of those two.’
Freya sighed. She had expected Evie to come over the morning after her outburst and apologise. They would have both had a good cry and put it all behind them. But there was no sign of her, and it wasn’t like her to sulk.
Freya had reached for her phone right away to call Evie but there was no answer. She tried many times. She didn’t want to leave a message as she always got flustered and talked for too long. So eventually, her chubby fingers painstakingly drafted a text.
