Page 90 of The World Outside My Window

‘Don’t youdarespeak!’ Cherry screams in Jim’s face, then she turns back to her daughter. ‘What’s going on, Evie? How do you know who this woman is?’

Evie puts her arm round her mum’s shoulders and pulls her in tight, then fixes a stern gaze on Jim.

‘I’ve known for ages,’ she says, her voice small now.

‘Darling, you’re mistaken,’ Jim starts again, but Evie keeps talking. No one can take their eyes off her.

‘I found out about five years ago,’ she says. ‘I got home early from school one day and Dad was in his study. He hadn’t heard me come in and I was about to go and say hello when something made me stop outside the door. It was Dad’s voice, and he was telling someone he loved her and that he’d be home soon. He told whoever it was to have fun that night, and that he’d be back in bed with her the next night. He – he said some other things that I don’t want to repeat but – anyway, it was obvious to me that he was having an affair with whoever was on the other end of the phone.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Cherry says, sobbing.

‘I wanted to, Mum. But I was scared that Dad would leave, and that our family would fall apart.’ She looks down at her feet. ‘I thought if I could find this woman and warn her off, tell her Dad already had a family and that she was going to ruin everything, she might back off and you wouldn’t ever need to know.’ She looks at Jim again. ‘My friend Lucy, her – her mum had just found out her dad had been cheating and had thrown him out, and she said she felt like her life was over and I – I didn’t want that for me. For us.’ Her voice breaks and Cherry puts her arms around her daughter. Jim steps forward to do the same but Cherry stands in his way. ‘Oh, no, you don’t.’

Chastened, Jim steps away.

‘Anyway, I didn’t know what to do, so one Thursday night when Dad left to go to Leeds, I followed him. I was sure he was going to see me, or that I was going to have to travel all the way up to Leeds with him to find anything out, and I had no idea if I would even get away with that. But I – I didn’t need to.’

‘Evie, really, you don’t have to do this. Let me explain.’ Jim sounds defeated, desperate.

‘Let her speak, Jim. You’ve done enough damage.’ Cherry’s voice is flint.

‘I want to hear it too,’ Laura says. Even though she’s dreading hearing what Evie has to say next, she knows she needs to hear it before Jim has a chance to twist anything, to make excuses. She needs to hear the whole truth about the lie her life has been for the last seven years.

Evie carries on. ‘Dad didn’t go to Leeds. He didn’t even go to the station.’ She looks at her mum. ‘You know all those days he said he was working away, that he really wanted to change jobs and find something that meant he wasn’t away half the time?’

Cherry nods, and Laura holds her breath, recognising the words Jim had told her, too.

‘He wasn’t working in Leeds. He was with her.’ She looks at Laura as she says this, and Laura feels herself shrinking backwards as though she might make herself disappear.

‘I – I thought he was working in Leeds too,’ Laura says, her voice shaky. ‘He told me the same thing.’

‘Well, he was never in Leeds. Because he was living in London. In East Finchley.’ Evie looks at her mum again. ‘Mum, Dad has two lives.’

A silence falls then as everyone takes in what Evie has told them. A part of Laura is hoping that Jim will speak now, that there will be some obvious explanation that they’ve all missed, that they will be laughing at this in a few minutes.

But she knows it’s not coming. Because what other explanation is there?

Something occurs to her then.

‘It was you, wasn’t it? Who was watching me?’

Evie nods. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. I just – I wanted to see who you were. Who this woman was who was taking my dad away from me. And I suppose I thought I might try and talk to you, tell you to leave him alone. But then one day you saw me and I got scared and I—’

‘You ran away.’ Laura sees clearly in her mind the figure racing away from her down the street, standing outside her flat, making her terrified to even look out of the window. And she remembers Jim denying it, telling her there was no one there, that she must be imagining it. Did he know it was his daughter all along?

‘Was it you outside my house too, when we moved?’ Laura says.

Evie nods miserably. ‘I stopped coming to watch you at the flat in the end because I knew I’d never be brave enough to actually approach you. Then Dad said he had to stay away for two weeks and I knew something had happened. But by the time I went back again, you’d gone.’

‘How did you find us – me – again?’

Evie looks down at her hands. ‘I broke into Dad’s study and looked through his stuff. I found an old diary and saw the name of a village mentioned in it a few times so I decided to go there one day. I don’t think I really expected to find you. But then I did.’

Laura thinks of the locked drawers in Jim’s study at home, of all the secrets he’s no doubt hidden that she hasn’t even found, and can’t even grasp the enormity of the lies he’s told. Not just to her, but to Cherry, and Evie, and his son. Who evenwasthe man she thought was her husband?

She finds herself staring at him now as he realises all eyes are turned towards him. He stands, not knowing where to look, and seeing him so defeated, like a rabbit caught in the headlights, makes Laura see him differently.

She always thought of Jim as so strong. Her protector. But he’s nothing more than a coward, spinning a web of lies to cover his tracks, never owning up to his mistakes. And now he’s been caught? He still can’t even admit to what he’s done.

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