She passes a cluster of buildings beside a wired enclosure jammed with old cars with prices scribbled on their screens, and crosses the forecourt between the fuel pumps, keeping to the shadows.
A massive multi-articulated truck emerges from the darkness and bears down, blaring its horn. The noise from everywhere and nowhere at once is enough to blow her sideways. Running first into its path and then realising her error as the racks of headlights skewer her, Evie scampers to the side, pressing herself against the pumps as a tide of treacly slush thrown from under the dozens of wheels splatters her legs and coat, leaving her heart racing as fast as a rabbit’s.
Creeping out from between the pumps, she enters a twenty-four-hour shop. Inside the entrance is a public phone under a plastic hood and, pushing in a half-dozen quarters, she calls the number on the card given to her by the man in Cambridge. She has never used such a device but has seen how to work one from old movies. She and Matthew watched films together in bed, the projector flickering like a magic lantern, the image filling the end wall – sometimes stutteringly black and white, other times vividly holographic, the performers strutting around the rug. She’d lie tucked tightly into his side with her cheek on his chest. And now and again, ignoring the three-dimensional presences just beyond the footboard, they made love.
The bittersweetness of the memory brings her to a temporary standstill, holding the receiver in front of her face and staring into the distance.
17
Timothy Maplin arrives half an hour later in a rusty yellow car. It is not much larger than a refuse container on wheels, its roof just wide enough to incorporate a photocell.
After making sure that he is alone, Evie leaves the cover of the trees and, circling around to avoid the dim cone of his headlights, which give the vehicle a cross-eyed gaze, approaches from behind. Maplin looks over his shoulder nervously as she taps on the window but then quickly invites her in. She takes the other of the two seats. He tries to hide it from her but from the glow of the dashboard, she can see he can’t stop himself insanely grinning.
‘Drive,’ she says in a low voice, relieved he is here, obviously, but goaded by his elation. She is painfully aware that she has lost control of events and is relying completely on the help of a man she knows nothing about and instinctively dislikes.
Maplin’s house is in the suburbs to the south-west of Cambridge, an unexceptional Edwardian red-brick semi about a mile from the centre.
He parks on the road, squinting into the bent wing-mirror as he manoeuvres into the kerb, still scraping the wheels despite his efforts.
Grass grows thick between the slabs in the narrow path to the front door. ‘You’ll be safe here,’ he purrs, opening it for her, grinning fawningly, his eyes bulbous behind their thick rectangular frames.
Evie does not feel reassured. She has been told that she will be safe too many times recently and that was by someone she had learned to trust.
They walk down a hall lined with boxes of what appear to be junk electricals. Her head rolls weakly. She is nearly overwhelmed by exhaustion. ‘I need to recharge,’ she says, taking hold of the wall to prevent herself toppling.
‘No problem, we can do that.’ He opens the door to the kitchen and a monkey bursts through, trampling over her feet in its rush to get past. Evie turns to stare as it makes its way to the stairs using the handrail to climb. The back of its skull is missing, exposing a tangle of wires and blobs of solder.
‘Don’t worry, he’s just a toy,’ Maplin says. ‘An animatronic. I’m repairing him but whatever I do to keep him in one place, he insists on wandering about!’ He pulls the plug of the kettle from the socket, sliding out of the way a box overflowing with blackened circuit boards giving off a singed smell. ‘You can charge yourself here.’
‘I’d rather go somewhere private.’ This modesty has been programmed into her, partly for her self-protection and partly because at all times she is expected to maintain the illusion of being human, of being Evelyn.
‘Of course, of course,’ he says. ‘I’ll show you to the study.’
He swings back the door with his foot. The room is dim and dusty and as cluttered as the kitchen and corridor. Shelves reach to the ceiling, piled higgledy-piggledy with files and books. The presence of books are a fresh reminder of home and how, in just a few days, both of the people who have been everything to her have been lost.
There is a brass key in the back of the door: she turns it and, feeling secure enough to power down, scoops an armchair clear of curling papers and collapses into it. Lifting her jumper above her ribs, she peels back her skin with unsteady fingers and connects herself.
Evie comes to sprawled on her back, half over the arm and half on the floor. Blinking, she stares around at the high shelves. For a moment she is lost, wondering if she has been dozing in the library at home, before remembering with a jolt all that has happened. It is the morning after she arrived here. She has been out of it for twelve hours.
The door is open, Simon says. It is the first time he has spoken since she can barely remember when. When her energy is low, his presence retreats, but it is more than that, his voice is no longer the near-constant companion it was. She used to miss him like a twin, but now she is getting familiar with figuring things out for herself; his company, when he chooses to pop up, merely makes her head seem crowded.
I locked it.
That’s why I’m saying.
The point is a good one, but she would have come to it herself. And she resents his tone.
She straightens her clothes and walks stiffly into the kitchen.
‘Oh, you’re awake,’ Maplin says, cheerfully. ‘I wasn’t sure how long you needed.’ He is applying a lumpy yellow spread to a square of bread with the edge of a sliver of silicon, using the only spare space on the worktop. In daylight it is more apparent than ever just how filthy everything is. The cupboard doors are streaked with grease and the floor sticks to her shoes at each step. She is wary of touching anything. Daniels had kept the apartment spotless.
‘Mr Maplin,’ she says, ‘what do you want of me?’
‘It’s Timothy,’ he replies, in a mock-aggrieved tone, ‘and you came to me, remember?’ He smiles condescendingly. ‘I don’t want anything Evie, I’m just trying to help.’ She notes that he has started calling her Evie rather than Evelyn. She should perhaps prefer it but nevertheless would still choose to keep him at a distance if she can.
‘I’m grateful,’ she says begrudgingly, attempting to strike an apologetic note she doesn’t feel, adding defensively, ‘it was you who gave me your card. You invited me to make contact.’
‘Well, I wanted to help.’ Maplin blushes, his skin turning pimply.
‘Thank you,’ she says, adding firmly, still determined to set ground rules, ‘You came in while I was resting. I’d locked the door.’
‘Oh no, that wasn’t me, that was Jackson. I told him to leave you alone but he can’t be kept out of anywhere. He probably just wanted to make sure you were okay.’
‘Jackson?’
‘My monkey – the animatronic.’
‘Oh,’ she says, feeling suddenly foolish.
Maplin folds the bread onto itself and looks up at her. ‘Evie, it’s no wonder you’re jumpy after what you’ve been through. I’ll have words with him. It’s been just the two of us for so long and he needs to learn some manners, at least around you. Things have totally changed with your arrival – it won’t happen again.’
Evie is still disturbed by how she had managed to leave herself vulnerable despite her precautions, but, notwithstanding her distaste, Maplin seems harmless, at worst a bit weirdly starstruck. No harm has been done.