Eva's Journey Read online

  I loved the smell and the feel of the leather seats.

  I loved the way people stared at us whenever we drove it down the street.

  But I so didn’t love the look in my dad’s eyes, and I knew I had to be strong.

  ‘It’s just a car, Dad,’ I said. ‘It’s no big deal. And Mum still has the jeep if we want to go anywhere. And luckily your office isn’t far from here. It’ll probably be good for you to walk there every day. And…..’

  I rambled on for a while, and then I stopped.

  Suddenly I realised that I was missing the point. This wasn’t just about the car.

  I took a deep breath and asked another question, the one I should have been smart enough to ask in the first place.

  ‘Why can’t you make the repayments?’

  ‘Because I haven’t got enough money.’

  His voice was hoarse and scary.

  ‘But you’ve got heaps of money. You’re rich. You’re richer than any of my friends’ dads. You’re …’

  I stopped talking. I didn’t feel sure of anything any more. Dad put his face in his hands again, and Mum just stood there, still holding the wooden spoon, which was dripping curry sauce all over the shiny white floor tiles.

  She put her other hand on Dad’s back, and rubbed it gently, like he was a baby who’d drunk its bottle too fast.

  ‘I’m sorry, Eva,’ she said. ‘We didn’t know how to tell you. Dad’s business has been doing very badly lately. It’s not his fault. The recession has taken everyone by surprise. Things are going to have to change around here. We can’t afford to live the way we used to.’

  ‘No!’ I shouted the single word.

  I wasn’t stupid. I listened to the television and the radio. Sometimes I even read the headlines on the newspapers. I’d heard all about the recession. I’d heard about girls whose parents had lost their jobs. I knew times were hard.

  But that was all about other people. That kind of thing wasn’t about us.

  We were rich.

  We were happy.

  We were invincible.

  ‘No!’ I said again, not quite as loudly as before.

  Mum hugged Dad, and then she came over and hugged me.

  ‘I’m sorry, Eva,’ she said. ‘You can say “no” all you like, but I’m afraid it won’t change a single thing.’

  I pulled away from her. I went to the front door, and looked out to the space where Dad’s car was supposed to be.

  Was I hoping that I could magic it back by just wishing?

  ‘No!’ I said again to the cold dark air.

  This wasn’t going to happen.

  I simply wasn’t going to allow it.

  Chapter Three

  Victoria called over later. I rushed her through the kitchen so quickly that she didn’t have time to notice Mum and Dad sitting at the table looking like their world was collapsing around their ears.

  Victoria followed me up to my room. I played with the controls of my MP3 player, and managed to pretend that everything was OK for about thirty seconds.

  ‘What’s wrong, Eva?’ asked Victoria.

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked, still half-hoping that I could bluff her.

  ‘You’re too quiet,’ she said. ‘It’s making me nervous.’

  I jumped up, pulled a few books from my shelves, and threw them on to the floor where they landed with a huge clatter.

  ‘Better?’ I said. ‘Now I’m not quiet any more.’

  Now she looked even more nervous.

  ‘Don’t act crazy,’ she said. ‘I’m serious, Eva. What’s wrong?’

  I hesitated.

  I wasn’t used to telling people my problems.

  Well actually, that’s not really true. The truth is, I wasn’t used to having problems to tell people about.

  But I badly needed to tell someone, so I took a deep breath and told Victoria everything.

  ‘Wow,’ she said in the end.

  ‘That’s it? Wow?’

  She looked embarrassed. ‘What do you want me to say?’

  Even though it wasn’t one bit funny, I giggled.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe you should say that everything’s going to be OK or something.’

  Victoria put on a serious expression.

  ‘Know what, Eva?’ she said. ‘I think everything’s going to be OK.’

  ‘But how is it going to be OK?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘How am I supposed to know?’

  I made a face and she tried again.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ she said after a while. ‘Your Dad’s business will start to improve. He’ll have enough money to buy back his car, or maybe he’ll have enough to buy an even better one, and then you can all live happily ever after.’

  ‘You really think so?’

  Suddenly Victoria gave a huge grin.

  ‘I don’t just think things will get better – I know it. Because I’ve just had a great idea. You don’t have to sit here fretting,’ she said. ‘You can help your dad.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You could try to manage without pocket money for a few weeks. And you could get a job too, and then you could save up money to help to pay off your dad’s debts.’

  ‘What kind of job?’

  ‘You could do baby-sitting. You like children and they like you.’

  ‘And I could get a paper round after school too,’ I said.

  ‘And you could walk dogs for people who are too busy to do it themselves.’

  ‘And I could muck out the stables after pony club.’

  Suddenly it all seemed possible.

  Victoria grabbed a paper and pen from my desk. She made four columns, and wrote lots of figures.

  ‘See,’ she said in the end, holding the page towards me. ‘If you work really hard, look how much you could earn every week!’

  I looked at the page, and knew that it was hopeless. I’d heard Mum and Dad mention numbers that made Victoria’s calculations look pathetic. I crumpled up the page and dropped it onto my bed.

  ‘It’s no use,’ I said. ‘Even if I walked every dog in the country, and minded every child, and delivered papers twenty-four seven, it wouldn’t make any difference. Dad owes too much money.’

  Victoria picked up the page, and threw it into the bin.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But maybe there’s some other way you could help?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Thanks, Victoria, but this is too big for us. There’s nothing we can do.’

  She came over and hugged me, but I pulled away.

  ‘You can go if you want. I don’t mind if you don’t want to be my friend,’ I said.

  Victoria picked up a pillow and whacked me with it. At other times, it would quickly have turned into a full-scale pillow fight, but not now. I turned away, trying not to cry.

  Victoria put the pillow down.

  ‘You idiot,’ she said. ‘I’m not your friend because you’re rich. I’m your friend … well I’m your friend for all kinds of reasons. You’re the most generous person I know. You’re always giving me stuff. And remember the time, years ago, when you gave that little girl up the road your two favourite Barbies because she didn’t have any of her own?’

  ‘I’d forgotten about that,’ I said.

  ‘I bet she hasn’t,’ said Victoria quickly. ‘I bet she still loves you like the sister she never had.’

  ‘She’s got three sisters,’ I said, and we both laughed for a second.

  Then Victoria continued.

  ‘I’m your friend because I like doing stuff with you. I’m your friend because you’re fun to be around.’

  I should probably have interrupted her, but how could I?

  Who doesn’t like hearing good stuff about themselves?

  ‘You don’t have to worry, Eva,’ she said. ‘I’ll always like you. I’ll still like you even if you end up being the poorest person in the whole country.’

  I looked up at her. Her big, blue eyes were wide open, and I knew for
sure she was telling the truth.

  ‘Thanks, Victoria,’ I said. ‘It’s really nice of you to say all that stuff.’

  There was still a problem though. If I was poor, Victoria might still like me – but would I still like myself?

  I’d been rich all my life.

  It was all I knew.

  I was used to being the girl who had everything.

  How could I live if I turned into the girl who had hardly anything at all?

  Chapter Four

  For a while, it looked like maybe things weren’t going to change that much.

  Mum and Dad seemed a bit more relaxed now that they had told me the truth. They were really nice to each other, and to me. Sometimes they smiled, and once or twice they even laughed.

  I got used to not seeing Dad’s car in the driveway.

  Dad even got used to walking to work.

  In the mornings, he set off wearing running shoes with his suit, and it made him look a tiny bit cool – almost like one of those grungy rock stars.

  Then one Saturday morning, I went downstairs, to find Mum and Dad sitting at the kitchen table, looking more serious than ever.

  ‘Sit down, Eva,’ said Mum.

  ‘We need to talk to you,’ said Dad.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this wasn’t going to be about what kind of cereal I wanted for breakfast.

  I sat down and waited.

  And waited.

  Mum looked at Dad and Dad looked at Mum and then they both looked at the floor.

  It reminded me of the time we were on holidays in Mexico and there was an ice-cold swimming pool in the garden of our villa. I used to stand on the edge of that pool for ages, trying to get the courage to jump in. I knew that it was going to hurt like crazy, and yet I wanted to get it over with.

  I sooo wanted to get this talk over with.

  ‘Eva, Dad and I have decided ……’ began Mum.

  ‘…… that we have to sell the house,’ said Dad in the end.

  I could feel my whole body relaxing.

  Was that all?

  ‘The house in Tuscany? You told me that months ago. Remember you told me it was getting too hard to find someone to look after it when we weren’t there?’

  Even as I said the words, I knew that Mum and Dad hadn’t told me the truth about our Italian home.

  Was that the first sign of trouble, and I hadn’t been smart enough to see it?

  ‘Sorry, Eva,’ said Dad, reading my mind. ‘We didn’t want to worry you by telling you what the real problem was.’

  ‘The house in Tuscany was sold a long time ago,’ said Mum. ‘We just couldn’t afford to keep it any more.’

  Suddenly I remembered something else that had gone right over my head a few weeks earlier.

  ‘Teresita didn’t stop cleaning our house because she had to go back to the Philippines to look after her sick sister, did she?’

  Mum shook her head slowly.

  ‘Sorry, Eva. We couldn’t afford to pay Teresita any more, so she got a job at the other side of town. I don’t even know if Teresita has a sister.’

  I felt like an idiot.

  ‘I made Teresita’s imaginary sister a Get-Well card,’ I said. ‘How totally embarrassing is that?’

  Mum sighed.

  ‘I know, darling. And Dad and I felt bad about that. It’s just that we didn’t know how to tell you the truth.’

  I felt like giving Mum and Dad a hard time about telling so many lies, but one look at their downcast faces told me that would have been unfair.

  Then I thought of something much, much worse.

  ‘If the house in Tuscany was sold ages ago, then what house were you talking about selling just now?’ I gasped with the horror of it, and then tried to continue. ‘You’re not ……? You wouldn’t ……? You can’t mean ……?’

  Mum nodded sadly.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to sell this house. We’re selling Castleville.’

  ‘But you can’t sell Castleville,’ I protested. ‘It’s our house. It’s where we live. It’s our home. I’ve never lived anywhere else. I don’t want to live anywhere else.’

  Dad rubbed my arm.

  ‘Don’t you think we know all that?’ he said. ‘This isn’t easy for any of us.’

  ‘So don’t do it then,’ I said.

  Dad sighed.

  ‘We don’t have a choice. The business is in ruins. We can’t afford to live here anymore.’

  Suddenly I had a great idea.

  ‘But there’s a recession on,’ I said. ‘This is one of the biggest houses in town. If we can’t afford to live here, then who else can?’

  Mum gave a small smile. ‘There’s always someone. Dad and I have been to the estate agents already. They think they have a buyer. We won’t get anything like the full value of the house, but we’re not in a position to argue. We just have to sell. And when everything is finalised, we can rent a smaller house, not too far from here, so you can still be near Victoria.’

  Suddenly I had another idea.

  ‘Dad’s business might be in trouble, but there’s still your job, Mum. Why can’t we live here on what you earn?’

  Mum sighed.

  ‘You know my job is only part-time. It hardly pays for the food we eat.’

  I grinned.

  ‘I can help with that,’ I said. ‘I’ll eat extra at school. I’ll have second servings of everything – third servings even, if they’ll let me. I’ll eat so much at school, that you won’t have to pay for any food for me at home. I’ll even skip breakfast. I’ll ……’

  I stopped talking. Mum was looking at Dad in a way that was making me very nervous.

  I gulped. My school had one of the best canteens in the whole country. A celebrity chef visited one time, and we all got his autograph. There was a programme on TV saying that our school served better food than most restaurants.

  ‘Oh, Mum, Dad,’ I wailed. ‘Please don’t tell me that we can’t afford to pay for school dinners any more.’

  Dad went pale. He looked at Mum who nodded so slightly that I almost missed it. Then he took a deep breath.

  ‘It’s not just the dinners, Eva,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we can’t afford the fees for The Abbey any more either. You’re going to have to leave your school.’

  I shook my head, wanting to make all the bad stuff go away. This couldn’t be happening. I won’t pretend that school was my favourite place in the whole world, but I knew that The Abbey was the best one around. (That’s why I spent forty-five minutes on a bus to get there every morning.)

  Mum came over and hugged me.

  ‘We’re sorry, darling, but it’s all arranged. We’ve already spoken to the principal. You’ll be leaving at the end of this term.’

  I thought quickly. ‘But that’s only two weeks away.’

  Dad nodded. ‘But look on the bright side. Even though it’s the middle of a school year, we’ve managed to get you in to a new school.’

  Ha. Look on the bright side – easy for him to say.

  Then I realised there was a bright side.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I can go to Victoria’s school. It’ll be kind of cool being at school with my best friend at last. And she says her school’s not too bad really. She says …’

  I stopped talking. Why were Mum and Dad looking at me like that?

  Why were there tears in Mum’s eyes, even though there wasn’t a single onion in sight?

  ‘We thought of sending you to Victoria’s school,’ said Dad. ‘It’s a good school, and they don’t charge fees. That would have been just perfect.’

  Would have been perfect?

  ‘But there’s no room there,’ continued Mum.

  ‘But there are only three schools within reach of here,’ I said. ‘If we can’t afford The Abbey any more, and Victoria’s school is full, that only leaves ……’

  Dad stood up and came over to me. His hand on my shoulder was warm and strong. It was the hand of a man who shou
ld be able to put things right.

  But he wasn’t putting things right.

  He nodded slowly.

  ‘That only leaves Woodpark School. It’s all sorted. You start there straight after the holidays.’

  ‘No way,’ I said. ‘That’s just not going to happen. Woodpark school is … well … it’s not the kind of school that girls like me go to.’

  Dad pulled his hand away from my shoulder.

  ‘Eva,’ he said angrily. ‘It’s time for you to stop being so precious. If Woodpark isn’t the kind of school that girls like you go to, maybe you’d better think about becoming the kind of girl that goes to Woodpark school.’

  I gulped.

  I liked the kind of girl I was already.

  I so didn’t want to change.

  But Dad was looking at me in a way that made me decide that, for once, arguing with him wasn’t going to be a good idea.

  I knew for sure that this wasn’t going to be the kind of argument that I was used to having with my dad – the kind that ended up with Dad apologising and buying me an expensive present.

  So I smiled my brightest smile.

  ‘That’s cool,’ I said. ‘My life was a bit boring anyway. Change is good. Change is exciting.’

  I ignored Mum and Dad’s puzzled looks. I kissed them both on the cheek, and I skipped out of the room like I’d just heard the best news ever.

  Then I went up to my room, threw myself on to my bed and cried until my pure silk sheets were soaked through.

  As soon as I stopped crying, I phoned Victoria.

  ‘We’ve got to move house, and I have to change schools,’ I said, before she even had time to say ‘hello’.

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  There was a long silence before she recovered.

  ‘A new house will be fun,’ she said brightly. ‘Remember before when you said it was boring living in the same house all your life?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I conceded. ‘But I didn’t mean it – not really.’

  ‘And a new school – that’ll be exciting.’

  I tried not to cry at the injustice of it all.

  ‘A new fancy boarding school would be exciting,’ I said. ‘But we’re not talking about a fancy boarding school. I’ve got to go to … Woodpark.’