Beyblade Fan Fiction ❯ Evra's Big Mistake ❯ Chapter five ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Rei's Neko_gurl: Don't know what to say peeps except >> Enjoy this chappy.

The view over Hampstead was breathtaking. White clouds scudded a duck-egg-blue sky and the kite flyers were out in force. Evra, feeling the cold, dug her wooly orange beret out of her jacket pocket and pulled it on, Benny Hill style, over her tingling ears.

Florence heldthe glassas on her lap and Evra wrestled the cork out of the bottle. When the wine was poured, they toasted Ray and clikned glasses. Reverently taking her first sip, Evra tried hard -- and failed utterly -- to appreciate the finer points of £47-a-bottle wine.

'Mm, yum,' she lied.

'Ha, and I'm the Queen of Spain. Doesn't matter if you don't like it,' Florence said cheerfully, polishing off her first glassful and smacking her lips. 'I'll handle the rest.'

To steer the conversation away from her own shameful ignorance, Evra huffed on her frozen hands and said, 'So how did you and Ray meet?'

'Haven't I told you before? Oh, it's a greaat story.' Florence held out her glass for a refill. 'I was up here early one Sunday morning with Bruce. He had a new bike and I wouldn't let him out on the roads. So of course he had to prove he could ride the thing -- he was eight, you know what they're like at that age -- and the next minute he was hurtling out of control down the path there.' She nodded in the direction of the narrow path curving to the left below them. 'Poor little sod ended going slap into a tree.'

'You've never told me this!' Enthralled, Evra leaned closer, cross-legged on the grass. It wasn't difficult to imagine Bruce as a stubborn eight-year-old. 'What happened next?

'Blood and teeth everywhere. One wrecked bike, one sprained knee. Bruce was screaming blue merder and there was me without so much as a tissue to mopup the blood.'

'Poor Bruce.'

'Poor me! I was in a complete flap. Bruce wasn't the only one in tears, I can tell you.'

'Hold on, I guess the rest,' Evra said exitedly. 'Then -- trumpets, trumpets -- over the hill came Ray riding to the rescue on his motorbike' -- she had heard all about Ray's devotion to his Norton 500 -- 'with a first-aid kit slung over one shoulder and a big bag of false teeth on the other.'

Florence chuckled.

'Not quite. Over the hill came Ray, on foot and hungover, making his way back to Highgate after an all-night party. But he came to the rescue, bless his heart, and he had a clean handkerchief, which is more than I did. He cleaned up Bruce's mouth, managed to stop him screaming and insisted on giving him a piggy-back home. He even carried the smashed-up bike,' Florence remembered fondly. 'It's a wonder he didn't have a heart attack then and there. Well, that was it as far as I was concerned. Love at first sight. There was Ray with his Clark Gable hair -- that was when he still had hair, of course -- and me trotting along carring his dinner jacket. Bruce was dripping blood all over his white evening shirt and he wasn't even bothered. He made us both laugh. And he wasn't even doing it to impress me, because as far as he was concerned I was just a young housewife in need of a hand. When we got back to the house he said, ''Your husband's going to have his work cut out getting that bike fixed.'' '

'This is so romantic,' Evra sighed. 'And . . . ?'

'I said, ''He certainly is, seeing how he died three years ago.'' '

Evra wrapped her arms around her knees in delight. 'Then what?'

'Well, he just stood there for a minute, grinning at me. Then he said, ''In that case, I'd love an aspirin and a cup of tea.'' '

'Oh! Did he mend the bike as well?'

'I suggested it.' Florence snorted with laughter. 'He told me he wasn't the fixing kind. When things got broken, he bought new ones.'

'And did he buy Bruce another bike?'

'Certainlly did, four days later.' Florence waggled her left hand at Evra. 'And so I wouldn't feel left otu, an engagement ring for me.'

Having disposed of the rest of the bottle, Florence contentedly closed her eyes and said, 'Okay for five minutes while I have a little snooze?'

Evra sat back, stretching her legs and propping herself up on her elbows. In this position sh ecould enjoy the faint warmth of the sun on her face and view the kites performing their colourful acrobatics in the sky.

Squinting in the sunlight, she surveyed the panoramic view spread out before her. There in the distance was St Paul's Cathedral, pointing upinto the sky like a silicone-stuffed Hollywood breast. And there was Big Ben. To the east stoody Canary Wharf, and the old Caledonian market clock tower. To the west, the chimmeny's of Battersea power station and the Trellick Tower. Heavens, it made you realise how vast -- and how eclectically beautiful -- London really was.

But the unaccustomed brightness of the sun soon made her eyes water. To give them a rest, Evra turned her attention to the black BMW being driven slowly along the road below her. Idly she followed its progress until it braked and reversed into a parking space. Seconds later the passenger door was flung open and a boy around five or six jumped out on to the grass verge.

Evra watched the driver emerge from the other side, open the car's boot and take out a yellow and white kite. From this angle his face wasn't visible, but at a guess he would be around thirty, dark-haired like his son and wearing a white rugby shirt and faded jeans.

Another Sunday father, though Evra, brining his child out for a spot of kite-flying then whisking him off for a burger at McDonald's before depositing him back with his mother at the designated time.

Hampstead Heath was full of them.

The spiralling divorce rate was doing the fast-food business no harm at all.

As Florence dozed peacefully beside her, Evra watched the boy yell out instructions to his dad. Dad was evidently no expert; as they edged their way up the hill he unravelled the nylon line and made two or three unsuccessful attempts to get the kite airborne.

Evra smirked as he threw it up again, this time narrowly avoiding decapitation. She heard his son yell out in disgust, 'You're useless! Come on, let me have a go.'

They were closer now, moving towards her. The man said, 'Charming manners, Eddie, you take after your mother.'

'She says you've always been a hopeless case. You can't even put a shelf up straight.'

'Maybe I don't want to. Anyway, your mother's not so clever herself,' he retorted. 'Aske her how many times she's pranged the car trying to reverse it into the garage.'

Evra watched the boy impatiently sieze control of the kite. Playing one adult off against the other, she thought, feeling sorry for him. Poor little lad, caught in the middle between two warring parents.

It couldn't be much fun.

Except . . . wasn't there something oddly familiar about the father's voice? A familiarity that was for some reason didn't quite fit with the visual image of the man standing in front of her, now struggling to untange a section of line which had somehow managed to knot itself around both legs?

Evar sat up, hugging her knees and pushing her beret to the top of her forehead in order to get a better look. She was sure he wasn't a visitor to the salon.

Damn, where have I heard that voice before? she thought with mounting frustration. And why do I keep feeling something isn't right?

The kite, miraculously, made it up into the air. The boy let out a whoop of delight and galloped a few yards further up the grassy slope.

'You did it, you did it!'

'Now who's useless?' his father demanded with a triumphant grin.

'Don't let it crash!'

'It's okay, I've got the hang of this now. A genious, that's what I am, and you can tell your mother that when we get back.'

The wind was taking control, carrying the kite towards the top of the hill. Following his son, the man moved closer to Evra. Next to her, Florence snored peacefully in her wheelchair. Glancing across at them, he smiled.

The moment his dark eyes locked with Evra's, she knew.

Oh no, it couldn't be.

But it was.

It was him.

The beggar from the Brompton Road.

Her whole body stiffened in disbelief. Incredibly, he was still grinning at her.

He hasn't recognised me, thought Evra. He spends his life sitting on his bum watching the world go by. For God's sake, how can he not recognise me?

Outraged, she shoved a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. The orange beret, already tipped to the back of her head, promptly fell off.

At last, with her spikey blue-and green-tipped hair revealed, the penny dropped. His broad smile faltered and faded. The kite was momentarily forgotten.

The kite, taking advantage of this lapse in concentration, swallow-dived to the ground.

'You let it crash!' wailed the boy, racing after it. 'You're supposed to keep the line tight. Come on, pay attention, make it fly again!'

Florence woke up from her doze with a start. Next to ther, using te arm of the wheelchair for leverage, Evra was scrambling to her feet. Florence
heard her say in a low voice trembling with fury, 'You cheat, you bloody despicable liar, how can you live with yourself?'

Florence brightened at once. Well, well, this was a turn-up for the books. She'd never heard Evra have a go at anyone before.

Peering around Evra's quivering form, Florence eyed with interest the object of her rage. Tall, dark-haired and rather good-looking -- if currently a bit shell-shocked -- hmm, not bad at all. In excellent shape, too, from what she could see.

One of Evra's hapless ex-boyfriends, Florence guessed. Presumably one who'd done the dirty on her. Well, no wonder she was upset.

'Look, I can explain---' he began, but Evra held up both hands to stop him.

'Oh, please don't, we already know what a great actor you are.' Sh espat the words out with contempt. 'Tell me, is that why you and your wife split up? Did she find out how you were spending days and kick you out? Does your son know he has a con-artist for a father?' She longed to yell accusations at the top of her voice but the bot was only yards away. For his sake, Evra managed to control herself.

The man, looking startled, followed the direction of her gaze. Turning back to Evra, he said with a placatory half-smile, 'I promise you, I really can explain. For a start, I'm not married. And Eddie isn't my son, he's---'

'Come and help me!' howeled the boy, now firmly entangled in the kite's line. 'You're wasting time -- Mum said we have to be back home by four.'

'You're damn right you can explain,' Evra hissed, kicking the brakes off Florence's chair and yanking her in the direction of the path. 'You can explain why you take my money and eat my prawn sandwiches when you clearly earn more than I do.' She was flinging the words over her sholder as she jolted the wheelchair over the uneven ground. 'And you can explain why you drive a BMW,' she bellowed. 'Because you make me sick!'

'Wait,' he called after her, but further up the hill his son was yelling for him and Evra was by this time scooting downhill with the wheelchair at a rate of knots.

Relieved to reach the bottom in one piece, Florence said sympathetically, 'The best-looking one's are always the biggest bastards.'

She patted Evra's thin arm, sensing it was best not to mention the two rather good Waterford crystal wine glasses they had left at the top of the
hill. 'What happened, he forgot to mention he was married?'

Poor, impulsive Evra, she deserved better than that. Stil, if she wanted to impress men, she really should learn to cook, Florence privately felt.

When you invited someone round for dinner, you couldn't expect them to be boweled over by a prawn sandwich.

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Rei's Neko_gurl:Well that's all I've written so far peeps but I will update soon. Please review!