Black Grapes

Black Grapes Eva Maclean Copyright © 2023 by Eva Maclean The moral right of Eva Maclean to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author. Contents 1. Chapter 1 2. Chapter 2 3. Chapter 3 4. Chapter 4 5. Chapter 5 6. Chapter 6 7. Chapter 7 8. Chapter 8 9. Chapter 9 10. Chapter 10 11. Chapter 11 12. Chapter 12 13. Chapter 13 14. Chapter 14 15. Chapter 15 16. Chapter 16 17. Chapter 17 18. Chapter 18 19. Chapter 19 20. Chapter 20 21. Chapter 21 22. Chapter 22 23. Chapter 23 24. Chapter 24 25. Chapter 25 26. Chapter 26 27. Chapter 27 28. Chapter 28 29. Chapter 29 30. Chapter 30 31. Chapter 31 32. Chapter 32 33. Chapter 33 34. Chapter 34 35. Chapter 35 36. Chapter 36 37. Chapter 37 38. Chapter 38 39. Chapter 39 40. Chapter 40 41. Chapter 41 42. Chapter 42 43. Chapter 43 44. Chapter 44 45. Chapter 45 46. Chapter 46 47. Chapter 47 48. Chapter 48 49. Chapter 49 Afterword PART ONE Chapter one Effie Watson and I met on our first day at university. I guess that makes it easy to remember. October 2009. We were young, innocent and full of hope and the bad stuff was all in the future. I had arrived a few hours earlier, hauling myself out of a taxi and shuffling across the campus with my capacious rucksack and my ancient wheely suitcase, standing nervously in line at the reception desk, overcome with gratitude to be given a key to a room which was mine alone. After a bit of leisurely unpacking and looking out the window at the block opposite, I was sitting in a mindless trance, overcome with affection for the single bed, the desk and chair, the curtains, the washbasin in the corner, drunk with the happiness of having escaped from home, when there was a knock on the door. And in she bounced. My next-door neighbour. ‘Hi, I’m Effie.’ ‘Olivia.’ My name sounded so much more cumbersome than hers. Too many syllables. Blonde hair, blue eyes that roamed expertly and unashamedly over all my stuff. She sat uninvited on my bed in her faded jeans and oversized sweater, with long, droopy sleeves covering her hands, tucked her bare feet up under her and smiled up at me. ‘You got anything to drink?’ I was struck dumb for a minute and then I was scrabbling mentally to catch up. It was obvious to me, even in that first moment, that she had everything I lacked. Perhaps if I stuck with her, if she let me stick with her, some of it might rub off. As it happened, I did have a bottle of vodka in my rucksack. I had brought it in anticipation of the many lonely nights when I would be sitting alone in my room reading a book or watching a video or trying to write an essay. I wasn’t counting on much of a social life. We finished most of it that evening. Once we started to talk, there was no awkwardness between us, perhaps it was melted away by the vodka, but I think it was more due to Effie. I soon realised that she was one of those people who could keep a conversation going all on her own if nobody else chipped in. One of my aunties had been the same, people would lighten up and relax as soon as she got going. It was a talent I had always wished to have. Effie and I sat and exchanged confidences as easily as one might tell secrets to a stranger you won’t see again. Except of course that we would see each other again, many times, over several years. Effie was the first person to whom I was able to explain the bizarre family circumstances that I had for so long sought to hide from all my friends. Her background was also unusual. ‘My mum did a runner when I was eight’ she said. ‘She was working at an insurance company and she ran off with her boss. My dad threatened to kill the fellow but then he said it wasn’t worth it. If he’d gone to prison, I’d have had nobody. After she’d gone, he had to do all the stuff like meetings with teachers and all the rest of it. He hated all that, but he did it. Actually, it was quite good for me in some ways. I think mothers are stricter about what you do and what you wear and all that. My dad just used to give me the money and let me buy my own clothes, so I had what I wanted. Not a lot of money of course, but I could spend it how I wanted. He’s had a pretty rough life and he does drink a bit, but he’s looked after me for all these years. I was glad to get away from Manchester in some ways, but I do worry about my dad and I miss him. I’m glad he’s got Albert.’ I must have looked confused. ‘Our dog’ she explained. When we had finished our family histories and exhausted all other topics of conversation, we walked over to the social building to see what Freshers’ Week had to offer. It was a large modernist building, looking like a couple of sugar cubes welded together, designed in that post-war period when architects could apparently get away with anything. The concrete areas were already showing signs of decay. I don’t know why I noticed this. Maybe it steadied