Cupid's Way Read Online Free PDF Page B

away down the street, palms held out in front. ‘Come on,’ Mavis said, tugging on Evie’s sleeve. ‘We can slip around the back and go in the other side.’
    ‘What, and leave Gramps out here on his own? Isn’t that a bit dangerous?’
    ‘He’s a danger to himself these days, but I don’t think he’s a danger to anyone else. Least of all Bob Peacock. They’re both full of bluster and hot air. Always have been.’
    ‘That’s Bob Peacock?’ Evie followed her grandmother along a row of back yards with low wooden fences. ‘I can’t believe it. He used to have so much–’
    ‘Hair? Well, it must be nearly fifteen years since you last saw him. People change. Haven’t I changed?’
    ‘You never change. But I was going to say dignity. He worked for the council, didn’t he? Something to do with roads.’
    Evie remembered the Peacock clan so clearly. There was Alun and Eloise, and old Rolo, who would be ancient by now, if he was still alive. She’d gone to school with little pig-tailed Eloise, but they’d never been what you’d call friends, despite the Peacocks living next door to Evie’s grandparents. Next door three times over, in fact – the Peacocks had bought three of the terraces in Cupid’s Way and, without so much as a nod to building regs, had knocked them into one.
    Mavis reached the gate that led to the north end of the street and held it open for Evie. ‘He was a bin man. He used to call himself a road hygienist. Even then he was a complete tosser.’
    ‘Gran!’
    ‘I’m sorry, Evie, but that man is driving my Frank crazy.’ She sighed and closed the gate behind them, latching it carefully. From the other end of the path they could hear shouts punctuated by occasional neighing. Mavis rolled her eyes to the sky. ‘They’re as bad as each other. Come on, I’ll make us a cuppa and tell you all about it.’
    Evie fell into step beside her and looked around. It was astonishing, really, how little Cupid’s Way had changed over the years, even if it was looking a little rough around the edges. The glass and concrete and sharp lines of the surrounding buildings only provided a counterpoint to the warm red brick and cute little porches. Once you were enclosed within the gardens you could hear birdsong, and the wind rustling through the branches of the hundred-year-old trees, and you could smell the greenery, even in the middle of February. As they turned down the path to Mavis and Frank’s house, Evie saw patches of white in the grass. Snowdrops. She smiled and took a deep breath.
    ‘You could turn this place into holiday cottages,’ she said. ‘I’d pay to escape here – it’s an oasis of calm amidst all the madness.’
    ‘Don’t you believe it.’ Mavis put her key in the door and turned to look back at the gardens. ‘There’s more madness in these twelve houses than in the rest of the world put together.’
    ‘Oh, come on. It’s like some secret haven in here.’
    ‘And turning it into holiday cottages would be the least of our worries. I don’t think Dynamite Construction have anything quite so picturesque in mind.’
    ‘No, probably not.’ Evie paused, then lowered her voice. ‘I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this, Gran. This business with the planners. It’s so beautiful here, I can’t imagine what you must be going through, thinking there’s even the slightest possibility of being forced out.’
    Privately, Evie didn’t think her grandparents had anything to worry about. Developers had tried to get hold of Cupid’s Way before. It sat on land worth millions, so they’d been told, and over the last twenty years various schemes had come and gone, each more ambitious than the last. McAllisters had come the closest, but even their plans came to nothing. It wasn’t so easy to slap compulsory purchase orders on home owners, and Evie fully expected it to blow over in a couple of months, the way these things always did. But living through it, when it was your