Richard, fixation.

“Hello Richard.”

It was not a cool voice, nor seductive, perhaps not even intentional, it had sounded like a blurted noise, an accidental, instinctive cry like a yelp or a gasp.  That it happened to take the form of these words I do not credit myself with, she said what she saw.  She had always taken careful measures not to be so precise or, perhaps, polite, in addressing me.  And it didn’t occur to me until afterwards why this was important, why even at the time it jarred with me.  It suddenly seemed that maybe her sparse use of my name was not through coyness or laziness or even, most distressing of all, simple disregard for my presence, but actually a carefully measured discourse she had purposefully restricted herself to in order to appear irreverent or merely indifferent.  Was she capable of this? It is appalling to me now to have to contemplate this in such ignorance, I knew Evie, as she was Evie to me, I could build pictures of her a thousand feet tall with details styled with tooth-picks, I could tell anyone who cared to listen every changing note of scent on her skin, but I am incapable of ever knowing whether she, Evie or Elvie or Ellie, was capable of a finely considered campaign of intimidation through impassiveness, did she have that level of hate, did she have that endurance?  Or was she, in fact, all along, simply indifferent?

Richard & Elvie, evening [Extract: The Red Horse]

“Hello Richard.”
Evie stood with her back quite flat to the French window, the curtain falling back into place behind her.  She had blurted it out and her voice broke in the middle of my name, but she didn't clear her throat, clearly aware of the time and having intended to enter the house silently.  I, sat on the sofa in the lounge had been directly in front of the door as it opened, and witnessed the curtain move towards me as it received the smooth outline of a small body, I saw the shape shift as it turned to close the door behind it and then gropingly feel for the opening in the thick stiff fabric of Charlotte’s prized double-lined curtains.  She can’t have seen the small light coming through the lamp beside me, it wasn't until she came through the curtain that she noticed me and flattened herself against the door she’d just come through.
“Hi, what were you-?”  I said eventually.  I admit, I hadn't known she was anywhere other than in her bedroom, but my fatigue made me slow to respond, and this seems to worry her.  
“I was just – I got up to go outside.”  She said quickly.
“Right.”
She stepped into the room. “How long have you been here?”  There was an effort to sound casual, but her tone was hard and she knew it.  It was not really a question, just something to say.  Her face was still in the dark, and it stung in my chest a little, that in this rare, innocent, domestic moment between the two of us, I was not able to see her face.
“It’s strange,” I said, “I guess you’re used to it now, going out when you like, being here I mean.”
“Not out,” she repelled my phrase, “just outside.”
“Yeah, I just don’t remember the last time I went outside, I’m sure I used to do it all the time - stopped me smoking I guess.”
“No,” she said flatly, “your house just smelt of smoke all the time.”
“Ah!  You noticed that then?  Smokers stop smelling it I suppose; I bet Charlotte hated that huh?”  I instantly regretted mentioning her, derogatory or not the subject was not something for this private moment, I didn't want the outside world to figure in her head while we spoke.  She ignored it anyway.
“You can smoke in the countryside.”  She said, and moved forward again, she came into the circle of light, holding her arms limply, looking around at the open room like an animal stepping into a strange environment, and she had been moved like a pet to this new house, put in a cage which they opened at the other end in this new quiet place that she didn't understand.  Her face looked tired, her eyes soggy with hay fever  like they had lost their shield when she left the city, and what once kept out the smog and ash gave way and all at once let in the fog and the pollen and the midges and made a cloud behind the iris.  Whether the smog would have hurt her less isn't a question anyone is willing to answer.
“It’s nice actually,” she continued, “I keep thinking that maybe I miss the smoke, like maybe I need the smoke, you know?”  She looked at me, and who was I to tell her otherwise.?  “And it stops my hay fever – or stops me from noticing it.”
I had noticed it as soon as I had stepped from my car, into the weightless air of the countryside, it made me almost heady, the easy, unfamiliar oxygen.  It was not right, but it was fair, Evie's lungs had Stockholm Syndrome, the city swayed more than her heart.
“There’s no harm in missing home.”
“It was home wasn't it?”  She came closer, and propped herself on the arm on my side of the sofa.  “How sad.”  She meant it in the young way, and smiled to show it.
“Hey, it’s still my home you know.”
“Yeah but –”
“Yeah but what?”  I said in mock outrage, we laughed together.  Evie went quiet and looked at me.
“You, you and Tom and everyone, you saw it before, you saw it before things got bad.  You lived in the time before.”
“I suppose we did.  But it wasn’t that great you know, people were still cruel to eachother for no reason, people still hurt people.  And it was still smoggy.”
“But we were better before weren’t we?  I mean, we were better people before.”
“Who?  Oh!  Well things were different but –”
“The Natives, we were better before –”
“No Evie you can’t think that, it’s not that simple.  Is that what they’re called us now, is that what they tell you in school?”
“It’s what everyone calls us!”  She cried, standing up and looking down at me like a naïve child, “before the Sanders came along and shittied everything up, made everything about death and hate, before that we were united and–”
“People were dying long before they came here Evie, you can’t talk like this, this is BSP talk!”
“I’d rather be united than killing each other.”
“You mean you’d rather we killed other people, people who aren’t us, does that make it okay?”
“They came here and made us hate each other, they made us hurt each other and they won’t stop til they’re the only ones united together!”
“Evie what is this united nonsense, you can’t believe this, you don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“No, you don’t know, you were out there helping them weren’t you?”  She was shouting now, and her eyes hardened with hate, still red and wet from the outdoor air, “You were there inviting them in so they could burn us from the inside!  I bet you would've been there handing out fucking sleeping bags at the Albert if you could've!”
I stood up beside her and looking down said, “I wasn't involved with that Evie and you know that, I was back home by then, just like Tom and you and every other person in the city, I didn't know what they were doing!”
She didn't speak, just looked up at me with disgust.  “You might as well have.  Goodnight Richard.”  She turned and left swiftly up the stairs.  As she left I felt the heat in my face, I was standing alone, almost panting, and I felt suddenly ashamed.  I was just avoiding the blame, I didn't care where her hatred settled as long as I was out of range, no matter how warped her views I needed so painfully for her to see me as one of her own.  Though by then it was clear that ‘her own’ was no longer the simple, anxious, smoke-breathing citizen.  Her departure from the city had only amplified her dependence on it; it had crystallized her love of hating it.  Separated from the snake pit, she looked back fondly and longed to return, so that she could hate again.