Page 73 of Just for December

He’s such a piece of shit that he doesn’t get to be a source that Evie cites.

Just like Petra gets to disregard her mother’s feedback, because her mother doesn’t really know her, Evie doesn’t have to be held hostage to those words her father spat at her when she was still so young.

How sad, how unfair, that she has carried around his self-hate, his self-loathing, as her own, for all these years.

What he said, it wasn’t about her. How could it be? That was all him.

And it’s the craziest thing: Evie starts to cry. The relief of it all, of understanding that her dad can go screw himself, because he doesn’t get to bring her down too. He can destroy his own life as much as he wants. Evie doesn’t know him. And he doesn’t know her, and that is his loss.

This time when she pulls out her phone, she googles local tattoo parlours. Before she can question it, she follows the little blue dot, pushes through to the door, and asks the artist if he speaks English. He shakes his head.

‘Nein,’ he tells her.

‘Okay,’ she says, slowly. ‘Erm …’

She mimes holding a pen, and he gets her a sharpie and a piece of paper. She draws out what she wants, shows him her forearm, and he writes the number 150, which she takes to mean the price. It hurts, getting it done, and she assumes he’s trying to calm her because he says lots of things that soundsweet, but are, to Evie’s untrained ear, ultimately unfathomable. There’s a poetry to it, really, communicating with smiles and nods and grunts. When he’s done, he wraps her arm in cling film and gives her a big tube of cream and holds up a hand.

‘Five,’ he says. ‘Every day.’

Evie looks at him. ‘Use this five times a day?’ she asks, and he nods.

She shows it off proudly to Magda when they meet for drinks later on, thrusting it in front of her friend’s nose as she announces: ‘I did a thing!’

‘What!’ squeals Magda. ‘Oh my gosh! A tattoo?! This is very not Evie Bird! Wow! But wait.’ She squints, trying to see what it says through the recently applied cream and cling film. ‘I can’t see it properly,’ she tells her. ‘I don’t want to touch it in case I hurt you.’

‘It says,’ Evie says, a smile so big it could fall off her face, ‘Cite your source. I have a whole story to tell you.’

‘I can’t wait to hear it. Wine?’

‘Wine,’ confirms Evie.

As they try to capture the attention of a waiter and then put in their order, Magda furrows her brow. ‘Hold on,’ she says. ‘Cite your source. That’s from one of your books, right?’

‘Yes, it is.’ Evie grins, and the pride in her voice – the pride in her very bones – comes shining through.

The morning after the night before, where Evie had two glasses of wine and a very galvanising chat with Magda, Evie and her new tattoo are on Operation Tell-Duke-She’s-Sorry. Which first involves finding Duke, which is apparently harder than it seems because he’s nowhere to be found.

‘Daphne,’ Evie shouts from across the set. They’re at their final destination now: Füssen. They have three nights here and then fly back home, just in time for Christmas. It feels bonkers that three weeks ago the shoot seemed like a life sentence, and now Evie doesn’t want it to end. At least not without facing Duke head on, and all the fears that come with it: he’s going to let her down, laugh at her, use her vulnerability against her … the list goes on. It’s not personal: Duke is a lovely man. But one lovely man cannot undo decades of telling herself that love never works. The years of being let down, or rejected, or left behind, over and over again.

She might be able to try, though.

Daphne waves at Evie as she hears her name called, and Evie heads over.

‘You’ve not seen Duke, have you?’ she asks, noting how beautiful Daphne looks in her hair and make-up. They’re filming a horse-drawn carriage scene today, through incredibly picturesque streets, and Daphne looks every inch the girl-next-door leading lady. It’s unfair, really, that she should be so gorgeous and so smart that she can direct, too.

‘I haven’t lately,’ says Daphne, trying to do a million jobs at once – look gorgeous, hold a clipboard, not ruin her costume. ‘He’s due on set soon, so just wait around, maybe?’

‘Okay, thanks,’ Evie says. ‘Break a leg! You look great.’

‘Thanks,’ Daphne says smiling. ‘It’s non-stop here!’

Evie goes to say hi to the make-up girls, since she’s here and nobody seems to be in their trailer, and by the time she comes out, Duke is preoccupied with filming and it feels creepy to just stand and watch. She’d only be another set ofeyeballs on an otherwise busy set, but she’d be the only person there without a specific purpose and to loiter makes her feel like one of his many adoring fans waiting by the set barriers, just hoping to get a glimpse. Instead, she calls Magda.

‘Hey,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to answer. I thought you’d be balls-deep in—’

Before she can finish, Magda interrupts her in hushed tones and says, ‘I am. I’m with Markus. I just picked up to make sure you’re okay.’

‘Me? Oh yes. I’m fine. Just waiting to pour my heart out to a man I’ve been willingly keeping at arm’s length, but I’ve realised I owe him a lot more on account of him being incredibly decent … but I’m fine. I can hold all that in for another … ooh, I don’t know? Five minutes, at least.’

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