‘People have a right to sit where they want!’ Lena squeaked, looking red-faced and giving the disturbing impression of an unexploded bomb. ‘If he pays his taxes, then he pays to sit on the street if the fancy takes him.’
‘If he was a car he’d be allowed to park on this corner for as long as he wanted and nobody would be able to move him,’ Annette added.
Ellie wasn’t entirely sure about that line of argument. She could have suggested that perhaps Ben disguise himself as a Fiat Cinquecento, but instead carried on listening in silent wonder.
‘But he’s not a car,’ one of the policemen replied, voicing Ellie’s thoughts in a tone that suggested a barely disguised exasperation.
‘I watch Taggart and I know that you have to have a warrant thingy,’ Janet said with a confident nod.
‘Ladies… nobody wants to see this situation get ugly and we certainly don’t want it to get to Taggart proportions. We’ve simply had a complaint from a resident and we’ve come to investigate. The fact of the matter is that Mr Kelly shouldn’t be camped out on a public road. If someone has made a complaint then Mr Kelly could be seen as behaving antisocially.’
‘Antisocially?!’ Janet squeaked. ‘You should see the hoodies up and down that shopping precinct on their bikes. Go and round them up for being antisocial before coming here and picking on an innocent man who wants nothing more than to show a lady his love for her. Who’s made the complaint? I bet it’s Arthur Woodall at number fifty, isn’t it? He’s always bloody complaining… when he isn’t pulling his y-fronts from his backside…’
‘Look…’ The police officer turned to Ben. ‘We don’t want to have to use our formal powers to make you move on, so if you would take this as a friendly warning, pack up and go home, we’ll say no more about it.’
‘You see, officer, I can’t do that,’ Ben began quietly. He took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ he continued, a new steel in his voice, ‘but I won’t do that. I’ll wait here for Gemma as long as it takes, whether that’s a day, a month, a year… and if you arrest me, then as soon as you let me out I’ll just come back… so you’ll have to keep arresting me and you’ll have to put me in prison for a long time.’ He drew himself up to his full height. Ellie could see that although he seemed unshakeable in his resolve, he was not used to flouting authority in quite this way; his quickened breathing gave it away.
The police officer began a reply but his argument was cut short.
‘What if he’s not here all the time?’ Annette interrupted. ‘What if he’s staying…’ she put her fingers in the air to make speech marks, ‘at my house and sometimes we all stand on this street corner for a friendly neighbourhood chat? Would that be within the law?’
The policemen looked at each other.
‘Will he be staying at your house?’ the first one asked. ‘Because I don’t believe that will actually happen.’
‘Um…’ Annette faltered, uncertain whether the policeman merely wanted her to perpetuate the white lie or whether she was actually expected to come clean about the ruse. ‘Yes…’ she finally answered. ‘Most of the time…’
He gave the tiniest shrug and a barely concealed grin at his colleague. They clearly knew that no such thing was going to happen. Whether the paperwork involved was just too much or whether they were secretly on Ben’s side, they weren’t saying, but the look they gave him suggested to Ellie that the latter was the case.
‘If we drive past a few times and see that Mr Kelly is still here and looks to be constantly here, then we would have to caution him…’ The first officer looked at Ben sternly, though Ellie was pretty sure she could see the humour in his eyes. ‘And if we receive another complaint from residents then that would also lead to more formal action.’
‘Don’t worry, there will be no more complaints from residents,’ Janet said darkly.
The policeman gave a short nod to Ben. ‘Good luck, mate,’ he murmured with a slight smile.
Ben bit back a grin of his own. ‘Thanks.’
As the officers walked away, Annette beamed at Ben. ‘Lucky we were here, isn’t it?’ she said in a low voice.
‘Sure is,’ Ben replied. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you ladies. But…’ He frowned at Annette. ‘I can’t stay at your house. What would your husband say? And I have too much equipment here to keep out of sight… Besides which, what would be the point of all this if Gemma arrives and I’m in someone’s house when she gets here? There’s no way I can leave this corner for longer than –’
‘Don’t worry, I didn’t mean you would actually stay in someone’s house. We’ll carry on as before – but one of us will always be looking out for police cars and we’ll come to warn you if we see one so you can get your equipment out of the way. We’ll draw up a rota.’
‘It’ll be just like espionage,’ Lena added breathlessly.
‘Ooooh yes, like 007. You could be 006 ½, Lena,’ Sonia laughed.
‘You could be Q, Sonia,’ Janet said.
‘How long do you think you can keep this up?’ Ellie interrupted in a practical tone. Was she the only one who could see how surreal this whole situation was becoming?
Ben shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I only know that I’m not ready to give up yet. If I get arrested, then I suppose it would be even more of a sign to Gemma that I’ll do whatever it takes.’
‘And I’m sure she’ll be dead impressed with your criminal record too,’ Ellie remarked, unable to keep the sarcasm from her tone.
His smile slipped into an expression of intense sadness. Ellie suddenly felt as though she had been privy to his innermost soul. And what she’d glimpsed wasn’t a confident charmer, as he always appeared on the surface, but a lost and lonely man.
‘I thought you might like to see what gifts have been arriving for you at the Echo’s offices,’ she added in a gentler tone.
‘Gifts?’ Ben asked, a slightly bemused smile returning. ‘For me?’
‘Hang on,’ she replied. ‘I’ll go and get the box from the car.’
Ellie jogged over to her Mini. She might not be able to bring Gemma back. She might not be able to fix whatever darkness lurked at Ben Kelly’s core either, but she was sure as hell going to try and cheer him up, even if it was just for the next hour. Proving to him that most of the people of his town were rooting for him seemed like a good place to start.
‘You’re a bad influence, Ellie,’ Fiona laughed as she came back to the dinner table. ‘There was no way Jack and Jay were going to bed with you still here – I’ve had to bribe them with the park tomorrow evening. I bet they won’t be asleep for hours either, even with that promise hanging over them.’
‘Sorry,’ Ellie smiled. ‘I probably got them a bit over-excited playing Mario Kart.’
‘Yes,’ Patrick put in, ‘so I know who to blame tomorrow when they can’t get up for school.’
‘Yes, dear,’ Fiona patted his hand. ‘You just pretend that it is actually you who gets them up for school and we’ll all pretend to believe it.’
Ellie grinned at her as she took another sip of wine. Fiona had that air of beatific calm that all the mothers she knew seemed to have. All except her own mother, of course. She could imagine Fiona floating around the house in the morning like Mary Poppins, clicking her fingers to fill lunch boxes and singing sweetly as she did so, her deep blue eyes dancing with mischief. Come to think of it, Ellie mused, Fiona even looked a bit like Mary Poppins. And the way Fiona cooked was definitely like someone who couldn’t possibly be quite real. The sublime risotto that she had just ‘thrown together at the last minute’ made Ellie’s attempts at cooking seem more like something she had once seen growing in a Petri dish in a school science lesson.
‘Oi! Patrick said with mock affront. ‘I’m a very hands-on dad.’
‘Yes… hands on the paper, hands on the TV remote, hands on my bottom when they shouldn’t be…’ Fiona replied serenely.
Patrick winked at her and crammed a leftover crust of bread into his mouth. F
iona simply rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically. She reached for the wine bottle and refilled Ellie’s glass.
‘Patrick says that your mum and dad still haven’t made up.’
Ellie nodded. She felt entirely comfortable with Patrick taking home what she had told him during their time at work, knowing that it wouldn’t also go around the Echo’s offices. He and Fiona shared everything.
‘I can’t make Mum see sense,’ Ellie said.
‘You’d think in the circumstances, what with her sister being so ill, she’d realise that life is too short to hold grudges,’ Fiona commented as she filled her own glass.
‘You would, indeed,’ Ellie agreed. ‘But my mother is not like normal people. If she gets angry she finds it very hard to forgive. And I think my aunt’s illness is merely adding to her stress so that her judgement is more clouded than ever.’
‘What about your dad? How is he coping with his exile?’
‘Not very well. He’s not looking after himself at all. You hear of people dying of a broken heart, and I honestly think the way he’s going, that’s what will happen. He’s just so miserable without her. And if the broken heart doesn’t get him, the dodgy attempts at home improvement will.’
‘It’ll get easier,’ Patrick cut in, ‘these things always do with time.’ He reached for the bottle that Fiona had moved out of his way and grinned at his wife as he did. ‘If all else fails, he could always join Ben Kelly on his corner.’
‘That’s not even funny,’ Fiona chided. ‘That’s why I moved the wine – you say all the wrong things when you get squiffy.’
‘It’s OK,’ Ellie said. ‘I get Patrick’s point. For the mess in my dad’s flat, he might as well be living rough anyway.’
‘How is the man who can’t be moved?’ Fiona asked.
Ellie stared into space for a moment as her thoughts went to Ben and what he might be doing right now. She shook herself.
‘We had a bit of drama there today actually. The police tried to move him on.’
‘Yes, Patrick told me. Do you think he’s going to stick it out until his girlfriend comes back? And do you think she will? It’s been almost a week now and he’s still waiting.’
‘It doesn’t seem very encouraging for him,’ Ellie agreed. ‘I honestly don’t know whether she will. But… as for Ben… I’ve never seen anyone so determined.’
‘That’ll be some sort of abandonment issue,’ Patrick said, taking a swig of his drink.
‘What do you mean?’ Ellie turned to him.
‘Because of how he lost his parents.’
‘He lost his parents?’ Ellie repeated.
‘Mmmm, when he was twelve they were both killed in a house fire. He was the only one to be rescued by a neighbour.’
Ellie stared at him. ‘How do you know this?’
‘He told me.’
‘How did I not know this?’ Ellie squeaked.
‘I suppose you just weren’t listening properly. I asked him what his parents thought about him camping out. I’d have thought it was an obvious question really. It must have struck you as odd that there was no input from them? I mean, whatever age a man gets to, he never stops being a mummy’s boy.’
‘You more than most,’ Fiona cut in.
Patrick grinned. ‘The point is that you’d expect them to pop over and see how he was – at least from an emotional point of view if nothing else. Or they’d make their feelings on the situation known to someone, perhaps even the Echo as we’re covering it. He’s gone through a break-up that has driven him to some pretty extreme measures. Your mum and dad would be upset if it happened to you, right?’ Patrick took another gulp of his wine as he eyed Ellie. ‘Clearly I should be the reporter after all…’
Ellie suddenly felt like the room was spinning. ‘This is huge,’ she murmured.
‘I don’t think he wants that bit of his life reporting,’ Patrick added, serious now.
‘But an angle like that would get so much public sympathy.’
‘And also rake up very painful memories,’ Fiona said gently. ‘I don’t usually agree with Patrick but in this case I do think he’s right. Best to leave that bit of the poor boy’s past well alone.’
‘I should have asked but I never thought…’ Ellie said, more to herself than anyone else.
‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ Patrick said. ‘You were covering the story he wanted you to.’
‘God, he’s out there right now, all alone in the cold and dark…’
‘Ellie…’ Patrick interrupted, ‘he’s about as far from alone as you can get. Every female on that street is in love with him.’
‘It’s not the same. And they won’t stay out there all night.’
‘It’s his choice. He knows what to expect, he’s spent lots of nights out there now.’
‘We can only hope this Gemma is not as big a bitch as she’s making herself look right now,’ Fiona added. ‘Assuming that she knows about his past, which she must do, I can’t believe she hasn’t been to him already, if only to put him straight so that he can get on with his life if she doesn’t want him.’
‘I do feel guilty for my part though,’ Ellie said. ‘There was me thinking he was just out to grab attention when all the time he’s got this awful tragedy always there with him. The whole picture makes so much more sense now.’
‘Like Patrick says, you were doing your job. You were there to report on his plight with Gemma and you did that. You mustn’t worry about it. You have far more pressing things in your own life.’
Ellie sighed. ‘It feels like everywhere I turn at the moment there’s tragedy, or at least the promise of it.’
‘Life is tragedy, waiting to take bites from us whatever we do,’ Fiona said. ‘We just have to learn how to avoid letting it swallow us whole.’
Patrick leaned over and squeezed his wife’s shoulder with a broad grin. ‘Have you been at the philosophy books again? I thought you were going to kick the habit.’
‘Shut up,’ Fiona said, slapping his hand away. ‘You know what I mean.’
Ellie didn’t reply. There was very little she could do to put her own life straight at that moment, but there was, perhaps, something she could do for Ben. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a plan was forming. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like the answer. It would need a little detective work… but being a reporter, that surely wouldn’t be too difficult?
Ellie stood at the gate and looked up at the house. It was a regular post-war semi, neat lawns and uniform borders of new bulbs just showing their first shoots, white plastic windows and front door – nothing out of the ordinary. Her head was still pounding from all the wine she had promised herself she wouldn’t drink the night before but then had. Annoyingly, Patrick had looked bright and rested when he arrived at work that morning, whereas Ellie was pretty certain she looked like road-kill. He had definitely drunk more than her too. She had considered for a moment asking him to come here with her, but then decided, for a reason that even she couldn’t work out, to come alone.
Finding the address had been much easier than she had imagined – it turned out that Gemma Fox’s mother had entered her into a modelling competition held by the paper the year before and her details were still on file. It was around the time that Ellie had begun work on the Echo and she recalled the competition being won by a sweet Romanian girl who had settled in Millrise only months before.
Collecting herself, Ellie pushed open the gate and approached the door. Her next lines had been carefully rehearsed in the car on the way over, and she smoothed her expression into one of professional amiability.
After a few moments of waiting, the door was opened by a thick-necked bald man in his late-forties to early-fifties, dressed in a shell suit that could only have come straight from the eighties. If this was Gemma’s dad, then Gemma had clearly inherited her model looks from her mum. Or the milkman. The man looked Ellie up and down.
‘I don’t buy from door-to-door salespeople.’
‘That’s alright,’ Ellie replied brightly. ‘I’m not selling.’ She was about to show her work ID when he interrupted her.
‘I don’t do religion either.’
‘I’m from the Millrise Echo,’ Ellie said, ‘I wondered whether I could speak to Gemma Fox. Does she live here?’
All at once his expression changed and he broke into a yellow-toothed smile. ‘My Gemma? Has she won something?’
‘I’d prefer to talk to her, if that’s OK,’ Ellie said as courteously as she could manage.
The man opened the door and stepped back to indicate that Ellie could go in. Shutting the door behind her, he shouted up the stairs. ‘Gem! Some reporter here for you!’
Gemma’s face appeared at the top. ‘What?’
The man nodded his head in Ellie’s direction. ‘A reporter… Here for you.’
‘Shit, I’m still in my jammies.’
Gemma disappeared again, leaving Ellie and the man in awkward silence.
A few excruciating sentences about the weather later, Gemma reappeared dressed and in full make-up. Ellie had to be impressed – she had never seen anyone go from bed-head to full-on glamour in such record time. As she came down the stairs, Ellie took a moment to be equally impressed by the fact that she was the only woman she had ever seen wearing patterned leggings who actually looked really good in them. She had teamed the leggings with a figure hugging black top and her hair tumbled about her shoulders in impossibly bouncy curls. Gemma was every inch the perfect specimen of the female form, just as her photos had suggested. Ellie found herself willing the girl to be a bimbo; it was the only way that she wouldn’t feel like a waste of DNA in comparison. But when she opened her mouth, it was clear there was a sharp mind behind the lip gloss and mascara.
‘This is about Ben, right?’ Gemma threw a glance at her dad before Ellie had time to answer. ‘Dad, stick the kettle on. Me and this reporter are going to talk in the front room for a bit of privacy.’
With an idiotic grin, her dad went off to the kitchen whistling. Clearly, Ellie thought, Gemma had inherited the clever genes from someone else too.
Worth Waiting For: A heart-warming and feel-good romantic comedy Page 7