Without waiting for the rest of Ben’s sentence, the chef moved to Gemma. ‘And you’re the lovely lady he spent all those nights under the stars for…’
Gemma gave him a simpering smile and flicked her blonde tresses. ‘I would never have gone off if Ben had been able to make food like this,’ she replied breathily, doing what Ellie thought was a very bad Marilyn Monroe impersonation or a very good impression of someone with quite advanced emphysema. She leaned over to Ben and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Only joking, honey.’
The chef burst into laughter. He turned to the camera with a cocky grin. ‘You heard it here first: the way to a beautiful woman’s heart is through her stomach. And if you’d like the recipe, you can find it on our website…’
The picture switched to a female presenter. ‘Well, that certainly did look very appetising and our guests seemed to be enjoying it. We’ll have more from Gemma Fox and Ben Kelly after the break.’
Hot tears stung Ellie’s eyes. Was she destined to have them taunt her for the rest of her life? Was there nowhere she could go to stay away from them? Kasumi would have said she was being melodramatic but that was how it felt. Throwing back the duvet, she raced into Jethro’s bedroom and began to fling her belongings into her overnight bag.
Just as she lugged the bag into the living room, Jethro came in laden with food. He stopped at the doorway and stared.
‘What are you doing?’
Ellie was aware that her face was probably streaked with tears, her hair still a tangled mess and she looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown. She certainly felt like she was.
‘I’ve made a mess of everything and now I have to go home.’
‘Hey, hey…’ He pulled her into a hug. It was rather an inept hug, a bit like he was smothering a live hand grenade in the desperate hope he could keep the pin in, but a hug was a hug and right now, Ellie grasped the emotional lifeline with every ounce of strength she had.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whimpered.
He pulled away to look at her. ‘Is this about what happened with us last night? You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.’
‘If I lose you on top of everything else, I really don’t know what I’ll do.’
‘You do still want my body, don’t you?’
Ellie laughed through her tears. ‘Yes, but only for more hugs if it’s all the same to you. I’ve had enough of romantic complications to last me a lifetime.’ She rubbed her tears away and shook her head. ‘Come on, I want to eat breakfast – that bag of junk food smells amazing.’
Twelve
By the time she emerged from her bedroom that Sunday evening, an inky dusk had fallen over the town outside her window. Ellie felt along her wall for the switch, the room flooding with light as she flicked it on. She screwed her eyes up against it. Her mouth was dry, her nose felt swollen and blocked, and her eyes weren’t much better. She retrieved her phone from the floor and then stumbled into the kitchen for some more aspirin and a bottle of water from the fridge. Sitting at the kitchen table, she unscrewed the cap of her bottle as she opened the messages from earlier that day. Jethro’s was brief, but full of heartfelt concern.
Hope you’re ok. You know I’m only a phone call away if you need me.
Kasumi’s was typical Kasumi.
WTF Ellie? Why did you bail on lunch? Jethro won’t tell me. I need to know everything.
There was also a new one from Patrick.
Just remember, getting your stomach pumped in a London A&E for alcohol poisoning is not a legitimate reason to ring in sick, lol. Hope you had a good time, see you tomoz. x
Ellie let the phone fall to the table and rested her head on her folded arms. She had the most fantastic friends and family, who needed her as much as she needed them. If she was going to get her life back on track and not risk throwing these friendships away, then this obsession with Ben Kelly had to stop.
‘I don’t suppose you saw Sunday Scullery yesterday, being all cosmopolitan in London,’ Ange said as Ellie came back into the office with her first coffee of the morning.
Ellie placed the cup on her desk and grimaced. ‘As a matter of fact, I did catch some of it.’ So far, after vowing that there would be no more nonsense, she had managed to keep it together as she recounted to Ange a carefully edited version of her weekend away. At least Vernon was busy at the civic hall again for the day, so that was one less pressure on her.
‘So you saw our Millrise Lovebirds were on then?’
‘Only the bit where they tasted the stroganoff.’ Ellie really didn’t want to know the rest, but had a sinking feeling that Ange was going to fill her in anyway.
‘I’d love to know who they’ve got to do their PR because they came across like Posh and Becks.’ Ange swung around on her chair and picked up her own mug.
Ellie couldn’t help a small smile. Not trusting herself to reply appropriately, she turned to her computer screen to go through her emails. There was the usual assortment of requests for visits to local schools, the theatre, and an enquiry from someone whose dog could apparently howl Rule Britannia and wanted Ellie to go along and listen, along with administration tasks and staff bulletins. Then she opened one from a company called Blue Pig Productions.
Hi Ellie
I believe you are the journalist who was following the story of Ben Kelly and Gemma Fox recently. We’re making a documentary about them and wondered whether we could interview you…
‘Argh!’ Ellie squealed. She couldn’t even make it to the end of the message. She took a very deep breath and then announced to Ange that she needed to go out.
Ange gave Ellie a practical look. It was the sort of look that her mum gave when she thought Ellie was overreacting about something, although she’d never expected to see it on the face of her colleague. ‘Ellie…’ Ange said, ‘go and get some air. Come back when you’ve calmed down and we’ll sort whatever is bothering you.’
‘I could do with some lunch anyway,’ Ellie said with a sigh of resignation, realising that perhaps that practical sort of look was justified. ‘I suppose I could go out to get it now and save a job later.’
‘Don’t come back until you’re clear-headed and laden with outrageously calorific food.’
Ellie gave her a tight smile.
‘Bring me back one of Stav’s Cajun wrap specials, will you?’
‘Yup.’ Ellie pulled her coat from the stand. ‘Anything else?’
‘A cheerful colleague would be nice.’
Ellie turned at the office door. ‘I can’t guarantee that but I’ll do my best.’
Ellie stood on the pavement outside the offices of the Echo. The weekend’s sunshine had given way to a cold drizzle that seemed to drape over the streets like a damp blanket. Ange was right, as always; Ellie needed to be clear-headed and professional at all times no matter how she felt about things personally. A quick walk to The Bounty for her lunch in the cold air and she’d be better equipped to respond to the email from Blue Pig in a way that didn’t make her sound like a bunny-boiling psychopath. Hoisting her bag onto her shoulder, she plunged her hands into her coat pockets just as her phone started to ring. Ellie took the call.
‘Mum. I was thinking of coming over tonight.’
‘I think you should go to see Hazel.’ Her mum’s voice had a desperation in it that made Ellie’s stomach tighten. ‘She’s worse than I’ve ever seen her.’
Ellie chewed her lip, the fears her mother had planted the last time they had seen Hazel forcing their spiked thorns into her heart. ‘Is there any word from the hospice about when she can be taken in?’
‘Next couple of days, I think. When do you think you can get that time off to help finish packing?’
‘I’ll check with Vernon when I see him.’
‘I don’t think…’ Miranda’s breath hitched. ‘I don’t think she’ll need to take all that much with her.’
Ellie’s gut clenched a little tighter. ‘Oh… she said…’
There was a stifled sob
from the other end of the line.
‘Mum… I’ll be over as soon as I can.’
‘No… no, it’s OK. Come after work.’
‘No way! I need to do something quickly for Ange, and then I’ll call Vernon to let him know I’m going off for the rest of the day. Don’t worry, he’ll be OK about it and I can take the time as annual leave or something.’
‘OK. Thank you,’ Miranda said weakly.
‘Mum…’ Ellie paused. She knew her mum wasn’t going to like her next suggestion, but it didn’t seem right not to make it anyway. ‘Don’t you think you ought to let Dad be involved now? He’s known Hazel for years and he thinks a lot of her.’
‘He should have thought of that when he was defrauding me.’
‘You make him sound like a criminal.’
‘He is.’
Ellie sighed. She clearly had more chance of winning the Kentucky Derby without a horse than this argument with her mum. ‘I think you’re wrong about this,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But it’s up to you. I just hope you don’t come to regret it. Is Hazel happy that Dad hasn’t been to see her?’
‘Hazel understands how the whole affair has affected me.’
Unlike some… Ellie expected her mother to add, but she didn’t. ‘It’s hard for me, Mum. How can you expect me to take sides between my parents?’
Miranda sniffed. ‘Where are you, anyway? It sounds noisy.’
‘I’m outside the offices. I was on my way to get lunch.’
‘Right. Be careful, won’t you?’
‘Of course, Mum. Aren’t I always?’
After a repeated promise to get there as soon as she could, Ellie ended the call. She barely had time to blink back the tears that had welled in her eyes when the display screen lit up again.
It was Kasumi. Ellie watched the caller ID flash for a while as she chewed her lip. She hadn’t quite figured out what she was going to say to her friend, but Kasumi wasn’t the sort of girl to let Ellie ignore her, even for the shortest time. Reluctantly, she took the call.
‘Hey. How are you?’
‘What happened at the weekend? Jethro says you were very weird.’
‘Weird?’ Ellie laughed awkwardly. ‘I’m always weird, how is that out of the ordinary?’
‘OK, weirder than normal.’
Ellie glanced up and down the street. Shoppers and workers were scurrying by, heads down against the rain that was now getting heavier. She stepped back against the wall of the building to get out of the way of the thoroughfare. ‘What exactly did he tell you?’
‘It wasn’t what he told me, but what he left out that worries me.’
‘We didn’t sleep together, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Ellie said in a low voice.
There was a pause. ‘So, what did you do? If that’s the first denial that comes into your head then something along those lines happened.’
‘We got drunk… and… he asked me not to tell you….’
‘Funny, he says that he didn’t think he could tell me either. What am I, suddenly, the spare wheel of this friendship?’
‘God… no, Kas!’
‘It feels like it. What about this Ben business?’
‘Oh… so Jethro told you about that.’
‘Of course. He was worried about you.’ There was a static filled pause. ‘So tell me why you freaked out on Sunday morning?’
‘Kas… I don’t know if I can understand it enough myself to explain it to anyone else right now.’
‘Why don’t you try?’
Ellie hesitated. Then she turned her collar up against the damp cold and started to walk, phone still clamped to her ear.
‘It’s not something I can talk about now. Something is happening with my aunt and I need to be there.’
‘Shit… sorry, Ellie. I didn’t realise…’
‘It’s OK. But you’re right about one thing – I shouldn’t have gone to stay with Jethro by myself when my head was in such a weird place. Did he sound OK?’
‘You know Jethro. He’s always OK.’
‘You’re not angry, are you?’
‘No. But I don’t like the idea that you feel you can’t share things with me.’
‘Kas, I…’ Ellie’s sentence trailed off as two figures ahead on the pavement caught her attention. ‘Shit!’
‘What now?’ Kasumi asked.
‘I think that’s… oh, bollocks!’ Ellie bowed her head and pulled her collar up as far as it would go. Veering off, she hurried to cross the road to avoid the couple walking in her direction, phone still clamped to her ear and Kasumi still talking, telling her something that got lost in the sound of revving engines and traffic hissing through the rain.
Ellie never even saw the car coming.
Thirteen
She was aware of pain in her chest and feeling like someone very large was sitting on it. As she struggled to pull air in, concerned and horrified faces appeared above her.
‘She just ran out,’ a woman wailed. ‘I braked straight away but I couldn’t stop.’
Someone else put an arm around the woman to comfort her. Ellie wanted to tell the driver that it wasn’t her fault but no words would come out. She turned her head slowly to see her phone in pieces on the road, a few feet away. The sight filled her with a strange sense of panic that was greater than knowing she had just been hit by a car. If Ange had been there and was, by some extraordinary quirk of fate, suddenly blessed with the power of reading Ellie’s mind, she’d have delivered some lecture about priorities and how Ellie just didn’t seem to be able to grasp the concept. As these thoughts whizzed through her mind and the pain in her chest worsened, Ellie wondered vaguely if she was going to die and these strange musings were her own bizarre version of her life flashing before her. That would be about right for her. And she hoped she wasn’t going to die; she had promised her mum she would be right over and Miranda would be really pissed off about being stood up.
‘Someone get an ambulance,’ a man’s voice shouted.
Yeah, that might be an idea.
As another man made the call, the crowd around Ellie seemed to grow. But then two new faces pushed through, possibly the last two faces she wanted to see.
‘Oh my God!’ Gemma squeaked. To her credit, thought Ellie, she did look suitably horrified. If she was putting it on she was one amazing actress.
‘Ellie!’ Ben called in a choked voice. ‘Oh, shit, Ellie!’ He dropped to his knees, ripped off his jacket and laid it over her. ‘Give me your coat,’ he ordered Gemma.
Gemma stared at him. If she had looked horrified at the events unfolding in front of her, she looked appalled beyond belief at this new request. ‘My coat?’
‘She’ll be in shock. She has to be as warm as possible.’
Gemma glanced around as others in the crowd stared at her. She sighed and was just about to comply when someone else handed Ben a duffle coat. He gave the woman a grateful smile.
‘Brilliant, thanks.’
‘Yeah, thanks,’ Gemma huffed, her expression somewhere between mortification that she had managed to make herself look monumentally selfish in front of an audience, and relief that she got to keep her designer coat on after all.
Ben added the new coat to his own. He glanced around and saw Ellie’s bag – the contents spread across the road – and her phone a few feet away.
‘I’ll just go and get your stuff,’ he said to Ellie gently, nodding a head at her belongings. ‘Gemma will stay with you, OK?’
‘No…’ Ellie gasped, just managing to find enough breath as the pressure on her chest worsened. ‘Stay…’ She could feel tears squeeze from the corners of her eyes, running a trail down her cheeks and neck until they joined the rain on the tarmac. She didn’t know why she was crying. Was this what shock – real actual medical shock – was like?
‘Don’t try to talk,’ Ben said, looking as though he was trying not to weep himself. He turned to the man who had called for the ambulance. ‘How long did they say they’d be?’
‘They didn’t say. But the City General isn’t that far – shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.’
Ben put his lips to Ellie’s forehead and kissed her lightly. ‘Hold on,’ he whispered. ‘Hold on for me.’
Gemma seemed to hover, torn by indecision. The merest flicker of a sour look crossed her face as Ben kissed Ellie. But then she glanced back at the contents of the handbag strewn across the road. After a moment’s hesitation, she went to collect them.
Ben looked around as two new voices joined the confusion. Ange and Rosie were racing across to them.
‘What’s happened?’ Rosie shouted.
Their faces appeared above Ellie with everyone else’s. Ellie tried to smile reassuringly but couldn’t make it happen. By now, along with the pain and shock, she was feeling quite a nuisance.
‘She just ran out in front of me!’ The driver now sobbed uncontrollably. Ellie really did feel sorry for her. When all this was over, assuming she wasn’t dying, she would have to make sure she sent her some flowers for putting her through such an ordeal. And if she was dying, perhaps someone could hand her paper and a pen so she could manage to write some sort of last floral request out in a shaky hand before she shuffled off.
‘Has someone called the ambulance?’ Ange snapped as she knelt down next to Ellie.
Ben nodded and dragged his sleeve across his eyes. ‘On its way.’
Ange laid a hand on his arm and gave it a little squeeze. She turned to Ellie.
‘You’re going to be OK, so don’t you get any ideas about having a sneaky holiday off work.’
Ellie tried to give the tiniest of nods. Her breath was coming shorter and sharper now. She wondered if someone actually was sitting on her chest.
Gemma appeared again and handed Ellie’s bag to Ange. ‘Her things,’ she said quietly.
Worth Waiting For: A heart-warming and feel-good romantic comedy Page 19