Another Way

by Frankie McGowan

  ‘Can’t be anything else, though, can it?’ he said, puzzled. ‘I mean it’s yours, ain’t it?’

  Undeterred, Polly swept on. Whoops of delight and little air kisses planted either side of Ellie’s cheeks greeted her as the hostess piloted her around the room like a prized investment. Which of course, to Polly, was exactly what she was.

  It had been a long time since Ellie had been to a dinner party for pure enjoyment. Somehow during the last two years, her business life had become her social life. But how? When? Could she track the precise day when the two had blurred, merged and become indistinguishable? She could not.

  Ellie knew that this evening, like so many other such evenings, would afterwards be recalled, by those present, for the contacts they had made rather than as the day Eleanor Carter had made it. She didn’t mind. A year ago she would have done the same. As it was, she was simply reconciled to the fact that their enthusiastic response to her promotion would not occupy their minds for more than a few minutes and long before sitting down to dinner, they would have forgotten it altogether.

  *

  Ellie suppressed a yawn, waiting for an opportunity to peek at her watch. If it’s after ten forty-five, we can leave. If it’s not yet ten thirty we can’t, she decided.

  At the end of the table Paul was very efficiently charming a formidable city analyst, sitting on his right.

  No-one observing the engagingly attractive travel writer, as he chatted animatedly with a clearly entranced Beth Wickham, would have guessed he was still sulking having failed, less than three hours before, to interest Ellie in a little pre-dinner sexual activity.

  The odd nudge and stifled giggle from the rest of Polly’s guests seated around the dining table, on chairs of such a peculiar triangular shape Ellie wondered how anyone with hips larger than thirty inches could sit on them, had not been lost on her. For them it was the one bright spot of the evening watching Beth, who had once boasted that she had been a pioneer of separatist feminism, being expertly mentally dismantled by Paul and reassembled as a coquette.

  Ellie studied Paul’s handsome profile. She must do something about him. But what?

  Paul liked women who were ambitious. He liked their independence. He had told Ellie as much when she had finally agreed to have dinner with him after three months of determined wooing.

  ‘Then my charms will soon wear thin,’ she had said lightly. ‘I’m not remotely ambitious,’ and he had laughed, pulling her against him, not believing a word of it.

  ‘You? Not ambitious? It’s written all over you. You’re destined for the top. I’ve never seen anyone so determined to get there. And I want to be there when you do.’

  Ellie sighed. Paul’s punishment for her refusal to succumb to his charms was as obvious as he was. He glanced up feeling Ellie’s eyes on him and mouthed her a silent kiss.

  She hoped the tax lawyer on her right had noticed. It might deter him, as her frozen look had not, from pressing his thigh against hers, while pretending preoccupation with Liz Smedley, a moving force in the world of TV documentary, seated on his other side.

  Liz’s preoccupation was how many times she could get to the bathroom without attracting undue attention and, Ellie noted, returning each time marginally more hyped up than when she had departed. And sniffing.

  Ellie wondered how she could afford it.

  Peter Copley sitting on her left, touched her elbow. She shook her head with a smile at the proffered mints and swiftly stole a glance at his watch, just visible under his white shirt cuff.

  Twenty past ten.

  Oh Christ. Ellie longed to close her eyes. She could hear Polly claiming a number of things about her relationship with other professional women. Ellie listened politely.

  ‘As we,’ Polly smiled pointedly at Ellie, ‘have supported Ellie, with wonderful results.’

  Across the table Anne Copley, who never forgot she was a barrister, nodded soberly even though she wasn’t. That, Ellie told herself, settled it. Ten forty-five and we’re out of here.

  Supported her? When? How? Bloody Polly storing up quite fraudulent credit, her clients at Paragon Public Relations now assured of a major profile in an influential news magazine because — Ellie could hear Polly already — Ellie Carter is a good friend of mine, why, only last week she was over for dinner.

  ‘Women are much, much more loyal to each other,’ Polly was saying: ‘We relate to each other as real people, not just job titles. Not like men...’

  ‘Bilge,’ objected her husband bluntly, while unsteadily splashing wine into his own and his immediate neighbours’ glasses. ‘You’re just the same as men. None of you would know each other if it wasn’t for your jobs. Course you wouldn’t. Load of feminist claptrap.’

  Ellie felt a faint sense of shock as Warren, just turned forty, carrying too much weight and the financial burden of his wife’s interminable entertaining, drained his glass and set it down with a snap.

  ‘Now who needs topping up?’

  A trill of laughter as artificial as her nails erupted from Polly at her husband’s blunt dismissal of her flawed argument. She turned smoothly to Ellie with a conspiratorial smile but not before Ellie had caught the flash of pure rage that had preceded it.

  ‘Appalling, isn’t he? Go on Ellie, put him in his place,’ she coaxed. ‘Tell him what we talk about when we go to lunch. It’s never business, is it?’

  Ellie looked down into the black liquid in the cobalt blue coffee cup in front of her. The rest of the company, gleefully sensing a spot of marital discord, were watching. Even authoritative hairstyles, influential clothes and intimidating job titles were not unaware of the kudos of being in at the birth of a divorce.

  Ellie, who had lunched with Polly no more than twice in the past twelve months, knew her duty.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of revealing what we gossip about,’ Ellie laughed, turning to the unrepentant Warren. ‘You’d be shocked...’ She stopped, transfixed at the sight of her host.

  Emitting a gentle grunt, his head slowly rocking back and forth until it finally came to rest on the back of his chair, it was clear that Warren’s interest in the evening was finally over.

  Polly’s face wore a look of pure loathing as she took in her life’s partner, his mouth sagging open, his swollen stomach the only obstacle preventing him from completely disappearing under her minimalist table.

  The rest of the party were all laughing at some comment about domestic bliss. Ellie looked at Warren, his business problems featuring daily in the business pages of the broadsheets. These tipsy, tired, driven people were her friends. But what did she know about them? Hardly anything. But then, what did they know about her?

  *

  ‘I somehow don’t think your mind is on this,’ said Paul much later, rolling over and collapsing back on to his side of Ellie’s bed.

  ‘On what?’ she asked, folding her arms behind her head.

  ‘Oh, thanks a lot,’ he said sarcastically, punching his pillow into a more comfortable shape.

  ‘Oh, don’t start, Paul. I was just thinking about Warren.’

  ‘Warren? Christ, you’re kidding. War-ren?’

  Ellie shielded her eyes as Paul lurched up in the bed, snapped on the bedside light, hauled himself on to one elbow and gazed incredulously down at her.

  ‘You know something, Ellie. You’re not real. You think I’m some kind of machine, that can be turned on and off...’

  Paul in a temper had all the charm of an overtired two-year-old and about as much originality.

  Ellie was relieved that after Polly’s chaotic dinner party Paul had recovered some of his good humour. But it had been short lived. Tired, apprehensive, irritated with his behaviour with Beth, she had felt no urge to respond to him, but wanting to avoid a quarrel she had simply allowed him to climb into bed beside her.

  Paul gazed at her in silence as she lay with her blonde hair in a tousled tangle, her eyes closed. Unmoved by his anger, untouched by his frustration. It was her very indifferen
ce to him that aroused him these days as much by anger as passion.

  Suddenly a slow smile spread across his face.

  ‘I know what this is about,’ he whispered, experimentally sliding his hand between her thighs. ‘It’s because of Beth Wickham, isn’t it?’

  Ellie opened her eyes and removed his hand.

  ‘Per-leese, spare me. Hardly a conquest. Everyone knows she walks around with a For Rent sign round her neck.’

  The covers were angrily thrust back. Ellie watched impassively as Paul struggled into his trousers, pulled on his shirt. Once she would have been frightened, would have cajoled him into staying and after a sulky silence, he would eventually have allowed himself to be persuaded.

  He was waiting for that now. He glanced at her lying with one arm thrown across her eyes. What was the matter with her? Where had she gone to? He tried another tack.

  ‘I have no idea why I am here,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Tell me... why... I... am... here? Just tell me.’

  ‘You are here, Paul, because you want to be. If you don’t — and in your present mood — maybe you shouldn’t be.’

  She heard the door slam and seconds later the faint sound of his car starting up and hurtling away into the distance as he drove furiously back to his own flat.

  Ellie lay for a long while after he had gone just gazing at the ceiling. She felt scared, relieved, brave, panicky. Paul measured the strength of their relationship by the amount — not, Ellie thought wryly, the quality — of sex they had. In either case neither could be said to have reached Olympian heights lately.

  Ellie’s sexual experience had begun with a hasty, inexpert encounter when she was working on the local paper before she came to London. At eighteen she was driven by curiosity, and because she thought virginity was overrated. Not surprisingly for a while afterwards she thought sex was too. Two relationships followed shortly after she arrived in London when she was just twenty — neither of long duration that at best could be described as physically useful, but left Ellie curiously detached from any mental involvement.

  Until Paul came along, charming, intense, clearly entranced by her, she had regarded her life as rather wanting in that department. Flattered by his unrelenting siege on her defences, lonely — yes, she had to admit, emotionally lonely, fearing to be left — she fancied herself in love with him and managed for quite a long time to ignore the fact that his lovemaking often resembled all the finesse of a hungry Rottweiler

  In the same way that she had wanted to experience sex, she had wanted to experience love.

  What a mistake, she whispered into the dark. What a mess.

  Chapter Three

  Oliver’s phone call, from Delcourt, his Dorset hotel, as Ellie threw herself together after a restless night, had been both inconvenient and eventually unwelcome, much as she loved her brother.

  ‘Oliver, how nice,’ she said, automatically reaching out to silence the newsreader repeating the same news headlines, she’d heard five minutes before on another channel.

  Tucking the phone comfortably under her chin, she continued to swig down a repulsive concoction of raw egg, lemon juice and carbonated water, which her ex-flatmate Amanda had once assured her was brilliant for a hangover.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said into the phone. She glanced at the clock. Seven forty-five, still time to slap on some make-up and get to the office before nine. ‘You’re early. What’s up?’

  ‘I know it’s early but I did try to get you last night, but you were out and I’d rather tell you myself what’s happened.’

  Ellie felt a small stab of fright. ‘Happened? What do you mean, "happened"? What’s happened? Jill? The twins? Oh my God, not Pa?’

  ‘Don’t panic, don’t panic. We’re all fine. It’s just that I think I’ve lost out on Linton’s Field, and I wanted you to know.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Relief fighting with dismay that while no-one dear to her was actually at that moment being stretchered into the nearest casualty unit, Ellie knew the massive impact that losing the land that bounded the edge of the hotel, would have on her brother. It was vital for the success of Delcourt that the land running along one of its boundaries, known as Linton’s Field, should remain as it was: an unspoilt stretch of meadows, beyond the lake, a haven for wildlife, much loved by Delcourt’s increasing number of visitors. ‘But why? I thought you could raise the money.’

  ‘So did I. Just. The bid against me from Oldburns was stiff, but I could just about match it if they stuck at their price. But then last night, I found out that a new bid had come in — and frankly I’ll never meet it.’

  ‘But who’s it from?’

  There was just the briefest of pauses before her brother said simply: ‘Theo Stirling.’

  Ellie clutched her half empty glass and sat down heavily on the nearest chair.

  Her brother heard the sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ellie asked in a strangely calm voice.

  ‘Of course I’m sure. I saw the letter on the agent’s desk. I nearly choked. No, no, he’s got no idea that I know. It’s meant to be confidential. It’s just pure chance I found out it was him. No, of course I didn’t say anything.

  ‘The agent said Conrad Linton has delayed the sale until he gets planning permission to redevelop the field and he’s now pushing for it. He didn’t bother when it was just me interested, but then Oldburns started to get keen, forced the price up and Linton can make a killing when he sells it. Which he will. Now this. Stirling’s offer is way above mine or Oldburns’. Either way Linton would be a fool not to accept it.’

  The newscaster was now silently mouthing his way through the details of a riot in one of the grimmer inner cities. Ellie fixed her gaze on him. Inner city riots were normal. The news was normal. Theo Stirling wasn’t part of a normal day. She didn’t want him to be part of any day. She never thought he would be, ever again.

  Oliver’s country house hotel in the Dorset countryside, a mere stroll from the beach, had survived a nervous bank manager and seemed to be making it through the recession. But the danger of a field which ran across its boundary being redeveloped would clearly have a more devastating effect on its future than the unrealistic ambitions of a lousy chancellor or the cautiousness of a bank manager ever could.

  However, it wasn’t any of those things that were now flashing through Ellie’s mind. Just the memory of herself as a schoolgirl faced with a daily choice between lunch or a three mile walk home and Oliver putting a protective arm around her as they listened out of sight at the top of the stairs while their father shouted angrily at Theo Stirling. And then Aunt Belle had come up looking grim and ordered them both back to their rooms.

  ‘Are you still there, El?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I just don’t understand what he wants it for? Why now? Of all the lousy... Oh my God, have you told Pa?’

  ‘No. And I’m not going to until I have to. You know how he clams up over all that business and besides what can he do? What can any of us do? History repeating itself, El,’ her brother said and Ellie could hear the bitterness in his voice. ‘The law doesn’t protect anyone from a view being spoilt. I should never have believed Linton claiming he wanted to keep the land just as it was.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish,’ she said. ‘Ever since I can remember Linton has complained about the countryside being gobbled up. I suppose like everyone else, he can’t afford to uphold principles like that anymore.’

  The contents of the glass in front of her had congealed into a disturbing shade of grey. Ellie studied the mixture with disgust. Amanda must be mad.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ she said, pouring the remains of her breakfast straight down the sink. ‘Look, Oliver, I’ll talk to you later — and I’ll be there at the weekend. We’ve all got to see Roland at nine. Oh, nothing much. I’ll tell you at the weekend, no honestly, it’s just all that stuff about closures.’

  She looked frantically at the clock. She didn’t want to abandon him,
but he did have Jill to talk to.

  Oliver sighed. ‘I understand, El, it’s not your problem.’

  Instantly, Ellie felt stricken with guilt. Here she was secure in London with only herself to think of while her brother, with a wife and five-year-old twins to support, was facing ruin. For almost her entire life they had faced every crisis together. She knew she couldn’t let him down now, but her job was too pressurized just to down tools and rush back to Delcourt.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said loyally and more stoutly than was good for her head. ‘It’s my problem too. I’ll think of something. I promise. We’ll talk about it properly at the weekend. We can’t just watch Stirling walk all over us again.’

  ‘I know. But money talks, El, and Stirling Industries makes the Bank of England look like they’re rattling loose change, you know they do.’

  He was wildly exaggerating but compared to the resources Oliver could marshall to compete with a powerful property developer like Stirling, it hardly mattered.

  They spoke for a few more minutes, Ellie falling into her usual role of stout optimism, Oliver refusing to be comforted.

  She felt faintly irritated. There was a touch of Pa about Oliver. Not just in looks; like Ellie he was lean and blond, with the same grey eyes and at thirty-four he possessed a maturity and a stability that came from fighting for every chance in life he had ever encountered. But Ellie recognized now what he was doing. She did it herself. If you accepted that the very worst would happen, pitched yourself to the bottom of the cliff, then anything after that could only be a bonus.

  A shriek from his sister had ended the conversation abruptly as she saw the television news clock move inexorably to eight fifteen.

  ‘Later.’ She promised him. ‘After this meeting. I’ll call. Promise.’

  *

  Ellie slammed the door to her garden flat in a quiet side street in Fulham behind her. Carelessly stuffing the letters she had scooped from the mat into the pocket of her white raincoat she took the basement steps two at a time, silently cursing the rain, a mild hangover and now this.