Another Way

by Frankie McGowan

  ‘But I thought the key to the drinks cupboard was missing?’ said Ellie innocently, rising to leave.

  ‘Oh it is, it is.’ He winked at her, draping an arm around her shoulders and walking her to the door. ‘But I have to keep Thelma and Dixie happy. Mustn’t let them think I’ve outwitted them, otherwise my life would be a misery.’

  As he opened the door to let her out, Ellie saw his hand slide casually along the frame above the door and a small gold key fall into his palm.

  ‘Not a word,’ he warned.

  ‘Naturally,’ she assured him.

  Judith was flicking through the Standard as Ellie came out. Dropping the paper on to the seat beside her, she avoided Ellie’s eye and sauntered into Roland’s office. Ellie noticed that she didn’t knock. She just shrugged. Dixie, furiously typing, scowled up at her as they both heard the lock click on Roland’s door.

  The phone was ringing before Ellie reached the door of her office. She ran to pick it up and was still out of breath as she heard the message.

  ‘Call from someone at Stirling Industries,’ said the receptionist. ‘Will you take it, Ellie?’

  ‘Put it through, Tess,’ Ellie said, preparing herself for the regretful voice of Roger Nelson.

  There was a whirr, then a brief silence before she heard the receiver being picked up at the other end and a man’s voice asked for her.

  ‘Well, now what message have you got for me from the Almighty?’ she said teasingly into the phone, visualizing the harassed face of the unknown Roger Nelson charged with ridding his boss from the clutches of another intrusive journalist.

  ‘I admire your ambition,’ came an amused voice. ‘But this time I fear you’re aiming a little too high. This is Theo Stirling.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ whispered Ellie.

  ‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘You do seem to be obsessed with Him. I thought they said you were from Focus, not the Church Chronicle.’

  ‘I’m not, I mean, I am. No, what I mean is that I thought you were someone else,’ Ellie stammered. Jed, passing her door at that moment, wondered why she was doubled up over her desk with the phone clenched in her hand. Odd girl, he thought and meandered away.

  ‘Obviously I’m a major disappointment to you, which is understandable as you were expecting a more — er, elevated name,’ continued Theo Stirling. ‘However, my information from Roger Nelson is that you requested an interview with me.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did,’ said Ellie, desperately trying to recover. ‘I was just surprised that you chose to ring me yourself. Do I take it the answer is yes?’

  ‘I’m afraid I must disappoint you again.’

  Ellie was puzzled.

  ‘Then why not get Mr Nelson to say so?’

  ‘Because occasionally, just very occasionally,’ came the calm voice, ‘I think it’s worthwhile to reinforce the point that I never give interviews. This is such an occasion.’

  There was a pause and then he added softly, ‘I think you won’t need to be reminded of that in future, will you, Miss Carter?’

  ‘In future?’ she repeated.

  ‘In case you think I might not mean what I say. I always do, you know that.’

  Ellie listened to the measured voice and knew instinctively that his voice held a warning. Rarely was she roused to fury, but she could feel the anger stealing up from her chest, her eyes flashed, and her usually low-pitched, pleasant voice took on a steely edge.

  ‘And there was I thinking you were a gentleman,’ she said lightly. ‘Silly me. Now let me enlighten you, Mr Stirling. I don’t need reminding about anything in the future, or indeed,’ she paused and it was out before she could stop herself, ‘the past.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Theo Stirling replied smoothly. ‘We understand each other perfectly. I suggest we pretend this phone call never took place because a meeting between us would be of no benefit to — well, anyone, would it, Eleanor?’

  He knew. He remembered her. She felt dizzy with shock. Panic gripped her and sent her into an unwise retort.

  ‘Benefit? What the hell do you know about benefiting anyone, except yourself? Believe me, Mr Stirling, we are playing a very different tune now. No-one, no-one, do you understand, tells me what I can and can’t do. If I want to meet you, I will. If I want to write about you, I will. I don’t, thank God, need your permission for either.’

  ‘There you go again,’ he sighed. ‘Dragging God into it. It is, of course, entirely up to you what you do. It’s no concern of mine.’

  ‘Oh, it will be,’ she said bitterly. ‘As Go... as Heaven is my witness,’ she corrected herself as she heard what seemed like a smothered laugh at the end of the phone, ‘I will make sure it’s your concern.’

  There was complete silence. For a moment Ellie thought he had hung up.

  ‘Have I made myself clear?’ she said in a calmer voice.

  ‘Perfectly,’ he said abruptly, and there was no mistaking the cold impatience in his voice. ‘Have I?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said coolly. ‘Just watch this space, that’s how clear you have made yourself, Mr Stirling.’

  And with that she slammed the phone back on to its cradle and, speechless with rage, threw the only thing she could lay hands on across the room: her diary. It crashed against the door.

  *

  Ellie needed to walk. She took the bus half way home and alighted half a mile from the road that led to her flat. It wasn’t cold, but she pulled the collar of her jacket up. She needed to think.

  How could it be that a man like Theo’s father, Robert Stirling, aided and abetted by his son, had so unjustly accused John Carter of sabotaging Stirling Industries by committing a despicable crime? A gentle, loving man like John Carter. Anyone who truly knew him would have believed him when he protested his innocence.

  But as Oliver said, money talks. The Stirlings hadn’t suffered as the Carters had when the dust had settled, instead they had gone from strength to strength. So much for anyone saying Pa had almost ruined them. In the end, he hadn’t cost them a moment’s sleep.

  Theo Stirling had taken their house, their roots. But his own life went on. With the Carters out of the way, he had turned his attention to buying up half the empty sites in the county to build his next get-rich-quick project. Ensconced in Dorset to try and arrest the damage the Stirlings claimed had been inflicted on them by John Carter, Theo had moved swiftly in — and on.

  Ellie had read the account of his time when he first arrived in England, on the City pages of the more upmarket journals but the background to the piece was flawed, with no mention of the dirty tricks they had used on an innocent man and his family to take their land. Goodness no. What a shocking thing, the thought bitterly, for the Stirlings reputation if that ever came to light.

  But how much more distressing for the Carters if it was ever dug up again. The man never stopped to think of the trail of disaster he left in his wake. Look what he did having just ruined them. Soared to even greater heights.

  Driving to the West Country, having seen the Carters safely out of the county to Devon and his own father en route to New York, Theo had spotted his chance: a large sign by the edge of the motorway offering ten acres of commercial industrial land for sale.

  He took the next exit off and found his way back down country lanes to the site. Within twenty-four hours he had taken an option on it. Within a week he had met the local planners, talked to seven banks and had architects draw up preliminary plans.

  Theo’s success in England had begun. He studied the market. His next business park was bigger and more lavish, bringing in big-name tenants relocating out of London.

  He always chose his sites close to motorways and airports and spent a long time matching up requirements of potential clients. If he got the equation right, he could get a quick return of more than three times his investment. The trick was to build and sell, he told himself. Let someone else have the milk. Just be content to skim off the cream. Build and sell. That way you didn’t get caught. By the time the r
ecession hit England with a vengeance and the property market in particular, he owned nothing but the millions in his various bank accounts.

  Build and sell, Ellie remembered the article had quoted him as saying. That way you don’t get caught. Unless you were called Carter. Her father’s home — her home — taken away by the Stirlings.

  She knew she couldn’t let that happen again.

  *

  Home had never been more inviting. Ellie leaned against the closed door, briefly shut her eyes, and let out a deep sigh.

  Sliding her shoes off, she padded into the kitchen, dumped her bag and an armful of magazines on to the nearest work-surface and threw her raincoat across one of the cane chairs tucked around a scrubbed and varnished oak table.

  What a day, she muttered, opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of ice-cold Chablis. Cost cutting, maybe redundancies, a libel that won’t go away and after Theo bloody Stirling, I deserve this, she told herself, shutting the fridge door with unnecessary vigour.

  As she took a glass from the cupboard and began searching the drawer for a corkscrew, she listened to the messages on her voicemail.

  ‘Ellie, it’s Oliver. I’m out all evening, so I’ll call tomorrow. Jill gave me your message about Stirling. I can’t believe it. Speak soon.’

  The machine clicked and a buzz signalled the next message.

  ‘It’s me, El. Six p.m. All set for Thursday night? David’s invited the most divine man. You’ll love him. No, correction. He’s going to love you. Call when you can.’

  Ellie smiled at the machine, recognizing Amanda’s bubbly voice. Amanda had been special in Ellie’s life since they had arrived in London together aged nineteen, groaned and giggled through a series of shared dreary bedsits, even worse dates, and finally a flat before Amanda had met David and married him. This was a move that had suited Ellie, because while she knew she would truly miss Amanda’s sunny daily presence, she had felt for some time that she needed a place to call her own. She liked her own space, her own company when she wanted it.

  Ellie had never regretted defying her teachers by leaving school at seventeen to start work. She thought she was in Heaven. The editor of the local paper thought the new junior had much to learn and was frankly a pain in the neck with the endless stream of suggestions and stories from her that flooded his desk, only a fraction of which were usable. But she had seemed keen enough. At what point he suddenly realised she had something, might after all be able to cut it, was hard to say, but he knew reading a piece she had turned in on the behaviour of the local planning committee that had led to questions being asked, she would not be staying on the Chronicle for very long. And he was right.

  It had been sheer chance in the first place, after the Carters had been forced to move, that there had, and for years she had silently thanked the shrewd bank manager who had been appointed to handle their affairs, or rather remove them, been enough money left over to allow Oliver to go to University and Ellie too. But on her nineteenth birthday, she had argued for the money instead.

  ‘If I want to make it as a writer, I need to be in London,’ Ellie had said to Alison, knowing there would be no point in her father even having a view. ‘That’s every bit as good an education as university and I can be getting on with my life.’

  So they’d put the modest amount she was entitled to, into a bank account, fully expecting her to be back by Christmas. But she hadn’t. By then she was earning enough as a freelance to pay her share of the rent in a crowded flat in Islington, befriended Amanda and the offer of a job as a downtable sub on a national was on offer. She was on her way, and she never went back.

  Ten years later on the weekend that Amanda left for her honeymoon, Ellie, having seen her off in a shower of confetti, spent the rest of it in her newly acquired, uncarpeted, curtainless flat, and it would be hard to say who was the more ecstatic of the two.

  ‘This is silly,’ came Paul’s voice on the next message. ‘You know it is. I promise to behave. Me, wine and roses. How can you refuse? And why were you so long with Roland, the old letch? I’ll call for you at eight. Love you.’

  Paul. Sooner or later, she was going to have to talk seriously to him. Her relationship with him was far from easy. Lately the word spoilt followed closely by over-indulged had crept into her assessment of him.

  Sometimes she thought it was because Paul had been adored only son of a wealthy City stockbroker that he didn’t know how to begin putting someone else’s feelings before his own. Like so much of her rationalizing of Paul’s uncertain moods, she persuaded herself that his parents’ lack of interest in his emotional welfare was at its root.

  Jed told her it was codswallop.

  ‘Selfish sod, simple as that,’ he said dismissively. ‘Too much going for him. Looks, style, loot. He knows it too. And no, ducky, he isn’t my style at all.’

  He wasn’t Amanda’s either. Ellie grimaced. Never before had she been so at odds with the two people she counted as her best friends.

  Paul really didn’t need to work, but the life of a travel editor appealed to him, and so too did the perks that went with representing Focus. Exotic free trips were all part of his job — and he had had no difficulty at all in persuading any number of attractive, usually nubile and always willing companions to go along for the ride.

  Until Ellie came into his life and he knew — instantly, it was not even up for discussion — she wouldn’t be one of them. She wasn’t immune to men and certainly not to Paul. But at this moment in her life with her career in a good place, she didn’t need a difficult relationship. Not right now.

  She liked living on her own. She liked being here. The blue and lemon sitting room was filled with her favourite books, bowls of flowers, silver-framed pictures of her family, pretty ceramic-framed ones of friends and paintings by her father which included a watercolour of a country garden that Ellie knew by heart. In the winter the gas fire nestling invitingly in the pine fireplace provided a comfortable homely glow from the flames licking companionably into the chimney.

  Her flat was warm, inviting and looked expensive, but Ellie knew it had been put together on a shoestring. After weekends of trawling through second-hand junk shops and antique fairs looking for bargains, she had turned her tiny flat into a stylish home.

  To Ellie it spelt freedom. No more nasty shocks, no more fearing that some unknown force might take everything away again. Financial independence and of late — she realized with a start because of the drain Paul was putting on her — emotional independence had become very necessary to her.

  Twice she had insisted it was over. Twice she had relented.

  ‘You cancel dates at the last minute and whole weekends and you’ve even left half way through dinner...’ he complained.

  ‘Only if I have to finish a story or if an interview comes up,’ she’d protested.

  ‘Oh, very flattering,’ he’d snapped. ‘Then you expect me to sit her like a dolt until you come running back.’

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ellie knew it was more than just an unsatisfactory relationship that was causing this restlessness. It was the thought of changes that she couldn’t quite cope with. For all Ellie’s assertion to family and friends that the charm of her life was the unexpected, in truth the charm of her life was knowing exactly what to expect. If she was prepared, she handled life well. But this afternoon, she hadn’t been prepared.

  Blast the man. Oh why, she asked herself furiously, couldn’t she have been more controlled? What on earth made her go to pieces and explode like that? It was so unlike her and... she suddenly stopped, remembering something that in her anger she hadn’t quite taken in.

  For some reason Theo Stirling was just as anxious as she was to pretend they were strangers. What was it he’d said? ‘Let’s pretend this phone call never took place.’

  How curious. Ellie could understand that she had a lot to lose, but what was he trying to hide... or save? That’s more like it, she thought. His reputation, of course. Nothin
g must dent that. But just who did he think he was, threatening her in that appalling way?

  She took a sip from her glass, drumming her fingers angrily on the table. I’ll find a way of getting even, she told herself. But how to do it without involving her father and risking Oliver losing his livelihood?

  I’ll think about it later, she promised. Glancing at her watch, she put her half-finished wine on the table in front of her, stretched lazily and then hauled herself to her feet. Meanwhile... Paul.

  *

  It was, she reflected as she ran a bath later that night, almost becoming routine. After another soul searching discussion, the evening ended with Paul driving furiously away to spend the night in his own flat but she knew that wasn’t the end of it. In the small hours he would phone, wanting to talk it over and sometimes to drive at an absurd speed all the way back again to complete the reconciliation.

  Which, as she slipped out of her black trousers and carefully hung the white crepe shirt she had worn to dinner back into her wardrobe, she had to admit was perhaps half the problem. She was tired and needed a break from everything.

  Sliding between the cool cotton sheets of her bed, she snuggled down to try and sleep and put out of her head a recurring image that was preventing her from doing precisely that. The dark, stern features of Theo Stirling danced before her eyes, invaded her thoughts. Damn the man. Why wouldn’t he go away? All day she had been occupied with him.

  Having tossed and turned and for the tenth time punched her pillow into a no more comfortable state than it was in when she had first laid her head on it, she was actually pleased when just after midnight the phone suddenly shattered the silence. She didn’t want another lengthy discussion. She would just tell Paul it was all her fault without encouraging him to come over.

  ‘Honeybunch. We’re on,’ came Jed’s voice, momentarily disorientating her. Ellie could not think what he meant.

  ‘Me, you and Theo Stirling,’ he said jubilantly. ‘Roland told me you weren’t getting anywhere with the great man, so I made a few discreet enquiries... now stop shouting, Ellie, I know I promised I wouldn’t interfere, but it was too good an opportunity to miss.’