Another Way
Page 18
She began to resent anyone who said it, even though Jed pointed out she was being unreasonable. She couldn’t help it, she stopped taking calls from her friends. It was too exhausting to have to be cheerful, pretend all was well, that she was coping. Easier to just fade out of their lives for a while, wait until things picked up.
She was not expecting to hear from Paul. Nor did she. But she missed the comfort and warmth of another body beside her, just knowing she wasn’t alone. But lying staring into the darkness a week after she had discovered his relationship with Beth Wickham, she thought of something Louis MacNeice had written:
‘Waking at times in the night, she found assurance in his regular breathing, but wondered if it was really worth it, and where the river had flowed away, and where were all the white flowers?’
It was a sobering thought that Paul himself had not been missed.
*
Ellie heard the knocker on her door and then the buzzer going. She rolled over in bed, willing whoever it was to go away. Her body felt wracked from the shuddering sobs that had engulfed her for the last half hour. She didn’t want to see anyone, she doubted she was capable of speech. Her will seemed to be paralysed, as she just lay there, waiting for the caller to give up and go.
There was a pause and then the buzzer went again, an urgent, insistent little ring. Wearily Ellie climbed out of bed, dragged her dressing gown on and padded to the door, through the icy cold flat.
Opening the door, she was faced with the anxious face of the girl who lived in the ground floor flat above her: Gemma Randall, heavily pregnant, wearing a turquoise spotted bow in her hair to keep her dusky curls off her face, black leggings, cowboy boots and a huge maternity smock with Marilyn Monroe’s face printed on it, covering the imminent arrival of her first born.
Ellie hardly knew her and for a moment she gazed silently at the worried, prettily plump face gazing back at her.
Gemma rushed into speech.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. Oh dear, you do look poorly, is it flu? Can I do anything?’
Ellie didn’t need a mirror to know her face was blotchy, her eyes swollen from crying and her nose red from both the other things put together.
‘No, no. I’m fine. Just a... just a rotten cold. Sorry, I do look pretty awful. But no, I’m fine, just fine.’
Gemma let out a sigh of relief and gave her an awkward grin, grateful that she hadn’t been sent packing or accused of prying.
‘It’s just that you’re not normally here during the day, but you’ve been around so much the last couple of months, I wanted to make sure you weren’t ill or anything. I don’t want to interfere, but well, you know...’
Her voice trailed off seeing Ellie looking perfectly fit, if red-eyed, answering her own front door.
Ellie was touched by her concern. She hardly knew Gemma or her husband, Bill, beyond smiling greetings if they ran into each other. If she thought about them at all, it was fleeting. Sometimes she caught sight of Gemma’s dark curly hair, usually tied on top in a crazy bow, bobbing along in the crowd at Sainsburys. If she happened to leave very early in the morning, she would exchange greetings with Bill, a tall, lean young man, with fair hair and pale blue eyes, who invariably left at dawn, dressed for work in jeans, T-shirt and bomber jacket.
Typical big city neighbours. No social contact. But then, why should they have? Gemma and Bill, a sweet, quiet couple, rarely entertained — or if they did Ellie didn’t notice. They both had soft Scottish accents, and clearly money was tight and she was vaguely aware that Gemma didn’t work. It was hard to guess just what she’d done before pregnancy forced her to stop. Ellie knew that Bill was in the building trade, and wondered if they were finding London a struggle.
Ellie, on the other hand, had frequently entertained, worked erratic hours, living the life of any average career girl in the capital, and until three months ago money had not been a problem. No problem at all.
Why should they have anything in common?
Now, exchanging friendly pleasantries with this shy young woman, Ellie felt a surge of gratitude towards her.
In the space of a few months when her spirits had plummeted, her self-esteem had suffered a severe blow and she had begun to believe the world was made up of two sorts of people; those in work who didn’t care and those out of work who had no time to care. Yet here was Gemma, a near stranger, caring enough to check on her.
Pure impulse made Ellie ask her if she wanted a coffee and she almost instantly regretted it. What on earth would they talk about?
‘Oh, that’s so kind of you, but aren’t you going to work? Wouldn’t that just hold you up?’
‘Well, as I’ve lost my job, that hardly seems to be a problem.’ Ellie was surprised at her own frankness.
Gemma grimaced ruefully.
‘Oh God, sorry, what lousy luck. I always used to read your column too. I wondered where it had gone. Yes, in which case I’d love some coffee.’
‘I’m sorry it’s so cold,’ Ellie said, leading the way through the chilly flat into the kitchen. ‘Come in here, it will soon warm up. When is it due?’ Ellie asked, collecting mugs and switching on the percolator and the heat.
Gemma smiled and massaged her swollen stomach.
‘Three weeks. I mean if it’s not late. They said they would induce it if it went over by more than a week. I suppose it could happen any minute, but Bill wants it to happen at a weekend. Hopes it will, I should say.’
‘Why?’ grinned Ellie. ‘So he won’t have to do any shopping?’
Gemma laughed. ‘We don’t do much of that anyway. No, it just means he won’t miss too many days’ pay. He doesn’t get paid for the days he doesn’t work.’
Ellie put the steaming mug in front of Gemma. ‘Is the recession having an effect on his job?’ she asked, pouring milk into her cup.
‘Well, he hasn’t worked since the summer,’ Gemma replied, sipping her coffee. Ellie looked puzzled.
‘But I thought you said... I mean I see him each morning... or rather did... leaving for work?’
Gemma laughed, comprehension dawning on her face.
‘Oh, sorry, you don’t understand. Bill’s a qualified surveyor. He was made redundant too. Sorry, I thought you knew, but then how could you? There isn’t any work, so,’ Gemma took a deep breath, ‘needs must. I knew I would have to give up work for a while because of this.’ She patted her stomach. ‘Awful timing, isn’t it, but there you are, and we are still delighted we’re having him. Just think if Bill had been redundant before I was pregnant, we would never have started a family, would we?
‘But then I was made redundant too. Oh, they said it was nothing to do with the baby. But I’m not an idiot. No liabilities on board is what they were after, and it’s hard to prove they were discriminating. They said when things picked up they would take me on again. And,’ she paused and said with heavy sarcasm, ‘any freelance they could push my way they would. Huh! Freelance for a secretary during a recession? Who did they think they were kidding?’
Ellie made a mental note then and there never to assume anything about anyone ever again.
The lean, unmemorable Bill had swallowed his pride and found work on a building site. Gemma was stoically putting a brave face on a very worrying future and she had far more to worry about than Ellie.
Gemma was easy to talk to. Ellie was glad, for after such an emotional start to the day, she still wasn’t up to sounding cheerful. But Gemma didn’t seem to notice or, if she did, she carefully refrained from saying so, taking the weight of the conversation while Ellie sipped her coffee and let her mind calm down.
‘There’s no work in Scotland and it seems wimpish to give in and go home. We really want to make a go of it here. We’ve always been alike, ever since we met. We’re both fighters.’
Gemma let her gaze wander around the cosy kitchen, through the tiny patio garden, then back to Ellie.
‘It’s a lovely flat you have here. So what
happened?’
Ellie looked up swiftly, unprepared for the directness of this friendly young woman.
‘What do you mean, "what happened"?’
Gemma sighed.
‘I mean exactly that. What happened to you? Want to tell me about it?’
The question took Ellie by surprise. Gemma sipped her coffee and waited.
‘You might as well,’ said Gemma gently. ‘You’re still in shock, aren’t you? Don’t worry, I’ve been there. So has Bill. It’s like grief. You’re mourning for something that’s been taken away. You won’t get better until you’ve unloaded it. And I’m not going to tell all your friends, because firstly I don’t know who they are and frankly, I might have more important things to occupy me if Junior decides to make his debut.’
Ellie thought she was extraordinary. Gemma’s blunt, realistic approach was like a breath of fresh air. Suddenly she found herself telling this girl, someone she hardly knew, all about Focus and being made redundant and how it was a bloody pain in the arse, and how she hadn’t been able to move for two days because she had felt so hopelessly paralysed with indecision, and sometimes the fury was greater than the bitterness and every now and then, just when she was beginning to feel positive and back to her own self, something or someone would send her crashing back to square one.
Gemma listened in silence, interjecting the odd question. Genuinely interested.
‘And sometimes I feel so disorientated. I used to be so efficient. But I know now it was Lucy, my secretary, making me look efficient. It wasn’t me. I suppose I could bear it all, if it weren’t for the sudden shutting off.’
She paused and looked at Gemma, wondering if she understood about not being able to get an appointment for her hair when Daniel had always fitted her in. How she hardly ever went anyway it was so bloody expensive. How the renewal note from The Phoenix had arrived and she could no longer afford to pay another fee.
‘Do you know what I mean?’ she asked hesitantly.
Gemma nodded calmly, as Ellie went on.
‘I used to be able to pull a table at any of four restaurants because the people I took were useful. Then, just to cheer myself up about a week after I got the push, I rang and they put me on a waiting list. Sounds pretentious and stupid now, but it was a body blow at the time.’
Gemma helped herself to more coffee and then leaned across and squeezed Ellie’s hand.
‘Secretaries don’t have those kind of perks, but being laid off was just as bad. I was proud of my job. I was good at it.’
Ellie listened as Gemma related all that had happened to her and it was like someone describing her own circumstances, her own feelings, the misery, the loss, the fear. And the struggle to bring herself to tell anyone what had really happened.
Gemma told her how she took a week to tell Bill the truth and then blurted it out during a row. Ellie confessed that she was running out of people and circumstances to blame, to try and make sense of it all.
‘Mmm, I went through that,’ Gemma said. ‘You know, why me? Then, why not me? And finally, I can quite see why it was me.’
Ellie found most of Gemma’s pronouncements unnerving in their accuracy but comforting in the reassurance that her feelings of rage alternating with humiliation were, after all, quite normal.
‘You mean, not being able to understand why, if you’ve worked hard, been promoted, given it your best shot, you still end up without a job?’
‘That’s it,’ said Gemma. ‘Spot on. With no sensible explanation, most people try to find something that makes sense. If you were any good, they would have kept you and got rid of someone who wasn’t. So it has to be you. Right? Wrong. Could be anyone.’
Gemma began to tick off on her fingers the myriad reasons why so many people find themselves out in the cold clutching their P45.
‘Wrong department at the wrong time. Salary too high. Status too heavy. Last in is not necessarily first out. Near retirement? Then let them stay. Still got a few years to run? Cheaper to let them go. Want an excuse to rid yourself of someone who is awkward, pregnant, too clever by half? What a handy reason. Women suffer from men who think they know more than they do, so what a brilliant way to replace them with someone who understands the fragility of their egos. So who can tell? Cost cutting is no respecter of talent.’
They groaned and exchanged their favourite all-time hate remarks. Gemma decided hers was ‘we’ll get back to you, a talent like yours’, and Ellie, giving it some thought, said hers was ‘I can’t believe you haven’t been snapped up’.
The flat was beginning to warm up. Ellie realized she hadn’t laughed for a long time. She even felt better having finally unloaded all the wounded pride she had been harbouring. The hurt, the sheer effort of having to refrain from telling people who once haunted her for her company, what she thought of them.
Even the letter she had got from Liz Smedley on behalf of WIN no longer seemed to be so important. It had arrived a month before, a carefully worded, charming note, saying they had heard from Polly at the last committee meeting how difficult things were for Ellie right now and that they would quite understand if she wanted to stand down for a while as joint chair.
Polly had told them that Beth Wickham was prepared to step into the breach and Ellie was not to think for a moment that she would be leaving them in the lurch.
Bloody, busy, treacherous Polly.
She told Gemma too, about the day she had bumped into Judith. Walking back down Bond Street after a long meeting with the managing director of Prospect Publishing, lost in that half way feeling of not knowing whether to be pleased that the meeting was friendly and honest or sad that there wasn’t anything suitable for her, she suddenly saw Judith, emerging from Fenwicks.
‘Judith, hey, Judith,’ she called, grabbing her by the arm as the other girl seemed to be about to pass her by. Ellie was sure Judith had seen her and was about to ignore her. But ignoring her was too silly for words. They were both in the same boat.
‘It’s funny,’ she told Gemma. ‘I always had this faint dislike of her, no, that’s not the right word. Perhaps it was because I didn’t understand how she operated, but in the end we went and had a coffee together and enquired politely after each other. Jed, that’s Jed Bayley, the gossip columnist, used to be her boss, he gives her all the freelance he can, so she keeps going. But she says she’s going to New York, to try her luck there.
‘But you know, Gemma, not once did she whinge about what a rotten deal she’d had. She just shrugged. She says she always knew the price was no job, but she doesn’t regret anything she did, or how she conducted her career. After she’d gone, I thought about her a lot and in spite of myself I admire her. I doubt I’ll ever really like her, or be close to her, but she really has a lot of class when it all comes down to it.’
If someone had told Ellie in July that by October, she would be sitting in her kitchen with the girl from the flat upstairs, drinking coffee at mid-morning, still wearing her dressing gown, she would have despatched them to a psychiatrist.
She almost laughed. Gemma had been good for her. Polly and Liz and Anne Copley suddenly seemed very unimportant. They were laughing at Ellie’s description of Polly’s face, left stranded in the restaurant, when the doorbell rang.
A motorbike messenger was standing there, with a brown wooden box clearly containing a bottle of champagne.
‘My, my,’ said Gemma, following her to the door, ready to depart. ‘Life is getting better all the time.’ Ellie pulled out the card and started to laugh.
‘I’m sure everything will work out splendidly. This is a thank you from WIN for all your work on their behalf. Keep in touch. Love and hugs. Polly.’
‘Here,’ she said to a bemused Gemma, pressing the bottle with its pink streamers into her arms. ‘You have it. Wet the baby’s head and tell Bill to let me know the minute you take off for the hospital.’
When Gemma had gone, Ellie dressed, phoned Jed and asked if he fancied buying her a drink later.
She replaced the phone and sat staring at Polly’s white card with its superficial, patronizing message. No two ways about it, Polly regarded her as someone to put on the back burner, someone who really was only valuable as a job title. Redundant again.
Of everything Ellie had learned over the past month, it was that she had not been needed very urgently in any of their lives just for herself. She felt put down and angry. She was still feeling faintly humiliated at the thought that people like Polly could even begin to believe she cared, when the door buzzer went for the third time that day.
The doorway seemed to be filled with a bowl of flowers. Creamy camellias, small white roses, the palest ivory freesias. Ellie gasped and took the exquisite arrangement carefully inside.
‘Wired from New York, Miss,’ said the smiling delivery man as Ellie signed for them and then pushed the door closed with her foot, carrying the flowers to the glass coffee table.
Paul. It must be Paul. She ripped open the card and read the message. Slowly she sat down and read the message again.
‘Your namesake, Eleanor Roosevelt, once said: "No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent".’ It was signed simply, ‘as ever, Theo Stirling’.
Ellie just stared at the card, not knowing what to think first. How had he found out? Too bewildered, too surprised to take it all in, she read the card again. ‘Not without your consent’.
Ellie gazed at the white flowers. So that’s where they went, she smiled to herself, the ones that Louis MacNeice had written about. But now they’ve come back.
She looked at the flowers for a very long while, then for the first time in over a month, she made some decisions.
‘I’m going to get back,’ she told herself. ‘I’m going to get back with such a vengeance, no-one ever, ever again, will have the power to alter my life without my permission.’
She had spent too long grieving for a chapter in her life that was over. It was time she got on with her life, let the people who loved her back in. Reaching for the phone, she dialled Oliver’s number.