Somewhere she knew that she was feeling alive for the first time in weeks. That the adrenalin was beginning to pound, the excitement of being back in the centre of things beginning to work its old magic.
Neither of them mentioned it, but Ellie and Joe were both aware that while Linton’s Field was a local issue and bound to attract attention, outside the area there was no arguing that it was Ellie herself and her moving interview with Sandy that had the media people clamouring for her to talk to them. Such a frank admission of her feelings, the sincerity and the conviction of her views, had sent them racing to sign her up.
So what, she shrugged to herself. If I can talk about the campaign and get them interested in that, what does it matter if I have to bare my soul a bit? Who cares?
‘Of course I’ll come down. It’s live, isn’t it? What time do they want me there?’
Joe sketched in the details and agreed to meet her at the Recorder offices at about five on the following afternoon. He would go with Ellie to the studios for a live broadcast at seven.
When she’d replaced the receiver she flicked the playback button on her answer machine. Rosie reminding her about dinner on Wednesday — damn, she would have to cancel — Jed just to say hi, Paul from New York wanting to know where she was, and, most intriguingly, Ian Willoughby — would she call him?
Would she? First thing in the morning.
Rapidly she flicked through the post that had arrived and with the exception of a buff-coloured envelope, the rest looked like bills. Ellie threw them on one side, intending to face the realities of living in London after she had eaten and made some coffee.
The flat was cold and with a groan of annoyance she remembered that, in the frenzy of clearing and cleaning on Friday, she had blitzed the fridge. She knew without looking that all the cupboards were bare. Frowning, she glanced at the clock. Ten to ten. The deli would still be open. Switching on the heat, Ellie grabbed her purse and took off for the all-purpose late-night delicatessen, a five-minute walk away around the corner in the Fulham Road.
Half an hour later, clutching with both arms a bag stocked with enough provisions to keep her going until she left again for Dorset she hurried back to her flat. And then she stopped in alarm.
Outside Ellie’s flat an ambulance had pulled up; the doors were open and so too was the door to the ground floor flat, Gemma’s flat.
Gemma! Ellie broke into a run and, hastily leaving her groceries leaning against the gate, took the stone steps two at a time.
The door to Gemma’s flat was ajar.
‘Gemma? Gemma? It’s me, Ellie. Bill? Are you there?’
Without waiting, Ellie pushed open the door to find a white-faced Gemma, sitting in an armchair, panting and clutching the arm of a reassuring-looking ambulance man.
Seeing Ellie in the doorway, Gemma tried to laugh but almost immediately began to pant, her face fierce with concentrating on what was clearly a contraction.
Ellie rushed over to her. ‘I’m a neighbour, a friend,’ she explained to the men. ‘Is it the baby? But it’s not due.’
One of the men smiled while the other timed the contractions.
"Fraid babies haven’t got much sense of timing, this one’s in a hurry.’
‘Gemma, can I do anything?’ Ellie asked, taking the grimacing young woman’s free hand. ‘Where’s Bill?’
Breathing fast, her forehead covered in perspiration, Gemma smiled weakly at Ellie and began to force out the words between gasps.
‘He’s in Middlesbrough. On his way back. Interview. Never expected this.’
‘C’mon, young lady, we’ve got time to get you there,’ said the officer holding her hand.
Gemma was helped to her feet, Ellie grabbed her coat and wrapped it around her. ‘Don’t worry, Gem, you’ll be fine,’ she said, trying not to sound panicky. ‘Just get going. I’ll lock up. Is there anybody I should tell?’
Gemma just shook her head. ‘No, no-one. My mother’s in Glasgow, she was coming down next week. Bill will come straight to the hospital. I’ve scribbled a note. Ellie...?’
Gemma’s face was very white, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘Ellie, I’m scared...’
Ellie, quickly switching off fires and lights, took one look at her neighbour. Then she ran into the kitchen. ‘Don’t be scared, Gemma,’ she called, hastily running an eye over the tiny room. Everything okay there.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ she ordered, as she ran past her to close a window. ‘Nothing to worry about. I’m coming with you. Shut up and just get going. Of course I’m coming.’
Gemma tried to laugh as she moved slowly, hugely down the steps. Ellie slammed the door after them, locked it and climbed into the ambulance after Gemma for the ten minute drive, blue light flashing, to St Rupert’s, which was expecting Gemma as an emergency admission. The ambulance drive was achieved in fifteen minutes, during which time Gemma had regular contractions. After that the machinery of the hospital took over.
Ellie clutched Gemma’s hand, reassuring her, and told her that even if the baby was born in an ambulance, so had been the late Queen Mother and she’d done all right.
‘Oh Ellie, trust you to think of that,’ gasped Gemma, as the doors opened and a young doctor leapt in, rapidly but calmly assessing Gemma’s advanced stage of labour.
Gently lifting her into a wheelchair, a porter under directions from the doctor began wheeling her down corridors, past outpatients and into a lift. Ellie raced to keep up, holding Gemma’s hastily prepared bag.
Ten forty-five. Less than an hour since she had arrived home. Where was Bill? Please let him get here on time, prayed Ellie, temporarily abandoned as Gemma was wheeled straight into the delivery room.
‘Are you Ellie?’ called a nurse. Ellie spun round and started towards her. ‘C’mon, buck up, Mrs Randall wants you with her. Don’t look so alarmed. Nothing will happen just yet, but I gather her husband is driving down from Middlesbrough.’
Ellie hesitated. The nurse said kindly, ‘she needs a friend.’
Ellie took the green gown and cap that was handed to her, threw her mac on to the nearest chair, struggled into the protective clothing and followed the nurse through some swing doors.
Gemma was lying on the delivery table, looking very young and vulnerable. Twisting her head, she saw Ellie and smiled with relief.
‘Listen, kid. You don’t have to look, just scream with me.’
The next two hours seemed like two days. The staff were kind and efficient. Ellie more than once wished she had taken more interest in the birth of Chloe and Miles.
At five to midnight, Ellie’s back and arms were aching from massaging Gemma’s back and she was convinced they would never recover from the bruising that Gemma, clutching tight, had inflicted every time a contraction proved too much for her.
‘That’s right, Gemma,’ said a young doctor with unremitting good humour even at that time of the morning. ‘Your friend can take it.’
Ellie eyed him with hostility. She would have killed for a cup of tea.
At one o’clock Gemma was exhausted, and past conversation. Ellie was still telling her it wouldn’t be long now, sounding less convinced every time she said it. Where the hell was Bill?
At five to two Ellie ventured to suggest that maybe Gemma shouldn’t be so keen to have this baby naturally and was rewarded with another shriek and a grip that would have put a Sumo wrestler to shame. Ellie gritted her teeth and assured Gemma that she was fine.
Just when Ellie was about to suggest that after three hours of this agony surely modern science could find some way to hurry things along, there was a burst of activity. The young doctor, two nurses and a midwife all appeared at once.
‘Time for this baby to join us,’ the midwife smiled. ‘C’mon Gemma. Just do as I say.’
Tears started to roll down Gemma’s cheeks. ‘Bill. I wanted him here. Ellie... where is he? Oh God, Ellie...’
Ellie looked helplessly at the young girl, about to bring a child int
o the world, and the one person she needed most not with her.
‘I’m here, Gemma,’ she whispered clutching her hand. ‘I’m here.’
And then there were urgent instructions. Push. Wait. Nearly there. Good girl. Ellie thought Gemma would never make it.
Behind her she heard doors swinging open and then she was being propelled unceremoniously aside and then, there was, oh the relief, there was Bill. Hugging his wife, whispering, soothing, holding her hand. Gently smoothing her hair from her face and Ellie, clutching her own throbbing hand, stood back, forgotten and grateful that she was.
Slowly she backed out of the room, out into the cool corridor. This wasn’t her moment, it was Gemma and Bill’s. Leaning her head against the marble wall, she closed her eyes and sank slowly down to the floor and waited.
It was two thirty in the morning. She had been up since dawn, been interviewed twice on the radio, once by a reporter from a county newspaper, driven back to London, arranged a television appearance and attended the birth of a baby.
As her life went these days, Ellie no longer tried to understand how she had got caught up with so much. The struggle to make sense of it, sitting wearily in a hospital corridor, made no sense at all.
‘Ellie, Ellie?’ She looked up, startled. It was the young doctor. ‘Gemma’s fine. So’s her daughter. She’d like to see you.’
Ellie gazed blankly at him. Daughter? What daughter? Oh goodness, that daughter. Scrambling to her feet, she followed him back into the delivery room, where Gemma, elated but exhausted, was clutching a tiny bundle and Bill, looking haggard and desperately happy, was leaning on the edge of the delivery table, not quite able to take in he was now a father.
‘Hi,’ said Gemma. ‘Say hello to Amy.’
Ellie, grinning like a Cheshire cat, peered gingerly at the red-faced baby, sucking her mouth into little mewing shapes, her eyes tightly shut, her hair, black and wispy in flat, moist little curls, utterly indifferent to such awed people around her.
Stooping, she kissed Gemma and hugged Bill and then gently, very gently, ran a finger along the infant’s cheek.
‘Hi, glamour puss,’ she said softly. ‘I’m Ellie.’
‘No,’ said Gemma. She freed one hand from her brand new daughter and took Ellie’s. ‘No, you’re not just Ellie. You’re my very dear friend, Ellie.’
*
The streets were deserted at four in the morning as Ellie made her way back along the Fulham Road. The young doctor who had delivered Amy Randall had offered her a lift but, wide awake and knowing she would never sleep, she had made him drop her near South Kensington, so that she could walk the rest of the way.
Once, she told herself, as she turned into the road leading to her flat, you thought you lived a full and active life. But the strange thing is that until last summer, you didn’t know what life was about.
As she let herself into the flat, picking up the groceries that were still propped by the gate, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Her hair dishevelled, no make-up, and dressed in a sweat shirt, trainers and tracksuit bottoms, she found it hard to believe that this was the same girl who, only a few weeks before, had her life under control, her wardrobe worked out and her schedule planned weeks ahead.
And here she was, in the small hours, looking bedraggled, each day faced with the choice of eating or paying the mortgage and the only thing she knew for certain was that later that day she was going to be interviewed on television. She just prayed she wouldn’t fall asleep.
The thought made her laugh, provoking the even funnier thought that if Theo Stirling could see her now, he would laugh himself sick that he ever took her threats to damage him with any seriousness at all.
For some curious reason that thought suddenly didn’t amuse her at all.
Chapter Nineteen
‘You’re not serious? She’s going to court?’
Ellie listened in amazement as James Baldwin confirmed the contents of the letter she was holding in her hand. Kathryn Renshaw meant business. Kathryn Renshaw, ex-wife of the British ambassador to France, wanted her day in court and she was clearly going to get it.
‘Oh, sheer spite. But then, she’s an accomplished actress and will probably win. Sorry, Ellie, I have been trying to contact you to tell you.’ James paused and then went on in a hesitant voice. ‘You left in such a hurry, I didn’t have time to see you. And then Jed said you had gone to ground for a while.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Ellie said slowly. ‘I thought this was one that might go away. I mean it just isn’t libel, is it? Sorry, James what did you say?’
There was a relieved laugh from the other end of the phone.
‘Nothing. I said we all miss you, and yes, it isn’t libel, but then we never did think it was. The hearing is in January. I’m afraid you’ve got to be there.’
Just as well he couldn’t see her face, Ellie thought, he might have wondered — well, perhaps he wouldn’t — why she was smiling so cynically.
‘But I don’t work there anymore,’ she pointed out. ‘Surely Jerome or Roland-’
‘Roland will be in court, but you wrote the piece. Sorry Ellie. I know things are hard enough.’
‘Not that hard,’ she said. ‘Of course I’ll be there.’
Kathryn Renshaw was just a shrill, self-centred woman and John Renshaw must have been deranged to have left his first wife in order to marry her. Ellie’s feelings on the subject were unequivocal. A rich bitch, pleading poverty and outrage and frustratingly likely to be awarded enough to make her even richer and even hungrier to get someone else into court to complain about.
Picking up the rest of the post, she crammed James letter and the copy of the high court writ in which she was named as co-defendant in the action being brought by Renshaw, back into the buff envelope.
The other letters were, as Ellie had thought, just bills and she didn’t want to study them too closely. Nor could she bring herself to examine her finances. Dark winter days were not conducive to re-energizing yourself at the best of times. But like it or not, she would have to get something to do, something a bit more substantial than the odd freelance piece she picked up, otherwise what would become of the flat?
That too was a thought relegated to the back of her mind as she addressed herself to the more pressing need of keeping awake, what to wear and getting herself back to Dorset by five o’clock to be interviewed on TVW.
*
Bill had arrived back from the hospital an hour or two after Ellie and seeing her light still on, had tapped on the door.
‘Well,’ she laughed, standing aside to let him in, taking in his happy but exhausted face. ‘At least I can give you black coffee, I’m not sure even you can face anything stronger at this time of the morning. So, how are the women in your life?’
In the two years he and Gemma had lived upstairs, Ellie had never really studied Bill very closely, and she could tell that the same thought had crossed his mind.
Dressed in a suit, albeit crumpled, and unshaven, he didn’t look much like the man she had frequently smiled good morning to when they had left for work at the same time, when he’d been in jeans and bomber jacket. Nor was she expecting him to be such hard going to talk to. Gemma must love him very much, Ellie decided.
‘It was just so marvellous of you to stay with Gem,’ Bill said with a shy grin. ‘It wasn’t meant to happen until next week, and then this interview came up.’ He spread his hands in a helpless gesture, clearly guilt-stricken at what he had decided was a mistaken set of priorities. ‘I should have been here, she was so brave.’
‘And Gemma, quite rightly, made you go,’ Ellie interrupted briskly, pouring some freshly brewed coffee and turning back to the fridge to get some eggs. ‘Now while you extol the virtues of Gemma and the beautiful Amy, I’m going to make you some breakfast. Rubbish,’ she said ignoring his protests. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve eaten since lunchtime yesterday — I know I haven’t and I’m starving. And you can also tell me how come you were still
driving from Middlesbrough at that time of the morning?’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ he said, slipping his jacket off and loosening his tie. ‘The interview wasn’t until five o’clock, the guy kept me waiting an hour — an hour to tell me he’d let me know if I was on the short list — and the guy that I had promised to give a lift back to London got caught up in some meeting that went on for hours. I kept ringing the flat but there was no answer and I was really frantic. When I got there and found Gem’s note... Ellie, you don’t know what a relief it was when I heard you were with her. I mean... well, I don’t really know you very well, and you didn’t seem to me to be...’ He broke off, embarrassed.
‘You mean I didn’t seem to be the kind of person who could hold Gemma’s hand in a crisis,’ she finished drily. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t think I was either. However, I’ve surprised myself quite a bit since I lost my job.’
She began tucking bread into the toaster, cracking eggs into a bowl and whipping the mixture into a bubbling, yellow froth.
‘Anyway,’ she said, pouring the contents of the bowl into a saucepan and beginning to stir with a wooden spoon, ‘I’m sorry about the interview. Dragging you all that way. Anything else lined up?’
Bill smothered a yawn, the memory of a not very successful interview, which had almost made him miss the birth of his daughter, being readily eclipsed by the sheer wonderment of becoming a parent.
‘Oh, sod it,’ he said easily. ‘My wife and daughter are all that matter. We’ll get by. How about you? Any luck yet?’
And so the sophisticated career girl, redundant, and the good-natured but unemployed quantity surveyor sat down to breakfast together and exchanged news like old friends and the neighbours they had wasted two years becoming.
Just after seven o’clock, having demolished most of the scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, and told her many times he and Gemma were indebted to her forever, Bill departed to get a couple of hours’ sleep before returning to the hospital.
After he’d gone, Ellie cleared away and wasn’t at all surprised that Gemma thought the world of him. He was a straightforward, direct man, not given to charming speeches but, like Gemma, he wasn’t going to let a jobless existence get in the way of getting on with life.
Another Way Page 22