Clive leaned forward and said firmly: ‘No, I don’t. How can anyone say that when there are so many people in this country irreparably damaged by the way this government is handling the economy? Hundreds of people out of work. People who have a contribution to make. People like,’ he paused and looked at Ellie, who felt a trickle of fear down her spine, ‘well, people who don’t deserve to be.’
Ellie glanced at Letty, who was quite blatantly holding crossed fingers above her head and pleading with Ellie.
‘I hope by that you mean me?’ she found herself saying smoothly.
‘If you mean, "don’t deserve to be", I most certainly do,’ smiled Clive.
Taylor allowed them to enjoy a brief exchange, Ellie saying that it was not the most difficult problem in the world.
‘Compared to homelessness, illness and most of all the loss of someone dear to you, it finds its rightful place. But because it affects so many people, it is an issue that should be addressed so much more honestly. Whether or not it’s a problem that this government, another government or worldwide government could or could not have avoided, is almost immaterial.
‘Like some social disease, people avoid the subject. So many people are ashamed of having lost their jobs. It’s that aspect of it that concerns me. You feel such a failure when you’re made redundant, even if you know it isn’t your fault. And it isn’t. The failure belongs to first and foremost this government and then through incompetent management of big companies who get their sums wrong and it’s the people down the line who take the blame. How many management do you ever see made redundant before the troops on the ground?’
Bart Fellowes, quietly seething that the best clip from his film had been overshadowed by this writer and bloody journalist, decided to drag attention back to himself.
‘I thought what Ellie was saying earlier about having somewhere to go to think, is important. Much more important than a job. I mean in some ways,’ he hastily amended as he saw Ellie’s shocked face. ‘I myself do all I can to help the unemployed. They get reduced prices to my shows.’
Ellie thought she would never keep a straight face. ‘I am delighted to hear it, Bart,’ she said solemnly. ‘I had no idea you were so interested in unemployment and conservation.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Bart, preening. ‘Greatly interested. I’m a very green person.’
‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ said Ellie. ‘I know Joe McPhee, who is organizing our campaign, will be thrilled to know that especially as you’re currently appearing down here. Perhaps we can persuade you to lend us your support.’
Bloody woman, Bart thought savagely. Boxed him in. Oh well, the publicity will be worth it.
‘Surely,’ he said expansively. ‘Look forward to it.’
The credits rolled, the audience applauded wildly and Taylor looked pleased. Ellie thought she would drop where she sat.
Joe came over and hugged her. ‘C’mon, let’s have a drink with Letty and then I’ll drive you home.’
‘Perhaps you’d let me do that,’ said a voice behind her. Ellie turned and found Clive O’Connell Moore gazing at her. ‘You were very good. I’m driving back to London tonight, I’d be happy to take you.’
Letty came striding over. ‘You can drive Ellie anywhere she wants to go, but not until you’ve all had a drink and not until I’ve had a private word with her.’
Longing only to lie down somewhere and sleep for a week, Ellie moved over to make room for Letty on the sofa.
She didn’t waste any time.
‘Would you be interested in a job? Here. Jonquil is on leave for three months. We need a temporary replacement. Someone who can interview and knows the area backwards. The MD was watching you. We think you’d be great. What do you say?’
‘Ellie? Ellie... Oh my God, someone get some water. Ellie? Ellie? Are you all right?’
Clive O’Connell Moore, Joe McPhee and Taylor all came running back, leaving Bart signing autographs, to find Ellie crumpled on the sofa.
‘She’s fainted. My goodness, she’s passed out,’ cried Maria.
Somewhere in the mists of unconsciousness and a babble of voices, Ellie heard the amused voice of Clive saying:
‘Fainted? Nonsense. I think you’ll find she’s simply fallen asleep.’
Chapter Twenty
What could she say?
The embarrassment of falling sound asleep in the middle of being offered the best, the only, chance of employment in the last three months was going to haunt Ellie for some time. So too was the memory of being woken after a minute or two by Joe McPhee and finding a quartet of anxious faces peering down at her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she stammered, struggling to sit up as several pairs of hands anxiously pushed her back again. She knew she was gabbling, but she simply had to explain.
‘It’s just that I’ve been up for nearly thirty-six hours, and there was no time to sleep, because the girl upstairs was rushed off to have her baby, and I had to stay with her until her husband arrived. And then when I got back there was this writ waiting for me...’
She stopped, seeing bewilderment on their faces at this incomprehensible explanation for her exhaustion.
‘Well, it was all a bit much,’ she finished lamely. ‘I’m fine, I just need a night’s sleep. Honestly.’
While Joe, Letty, Taylor and Bart seemed relieved that it was nothing more serious than lack of sleep, only Clive O’Connell Moore seemed to find it amusing. Sitting down beside her, he pulled her arm comfortingly through his, stroking her hand in a way that Ellie would not have described as avuncular.
Nor would Joe McPhee or Letty. Bart Fellowes, having run out of fans, had rejoined them, irrationally annoyed that this blonde nobody seemed to be commanding centre stage again. He was inclined to suggest that she wised up a bit if she wanted to be in show biz and was almost on the point of offering her some of the exotic substance he had in his back pocket when he was stopped by a frown from Taylor, and thought the better of it.
No point in wasting it, he decided. Taylor was more useful to him anyway. Besides, this author bloke was trying to score in another direction, and the blonde did seem to be rallying and listening to what he was saying.
‘Did it myself once,’ Clive said, as the flustered Maria rushed a cup of steaming black coffee back to where Ellie was now sitting upright and looking more alert, if very pale. ‘After working through the night to meet a deadline, I had to go up to Manchester for an interview and then back to give a speech at a dinner being held at the Dorchester. Fell asleep as they were proposing a vote of thanks to me. Started snoring too.’
Ellie stiffened and looked around in alarm, pulling her arm away from Clive’s.
‘I didn’t... I mean... I wasn’t…?’
Clive folded his arms across his chest and looked innocently up to the ceiling.
‘No, not snoring, precisely. But you talked a lot.’
Ellie looked uneasily at the group, and then back to Clive as he went remorselessly on.
‘I think you said — now what was it? Oh yes, you said, I would love to have dinner with Clive. Yes, come to think of it, that’s exactly what you said.’
Joe intervened. ‘He’s pulling your leg, lassie, but I think food is not a bad idea and then we’ll see about getting you home.’
Letty got up and began to help Ellie to her feet.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, can I reach you at your brother’s house?’
Ellie straightened her skirt and nodded. ‘Letty, did I hear you correctly, before I decided to nod off? Did you…?’
The small knot of interested bystanders were beginning to move away. Letty collected her clipboard and shook her head sadly.
‘Must be losing my grip. I don’t usually get that reaction when I offer someone a job.’
Disbelief mingled with delight was written on Ellie’s face.
‘You did? Oh, you did? That’s brilliant... Er... what was it?’
Letty laughed. ‘This is bizarre. Let’s talk a
bout it properly tomorrow. But basically Jonquil is about to have her baby, she wants three months off and we want a good stand-in, who knows the area and is a bloody good journalist.’
She watched Ellie’s excited face and laughed.
‘Don’t look so excited. It’s an eight-minute slot, and the money is lousy. You couldn’t live on it.’
The chance was too fantastic to miss. Ellie didn’t care if it went out at three in the morning for a mere ten seconds. It was a job and she’d worry about the money later. It was something to do. A challenge.
Eagerly she took Letty’s hand and shook it fervently.
‘You don’t have to ring me tomorrow, I’ll do it. I’ve never done television before, but I learn fast and I’m sure I can handle it and...’
‘Hey, hold it,’ Letty protested. ‘Go and get some sleep. Take up Clive’s offer to drive you home, or at least to have a meal. Call me from wherever you are tomorrow. And, Ellie...’
Barely able to contain her excitement, Ellie paused, as she was about to set off after Joe and Clive.
‘The suit’s great, but it’s not right for Jonquil’s spot. Something a little less powerful, okay? We’ll have to, talk image as well. Will you mind?’
It was the last thing Ellie had even considered. If only Letty knew the truth of it. Image. What image? Out of work, about to lose her flat, sorely in need of money. Did she mind? She couldn’t wait.
‘Don’t worry,’ she smiled at Letty. ‘The real me couldn’t afford Oxfam at the moment. This outfit was given to me.’ And, promising to call Letty first thing next day, she departed knowing that she had bent the truth just a bit, but what the hell.
In the foyer Joe was waiting for her with Clive, both men rising to their feet as she approached.
‘Sorry,’ she said sheepishly. ‘What a thing to do. And I am starving.’
Ellie still looked hollow-eyed and rather pale, but the news that she had been given a tentative shove on to the first rung of the ladder that might, just might, pull her life back together again, had brought a long-vanished sparkle back into her eyes.
Both men spoke at once. Joe was all for rushing her straight over to Oliver’s, Clive for going to dinner. In the end they compromised and all three drove to her brother’s house where they were greeted like homecoming heroes.
It could not be said that Ellie was the most invigorating companion and long before the others had finished eating, she excused herself and walked over to the house to go to bed.
Clive and Joe both rose as she left the table; Clive, having accepted Oliver’s invitation to stay in the guest room, said he would drive back to town with Ellie next day.
‘Which seems to me to be the only way to get you on your own,’ he whispered as he kissed her cheek and looked in mock dismay as Ellie told him primly to behave himself.
The exchange wasn’t lost on Jill, who raised her eyebrows at her sister-in-law as she hugged her goodnight.
‘V-e-ry nice,’ she murmured. ‘But maybe you should lock your door.’
‘Spoilsport,’ murmured Ellie and waved a cheery hand at Joe, promising to call in on him next day when she’d settled the details of her new job with Letty and before she left for London.
It was a sharp, cold night. Clouds scudded across the moon as Oliver walked her across to the house. So much had happened since they’d last spoken only a few hours before that Ellie had almost forgotten the conversation Oliver had had with their father.
‘Grim, was it?’ she asked, looking anxiously at him.
He nodded silently. ‘Ellie, what is it with him? He just gets so angry, so upset about everything. I was telling him all kinds of stuff in the end that wasn’t true, just to calm him down. It’s like dealing with Miles sometimes.’
Frankly Ellie wasn’t as surprised as her brother. After all, when she and Oliver had been told of the awful accusations levelled against John Carter by Robert and Theo Stirling, all those years ago, they would have moved mountains, if he had let them, to clear his name.
Why shouldn’t he be angry hearing that she had lost her job?
‘Angry because you’ve lost your job? You must be joking. That, El, was dismissed with: "Oh, dear, poor, poor Ellie. You must get her to ring me. How awful."’
Ellie was shocked.
‘Is that all he said? Didn’t he care? Wasn’t he interested?’
Oliver shook his head. ‘Not in the way I care, or Jill does. Furious on your behalf, outraged that you could have been treated like that. No, not like that, just sad for you. It was the campaign that set him off. Honestly, El, he just kept shouting that we didn’t know what we were doing. To stop it at once. That the hotel could surely survive a few buildings being built opposite it, I just couldn’t get a word in.’
‘Pa said all that?’ she gasped.
Oliver’s fury and distress were evident. ‘He just doesn’t want us to have anything to do with Stirling, at any price. Oh God, I know it sounds unreasonable of me, because he was so hurt by it all, but Ellie, I can’t stand by and watch Stirling knock my life for six, just because some prime land is on the market. I simply can’t. And anyway Jill would have a fit. Pa doesn’t seem to realize that there are other people involved. Even if it was Oldburns on their own I would still have to do this.’
This was madness, thought Ellie. Oliver was right, there were other people to consider, other people’s feelings to take into account.
‘Didn’t you explain that we were keeping his name out of it?’ she asked as Oliver, seething with frustration, kicked a stone hard into a clump of bushes. ‘I mean I can quite see that he’s afraid all that rubbish will be dragged up again, but we’ve started the ball rolling now, how on earth can we stop it? He must see that.
‘And anyway,’ she added indignantly, ‘why the bloody hell should Theo Stirling, oozing charm and treachery, be allowed to take what he wants, when he wants? I won’t have it.’
On another occasion Oliver might have voiced the fleeting suspicion he had harboured for many weeks, that Ellie was as much set on getting even with Stirling for entirely personal reasons as she was set on protecting his land, but, wound up with his father’s fury, he let it go.
They reached the house, where he left his sister to walk back to join the others to finish dinner, telling Ellie not to worry too much. They would talk in the morning.
Ellie doubted she was capable of ever speaking again as she finally, gratefully and groaning with pleasure, fell into bed, squirming almost painfully under the soft cotton quilt with the delight of knowing she could give herself up to uninterrupted sleep.
Her last waking thought, however, was not what she would say to her father but that there was no doubt about it, Clive O’Connell Moore obviously fancied her rotten. Then she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
A sleep that lasted undisturbed until the early hours of the morning when she felt the bedclothes being stealthily pulled back and a shadowy figure began to climb carefully in beside her.
Drugged with sleep, Ellie twisted over, fright mingled with disbelief. He wouldn’t…?
‘Are you mad?’ she whispered fiercely, sitting up, her eyes becoming accustomed to the gloom.
‘Shh,’ said a small voice as the tousled, curly-headed figure of Chloe snuggled down beside her with a contented giggle.
‘I knew you were here,’ she whispered in a pleased voice, putting icy cold feet against Ellie’s legs. ‘Won’t Miles be cross that he stayed asleep?’
‘Chloe,’ Ellie groaned, pulling the little girl into a warm cuddle. ‘You are a wretch. Now sleep. Instantly.’
Ellie tried to sound severe, but in the dark she was cracking up with mirth and, she had to admit, something perilously close to disappointment.
Chapter Twenty-one
The interview with Letty went without a hitch. They met in her tiny office on the third floor where files, photographs and scripts jostled with each other for space on a desk that virtually filled the room. Letty had asked Jonquil Adams t
o join them out of courtesy, as she explained to Ellie, since this was Jonquil’s slot on the programme.
Jonquil, pregnant, pretty and peremptory, greeted Ellie with a sharp look and the information that she had only a few minutes, so could they please get on? She then emphasized many times that she would be returning to work not a day before or a day after 1 February.
‘I would be back sooner,’ she explained, ‘only Jules, my partner, is very anxious that before I do, the bonding process is complete. But,’ she said, throwing a haughty look at the indifferent Letty, ‘if this company had any sense of what is due to women, they would have found some way to facilitate my child’s needs and my own desire to return to work immediately, and none of this disruption would have been necessary.’
Ellie thought she was dreadful.
Jonquil, who clearly retained a firm grip on her job because of her olive skin and perfectly proportioned features, not to mention a ferocious ambition that deterred most people from even attempting to usurp her, was making certain that Ellie understood many things. Chief amongst which was that any ambition Ellie had for a more permanent arrangement with TVW was pointless and that the content of her spot should remain in accordance with the style and standard laid down by Jonquil herself.
‘It is my ability to listen and draw people out that is the hallmark of my interviewing technique,’ she said, firmly oblivious to the fact that in a ten-minute meeting, she had yet to relinquish the floor. ‘Remember,’ she emphasized, ‘no-one is interested in you.’
Having made it plain that she expected Ellie to pose questions out of view of the camera and make as little impact on it as continuity would allow, Jonquil turned her attention to off-camera conditions. Letty listened to this parade of demands with a bored expression and made no attempt to intervene.
After a couple more points, which included all invitations and ‘extras’ to be passed on to her at her home, Jonquil pulled herself to her feet and announced she simply had to fly, one of the nationals was interviewing her about being a working mother.
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