Another Way

by Frankie McGowan

  Seconds later, she opened it again, walked quickly to the waste paper basket, gently extricated the camellia and placed it carefully between the leaves of a book of Louis MacNeice’s poems.

  Then avoiding her reflection in the mirror, Ellie shot out of the house to a welcome reunion with Jed and Rosie and to hear exactly what this amazing news was that the gossip columnist had promised to impart.

  Outside she ran into Bill returning from the hospital and, on a high that she hadn’t felt for months, Ellie insisted that he joined them for supper. He looked a bit bemused, but finally gave in, when Ellie pointed out that Gemma would expect him to keep his strength up and that this was a night when she wanted all her friends around her.

  The bistro was packed. Jed and Ashley were already there, and they promptly appropriated another chair for Bill. Ellie guessed they had been rowing, but this was not a night for soul-searching. This was the night that Ellie was re-entering the world of the workers — not with a buzz of excitement that would have the phones ringing, and not in the most lavish place. But somehow it was very appropriate.

  The checked tablecloths, the black and white photographs of the owner with every celebrated name that he claimed had dined there, cluttered every inch of space on the walls, the chalked-up menu and the screaming oaths that emanated from the kitchen from the temperamental Italian chef all contributed to the air of delightful craziness, which suited her mood.

  Rosie’s arrival was the signal for more wine and cheers. Amy’s health was drunk. And Bill’s. A great deal of teasing went on as the hour dragged by to nine o’clock and there was no sign of Clive.

  Curiously, Ellie felt very confident that he would come. There was something she instinctively sensed about him that she never had with Paul. He was too blunt, too uncomplicated to play games.

  And then he came through the door, searching the room for their table, and Ellie just gazed at him, helpless with laughter. Pushing his way through the crowded room, he was carrying the biggest, most vulgar, overdressed, heart-shaped box of chocolates, which must have taken a lot of nerve to buy.

  ‘I knew the competition would be severe. I wanted to improve my chances,’ he said gravely, presenting them to her and kissing her on both cheeks.

  It could not be said that any of them did justice to the food that evening, but a gratifying amount of champagne flowed and the conversation with it.

  Clive clearly loved an audience. Rosie, gentle-natured and not easily won over, provided him with a flattering degree of hysteria at almost everything he said. Jed extracted from him two very indiscreet stories, Ashley got quietly drunk and Bill, to Clive’s evident delight, had read his last two books and was immediately promised a signed copy of the current controversial tome.

  The revelry almost put into the shade Jed’s news that Ian Willoughby had been appointed Editorial Director of Goodman Coopers Publishing, Dixie had been promoted to Bentley Goodman’s secretary, the bimbo Sonya Lloyd, who had plagued Rosie’s life for four months, had become Jerome’s personal secretary and Jerome Strachan was being kept on a tight rein, furious that once again he was reporting to his old boss.

  ‘The interesting thing is, El,’ said Jed, undercover of shrieks of laughter as Clive regaled Rosie, Bill and Ashley with the story of Ellie slumbering on the set of ‘Prime Movers’, ‘I casually mentioned that I was seeing you, and Ian said, "I expect to be doing that myself before long."’

  ‘Maybe the freelance scene is easing a bit,’ Ellie replied. ‘I had a note from him today asking me to call.’

  Jed was regarding her with a satisfied smile.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, sitting contentedly back against the cushioned back rest, enjoying Clive seducing all her friends.

  ‘Just good to see you again,’ Jed said. ‘Good to see you looking happy. I mean I might be your best friend, but I knew I couldn’t take that haunted look out of your eyes. I like Clive... and Bill.’

  ‘And you’ll love Gemma. And Amy. I bet you’ll like Letty too. And you know you’ve never met Joe McPhee, have you?’

  Ellie was very tipsy, and very happy. Jed laughed and told her so.

  ‘Probably,’ she said, trying to sound sober. She looked around the table and remembered another night when she had dined out: Polly Lambton’s dinner party. The night Warren had fallen asleep and Beth Wickham had got her claws into Paul. The night Polly had made them all toast her because it was the day she had finally made it. But made what?

  Made life that bit easier for Polly and anyone else who found her useful. Or rather her title. The Eleanor Carter Interview.

  Eleanor Carters she recited in her head. Eleanor Carter, joint chair of WIN. Eleanor Carter, who will be delighted to attend, come to, help out with. Miss Carter will be available for anyone, anytime, anywhere. And where had it got her?

  Ellie started to feel drowsy. Clive leaned over and said solemnly, ‘You’ve tried that trick once. You are a fake, not an original at all.’

  Laughter lit Ellie’s eyes. He was nice. So were they all. The night she had dined at Polly’s had been lavish, lush and loaded with style. It was all so long ago, like another lifetime and another world. And suddenly she absolutely knew that the world she had struggled to re-enter, to get back on terms with was, for her, over. She never wanted to go back. This was where she belonged, comfortable, at ease, relaxed and being exactly who she was. Ellie Carter.

  An hour later they reluctantly found themselves being ushered out by two polite but yawning waiters and the owner, who was torn between annoyance at being kept from his bed, and delight at the size of the bill they had just settled. Jed and Ashley flagged down a cab and bundled Rosie inside, leaving Ellie to walk back arm in arm with Clive and Bill, feeling drunk with relief that after so long she was, please God, emerging from that awful bleak winter.

  That night she slept with Clive O’Connell Moore for the first time and could only agree with the old Woody Allen joke, that it was the best fun she’d had in a long, long time, without actually laughing.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  ‘I think Ellie needs to stop and think a bit.’

  Jed dragged his eyes away from the sight of Ellie and Clive, racing around the back lawn of the cottage, Miles and Chloe screaming encouragement, trying to stop their bonfire petering out by piling it high with brushwood.

  Helpless shrieks of laughter drifted across to where Jill, Jed and Ashley lounged in the drawing room of the cottage, where the shuttered latticed glass doors led on to a small terrace. This gave them an uninterrupted view of the walled garden where it stretched down to meet the boundary of the heavily disputed Linton’s Field.

  Jill lowered her cup and looked quizzically at him. ‘Don’t you?’ she repeated.

  He looked up at her as she rose to refill his cup and shook his head.

  ‘I hope,’ he said with a note of alarm, ‘that you are not asking me to tell her?’

  ‘Lord, no,’ said Jill. ‘Just a comment really. Stupid of me in many ways. But she seems to be ricocheting from one set of emotions to another and I just don’t want it to end in tears.’

  Ashley stirred in the armchair where he had been sleeping off the effects of Sunday lunch, stretched, yawned and told them they ought to be grateful that she wasn’t still with that ghastly little prick who’d ruined every evening they had ever spent together.

  ‘Never, never, have I met anyone so spoilt as Paul D’Erlanger,’ he complained, not noticing the effort with which Jill controlled her face or the uneasy glance that Jed flicked at her.

  ‘Much better off with an older man and one who makes her laugh,’ continued Ashley lazily, blissfully unaware that in the Carter household where Jed was regarded as family, he was often talked of in much the same vein. ‘I must say I do like amusing people. Can’t stand intense personalities.’

  Not for a moment did Jill doubt it was the more attractive of the two characteristics but it still didn’t stop her thinking that her sister-in-law was not so much
laughing with joy, but screaming with relief.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Oh Lord... Miles. Miles. Put that back in the bucket. Yes. Right now. Excuse me,’ she said, opening the doors and striding off down the garden to help her small son replace the contents of the bucket he had just unearthed.

  It was nearly December. The blue smoke from the bonfire swirled into the deepening mist of the afternoon, the sharp, raw day closing rapidly and a three-hour drive back to London lay ahead of them. These days Ellie seemed increasingly reluctant to leave. But as Jill disappeared, Jed jumped to his feet and called after her.

  ‘Jill, tell them to buck up. We’ll have to get a move on. Ashley needs to be back in town by eight.’

  They watched her as she reached the group, saw Clive swing an arm around her waist and playfully pretend to throw her into the pile of brushwood. Ellie, in an old pair of jeans, green wellies and a multicoloured sweater, rushed to her aid and all three fell into a heap on the ground with the twins hurling themselves on top.

  ‘You would think, wouldn’t you,’ remarked Jed carefully to Oliver who had just joined them, ‘that she had been involved with Clive for at least six years instead of just six weeks?’

  *

  The relationship that Ellie embarked on with Clive so easily, so readily, was what Gemma soon dubbed not so much a love affair as a laugh affair.

  Ellie herself would not have ventured to put a name to it, but never had she found herself caught up with a man so intent on filling every day as though it was one to remember for ever, not considered complete unless you finally closed your eyes, mourning its passing but embracing the thought of the next.

  Two days after she had met him again on PrimeMovers, Ellie decided he was probably mad, but so gloriously, magnificently mad that she felt it her duty to behave as one would towards a lunatic and humour him.

  He took her rowing in mid-winter on the lake in Battersea Park, ignoring her protests that she would freeze, simply recommending that she tried to think hot. At five o’clock on the rawest, foggiest November morning she could recall, he dragged her from her warm bed and marched her off to help a friend on his antique stall in Brick Lane. Collecting her for breakfast in Fulham in his Aston Martin, she ended up having lunch in Calais.

  The sex was great too. No, not just great, she decided, but a discovery about herself, about her confidence, which filled her with pleasure and astonishment.

  Paul had at first made her feel gratitude to him for wanting her, then I because she rarely satisfied his demands and finally frigid when reluctance replaced desire when he took her to bed.

  Perhaps she had been too tipsy, too happy to worry about nerves or shyness or fear of failing Clive the night they had tumbled into her bed, having waved Bill into his flat. With Clive there had been no point in pretending that they had anything else in mind.

  ‘Stand still, woman,’ he’d ordered as she began to pull at the buttons on his shirt. ‘What a greedy little girl you are. Didn’t your teachers ever tell you, ladies first?’

  And he meant it. In every way. And when they lay tangled up in arms, legs, sheets and the remains of the Bollinger that had, at the height of their passion, gently tipped over oozing on to the sheets, she had smiled sleepily up at him.

  ‘Who said I haven’t got any manners?’ she asked with a drowsy chuckle. ‘Thank you for having me.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said politely, wrapping her in his arms. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  *

  The first of Ellie’s reports for PrimeMovers, on the need for a hostel for homeless teenagers, brought a respectable number of viewers’ letters into Letty Brereton’s office and the second, on the lack of support available for the families of drug addicts, got a mention in the national press. But the third, on the damaging effects of redundancy on family life, forced Letty to hire a temp to deal with the avalanche of letters that arrived.

  By the time she had completed her fourth week on the programme commuting between London and Dorset, Ellie had been lunched by Ian Willoughby and had done a deal with him that she knew was, in these straitened times, almost beyond belief.

  They lunched in the Horse Guards Hotel where Ian was clearly a welcome and familiar client and where it was unlikely that they would be observed.

  ‘For my protection, not yours,’ he assured her as he greeted her in the wide, carpeted foyer. ‘If you say no to what I’m going to suggest, then I won’t have to suffer the humiliation of Bentley Goodman knowing I’ve been turned down.’

  There was no way she couldn’t like him. Ellie had been curious about him ever since he had written to her in the first awful weeks of her unemployment and, urged on by Jed, she had telephoned him on hearing that the once-editor of their chief rival, Profile, and Jerome Strachan’s former boss, had now been appointed editorial director of the whole of Goodman Coopers Publishing. Ian Willoughby hadn’t been around to take her call, but shored up by her new-found confidence and belief in herself, Ellie had simply written him a note saying she had been in touch.

  His phone call came the day after she had posted the letter and lunch had been arranged for the following week.

  Ellie had dressed carefully for the occasion but where once she would have raided her wardrobe for something that would get results based on drop dead glamour, she no longer felt at ease in power suits and executive chic. A cornflower blue silk shirt with a much cherished oversized navy cashmere cardigan over it was the simple but uncluttered style she enjoyed these days.

  Ian Willoughby thought she looked sexier than ever, but he was too shrewd a man to tell her so, certainly not over a business lunch. And, he reflected as she listened carefully with those serious grey eyes and her head tilted just a little to the side, there must be a man telling her that anyway. She had that look about her.

  He didn’t waste any time. Roland was now managing director of the company and too engrossed in the problems of Goodman Coopers worldwide to pay enough attention to the editorial quality of their publications. Hence Ian had been lured away from Profile to take over editorial control of the entire group.

  Ellie listened carefully. All editors, including Jerome, had to report directly to him for final approval of each issue and all their future plans were forwarded to him before they could be implemented.

  ‘I hope it won’t be more than a short-term operation, but one or two of the editors are more talented than experienced and still have to learn that it’s as much a question of addressing their minds to budgets and quality, gaging the public’s mood, as producing brilliant ideas,’ he explained. ‘Also, I think there is a blurring of identities going on within the group.’

  He paused while a hovering waiter poured more wine into his glass. Ellie signalled briefly that she would stick to mineral water. Ian waited until the performance was complete before he went on.

  ‘For example, Pace, which is essentially young, trendy and for the under twenty-fives, is being overburdened with political issues. That’s fine in itself, but you can’t avoid the fact that that age group deeply resent political influence, or what is perceived as political influence, so they are turning to other publications.’

  Ian’s tone was hard to analyse. Ellie had been in the business long enough to recognize that a senior management figure talking with such considered tact to a writer was undoubtedly putting a gloss on a problem causing the company concern.

  ‘Focus,’ he continued, studying his wine glass, ‘on the other hand, has perhaps gone too far the other way and is becoming rather lightweight. We all think very highly of Jerome, but during these early days, all editors need support and that is what I am here for.’

  To her credit, Ellie didn’t actually sling her napkin into the air and scream with pleasure. Boy wonder wasn’t so wonderful after all. Instead she remained impassive. What had all this to do with her?

  Reading her thoughts, Ian smiled and said, ‘Now how can I put this? Let me see. I know your departure from Focus was not under the most plea
sant conditions, I know Jerome was deeply upset at some of the more difficult decisions he had to make...’

  Ellie had had enough. She had not gone through months of unalleviated misery, brought on by the foolish, spiteful behaviour of an inexperienced editor, only to have to sit silently while his actions were endowed with a compassion she knew was wholly absent. Carefully she pressed her napkin to her mouth. Slowly she placed it beside her plate and fixed Ian with a level gaze.

  ‘Ian, I truly appreciate this gesture — inviting me here. I am enjoying your company and nor have I forgotten that you troubled to write a note to me when I couldn’t get arrested, let alone get a job. But please,’ she went on, ‘you must see that my view of Jerome is not yours. I’m afraid I would be less than honest with you if I sat here allowing you to believe that I shared it. Do you think, since I am being honest with you, that you could be just as honest with me and put me in the picture? Why am I here?’

  Ian looked squarely at her for about ten seconds.

  ‘Would you like your old job back?’

  It was blunt. To the point. Ellie felt as though someone had delivered an electric shock.

  She didn’t hesitate.

  ‘No thank you, Ian. No... let me finish. Thank you for making the offer, but you see...’

  She stopped. How could she make him understand that she had come a long way since the day she sat in Green Park facing a future that filled her with terror? So much had happened, so many things had been revealed to her. Not just about the way she lived, but about who she was and more importantly, how to hang on to being what she was.

  What was it Theo had said? ‘Not without your consent.’ Going back to Focus, the one thing she had dreamed about for that first month, didn’t seem terribly necessary to her now.

  Ian was quietly waiting for her to explain. He didn’t seem all that surprised by her answer, Ellie noticed fleetingly. But she surprised herself next. The fury and contempt that had filled her for Jerome Strachan’s pettiness had sustained her on many a night when she had mentally rehearsed this speech for just such a moment. Suddenly it all seemed so petty and small and undignified. Perhaps more to the point, the Jeromes of the world were no longer that important to her.