Another Way

by Frankie McGowan

  She found herself describing to Ian what she wanted now and as she spoke it all began to fall into place. When had she changed? At what point over the last four months had she decided this was what she wanted? But even as she spoke she knew she hadn’t changed, she had just resumed being herself.

  ‘You see, that kind of interview, glitzy, glamorous and preoccupied with the fast lane of life, is wonderful to read and I lap it up. But I don’t particularly want to do that anymore. You learn that not everyone in the world cares about the workings of the minds of the Rich and Famous and the Good and the Great, not when they have lives to lead and ambitions to achieve in the real world. It’s great escapist stuff. I adore Jed’s column. I can’t get enough of Rosie’s fashion pictures. Even Paul’s travel pieces are fascinating.’

  Paul’s name had just slipped out. Easily, no pangs, no lurching of the heart. How strange.

  ‘But I want to try more analytical journalism now. I don’t want to record the thoughts of anyone, I want to be able to judge their performance, to be able to push them into knowing that they should put their money where their mouth is. I want to interview people who matter in a way that will make them accountable for their actions.

  ‘Oh, don’t look like that. I’m not going to bullshit about not needing work. I do. I can just about get by with the report I do for PrimeMovers, provided I back it with some regular freelance work. It’s just that I now only want to live my life — as far as possible — the way I want to live. I don’t think going back — in any sense of the word — would achieve that.’

  She stopped. Ian stretched out his hand and closed it over hers.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said gently. ‘You haven’t disappointed me at all.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I meant what I said. Focus could do with the weight of your writing, but I should have known you wouldn’t stand still.’

  He sighed and signalled to the waiter for more coffee.

  ‘But if you think I’m giving up there, my girl, you don’t know your man.’

  Nor did she. They left the restaurant an hour later, Ian to report back to Roland that Ellie would be resuming her relationship with Focus as from the first week in December, but not, he emphasized, resuming her job.

  Ellie on the other hand had walked nearly half way to Lambeth Bridge before she realized what she was doing. Barely able to stop laughing, she turned round and ran all the way to Clive’s flat overlooking the Thames at Westminster to tell him her amazing news.

  ‘Why not?’ he said, whirling her around the room and swinging her off her feet. ‘It’s only when you don’t want something that you can state your terms and usually get them. Sod’s law. When you wanted a job you couldn’t get one working twice as hard for half the dough, and now look at you.’

  Ellie hugged herself, hugged a grinning Clive, whooping with delight.

  ‘Freelance contract for a year, one interview a fortnight and I can work from home or the office, whichever fits in with TVW. The money is ludicrous,’ she said, excitedly following him into the drawing room and watching him clear a space on one of the sofas, piled high with books, newspapers and for some reason one of his teenage sons’ guitar and trainers, so that she could sit down. ‘It’s nearly as much as I was getting before for doing three times the work.

  ‘Clive, what is this?’ she asked, suddenly pulling a high-heeled shoe from underneath her.

  He looked blank and then delighted.

  ‘Oh, good girl, that’s where it went.’

  Ellie felt an odd sensation in her stomach. It most certainly wasn’t her shoe. She tried to make light of it, but Clive was openly laughing.

  ‘It’s Joanne’s,’ he said. ‘You know, Joanne, as in mother of my children.’

  Ellie blushed. How stupid. So used to Paul’s infidelities, she had automatically assumed Clive would be the same. Or had she?

  No, of course not. Once he had been, he’d told her that. To be honest, he had said, twice. Twice unfaithful to his wife and while she forgave the first one, she couldn’t cope with the second and had slung him out.

  ‘Sorry, I wasn’t prying or anything,’ she mumbled, knowing that’s exactly what it sounded like. ‘It was just sticking into me.’

  And then Clive sat down and took her hands and said seriously, not since Joanne had he felt so at ease with someone, or had felt like laughing, and while he had resented any questions about his wife and children from the girl who broke up his marriage and who he had instantly lost all interest in, he didn’t dislike them in the least coming from Ellie.

  ‘You’ve been so good for me,’ he said, stroking her face. ‘I think if you hadn’t come along, I would have given up the human race for ever, having failed me so many times. My own fault of course,’ he went on, perching his huge frame on the arm of the sofa, running both hands distractedly through his shock of grey hair. ‘I’m an undisciplined man. I’ve learned that. Joanne had a lot to put up with, but I was so stupid, I thought she was trying to restrain me. Do you know what it’s like to suddenly find everyone wants to ask you to their parties, their homes, to give you things because you’ve got a bit of a name? It’s not you they want, it’s the fame they enjoy. Unfortunately,’ he said, getting up and walking to the window to gaze out over the churning grey water of the river, ‘I was seduced by it all. And the life and...’ He paused, adding softly, ‘And the women.’

  Ellie just let him talk. He was unpredictable. Sometimes he just behaved like a wild young boy instead of the mature man of forty that he was. At other times, he talked with an insight and passion and an understanding of the world that made Ellie hold her breath in case he heard it and stopped.

  Now she knew him well enough to know that he needed space to unload all the guilt and remorse that he had piled up over the last five years. She knew that whatever the future held for them, one thing was certain; she owed him a debt, and if listening to him and just being there could repay some of it, then it was her privilege to do so.

  Now was such a time.

  They had known each other for a mere few weeks and were openly enjoying what Clive called being ‘in crazy’ with each other. Ellie was in no doubt at all about the place she occupied in his life. But the pivot of his life was his sons, Callum and Sean, barely into their teens, who she could see from photographs were clones of their father. That he missed their daily presence was beyond doubt.

  Knowing Oliver’s devotion to the twins, she did not find it at all difficult to understand. What she found a little more complex to grasp was his relationship with Joanne. It was love, it was hate. It was pride and it was fury. His wild Irish temperament and her cool English reserve had been both the attraction and the destruction of their marriage. And yet, she was there. Referred to frequently, accused often and praised overwhelmingly, particularly if he was drunk and always after he had dropped the boys home from a weekend visit.

  Ellie wasn’t the first woman who had instinctively wanted to organize Clive’s life, but she was rare in that she refrained from doing so. Having elected to live in a beautiful penthouse apartment with a view clear upriver to St Paul’s and downstream to Fulham, Clive had thereafter abandoned any pretence that he knew how to run a home.

  It was no secret that he had made a small fortune out of his books, two of which were bestsellers and the recent one likely to make him a tax exile. But he was as generous with his money as he was with his feelings and Ellie knew why women adored him, and why he was the despair of his accountant.

  If his sons saw nothing wrong with the eccentricities of his lifestyle, he said to Ellie as he investigated the contents of a fridge that was frequently a tribute to fast food, milkshakes and Bollinger, he didn’t see why anyone else should complain.

  Indeed not. So she turned a blind eye to the chaos he lived in, and revelled in his company. The pair of them even managed to treat Jed’s mischievous story as a wonderful joke.

  The furore about Clive’s book was still going strong and Jed had publishe
d in his column that Ellie and Clive were now an item around town. He had called her a TV personality, which had resulted in an immediate missive being despatched by Jonquil to Letty, wondering if Ellie had misunderstood and urging her to emphasize to the ‘stand-in’ that the job was only for three months — for Ellie’s own sake, Jonquil ended, with a concern that fooled no-one, least of all Letty.

  The reaction from Clive’s ex-wife had seemed to give him particular satisfaction when Joanne, in a voice that would have frozen the Sahara, promptly phoned demanding an increase in maintenance.

  John Carter, however, when Ellie had called him to say she was now employed, simply said vaguely that he was glad she was enjoying herself and pleased that she was back at work. He wasn’t quite so amused to hear that the campaign to secure Linton’s Field was still a matter of priority for his children.

  Clive listened to Ellie’s end of the conversation as he lay in her bed and watched her pacing furiously up and down when she finally switched off the phone.

  ‘Now,’ he said, pouring the last of the Bollinger into his glass and handing it to her, ‘while I think you look magnificent in a temper and it is definitely very erotic watching you march up and down in that thing,’ he indicated the battered T-shirt that Ellie was wearing, ‘it might be beneficial to both your temper and my nerves if you told me what all this is about.’

  She was very tempted. ‘Oh, nothing, really. He just hates a fuss and me being on TV is getting to him.’

  Clive looked at her thoughtfully.

  ‘Little liar,’ he said easily. ‘Maybe when you know me better you’ll tell me the truth.’

  ‘Honestly, I do know you and that is the truth.’

  ‘Well, in which case,’ he said, stretching out and pulling her to him, ‘if you know me so well, you must know that I need constant attention and it has been sadly lacking so far this evening.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Theo Stirling telephoned Ellie on the same day that Letty asked her to stand in for Taylor, who had gone down with flu.

  Of the two Ellie was more panic-stricken about meeting Theo Stirling than hosting a chat show for TVW, which Letty was confident she could handle.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ve actually got a filmed interview that Taylor did with the Chancellor yesterday, so that will occupy the first slot, which means you’ll only have to cope with two interviews live.’

  The names Letty had lined up were familiar. One was a retired general whose memoirs were about to be published and whose political views were somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan. The other was the brilliant film director, Max Culver, whom Ellie had once interviewed. She noted drily that he had directed Debra Carlysle’s most successful film and was currently about to start directing her in another.

  ‘Do you still want a report?’ asked Ellie, with no clear idea how that could be fitted in as well as getting her copy to Focus on time.

  ‘We’ll give it a miss,’ Letty decided. ‘Taylor’s on film so we can afford to lose it for this week. Just get down here as fast as you can.’

  That was the least of Ellie’s problems. She had planned to stay on after her own filming was complete because Joe and Oliver were holding the first public meeting for the campaign, but it was hearing that Theo would be ensconced in his former home for the weekend that threw her.

  She deliberated about returning the call for a full two hours and then rang and asked for Roger Nelson.

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Nelson no longer works here,’ came a crisp voice. ‘Can anyone else help?’

  Ellie was startled and asked if Pam Winterman was available.

  After a few minutes Pam came on the line.

  ‘Roger left the company a couple of months ago,’ she said carefully. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t know where he’s gone.’ Her voice was cautious, her tone not conducive to further enquiries. ‘Can I help you instead?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Ellie politely. ‘I’m returning Mr Stirling’s call.’

  There was a pause. Pam sounded puzzled.

  ‘Mr Stirling’s call?’

  Now it was Ellie’s turn to feel uneasy. ‘Yes, I have a note here. He called at nine a.m. this morning.’

  ‘Just a moment, Miss Carter, I’ll check his office.’

  Ellie waited and in less than a minute Pam was back on the line, sounding just a little irritated.

  ‘He asked if you would be kind enough to hold while he finishes another call. I apologize for not knowing about his phone call, I gather he dialled the number direct himself.’

  The delay had given Ellie extra time to remain calm when Theo finally came on the line. If it flickered through her mind that she had long ceased to be afraid of him, she did not allow the thought to trouble her.

  ‘Why?’ she asked him, her mind careering over all the possible reasons he would need to talk to her, let alone join her for a drink.

  ‘Why not? I hear you’re making quite an impact down there.’

  ‘I’m not sure I agree with you, but if I am, does that mean that I might be useful to you in some way?’

  There was an infinitesimal pause.

  ‘Unfair, Eleanor, and not worthy of a good opponent. When have I ever suggested you might be useful to me?’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘I suppose because I still believe that making such an issue about Linton’s Field is unwise, and that you are travelling a road that can only cause misery to a lot of people who are not involved in any of this.’

  ‘You seem to be remarkably well informed about the roads I choose to travel,’ Ellie retorted. ‘What makes you think I’m travelling anywhere that would involve you?’

  ‘Because you’re the one who is involving me. I don’t ring anyone about you.’

  She felt uneasy. It had been a good five months since she had made all those phone calls, but she knew without even having to ask that her arrival back at Focus, coupled with the campaign locally, had made her appear once again a formidable opponent.

  She found she enjoyed the idea more than was decent. But trying to compose a sensible sentence to convince him that she meant business without sounding petulant and childishly rude proved a little trickier. Somehow, in direct confrontation with this man, her intended elegant speeches and coolly delivered criticism emerged closely resembling the ill-tempered rantings of a foot-stamping brat.

  For once she said nothing. Clive, she was convinced, would be ashamed of her.

  ‘Look, this is my private number,’ Theo was saying. ‘I’ll be there all weekend. I said once before and I meant it, if you want to talk, just phone me.’

  And then he rang off, leaving Ellie at a loss to know what to make of him, curious about why the loyal Roger Nelson no longer worked there and even more curious to notice that she had hastily scribbled down his number.

  The possibility of cancelling the campaign meeting occurred to her, but Joe was more bullish when she rang his office.

  ‘What can he do? Storm the meeting? He won’t do that. It’s not his style. And anyway, it’s not in his interests to appear the ogre once again. So far his name is still not in the arena.’

  Joe was right. She was panicking unnecessarily. She’d make a lousy general, she thought ruefully. In full retreat as soon as the enemy appeared on the horizon.

  Although that was not the case with Jerome Strachan. Thus far Ellie had had only one meeting with him and that in Ian’s office. Jerome had greeted her with a bluffness that didn’t deceive her, but mindful of Ian’s unvoiced hope that she was above openly enjoying his discomfort, she shook her old boss’s hand and, taking a leaf from Jonquil’s book, suggested they got straight down to work.

  To her delight Lucy had been asked to give Ellie what assistance she might need and her old office, now occupied part-time by another contract writer, was made available for her use on the days when she needed to be in the office.

  Now she rang Lucy and told her that she would not be in until Tuesday, and casually asked if Theo Stirlin
g had got her number from her.

  ‘Not from me, Ellie,’ said Lucy. ‘No-one’s asked.’

  ‘Lucy,’ Ellie said suddenly. ‘Can you find out for me – very discreetly — where a man called Roger Nelson is now working? He used to be Theo Stirling’s first lieutenant but he’s moved on. Don’t let Stirling’s aides know you want it. Ring their accounts office, say you’re the Inland Revenue just wanting to forward some papers — that might be a better starting point. By the way, did you ever hear from that woman who used to phone without leaving her name?’

  ‘No, not that I know of. Anyway, I always thought she was a nutter,’ said the matter-of-fact Lucy. ‘I shouldn’t give her a thought.’

  The clock above the dresser reminded Ellie that she had about forty minutes before she had to be on the train to Dorset. She didn’t want to think about that woman at all. But how odd that Theo Stirling should ring, and who had given him the number? She was, after all, ex-directory. And why had Roger Nelson left him? He had seemed so loyal.

  Leaving a message for Clive, who was taking his sons to Ireland for a week to see their grandparents, she headed for the West Country and the hot seat of ‘PrimeMovers’.

  *

  ‘Today PrimeMovers, tomorrow Insiders,’ crowed Oliver when Ellie finally arrived back at the cottage after the programme had gone out. ‘Eat your heart out, Brook Wetherby. We’ve taped the lot. You were great. God help you when Jonquil gets to you, or Taylor, come to that.’

  Exhausted, Ellie fell into one of the armchairs by the fire. ‘Oh, very kind of you, but I need to feel a lot stronger before I hear another word. I thought I would die laughing when General Brigstock said he would only answer my questions after he knew my views on corporal punishment.’