‘Okay, that I can understand, but why didn’t your father fight the accusation? After all, you and Oliver and Alison believed him. The evidence was certainly against him, but a good lawyer might have been able to help.’
‘Huh!’ Ellie’s laugh was mirthless. ‘No-one would touch him without money up front. Not against powerful people like the Stirlings. Lawyers are expensive. Besides Dad isn’t a fighter, he just wanted to go away.’
Knowing John Carter that was something Jed could readily believe. He simply walked away from reality. Ellie always explained it as being vague, you know, she would say, like artists are. But Jed more than once had thought John Carter’s feelings for his children came a poor second to his own.
Briefly Ellie told him how Oliver, many years later, had re-bought the house and the real reason why she so desperately wanted to keep Jed from writing about Theo returning to Dorset.
‘It was such a scandal at the time. I didn’t want to put Dad through it all again. Or us. It was all so squalid. People avoiding us. Aunt Belle storming off simply confirmed everyone’s belief that there must be something in it. And it will ruin Oliver if that land is built on. But Theo doesn’t seem to care, he just wants to build Carlysle a new house and some other development. She didn’t know what, and honestly, she didn’t seem to care much. I bet you after all that she doesn’t even live in the bloody place.’
‘And that’s why he doesn’t want you to write about him,’ said Jed, who privately thought Ellie could make a fortune if she sold her story to one of the tabloids. ‘He’d look like such a shit, everyone would be on your — I mean Oliver’s — side.’
Jed was staring into his coffee. Turning his head, he looked at Ellie and frowned.
‘What doesn’t make sense is why Theo wants to return to his roots? I mean, with respect, Willetts Green isn’t New York or LA and that’s what he’s used to.’
Ellie shrugged. ‘He also owns land in Ireland, Clive told me, and he has a farmhouse in Wales. So why not?’
‘There is that, I suppose. Most people do want to go home eventually, except for myself of course. In fact the very idea makes me feel very nervous.’
Ellie smiled for the first time. There were never any secrets between her and Jed and the relief of just confessing to him was giving her a strength she never thought she would find again.
‘I believed Theo when he said he wanted a truce,’ she told him, describing the previous weekend’s events. ‘I thought I had misjudged him. He was so gentle and sweet when he dragged me out of the sea, and made me laugh and I had begun to think, stupidly, that we could reach a compromise. And all the time he was fooling me.’
Jed watched her thoughtfully when she recounted her interview with Debra.
The doorbell rang sharply and Jed went away to take delivery of the pizzas he had ordered. He deposited them in Ellie’s kitchen which was now warm and comfortable to sit in.
Returning to the bedroom, he started gathering up cups and piling them on to the tray he’d brought in. Just watching Ellie and listening to her he had arrived at a great many conclusions himself. As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, pushing her hair into some kind of order, she followed him into the kitchen where between mouthfuls of the first food she had eaten in days, she told Jed about her final meeting with Theo and the dreadful outfit she’d worn.
‘It offended everything Rosie holds dear, I thought she was going to faint with horror.’
‘But that isn’t why you were sitting in the dark, half drunk, is it?’
The question caught her by surprise and Jed heard her sharp intake of breath.
‘Is it?’ he persisted.
‘No,’ she mumbled and then, her voice breaking in a half sob, she pushed her plate away and turned to gaze bleakly at him. ‘I’ve fallen in love with him, Jed. Isn’t that the dumbest thing you ever heard?’
Chapter Twenty-eight
January opened with freezing snow. The staff of Focus slipped and sloshed their way into the office. Ellie took Jed down to Delcourt and on her return went down with a heavy cold which in her low spirits felt like flu.
She turned down dinner with Brook Wetherby — who had been aware that the interview that finally appeared was too critical for his liking and wanted to polish his image — and watched Paul go through a series of girlfriends, all of whom he flaunted in front of her.
She thought he was boring.
She also ran into Roger-Nelson in a restaurant where she was meeting Amanda — on a flying visit to see her gynaecologist — for lunch. Ellie hesitated, not certain she wanted that part of her life to be resurrected, not knowing what else they would talk about but Theo. But in the event he saw her first and insisted that she join him at the bar for a drink since both their lunch companions had yet to arrive.
‘Pam Winterman mentioned that you had asked where I had gone, so I rang you. I don’t think you were really that interested, you never returned the call.’
So that was it, not Lucy being indiscreet after all. Ellie gave him a vague reply. ‘I just wanted to commiserate, after all you had been helpful to me. Getting the sack isn’t easy — or being made redundant.’
‘Not sacked — far too crude,’ he said with a raised eyebrow. ‘Just asked to consider a couple of options that were frankly demotions.’
‘But why? I got the impression you were invaluable to him?’
‘Oh, my dear,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘What a wonderfully romantic notion you journalists have about city life.’
Ellie flushed. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry...’
‘No, no, I’m sorry. Old story, familiar one. I took a week’s leave while he was in New York. I was feeling quite wrecked and needed a break, but some crisis blew up and when I got back I found I had been blown out.’
Ellie was shocked. ‘Didn’t he know you were away?’
‘Doubt it. All he knows is whether something is done or not. He really doesn’t give a shit about past or present performance. It’s what use you are to him at that moment that counts — which is why I laughed when you used the word "invaluable". Doesn’t exist for him.’ He looked curiously at her. ‘Er... the word was that you were going to stitch him up, but you never did. Is that why he saw you that day?’
Ellie felt unreal. Sick. She wished Amanda would hurry up. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said quietly and then seeing him expecting her to go on, she lied. ‘As a journalist, I was really just interested in a society story, you know, gossipy stuff, about him and... and... well, his latest companion I suppose.’
Roger Nelson indicated to the barman to refill his glass. Ellie noticed the puffy lines around his eyes, the tiny red veins on his cheeks.
‘Who are you working for now?’ she asked, glad to be able to turn the subject.
‘Oh, you know, this and that,’ he said carelessly. ‘Matter of fact I’m meeting someone now who’s interested in me joining them.’
‘Well, lots of luck,’ Ellie said, beginning to slide off the stool, seeing Amanda arriving in a whirlwind of parcels and tousled hair.
‘It’s funny, you know,’ said Roger. ‘I thought he was interested in you, but the delicious Debra seems much more his cup of tea. Wasting her time though. He isn’t the marrying kind. And he doesn’t care what anyone says about him. His first wife could tell you that, poor cow.’
Ellie didn’t want anyone to tell her anything ever again about Theo Stirling. It wasn’t easy knowing she had served her purpose. She just thanked God that she had got out before she had made a complete fool of herself and that Clive had never known.
As she hugged Amanda and squealed with delight that Amanda’s doctor had confirmed her pregnancy, she wondered why, although she had escaped with pride and dignity nearly intact, it was no comfort at all.
Half way through the month, after his sons had returned to school, Clive came back from Joanne’s, subdued and bitterly regretting staying in the country instead of bringing the boys back to London.
‘We talk, and we agree, and then she always, well, one of us,’ he amended with commendable honesty, ‘one of us can’t help raking over the ashes and then we’re off and of course by that time I’ve promised the boys any manner of things that we’ll be doing together so I can’t just up sticks. D’ye see?’
It sounded like hell. Just the way they were when they’d been married, if he had of course given her a reliable description of the troubled O’Connell-Moore union. Ellie smiled at him and ruffled his hair.
‘No, I don’t see. But then I’ve never been married. I’m sure it’s quite different, isn’t it?’
‘It’s different, all right,’ he growled. ‘And I doubt I’ll be repeating the experience.’
Ellie tried to look and sound shocked.
‘Mr O’Connell Moore.’ Her voice was severe. ‘What are you trying to tell me? Have you been having your wicked way with me with no thought of making an honest woman of me?’
They were in bed at Clive’s apartment, the television still on after they’d finished watching the late movie. The floor around the bed was cluttered as always with evidence of the tasks Clive had been engaged in immediately before they’d fallen into bed.
Clive didn’t move, just turned his head very slowly, apprehensively, as Ellie went on eating chocolate chip ice cream straight from the tub, trying not to laugh.
‘Is that what you want?’ His voice sounded uneasy. ‘Because if you did, I would, but it wouldn’t work, and then I’d lose you as well.’
It wasn’t quite what Ellie had expected. She had just wanted to tease him. But then quite suddenly she had to know. Had to know for once in her life where she stood. What was all this about?
‘It’s about,’ he said, ‘me and you and time standing still. Not fraught with decisions, no past, no future, just the here and now. You with that tub of ice cream. Me with no other thought than how beautiful you are, and not wanting to think about anything else. Does that make sense?’
Ellie looked down at him lying beside her, his arms behind his head, eyes closed, very still. And she knew, just knew, that in his own way he was praying that she would not want to change anything, to leave everything as it was at this moment, but if she had wanted something more he would have moved mountains to meet her needs. And she knew she would do the same for him.
Very gently she began to stroke his head, and eased herself down in the bed beside him.
‘And what if I say, no, it doesn’t make any sense, that I want a future?’
He opened his eyes and sighed and flicked the remote control switch on the television to off.
‘I would do my best to make you happy. But I don’t think you would be. I’ve got too much luggage in my life and I don’t think you’d put up with me for long.’
‘Do you know,’ she said, resting her head on his chest, sliding her arms around him, ‘I have the strangest feeling that it’s you who wouldn’t put up with me. And no, I don’t want to go forward or back or sideways or any other way. I just want to be here, shut away. Not thinking. Not... not anything.’
She felt his hand tilt her chin up so that he could look down into her face. A lock of hair had fallen across her brow and he gently moved it aside and when he spoke her heart lurched.
‘For someone who should be looking forward to everything life has to offer, you sound remarkably like someone who’s running away. Now I wonder why I think that?’
‘You think too much,’ she said with a casualness that she hoped would disguise the ache that her eyes, her face could so easily betray. ‘And I nearly forgot to tell you, Letty’s asked me to do a special when Jonquil comes back at the end of the month.’
‘Idiot,’ he said affectionately. ‘And what else have you forgotten to tell me?’
‘Apart from the fact that I promised Gemma we would baby sit for her on Saturday, that’s all,’ she said as he switched out the light.
It wasn’t, of course. She hadn’t told him about Theo. Not yet. But then what really was there to tell him about something that had ceased to exist?
*
At the end of February she read in the morning papers that Theo was due in England for a week en route to Paris. Ellie chose that week to go to Lanzarote with Rosie.
Jonquil had returned to her job a week earlier than expected and while Ellie was sad to leave PrimeMovers Letty was keen for her to sign to do half a dozen hour-long specials, so she wouldn’t be saying goodbye to them after all. Her career was looking rosy.
But neither she nor Letty were, of course, prepared for the unedifying sight of Jonquil almost blind with fury storming the MD’s office, unable to believe the opportunity hadn’t been offered to her.
‘But Jonquil, it was you who insisted on signing the contract to keep you on PrimeMovers for the next twelve months,’ Letty pointed out, and stood hastily aside as the new mother stormed out of the office, seemingly incapable of speech unless it was no more than four letters at a time.
It was only because Jerome persuaded her that Ellie backed off from trying to get out of going to Venice to interview Prince Stefano Ferrucini.
‘I know it’s just another charity ball,’ the editor explained. ‘But Bentley’s a friend of his and we’ve got exclusive coverage. And at this stage it would be difficult to explain why you’re not going.’
He had long since abandoned any attempt to order her around and it was partly a recognition of that which made Ellie resist the temptation to dig her heels in. She said nothing but she knew he was being leaned on. A society ball did not require three writers to cover it. Bentley Goodman was clearly into social mobility. Ellie had as yet only glimpsed him from a distance. The great man rarely visited his foot soldiers and even more rarely invited them to see him.
Knowing she had a busy spring ahead and might not get away again until the end of the summer, Ellie also squeezed in a visit to her father in Devon and reported back to Oliver that he was ridiculously unreasonable whenever she mentioned the campaign.
‘I think he feels guilty that he didn’t fight to keep Delcourt more than he did,’ said Oliver. ‘I don’t think it hit him until recently how badly affected you and I were.’
The echo of Jill’s belief that their father had cared very little how it would affect them came back to Ellie and she was forced to accept that her sister-in-law might be right.
Except that she found it hard to read a newspaper that mentioned Theo, and couldn’t bear not to read about him either, nor could she stand to have white flowers in the house, Ellie was happier with her life than she would have thought possible only a few short months before.
Clive was her constant, if unpredictable, companion and if she had ceased to believe that he no longer felt emotionally tied to his former wife, she had learned to accept that emotional luggage could be stored away with a sign saying not needed on the next voyage. She could not, however, bring herself to say not wanted.
Her days were now divided almost equally between London and Dorset, where her reputation was now established, and she had even been asked to open a local fete. She blushingly declined.
As February drew to a close, Gemma and Bill shrieking with excitement came flying down to her flat and dragged Ellie and Clive upstairs to celebrate Bill’s new job.
‘Not what I wanted,’ he beamed, pouring the inevitable Bollinger that Clive had grabbed from Ellie’s fridge as Amy promptly woke up and refused to go back to sleep. ‘Hell of a journey each day — over to Blackheath,’ he said, looking doubtfully at Clive who was cuddling a now content Amy, sucking avidly on his little finger which he had dipped in champagne. ‘But so what? It’s a start, isn’t it, Gem?’
A start. That’s all she had asked for, and all Bill had wanted. They smiled at each other. Ellie understood.
So enveloped now in the life she had created for herself out of the ashes of her former existence, she would sometimes try and recall what it was like having a diary that allowed for only a meticulously planned life, no spontaneity, no impulsive tre
ats. If anything she was more ambitious than ever; she loved being at the centre of things, she knew she always would. But Ellie no longer wanted a life that revolved around politically correct organizations, ducking and diving trying to stay one step ahead of office politics and dining with the right people.
Good grief, she smiled a few days later, looking in at Clive inexpertly trying to whip up omelettes in his kitchen, roaring his refusal to accept her help, and wondered how she could ever have thought, before all of this, that she was having fun.
Inevitably she ran into people she no longer regarded as important in her life, and to her shame, but satisfaction, she notched up each encounter as an old score finally settled.
Liz Smedley was mentally ticked off the list when she ran into Ellie in Sloane Street and suggested lunch.
‘Lunch?’ said Ellie, leaning her head to one side and considering the idea. ‘Mmm. No, I don’t think so, Liz, but thanks for asking,’ and she waved and walked on.
Later as she flopped down in her seat Liz told a frankly disbelieving Anne Copley, that Ellie Carter was plain bloody rude.
‘Anyone would think she was still ruling the roost instead of lucky to have got back into things again,’ Liz said, stabbing butter on to a roll that was taking the full vent of her fury.
They were lunching at a newly opened salad bar that had, for reasons no-one could quite fathom, become the rage overnight. Reservations were hard to get and no-one worth their expenses would be seen dead on the waiting list. Liz had one eye on the menu and one sweeping the room for confirmation that she was lunching in the right place and broke off to hiss at Anne.
‘Don’t look now, Beth Wickham has just come in with Tony Travers. Is it true they’re an item? Anyway, bloody Miss Carter said she was too busy. And to think when she was out of work, she was ringing me nonstop to see if I could help. I even offered to take her to lunch. Never again,’ she seethed.
‘And did you?’ asked Anne Copley, who felt rather uneasy that Ellie had been left to it when she lost her job. But then, she comforted herself, it was probably what she wanted. So embarrassing.
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