‘I was very concerned that once again you might have to sell Delcourt so I told Theo. To be honest, he thought I was overreacting and was inclined to let things shape themselves, but I couldn’t let the matter rest. Okay, conscience if you like. So Theo suggested putting a private bid in for the land; that way we could make sure nothing was ever built on it — eventually planning to offer it to Oliver for sale when your resources had improved. And it must be said, the idea of scoring points over Basil Oldburn appealed to him.’
‘But why not just say so?’ Ellie was fighting off a feeling that, like Alice, she had been dragged into a wonderland where the rules of normal living had been abandoned and the new ones made no sense at all.
‘Because after all that had happened, you might with good reason have wondered why the Stirling family cared what happened to you. It wouldn’t have made sense. And undoubtedly you might have asked questions. At least this way, the immediate danger would have been removed and Theo would have just registered the land in a company name. You would never have found out.
‘But once you did and you wouldn’t back off, he didn’t know what to do. He will now. When the time comes you must buy the land from him. But I guarantee there are no plans other than to safeguard your home. Er... you may have noticed, he’s used to getting his own way. This time he didn’t and it threw him a bit. So in the end he said nothing at all.’
And that, Ellie thought with horror, was perfectly true. She had just assumed, just believed. But when had he ever answered any of her questions? Never.
Oliver had his head in his hands. Ellie thought dying was too much to ask for. They looked at each other and read each other’s thoughts. Dad. Charming, entertaining, charismatic and utterly, utterly contemptible.
No wonder he had been horrified about the campaign. No surprise he didn’t want the past dragged up. How typical of him to hide behind women. Emily, their mother, then Aunt Belle, then Ria and finally Alison.
Hating him was easy. Knowing she did was hard to bear.
Jill had been so right. No man who loved his children could have left them with an appalling legacy such as the one John Carter had now unleashed on his. Thinking only of his own life being disrupted, uncaring about the quality of theirs, he could not conceive that his children might have inherited a more thoughtful, more caring nature from their mother.
‘Theo tried so hard to make you accept him, Eleanor.’ Ria smiled sadly. ‘And I don’t think he blames you for one moment, reacting as you did. I just couldn’t bear to see him as unhappy as he was in Venice. I’ve never seen him so distraught. When you refused to meet me, I knew it was time for the older generation to become accountable for their past.’
Oliver was recovering more quickly than Ellie and in a very subdued voice he asked Ria what would happen now.
‘Your father has already told Alison but she had always — like you, Oliver — thought there was more to it. She knew the house couldn’t have realized that sort of cash, but she didn’t want to lose the chance to solve all the problems going on. Remember she hadn’t agreed to marry your father — sorry, asked him to marry her — at that time. She loves John, he’s very lucky indeed.’
On the small table next to her, there was a photograph of Ellie as a child standing behind her father in the garden at Delcourt, her arms clasped round his neck, Oliver sitting wedged between his knees. Ria picked it up and gazed at it for a long while.
‘Very lucky,’ she repeated. ‘He clearly was devoted to you both.’
Ellie and Oliver glanced at each other. The photograph had been taken by Aunt Belle. They had searched the house for their father and after much protesting he had been dragged into the garden for the snapshot.
Devoted to them? No, Ellie thought and her childhood ran through her mind. Days of playing alone with Oliver, or being carted off by Aunt Belle so that they wouldn’t disturb Daddy painting.
At eight she went away to boarding school and recalled days telling her friends that her father was on an important assignment, which was why he so often missed founder’s day or sports day. And even the day Ellie won the literature prize and took home a silver cup, carefully packed in her luggage to proudly show her father, she had consoled herself that he was just busy when he said vaguely, ‘Lovely, darling. Tell me all about it at tea.’
Even now she was convinced it wasn’t indifference to them. John Carter didn’t know his children, because he had never really stopped being a child himself. Looking at Ria, so anxious now to put right what she and her father had set in motion all those years ago, Ellie felt a grudging tug of respect for her, but she wasn’t ready to forgive. Ria or her father.
‘That’s the wrong word, Ria,’ she said, since honesty seemed to be on the agenda. ‘I think he was devoted to an image. The reality was too much trouble. I don’t know about Oliver, but I’m not ready yet to decide what I think about all that you’ve told us.
‘You see, for years we lived under this shadow. No child should have to do that. No, I’m not saying it was all your fault. Dad is dreadfully at fault too. But Theo and his sisters didn’t have to make sacrifices, they didn’t have to leave a home they were secure in. They didn’t have to live with the knowledge that the world thought — oh God, knew — their father was a crook.’
Ria flinched. There was nothing she could say to contradict Ellie. She looked at the angry young woman and turned pleadingly to Oliver.
‘Don’t think I don’t realize it now. But do you think if we had known any of this, that I would have allowed it to go on? Of course not. But we didn’t know. John had told the solicitors that everything had worked out for the best. Remember, unlike you, he loathed Delcourt. Going to Devon and starting the gallery was his idea of bliss. Tell me, if your own father thinks you’re happy, how on earth is anyone else to know that you’re not?’
The extent of their father’s obsession with his own self interest was the hardest part to bear. Both Ellie and Oliver knew that their greatest enemy in life had not after all been Theo Stirling but their own father.
It was, as Ellie much later told Jill, a moment when she had to accept that much of her life had been based on a falsehood. She felt broken, used, that her life had been pure invention, not real at all.
Oliver went over to where she was sitting with her head in her hands and knelt down. Fleetingly she looked at him, gave a little shake of her head and slowly raised her eyes to his.
‘I can’t do it, Oliver,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t ask me. He’s hurt me... you... all of us... so much.’
Oliver leaned forward and placed his hand over hers. ‘C’mon, El, give it a chance,’ he urged. ‘We’ve been through so much together. I want to try but I can’t do it without you. Please, El.’
He waited, watching her, willing her to find the forgiveness that he knew was tangled up in the confusion, the shock, the disbelief that comes in the wake of knowing you have been lied to. It was too soon. Ellie thought of Clive having to come to terms with losing her, thought of Aunt Belle who had loyally remained quiet out of love and respect for her dead sister’s children, of Jill who had known John Carter was weak and feckless and loved Oliver too much to hurt him by telling him. And Theo? Theo indeed.
It was too much to ask. Not yet. Ellie looked at Oliver’s anxious face and gave him a lopsided smile. ‘Give me time, Oliver, let me try and make sense of it all. Just time.’
Silently Oliver watched her. She leaned forward and pressed her cheek against his. And then she addressed herself to Ria.
‘Worked out for the best for Dad,’ she said bluntly. ‘For you, for Theo. But not for me and Oliver. However, I can see that it took great courage to come and tell us all this.’
Oliver nodded agreement. ‘But what about you, Ria?’ he asked gently. ‘What about Robert, does he know? Will you tell him?’
The apprehension on Ria Stirling’s face and in her voice told them all they needed to know.
She said simply, ‘No, he doesn’t know. But I wil
l tell him.’
‘What do you think he’ll say?’
Ria shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I know I love him very much and I hope he loves me enough to understand. Maybe even to forgive.’
She started to leave. Having started out regarding her with abject hostility, Ellie now had a grudging respect for her. To risk her marriage so that others wouldn’t be destroyed was an awesome step. While she was not entirely certain just how deep Ria’s feelings went for her husband as opposed to the lifestyle he represented, Oliver appeared to have no such qualms.
‘If Robert’s got any sense,’ said Oliver gruffly, ‘he’ll just be grateful he’s got a wife who cares enough to try and put things right.’
‘And a son,’ Ria said, looking directly at Ellie. ‘Thank you, Oliver. May I come and see Delcourt sometime? Curiously enough it doesn’t hold bad memories for me, not any more. Goodbye, my dears,’ and she held out a hand to each of them.
‘Don’t go just yet,’ Ellie said. ‘There are some things I need to know. Maybe you know the answers. I mean for example why do Caroline Granger and Matt Harksey hate Theo?’
Ria looked puzzled and sat down again.
‘I know Matt does, but then I loathe him. But Caroline doesn’t. She adores Theo. Why?’
Ellie was beginning to panic. ‘Because he threw her out. He was going to marry her, wasn’t he?’
‘Marry Caroline?’ she exclaimed. ‘Good heavens, no. Caroline is the daughter of some of our oldest friends, she and Theo practically grew up together. Why?’
Fright made Ellie almost incoherent. ‘But why did he throw her out?’
Ria was regarding Ellie in amazement.
‘Throw her out? Of course he didn’t. He made her go home. That’s quite different. You see, in New York, Caroline got in with the wrong crowd, started doing drugs. Her parents threw her out so Theo said she could stay with him, provided she worked as his personal assistant and stayed away from cocaine. And with a great struggle that’s what she did. She had treatment, started getting her life together and Theo really thought she was on the mend. It’s neither of their faults that the press linked their names, after all she was living there.
‘Matt Harksey, who was in charge of the US operation, is a different story. You see, while Robert was in England, Harksey became heavily involved in a drug racket — of course we didn’t know — all Robert knew was that suddenly under Matt the company was doubling its figures. It was of course drugs — or rather the profit from them — in return for contracts. But when the police began to monitor Matt’s activities, they told Robert and he was so shocked, he kind of went to pieces.
‘Theo came back from England, fired Harksey and the guys on the board who were turning a blind eye to it all, and said if any of them ever tried to challenge their dismissal he would have them put away for twenty years. It was a pretty awful time. But I suppose they had to tell their families something about why they were fired, so they blamed Theo. Once the drug money went, the figures plummeted. But through sheer hard work and bloody-minded obstinacy, he turned it around.
‘As an act of revenge, Harksey got hold of Caroline. She was still vulnerable. Theo arrived back one night and found Harksey and some other drop-outs in his flat and clearly supplying Caroline with drugs. Of course he threw them out. But he didn’t throw Caroline out. He just told her she had to go into rehab — and surprisingly she did. After that she went back home to live with her parents in Ireland where she now helps young drug addicts. She’s a dear girl at heart, we’re all terribly fond of her.’
Ellie sat almost paralysed with fright. Then if it wasn’t Caroline on the phone, who was it? Someone pretending to be her. She stopped dead.
Pretending.
Acting.
It couldn’t have been. Dear God, surely not?
Ellie, frantically trying to pull her disordered mind into shape, cut right across Ria telling Oliver about Caroline’s new life.
‘Ria... did... does Debra Carlysle know about Caroline?’
‘Debra? Yes, of course. She met Theo through Max Culver at about the time Theo had persuaded Caroline to go back to Ireland. I think she found out by chance.’
Ellie barely heard the rest of the discussion. It had to be Carlysle. But what about Jessica? Jessica! Not Jessica, but Suki. It was the voice, not the face, that was familiar. That whiny, dull, flat voice. But why?
‘He’s going to marry Debra Carlysle, isn’t he?’ Oliver was saying as Ellie dived to the phone.
Ria gave him a worried frown. ‘I know he wants to build a house in Willetts Green. Our house is lovely but he once said he wouldn’t want to take his wife — when he marries — to live there. Besides, Robert hankers after the old place from time to time, and my daughters want to hang on to their English roots. And there’s too much of his father there, I suppose,’ she laughed.
‘But I know,’ she said, looking at Ellie struggling into her coat, ‘he’d like to put down roots… Oliver? Where’s she gone?’
Chapter Thirty-two
The cab dropped her outside Debra’s apartment. Furiously Ellie pressed the buzzer and kept her finger on it, until a scared-looking Suki opened the door a fraction. Seeing Ellie she immediately tried to slam the door. But she wasn’t quick enough.
Ellie pushed past her. ‘Where’s Debra?’ she demanded. ‘C’mon, tell me right now or believe me I’ll make life very painful for you.’
Suki looked terrified. Her eyes were like saucers. ‘She’s gone... gone to the States with Mr Stirling.’
‘If you’re lying it will be the worse for you.’ Ellie had never felt so violent. And that was just for hearing Debra had gone with Theo to the States.
‘Look, you get out of here,’ bleated Suki.
Ellie slammed the door shut and pushed Suki ahead of her into the vast white drawing room where Debra Carlysle had gone to such pains to throw her out of Theo’s life.
‘I will,’ she said grimly. ‘When you tell me why you allowed yourself to be talked into impersonating someone else. Don’t you realize the damage you’ve done?’
‘Damage? What damage?’ Suki’s face was grey. Ellie thought she looked really ill, but in her anger and panic was too far gone to care.
Suki’s voice was a whimper as Ellie backed her against the wall. ‘Pretending to be Jessica, and probably Caroline Granger as well. Are you completely mad?’
‘Debra just said she needed to know I could be convincing before she introduced me to her agent!’ Suki shrieked. ‘She said I just had to fool you into thinking I was them.’
‘Why?’ shouted Ellie. But she didn’t have to be told. She’d walked right into it. Once she had written a pack of damaging lies about Theo, Debra knew he would never speak to Ellie again. Clearly the woman was prepared to go to any lengths to hang on to him. Quite obviously Suki wasn’t lying. Her face had terror written all over it.
‘She said she would tell you when I’d made you think I was them. She must have told you? Oh shit, don’t tell me you didn’t know?’
Ellie didn’t even bother to answer. ‘When’s Debra coming back?’
Suki shook her head and there was a desperation about her that Ellie thought was pitiful.
‘I’ve got to be out of here tonight. I thought she would let me stay, but she’s given up the lease of the flat.’
Ellie didn’t know who was the most damaged, Suki or Debra. For the first time she looked properly at the pathetic creature in front of her, with her lank hair, dry, cracked skin, someone who had a greater need in life than to find work an actress.
‘How much did she pay you?’ Ellie asked in a kinder voice.
‘Enough,’ muttered the girl wearily. ‘She helped... with some problems.’
Ellie knew it was pointless trying to tell her to get real help. Debra had clearly never troubled herself with anything so positive as getting drug counselling for this pitifully skinny girl, with circles so black around her eyes she looked bruised. Debra had simply used someone prepared
to do anything to get the money to fuel a far more dreadful addiction than fame to get her what she wanted.
Ellie and Suki had been the victims of a terrible hoax. And Theo was going to be the loser. She couldn’t think about that now. She had to move fast.
‘Where do your parents live?’ she asked.
‘My parents? Manchester. Why?’
‘Tomorrow I’m going to arrange for a train ticket for you to go there. I’ll leave it at the reception at my office. I won’t give you money, you’ll only use it on something else you actually don’t need. Here,’ she pushed her card into Suki’s hand. Suki just stared at it. ‘That’s the address. Use the ticket. Go home. Get help. Now where’s the phone?’
She had to tell Jerome. Get him to switch the features.
‘Mr Strachan is at the theatre,’ came the irritated voice of what appeared to be a live-in girlfriend who was in no mood to linger. Somewhere it registered that this wasn’t Sonya — another time Ellie would have laughed. Roland with Judith, Jerome and Sonya. Some things obviously went with the job.
‘Which theatre?’ demanded Ellie.
‘How should I know?’ said the bored voice. ‘He didn’t say. Just said he’d be back much later.’
The indifference in the girl’s voice enraged Ellie. Slamming down the receiver she drummed her fingers on the table. Typical of Strachan. On press night. Just wandered off into the blue. No number or address.
Oh grief. The printers. They’ve got to be stopped. They worked through the night. Focus was due to start printing at three. It was now nearly ten. The feature on Theo had to be removed. Something put in it’s place. Stefano’s ball. That would do it. But the original copy was still at the office.
Ellie ignored the voice in her head telling her it was impossible. The only justification she could think of to satisfy Jerome when she found him, on the vast expense she was about to incur, was that the cost in libel damages and damage to Focus’s reputation, if it were published, would be that much again.
Another Way Page 39