Ellie avoided his eyes and bit her lower lip while trying to think of a reasonable explanation. But Tia’s sobs filled the room. How could anything compete with it? She didn’t need to explain anyway; she saw his eyes widen as he realised what had happened.
‘Success in a minor skirmish? Really?’ Will said, looking at her, disappointment in his eyes. He shook his head, then ignored her while he crouched down beside Tia again and spoke soothingly to her.
Helplessly, feeling like a child again, Ellie looked on. Tia had been fine until Will came home, hadn’t she? She’d been singing along to the music in the kitchen? She’s manipulating us, she wanted to shout at him, and she’s bloody good at it. She always was. But she knew there was no point.
A few minutes later, Will stood, and took Tia’s hand. ‘It’s fine, honestly,’ he said to her. ‘We’ll put them back. You were right, the frames looked much better on the hall table.’
Ellie didn’t move as they collected the frames and flowers and returned them to the place Tia had chosen. ‘They look much better there,’ he said before moving her gently toward the stairs. ‘Why don’t you go wash your face,’ he said, ‘dinner will be ready soon.’
Ellie leaned against the kitchen doorway and looked at him. ‘So, if I start crying now,’ she said, trying to disguise the hurt in her voice, ‘are you going to move them back?’
‘Are you going to start crying?’ he asked, keeping his tone measured. He waited until she shook her head before continuing, ‘Well then, that’s that sorted, isn’t it?’
He passed her without another word, sat down and picked up his wine.
Ellie stared at the photograph frames and wanted to smash them all, one by one; she just wasn’t sure over whose head she wanted to smash them. As she stood with her eyes filling and her lower lip trembling, the only thing she could cling to was the fact that Tia wasn’t going to be with them for much longer.
16
They barely spoke over dinner. Will ate, rinsed his plate in the sink before putting it into the dishwasher and left the kitchen saying he had work to do. Ellie, her lasagne only half-eaten, toyed with a few more mouthfuls before dropping her fork and reaching for the wine bottle. She filled her glass and lifted it to her mouth, holding it there as she looked at Tia over the rim. She seemed completely oblivious to the trouble she’d caused. Ellie sipped, swilled the wine around her mouth and swallowed. She supposed she could have handled it better. Sighing, she took another, bigger mouthful of wine and wished alcohol helped.
Putting her plate in the dishwasher, Ellie took her glass through to the sitting room, closing the door after her. She was tempted to turn the key in the lock, wanting to wallow in self-pity for a while but she didn’t. Not, she admitted, because she was afraid of offending Tia who seemed to prefer the living room television anyway, but she hoped Will would come down and sit with her once he had cooled off.
The hope dwindled as her glass emptied. It crossed her mind to go and refill it but, instead, she left the glass on the table and went to look for Will. He rarely worked from home; it was, she guessed, a pretext for avoiding her. Sighing, she headed to their bedroom. He wasn’t there so she opened the door into the small spare bedroom and found him sitting on a rickety old chair among boxes of seldom-worn clothes and stuff they’d brought from her previous home but had no need for here.
‘We really should go through these boxes some time and take a lot of this stuff to charity shops,’ she said, leaning against the door frame.
‘The recycling centre is probably more appropriate,’ he said, his eyes on the laptop open on the box in front of him.
‘It’s not rubbish,’ she said, mock offended. ‘There’s priceless and valuable stuff in them.’ She waited for him to say something, but he kept tapping away on the keyboard. ‘Does it taste sweet?’ she asked.
Curiosity made him turn to look at her, their eyes meeting. Nothing was said for a moment, until with a shake of his head, he said, ‘I give in, does what taste sweet?’
‘The frosty icing you’ve covered yourself in,’ she said.
He groaned and then laughed. ‘Jesus, Ellie, that’s awful.’
She smiled. ‘It was the best I could come up with.’
Shaking his head, he tapped a few keys and then closed the laptop and looked at her. ‘She was only trying to be nice, Ellie. You could just have left things as she wanted. And,’ he added, rubbing salt into her wounds, ‘you must admit, she has a good eye.’
There was no better time to break her news. Ellie pushed away from the door frame and moved to stand in front of him. ‘We agreed we’d give it a go, Will, and that if it didn’t work out, we’d find her somewhere better to live. Well, it’s not working.’ She paused and tried to read his face. Whatever he was thinking, it wasn’t written there. His face was set, eyes cool. Was he listening, or judging?
She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold. ‘I can’t do it, Will. I’ve found a place, in Brighton. Sheltered housing where she can live as she did in St Germaine’s. There’s even the possibility of a job in a cafe in the grounds.’ She was babbling. She stopped abruptly and waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, she asked, ‘Well, what do you think?’
He stood up suddenly, startling her. ‘I need a drink,’ he said, ‘let’s go downstairs.’
Ellie bit her lip. That he didn’t immediately agree worried her. Couldn’t he see it wasn’t working? Luckily, Tia had gone to her room, so they sat where they had sat earlier, around the island, the cold granite under their hands only slightly warmer than the atmosphere that hung over them both. Ellie was tempted to try another joke, but looking at his face, she guessed the moment had gone. She took the bottle of wine from the fridge and poured him a glass before turning to put the kettle on. He sat silently until she’d made a mug of tea and perched on the stool opposite.
‘So, what do you think?’ she asked.
‘I think you’re being unfair,’ he said. ‘She’s only been here a short time, she’s hardly had time to settle in and now you want to move her again.’ His brow furrowed. ‘I don’t understand why you want her to go, she seems happy here. I was a little worried initially but she’s no problem and, you have to admit, she keeps the place very clean.’
Ellie smiled sadly. ‘I told you how I felt when we were children—’
‘Yes, but you’re not children any more,’ he interrupted her.
She knew how childish she was going to sound, but she couldn’t stop herself. ‘You took her side, Will. You comforted her and made a fuss over her. You let her win.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ he said, running a hand over his hair, ‘she was in tears, what was I supposed to do?’
‘She was manipulating you.’ Ellie half-laughed, half-pleaded, standing up and moving to the window. ‘And, when I look back, I can see now it was what she always did. Always.’ She turned back to stare at him. ‘She was singing along to that blasted country music just minutes before you came in, Will. There was no indication she was upset until you came home with a shoulder for her to cry on.’
She came back to her stool and sat. ‘Sometimes I see her looking at me with such a—’
‘Please don’t say evil look, Ellie,’ he said with a shake of his head, ‘this is getting ridiculous.’
‘I wasn’t going to say evil,’ she said quietly. ‘I was going to say calculating. I told you before, I feel as if she’s constantly weighing me up.’ She picked up her tea and cradled the mug between her two hands. ‘I thought you understood, Will. I did try to explain before she came.’
‘You said you resented her because she got more attention than you did and you felt people loved her more than you. But you were a child, Ellie, you’re not a child any more,’ he said.
She sipped her tea pensively and then put the mug down, keeping her hands around it. ‘She got so much more of everything but when I looked at her, I saw myself and I didn’t understand.’ Her eyes lost focus for a moment, she gave a quick sha
ke of her head and continued. ‘There wasn’t a huge difference between us then, she was slower, more forgetful but that was all really. I remember thinking that people must see something special in her to love her so much more than me. When we were separated, people thought I’d be upset.’ She met his gaze without faltering. ‘I wasn’t. Not in the slightest. For once, I was just me, Ellie.’ She played with the mug in front of her, looking into it as if the answer to her dilemma was written there. She gave a short laugh. ‘When we agreed to have her here, it never entered my head that we would still look so alike. And then you came home,’ she looked at him accusingly, ‘and you couldn’t tell us apart.’
Will reached a hand out, but she moved away.
‘And now,’ Ellie went on, ‘I see myself in her every day, but softer—’ She held her hand up when Will tried to interrupt. ‘No, let me finish, she is a softer version of me, why wouldn’t she be, for pity’s sake? She’s never had to worry about exam results, interviews, guys like Jeff Harper just waiting in the wings to kick you when you’re down.’ She gulped, the sound loud in the silence.
‘Harper isn’t going to steal your job,’ Will said, grasping the only part of her explanation she assumed he really understood. There was silence for a few minutes. ‘I think you’re just overwrought,’ he said. ‘A lot has happened in the last few weeks. I know you don’t want to discuss it, but what the consultant said must have hit you hard.’
Her fingers tightened on the handle of the mug. If it broke and cut her, she doubted if she’d feel it. ‘Overwrought,’ she said, ‘how very Victorian. Next you’ll be asking me if I need smelling salts.’
‘Sarcasm isn’t helping, Ellie.’
She gulped again before putting what she felt into words she knew he would understand. ‘What the consultant said? Yes, don’t you realise, Will? Tia is literally everything I’m not; she can have children. And I can’t bear it any longer.’
Will shook his head. ‘It’s not her fault, Ellie,’ he said softly.
No, it wasn’t. And nor was Tia’s vulnerability Ellie’s fault. Two different accidents of birth. They’d both missed out.
Ellie lifted her chin. ‘You don’t agree, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve organised the sheltered housing, and Tia will be moving out as soon as it is ready.’
Will made a sound of disgust and stood. ‘So, I’ve no say in the matter. Is that what you’re telling me?’
She pushed her mug away so hard that it slid across the surface and fell to the floor, the loud crash barely registering on either of their faces. She stood so she could look him in the eye. ‘If that’s the way you want to take it, Will, well then fine, yes, you’ve no say in the matter. I’m her guardian, not you. I’ll make the decisions as to what’s best for her.’
Without another word, she turned and left the room.
17
Will slept downstairs that night. Ellie heard him moving around as she lay in their bed, twisting from side to side, trying all the tricks she had to put everything out of her mind. She’d done a few courses on mindfulness and tried some of their techniques now, counting slowly with each breath in and out, but nothing worked. It was too hot, so she climbed out of bed to open the window only to think, moments later, that it was too cold. She closed it again and then stood naked at the window, looking out at the street below.
Perhaps only a twin could understand her predicament? For a second, she wondered what Tia thought about their situation. Did she like seeing herself in Ellie? She rested her forehead against the cold glass and gave a weary sigh. She could go down, snuggle up beside Will and let the wound heal, couldn’t she? But, like a splinter, it would always niggle.
No, perhaps going down to Will wasn’t a good idea. She tried to dismiss the trickle of fear that he might rebuff her. Better to let sleeping husbands lie. He wasn’t one to bear a grudge, tomorrow they’d sort things out. Now that he knew how she really felt, he’d have to agree to Tia leaving. And with that convincing argument in her head, Ellie climbed back into bed to twist and turn until morning.
She woke an hour past her usual time, stretching out an arm automatically for Will’s body beside her, feeling only the cold emptiness of his space. Her bedside clock told her the bad news and she leapt out of bed swearing loudly. ‘Damn it,’ she cursed as she swung open the bedroom door and hollered down the stairs. ‘Will, it’s eight forty-five!’
Her face in the bathroom mirror told her worse news; red eyes hung with dark circles looked back at her critically. ‘Don’t you start,’ she told her reflection and then put her hand on the glass. ‘How many of us are there?’ She shook her head. Sleepless nights and philosophical questions didn’t mix.
She had a quick shower and dressed in her standard work clothes of dark trouser suit and shirt, choosing a brighter coloured shirt than usual, hoping it would deflect eyes from her weary-looking face. Make-up, also little heavier than usual, and she was ready to face the day.
Will usually used the main bathroom and kept his clothes in a wardrobe in the spare bedroom. The bathroom door hung open. It was empty. Ellie paused outside the spare bedroom before knocking gently. A moment later, she knocked again, the sound this time ringing around the landing. ‘Will?’ As she called, she turned the knob and pushed open the door. He wasn’t there.
He must be still asleep. Ellie checked the clock on the wall. It was nine fifteen. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment; she was going to be so late. What was the betting the first person she’d meet would be Jeff? Shaking her head at the thought, she ran down the stairs and pushed the door into the sitting room open. ‘Will,’ she said, ‘it’s so late. Get up.’
The room was empty. Ellie blinked and took in the crumpled cushions on the chair, the last of her hope fizzling as she made her way to the kitchen and found nothing but an empty coffee cup on the island. No matter what, Will would never leave the house without at least one dose of caffeine. She picked it up, it was cold. He’d been gone for a while.
Her heart twisted. It was worse than she’d thought. In all their years together, the years before they married and the years since, he’d never done something like this. It was irrational, unfair and probably downright stupid, but she blamed Tia.
Yes, it was all Tia’s fault and she’d probably still be asleep, peacefully oblivious to all the trouble and heartache she’d caused.
Slamming the door hard enough to have the sound reverberate throughout the house gave her a slight feeling of satisfaction that was quickly lost in acknowledgement of how unreasonable she was being. They’d invited Tia into their home; she’d never asked to come.
A tiny voice whispered in her ear, And now you’re throwing her out. A fresh wave of guilt, which seemed never too far from the surface these days, broke over her. She tried to brush it away but she couldn’t stop thinking how awful it must be to have everything – where you lived, what you did, what you ate – decided on by someone else. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like.
Perhaps she could ask her? She dismissed the thought as soon as it arrived. Did she really want to know the answer? Anyway, she reasoned, it wasn’t as though she was placing her in some unsuitable place. The Brighton development was brand new, top of the range and incredibly expensive. Tia would be happier in sheltered accommodation. She’d have a certain amount of independence, there would be other people to mix with, there was even the promise of a job. It was what she was used to. And Brighton wasn’t far away; they could visit. She could visit.
She had never once been late to work and the raised eyebrows as she arrived made her bristle with annoyance; none of the many times she had arrived early and stayed late would count in the face of this one damn time she was late. It was the way it went. Throwing herself into work, she put Will and Tia into the part of her brain clearly labelled Don’t go there.
She managed it, but only by working twice as hard as usual and deciding not to stop for lunch, waiting for someone to ask her if she was going out, waiting for
the opportunity to say she was making up for being late. But nobody asked, and her martyrdom only served to make her tired and crotchety by late afternoon.
It was Friday, a day they normally finished at four. She waited until the last person left before shutting down her computer with a sigh of relief. She was aware that most of the afternoon had been spent worrying why she hadn’t heard from Will. Not a call, not a text. It was so out of character for him. She wasn’t sure what to make of it, worse, she wasn’t sure what to do. Backing down wasn’t an option. She rubbed the corner of her eyes, careful not to disturb the makeup she’d put on what felt like so many hours before. She was truly exhausted, going home to face Will wasn’t something she relished. This tired, she might say something to make the rift between them even deeper.
The tube was packed with quiet, weary Friday evening commuters. Another hour and it would be raucous with weekend revellers. Looking around, she wondered how many of her fellow travellers would transform themselves and hit the town later. She was thinking about anything rather than what she’d have to face when she got home. The crush around her ebbed and flowed as doors opened and closed. And then it was her stop and, minutes later, she opened her front door.
Usually, she enjoyed the peace of their house when she got home. She dropped her briefcase on the floor at the bottom of the stairs and took off her coat as the maudlin lyrics of some country song drifted past her from the kitchen.
She gave a sigh, picked up her briefcase and trudged upstairs. For possibly the millionth time that day, she checked her mobile and then threw it on the bed. Still no message from Will. Maybe the house phone? She picked it up, pressed the four-digit code to access messages and waited, holding her breath. You have no new messages. She sighed, and then smiled. God, she was pathetic. He’d be home soon; she was making a fuss about nothing.
She slipped on silk pyjamas and headed downstairs. On Friday nights, if they weren’t going out, they usually ordered a takeaway and it was her turn to choose. She fancied pizza. In the kitchen, she ignored the music that was blaring away from the other end of the room, opened the drawer holding the menus and took out the one she wanted.
Secrets Between Us Page 8