Ben had left her the Volkswagen with a note on the driver's seat: IF YOU'RE HALF AS PROUD OF YOURSELF AS I AM OF YOU YOU'LL SLAY THEM.
She smiled at that and drove into Norwich, and had time to stroll from the car park through the pedestrianised streets to arrive at the long new building of yellowish stone near the cathedral less than five minutes before she was due there.
A lift which smelled scented and which hummed to itself on one note eased her up to the third floor. Past an accountant's office where women were typing what headphones told them and another door which looked as if whatever name its pane once displayed had been frosted over, she found the reception area of Ballyhoo Unlimited beyond glass doors as wide as the room. Fat blue settees dwarfed by posters almost big enough for billboards faced each other across a floor padded with blue carpet. The two men waiting on the settees glanced at Ellen and then resumed their nonchalant expressions as the receptionist behind the desk between them greeted her, raising her face as if her eyes and her cherry-red smile were fixed. "Mrs Sterling? You're first in," she said.
Ellen smiled apologetically at the men as she sat down. Her companion on the settee, a man who was approaching middle age and who wore a spotted bow tie and a tweed jacket slightly too large for him, was staring at his stubby fingers as if they might somehow count against him. The other man, who couldn't have been more than thirty, was gripping his portfolio with his bony knees and folded hands as though he was either praying or restraining himself. Ellen listened to the awkward silence and the sounds it amplified, the creak of the tweedy man's new shoes as he flexed his toes nervously, a faint heartbeat which was the younger man's left heel drumming on the carpet, the receptionist proclaiming "Ballyhoo Unlimited" to callers in exactly the tone of a game show hostess enthusing about a prize. Presumably that constant repetition was inaudible wherever Ellen would be working if she got the job. "That would be our Mr Rutter," the receptionist was saying now. "He's in London unexpectedly. Can our Mr Hipkiss help you? What was it concerning? I'm going to ask you to hold for a moment
…" Ellen was still waiting for her to do so when she resumed: "I'm afraid Mr Hipkiss is tied up just now. Shall I get him to ring you? I'm afraid Mr Fuge and Mr Peacock are in a meeting. I'll tell Mr Hipkiss you rang just as soon as he's free."
She switched off the call and ducked her head as if challenging her audience to prove that her blonde hair was dyed, and Ellen had to begin her question twice before the receptionist would look up. "Who did you say – who did you say were in a meeting?"
"The partners except for Mr Rutter. They'll be ready for you any moment now," the receptionist said with a briskness that suggested faint reproof.
"Mr Fuge and Mr…"
"Peacock. He used to work locally, then he went away until Mr Rutter tempted him back. Why, do you know him?"
Ellen was taking a deep breath when the switchboard buzzed and addressed the receptionist in a small sharp voice. "They want you now," the receptionist said. "I'll take you in."
Ellen stood up. She could walk straight out of the building and leave Sid Peacock wondering – but she wouldn't let him off that easily; she wanted to see how he would conduct himself. She followed the receptionist down an inner corridor, past a large office where several men in shirt-sleeves were working at drawing-boards, to a conference room.
Two men were seated midway along the extensive heavy table which took up much of the room. One of them, a ruddy man whose waistcoat buttons appeared to be in danger of snapping their threads, came to meet Ellen. "Mrs Sterling," he said in a voice thick as a cigar. "Sorry we kept you waiting. I'm Gordon Fuge, and this is Sidney Peacock."
So he was Sidney now, Ellen thought, growing tense as Peacock put aside the papers he was scanning and extended a hand to her. His wide face looked worn, his tan was turning purplish with veins. When she gave his hand a single hard shake he peered at her as if confused by her brusqueness and then let his gaze drift over her breasts. "Pleased to meet you," he said.
For as long as it took her to sit down she thought he was pretending not to know her. He watched her sit as though that was included in the appraisal to which she was submitting herself. "Well, Mrs Sterling, can you sell yourself to us?"
Ellen stared at him until he glanced away, at the papers in front of him. She was enjoying his apparent discomfiture when he said "Don't be afraid to repeat whatever you said in your letter. I haven't had a chance to read it. I'm sitting in for Max Rutter at short notice."
Unexpectedly and infuriatingly, she couldn't help feeling offended. How dare he forget her after the trouble he'd caused her? He deserved the shock he was going to suffer when he recognised the work in her portfolio. "Where would you like me to start?" she said with a sweetness she could almost taste.
"Give us some idea of your experience."
Both he and his colleague were gazing expectantly at her portfolio. She was about to pass it across the table and sit back to watch Sid Peacock's face when Fuge said "What brought you into this game?"
"Advertising? At art college they were always telling us it was the place to aim for. And it paid decent money, which came in handy when I got married."
"That's what I like to hear."
Ellen counted three slowly and silently. "What do you like to hear, Mr Peacock?"
"A designer who doesn't try to impress us with how much of an artist she is."
"Oh, I'm only sublime when I'm working on a book."
"Mrs Sterling illustrates her husband's books," Fuge explained.
"Should I have heard of him?"
"That depends on the kind of company he'd find himself in," Ellen said.
"They're children's books, Sidney."
"Won't mean anything to me, then. It was my wife who wanted kids, so she gets to deal with anything connected with the little treasures. If you and your lord and master produce books instead of children, Mrs Sterling, I reckon you've the right idea."
"We've produced both."
"So let's see what you've got to offer us," Peacock said.
Ellen handed him the portfolio. She didn't feel as detached as she expected; she was uncomfortably aware of her heartbeat and of her suddenly dry mouth. Peacock turned over the first sheets, making a sound in his throat as if he was clearing the way for a comment he then decided not to utter, and she remembered how he would do that when he was milking her and Nathan of ideas. She started, heart thumping, when Fuge said "Your letter didn't mention where you've worked."
"No -" Ellen swallowed so as to be able to speak up. "Noble Publicity."
"You were there for a while, weren't you, Sidney?"
"I learned the basics there, yes." Peacock frowned at Ellen and continued leafing through her work. "When were you there, Mrs Sterling?"
Ellen paused enough to let him turn over two more sheets. "When you were."
He didn't look up. He had just uncovered the first of the Broads Best sheets, and she saw the studiedly neutral expression drain from his face. His partner glanced at the picture to see why Peacock was lingering over it, and gave a surprised laugh. "Why, weren't you involved in that campaign, Sidney? Don't tell me you never met the artist. What are the two of you up to, eh? What's our Sidney been promising you, Mrs Sterling?"
"I'm sure Mr Peacock knows I expect nothing from him," Ellen said, feeling her cheeks redden, gazing at Peacock to force him to look at her.
But he only spoke to her. "This is embarrassing. I'm sorry I didn't know you at first, Mrs Sterling. A lot of lunches have flowed under the bridge in what must it be, nearly eleven years?" To his partner he murmured "I'll bet if all the folk you've worked with in your life walked in here right now there'd be a few you couldn't put a name to."
"Just the same, I think I'd be insulted if I were Mrs Sterling."
Peacock met her gaze then. If he dared to say he was sure she wasn't, Ellen thought, she wouldn't be responsible for her reply. "If I may say so, Mrs Sterling, I think having children has turned you into quite a handsome
lady. I hope you'll accept that as my excuse for not recognising you to begin with."
"It's thoughtful of you to say so."
"And I hope you'll agree with me that we can both be proud of the Broads Best campaign."
Ever hopeful, aren't you, Sidney? Not as crude asyou used to be, or at least not in front of witnesses. I don't mean to exclude you from the conversation, Mr Fuge. Let me explain… But now that the moment had come, taking her revenge seemed petty and demeaning, not worth the risk of regretting it later. All she said was "I won't argue with you."
"Take a look at these, Gordon," he said, and passed his colleague the portfolio. "So have you been keeping your hand in since you left Noble's, Mrs Sterling?"
He was going through the motions of interviewing her, she thought, in case his colleague suspected that something was wrong. She responded automatically, wanting only to be finished with the pretence and outside in the open air. "Thank you for your time, Mrs Sterling," he said as Fuge closed the portfolio and folded his hands over his stomach as if he'd just enjoyed a meal. Peacock slid the portfolio across to her and stood up when she did. As Fuge heaved himself to his feet and told her it had been a pleasure, Peacock met her eyes, not quite expressionlessly. "We still have to interview the other candidates," he said.
Ellen was out of the building before his implication caught up with her. Throughout the interview she had been assuming she had already lost the job, but his expression at the end had said that he knew he owed her a favour. Given the context, it could only mean that he intended to hire her. Her instinct was to march straight back and tell him what he could do with the job, but then where would she go? Could she bear to work with him again even if she was certain he would keep his hands off her? She made her way through the crowds, which felt both oppressive and distant, to the car. Until she had the chance to discuss the situation with Ben, the best she could offer herself was a good strong cup of tea.
By the time she was halfway home she was savouring how the first sip would taste. She came off the ring road and steered the car into her street, and the taste grew sour in her mouth. There was a police car outside the house, and a uniformed officer was ringing the bell.
She parked awkwardly behind the police vehicle and ran up her path, her pulse accelerating. "What's the matter? Can I help you?"
The policeman turned, his face so carefully unemotional that she missed a breath. "Is this where Mr Benjamin Sterling lives?" he said.
TWELVE
That morning Ben awoke feeling that his life was about to change. The impression resembled a trace of some dream he couldn't quite recall. The children raced up past him to the bathroom while he descended as if he was counting the stairs. Ellen snatched his plate of breakfast out of the oven and pulled off her threadbare oven glove to blow on her fingers, and he thought that his sense of imminent change must relate to her interview. He gave her a long hug to make up for almost forgetting and to wish her luck, and kissed her fingers. "You be careful of yourself."
He was finishing breakfast when she took the children off to school. Oddly, once he was alone his impression felt stronger, though still as indefinable. As he brushed his teeth he found himself gazing into his eyes in the bathroom mirror, until he wondered what on earth he was expecting to see. He let out a sigh which blurred his reflection, and hurried downstairs to leave a note for Ellen in the car.
The day wasn't as cold as the grey sky seemed to promise. By the time he reached Milligans, having run for the bus and been hemmed in by commuters fat with winter coats, he felt as if his expectancy had been sweated out of him. Dominic was changing the window display, taking books to the door and blowing fake snow off the tops of the pages. "Good riddance. Next Christmas this will be one shop that turns away this kind of rubbish," he said, patches of his squashed face flaring almost as red as his wiry hair. "Books that nobody would buy for themselves, which these television personalities wouldn't put their name to if they weren't sure that everyone knows they don't really write this trash."
The tinsel flakes glittered in the slanting sunlight as they fell into the gutter, and Ben felt a memory gleam and darken, so swiftly that he hadn't time to glimpse it. "Don't look so dubious," Dominic said, widening his eyes until his high forehead was a mass of ridges. "You're an evangelist compared with these soulless swine. Here, help me cast them out of the window."
When a clock above the roofs began to chime nine, Dominic turned the placard hanging on the door to announce that the shop was open. "We're on our own this week, old pal. Fiona's mumsy says she isn't well. If you want my opinion it's how they bring them up these days, all fashion and fast food and flabbi-ness. People would be queuing up for my father to open the shop when you and I were at school, but that was when schools taught you how to read and made you sweat."
"They'll be back once they've got over their Christmas spending."
Dominic began to prowl the shop in search of books he could grab off the shelves. "I came into the business because I thought books still helped educate people, but the last thing the public wants these days is to be made to feel it can improve itself. At least it sounds as if there's some point to this new book of yours, giving children a hint of the mess we've made of the climate."
Magic is the point, Ben wanted to retort – the magic of imagination, of language which awakens dreams, of rediscovering the child in oneself and seeing through its eyes – but that would only provoke another monologue from Dominic. "Here's to more winters like we used to have," he said, which seemed safe, and set about parcelling books for return to the wholesaler.
Once customers began to appear, Dominic cheered up. Two students exchanged book tokens for textbooks, and then a slow fat man with a clownishly red nose came in, emitting a loud sniff every few seconds as he peered at the spines of books. While he was paying for a thesaurus, painstakingly writing a cheque before tearing it up and sniffing nine times in the course of making a fair copy, a grandmother went to the children's section to choose a present. Ben watched her approach his and Ellen's last book, pass it by without examining it, rest her hand on it as she retraced her steps, pull it off the shelf and read the blurb, hold it in her hand as she scanned the shelves again, touch an Enid Blyton and take that to the counter, filling its space on the shelf with the Sterlings' book. "Never mind," Dominic said afterwards, "we sold one of your books last week."
Soon his mother arrived with two bowls and spoons and a panful of porridge. "You boys have this to keep you warm," she said, trying to bustle despite her arthritic limping. "The doctor's been, Dominic. Your father has to go for a stroll every day, and when that doesn't tire him he'll be able to come back to the shop. Just now and then, but you know how happy that'll make him."
"God willing, Mother. Leave the pan and I'll bring it home with me."
Dominic watched her out of sight and carried out the pan to empty it into a waste-bin once the street was relatively deserted, grimacing at Ben as he did so. Ben often wondered when he'd begun to turn into this staid intolerant man, middle-aged before his time – but wasn't he disliking Dominic's version of those aspects of himself he would rather not acknowledge? He went back to the mechanical task of certifying books unsaleable before consigning them to their fate, and had achieved a kind of drowsy trance as he worked when Dominic roused him. "Isn't that your wife?"
Dominic was unpacking a carton of books. For a moment Ben thought he'd misidentified the artist responsible for the cover of the book he was holding, and then he saw that Dominic was gazing past it through the window. Ellen was on the far side of the street, waiting to cross over. She must be eager to tell him about the interview; she was still wearing her grey suit and white blouse and her grandmother's brooch at her throat. He made for the door, waving his clasped hands above his head, but as she dodged between two vans he let his hands drop. Whatever her news was, he could see from her face that she wished she didn't have to tell him.
Her oval face was rounder since she'd had the children. She
still wore her black hair long despite the traces of grey which had started to appear. Sometimes at rest her face seemed almost plain, but never when her feelings reached her large blue eyes and wide mouth. Now the dullness of her eyes dismayed him. He closed the door behind him and went quickly to her. "Never mind, love. It's their loss."
"What do you mean?" She looked momentarily shocked by him. "Oh, the interview. I'm not sure about that, I need time to think. But listen, Ben – "
He grabbed her by the elbows and pulled her out of the path of a van which was reversing onto the pavement. Not the children, he thought, feeling as though ice was massing in his stomach. "I'm listening," he said.
"Shall we go somewhere there aren't so many people?"
"Tell me here, for Christ's sake."
"Your aunt died last night, Ben."
"Aunt Beryl?" he said stupidly, knowing that she was the only aunt he had. "Who says so?"
"The police heard this morning, and one of them has just been to the house." She led Ben into the shop, stroking his hand with both of hers. "He said there are no suspicious circumstances, but they'd like you to call in at the station when you're able."
"Happy New Year, Ellen," Dominic said, and saw her expression. "Sorry, er, I – "
"We've just learned that my aunt's dead," Ben told him.
Dominic touched his own forehead, navel, left shoulder, right shoulder. "May she rest in peace. She was a fine woman, a great loss to us all. Would you iike time off? I can manage on my own if I have to."
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