Running the Rawlplugs to earth, she tried first with a nail file and then with a knife to embed the screws further and more securely into the wall.
Frustration, a bent nail-file and a chipped knife later, Sorrel was near to admitting defeat. She was in the middle of owning that where it seemed second nature for the mere male to accomplish such jobs, she was making not the smallest headway, when the new sound of her door bell made her jump.
Her hair scraped back in a rubber band, her many times washed jeans unearthed and changed into as soon as the removal men had departed, an unsophisticated Sorrel went to the door. She was of a mind then that should her caller, probably a neighbour come to say hello to a newcomer, be of the male variety, then without compunction she was going to haul him in and if need be use helpless feminine wiles to cajole him into making that shelf secure for her.
But shock was to leave her speechless the moment she had her door open. For as Ellis Galbraith's eyes swept from her hair with its stray waving wisps over her T-shirt and shabby jeans, she was sure she had never looked scruffier. She was of the opinion then that, having thought he had most likely found some other female to take to dinner or that he had journeyed back to his home in Kent, her shelf could stay down for ever more as far as she was concerned.
'How the…' she managed to gasp, when shock left her vocal cords a little free.
'Now now,' said Ellis cheerfully, a delicious-smelling paper-wrapped parcel in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other. 'You wouldn't swear at a Samaritan who thought to ask the removers where they were taking your stuff and, in case you can't find your plates, has brought you something we can eat out of the paper, would you?'
When she had been at such pains not only to move her address but to keep her new address from him, only to have him so simply outsmart her, Sorrel was ready to more than swear. But that was before Ellis gave her the benefit of the wickedest grin yet, and then coaxed, just as though he had seen her nose twitching at the aroma emanating from the parcel he held: 'Give in, Sorrel—you know you're starving.' Admitting he had for the time being outfoxed her, her reserves of strength did not, in that moment of having to make a decision, have time to build themselves up. Though it was with not much welcome that she opened the door wider. And it was quite belligerently that she asked him: 'Are you any good with a screwdriver?'
CHAPTER NINE
The refixing of Sorrel's kitchen shelf had to wait. With Ellis declaring that he was starving too, and that he had no intention of eating cold fish and chips, she quickly cleared the kitchen table of impedimenta, and warmed two plates under the hot tap, while he hunted around for a couple of wine glasses.
Though he found the wine glasses, a corkscrew proved elusive. 'I'll show you an old Boy Scout trick,' Ellis told her charmingly, when she had been determined not to be charmed.
By dint of an attachment to his penknife, he had the wine bottle uncorked while Sorrel was trying to get over the mental picture of him as a boy in Scout's uniform. She clamped down hard when her imagination strayed to seeing a picture of a son they had produced between them following in his father's footsteps.
Ellis's manner throughout the makeshift meal was companionable and easy, so that by the time quantities of fish and chips had been consumed, Sorrel was desperately trying to tell herself that it was nothing more than the Muscadet which he had brought to go with the fish that was responsible for the never-more-alive feeling that had surged in her.
But it was on facing the fact that she would still be feeling this way had it been plain water she had been drinking that she had to put a check on what she was feeling—this unexpected time with him was not conducive to her being the strong person she had to be, not only now, but when he had gone.
As soon as his plate was empty, she was on her feet. 'It's getting late,' she hinted as she collected up the things they had used and took them to the draining board.
She heard the scrape of his chair, and could do nothing about the drumming of her heart as, much too close, he stood near and murmured in her ear:
'Would I leave a lady in distress?'
Her thoughts flew back to that day he had walked from her and left her broken without so much as a backward glance. You did once, she thought painfully, but her face was composed when she took a side step from him, then turned to look at him. But Ellis was not looking at her, but at the lopsided shelf.
'I can get it fixed tomorrow,' she said, her need that he should go at odds with her wanting him to stay.
'I don't like loose ends,' he said softly, and suddenly he was looking at her with quiet waiting eyes.
His look, his waiting, made Sorrel tense all at once. Up until a few moments ago his relaxed manner had been rubbing off on to her—but no longer. There in his eyes she saw a quality that belied the fact that his remark had been a throwaway one. He's asking me to trust him, she thought, and knew it for a fact as tension grew taut in her. In that moment, she knew that his look, his saying that he didn't like loose ends, all added up to mean that he wanted her to trust him—to trust him enough to tie up the loose ends he did not know about her!
That tension in her threatened to snap as she realised that to give him the trust he was silently asking for would mean trusting him enough to fill in such details as—who had paid the rent on her last flat.
Abruptly she broke the hold he had on her eyes. Tearing her eyes from his, all she knew then was that she could not bear that his look of wanting her trust should change into one of searing contempt, should she tell him any of it.
'Well,' she said, her voice quiet as she controlled the sick sensation that had invaded her insides, 'since the only reason I let you in was so you could put that loose-ended shelf back for me, I wouldn't dream of stopping you—if you insist.'
She ignored that his dark eyes were still on her, and turned back to the sink, praying with all she had that he would leave it at that. She had started to wash up when, aware of his every movement, she heard him leave the kitchen.
She heard him go out through her flat door, and was in the throes of thinking that he had grown fed up with trying to reach her and that, without so much as a goodbye, he had gone. But when she was just about to give in to the feeling of wanting to collapse, she heard him returning. She was rapidly having to draw on every remains of what strength she had left.
Though to see that Ellis had regained his previous easy manner when he came into the kitchen enabled her to gain her second wind.
'In the absence of a screwdriver,' he commented casually, holding aloft some alien-looking metal implement which he had obviously been to his car to collect, 'we'll follow the advice of Confucius.'
'Which was?' she asked, striving for a light note.
'When screwdriver not to hand, use your loaf,' quoted Ellis in a Chinese accent that was so excruciatingly awful, she was sure no self-respecting Chinese would own to it.
Having jumped from one emotion to another, to find that now tension had gone, she wanted to giggle, Sorrel was not quick enough in straightening the amused curve of her mouth as she said solemnly:
'I doubt that screwdrivers had been invented in Confucius's day.'
A smile was on Ellis's mouth as his eyes stayed on her mouth. 'Wretched woman,' he said softly, 'do you dare to doubt the authenticity of my quotation?'
'As if I'd call you a liar!' she returned, and was so overcome then with a feeling of wellbeing, of enjoying their ridiculous banter, that she knew that great gaping cracks were going to appear in the hard nut of the person she had to be, if she didn't watch it. 'I've got some things to do in my bedroom,' she said, quickly drying her hands the sooner to reach her refuge.
Her control falling apart, she took no heed of him staring at her as, trying not to break into a run, she hurried past him to her bedroom. All was silent in the kitchen as minutes passed while she fought to get herself under control.
But only when she heard noises coming from the kitchen that told her that the next time she presented herself
there would find her shelf level once more, did she start to get herself more of one piece.
Not intending to risk the close proximity with him undermining her again, she stayed where she was. Ellis would call to her when he had finished, she thought, and only then would she join him. All that would be required then would be a thank-you for the job he had done, a polite thank-you for her supper, then if he showed no sign of being in any hurry to go, she would plead tiredness and bid him goodnight.
It did not work out quite the way she had planned it.
For one thing, straightening the errant shelf took less time than, since she had been attempting it herself for an age, she had calculated. And Ellis did not call her into the kitchen to admire his handiwork, but came to her bedroom, not to tell her to come and look, but to stand in the doorway and say:
'Come and tell me where you want your pictures hung—I saw some on the occasional table in the living room.'
'I—er…' Her control wavered at the thought that he seemed in no hurry to leave her. But he must leave, she thought; she just could not take very much more of this—this—intimate togetherness. 'It's—late to start knocking picture hooks in the walls,' she managed, and even put together a smile, as she added, 'I don't want my neighbours hating me before I've introduced myself!'
She bent then to smooth the cover of her bed which was already smooth, and gained another morsel of control. But she very nearly split asunder, shock hitting her, when straightening suddenly, she was caught breathless to see Ellis quietly watching her—with a look of love for her in his eyes!
Aware that that had to be her craziest notion yet, Sorrel looked quickly from him, her control all over the place as she stammered:
'It—it's late. Y-you'd better go.'
She dared another look at him, and knew how idiotic she had been to think she had seen love for her there. For his eyes were showing only good humour, not even affection, as he calmly remarked:
'If you were a lady, you'd invite me to spend the night…' his eyes flicked to the bed, 'on that…' he paused, the devil suddenly lighting his eyes at her tense frosty look, 'on that settee out there,' he ended, which she was sure had certainly not been what he had started out to say.
His grin was suddenly her undoing. For no way could she avoid the matching grin that broke from her at his devilment. 'If I could be sure I would have a perfect gentleman sleeping on my settee—who knows,' she said, laughter in her eyes, 'I might have been tempted.'
Her laughter faded when, his manner easy again, Ellis left his position by the doorway and came to put an arm about her shoulders. Just his touch she felt weakening, but she was to hear that it would soon be over when, casually, he said:
'Walk with me to the door.'
Unable to make any comment that wouldn't come out sounding choky, Sorrel went to her flat door with him, Ellis's arm still about her. She wanted then, with a burning ache within her, to rest her head against him. She was still righting with all she had not to give in to the impulse when he broke the silence that had been briefly between them.
'I'll hang those pictures tomorrow,' he said, humour still with him as he added, 'I'll arrive early.'
But Sorrel shook her head. The moment she had known since seeing him at the door would come was there. She had to end it now—for the sake of her peace of mind she could not afford to duck it. She took a step back and out of the semi-circle of his arm. She did not want his touch to weaken her when she said what she must.
'I—don't want to see you again, Ellis,' she told him quietly, and hoped with all she had that he would understand. Running away he might call it, but she just could not keep changing her flat every five minutes, yet that would be the only option open to her if he refused to hear what she was trying to tell him.
The silence that had fallen when he did not straight away reply stretched endlessly and had her nerve ends ragged, until in the end she just had to look at him.
What she had expected, she had not given herself time to ponder. Most likely he would be looking at her with an expression that said, 'Who the hell's pressing you?' But his expression was telling her nothing of the sort. His good humour had gone, certainly, but the set look to his suddenly deadly serious face made her feel choked up again. And Ellis was then answering her statement, with a tightly controlled question—the way he asked it telling her that this was one time when he wanted a straight answer to a straight question, and that he would settle for nothing less.
'May I know why it is you don't want to see me again?' he asked, a tension about him so that he did not appear to be breathing as he waited for the straight answer she just could not give.
Dumbly she stared at him. It flashed through her mind that it seemed to be of some importance to him that she give him a true answer. And it was just not in her then to lie to him.
'Is it that you're afraid of being tempted should we see each other many more times?' he asked, insisting, she saw, that she did not run away from the question, insisting that she replied.
Fleetingly, she thought of making some sour challenging remark about his conceit. Perhaps an airy comment about him not being able to take what she said without an inquest because he was too conceited to think that any girl wouldn't rush to answer his knock at her door would suffice. But the idea died. No matter how she had tossed that remark about in the past, conceited was something he was not. Besides which, with Ellis refusing to budge, the sheer force of those dark eyes alone, steady on hers, seemed to be tearing away from her that protective cover of the airy type of comment she had found so useful in the past.
As though she was compelled then, her sentence fractured, at last some of the truth was dragged by him from her.
'You—were right—Ellis,' she told him, 'w-when you said what you did about—about once hurting me very much.' Her throat had become dry, there was pain in her, some pain in him too, she felt suddenly. But she had to look away from him when, making herself go on, she revealed her reason for not wanting to see him again. 'I c-can't let you do that to me again,' she choked.
Emotion had been in her as her voice faded to a whisper. But, after agonising moments of wondering, when he had nothing to say, if she had told him too much, when Ellis's voice did hit her ears she heard raw emotion there, as he asked:
'You're saying that the—decision—I took eight years ago has cost me your trust, once and for all?'
Tears inside were threatening to submerge her at the naked note in his voice; the emotion in him was almost beyond her bearing. But because it was the way it had to be, unable to look at him, Sorrel told him, her own voice ragged:
'You said "Be happy", Ellis. All I know is that—I can be happier without you.'
His hand came beneath her chin to force her head up, and before she was anywhere near to trying to disguise her overwhelming sadness, Ellis was making her look at him. And as his eyes held hers, his hand moved to the side of her face, his touch, his hold, like a benediction when for ageless moments he stood like that just looking into her unhappy eyes.
Had Sorrel not been feeling so disjointed inside, had she not been conscious of only one thing, that she would regret it for evermore if she weakened now, she was not sure that she would not have collapsed against him when, his voice thick, gravely Ellis told her:
'I do love you, you know.' With shock rippling through her, all she was capable of then was to stare numbly at him. But if she had thought she had misheard what he had said, when he continued, 'I love you, so very much, Sorrel,' she had confirmation that she had heard him right the first time. 'I always have,' he ended.
Gently then he kissed her, and tears were falling inside her like rain. For as he raised his head, his kiss of farewell broken, Sorrel was breaking up inside—for she knew then that Ellis had accepted that she did not want to see him again.
He did not stay to kiss her again. When he knew full well that he could get a response from her, with her telling him that she could be happier without him and refusing to back dow
n from that statement, he had not attempted to kiss her again. But quietly he left her apartment.
And Sorrel wept that night as she had not wept in years. She had not wanted Ellis to hurt her again, but she was hurt. She had told him she did not want to see him again, but oh, how much did she want to see him again. Oh God, she wept again into her already sodden pillow, why did he have to tell her he loved her?
When morning came, she was able to think more calmly. Though a glance in her bathroom mirror told her she would be housebound that day, for nothing would reduce the swelling of her tear-puffed eyelids.
Food having no appeal, she made herself a cup of coffee and pondered on what choice had she but to tell him what she had. Ellis might have told her that he loved her, but he had loved Wenda Sykes too once, and never would she forget his unloving look for his ex-fiancée that night at the theatre.
Remembering that contemptuous look, Sorrel knew she just wouldn't be able to take it should she brave telling him where her finances came from and she received that same look from him. He might have said he loved her, but his love for Wenda had soon died, hadn't it?
Aware of her frailty where he was concerned, with part of her pushing at her to go to him, to tell him everything, Sorrel knew that she just could not do it. Ellis had rejected her love once before, she just could not face a second rejection.
By lunchtime, having thought over every word that had passed between them a dozen times, she knew that the part of her that had urged that she go to see him had taken a severe beating. She was then of the opinion that she would have made a fine fool of herself had she done anything of the sort. Tears were again in her eyes when, food still having no appeal, lunchtime saw her busy knocking picture hooks into the wall which Ellis had offered to come early and see to for her.
Perhaps she did use more force than necessary, but anger she was glad of had spurted in her as she slammed the picture hooks in with a rolling pin. For dissecting his statement about loving her, that 'I always have', with which he had ended, she was to see then that it was nothing but a blatant lie.
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