A Very Accidental Love Story

by Claudia Carroll

  Much later that evening, I leave Jake and Lily sprawled out on the sofa together as Lily introduces him to the delights of ‘Swek and Pwincess Fiona … my favouwite movie EVER!’ Helen’s tidying the mess that’s in the kitchen and Lily is way too absorbed in explaining what the Kingdom of Far Far Away is to her new best friend to even notice me slip out the door and quietly head upstairs. I can only feel Jake’s eyes burning into the back of my head as I leave, but otherwise, I’m all clear.

  I head into the study and with trembling fingers switch on the computer. And there it is, waiting for me; today’s online issue of the Post, the first one I haven’t edited or had any hand in or part in years. There’s a very discreet announcement on the front page, saying as simply as possible that, ‘Owing to unforeseen circumstances, the Post will now be edited by Seth Coleman, former Managing Editor.’

  Short, succinct, to the point – and at least for that small mercy, I’m grateful.

  Then, like some kind of masochist, I can’t resist delving deeper. A bit like a Pot Noodle, I know this’ll kill me, I know it’s bad for me, but I just have to. Two seconds later, I Google my own name to see what else is being said, and am just about to start scrolling down the first page, the first of about twenty by the looks of it, when next thing there’s a firm knock on the study door, making me almost jump out of my seat.

  Jake, arms folded, shaking his head at me. Smiling that gorgeous half-crooked smile I love so much.

  ‘Thought I might find you here,’ he says, coming up behind me, putting his arms round me and gently massaging my neck. ‘Come on then, switch it off, love. None of that matters now.’

  ‘But I just wanted to …’

  ‘No, and I’m not even listening to you,’ he says firmly.

  ‘Please, if I could just read what The Chronicle is running with today …’

  ‘I’m turning it off. Now.’

  ‘It would set my mind at rest to know how bad …’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t. I know you, it would keep you up till five in the morning pacing the floorboards with worry. Come back downstairs, Eloise. You don’t need this. None of it.’

  With that, he leans a long arm over me, switches off the computer and gently steers me out the door.

  I give a long drawn-out sigh, then gratefully look back up at him, smiling.

  Hours and hours later, when Lily’s safely tucked up in bed – after Jake patiently read her a minimum of about six stories – Helen very tactfully slips out to meet a pal of hers, leaving just me and Jake alone, curled up together in front of the TV.

  Wordlessly, he pulls me towards him before I’ve even got time to react; he’s gently caressing the tip of my ear, his kisses light as air. Then he moves down, expertly kissing my lips and neck, his skin so soft and tender and now his huge, warm body is slowly stretching out on top of mine, but what’s completely knocked me for six is the huge swell of desire that’s sweeping over me … Next thing I can feel his chest hot against mine, as his hands run through my hair, neck, and then slowly, teasingly onto my breasts, opening my shirt and cupping them in his warm, rock-hard grip.

  It’s as though he’s tantalising me like a maestro now and without wanting to, without even meaning to, I find myself responding, craving for nothing more than his lips on mine, wanting him to press me even closer to him …

  Next thing, the gentle sound of footsteps on the back stairs, the patter of little-girl feet.

  ‘Mama? Are you in the kitchen? Are you awake?’

  In a second, Jake and I have leapt apart, and detangling ourselves like a pair of courting teenagers caught making out when they were supposed to be babysitting. I’m just hastily rebuttoning my blouse when a second later, Lily waddles into the kitchen, in her adorable little pink pyjamas, trailing her blankie behind her, hair like a bird’s nest and rubbing her sleepy eyes. Then she sees that Jake is still here and instantly lights up.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy’s still here too! Yay!’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ I say, clambering up to scoop her into my arms, my whole face flushing like a forest fire. ‘What are you doing out of bed? Aren’t you tired?’

  ‘No Mama, I was having dweams about all the places I want my daddy to bwing me. Happy dweams.’ Next thing, she’s wriggled out of my arms and is straight over to Jake, clambering up to cuddle into him.

  ‘Where would you like me to take you, honey?’ he grins at her and the heart almost stops in my chest at the sight of how astonishingly alike they are. Same hair colour, same eyes, same broad build, same everything. There is absolutely nothing of me in this child, it’s quite astonishing. She’s one hundred per cent Jake.

  ‘The park, Daddy!’ she tells him, snuggling up against him as he wraps his arms protectively around her. ‘Tomorrow! I want you to meet my all my new fwiends. And you have to come to my birthday party too … There’s gonna be a chocolate fountain!’

  ‘Only if you tell me what you’d like for your birthday present first,’ he tells her seriously. ‘Birthday presents are very important, you know.’

  She screws up her nose for a minute, thinking, then lights up.

  ‘Okay, I know ’sactly what I want. Mama, come and sit here now!’

  Smiling, I obediently do as I’m told and sit on the other side of her, while she grips my finger in one of her chubby little hands and Jake’s in the other.

  ‘This is what I want,’ she beams and it strikes me that I don’t think I’ve ever seen my little girl so happy.

  ‘I made a wish for a pwoper family and now look! My wish came twue!’

  Epilogue

  Six Months Later …

  … And Jake and I are still together. I know – no one can believe it, not even me. My longest relationship in … Well, ever. And I have to say, it’s utterly and totally beyond wonderful.

  Astonishingly, he and I are still in that loved-up first flush and nothing I seem to say or do is driving him mental. Well, as of yet. Mind you, I’ve always said that Jake is so laid-back, you could wallop the back of his head with a frying pan and still not provoke a row with him. He really, genuinely is that easy to be with, to live with, to love. The perfect guy for someone like me, in other words.

  But am I for him? I’m always asking him teasingly in more playful moments and his answer is always the same. ‘Eloise, I love you because of most of your qualities and in spite of some of the others.’

  So like I said then, pretty much an ideal man for anyone, never mind me.

  He adores the ground Lily walks on and she idolises him too, though like all little girls, still somehow manages to keep him securely wrapped around her little finger. Her big birthday party went ahead in spite of Mama’s being jobless – not only that, but we went all out and gave her a huge party with full honours attached, including a clown and magician, a chocolate fountain, the whole shebang.

  My mother surprised me by flying home from Spain for it and even asked me if she could stay on with me for a bit longer. Said she was having such a ball reconnecting with Helen and me, spoiling Lily rotten and getting to just chill out with her family, she wasn’t ready to leave, not just yet. So of course I delightedly said yes, thrilled to have her back.

  Funny but although I speak to her on the phone and see her fleetingly at Christmas, to my deep shame it’s been years since I really spent any kind of quality time with her. I always left that to Helen and see now, not for the first time, just how much I was missing out on. Mum’s mellowed a lot over the years too; far less the perma-tanned, cruise-ship blonde I so cruelly had her stereotyped as. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still very much a lady who lunches, immaculately groomed, gel-nailed and impeccably turned out at all times, but to see her playing dress-up with Lily and whirling her off to posh shops that I’d never dream of crossing the threshold of, then buying her the cutest outfits you ever saw, is beyond touching.

  Helen and I gently asked her if she’d ever reconsider moving back to Ireland but it’s still a firm no from her. Well, it’s a no, but with a p
romise from me that my spare room is forever available to her whenever she fancies a good, long visit. And far more regularly from now on, I stress to her. Her friends and her life are all in Spain now, she tells us, but at the same time, I think she appreciates that there’s always a welcome here in Dublin, whenever she wants. And each one of us hopes she’ll be back a lot more regularly than just jetting in once a year for a few days at Christmas.

  I think she genuinely enjoyed Lily’s big birthday party too. Have to admit, it really was good to see her after so long and feeling like a daughter again. I honestly couldn’t say which Mum was more shocked at; how big and bold Lily’s grown or what a totally different person I am these days. She more than approves of Jake too, easy to tell. I knew the minute she told him with a sassy twinkle to drop the whole ‘another cup of tea, Mrs. Elliot?’ thing, and to just get her an ashtray and a large G and T in that order. And, her classic line with anyone she really does like, ‘Mrs. Elliot was my mother-in-law, for Chrissakes, my name is Vera.’

  Anyway, the birthday party itself was a total triumph and now, six months on, Lily is still talking about it. Basically more little girls than you’d see backstage at auditions for Annie descended on the house and Lily had the best afternoon of her life, Bozo the Clown scoring particularly high in the popularity stakes. But then little did the sugar-rushed three-year-olds know that Bozo was actually someone Jake knew from Wheatfield who’d just been released for good behaviour after six months, and who Jake now reckoned needed a bit of a leg up in life. So clowning became his thing, and after much pleading on Jake’s behalf to stop swearing like a docker with Tourette’s, now he’s a full-time party clown-for-hire and from what I can see, making far more than plenty of junior reporters I knew back at the Post.

  Ahh, the Post. Most astonishing news of all to come. After everything that had happened all those months ago, I took a full month off work at Jake’s insistence, something I’ve never done EVER, in spite of phone call after phone call from the T. Rexes requesting a meeting with me, ‘at my earliest possible convenience, to discuss some options that have arisen.’

  Initially it puzzled me, ‘Options?’ They’ve already fired me, I figured; they’d done their worst, so why the hell would they want to see me again? Then I thought … Maybe they’re worried that I’ll sue for unfair dismissal? Which I never would or could, but it was the only possible reason I could come up with as to why I was being summoned in. And I took great pleasure in not returning a single one of their phone messages. Let ’em sweat, I figured; God knows I’d sweated buckets enough for them over the years.

  Instead, I spent the most fabulous time at home, doing something I’d never allowed myself to do before; being a full-time, stay-at-home mum and loving every second of it. Taking Lily to the park with Jake, or to an afternoon kids’ movie or even just doing all the normal stuff, like cooking for the three of us, chatting, messing about, laughing, then vegging out in front of the TV.

  Being a ‘pwroper’ family, as Lily loves to tell us, over and over again.

  Then when I was good and ready but not a day before, I sauntered back into work to meet the board, dressed in my mummy uniform of jeans, T-shirt and flip flops. Subliminally telling the lot of them, ‘Ehh, excuse me, just so you know, I had to leave my daughter at home so I could make this meeting, so you’d better keep it quick because frankly, I’ve better things to do.’

  Before I left the house, Jake hugged me tight, his warm, solid heart in his big round eyes.

  ‘Whatever it is they want you for, honey,’ he told me, ‘I know you’ll do the right thing. And you know I’ll stand by you whatever this is about – as long as you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh don’t you worry,’ I smiled at him, leaning up on tip toe to kiss him. ‘I know exactly what I’m doing.’

  And as it turned out, I did. As soon as I stepped out of the lift onto the executive floor, Sir Gavin himself let the posse out to meet me and suddenly I was surrounded by elderly men in suits, all shaking me by the hand and heartily congratulating me on surviving ‘such a trial by media’. (Sir Gavin’s phrase, not mine). Anyway, I was led into the boardroom and bluntly told that although I had utterly messed up by failing to cover the Courtney case to protect my own personal interests, it seems the goalposts had shifted significantly since then.

  Seth Coleman, it seemed, hadn’t turned out to be quite the hotshot in my old job he’d automatically presumed he would be. ‘Needs a steady right hand behind him to ease him in a little more and to keep things running as efficiently as they’ve always done,’ seemed to be the general gist of what they were all saying about him. And seeing as how the landscape had changed considerably, their key question to me was this. Would I possibly consider returning?

  As Seth had now taken control of the editor’s chair and was contractually obliged to stay there, basically the board are now offering me his old job as managing editor, on a considerably reduced salary, reporting directly to him. So in a nutshell, given that the managing editor is expected to put in even longer hours than the exec editor, it boiled down to this; more work for even less dosh.

  ‘I would urge you to think long and hard about it, Eloise,’ Sir Gavin pressed me. ‘Because in no way can this be seen as a demotion. We’re prepared to overlook the recent blot on your copybook in light of the fact that you were only protecting your family and also taking into account your sterling record to date. It’s a generous offer, and we need you back.’

  ‘It’s an incredibly generous offer,’ I tell him back, ‘but I’m afraid it’s a no.’

  And it really was that easy. Didn’t even have to think about it.

  Well, put it this way; if I gave it a second thought, I certainly didn’t need to give it a third one.

  ‘Eloise, I would strongly recommend you to take some time out to reconsider. It’s bad business to make rash decisions based on your emotions, you of all people surely are aware of that …’

  But the truth was I didn’t even need to. Image after image flashed through my mind; of poor white-haired Robbie Turner, old before his time and still at his desk bashing out stories well past midnight most nights, of Ruth from domestic politics, never, ever daring to take as much as a Sunday afternoon off work, of my long-suffering assistant Rachel almost being driven to a nervous collapse on account of the schedule she’d been expected to put in.

  So as generous and all as the offer was, it wasn’t just a ‘no’, it was a ‘no, not on your life’. I’d been there, done all that, and was now ready to leave it all behind and move on.

  Except this time, with my family.

  I paused for a moment, looked around me and was just about to reassure them my answer was final, when out of left field, Jimmy Doorley the CFO piped up. ‘Just out of curiosity,’ he queried from the far end of the table, ‘if it’s not too personal a question, may I ask what exactly is the present nature of your relationship with Jake Keane? After all, he was at one stage a driver for Courtney with the prison record to prove it. What was it, two years for being accessory to a crime? It’s purely your safety and that of your daughter I’m concerned about, you understand Eloise. Not to mention our reputation as the paper of record, should he continue to be a fixture in your life.’

  I distinctly remember taking the deepest breath, eyeballing him and really taking my time to answer. Half of me appalled at the sheer rudeness of him daring to even ask me such a thing, the other half thinking, well, I am dealing with the T. Rexes now. What did I expect anyway? Respect? Sensitivity?

  Yeah right, some chance. Thing is though, by then I knew exactly how to handle a comment like that with all the disdain it deserved.

  ‘Certainly you may ask, Jimmy,’ I eventually told him, as witheringly as I could. ‘But it doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll choose to answer you. Jake Keane, as it happens, is my partner, and I hope will remain so for a long time to come. Yes, he once was a courier for Courtney when he shouldn’t have been, and was caught and paid the price, bu
t we’re all allowed one mistake in life, aren’t we? I certainly made mine.’

  I neglect to mention that my one mistake was staying here for approximately six years longer than I should have done. I’m just hoping the subtlety won’t be lost on them.

  ‘It’s an astonishing story, whatever way you look at it,’ came another voice from the back of the table. ‘Hope for your sake the tabloids don’t drag it all up all over again.’

  ‘If they do, in the words of the Duke of Wellington,’ I smile as sweetly as I can, ‘publish and be damned.’

  Course, news of my turning them down spread like wildfire the way the tom tom’s always went into overdrive at the Post whenever there was hot news afoot and sure enough the next day I got a call from Rachel asking if I’d mind swinging by, ‘to collect some stuff and so we can all say goodbye properly.’

  So I did, and was puzzled to find the vast, cavernous, football pitch of an office totally deserted. Not a sinner. Then, just as I was about to turn on my heel and call back later, wondering why the hell the place was like the Marie Celeste, my mobile rang. Ruth from Domestic, screeching at me that they were all waiting for me in the conference room and to ‘hurry the feck up and get my arse in there right away.’

  So in I went and it was a party. An actual, proper, surprise farewell party. Just for me. With a giant cake that read, ‘We’ll really miss you Eloise!’ banners, streamers, champagne, the whole works. They’d even clubbed together and bought me a stunning silver Tiffany charm bracelet, with a beautiful disc hanging from it engraved, ‘From all your friends at the Post. We’ll always love you.’ The gang was there in force, every single one of them, and they reduced me to tears more than once with their warm, heartfelt speeches about how much they’d miss me and telling me under pain of death that I was to stay in touch.

  Out of nowhere, I had an instant memory flashback to that dreary, dismal night of my thirtieth birthday party, all those years ago, when no one bothered to turn up and I was left to celebrate my birthday utterly alone and totally friendless. And I can’t help beaming at just how miraculously everything has turned around since that nightmarish night. Having Lily, meeting Jake … Who would ever have thought?