A Chance Encounter

by Rae Shaw

  ‘Good.’ Mark took the seat opposite her. He had lost a quarter of his drink to her leg and the table.

  She shot him a glance and smiled. Heavens, she’s changed beyond recognition. What had happened since they’ last met? When had they last met?

  ‘Three years ago,’ she said. ‘I know that’s what you’re thinking. You’re blinking like crazy trying to work it out.’

  ‘Three!’ He believed her. It probably was that long. Christmases, birthdays, none of those kinds of occasions warranted special attention in the Clewer household. Except, of course, Dad’s birthday. They had been made to honour that and keep it like a holy day. The last Christmas Ellen would have been home, Mark had gone skiing; a disastrous attempt at reconciliation with his now ex-girlfriend.

  She shrugged. ‘Mum hasn’t spoken to me in months.’

  ‘Lucky girl.’ He poked his panini and checked it wasn’t too hot. One burning was enough.

  Ellen abandoned the wet napkin on the table and stirred her tea. She ignored the sarcasm. ‘So, why are you here? I mean, here in London?’ she asked.

  The extent of their disconnected lives was made real in that one question. He’d been in London for months. ‘Work. When did you leave home?’

  ‘A year ago.’

  He stared straight at her, wide-eyed with shock; they made eye contact for the first time since he’d sat down. He was conscious his eyes might convey surprise, hers were wary.

  ‘Fu—’ he ended the expletive and looked away. ‘Mum doesn’t talk about you.’

  And he never asked after her, that much was now apparent to Ellen who gave another little dismissive shrug. If she was bothered, she hid it well, and Ellen knew exactly how to use emotional displays to get her own way. He hadn’t forgotten her theatrical tantrums and feinted attempts at self-harming. Although, in hindsight, he now recognised it has the most successful approach for handling their mother.

  Social services had described it as a cry for help. Her little experiments had gone badly wrong – the razor wasn’t blunt. However, the twelve-year-old Ellen hadn’t persuaded them otherwise. According to Deidre, who considered Social Services an unnecessary interference, they had lectured her about priorities, rebutting her claims that Ellen was just a typical difficult kid. Ellen had never been typical. An indignant Deidre already had to deal with the gossip about her husband; she would never be able to face her neighbours – Deidre had wailed this at Ellen, as if her daughter cared. Mark had shrugged off the humiliation; he had been busy making other plans.

  What Social Services achieved had been to encourage their mother to notice Ellen. For a while, Deidre had practised how to be a parent and insisted that if anybody bullied her kids, they should say their dad was innocent. Mark had brushed things aside by talking about appeals. Ellen had never said a thing one way or the other. People formed their own opinion of what had happened and hers had been decided a long time ago.

  Ellen had continued to cut herself repeatedly as a teenager. Why she did this was something Mark had never been told by Deidre, but it explained why outsiders kept tabs on Ellen. When Deidre had been told Social Services were considering taking them into care, she had been horrified. Ellen had seemed keen on the idea, but they sent her to a special CAMHS unit for a month instead. Having packed his bags, Mark had gone to Oxford University on a scholarship. Deidre wanted him to study law and become a lawyer, obviously. He had chosen mathematics, then accountancy exams. Ellen, he imagined, had moped about the house on her own with Deidre and the living ghost of their father.

  Now here she was, far away from Manchester. She smirked. ‘It wouldn’t cross her mind to mention me. I let her down. I’m a… terrible daughter.’

  Mark grinned.

  Ellen mimicked Deidre really well. ‘I’m stupid and selfish for leaving.’

  Once he might have agreed with that counterproductive assessment. He edged away from the past. ‘She doesn’t rate me much better.’

  ‘But you talk to her.’

  ‘I talk about… well, you know, the usual.’

  ‘Dad.’

  The conversation dried up. One word was all it took. There were no skeletons in the cupboard for the Clewer siblings. The biggest skeleton was an elephant who danced around in front of them and neither of them would acknowledge it.

  ‘So.’ Mark pursed his lips. ‘What’s with the fancy clothes? I’d always assumed you’d be wearing jeans and up to your knees in a muddy field.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, how I wish.’ The smile slipped away. ‘Can’t afford to go down that road. So I’m a personal assistant.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said, sympathetically. He had won the scholarship. It sucked that she hadn’t had the same opportunities. ‘Not what you hoped for.’

  ‘No. Definitely not. Not that I’m putting down PAs. Sterling work given the shit they have to put up with from the stupid, lazy bastards called their bosses. Sorry. Today has been shit. I do stuff in my spare time with a local charity.’

  ‘In a city? Don’t you need open fields?’

  ‘Urban archaeology is more fun. Every time a construction company puts down foundations, they dig up some remains. But unless it turns out to be a national treasure, they cover it up and build on top. You?’

  ‘Forensic accountancy.’

  ‘Oh?’ She wasn’t the only one unfamiliar with the profession. Hardly anyone Mark met knew what it entailed.

  ‘I work for a mergers and acquisitions conglomerate. My boss buys up smaller companies, those in finance and accountancy, restructures them, sells some, keeps others. He’s something of a money-making machine. Financial stuff isn’t always squeaky clean. We go after employees who embezzle company money for personal gain. Or there are the crooked clients. Money launderers. Fraudulent deals. And also private cases that are brought to our attention for investigation.’

  ‘Don’t the police deal with that kind of thing?’ She picked apart her sandwich and removed the lettuce. Mark stopped a smile from forming. She had never taken to salad; Ellen hadn’t changed that much.

  ‘Once they know about it but how do they find out, eh? In any case, not every client we investigate turns out to be bad, just crap at filing paperwork or understanding the system. It’s more about ethics. The company I work for doesn’t want to be aiding and abetting criminals by helping them fiddle their books. We audit randomly, pick up on suspicious transactions and do some research. It’s harder to cover your tracks when an audit is unannounced. Most of the time, though, things are legit.’

  ‘Sounds intriguing. Bit like archaeology; digging up the dirt, so to speak.’

  Mark chewed on a mouthful of panini. She had grown up, embraced some witticisms and added charm, things she had lacked as a gawky child. Was she really standing on her own two feet? It was hard to imagine Ellen existing comfortably without some kind of emotional prop. She sank her teeth into her sandwich and he glanced at his watch. He should stay a little longer and try to engage with her.

  ‘Interesting analogy. We’re not a big team but the work is varied. We also help with due diligence for new acquisitions. Checking up and auditing their financial systems. As I said, varied.’ He swallowed the last of his coffee.

  ‘More interesting than my job. I never know what my boss wants from me. Some days he can be friendly, others a complete bastard. Depends on whether he’s arguing with his wife or shagging his bit on the side. Nice thing about artefacts is that they don’t bitch or bark. They just tell stories.’ She pulled more lettuce from her sandwich and squished it into her napkin. Still a messy eater, too. Were they really from the same nest, or had Deidre planted her in their home from somewhere else? Relating to Ellen was the equivalent to building a bridge across a chasm. She was somewhere on the other side in the distance.

  ‘Tough,’ he said, tapping his foot under the table.

  ‘God, he’s a twat, Mark. It’s a goddamn PR company. I wouldn’t want him to represent me. Ego inflated idiot.’ She stopped. ‘Sorry, I’m ranting. I
just can’t get it out of my system sometimes.’

  ‘Get what out of your system?’

  ‘I don’t know. Emotions. Just accepting things as they are.’

  Something Mark could relate to. ‘I know.’ He leaned forward, pushing aside his empty cup. ‘Nobody else out there for you?’

  She blushed and waved a dismissive hand. ‘No. Just Nicky. We’re bedsit neighbours. He keeps an eye out for me, just like a bro…’ She covered her mouth. ‘Sorry. That’s sounds awful. I mean, a friend.’

  Mark accepted the rebuke. He hadn’t been a brother to her, not in the way she might have expected. There again, if he had been a big sister, then perhaps the story might have been different. Perhaps she might not have ended up in a psych unit after making criss-cross patterns on her arms. He couldn’t blame her for finding somebody to replace him, and Dad. They both needed a better father.

  ‘A good friend then?’

  ‘We jog together. Go to the local pub for a drink now and again. That kind of stuff. Nothing… he’s gay.’

  Mark laughed. ‘I’m not judging you, Ellen. If you had a boyfriend, I’m not going to give him the third degree.’

  ‘And you? Girlfriend?’

  He shook his head. ‘Had. We parted company when I moved down here. Mutual decision to end it.’ The breakup had hardly broken his heart, it hadn’t even caused a splinter. ‘Look. I really have to go.’ He rose to his feet and brushed the crumbs off his jacket.

  She was busy examining her leg.

  ‘That okay?’ he asked.

  She smoothed her skirt over the damp patch. ‘Sure.’ For a fleeting moment, he saw a different girl peering up at him, a younger version but with the same opaque eyes and peppering of pinprick freckles around her nose. Ellen was hiding underneath the elegant officer worker and she was hurting, just like him. He couldn’t just walk away again.

  He fished out one of his newly minted business cards and scribbled his mobile number and address on the back. He handed it to her.

  Squinting, she deciphered the scrawl. ‘Islington. How nice.’ And wrote hers down on a separate card.

  Just the address and her work telephone number. The message was clear; her trust had to be earned if she was going to give him her personal unlisted number. She guarded it carefully to avoid Deidre’s interference.

  He slid it into his back pocket. ‘How about you come over for dinner one evening? We can catch up properly.’

  She radiated sunshine peeping out from a gloomy cloud. As if it hurt, she ducked her eyes down and the fleeting brilliance evaporated. ‘Sure. Absolutely.’ She needed and despised him in one efficient bundle of emotions. Most people would implode with the combination, but Ellen specialised in contradictions.

  What now? Shake hands? Slap her on the back like his cousin, Alfie, whom he met from time to time. When in Manchester, Mark preferred to visit Uncle Tim. For those very occasional weekends that other house had been everything a home should be – tranquil with the odd outburst of appropriate laughter. The envy was almost unbearable.

  He bent and she expectantly tilted her cheek towards his lips. The peck was swift, a minutiae glance, and she blushed. A connection had been made and he couldn’t let it die a death. If there was a reason for lassoing her back into his life, it was because Ellen presented a useful advantage: she was accomplished at manipulating Deidre.

  3

  Ellen

  I met my brother today. By accident. He spilt his coffee over me.

  Ellen waited half an hour for a reply, which wasn't unusual. She pottered about the bedsit, listening out for the familiar chirping that she’d assigned to his profile. Eventually, she heard it over the microwave. Hot noodles in a bowl… delicious.

  Are you okay!?

  She smiled. She expected his concern. She liked it.

  Yes.

  She typed quickly, eager to tell him her news.

  He's working in the city, not too far from my office. I was running an errand, stopped for lunch in this cafe and I knocked his coffee cup. He didn't recognise me!

  She curled her legs underneath her and slurped on a coke. The bedsit was piping hot. She had dispensed with her work clothes and slipped on a pair of ragged edged shorts and t-shirt. The red mark on her thigh was visible, but it didn't hurt. The faint white lines of her scars lurked beneath it. She hated looking at them. What an idiot she had been to think they would fade into nothing. By the time she started marking her arms, she had learnt how to do it properly and those ones hardly showed at all.

  Back then, she had been a skinny sixteen-year-old hiding underneath baggy hoodies and cropped jeggings. Waiting to bloom, her mother had told Mrs Asani, the next-door neighbour, almost apologetically. Mrs Asani's daughter had beautiful brown eyes and smiled a lot at the soccer-mad boy who had lived opposite them. Ellen had worked out smiling wasn’t the best approach but had said nothing to her besotted rival. Neighbours had been a useful distraction from other things. Mark rarely came home and when he did, he constantly argued with Deidre about appeals and expensive solicitors.

  Big brother! Must be exciting for you, sweetie.

  Ah, Freddie, always saw the good in everything. It was why she liked him. Ever since she’d first chatted to him on Facebook, she had sought to garner his friendship. She’d had to lie to get into the private Facebook group. After a few weeks, the guilt at her deception gnawed and kept her awake at night. The truth was important, so she confessed to him – she wasn't a victim of a crime, she was the daughter of a murderer. She had told him she found out about her father’s sentence on her twelfth birthday. Told him how she had run away still dressed in her grubby school uniform, carrying a faded satchel on the crook of her elbow, and nearly colliding with the advertising board outside the local newsagents. The board had an image emblazoned across it of the front cover of the Manchester Evening News, a grainy photo beneath the headline – Life for local man jailed for cowardly murder. He had resembled a gorilla with his five o'clock shadow and hunched shoulders, and nothing like the dad she’d once adored. She had kicked over the stand and stamped on it until the shopkeeper shouted abuse at her. Later, she had gone home and opened her two presents: a see-through plastic bag of make-up to hide her “ridiculous amount of acne” – Deidre said this to Ellen’s face – and a Barbie doll from Uncle Tim, who had forgotten she wasn’t a little girl, although at least he had tried.

  She had experienced a string of social workers in rapid succession and had presented, in a highly orchestrated manner, enough worrying issues for them. It wasn’t always nice attention. Their patience had dwindled when she had played up, and consequently she had been sent to a special unit for a month to learn, as her social worker had framed it, more about herself. Ellen had found out nothing she hadn’t already known – she was very good at keeping secrets.

  Freddie, far from berating her about her lie, was very sympathetic to her circumstances. He had immediately bounced a message back clearly stating she was a victim, just like anyone else. A victim of her father's wrongdoing. An indirect victim, but one nevertheless. His reassurance was astounding. She poured out her fears, her hatred and loneliness to Freddie and he absorbed it all without judging her.

  After exchanging messages with Freddie, she had built sufficient trust and revealed who her father was and where she lived, the name of the town, not her actual address – she wasn’t that stupid. Freddie had gone silent for a while, which upset and worried her. She had paced her pokey bedroom, ignored her mother's calls for dinner, and prayed he wouldn't block her. He had replied to her message a few days later, apologising for not responding; he had been out of the country and busy. He had set about reassuring Ellen that she was special, and her opinions mattered, and she shouldn't allow anyone else to convince her otherwise, especially her mother.

  Her friend was so unlike her parents. He sent her “listening” messages – open-ended questions followed by soft advice. He referred to her as sweetie. A strange endearment because from anyone e
lse, it would have been creepy. It helped that Freddie Z, as he was known on Facebook, was a trained counsellor who ran a victim support group. Somehow, unlike the social workers she shunned, he knew how to handle Ellen, who struggled to accept that her destiny had been determined by her father stabbing a man to death. When that poor sod's heart had been pierced by the blade, hers had been too.

  From then on, she had relinquished her maternally depleted mother of any semblance of parental responsibility and gave it to Freddie. He read her messages, which he insisted she use in an encrypted service, and he answered them in a considerate fashion, but not always immediately. He teased out her ambitions, especially her love of history and archaeology. And her fears.

  She had dreaded visiting days. Mark used to tag along, but after he had left home he insisted on going on his own, if he bothered to go at all. On her last visit, approaching the imposing prison gates, she had nearly retched. Hearing the keys clang and the doors slam behind them, she had been convinced she would be shut in with those violent men and left there as some kind of punishment for keeping her secret, the one Mark knew nothing about. Ellen had been watched the whole way by security cameras and the gnarled men with their faded tattoos and creased uniforms. In the visitors’ room, they had ogled her breasts; the one part of her that seemed to grow disproportionately to the rest of her shapeless body.

  ‘Remember he's innocent,’ Deidre had whispered.

  ‘Then why is he still here?’

  After that awful encounter with her father, who hadn’t looked her in the eyes and bundled cigarette packets into his pockets, Ellen decided she wouldn’t visit him anymore.

  She had spent the last summer holiday in Manchester volunteering for a local archaeology trust that excavated urban sites; something worthwhile and enjoyable, and the time away from Deidre had brought her into adulthood with the belief her fate lay in her own hands and nobody else's. Freddie had suggested she leave home and seek out the excitement of London, and new adventures. Get out and meet people, he had typed.