by Hazel Osmond
It was a gift, the chance to get out of the office and away from Jack. ‘Where’s the council again?’ she asked, giving the impression that she’d known and simply forgotten rather than not been paying attention in the first place.
‘Scarsdove,’ Ian said, pinching one of the biscuits from their tin on the filing cabinet. ‘It’s a nice little market town between Halifax and Leeds. You know, the place Jack comes from.’
CHAPTER 31
Ellie liked Scarsdove on sight, and not just because it was where Jack was born and grew up. It had a main street of shops, little independent ones, not the big names, and it sat slap-bang by the moors. Half wild and half civilised. A bit like Jack.
Ellie had decided not to fight the need to think about him while she was there. She wanted a good wallow and there was no better place to do it. So, after a very friendly and productive meeting with the council representatives, she wandered around the town. Over a cup of tea in a little café with white tablecloths and china teacups, she found herself looking out for strong noses. There appeared to be quite a few in this part of the world. After that she sat on a seat in the square and wondered if Jack had ever sat there and toyed with the idea of going to find his old school. Then she spotted the library. They would have copies of old newspapers and perhaps she’d come across a picture of him.
She was a lost cause, but at least she was only hurting herself.
The library was deserted except for a bored-looking librarian, whose eyes lit up when Ellie walked in. She directed Ellie to the local history section, indicating a curving metal staircase up to the first floor. Evidently the newspapers were still on microfiche and the librarian was very eager to come and help Ellie find what she was looking for. Fortunately at that moment a man with a nylon shopping bag came in through the library doors. Ellie saw the librarian go a little pale and skulk off behind the large-print section. Ellie left her to it and headed upstairs, her heels making a loud tapping noise on each of the steps as she went.
Fitting the microfiche in the machine was fiddly and her eyes soon began to ache, but she found the steady cycle of agricultural shows, nativity plays and summer fêtes comforting. She felt close to Jack here, or at least to his past. After a few minutes there he was, a smiling schoolboy, holding up a trophy for winning a long-jump event. Even all these years later she felt proud of him and sat there with her fingers lightly touching the photograph for a while.
A few more pieces of microfiche and there were other photographs of him: one as part of a school group off to Rome and another announcing his departure for Leeds University. He was more recognisably Jack in that last photo.
She jumped forward a few years to when she figured he would have graduated and then realised she’d gone too far. She was about to reverse when a small headline leaped out at her. Her obsession must be particularly acute: she’d picked Jack’s name out from a whole page of small type. As she started to read, her heart rate speeded up. Her eyes scanned quickly through the article, barely able to believe what she was reading. When she’d finished, she went right back to the beginning and read it again more slowly. Then she sat back, not seeing anything.
It was some while before she reached down into her handbag, pulled out her notebook and pen, and started to write.
Jack was heading home for the evening when it struck him that he hadn’t had a pint for a while. Very soon he wouldn’t be able to simply pop into a pub and get one. He bumped into Ian at the bar and bought them both a pint of Tetley’s.
‘I can’t stop long,’ Ian said, lifting his glass to his mouth. ‘I’m on daubing-the-spots-with-cream duty tonight.’
Jack made a face. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Early days. We’re waiting for the rest of the kids to come down with it now.’
‘Probably better they get it when they’re little. That’s what they say, isn’t it? And we’re quiet at the moment if you do need to nip off early some days. Even when I’m gone.’
‘Thanks, mate … and that reminds me … When you’re gone, can I have your office? Not for me – I was thinking of turning it into a games room – you know, basketball hoop, table tennis, that kind of thing. Break down the barriers, get the creative juices flowing.’ He took a sip of his beer. ‘Mind you, Ellie’s going to have an unfair advantage when it comes to basketball. Have to make sure we put the hoop as high as it’ll go.’
Jack felt the familiar lurch in his stomach at the mention of Ellie’s name. ‘I haven’t seen her for a couple of days … Is she still sick?’ He knew if she was, he was to blame.
‘No.’ Ian scraped at something stuck on the bar with his nail. ‘She’s doing that Scarsdove Council meeting for me. She’s up there now.’
Jack brought his pint down heavily on the bar and felt a ball of queasiness roll around in his stomach.
‘Yeah,’ Ian continued, returning his attention to his pint, ‘she was quite keen, and I told her to do a bit of research while she was there. You know, get a feel for the place and the people. I’ve noticed she’s good at that, getting stories out of people.’
‘Great,’ Jack said, and stared at the bar until the unease stopped threatening to turn into something more uncontrollable. Then he reached out very slowly and lifted his pint back to his lips.
CHAPTER 32
Jack watched Ellie come into his room on Monday morning and knew with complete certainty that it was payback time. He didn’t like the way she was smiling at him. It wasn’t an Ellie smile; there was absolutely no warmth in it.
‘I told Mrs MacEndry I wasn’t to be disturbed.’
‘This will only take a minute.’
Jack’s eyes were drawn to the notepad in Ellie’s hands. ‘Go on, then,’ he said, knowing that he really didn’t want to hear this.
‘It’s amazing what you can find out if you look in the right places,’ she said innocently, sitting down.
Jack lowered his pen and tried to look unconcerned. Deep breathing, that was the secret.
Ellie’s eyes were gleaming. ‘Fascinating place, Scarsdove. I spent a few hours in the library going through old newspapers and guess what I found out …? Besides the fact that you were very good at the long jump.’ Ellie laughed, but Jack couldn’t hear any amusement in it.
He felt his hand stray to his tie and forced himself to bring it back down to rest on the desk, but not before he had seen Ellie register the movement.
She gave a covert little smile and looked down at her notebook. Jack would not have been surprised if she had stopped and dramatically cleared her throat. She started to read: ‘“Mr Jack Wolfe of Harbiston Avenue, Leeds, pleaded guilty to a charge of threatening behaviour at Leeds Magistrates’ Court this week. The charge followed an incident outside the home of Mr Dean Wilkinson in Burland Crescent on 22 May when Mr Wolfe repeatedly threatened to castrate Mr Wilkinson, a camera operator with the BBC in Leeds. PC Armitage, one of the police officers who attended the incident, said that Mr Wolfe was ‘extremely agitated by the presence of Mrs Helen Wolfe in Mr Wilkinson’s house’.”’
Jack didn’t need to listen to the story; he knew it off by heart. He waited, every muscle tight with tension, for what else Ellie might have ferreted out, but she closed her notebook and sat there with her hands in her lap. Jack let out a breath very slowly and stopped gritting his teeth.
Ellie flashed him a triumphant look and smiled again, although Jack felt it actually belonged more to the smirk family.
Her tone was light and assured when she spoke. ‘So, Jack, I’m putting two and two together and guessing why your wife was in Dean Wilkinson’s house that night. Basically your wife had an affair with another man. The great Jack Wolfe, not able to keep his own wife satisfied.’ Ellie shook her head. ‘Shame there wasn’t anything about your divorce, it might have made for juicy reading. Although I think what I found out told me everything I needed to know about you.’
Ellie got up and sauntered over to the desk. She was definitely enjoying herself. ‘This explains so
much, Jack. Why you’re such a serial womaniser. Why you find it hard to commit to any kind of long-lasting relationship. Why you say one thing and do another. Why, most importantly, you drop women in the cruellest, most callous way.’ She folded her arms. ‘It’s absolutely classic get-your-own-back behaviour.’ She shot him a poisonous look. ‘Well, I’m sorry your wife was a two-faced, shag-somebody-else-behind-your-back tart, but it really isn’t an excuse for treating other women badly.’
Jack felt sick at the mention of Helen’s name next to all those cold descriptions of her. He wanted desperately to stand up and tell Ellie she was wrong, but then he’d have to tell her everything and there was no way he was ever doing that. He had to shake her off. He had to get her out of the room before he did something stupid. Even with her looking at him in such a mean way he still wanted to throw her down on the floor and bury himself in her.
He had missed her so very much these last few days and if she stayed near him any longer, he wasn’t going to be able to fight that longing for her.
‘Finished?’ he said, giving her a look that he was relieved to see wiped the smile off her face. ‘Is that the best you can do? What happened to your dignity, Ellie? Scrabbling around for sordid little details about my life. What are you going to do, get them published in Ad Infinitum?’
He saw her look confused. ‘No, of course not. I just—’
‘What? You just wanted to tell me what a horrible bastard I was?’ He picked up his pen and examined it. ‘Pretty pointless exercise. I already knew the Helen story and you already knew I was a bastard. Face it, Ellie, it’s the action of a sad little woman scorned. Not a pretty sight.’
He turned his attention to the paper in front of him and started to write. He didn’t know what he was writing: anything so that he didn’t have to see the look in her eyes or watch as she hesitantly turned round and then left his office. He wasn’t even going to think about the horrible gulping noise she had made.
When he was sure she had gone, he went out to have a word with Lydia.
‘I thought I said I wasn’t to be disturbed.’
‘Did you?’
‘You know I did. This isn’t like you. What are you playing at?’
‘I like Ellie,’ she said very precisely. ‘A great deal. I think you do too. She’s a nice girl.’
Jack grunted. ‘London’s full of nice girls.’
‘Possibly … but I think you’re being an idiot, Jack. And I think Helen would agree.’
‘Lydia,’ Jack said softly, ‘watch your step. Or you’re going to find yourself getting sacked right before you retire. We’ve never had a cross word, let’s not start now.’ He turned round and headed back to his office before Lydia could say anything more.
He wasn’t really surprised that she’d picked up on there being something between him and Ellie, but one thing he did not need was someone telling him how nice Ellie was. Like he didn’t already bloody know that. Like that counted for anything in the end.
Ellie had carried her little bit of news about Jack and his wife around with her like a hand grenade all weekend. She wanted to pay him back for his callousness; stop him seeing her as a victim he could merely use without any consequences. She had relished the thought of telling him she knew why he had become the man he was.
Then it had all gone wrong. Ellie put her head against her old friend the cool wall of the toilet partition. All that stuff she’d said about his wife, all that venom spilling out of her. He still cared for Helen, judging by that look of pain he’d had on his face. He’d covered it up pretty quickly, but it had been there. Hurting him had been horrible; she didn’t care if he deserved it.
It was a completely hollow victory; she’d come across like some bunny-boiling maniac.
She’d made things worse and now he would hate her as well as thinking she was pathetic. Putting in even a cursory appearance at his leaving do was out of the question. She’d have to pretend to be ill again and come back when he was safely in New York.
Ellie made it out of the ladies’ toilets before realising that she’d just seen Jack for the last time. She managed to get herself back into a cubicle and stayed there crying as quietly as she could until a worried Lesley came to look for her and then put her into a taxi and sent her home.
CHAPTER 33
The agency was quiet when Ellie finally returned to work the morning after Jack’s leaving party. When she passed the reception desk, Rachel had on her sunglasses.
‘You missed a great night, Ellie. Really awesome,’ she croaked.
Every office Ellie passed was deserted. The quiet seemed to emphasise the fact that Jack was gone; the excitement had passed on somewhere else.
Ellie opened the door to her office and immediately spotted the white envelope on her desk. The thought that it might be a leaving note from Jack made her leap at it and tear it open, but as she read it, she saw it was confirmation of what he had hinted at. It was promotion. From now on she was to be senior copywriter, and as Lesley had a similar envelope on her desk, Ellie guessed she must be getting promotion too.
A few weeks ago she would have been overjoyed; everything she’d wanted from work was falling into place. Promotion and a successful ad campaign, probably even some awards later.
She put the letter on the desk and went to fill the kettle.
Lesley crawled into the room later and the genuine surprise on her face when she opened the letter was priceless. Promotion had come out of the blue for Lesley and her happiness was uplifting. She threw herself at Ellie and almost squeezed the breath out of her and then she was on the phone to Megan. Ellie picked up the phone too and rang round the agency and soon their office was full of people, all hung-over but all willing to have one more drink to celebrate the good news.
Ellie felt guilty that they were so concerned about how she was feeling. She was a coward and a fraud.
‘You missed a cracking night,’ Ian said. ‘Even Mrs MacEndry was up and giving it hell on the dance floor.’
‘And Mike, you missed Mike,’ Juliette said, a brilliantly mischievous smile illuminating her face. She reached out and ruffled Mike’s hair.
There was a volley of catcalls and someone slapped Mike on the back.
‘Go on, big boy,’ Juliette said, poking him with a finger, ‘tell your Auntie Ellie all about it.’
Everyone looked as if they were about to burst into laughter and Mike mumbled something in Ellie’s direction.
‘Speak up, Mike, don’t be shy,’ Juliette said, enjoying his discomfort.
‘I got off with Rachel,’ Mike blurted out.
The catcalls and whistles started up again and one of the studio jocks said, ‘Hey, what’s it like to be her first?’
‘Shut up, shut the fuck up,’ Mike shouted, glaring round at them all. ‘I don’t care what you think. I like her. I’ve liked her for months. Anyone says anything like that again and I’ll—’
Suddenly Ian was standing next to Mike. He put his arm round his shoulders.
‘Come on, lad, calm down. It was a bit of fun. Nobody meant anything. We all like Rachel.’
Somebody sniggered and Mike glared again.
Ian held his hand up for quiet. ‘That’s enough. We’re a team. Save that kind of sniping for people at other agencies. Cut it out.’
Nobody spoke. Ian might not have Jack’s size, but he had the same air of danger about him at times. And this was one of those times. When he calculated that his message had hit home, he gave Mike’s shoulder a consoling squeeze. ‘You’ve got to admit, though, it was pretty funny the way you both disappeared for a while and then she came back with her blouse done up all wrong.’
‘Yeah … well …’ Mike said, grinning.
There was a barrage of raucous laughter and then the conversation veered off to other scandals from the party. Ellie waited to hear something about Jack, steeling herself for the news that he’d ended up wrapped in someone else’s arms. She didn’t have to wait long.
‘What a
bout Jack, though, eh?’ Ian said, shaking his head, and Ellie’s antenna was on full alert. ‘Arrived drunk, drank himself back sober and then got completely bladdered again.’
‘When he was dancing with me, he could barely string a sentence together,’ Lesley said.
Ian went over to the biscuit tin and took out a handful of shortbreads. ‘He held me much too tight when he danced with me. I couldn’t even breathe most of the time. Daft great lump.’
‘He danced with you, Ian?’ Ellie said, confused.
‘He danced with everyone. Including the bouncers at one point, I think. Completely out of his tree.’ Ian went to pop a biscuit in his mouth and then stopped. ‘I had to pour him into a taxi and take him back to my house in the end. Doesn’t look too clever this morning, though. Especially with Josh bouncing up and down on him.’
Ellie pretended to check whether there was anything in the mini-fridge and fought her murderous jealousy of a five-year-old boy with chickenpox. But at least Jack hadn’t gone home with a woman. It was a little chink of light.
‘He’s going to have a hard time pulling himself back together by tonight,’ Ian continued, in between mouthfuls of biscuit. ‘Hot date with a hot judge evidently. Helping her with her briefs, I expect.’
There was a sudden crash that made them all jump and then Lesley dashed from her seat to help Ellie put the mini-fridge back on top of the cabinet.
The agency emptied out early and no one went to the pub after work, but Ellie stayed a bit later and, when everyone was gone, wandered down to Jack’s old office and sat in his chair. Soon it would be the games room.
She ran her hands over his desk and then turned the chair round to look out of the window. Two pigeons were mating on the windowsill, the male every now and again pecking the female on the neck. Ellie fully expected to see the male pigeon throw the female off the ledge when he’d finished with her. Or perhaps males in the bird world were kinder than human ones.
