by Hazel Osmond
Ellie steered the conversation round to other things, and soon they were both buried back in the Scarsdove annual report. Ellie enjoyed the easy silence as they worked. At least losing Jack meant that there was no more sneaking around behind Lesley’s back, hiding things from her.
The morning moved along and the only sounds were the tapping of Ellie’s nails on the keyboard and the squeak of Lesley’s pen on the paper. About an hour before lunch there was a knock on the door and Rachel walked in.
‘Ooh, nice tan, Lesley. I’m surprised to see you’ve got one. I didn’t think you’d get out of the bedroom.’
‘Very good, Rachel – that was almost a joke. Nice to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour when you’re going to need it most.’
Rachel looked puzzled.
‘Now you’re living with Mike. Jeez, you’ll need a sense of humour for that.’
‘Ha, ha, very funny. Look – I’m cracking up.’ Rachel made a weird, googly-eyed face and then turned to Ellie. ‘Anyway, it’s you I came to see. There’s a guy from Scarsdove downstairs.’
‘Well, can’t Hugo see him?’
‘He says he wants to speak to you. Just you. It’s important.’
Ellie sighed and stood up. It must be something about last night. Perhaps Hugo had reverted to default plonker mode and got the entire council arrested. ‘OK, where is he?’
‘Meeting room,’ Rachel said, and disappeared out of the door.
Ellie trudged down the stairs wondering whether she should have brought the draft copy for the annual report along with her to give the guy a taste of how it was going to read. Too late now – she wasn’t walking all the way back up the stairs.
She pushed open the door and suddenly thoughts of annual reports and holidays in Crete and Rachel living with Mike left her mind and all of her attention was focused completely on one spot in the room.
A spot where a tall, dark-haired man with broad shoulders was standing totally still.
CHAPTER 40
Ellie felt her heart thump and then speed up.
‘A man from Scarsdove,’ she said. ‘Rachel said there was a man here from Scarsdove.’
Jack nodded. ‘I am a man from Scarsdove.’
Of course he was. A big, handsome man from Scarsdove, but was he actually here? After dreaming about this happening for so long, Ellie could not trust that this wasn’t some kind of fevered imagining on her part. The man looked like Jack, though; a tired, more crumpled version of Jack, but Jack nonetheless.
‘How have you been?’ he said.
Well, even if her brain couldn’t quite accept yet that he was in the room, her senses all knew it. Every part of her was feeling wired.
How had she been? She had no idea how to answer his question. ‘Devastated’ sounded too dramatic. ‘A bit upset’? She shrugged.
Jack raised a hand and ruffled his hair but didn’t smooth it down again and Ellie wanted to do it for him. All those little boxes in her head filled with happy memories of him were beginning to open up again. Him in the car, in her room, sitting outside the bathroom door. She’d tried to seal them down and keep them shut, but that wasn’t working.
Jack had been unable to sit and wait for Ellie to come into the room. He’d been pacing up and down until he’d seen the door handle move, and when he saw her, he could tell that Rachel hadn’t warned her that he was there. Good old Rachel, finally able to keep a secret.
He couldn’t trust himself to move towards her, though, and in truth he had no idea what she would do if he did. The look of surprise on her face had gone and now her expression was unreadable. She hadn’t answered him when he’d asked her how she was, but he didn’t need an answer really. She was wonderful.
Why had he ever thought she looked like a student? She looked exactly like she was: funky, slightly dishevelled, soft. She had that flippy little skirt on again and a top with a neckline that gave a hint of where the swell of her breasts started.
The thought that he might never get to kiss her there again made him swallow hard.
He might actually have left this too late. He backed to the table and sat down on it more heavily than he had intended. He knew Ellie was watching him, but there were no clues about what she was thinking. She was normally so animated; he could read what she thought simply by looking at her. She’d never hidden anything.
Now she was asking him how he was, and it seemed to him that it was the same kind of tone she would have used for somebody she’d met in the damn street.
He felt sick. He was an idiot; he needed to say something to her before he found he couldn’t say anything at all any more.
‘I’m great, Ellie. Great.’ His reflexes were carrying him along.
‘And New York?’ It was that same damn polite tone. It was so, so detached.
‘Great too. It’s …’ Jack stopped. Time to end all this formality, all this chit-chat. He’d been up for twenty hours. He was going to fall over soon if he didn’t say what he had to.
‘Actually, Ellie, it’s not great, it’s rubbish, complete rubbish.’ Jack looked at Ellie’s face again, but there was no reaction, nothing. He took a deep breath. ‘It might as well be sodding Halifax in the drizzle, Ellie.’
Jack wondered whether Ellie had actually heard him, her face was so impassive. He felt his heart rate go to buggery. There was a nasty metallic taste in his mouth. He had to get this out, come clean.
‘Ellie, I cocked up big time … I … What you said in the restaurant in New York … Well, it wasn’t completely right, but it was near enough.’ Jack paused and then restarted all in a rush: ‘I don’t know how you feel about me any more, Ellie. I’ve been a jerk, a complete jerk.’
Why wasn’t she saying anything? Why was she just standing there looking at him like he was someone she used to know? Jack felt panic grab at his skull, the same kind of panic he’d felt when that doctor had taken him to one side and explained about Helen. Why the hell had he left it so long? He should have given in before now and come back to her.
He wasn’t certain what to say next, where he was going, and then he was talking and he couldn’t stop the words. ‘Look, I fought this. I’d got my life under control. I didn’t want to ever be out of control again … I didn’t want this, Ellie.’ Jack came to a halt as he saw Ellie’s eyes flare at him. He could not believe what he had just said, that wasn’t what he had practised all the way on the flight over the Atlantic; he was meant to tell her he loved her first. That was meant to be first. Sod it, perhaps if he could hold her, he could get it right.
Jack took a step towards Ellie and saw her take a definite step away from him.
A lovely warm feeling of hope had spread through Ellie when Jack had talked about New York being rubbish. He must mean that it was rubbish without her. That’s what he was trying to say. Maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t been imagining what he felt for her. When he called himself a jerk, he had seemed so sad that despite everything he’d done, she was tempted to tell him to stop talking and come over and hold her.
Then everything changed. He was being horrible to her again, telling her how he didn’t really want this. He didn’t want to be out of control. The lids on all those happy boxes were slamming shut again and her mind was pulling forward all the nasty things he had said and done to her, turning them over and seeing how ugly they were. Casting her to one side and not even having the guts to tell her; deciding to move to New York and her being the last to know; humiliating her in front of all those people in that restaurant.
He’d come all this way to tell her he didn’t want her messing up his ordered life.
So why the move towards her? Well, he could forget that.
‘Sod you, Jack,’ she shouted.
Ellie saw Jack make another move towards her and he was trying to say something else, but there was nothing in the world that was going to stop her screaming it all out now. She’d been so reasonable, so understanding; she’d made herself sick.
‘You were a bastard to me, Ja
ck,’ she yelled at him, her hands balled into fists, ‘and I never did anything to deserve it. Nothing. You made me feel used; something you could wipe yourself in and then throw away, like a piece of old tissue.’
Jack’s mouth was moving, but she could only hear her own voice. ‘And those things you said in that restaurant, the way you humiliated me in front of everyone and I took it because I was so desperately sad about Helen dying. I let you and your stupid girlfriend laugh at me. Have you any idea how much that hurt to hear you say those things? Have you? I was on my own in a foreign country, I was begging you to listen to me, and you just cut me down.’
She saw Jack lift his hand as if he was going to reach out for her. No. She didn’t want to feel his touch ever again.
Ellie whirled round and strode towards the door. She felt hot and wobbly; the blood was pounding in her ears. She heard Jack shout her name in a tone she had never heard him use before; it had a pleading, desperate sound. It almost stopped her, but her anger was carrying her forward and she had to get right away from him.
She was reaching for the door handle when she saw it turn of its own accord and Lesley barged into the room.
Her gaze went first to Ellie and then to Jack. She gave a little ‘Oh’ and her brow furrowed, and then her attention was all back on Ellie. Her eyes were huge behind her glasses.
‘It’s Edith,’ she said, and Ellie could see the panic in her expression. ‘She collapsed at the coach station. They’ve taken her to St Thomas’s. She had you down as her next of kin.’
CHAPTER 41
Edith hardly made any kind of bump in the bedclothes. Her whole body seemed to have shrunk, her skin grown more translucent.
Seeing Edith without her make-up and her bright clothes, those sleights of hand that had distracted people from her real age, was gut-wrenching. Ellie sat down in the hard chair next to the bed and scolded herself for not being more insistent that Edith should slow down. Why hadn’t she treated her more like the old lady she was?
‘Talk to her, love. Let her know you’re here,’ the nurse said, as she pulled the curtains round the bed.
Ellie leaned forward and put her hand over Edith’s. It felt cold and bony and very small. ‘Edith sweetheart, it’s Ellie. What have you been doing to yourself?’
There was no response; Edith lay quite still, her eyes closed.
Ellie looked around at the grey locker, the plastic water jug and the garish curtains and wanted to take Edith away from it all. She didn’t belong here. She should be back home with the stools in the shape of elephants and a gin and tonic in her hand.
‘Now come on, Edith,’ she tried again, moving to sit very gently on the bed, ‘you can’t keep lying around like this, not in the middle of the day.’
Nothing.
‘I was looking forward to thrashing you at Scrabble tonight.’
Edith’s eyelids fluttered open and Ellie squeezed her hand.
‘That’s it, Edith. Come on, it’s me, Ellie.’
Edith’s eyes looked misted, unfocused, but Ellie saw her mouth twitch slightly on one side.
‘You’re going to be all right, Edith. You’ve had a bit of a turn. You’ve been doing far too much.’
There was no change in Edith’s expression, but Ellie felt the slightest movement in the hand on the sheet, so she lifted it up and sandwiched it gently between her own. It seemed so fragile she was afraid she would shatter it if she pressed too hard. There was definitely movement there, though. She smiled down at Edith, trying to encourage her back from wherever she was.
Ellie thought about telling her that she had called Constance and Pandora, but decided against it. Edith would know things were serious if her daughters were on their way. So softly she talked about Lesley’s holiday and the liqueur that tasted of ash and the figure with the huge penis. Then she talked about the weather and what was on television that night and about how they would be missing her down in Brighton. She didn’t mention Jack, couldn’t trust herself to say anything about that.
All the time Edith’s face remained impassive, as if she were there but somehow frozen, and Ellie was finding it more and more difficult to remain cheerful; a feeling of dread was creeping over her like a shadow over a lawn.
‘Edith sweetheart, please try to listen to me.’ Ellie fought to keep the desperation out of her voice. ‘I’m going to stay here with you and hold your hand and keep on talking and you’re going to have a little rest. You’re going to need all that energy of yours. There’s a double-feature Dracula at the Forum on Tuesday and then we’ve got that talk on the Indian hill stations.’ Edith’s eyes were still unfocused, but her hand continued to make little movements between Ellie’s.
‘That’s it, Edith, come on. The house is going to be pretty dull with you in hospital. I don’t want you in here any more than a couple of nights.’
Ellie kept talking, but Edith’s eyes drooped closed and for a second Ellie stopped talking and watched Edith’s chest. It was still rising and falling. She started talking again, quicker this time, as if by talking she could keep at bay whatever was lurking, unmentionable, just out of view.
She wished Pandora and Constance would get here soon, and then as quickly unwished it. When they arrived, she would have to take a back seat. They would be the ones holding Edith’s hand. The thought of that made Ellie hold Edith’s hand tighter and tell her how much she loved her and that she wouldn’t leave her.
But the movements of Edith’s hand were getting less frequent.
The sounds of the ward were all around, she could hear people talking on the other side of the curtain, but her world seemed to have shrunk to the length and width of the bed and the woman lying in it. This woman who had taught her so much without trying and entrusted her with the biggest secret of her life.
And then something about Edith changed and Ellie knew that she had gone. There was no major event, no crisis, just a slipping away of all that zest and energy. It went like a whisper, but it was definitely gone.
Ellie could not move, could not believe it. Edith was indestructible. Surely she would sit up in a minute and ask why the hell she wasn’t on the coach to Brighton. Reaching out her hand, she very gently ran it down Edith’s face and her fingers felt what her brain could not digest.
Ellie continued to sit there holding Edith’s hand. She was unwilling to let go or leave Edith alone in order to fetch a nurse. The rest of the world would be barging in soon enough. She needed some time to say her goodbyes to Edith in her head, even if there was no point in saying them out loud.
In Edith’s face she saw traces of her own father and of herself, but no trace of the real Edith any more.
When she felt able, she bent forward and kissed Edith gently on the forehead. Then she thought how cross Edith would be about anybody else seeing her looking so un-Edith-like and reached for her handbag and got out her comb. Methodically she tidied up Edith’s hair for her.
Then the silence broke and the room was suddenly full of Constance and Pandora with their husbands in tow complaining about the price of hospital parking. The nurse was walking towards the bed.
As quickly as they had all burst in full of chat, they stopped, each one of them transfixed by the sight of Edith. Five pairs of eyes turned to Ellie.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘she’s gone.’ She let go of Edith’s hand and got up off the bed. The nurse became all action and concern. Ellie couldn’t stand it. ‘I need some air,’ she said, and snatched up her handbag and ducked through the curtains.
Outside the hospital, she sat down on a bollard. Edith was dead. The impossible had happened.
Someone came and stood in front of her and she looked up to see Jack.
‘I was in the waiting room,’ he said. ‘I saw you go past… Edith …?’
That was when Ellie started to cry properly. Jack tried to put his arm round her, but she swatted him away. She was aware that he was still standing there as she sobbed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Here
she was, crying in front of Jack again, but this time she didn’t give a damn what he thought.
Jack mumbled something about calling a taxi, and when it came, she climbed in and he sat next to her. Ellie looked out of the window. Everything seemed the same; the sun was shining; the streets were full. But London was one feisty old woman short.
Jack’s thoughts were on that other trip he had made home from hospital in a taxi and how he had hated every smiling fool he had seen out of the window. Now here he was in another taxi, watching someone else suffer, and he couldn’t even comfort her. He couldn’t even help the woman he loved because he’d magnificently, stupendously stuffed everything up. He tentatively moved his hand over Ellie’s and she didn’t pull away. But she didn’t look at him either.
CHAPTER 42
Jack watched Ellie buttering the piece of bread as if she hated it. He wanted to offer to do it for her, but she hadn’t spoken to him since they’d got back to Edith’s house and there was no reason for him to believe she would talk to him now. She’d walked into the house and disappeared upstairs, leaving him to sit in Edith’s sitting room and go over, yet again, how much he’d messed everything up. She’d only re-emerged when Constance and Pandora, with husbands, had arrived back from the hospital.
This was the nearest he had got to her since the taxi ride, standing in the kitchen pulling together something for everyone to eat.
Ellie tore open a packet of ham, put some of it on the bread, then sliced up some cucumber and placed that on top of the ham. After she’d rammed another piece of bread on top, she cut the whole thing roughly into four triangles. Jack picked up a bottle of red wine from the counter and, as he was uncorking it, continued to watch Ellie uneasily. She’d been crying upstairs, but now she was angry. He guessed it was at death, he knew that feeling, but probably it was also at him.
