Ellie's Return (14 page)

She thought she had never been so tired.
Her angry confrontations with both Claudia and Lola had drained her even more
than the lack of sleep and the rigorous demands on her body, even if many of
those physical demands were well intended. She would get back and she would
empty her soul to her understanding friend and then she would sleep on and off
for days, and when she was recovered from the sleep deprivation then finally
some kind of solution would start to come to her if she asked for it, but she
had first to be able to think straight.

She had slept that first night at
Claudia’s, but the next night her sleep had been broken again and again. When
she stormed out of the hotel she had driven back to Claudia’s and had a huge
row. She was angry at Claudia for sleeping with Tom, but she knew that she had
no right to be so angry, when she had refused to be in touch with either one of
them. She had also been angry at Claudia for not telling her that Tom had tried
to get in touch with her, and accused her of wanting him for herself, until
Claudia pointed out that this had only occurred a long time after they had both
been ignored by her for several months. When Claudia was able to show her from
her archived emails how many times she had tried to be in touch and how often
she had mentioned Tom needing to contact her she knew she did not have a leg to
stand on. Ellie apologised profusely now, and then things calmed between them, but
were not so much better that Ellie had any reason ever to go back, since the
relationships with all three people that were once central to her life were
clearly now things of the past whether she wanted them to be or not.

The confrontation with Lola had been less
forgiving.

Twenty-Four

Tom had stayed over another night as he
and Ellie had arranged, and he had hoped that she would come back after
storming off, but she did not, so he was left to check out of the hotel on his
own. If he had wanted a change from the norm this weekend he could hardly have
asked for more. It had been a revelation and even though it had ended badly, he
felt lighter for the fact that the animosity he had felt for Ellie was gone,
even if it had been redirected and redoubled toward Lola. It had never sat well
with Tom to be so angry with Ellie; it was an emotion that was as alien to
their relationship as it was intrinsic to that with Lola. He had long suspected
that Lola might have had something to do with ruining things between them,
because he had realised before long that she had wanted something from him, but
that it wasn’t him. It was only Ellie’s failure ever to engage with him that had
made him angry with her, because it seemed to reinforce what he had been led to
believe about her. Now he was angry with himself for ever having allowed
himself to distrust her, and he felt ridiculous for trusting Lola more, because
there was no way around the fact that he had. She had exploited his fears, his
vanity, and his weakness. All the foibles he had never believed he had were
revealed to him now as not only existing within him, but as having peaked when
they enabled Lola to drive a wedge between him and the woman he had loved
completely. It had been a temporary aberration and within weeks he had started
to become wise to it, but when Ellie did not respond from Venice to his appeals,
he had no choice but to accept that it was either true that she had left him
for someone else or he had been duped into pushing her away, but either way she
was gone. What had frustrated him for most of that time was not knowing for
sure whether it was Ellie’s choice to leave him or whether he had contributed
to that. The realisation now confirmed that he had pushed her away, could be
taken two ways. It could be the absolute low-point of his lifetime sentence he
was now committed to serving for the crime of losing her so callously, or it
could be the end of that sentence if he decided that the only plan he had
needed to be actioned. Ellie was right, they could start again, and they could
start with nothing if they needed to. The only problem was that she was gone,
and she had left thinking that she did not matter enough to him to be worth losing
everything else for. He knew she was probably going back to Venice and he knew
what day, but not from which airport, so he would have to hope that she agreed
to speak to him once more before she left. She had told him there and then that
it was his last chance, and he had not taken it, so she may not speak to him
again, but he also knew she had not waited so long and come so far to give up
yet, if only he could reach her before she left.

He packed his small suitcase, and picked
up the gift box – he had hidden it when he got back to the room and the
moment had not been right yet to give it to her. Walking out to the car, he was
feeling more inspired than he had for a long time. His plan had been too much
about waiting, but it was against all his instincts to do so. Three years ago
he had failed miserably but he had only just realised quite the extent of that
failure. Now he realised that the person he had become was not the weak and
uninspired figure that he had dreaded when he looked in the mirror these days.
He was tired, yes, drained even. He felt uninspired day to day and there was an
insipid anger in his veins but he was tired of that anger now, and that
waiting. He had tolerated everything until now because he was afraid of losing
his business, and he was afraid longer term of losing his fathers business too,
but his anger was not just with Lola, it was with himself because he had
already lost the most important thing in his life, and he knew he was
responsible. This shadow of a man he was now, this lonely, stooped and unhappy
being who dreaded every day the way he used to relish them, realised that he
was not the failure he had started to think himself. He was not finished being
the person he had been, the person he had been proud to be. His failure had
been three years ago but the period since then was not a failing; it was an
attempt against awful odds to salvage all that he had once had and so nearly
lost. Ellie was not lost three years ago and she was not lost now. So far
everything had just been slipping away, and she had returned in time to show
him he needed to take it all back.

He put the small suitcase on the back seat
of the Bentley and went back into the hotel, ready to settle his bill and check
out. He was about to sign the final bill when he had an idea and asked if he
could use a different credit card.

Twenty-Five
 

Ellie had left her phone turned off. For
three years she had not heard a peep out of Lola and now she was calling her
from the shop, bombarding her with calls that Ellie no longer had any interest
in responding to. After the way they had left things, she was amazed that Lola
had anything to say to her.

There was nothing that Tom could say that
would make her change her mind; she had seen his true colours now and they were
not what she remembered of him. If he wanted to say anything worthwhile he
could say it in a text of two or three words, but when she turned on the phone,
hoping to see those words she found no such thing. She was surprised to find a
missed call from her mother, but there was no message and when she tried to
call her back there was no ring tone. She would have to assume that if it were
urgent she would have left a message or sent a text.

Ellie had slept in the car on the Saturday
night, hoping that Tom would come out and find her, but he did not so he had
blown his chance, she was not going back in to the hotel to apologise. She
stayed out all of the next day too, not wanting to see Claudia, and afraid that
Tom might turn up there. When she had eventually gone back to Claudia’s late in
the evening she had stormed in and thrown the few things into the small
suitcase that she had left out. Being a considerate kind of a guest she had
left the suitcase hidden away behind the sofa so this did not take long, and
was masked by her initial fury when she entered the flat, a scene during which
the suitcase had made its way to the front door. After the row with Claudia
things had calmed down a bit. Claudia had wanted to suggest that they go and
sleep on it, but she gathered that this was not really on the cards, and Ellie
was leaving first thing in the morning so she had decided to sit up with her
until they both fell asleep, and had commandeered a fleecy blankets from
upstairs for herself, to that end.

Ellie was no longer angry with Claudia but
she was still felt a residual anger at the situation. Had things worked out
better with Tom she might have been able to let that anger go, but Lola had
destroyed something good and real and no good could come of such an act that
was only motivated by greed and malevolence. She had to have it out with her.
She dared not go back to the house because Tom would be back there by now and
she could not bear to him again unless it was for the right reasons, which
would mean him knocking on her door rather than the other way around. That
meant she would have to go to the shop and confront Lola before heading to the
airport.

It was early morning, and Claudia was
asleep on the sofa now so Ellie crept upstairs to have a shower and ensure that
she put on her travelling push-up bra.

She left the small suitcase by the front
door, taking only her large handbag and a fleece against the cold morning. She
would make this trip and then pop back for the suitcase and take a taxi to the airport.
When she arrived at the shop the door was closed and the sign confirmed that
was the status, but she turned the handle and went in. She could see that there
was nobody in the shop itself but the lights were all on, including in the side
office where she had seen Lola the day after arriving. As she approached the
small door she was nervous because she was so tired and she did not know
exactly what to say but she knew she had to tell Lola that she knew what she
had done to her. She would not make any threats, she could not meaningfully
tell her she would never see her again because she knew Lola would not care,
and she did not want to say anything hollow or meaningless but she wanted Lola
to know that she knew what she had done, and to give her the chance to
apologise and give some sort of explanation. That was for Ellie’s sake, not
Lola’s, and was simply because she would be wondering for years how her friend
could have acted in such a way and anything Lola said now, good or bad, may in
some way alleviate that.

She heard movement in the office as she
approached and her heart was beating quicker and quicker. She heard a whirring
sound and some paper shuffling, and some occasional typing, but as she got to
the door and looked in, she saw the elegant assistant there instead. She had a
pile of papers and she was feeding them into a shredder. Ellie stood and watched
for a few moments as Charlotte leaned over to the PC and clicked something with
a mouse and then saw the flying envelope icon of a ‘delete’ action. For a
minute, Ellie stood and watched as this cycle of shredding and deletion
continued, eventually she coughed and walked in and Charlotte looked up,
startled.

She told Charlotte she might want to be a
bit more discreet if she was doing something underhand. Charlotte smiled, the
smile of an ally, and said she was nearly done; she had been here for hours,
she just needed to finish taking down the website and destroying all the back
up files. Ellie put down her bag and the car key she had been fiddling with,
and half sat on a desk just inside the door. She asked her when Lola was
expected. A man had already called to see her this morning and he said it was
very urgent that he sees her. Charlotte had called her and she was on her way,
she would be here soon. Charlotte was only here to hand in her notice. Ellie
smiled, and asked if she had something better to go to. Charlotte confirmed
that she did, and that anything would be better. Ellie wished her luck, picked
up her bag and said she would come back shortly. As she turned to go back out
of the office, Lola was standing there, asking her what was so urgent.

Ellie was taken aback, not by the
suddenness of her appearance, but by her appearance as a stranger. There was no
pretence now of being friendly or of avoiding an ugly confrontation, and as
suddenly as she appeared, Ellie now saw that there was nothing to be angry
about here. The real Lola was either long gone or had never existed. Somehow
she had bought change into Ellie’s life that Ellie did not want or need but
that was her job done, now there was nothing between them, and Ellie knew she
would be able to move on from friendship and not be angry for years the way she
had feared. There was almost nothing to say, but as she went to pass Lola she
said,

“I know what you did, Lola. I know you
lied to Tom, and to me. I know you destroyed our happiness, and I know you did
it for all the wrong reasons. But you are what you are, I don’t have to know
you any more.”

Lola snorted as Ellie walked past, and she
shoved her face angrily up to Ellie’s.

“You pathetic people, you’re just so easy
to take from. You have no passion; things come and go and you don’t fight for
anything. In five years I will own half of this town. In ten years I will have
a shop in every major city in the country, I’ll be international and famous, and
you will boast to friends how you used to know me but you won’t say how you do
because you will be ashamed of how great I have become and how tiny you still
are.
 
You are nothing, neither you
nor that shadow of a man of yours. I’ll be done with him soon, and then you can
have his hollow carcass.”

Ellie was walking away and she heard over
her shoulder as the elegant assistant said she needed to talk to her and Lola
snapped at her, asking who needed to see her so urgently.

As she got to the front door it was held
open for her by a man with a clipboard, smiling and calling inside for
attention.