Ellie's Return (17 page)

Pauline said that it was such a shame; she
was so hoping that something good had happened between them. Ellie said she had
hoped so too but it was not to be. Pauline then started talking about her
father, Henry, and all the lovely things that Tom had done for him. Ellie did
not really know what she was talking about. Claudia had said something about
Tom wanting to get in touch with her about a property but they had not talked
about it, however, she said that Tom was a businessman and she was sure that he
had got a good deal out of Henry. If he had his house off him, he must have done
well out of it so she did not know what her father had to feel so grateful
about. Pauline was surprised that Ellie knew nothing about any of this. It wasn’t
at all like that; Tom had bought the house from Henry for more than it was
worth and he had spent more again on modernising it. He said he made it more
comfortable than it had ever been when we lived there, Pauline told her. Ellie
said yes well she suspected Tom would say that.

“Oh no dear”, said Pauline. “Tom didn’t
tell anyone, and he asked your father not to either. It was your father who
told me all this, told me how good Tom was to him, Tom doesn’t know that I
know, he’d be mortified. I thought you might know about it though.”

Ellie had to admit that this was all news
to her. Why had Tom not said anything? Would he have told her later if she had
not walked out on him at the hotel? What else might he have said if she had allowed
him to talk instead of just leaving?
 

“Anyway,” continued Pauline, “it’s a shame
because your father had told Tom when he sold him the house that he had always
wanted to leave it to you, and Tom had said to him that he was buying it for
you, so that it would pass straight to you, and he hoped that you would live
there with him. That made your father very happy so it’s a shame it never
happened, but I expect Tom will tell you all that when you see him”.

Ellie replied that she already seen him
and he had made no mention of it, but she wasn’t going to see him again so it
would have to remain unsaid. Whatever he had said at the time it was his house
now and he had probably decided to keep it.
  
“Did Tom not catch up with you yet?
“ asked Pauline, much to Ellie’s amazement. Ellie’s was quite sure she had
covered this off enough times in this conversation but she tried to be patient
and told her once more that she had seen him at the weekend, and she was not
going to see him again. The taxi she was in had been making good time while
they were talking but Ellie noticed now that they were stuck in traffic and
that they had not moved for some time. She needed to have the window down
because there was no air conditioning in the car for some reason but the taxi
was stuck in traffic because of road works and the drilling was happening only
yards away, so her mothers repetitive questions were getting harder to cope
with against the heat and the noise.

Pauline said she was talking about this
morning, when she had seen him, at the airport. That was why she was calling now;
to make sure they had met up. So Tom had been at the airport? Ellie could not
believe her bad luck. Tom had been at the airport, when she had thought he did
not even know what airport she was leaving from. Her flight had been delayed
for hours and still she had not seen him. It was good to know that he had tried
to see her, but what for? Was he going to ask her wait again, for longer? Was
he going to tell her that she did not understand how hard this was for him?

Ellie felt rather flat now, and said that she
did not see him there.

“Well, I expect you will see him later
anyway”, said Pauline.

Ellie realised she was at the end of her
tether with this conversation. She was very tired and irritable, the car was
too hot and the leather seats were burning up. There was drilling going on only
yards away, some kind of commotion outside and the traffic had not moved for
ages. Ellie was on the verge of snapping at her mother that she did not see Tom
at the airport, when Pauline told her that it was as well that she ran into him
herself, because he had Ellie’s email address but not her house address.
 

Ellie was not even sure that she
understood what her mother was saying; she was trying and failing to understand
but with all the noise around her, and her own tiredness, something was not
making sense.

“Where did you see Tom?” she asked
Pauline.

“At the airport, dear, I told you,”
replied Pauline.

“But you were coming back into Heathrow, and
I was leaving from Gatwick. Why was Tom at Heathrow? He was at the wrong
airport, after all!”

“No dear, he was at the other airport in,
oh, now I’ve gone all blank. It was there, your airport”. Now some words cut
out, because the drilling and beeping had resumed, and Ellie asked her again
what she had said.

“I gave him your address, Ellie. He did
look a bit of a mess, not like he was prepared for going to Venice for a few
days. He’s probably got there before you.”

“Where, mum, where did you see him?”

“At the airport dear, the one in Venice. What’s
it called again?”

Ellie thought about the message she got
from Mara, saying there was a strange man who had called at the house. So it
was Tom? Ellie told her mother she had to go, she would speak to her soon, and
she ended the call and tried to call Mara.
 
There was no answer now from Mara, she
was entertaining and she was out on the roof terrace while her phone was
inside. Ellie was beside herself now, rocking on her seat, willing the traffic
to move but it had not moved for ages, and she was sat directly in the glare of
the sunlight, with the drilling and the beeping getting louder. The taxi driver
had got out of the car and was shouting a dialogue with another taxi driver,
from right beside her. She kept trying the house but there was no reply.
Eventually she could stand it no more and tried to get out of the car. The
driver’s big arse was blocking the way and she had to push the door a few times
before he could feel anything to move. She was about a mile away from home. All
she was carrying was a shoulder bag, so she could probably be home before this
taxi had moved another three feet. She paid the taxi driver, she did not how
much but too much, and she ran. It was swelteringly hot and she was
uncomfortable, and the tight jeans could not decide whether to stick to her
legs or chafe them but she could deal with all that later. She was a mile away
and she knew she could run there in less than ten minutes. Should she try
calling again, to tell Mara not to let him go? She decided to keep running, she
was panting so hard now that she would not make any sense, and then to start
running again would be even harder after she stopped. She was so tired. Tom was
there, though, at the house, he had come after all, he had tried to stop her;
she had to get there. The sweat was running down into her eyes, she had dumped
the fleece and was holding the bag, swearing at it for holding the things she
could not throw away but the effort of running with it was killing her arms, as
if the pain in her legs was not bad enough. Her head was pounding but she was
within sight of her street, then she was at her street, then she was at the
door but she had no idea where her key was. She was banging at the door. Mara
answered and Ellie collapsed in on her. She was so pleased to see her but she
needed to get inside. Mara was asking if she had got her message and she said
yes and she was holding her hands up, asking where, and Mara was looking at her
as though was had lost her mind.
 
Ellie was thinking that Mara had never looked so calm and collected and Mara
was thinking that Ellie had never looked so mad. She pointed her to the roof
terrace, and Ellie went up, her thighs struggling up the last few steps towards
the blazing light outside after her few moments of cool reprieve. She pushed
the doors open and already she could see his form as she emerged into the
sunlight. She shielded her eyes for a moment and when she looked up, she saw
him turn around to face her. It was Alfonse.

Ellie was devastated. After all the highs
and lows of the weekend, this was surely the cruellest. Her mother had made a
mistake, or she had interrupted her when she meant to say something else. It
was all the heat, the noise, the shouting; she had heard something and made up
the rest. She had wanted it to be Tom, but Tom had turned up at the wrong
airport too late to do anything and it was Alfonse who was waiting for her. He
was the strange man as she had predicted. She moved slowly to one of the white
iron chairs and felt its coolness for only a moment as it warmed beneath her
hands. She felt sick with loss; she needed to get her breath back. It was over.
Alfonse was talking but she did not know what he was saying. He had looked smug
when she saw him. Perhaps after their last meeting he was glad to see her
bought back down, sweaty, grubby, horrible and tired. She felt drained,
physically and emotionally. She had expected too much, and got her hopes up for
nothing, for something that had ended long ago and that she had failed to
accept. She realised what Alfonse was saying. He was being quite sweet really.
He was saying that he deserved what she did to him last week, and he was not
angry. He had thought about it, and he respected her, and he wanted to tell her
he would treat her much better in future, if she would give him a chance. When
Ellie finally looked up she was still breathless and her head was still
banging. Her thighs were stretched to breaking and all she wanted was to sleep.
Just to be clean, and to sleep.

Alfonse had stopped talking, and seemed to
be waiting for an answer. She had her back to him now and was looking off the
roof terrace over the back of the house, into the distance. She turned briefly,
and shook her head, and Alfonse who seemed to have got the message that it was
not he that she had been so excited to see, sloped off as soon as she turned
back. Ellie closed her eyes and waited for her breathing to settle down at
last. She was still streaming from every pore, but it could just as easily be
tears she was releasing from all the waiting, from the end of the pointless waiting.
The sun was beating down on her face. She was so hot. She could have stayed in
that taxi, it would have made no difference. She would have to call her mother
back soon; she had cut her off and she needed to know what she had really said.
She needed to talk with Mara, but for now she just needed her breath back, and
have a few moments alone. She heard a scraping sound, some movement on the terrace
behind her; somebody else was there. She had thought Alfonse had gone. She
turned around suddenly, angrily.

It was Tom.

“Why are you wearing an overcoat?” she
asked him.

“Just habit”, he said, “I suppose I don’t
sweat as much as you. Although you looked hotter last time I saw you.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“The maid’s outfit. The apron and the er…
duster”

“No I mean, how did you get here?”

“Oh. I didn’t know what flight you were
on, so I just came straight here. Pricey. Business class. Didn’t really pack.
Need to shop.”

He seemed to then recount the smattered
update to see if he had missed anything, but he looked satisfied that she ought
to be up to speed for now. Mara came outside. She looked at Tom, and told Ellie
that Alfonse had gone. Ellie walked over to hug her and Mara accepted her hug
but then stood with her arms out and looked down at herself as though she had
been sprayed with something disgusting. She pointed to Tom and said, “Strange
man”, to Ellie. The she pointed at Ellie and said “Strange woman” to Tom, and
went inside to get to the shower, still looking disgusted as she tried to keep
Ellie’s sweat from soaking through her own clothes.

“Are you staying long?” asked Ellie.

“I could stay for dinner,” said Tom.

“Or longer?”

“Yes, or for longer. What did you have in
mind?”

Thirty-One

While Claudia was never actually able to
be angry with Ellie for very long, she nevertheless found more than the usual
amount of reality now accompanied her perceptions of her. She had turned up out
of the blue and her only contribution was to cause Claudia a great deal of
heartache and excitement, have a marathon sex session and then disappear with
her car, come back for a row, and disappear with her car again. She liked
Ellie, but maybe this weekend had put things in perspective for her, and if she
saw her less often than every three years, perhaps it would not be the worst
thing. Maybe, this weekend had allowed her to move on because she knew that
finally she was over Ellie, and maybe her life on this little island of loneliness
she had been clinging onto for so long did not need to be this way anymore. She
had realised she liked having someone around but it would need to be someone
who treated her better than Ellie or Lola ever had. They had been friends and
it had been good while it lasted but they had all moved on, and it was better
to recognise that than to fight it or regret it. Tom had left urgently; he said
he would get the car keys for her but other than that he had not confided his
plans. She was glad he had gone, she had feared a bust up like the one with
Ellie, although Tom had always been gentler, she had never known him to raise
his voice or be angry. She liked him but he seemed not to fully exist without
Ellie.

She had just started to enjoy the peace
again after a couple of hours when there was a banging at the door. Lola, who was
looking for Tom or Ellie, was standing there looking like thunder but talking
to someone on her phone, and she did not even acknowledge Claudia, who just
stood and watched her as she talked. Lola was angry because she had gone back
to the house and was unable to get in. When she called the security company
they asked for proof that she lived there before they could break the locks but
she had nothing with her name and address on it. They then told her that the
owner had changed the locks that morning and they were not to act without his
permission. Lola had been turfed out of her shops, and now she could not even
get into her house.