“Listen,” she said, ignoring him. “This awful thing happened with Mum and Dad yesterday. I didn’t tell you.”
“What?” Rory asked. He turned to look at her. “Is my tie straight?”
She ignored him. “I told you Rhodes was engaged, right?”
“Right,” he said. “To a skinny fearsome American. She sounds rather great. Can’t I meet her?”
There was a silence. “You could meet any of them, whenever you wanted,” Elle said. “You know that, Rory.”
“Go on,” Rory said, ignoring this. “I’m late.” His voice softened. “Sweetie, go on, tell me.”
Trying not to show how much this wound her up, Elle went on, “Well, they’re saying they want to get married in the States, and we all say oh that’s nice. And then Mum announces she can’t go back there, because she’s got a conviction for dealing pot in the seventies, and she’s banned for life.”
Rory was looking in the mirror but he turned to her, an expression of disbelief on his face. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. And all this stuff makes sense now.” Elle bit the top of her finger, thoughtfully. “Like, why she didn’t go to Disney World with us.”
“What?”
“It’s a long story,” Elle said. Now wasn’t the right time to go into it, she wanted to tell him properly. “Too much for first thing in the morning. But all this other stuff too, like how she and Dad met, and why they got married so fast—it kind of makes sense now.”
“How soon after they met did they get married? If you see what I mean.” Rory slipped his jacket on, and brushed his shoulders, one side at a time.
“Oh, only six months,” Elle said. “They met at a CND march. Dad wasn’t on the march, he treated Mum when she got pushed over by a policeman and had to be taken to hospital.” Elle stared into the middle distance. “I bet she was drunk. I never thought of that.” She shook her head. “Oh… poor Mum. She was so… upset last night.” She gazed into the distance. “Dad was pretty horrible to her.”
“Do you think she’ll start drinking again?”
“She doesn’t really drink anymore, Rory.” A year ago, she’d told him about her mother’s drink problem, and how it sometimes got worse, sometimes better. She now wished she hadn’t; he was always telling her what to do about it, as though she were a little girl. And he was always using the word “alcoholic.” Mandana wasn’t an alcoholic. She was a librarian from West Sussex.
“You’re always saying that,” Rory said. “But it’s a day at a time with someone like her. Didn’t you say she got really pissed a couple of Christmases ago and that’s why your brother left early?”
“Yes, but—” Elle sighed. “Rhodes hates Mum. He blames her for them splitting up. He’s older. It was harder for him.”
Rory gave her a curious look. “Perhaps he remembers things you don’t.”
“I don’t know how that can be, when he was practically never bloody there,” Elle said.
“Well, perhaps you should make sure she’s all right.”
“I’m going to try and see her this weekend,” Elle muttered. “That OK with you, boss?”
“I’m being serious, Elle.”
“It’s my mother, not yours,” Elle said angrily. “She’s fine. Don’t you tell me how to look after my family. You’ve never met them, you make it clear you don’t want to, you don’t know them. OK?”
“OK, OK.” Rory came over to her side of the room and put his arms round her. He kissed her hair and she relaxed into his embrace, feeling the scratchy surface of his woolen suit on her cheek, his warm, lean body against hers. “I’m sorry, Elby,” he said. “My poor girl. You’re the one I care about, not them. I’m sorry.”
He held her still for a moment, then stepped back. “Must be off now then,” he said. He stopped. “I’ll be in a bit later
for the editorial meeting. I’m having breakfast with Paris Donaldson.”
“Oh, OK. Didn’t you just see him last week?” Elle was looking for her cardigan, which had been thrown somewhere under the bed the previous night in the furious scrabble to remove their clothes. She looked up, suddenly. “Hey. I just remembered something. Does Loo Seat know?”
He was by the door, fiddling in his pocket for his keys, wrapping a scarf round his neck. “Know what?”
“About us. She was pretty drunk last night, but she said something…”
“Stupid cow.” Instantly his face darkened with anger. “What did she say?”
Elle flinched in surprise. “God, I don’t know. Something about how it was obvious I had a crush on you and we should just get on with it and shag already. She was drunk, Rory, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Oh.” The frown lines in his face cleared. “Well, that doesn’t mean she knows anything. She’s just talking drivel. Thank God.”
“Why?” Elle said quietly. “Why would it be so completely awful if she found out?”
“It just would, and you know it would, darling,” Rory said. “Look, Elby, I want people to know too. I want to celebrate it. I want to meet your parents, I want you to move in with me, I want this whole thing to be over. But now’s not the right time.” He sighed. “You don’t seem to understand. This is hard for me, too, you know.”
“How? How is it hard for you?” Elle smacked her hand against the wall. “I hate sounding like a whiny little girl, Rory, but you can’t keep saying now’s not the right time, over and over again,” Elle said, her voice rising. “When? When will it be the right time?” It seemed to rush upon her at this moment, a
feeling of helplessness, of despair, that she was her mother all over again, a fool in love. She cleared her throat. “Honestly, Rory.” Her voice, when she spoke, was shaky. “It’s been nearly a year, and I don’t think anything’s changed, except—I thought this was forever.”
“It is forever,” he said, his voice small. “Elle, don’t talk like that.”
“You don’t get it,” she said. “I just don’t know if… if I can do this for much longer. I meant what I said in the summer. This has to change. And I don’t think you’re listening to me, I don’t think you want it to change.”
In July, after a row like this one, Elle had walked out of the flat, told him she was never coming back, that she couldn’t stand it anymore. And it was true. She couldn’t. She asked Sam to tell work she had the flu and went to bed, wallowing in her own greasy, unwashed filth, crying so much that every time Sam looked in on her, she was convinced by the red-rimmed eyes and streaming nose. After six days, Elle knew she couldn’t go through with it. She rang him, crying, and he came straight over, his face ashen, clutching a bunch of petrol-station chrysanthemums. “I missed you so much,” he said. “I’ve been in hell. Don’t ever leave me again, Elby.”
That was the moment, as she stared at him, standing on the threshold in the scuffed doorway, when Elle realized, for better or worse, that she was in too deep. She loved him, and he knew it, and she’d go back to him, and he knew that too. But for a while that autumn she just didn’t care, when she loved him so much. She loved him for all sorts of reasons. He made her laugh. He made her feel like a mature, prudent person, for the first time, in a grown-up relationship, thinking about the future. They lived in the same world, she thought she knew him. And she wanted him, plain and simple. Elle had thought she’d been in love with Max, her university boyfriend, but that
was nothing. She could not resist Rory’s touch on her body. He knew her so well, and all she could do was ask for more. He controlled her in bed, could make her scream and cry with pleasure. Elle hadn’t known what this was like, before. To want someone so badly you can concentrate on nothing else. To want to bring their name up constantly in conversations, no matter how spurious the segue, like a talisman, a test of devotion. Rory was seven years older than her, and he was far more experienced than she. In every way; lately, she felt as though he were outstepping her, outsmarting her and she couldn’t explain why.
“Soon,” Rory said now, and he pulled her towards him and looked down at her, his clear, cool eyes searching her face, as if looking for her agreement. “Look, we need to get through Christmas. The New Year will be a whole new start. I can’t say why but I’ve got a surprise for you. You’re going to love it, I promise. Trust me.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Do you trust me?”
“I—I do,” Elle said, smiling, meeting his gaze.
He hesitated again. “Look, why don’t I cancel my weekend plans. What are you doing?” He kissed her forehead. “We could hang out here. Maybe go somewhere for the day. Go to Whitstable, get some sea air, have some oysters. Hey—we could even have a break away somewhere, if we thought about it.”
Elle felt her heart thumping in her chest; they’d been away twice for the night, to boutique hotels in romantic country settings, but otherwise they never hung out at the weekends. “I’m sorry, I really can’t do this weekend,” she said. “I want to go and see Mum.”
“Of course.” He nodded. “Next weekend. Let’s do next weekend.”
“Darling, I can’t. I’m away.”
“Where?” he asked quickly.
“I’m in Bristol. Visiting Hester.”
“Who?”
“Old friend from uni?” He looked totally blank. She tried not to be irritated; how could he know any of her friends if he wouldn’t meet any of them? And indeed, as she said it, she wondered if she could get out of going.
No. You haven’t seen Karen since your holiday in Greece, and she’s your oldest friend; you haven’t seen Libby for two months, and you know perfectly well why. Don’t do the same to your university friends.
“Oh.” He looked sad, and then his brow cleared. “Another time, then. I’ll take you to Whitstable and feed you oysters and ravage you as the wind lashes against the windows.” He put his finger under her chin. “Are we OK now? Are you OK?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, smiling. “Go. It’s fine. You look very smart and I love you. See you later.”
“I love you. I want you to trust me, too. Don’t forget that. Just wait and see. See you later, my sweet girl.”
He picked up his keys and shut the door behind him, and she was left alone in the echoing flat.
THERE WAS A
strange mood in the office when Elle arrived. She put her coffee down on her desk, untangled herself from her manuscript bag and turned on her ancient computer, looking around her to see who was in.
“Horrible morning, isn’t it?” she said to Helena, Libby’s monosyllabic replacement.
Helena nodded politely, and went back to her Dictaphone typing. Elle suppressed a sigh. She missed Libby, in all sorts of ways. She missed her friendship—they still saw each other, but it wasn’t the same. They did things like going to the cinema now instead of ranting over cheap Valpolicella in musty Soho restaurants. She missed being able to tell her anything; and there was so much she couldn’t talk to her about. Libby loved her new job and wasn’t that interested in the life she’d left behind. She tried, at first, but it soon became apparent she didn’t care about the drama over Elspeth’s new typewriter ribbon, and though Elle tried to understand, she still missed it.
Elle took a sip of her coffee, waiting for her computer to warm up. She opened her day book and turned to a fresh page.
Wednesday, 8th November,
she wrote.
As she did every day now, she was writing a list of what needed doing. Elle knew her working self, after three years, and it was different from her university or school self, different also, alas, from her bookish, dreamy self. It was strange that the more experienced you got in your chosen sphere, the less you enjoyed what had made you like it in the first place. Her friend Karen, who was now assistant producer for the TV company she worked for, said she never watched TV anymore. Elle hadn’t read a book for pleasure in she didn’t know how long. And
Venetia
remained on her windowsill, gathering reproachful, blackish, polluted dust.
Elle was just writing
Phone Abigail Barrow
and chewing the end of her pen, wondering how she was going to tell her she had to drastically cut the eight-page sex scene in
Duchess, Mother, Mistress?
when emails started slowly popping into her inbox. There was something tantalizingly stressful about waiting for her ancient computer to load all its new messages. She stared at the first one and then peered closely. The address was unknown to her.
From:
[email protected]
Subject: Bachelorette Planning!!
Hi Eleanor,
It was so great to meet you and your parents last night. Thank you for welcoming me so warmly into your family!
I am honored to have you as my bridesmaid. I thought we should touch base about my bachelorette party. Did you have any thoughts or themes already you’d like to go with? I’ve gotten nowhere apart from a few basic ideas. I’m really relaxed about what we do, even though Rhodes calls me Miss OCD! I just want to plan everything carefully and get it right so that everyone has a great time, especially since we are now restricted by location in terms of where your mother can travel. Here are a few thoughts.
1. Weekend in New York? That way we can see my girlfriends, have some cocktails, and shop till we drop! Obviously your mother cannot be involved in this option.