“Oh,” said Elle. “Right. Wow, that’s—”
“It’s not a big romance at the moment, love.” Mandana held up her hand. “I just want you to know I’ve got other things going on. I’ve got more hours at the library, you know, that pays more. And Anita in the village and I, we’re setting up a company, Ellie. You don’t know anything about it. We’re setting up an import company.”
“OK,” said Elle slowly. “Right. That sounds interesting. What is it?” She checked herself, aware that she sounded like a disapproving teacher.
Mandana said proudly, “Indian textiles. Mainly bedspreads. Anita goes to Rajasthan all the time. She’s going to buy them and bring them back and we’ll sell them here. We’ll have open days, this will be like a—a very exotic warehouse. We’ve already sold three to people who are interested.” She went back to her cleaning, leaving Elle watching her. “So it would be very kind of you if you could email your father. I don’t like living off him, Ellie, a man shouldn’t be the plan. I need to make it work by myself now.” She took a deep breath. “It’s time for me to start over again. Stop the bad behavior. Forget the past.” She raised her head. “He’s obviously been poisoning Rhodes against me, and that American girl. So I want you to speak to him.”
“Did you mind, about last Tuesday?” Elle asked.
Mandana laughed quietly. “It’s my fault, all of it. It’s just I feel so ashamed it happened. I didn’t like the way she looked at me, either.”
“Melissa? Oh, I don’t think she’s so bad,” Elle said, hoping this was true rather than believing it.
Mandana shook her head. “I hope I’m wrong. She looks at you like she thinks she’s better than you. She just seems like trouble.” Her eyes narrowed. “And it’s pathetic, but I don’t want to communicate with your father, especially not after the things he said to me at the Savoy.” She poured herself some more wine. “I know we’ll have to be civil at the wedding, if they do go ahead with it here, but in the meantime—well, I’d be very grateful. You do understand, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Elle, nodding. “Of course I do, Mum.”
She picked up her tea mug, wondering what Rory was doing right now. He hadn’t replied to her texts, and she was kind of glad. As she looked around the room, she tried to picture him here, chewing the fat with her mother, by the fireside. She couldn’t see it.
“It’s lovely to have you here, Ellie,” her mother said,
interrupting her train of thought. “Thanks for coming. Thanks for putting up with me.”
“Me too,” Elle said. “I’m the one who should be apologizing.”
“No, love, it’s me,” said Mandana. “But like I say, it’s all fine now.” She looked out of the window and laughed. “The future’s bright. I just want you to believe me, Ellie love.”
She touched her wineglass to Elle’s mug of tea, in a silent toast. From outside came the steady hum of more rain, pattering on the roof, the path, the puddles.
BY MID-DECEMBER
, they were “definitely in the bleak midwinter,” as Bernice, the lady who cleaned the phones and the computer keyboards, told Elle on her weekly visit. It was so cold, the sun barely appeared for days on end, and in Bedford Square especially, the tall buildings cast long shadows against the naked black branches in the square.
One particular Thursday morning, Elle was feeling especially bad. She had a cold, the kind that seems to muffle your brain so that everything appears to happen in slow motion, somewhere out of your grasp. She hadn’t seen Rory since Tuesday; he’d been out of the office the day before, not in yet this morning, and she hadn’t had a moment alone with him since the previous week. She had wanted to buy her first book, a spoof novel she’d read called
Regency Romance,
and both Rory and Posy had said no, dismissed her as if she were an irritant, like a fly. She was fed up. The phone rang and she sneezed loudly. Opposite her, Helena moved back a little, as if Elle had the pox. Elle wearily picked up the receiver.
“Hellouh, Edditoreull,” she sniffed.
“Hey, Bee,” said a voice. “God, you sound awful. What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” said Elle. “Libs, is that you?”
“Yes,” said Libby. “I was ringing to see how you are.”
“I’m fine.” Elle looked round her. It was impossible to have a decent conversation with someone in an open-plan office. “Actually, I’m not fine, I’ve got a terrible cold. That’s all.”
“Ohhhhh.” Libby sounded almost disappointed. “Right then. Well, I was only ringing… to…”
She trailed off. Elle sighed. It was over four weeks since Felicity’s announcement at the editorial meeting, and nothing had happened. In the office and out of it, rumor and
counter-rumor still swirled around like heavy mist in a creaky horror film. It was exhausting. Every time Elle talked to an author they asked plaintively, “Any news yet?” When she went for lunch with an agent, or had a meeting with anyone connected with publishing, they’d say, “You know, I heard it’s Rupert Murdoch. He’ll strip the company assets and just use the name.” “I saw Liz Thomson from
Publishing News
yesterday. She said it’s definitely WHSmith. You’re moving to the Euston Road.” “Did you see that piece in the ‘Books and Bookmen’ column in
Private Eye
? It’s definitely Rory. He’s trying to split the company up, sell it for cash.” This morning alone, Elle had had two different conversations about the takeover.
“Were you ringing to get the gossip?” Elle said flatly. “There isn’t any. I promise you.”
Libby said, “Sorry. That’s rubbish of me. It’s just everyone at Bookprint’s desperate to know. They think we’re taking you over and you’re all going to come in and make us publish erotic romances and sagas. I keep telling them that’s not all Bluebird does, but they won’t listen.” She cleared her throat. “What are you doing this evening? It’s been ages, Elle, can’t remember the last time I saw you. In fact, I can. Booker Prize night, and I hardly saw you then, either. I’ve been rubbish. You around for a drink this eve? Just the one?”
“I’d love to, Libs, but I—I really can’t,” Elle said. “I’m knackered, and I’ve got to work late anyway. I think I’m just going to—yeah, go home and flop. If that’s OK.”
“No, that’s fine,” Libby said. “Poor thing, have you got loads to do?”
“It’s a nightmare at the moment, yeah.” Elle glanced round the office, not wanting to say more. She wished she could moan about
Regency Romance
but now wasn’t the time, and how to explain that you were sick of your bosses, and you
thought one of them didn’t really know what he was talking about, even though you were sleeping with him? Besides, she couldn’t entirely rely on Libby not to call up the agent and buy it herself. She was a bit like that, these days.
“OK, OK,” Libby said. “Look, I’m going to go. I just wanted to—see if you were all right. You—you are all right, aren’t you, Elle?”
“Course I am,” said Elle, astonished. She sneezed. “Apart from the cold. I’m fine! Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Nothing,” Libby said. “It’s—I worry about you sometimes. It’s been ages and I hear—” She stopped. “I just wanted to say hi. It’s fine.”
It’s fine.
Elle was uneasy. What did she mean? “Look,” she said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
After she’d put the phone down she wished, for the umpteenth time, that she could talk to Libby, ask her advice. But she couldn’t.
Elle scrolled through her emails and, with a sigh, saw another missive from Melissa. Elle was already having grave doubts about her ability to be the kind of bridesmaid Melissa needed. Not only did she seem to want to book Elle in for every weekend possible in the New Year for dress fittings and “planning sessions,” she kept saying things which Elle found slightly alarming:
Should the bridesmaids start thinking now about the length of their hair come September next year? Because during my conversations with Darcy and my sister I conveyed to them that I would love if you all had long straight hair in a chignon. In that eventuality, as your hair is short, perhaps you should start growing your hair now. Or in the New Year, I really don’t mind! (But maybe now if it takes a while to grow as some people’s does.) Melissa xoxo
Eleanor heard a loud crack, which made her jump, and only then did she realize she had snapped a pencil in half while she’d been reading. She tugged her hair, wondering at this parallel world she had somehow entered. What would the next email suggest? Plastic surgery so they all had the same size boobs?
“Blimey, Elle. You’ve got a face like thunder, what’s up?” said Posy, dropping a cover proof on her desk for her to check.
“Bloody weddings,” Elle growled, before she could stop herself. “I’m a stupid bridesmaid for my brother’s wedding, and the bride wants us to”—she took a deep breath—“
start growing our hair
so we can all have the same style come September.”
“Oh, bloody
tell
me about it.” Posy sat on the edge of Elle’s desk and crossed her arms. “I was always being a bridesmaid. I did it for someone I was at school with, and on the morning of the wedding she asked me to stand behind the ushers when the photos were being taken because she said she’d been looking through photos of the hen night and I wasn’t photogenic enough to stand with the other bridesmaids.”
Elle gasped.
“I know,” Posy said, with a smile. “I can laugh about it now, but the thing is, I always just thought, ‘What a strange thing to be worrying about on your wedding day.’”
Elle was amazed; the most personal conversation she’d had with Posy up till now had been about the death of Mr. Collins, her cat. She nodded, not quite knowing what to say.
“I just thought, ‘I’d like to remember my wedding day because I married the man I loved and my friends were all there,’” Posy said after a minute, examining a pulled thread on her pink cardigan. “Not, ‘Oh, look at ugly Posy, I may have known her since I was eight but she’s ruining all the photos, I wish I’d asked her to put a towel on her head.’”
“Wow,” said Elle. “That is incredible.”
“I’ll tell you
another
thing I hate,” Posy said, hitching herself
a bit more onto the desk. She looked up, as Rory came out of his office and went into Felicity’s, slamming the door behind him. “Oh.”
“It’s a shut-door day,” said Elle.
“Never a good sign.” Posy stood up.
“It could mean anything.” Elle tried to sound upbeat. “It could be good news. Perhaps we’re all getting a big Christmas bonus.”
“Trust me,” said Posy, gazing towards Rory’s empty office. “I used to work for Robert Maxwell. It’s never good news when the doors are shut. Never.”
At half past twelve, Elle was putting on her coat, slowly. She was meeting Nicoletta Lindsay for lunch, to tell her that she needed to stop trying to make her country-doctor-in-the-Lake-District romances into mystical screeds on prehistory and pagan topography and to that end, she would have to completely rewrite her new book, and think seriously about the direction of her future novels if she wanted another contract with MyHeart. Felicity had given Elle this speech yesterday at the editorial meeting, and Elle had written the salient points on Post-its which she’d stuck on the inside of her bag, ready to refer to surreptitiously at lunch if necessary.
Wrapping her scarf around her neck, Elle went over to the photocopier by Felicity’s office, to copy the latest sales figures for Nicoletta Lindsay. Rory’s office was empty. As she stood there pressing Copy and wondering if she could pop in for another word with Felicity to buck her up, she suddenly heard her voice through the heavy wooden door.
“How could you not tell me?” she was shouting. “Rory—I don’t understand.” Could she be crying? “With
her,
as well. I don’t understand it.”
Elle carried on mechanically pressing buttons, but her heart was thumping, and there was a lump in her throat.
Rory replied, but his voice was too low to hear. And then she caught the end of the phrase. “You don’t understand. It’s going to be wonderful. I thought you’d be pleased when I explained—”
The worst bit of it all was Felicity’s tone. It was half amused, half desperate.
“
Pleased?
Rory, you must have gone mad. Do you have any idea what you’ve
done
?” There was a massive, trembling, gasping sound. “She’s—so young! And she knows
nothing
! This isn’t what I wanted for you, darling. All the plans…” She broke off. Rory started to say something, but she interrupted. “You have to put a stop to it. End it. Now. She’ll understand when you explain why, I know she will, Rory, she will.”
Picking up the pages, her hands slick with sweat, Elle clutched them to her chest, looking round the office to see if anyone else had heard. Helena was still typing, Joseph Mile was on the phone, two fingers smoothing down his ginger cowlick, and, over in the corner, Jeremy and Loo Seat were regaling the marketing and publicity departments with the story of Jeremy stepping on Victoria Bishop’s pet dog the previous week. It was just her.
Elle crept out, as the faint bellows from Felicity’s office grew softer, and when she reached the stairs, she ran.