Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva (28 page)

‘Well,’ Ellie said at last, ‘it wasn’t
The Sound of Music
.’

‘It wasn’t,’ Lenny agreed, laughing.

They’d been to see a matinée of a documentary on Iraq that one of the Walking Wounded soldiers had been in.

‘How many times have you seen it now?’ Jessica asked.

‘Seven.’ Lenny smiled at her and shivered. ‘I’m heading home.’

‘You don’t want anything to eat?’ Jessica said. ‘We thought we might get something.’

Lenny shook her head, ‘I’d better get going before they start cancelling trains or closing down all the stations.’

Ellie and her hugged, Ellie holding on briefly but tightly
to Lenny - whom she’d spent two months with over the summer. They’d always been close, but now they were virtually inseparable. If it wasn’t for Joe and Lenny, Jessica wasn’t sure any of them would have made it through the summer. But Joe and Lenny had been there, and they had made it through, and now the summer felt like a long time ago. Especially now.

‘Keep me updated on
The Nuclear Years
- and give Arthur a big kiss from me.’ She waved at them both, then disappeared in the direction of Piccadilly.

Jessica and Ellie hesitated, nursing feelings of temporary bereavement, before disappearing into the unfamiliar faces themselves - in the opposite direction, towards Charing Cross.

‘You want to get something to eat?’ Jessica said, taking her daughter in sideways. They’d already decided they would eat after the film, but Jessica felt the need - after Lenny’s departure - to run it past her again, wanting Ellie to accept some of the responsibility for the rest of the evening.

‘Um,’ Ellie agreed, distracted by the focus required to navigate the crowds.

Their relationship lacked the fundamental robustness of Lenny and Ellie’s, which was able to withstand all sorts of cuts and abrasions. Jessica and Ellie were fragile together - especially since the summer - which had given rise to a deliberateness and lack of spontaneity between them.

Jessica led the way down a tiled alley between the tube station and Wyndham’s Theatre, to a mahogany furnished bar run by Albanians.

They got the table in the window that Jessica had her mind set on, and sat looking through the reflection of themselves at the alley outside, whose edges were already piling up with snow, pricked by drips from the network of drainpipes crossing the alley’s walls. The last time she had eaten there was with Peter, but she wasn’t going to tell Ellie this.

‘I met Martin - the guy in the film - over the summer,’ Ellie said.

‘You did?’ Jessica looked up at her daughter then back down at the menu.

Ellie nodded at herself in the window.

‘It was really weird - this room full of people who’d all killed someone.’ She paused. ‘Lenny told me she killed five people - five Argentinians - in the Falklands.’

‘Did you ask her or did she volunteer this information?’

‘I asked her.’

‘Why did you want to know?’

‘I don’t know - I just can’t imagine killing someone, can you?’

‘I don’t know…’ Jessica thought about this for a moment then turned her mind to food again. She was hungry.

A waiter appeared.

‘Have you made your mind up?’ Jessica asked her.

‘Oh…’ Ellie’s eyes scanned the menu. She frowned.

Jessica waited.

‘Soup - I’ll take the soup.’

Jessica nodded without comment, ‘And I’ll take the mackerel pâté followed by the chicken.’

‘And for you - main?’ The waiter turned back to Ellie, who shook her head, suddenly shy.

‘No main?’

Ellie shook her head again, blushing this time.

‘Maybe you change your mind?’

‘No,’ Ellie mumbled, ‘just soup.’

The waiter, sighing, left the table.

The food had been navigated. Jessica felt herself relax.

‘So - how did the meeting go today?’

‘Good, really good. They definitely want me to co-write a first draft.’ She paused. ‘I think I’m still in shock - I went into the meeting thinking I’d completely blow it.’

‘You’ve got to stop being so negative - it really pisses me off.’

Jessica shrugged. ‘Turns out one of the producers was a big fan of
How to Survive a Nuclear War
in the eighties.’

‘See…’

‘God knows how I’m going to find the time.’

‘You’ll find the time,’ Ellie said.

Jessica smiled at her, unconvinced. ‘The optimism of youth,’ she said gently, aware that this hadn’t exactly been one of Ellie’s traits to date, but then she’d changed so much in the past three months. ‘We’ll see.’

‘No - you’ll make it work,’ Ellie insisted with genuine aggression. ‘This is a huge opportunity for you. What’s so scary about getting a bit of recognition at last?’

‘I’m not scared…’

‘You’re scared - you think you prefer the comfy clothes of despondency and despair because you’ve worn them in so they fit better.’ Ellie paused, angry. The candle flame, which had been flickering wildly, managed to achieve a semiupright position. ‘Well they don’t fit - you’ve outworn them. It’s time for something new.’

‘It is?’ For a moment Jessica almost dared to believe her.

‘I’m not being mean…’

‘I know you’re not.’ Jessica pushed a trail of pepper round the table’s surface with her forefinger and didn’t look up.

‘And I was really proud of…’ Ellie’s voice trailed off, her attention fixed suddenly on something passing in the snow outside. A man, shoulders hunched in a way that let the world know he was cold. ‘Oh, my God—’ She pushed round their table and ran through the door as the waiter arrived with their starters, his eyes following Ellie.

‘Mr Hunter! Mr Hunter!’

Jessica sat with the mackerel pâté between her elbows, staring through the window at Ellie and Robert Hunter, Ellie
jumping up and down in the snow, trying to keep warm, Robert huddled in his own world - caught out by Ellie; embarrassed.

He’d been found when he didn’t want to be and Ellie was too full of a strange euphoria in presenting herself to him - virtually dancing in the snow - to either notice or care.

She was proving to him that she was alive - more alive than any of them had ever anticipated her being - and taunting him by dancing in the snow outside Wyndham’s Theatre, aware of his eyes on her, her mother’s eyes on her, and maybe even the waiter’s, whose name she’d never know.

Then Ellie gestured towards Jessica in the window and Robert turned - and they waved.

They waved quickly - instinctively - happy that there was a pane of glass between them. Jessica didn’t stand up, she remained seated, her nostrils full of mackerel pâté and candle wax. Robert remained standing in the snow, a despondent smile on his face, growing more desperate by the second. He had to go. He needed to go. If he couldn’t extract himself politely - soon - he was going to start running, and his footprints would soon be covered by the fast-falling snow. It occurred to Jessica that, if he did that, they might never find him again - despite having his address, which was now No. 4 Beulah Hill. If he ran, she’d be left with a handful of chance encounters in Tesco on a Saturday morning, which was pretty much all she’d had since the hospital in July.

She was surprised to find herself standing up.

When - exactly - had she got to her feet?

And there was Ellie, who’d stopped dancing and was now pulling Robert forcibly by the arm towards the bar entrance.

They walked through the door, their hair wet with snow, Ellie’s eyes shining, Robert looking alarmed - like a trophy she’d been hunting for a long time; one that had shown up when least expected, and was now being hauled in from the cold.

Ellie led Robert to their table.

Jessica and he smiled awkwardly at each other, and Robert must have been holding his breath as he smiled because he exhaled suddenly.

Ellie remained poised near her recently vacated chair, full of a sense of potential in the situation that the two adults either didn’t see or were choosing to ignore. Which propelled them headlong into the realm of deathly small talk because every time they opened their mouths to speak they were only too overwhelmingly aware of what it was they weren’t about to say. This meeting was precisely the one they’d been avoiding.

‘I’ve been hearing all about St Paul’s,’ Robert said with an effort.

‘Yeah, that’s really working out - well, Ellie tells me it is, anyway,’ Jessica said, resorting to speaking about Ellie in the third person - something that was sure to antagonise her - because Robert was making her nervous.

‘And I hear you’re writing a TV show,’ he carried on, blindly.

‘Hardly a show - a documentary.’

‘Don’t worry about her,’ Ellie put in, growing in self-confidence by the second, ‘She’s pathologically self-effacing.’

Robert surreptitiously took in Jessica again.

‘It’s only in development at the moment - it might never happen.’

‘They approached her - asked her to do it because of
How to Survive a Nuclear War
.’

‘How to survive a nuclear war?’ Robert turned to her.

Jessica batted her hand quickly in the air. ‘A book I wrote. In the eighties.’

‘Precisely,’ Ellie said. ‘The eighties were seminal nuclear years.’

Ellie’s voice had an edge to it now. She didn’t understand what was going on.

This moment had to amount to something. Robert had appeared in the snow outside; she’d brought him in - it had to amount to something. People just didn’t appear in the middle of - what was now - a snowstorm, for no reason at all. Ellie wasn’t sure what it was exactly she was expecting or wanted - something explosive - but there weren’t any explosions and she was too young to see that she wasn’t the only one who had survived the woods that summer. Robert and Jessica had survived them as well, only they were already halfway through their lives while Ellie had the rest of hers still to come.

‘Anyway - you’ve been made deputy head at Ellington,’ Jessica carried on.

‘I have.’

‘And how’s Margery?’

‘Margery?’ Robert wasn’t used to people asking about his mother. ‘She’s good - unbelievably good, actually. She’s got Mr Hamilton staying with her in East Leeke at the moment.’

‘Mr Hamilton?’

Robert nodded. ‘He thinks East Leeke’s paradise on earth.’

The waiter reappeared. ‘Should I lay another place?’

‘No - no,’ Robert said loudly - too loudly. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Stay…’ Ellie pleaded.

‘I can’t.’ He shook his head.

‘You can.’

Robert’s eyes flicked quickly over to Jessica.

‘I can’t,’ he said again.

‘But - you can’t just go.’

‘I’ve got to get home,’ Robert said, glancing at his watch, ‘and I’m late.’

‘You can’t go,’ Ellie insisted.

‘It’s fine,’ Jessica cut in, unsure who she was reassuring - Ellie, Robert, or herself.

They stood by their table and watched him leave, walking out into heavy snow and pulling his collar up.

He didn’t glance back at the bar.

‘That’s it?’ Ellie said, collapsing in front of the cold soup. ‘You didn’t say anything—’

‘We talked,’ Jessica responded.

‘That wasn’t talk - that was crap. He turns up out the blue and - nothing.’

‘Well…’

‘He’s in love with you.’

‘Ellie…’ Jessica laughed.

‘He is - I know he is - it’s just so obvious.’

Jessica stared at her. ‘Maybe,’ she conceded, more to calm Ellie down than anything. ‘Sometimes the love is there, but—’

‘But what?’

‘But, it doesn’t quite amount to what it should.’

‘But it has to happen - if it’s there, it should just happen. No, don’t give me that sardonic smile-of-experience. Life’s short.’

‘Life is short,’ Jessica agreed, vaguely.

‘So you should just say what you mean to say - do what you mean to do.’

‘Ellie, it doesn’t work like that; nothing works like that.’ Jessica felt tearful.

‘Then make it work.’

Jessica stood up suddenly and left the bar. She heard something hit the ground and thought she might have knocked her chair over as she left, but didn’t turn back to see, running instead out into the snow - barely able to see anything through it, and soaked through in minutes.

The alley was empty.

She followed it onto St Martin’s Lane, the theatre foyers full of interval crowds - and watched a drunken woman with tinsel in her hair collapse happily onto the steps of the ENO.

There was no sign of Robert.

She turned back down the alley, avoiding an excited group of Japanese students, feeling suddenly disconnected from everybody around her. Maybe she’d had her time in this city; maybe it was time to leave.

Then she heard her name being called out, and saw Robert standing, finishing a cigarette under the wrought-iron and glass awning running down the side of the theatre, the white and brown glazed bricks shining out behind the silhouette of his coat. He looked younger right then than Ellie.

She walked straight up to him until she was standing under the awning, close but not touching.

‘You didn’t go…’

He shook his head and dropped the cigarette into the bank of snow at his feet.

Here - in the snow - in the alley - all the awkwardness had gone.

They held hands loosely.

‘It’s good to see you - it’s really good to see you,’ he said. ‘We’ll see each other again?’

She nodded then they pulled away.

She watched him disappear into the traffic on St Martin’s Lane. Before disappearing, he turned back twice and waved. After a while, she walked back slowly to the bar.

Ellie had started on her soup.

‘I didn’t see him - he must have gone,’ Jessica said to her.

Just after midnight, Jessica went downstairs to get herself a glass of water and stood drinking it, looking out at the moonlight in the garden as the wind made its way through it - half wishing to go with it to wherever it went, while the other part of her was happy to stand behind glass and watch it pass through.

As she watched - the dachshund puppy that Joe and
Lenny had bought her for her last birthday panting expectantly at this unanticipated appearance, she had a sudden memory of standing in the kitchen at No. 6 Pollards Close on a night just like this.