Ellie (89 page)
Authors: Lesley Pearse
Ellie felt she was an impediment to their happiness. Bonny was tense when she talked to John, and he clearly felt left out when she and Bonny were alone together. Ellie was sick of keeping up the glamour-girl routine, weary of watching every word she said. She must walk away from Camellia now, while she still could.
‘There’ll always be a place for you here,’ Bonny said softly, her eyes misty with tears. ‘I promise you I’ll always be a good mother to her. She means everything in the world to me.’
Ellie went to her bedroom door and opened it. She could hear music downstairs; John was playing some gramophone records he’d brought back from America. Camellia was sound asleep. Ellie shut the door and sat down on the bed beside Bonny.
She was no longer afraid that Bonny wouldn’t be a good mother. She had changed immeasurably, bearing no resemblance to the giddy, selfish girl Ellie had met five years ago. All week Ellie had been silently observing her and John, and she knew the transformation in Bonny’s character was through love. But it stung to see two people so happy together, to watch their smiles, to hear the little endearments, the loving gestures. They had everything, including Camellia.
‘I want you to promise me something more,’ Ellie said.
‘What?’ Bonny’s expression was guarded now.
‘It won’t be right for me to come marching in here several times a year,’ Ellie blurted out. ‘But promise me you’ll write to me once a month, send me snapshots and tell me all about her.’
‘Of course I will.’ Bonny looked puzzled now; she had expected more.
‘Will you promise too that if anything goes wrong you’ll let me know immediately? Illness, John losing his job, or you moving, anything important!’
‘You know I would.’ Bonny frowned. ‘You sound as if you aren’t ever coming back.’
Ellie hesitated. In her heart she knew she should get out of Bonny’s and John’s lives for ever, but at the same time she knew she wasn’t strong enough for that. ‘I can’t ever come back, at least not as me. I’ll be Aunt Ellie, or Helena Forester the actress. A friend of the family. I’ll have to distance myself from you, Bonny, for Camellia’s sake.’
‘I don’t see why.’ Bonny pouted. She had a rosy picture in her mind of shared picnics, shopping trips and cosy, girlie evenings together. ‘You’re being silly.’
Bonny’s earlier fears were now replaced with a certain smugness. John was thrilled with Camellia, so loving to her, she had silenced her conscience and told herself she had done the right thing by everyone. All she wanted now to make her happiness complete was for Ellie to revert back to her old jolly, amusing self and stop brooding about everything.
‘Maybe you’ll understand what I mean better in a few years,’ Ellie said gently, taking Bonny’s hands in hers. ‘We were two feather-brained girls who dreamed up a fairy-tale in which everyone got what they wanted. But we didn’t reckon on jealousy, Bonny, and it’s lurking in the wings, waiting. I’m jealous of you right now, because you’ve got the home, the husband and my baby. In a couple of years you might wish you could change places with me.’
‘I won’t,’ Bonny said firmly. ‘I’ve got what I want.’
‘I hope so, Bonny.’ Ellie drew her into her arms and held her tightly. ‘You’ve got everything that’s important.’
‘Have you got your things from the bathroom?’ Bonny asked, wiping her hands on her apron. The kitchen table was cluttered with baking trays, mixing bowls and the ingredients for a cake. ‘Is that dress warm enough for the train? It might be really cold.’
‘You sound like your mother,’ Ellie said sarcastically. ‘Yes, I’ve got my things. Yes, I will be warm enough. Is John still tinkering with the car?’
Only yesterday John had discovered the engine was frozen up. It had been tucked away in the shed while he’d been in America, shrouded by old blankets, but the frost had penetrated even that. He’d resorted to putting some old stone hot-water bottles on it to thaw it out.
‘He’s taken it down to the garage in the village.’ Bonny looked distractedly at the kitchen clock. ‘I hope he won’t be long, I don’t want you to miss the train.’
‘There’s plenty of time yet.’ Ellie could see Bonny was very tense. It was partly because she was leaving, but mostly anxiety about her mother arriving tomorrow. She was dreading all the intimate questions Doris was bound to ask, and a little afraid she would upset John. ‘Let me bath Camellia, then you can get on with making that cake.’
‘But you’re all dressed up.’ Bonny looked at Ellie’s red dress almost disapprovingly.
‘I’ll put the rubber apron on,’ Ellie said. ‘Come on Bonny, just let me have half an hour with her?’
Bonny opened her mouth to say something, perhaps that Camellia was still asleep, but was halted by an angry shriek from upstairs.
‘Right on cue,’ Ellie laughed. ‘I’ll go and get her.’
As Ellie came back down wearing the green rubber apron with Camellia in her arms, Bonny had the enamel baby bath in front of the sitting-room fire and she was pouring water into it from a bucket.
‘She’s sopping wet, and stinky,’ Ellie said. ‘Perhaps she wants to put me off her for good.’
All conversation was difficult this morning and Ellie had tried to make jokes to lighten the mood. But it wasn’t really working; everything she said sounded trite, even callous.
Bonny tested the water temperature with her elbow as Ellie sat down and began peeling off Camellia’s nightdress and woolly jacket.
‘Is it okay?’ Ellie asked.
‘Perfect.’ Bonny’s terse tone implied she resented Ellie doubting her, but she disappeared and came back with the basket of baby things, a fresh nappy, towel and some clothes, putting them down on the floor beside Ellie’s chair. ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ she said, turning sharply and shutting the door behind her.
Camellia waved her arms and legs as she lay on Ellie’s lap. She had stopped crying the moment she was lifted from her crib, almost as if she knew a bath was imminent.
‘You’ve got porky,’ Ellie said once she’d removed the nappy and cleaned her bottom. Camellia was only 5½lb at birth, but she’d put on over a pound since coming home. Sometimes they could almost see her growing. ‘And you’re a real stinkpot, but I’ll soon have you smelling like a little flower.’
Ellie’s hands lingered on her baby as she soaped her, caressing each leg and arm, her back and stomach, then holding her firmly, she lowered her into the water.
‘Isn’t that nice?’ she murmured, splashing water over her.
Camellia’s head turned towards Ellie, her eyes wide open. Ellie could see now that they were turning brown. Her legs kicked out, she thumped her arms up and down and she grimaced as if trying to manage her first smile.
‘I think you’re going to be a swimmer, not a dancer,’ Ellie said lovingly. ‘Just don’t let your mum put you off it with her gruesome tale of nearly drowning.’
It wasn’t until she had Camellia snuggled up in the warm towel that Ellie began to cry. She had promised herself she wouldn’t, not until she was away back in London, but she couldn’t hold it back, not once she felt the warmth and sweetness of her baby’s face pressing against her breast.
‘I love you,’ she whispered through her tears, brushing back her baby’s spiky hair. ‘I’ll always be there for you, even if I can only be your Auntie Ellie and never tell you the truth. I wish I’d been brave enough to bring you up on my own.’
Bonny came back just as Ellie finished dressing Camellia. She looked at Ellie’s face and put one hand on her shoulder. ‘I know how it is,’ she said softly. ‘But I meant what I said, we’ll always share her.’
Bonny was worried about Ellie. She knew her friend so well, yet in the last couple of days she’d been unreachable. She wanted Ellie to leave, to have Camellia all to herself. But her heart ached for her friend.
Bonny could see now how much she owed to Ellie. She could look back and feel shame that she’d taken so much and given so little in return. Without Ellie beside her, she would have been just another tramp, a hard-hearted gold-digger with no love in her heart.
‘When I’m in a Hollywood mansion, I’ll invite you all over.’ Ellie attempted a smile, but it was no more than a there movement of her lips.
‘You make sure you get there,’ Bonny said fiercely, her hand moving to Ellie’s cheek and caressing it. ‘I want to hear you’re driving a Cadillac, that you’ve got a wardrobe full of furs and ballgowns. Then I won’t feel so bad about taking her from you.’
‘You haven’t taken her.’ Ellie looked up and found Bonny was crying too. ‘I’ve entrusted her with you. Keep her safe and love her, that’s all I ask.’
‘What’s this? A wake?’ John’s voice behind them made Bonny jump away guiltily.
‘Just a spot of baby worship,’ Ellie said quickly, trying to compose herself.
‘Don’t tell me you want one too?’ John replied with a wide grin. He came round in front of them both and looked from one face to another, wondering about the tears.
‘All women want babies,’ Ellie said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘But this one is extra special.’
John leaned down and lifted Camellia out of Ellie’s arms. He was highly touched by her devotion to his baby and grateful for all she had done for Bonny. But he thought it almost unhealthy for her to be quite so attached to Camellia.
‘She is pretty special,’ he said, putting Camellia on his shoulder and nuzzling her head with his lips. ‘Especially when she’s all clean and dry. But it’s time to go now, Ellie. I’m sure you don’t want to miss your train for this little darling.’
Ellie made for the lavatory the moment the train pulled out of the station. She knew she was going to break down any minute and she didn’t want any witnesses.
She sat on the seat, leant her arms on the washbasin and let the tears flow, the last glimpse of Camellia imprinted on her mind for ever.
Asleep against Bonny’s shoulder, swathed in a patchwork blanket. Bonny’s blonde hair bright against the tiny dark head, the picture framed by the grey stone of the porch.
The train chugged on and on, swaying her gently from side to side as she sobbed, her face buried in the sleeves of her coat. She was desolate, the pain in her heart like a red-hot dagger, twisting and turning. She had lost so many people she loved – her mother, Marleen, Charley – but this time the grief was overpowering because of her guilt. What sort of a woman was she that a career and people’s opinion of her meant more than keeping her own child?
People tried the door handle but she ignored them. She’d left behind the sensitive girl who cared about other people’s needs.
When the well of tears had finally run dry, she sat up and looked at herself in the tarnished mirror above the basin. Beneath her felt hat her eyes were swollen, black mascara forming two lines down her cheeks. She took a clean handkerchief from her pocket, wet it under the tap and held it to each of her eyes, then wiped away the black smears.
‘Tonight you’ll be with Edward,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll dress up and go with him to his club and you’ll get very drunk. You’re almost twenty-three, beautiful and talented, and the world is at your feet.’
Taking a compact from her bag, she powdered her nose and put on fresh bright lipstick with bold strokes.
She didn’t have to tell herself she’d shrugged off the old, sweet and gentle Ellie. She could already see Helena, a harder, ruthless woman, looking back at her in the mirror.
Standing up, she braced herself against the swaying motion of the train, tilted her hat to one side and forced herself to smile.
‘You will be a big star,’ she said aloud. ‘Nothing and no one will stand in your way.’
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Published by Arrow Books 2011
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Copyright © Lesley Pearse 1996
Lesley Pearse has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 1996 by William Heinemann
First published in Great Britain in paperback in 1996
by Manderin Paperbacks
First published in paperback by Arrow Books in 1998
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ISBN 9780099557463
