Ellie's Return (11 page)

There was another way she could have
helped Ellie, though in the passion of the moment she could hardly be blamed
for letting it slide just a little bit. It was clear that Ellie had not been
reading all her emails, but it had only become clear this morning. Until that
point, Claudia assumed that Ellie had at least read her missives even if she
did not get around to answering them. If she had read them she would have known
about Tom and Lola, and she would have known that Tom had tried to reach her
after that relationship began. There were a few times he had tried to contact
Ellie through her, at first about their relationship and then again about some
property. Claudia did not know whether the property thing was another attempt to
contact her without sounding too desperate, but she did not decide either way,
she passed the messages on like a faithful friend. This had been over a few
months, and Claudia took the lack of response as lack of interest since she had
never been in the loop anyway. Tom had stopped trying to reach Ellie through her
after the time he turned up seeming quite desperate and finding there was still
no response. They had turned to each other then, each spurned by the same lover
who seemed to have discarded them and moved on. They were sweet to each other,
she tried to comfort him but knew there was a limit to any comfort she could
give him and because they had meant that to each other however briefly, he did not
approach her as a friend again. All else that she knew about him was through
third parties and subject to all the whims, embellishments and good and bad
intentions of the Chinese whisper, so she knew nothing more with any certainty,
except that Tom cared nothing for Lola and still loved Ellie, in a way that did
not seem it was going to end.

Should she tell her any of this? Well she
had already, so the point was moot. In any argument on the subject Claudia
would win hands down, but no argument on this matter was going to be beaten
down to something as alien to the heart as logic, and now that Claudia knew
Ellie had not taken on board anything she had been told, should she be told
again? There was no doubt that she could easily decide to confront Tom or Lola,
or both of them, and sooner or later this information would come out. Of course
it might not, and both of them had disappointed her horribly, and if she had
not read the emails she may well have deleted them by now, so if she said
nothing Ellie would be none the wiser, and if she was it could not really help
her. Claudia would bide her time. She may tell her what had happened or she may
not, right now all she wanted was for her to come back.

Seventeen

Lola had worked herself into frenzy about
the fact that Ellie just did not seem to be playing ball. She had always been
so predictable, so easy to manipulate, that was why Lola had kept her around
for all those years, because she was no trouble. She had fully intended
however, that when she was no longer of any use she could be discarded and that
would be that. The people who don’t expect to stay in your life are the least
amount of trouble, and then there are those who can be made to go away, who can
be made to feel almost ashamed of themselves for no good reason and who can be
relied on to stay away, and Lola had thought that Ellie was firmly in this
camp. She was surprised to find then, that Ellie was in a whole different class
of people, much smaller in number and much less suggestible and harder to
manipulate, who just will not stay down when you want them to. Lola was
determined that if she ignored Ellie’s advice of her visit she would take the
hint and stay away, but it had not worked. Now that she had decided to keep
Ellie on side she was nowhere to be seen, and now Lola had been forced to stay
late at the shop waiting for her when she would much rather be preparing
herself and her big evening. She was already running late now; Tom would have
left for the weekend and if Ellie was not coming she really needed Tom there to
schmooze on her behalf, so this change of character was really not helpful at
all, and she resolved not to tolerate it any longer. She did not care as long
as they did not speak to each other at any point, and when tonight was over she
would work on Tom to firm up the story of Ellie’s departure and ensure that
even if she did stay around, he would never speak to her again.

Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief when
Lola announced that she was finally leaving for home, but any comfort she was
likely to feel would be short lived by the fact that it just left time for her
to go home and change so that she could be greeting guests this evening.
 
She would be managing the event that she
had organised while Lola floated around taking all the credit for finishing
touches she did not know she had thought of.
 
Charlotte too counted the days of her
penance, and while she had felt she had no choice but to tell Ellie the day
before that Lola was not in the shop when she was, she envied her Lola’s
rejection, she would rather her enmity than her confidence, which in the absence
of anybody else Lola was increasingly inclined to offer. She wanted to move on
but she could not find the time to effect the change, since Lola had her
managing all sorts of extra curricular activities from managing tonight’s event
to the supervision of the shop renovations, and not only did Charlotte routinely
work an average of an extra day a week for no extra pay for a retail assistants
wages but because of the renovations she had worked several weeks without a day
off at all. She had asked several weeks in advance for a day off the month
before to attend her sisters graduation and Lola had been non committal before
at the last minute telling her they were too busy, and then going out for a
long lunch on the same day because she was too tired from all that Charlotte
had done.
 
The elegant Charlotte
could not afford to be without a job as much as she could afford to be
unappreciated, so for now she smiled and tolerated and continued to be in
charge, content in the knowledge that her release, when it came, would be
suitably memorable for her and her leader.

Because Lola needed to stay late, Charlotte
had to stay late too, so there was no time to go home and heat the soup she had
lined up that morning, no time to have the bath she had promised herself or
read the chapter of the book she had distracted herself with the thought of all
day. She would have to whizz in and out of the cold flat, change the work dress
for the little black number that Lola had told her would be fine because nobody
would be looking at her anyway, and be back out in five minutes, to get to the
hotel on time to ensure everything was as it should be. Because she had to stay
late following a morning that she had to arrive especially early, she had a
ticket for overstaying at the car park, which she knew from experience she
would have to pay for herself. She bit her lip at the prospect; she was poorly
paid enough already, and Lola had told her quite firmly that she did not
believe in overtime, which chimed quite consistently with her assertion on
another occasion that she did not believe in paying people who were not
prepared to go the extra mile in their work. Charlotte did not have the luxury
of walking out but equally she could not afford to continue working here, so
she knew that something would have to give eventually, but for tonight she
would bite her lip, and one of these days when she had time to think, she would
develop a plan to move on.

She was already greeting the guests in the
oak panelled reception room when she knew that Lola must be with one of the
guests because she heard coming down the corridor Lola’s distinctive tinkly
laugh instead of her more natural, throaty guffaw. Lola emerged into the room
moments later, looking every inch a star and undoubtedly the most glamorous
resident of the town. Charlotte had long since realised that while Lola
intended to have a national presence with her shops, she certainly intended to
carve herself a niche in this little town too, a cave from which to operate, a
lair where she controlled all the little people, however big they thought they were.
Charlotte had never doubted that Lola used sex as a weapon, and she wondered
whether other people saw that in her too before it was too late. That poor man
Tom, who she was engaged to did not seem to be any better off as a result, he
seemed to be stooping more and more over the two years since she had seen him
occasionally coming into the shop, but it did not seem to sit right with him.
Lola was lucky to have someone in her life the way she spoke to people. Not the
kind of people who were here tonight, the people she wanted to impress, but the
other people, the ones she thought she had control over or no further need of.
It was the way she treated people she did not have to treat well which as so
often was the mark of the person, and Charlotte was amazed that she could keep
anyone in her life that did not need her, until she realised for the first time
as she watched her tonight, that possibly she could not. Charlotte did not have
the time for a relationship, or rather the time to meet someone, but she felt
sorry for Tom, and hoped he got something out of the relationship too, even if
it seemed he was getting nothing at all.
 

 
Eighteen

Tom had expected that by the time he got
nearer to his destination his troubles would have lightened, as was so often
the case. His weekends were the saving grace in his life right now, the
opportunity to get away with one of his friends or on his own and recharge with
some sort of normality. On the odd occasion that a friend had wanted to tell
him how stressed he seemed these days they discovered that he was a new man
once he got away, from the office presumably, and that he had the cure already.
The discussion never came to pass where Tom would tell anybody what ate away at
him during the week, starting when he drove back to the town on Sunday evening,
and eating away until he left again on the Friday following. It was easy enough
to assume that with the economy the way it was perhaps the property business
was not the one to be in, and that with Lola building up her business so
successfully at the moment, Tom was under pressure to perform in an environment
where all was not going his way. Anybody who thought that would be right in a
way, since some of Tom’s portfolio had indeed suffered in the slump and he had
been troubled about whether and when to offload some of the empty properties
without losing too much on them. He had come around to the opinion that a
pooled investment in property where someone else managed it professionally was
the way to go, and he was surprised that Lola had not picked up on this when he
had suggested it because it was what he would do if he was starting over now.
Perhaps what she wanted was something that she had pictured for a long time and
she had to see it through. She had suggested having houses filled with her own
branded goods, once she was able to rebrand everything with her own logo, so it
may be part of a bigger picture. She had not kept it a secret from Tom that she
wanted his best properties for herself, and for all that some of his portfolio
had suffered, he had always diversified to the extent that he now had some
commercial property that was rented on long leases and a few very beautiful
properties with land, some of which were worth a great deal and had not only
held their value but exceeded it, but other houses that looked great but would
only depreciate for the foreseeable future because of their locations. Lola had
made no bones about wanting the best value out of all his assets and it looked
as though she might get it.

He was still reeling from a stunt she had
pulled only a couple of months into their relationship, and that she had used
to gain the balance of power over his business.
 
He was offered an opportunity to purchase
some land with planning permission to build some modular homes. The idea was
that he would buy the land and build the homes, and sell the high quality homes
on within a short period. In the event he discovered that the planning
permission had been withdrawn because the land was contaminated from a factory
that had been located nearby some years before and had now been removed. Tom
was led to believe by the person selling the land that the planning permission
was granted and ready to go, but a mix up in the paperwork left him unable to
prove that he was not advised of the status change, and he was left with contaminated
land that he still had to pay for but without the means of making the money
back. He knew he could sell some property to make up the difference but it
would take a couple of months and he would need a bridging loan. The banks were
not helpful, but given his mistake that he was still kicking himself for he was
not surprised, since they weren’t accommodating anyone very much at the moment.
Lola had come to the rescue offering him the loan that he needed at high
interest. He wasn’t very happy about that but the land was costing him money he
did not have and he was at risk of having to lose an awful lot more. He
accepted the loan, and even offered to take out an insurance policy to cover
the loan, more for Lola’s peace of mind. Lola said it was silly to worry about
such a thing but he could help her out in return instead. For security he could
make her a director of his company, that way she would have security for the
three months or so until he could affect a quick sale of some assets, or he may
even get more if it was a less urgent sale so in six months he would have paid
her back. What she wanted was to be represented as the Chairman of the company
on an interim basis, it would help her profile when she went to acquire
property and in her own business relationships with lenders it would point to
her experience in the field. For that, she would reduce the rate to a normal
level of interest. Tom thought it sounded odd but he had known Lola for a couple
of years and knew her to be of good character, as well as the fact that they
were already virtually living together now since Ellie had scarpered, so he
agreed, because it would mean he could take his time about the sale of assets
and not compound an already bad decision.