Ellie's Return (5 page)

When she did go in she saw that the shop
had been rearranged. She was quite taken aback with how much had been done, she
remembered this shop when it was just a hollow outlet, now there was a
staircase to an upper gallery, a couple of very expensive looking chandeliers
and an overall effect somewhere between shabby chic and downright high-end. There
seemed to be two assistants in the shop. One of them had popped into a side
office as Ellie came in so she had seen only the faintest glimpse of her as she
disappeared. She did not recognise the other lady who was working there either;
she was sat at a dark wood desk and she looked up and smiled as she saw Ellie,
who suddenly felt very scruffy in front of this petite and elegant brunette who
was apparently oblivious to her own perfection. Ellie told her that she was not
a customer but was here to see the owner, to which she replied that she was the
manager and she could help with anything, casting a glance at the small
suitcase as though she expected her to open it up and start plying her with
samples of household goods. Ellie smiled and said no, she was a friend of
Lola’s at which the nice lady apologised for no obvious reason and said she
would go and get her. Ellie thanks her and stood looking up and around her
until the same woman emerged from the office door a few moments later and asked
for her name. When Ellie told her, she seemed to remember that Lola was not
going to be in today, but she could take a message and get her to call her?
Ellie thought it a strange thing not to remember that she was not going to be
on until she went into the office to check, but of course Ellie had seen
someone go into the office, and that person she supposed must have reminded
her. Could Ellie have Lola’s phone number? She had it but was getting no
response, she said, and tried not to be insulted when the lady who she did not
know said as tactfully as possible that she didn’t know her from Adam. Ellie
left her own number and said she would call at Lola’s flat now. The elegant
lady seemed about to recall a useful fact but then to think better of it, and
said she would pass the number on.

Six

It was another couple of hours before
Claudia heard an insistent banging on the door of her small terraced house. She
didn’t have a doorbell because there had not been one when she bought the house
and she did not like to encourage visitors to just drop in.
 
Unannounced visitors were the devil’s
spawn to her, and while she was quite happy to see people she was expecting it
was because she would be in the right frame of mind if she knew they were
coming, whereas if she did not they would almost certainly be interrupting
something, be it a writing spell, a baking spell, a book or a piece of music
she had set aside the time for.
 
Claudia loved that there was time enough in the world for everything as
long as you did not succumb to the modern pressure to have everything done
yesterday, since experience had fairly conclusively proved that it could not
be.
 
She felt almost alone in this
sentiment, since everybody she knew insisted on hurtling through life, creating
little emergencies for themselves and pressures that they did not need to be
under, all so that they could say that life is hard and it’s such a shame that
there is no time to do anything. They did not read books anymore, they only
read rubbish on the run that was designed to be read on the run more than it
was designed to make anyone think; the synaptic impulses of a generation
created and destroyed not on a need to preserve culture and promote decency in
the world so much as a premeditated impulse to clog up the open mind whilst getting
somewhere more quickly than one needed to be there, even if one was inevitably
late in doing so.

Claudia had spent two years doing just
that when she had graduated from university and gone to work in media sales in
London for two years. She left home every morning at six thirty in all
weathers, was elbowed in the face all the way to Waterloo station and then on
the underground and then stood pitching to the arsehole gatekeepers of the
nations middle managers two hundred times a day before doing the return
journey, often drunk, and getting home at stupid o’clock in the evening. In all
the time that she travelled to London every day for two years, she did not go
to the theatre in the West End once, or finish reading one novel. She became
good enough at the job to afford a deposit on her tiny cottage and knew that it
was time to leave, because life was about creating and absorbing the creations
of others, and she did not want to be out of that habit anymore than she
already was. There was time to listen to a symphony, or a jazz masterpiece, or
a new album instead of one three minute song in the background, but you had to
recognise that there was time and isolate yourself from everything else to do
it, and that was why other people could be a problem.

She had been in the bath when the banging
at the door had started. She suspected whoever it was had been there a while
because by the time she became aware of the knocking it was already quite
insistent. She had managed to persuade herself that it was somebody selling a
service door to door, and there was no point in answering that because she
would not be buying.
 
It was only
when she considered that it would have to be a pretty single minded salesman
who banged for that long on a cold call that she decided she had better go down
and see who was there. She put on a bathrobe and towelled the excess water from
her hair and went to the door, towel in hand.
 
The glass in the front door was misted
and was too high to see through, and when she called through the door to ask
who it was she heard a woman’s voice, which was better than it being a strange
man, but only marginally. She was looking around for her keys, which she found
beneath some clutter on the coffee table. She stood behind the door, peering
cautiously around it as she opened it, preparing her rejections for all the
things the imposter may want, but the last thing she was prepared to see
standing there in the rain, was Ellie, looking like the sexiest drowned rat
ever to come in out of a storm.

Claudia felt quite thrown by the sight of
Ellie and was not sure how long she was gaping at her before either of them
spoke. Ellie was looking slightly shame-faced as though she knew it was a
liberty to be here; she standing with a little suitcase beside her and the rain
pouring down on her and eventually Claudia opened the door to let her in. Ellie
looked grateful and seemed to be conscious of dripping water everywhere as the
front door opened straight onto the living room. Claudia handed her the towel
she had in her hand and took the suitcase to put out of the way against the
wall. Ellie put her face in the towel and stood there for a moment, then ran
the towel over her head so that she would stop dripping, but her bare arms were
wet, her sleeveless shirt clung to her, and her tight jeans were soaked to her
skin. Claudia thought she had never looked so good, and for some moments she
said nothing more, until Ellie looked at her as if wondering which of them should
speak first, before taking the initiative.
 

She apologised for turning up at short
notice, she was supposed to go to Lola’s but Lola was not at the shop and when
Ellie got to her old house she had found she was not there anymore, so now she
did not know where to go. Claudia seemed slightly surprised at that, and when
she asked if Lola knew she was coming Ellie admitted that she had only decided
finally yesterday that she would come, and since she arrived this afternoon had
been trying to track Lola.
 
She knew
that Claudia would not be offended that she had gone to see Lola first, those
two had always been the best of friends and Claudia knew that Ellie would not
have turned up without seeing her at all, but it was strange how she knew that
Lola was not expecting her. She had just got out of the bath, and she told
Ellie she could go and have a shower and change out of her wet clothes and they
could talk in a bit, and she hoped that her suitcase was not wet through. Ellie
was grateful and thanked her and asked if she sure she was finished in the bath,
and Claudia said of course and offered to make her a cup of tea.

There were no noises from the bathroom
upstairs whilst Claudia was pottering in the kitchen, and she wondered if there
was a problem working the shower, it was a bit temperamental.
 
She did not want to fuss, she remembered
that Ellie did not like fuss, unless she was making it, and she probably called
that something else. Her heart was pounding, she had a sensation as of
something brand new, or something long anticipated finally arriving. She knew
she must not get too excited; it was not like she thought anything was going to
happen, it was just such a lovely surprise. She felt a tingling and lightness,
and she moved around, trying to fix and tidy things that she would not have
noticed if left to herself.
 
Eventually she wondered if Ellie had
crashed out on the bed, and decided to take her tea up to her. The bathroom
light was the only one on and the door was slightly ajar so she knocked
lightly. She heard a slight movement of water and Ellie telling her to come in.
Claudia had used a saucer for the teacup because she thought Ellie would like her
tea-set, but as she looked up and saw Ellie lying in the bath her hand started
to shake and the cup and the teaspoon began to rattle.

Claudia had only looked up for a moment
but when she was let down by her shaking hand she had to look away and she
cursed herself for not being more casual. Ellie was reclining in the small
bath. She was stretched out as much as she could but she had to have one leg bent
and the other was up on the end between the taps. Her light blonde hair was
pushed back up on her head, standing up in a Mohican style in the middle. Her
eyes were closed and she was breathing slowly. The water was up to the level of
her waist, and her magnificent tanned breasts, were covered with droplets of water
and rose and fell with her breathing. Her legs looked longer and more toned
than Claudia remembered them, and her whole body was browner, softer. When
Ellie heard the rattling she had opened her eyes slowly and moved her head a
little. Claudia had looked away before she could be seen looking. Ellie had
smiled and mumbled her thanks for the tea, and told Claudia to sit down, so she
took a seat on the WC next to the bath, and gazed on once Ellie had closed her
eyes again. She could have sat and watched her forever. Ten minutes before she
had been thinking about making olive bread and re-reading Little Dorrit, now
the most beautiful woman she had ever known was lying naked in her bath and
Claudia did not want the moment to end. She was looking at the nipple piercing
on her left breast, wanting to touch and stroke it, and stroke the full breast
below it, and feel Ellie breath deeper, and sigh as she had heard her sigh
before. Claudia was still only wearing her dressing gown from when she had got
out of the bath, but she felt too warm. Her neck and her face felt flushed. She
felt her whole skin come alive and she wanted to stand up and take off the robe
and step into the bath with Ellie, to kiss her full round lips and stroke her
hair and kiss every inch of her the way she had been allowed to before, but she
knew that would not be allowed to now.

Ellie sighed a deep sigh and turned her
head again. Claudia looked away, trying to look thoughtful, and when she sensed
Ellie’s eyes were open she turned again to look directly at her. Ellie looked
tired, but peaceful. She chuckled.

“I hope you were finished in here. I came
in and the aroma drew me in, I feel so relaxed now.”

Claudia did not feel relaxed now, but she
concurred, and wanting to sound casual, asked her what was new. Ellie laughed.

“You must think I’m awful, turning up out
of nowhere and getting in your bath. Sorry sweetie, I’m so tired, I can’t think
straight. I need to get myself sorted out.”

Claudia raised her eyebrows at that but
did not respond, except to tell her to take her time. She had decided that she
had best leave Ellie to it, especially as she was going to be fighting a losing
battle keeping her eyes and her hands off her. She told her she was leaving
some towels out for her, and to come down when she was ready, no rush. As she
was leaving the bathroom, Ellie moved again from the torpor she was in and
asked if she could stay, just for one night, if it was not too much trouble.

“Of course you can stay,’ said Claudia, “I
love having visitors, you can stay as long as you like.”

She went back downstairs, tingling and
glowing in a way she could barely recall.

Seven

Tom Tatton had waited until he thought
Lola had left the house before emerging from the living room. He often slept
there these days. On most week nights he would stay late at the office,
sometimes working and sometimes killing time, and if the office became too
oppressive he would go down to one of the bars and order a bottle of wine and
tell himself he would eat later. He had to be careful about not spending time
in bars where he might be seen drinking alone when Lola’s friends and clients
knew she was at home. She may be home, but he knew her routines and would wait
until after her usual bed time and then sneak in and crash on the sofa, he had
even secreted a small sleeping bag into one of the lesser used cupboards down
there. If he knew that Lola was going to be out of an evening he would take
advantage of the situation, go home and cook or order a take-away, maybe have a
night off from drinking and watch a movie or read a book on the sofa. That way
he was able to have a couple of nights a week where he could replenish and
re-charge for the exhausting other nights of the week where he avoided any
possible contact with the woman in his life.
 
On those nights when he stayed in, he
slept in their bed, hoping not to be woken by her, even if he knew that she
would come in late and put the bedroom light on and bang the wardrobe doors
while she was getting undressed. He would sleep there on those nights to try to
preserve some semblance of the image that they were a proper couple, because
even if they both knew that their relationship was a sham there was no way out
of it so he had to go through the motions. Most weekends he managed to get away
with one of the boys, sometimes cycling, sometimes climbing, or golfing,
anything that might make him feel better for being away from it all for a
couple of days, a sense of having survived another week of this open ended life
sentence.