Happily Ever After (42 page)

Libby blushed. She raised her chin, that curious mixture of pride and awkwardness. “I’m sorry. I thought you probably… maybe sometimes you thought that it might be—that you might…”

It was just the two of them, suddenly. Elle put her hand on
her friend’s arm, noticing how white her English rose skin was. “I never felt that,” she said. “That’s why it didn’t work out… me and Rory.”

Libby nodded. Her cheeks were flushed. “Mm-hm.” She smiled and breathed out. “Thanks.”

“No,” Elle said, smiling at her, staring into her eyes. She and Rory both had green eyes, she realized. “Libs, it’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you.”

“Funny how it’s turned out, isn’t it,” Libby said. “Role reversal. You, this—well, you’re doing so well. Me marrying Rory, Felicity’s going to be my mother-in-law. Imagine.”

Elle couldn’t help but suppress a painful smile. The hours of sleep the younger her had lost, lying awake fretting over what would happen when the great Felicity found out she was having an affair with her son… Felicity. She seemed like a pharaoh, someone from another age. “Where is she?”

“She’s—she’s actually coming down tomorrow,” Rory said, rejoining them. He nervously looked at Libby. “She’s staying with Cousin Harold tonight.”

“What?” Libby said sharply.

“She rang the hotel earlier and left a message. She said her car was playing up and it was best if she stopped at Cousin Harold’s and got a lift with him.”

“Why couldn’t she call your mobile?” Libby demanded.

“Darling, it’s my mother,” Rory said, with exaggerated dry weariness. “She doesn’t believe in mobiles.”

“She said they were a young man’s fad. You must remember that,” Elle said, though she felt a little sorry for Libby: weddings were a nightmare to organize at the best of times, and the last thing you needed was a notable no-show from your nearest and dearest. Elle wondered if the
Bookseller
’s diarist would note that, and the resident paparazzo record her arrival the next day, and suppressed a smile.

“Right, then, we should go in to—” Libby clapped her hands, anxiously. “Hi, everyone! We should go in to dinner! Just through there!”

Her voice, unusually shrill, cut straight across the conversation, and the room fell still. “Come on,” Libby said, taking Elle by the arm. “Dinner, everyone!”

As she moved off Elle heard her say, “I’ll have to check the bloody seating plan again. We can’t have any of my authors on your mother’s table. I’m not risking her telling them a load of rubbish about me.” Her fingers were tight on Elle’s arm. “You’re so muscly,” she said admiringly. “Like a different person.”

“Oh—thanks?” Elle said quietly, but Libby had turned away to greet another guest.

BY THE TIME
Elle was back in the car on her way to her mother’s, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. She hadn’t slept during the flight, and she still had to get home, see Mum.

Tiredness washed over her, like an enemy trying to drag her down. The country lanes away from Sanditon Hall were rutted and narrow. So strange and weird, to be driving through the middle of nowhere in the dark, the occasional flash of rabbits’ eyes catching the lights on the road ahead, the smell of freshly mown grass and faint blossom coming in through the window she’d opened wide, when twenty-four hours ago she’d been in the glass elevator with Stuart Forgan, discussing whether she’d mind taking over one of Libby’s authors.

She’d grown cold, hard. It struck her now she was back. She’d had to, in order to survive in a new country on her own. She’d had to grow a thicker skin, learn a new set of rules, a way of being. She’d taken the one thing she had in New York that made her different—her Britishness—and used it. Used her English accent to charm Elizabeth Forsyte in the Ladies’ bathroom, used it to set herself apart, so that she had a USP. Marc had made her watch
Gypsy
on DVD one rainy afternoon, and poked fun at her throughout, as they lay under the duvet. “You gotta get a gimmick,” he’d sung, tweaking her nipples, his hands roving all over her while she squirmed with pleasure. “You’re Mama Rose, you dirty girl. You’ll stop at nothing to get your way.” She’d screamed with outraged pleasure but, now, she knew it was true. In London, she’d always thought she was just one of a sea of mediocre pleasant girls—not the brightest, not the prettiest. She wasn’t much at all, really. In New York, her gimmick was her Britishness, and her MO was the fact that she worked like a Trojan, so that no one could take anything away from her.

As it always did around this time, towards the end of the New York working day, Elle’s mind started scanning over events, running through her To Do list. She had to call Caryn and pass on Heather Dougall’s complaints about the UK company, call Jennifer and get her to fax Elizabeth Forsyte a message of greetings that she’d got there OK—Elizabeth loved to know Elle’s movements, and she loved faxes, and Elle wasn’t sure if her BlackBerry would work in the depths of Sussex, and thought it’d be nice for her to know she was still in touch. She had to think about how to approach the Gray Logan question—she wasn’t even sure she wanted to edit him. His books were very literary, and although when she’d met him once he’d been very friendly, kind, rather handsome, even though he had to be nearly fifty, she was sure he was far too intellectual for the likes of her. Perhaps she should—she peered forward in the darkness, as a sign,
Shawcross 2 m, Torbridge 4 m
, loomed out of the darkness, and veered right.

“Come on, Elle,” she said, blinking hard in the darkness. “Nearly there, nearly—” She paused. Home? It wasn’t home.

Elle parked the car and walked up the path towards her mother’s house. There was a chill in the air now. Dew was settling like a gray mist on the lawn. The kitchen light was on. She knocked, and opened the door.

She scanned the sitting room, and then saw her mother, under the yellow glare of a single bulb at the kitchen table. Her head was bowed. “Hi, Mum!” Elle called, her voice bright. At the sound of Elle’s voice Mandana stood up, slowly, and turned around. There was an empty wine bottle in front of her, which she knocked over as she got up, and Elle’s heart sank.
Please no, please no, please no.

“Baby, you’re back!” Her mother heaved herself up and came towards her, rubbing her eyes. “I’m sorry. I had a glass of red
wine, naughty me, and I must have fallen asleep at the table. How disgraceful!”

She hugged Elle, her arms holding her tight, and Elle felt her squeezing her, and she gave in to it, for one sweet moment. Then Mandana stepped back, and Elle saw, with a lurch, the cracked red-wine stains at the corners of her mouth, her out-of-focus eyes. Her hair was thin, wasn’t it thinner than before? She could still remember Melissa’s prim, harsh voice back at the Algonquin, every sentence of that conversation imprinted on her brain, she couldn’t help it.
She’s only going to get worse. Someone needs to intervene.

Elle blinked. “You drank that whole bottle?”

The bottle was, indeed, rolling in a creaking circular motion around the table.

“Of course not, don’t be so rude,” Mandana roared, slapping her hands on her thighs and moving back to rescue the bottle. “No, Bryan came over, and Anita. We had dinner in the garden. I wanted you to see them, only you’re so late.”

“I’m not that late—”

“You were for them. I made dinner and then they left. Don’t turn up here and…” She stopped. “Oh, forget it,” she said, rubbing her hand across her forehead. “Maybe I did have a bit too much, I’m sorry, love. Jesus, you sound like Melissa.”

Her skin was sallower, wasn’t it? Was it usually that waxy, yellow color? Elle stared at her, then she put her bag on the ground and moved towards the kitchen.

“Sorry,” she said. She glanced at the sink. It was certainly full: three, eight, ten people could have been there for dinner.

Mandana grimaced. “Now, do you want a cup of tea? Or coffee? Hm… Let me see.” She looked around. “I’m going to have peppermint, if I’ve got any…”

The rest of the kitchen was filthy. Elle’s head droned with tiredness, like a softly humming cymbal, as Mandana chattered
in the background. “You remember Anita, well, she’s going back to Rajasthan in September, and I think I might go with her, what do you say to that? I haven’t had a chance to go, you see, yet. I went to India in ’71, the year after I came back from San Francisco, and it was wonderful, you know, we stayed in these tents, well, Anita thinks we could bring some of them over too—”

“Excuse me a sec,” Elle interrupted. “Mum, sorry to be rude, do you mind if I make a phone call?”

“Er… now?” Her mother stared at her. “It’s eleven o’clock!”

“It’s to the States, it’s only six there.” Elle flapped her hands, impatiently.

“But I haven’t heard about how your flight was, your dinner—how’s Libby? Love—”

“I’ll be one minute, Mum. Then I can concentrate.” She dropped a kiss on her mother’s forehead.

Turning towards the corridor, Elle scrabbled for her Black-Berry, her connection to the outside world. The connection was working; emails started filling up her inbox. There was a text on it from Mike:

Hi Elle. Hope you landed safely. Miss you already. Have a great trip. See you next week Sweet Pea. Mike x

What would Mike make of her mother, were he ever to meet her? The idea of Mike and her mother discussing stock prices or Rajasthani tents was totally alien to her. Back here for twelve hours or so, and Mike himself seemed totally alien. She scrolled through her emails.

Hi Elle,

This is probably odd after so many years, but I wondered if you were going to the wedding tomorrow? I’ve been invited, for
some reason. I heard you might be coming back from Libby. Would you like a lift? I’d rather not turn up on my own and I hoped maybe you wouldn’t want to either. Happy to collect you from your mother’s, if L’s right and that’s where you’re staying. My mobile number’s below.

Hope all’s well with you. Be nice to see you.

Tom

Elle stared at the screen for a moment, biting her lip. Then she called up Jennifer’s direct line and while she waited for the call to go through she stood up in the stairwell, looking out over the cold, messy kitchen, and at her mother moving slowly about under the small circle of yellow light. She shuffled, touching one item then putting it back, standing warily in the middle of the room. Elle couldn’t take her eyes off her. When Jennifer came on the line, Elle ran through a few things with her, then she typed a quick reply to Tom.

Yes please. I’d love that. 11? Torbridge Farm Barn, Near Shawcross, E Sussex.

It’ll be good to see you again,

she wrote, then deleted the last line.

See you tomorrow. E

“Sorry about that, Mum,” she said, coming back into the kitchen. She sat down. “Just needed to speak to my assistant and make sure a couple of things are OK.”

“Oh, no problem, you busy Eleanor Bee,” said her mother. She smiled at her. “Can I get you anything, love? Or are you very tired?”

She sat down next to Elle, and stroked her daughter’s hair away from her forehead. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured. “All grown up, you are.”

Mandana’s nails were yellow too; gnarled with ridges, cracked and bitten. Why hadn’t she seen it, at Christmas? Because she’d hardly seen her at Christmas, Elle realized now. She took her mother’s hand off her face, and held it in her own lap.

“Are you OK, Mum?” she asked. “You don’t look very well.”

Mandana squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I’ve not been that well, actually,” she said, sounding frank. “Had a bit of a cold. It’s been a terrible spring. Just got nice now.”

“Oh. Right,” said Elle. She took a deep breath. Enough head in sand.
Now. Do it now.

She said, “Are you drinking, I mean properly drinking?” Mandana made to snatch her hand away, but Elle held on to it. “I’m not having a go at you, Mum,” she said, while inside she was screaming,
Yes, yes, I am, why do you do this? Why can’t you see what you’re doing to yourself, Mum?

“Let me get some tea.” Mandana made to stand up, but Elle didn’t move. Her mother sank back, reluctantly, into her seat.

“It’s just I know you’ve had a problem with it, and there are things you can do to get help.” Elle put her other hand on her mother’s lap, blinking hard, and she swallowed. She took some papers she’d put down on the table. “There’s a clinic not far from here, you know, and your local surgery’s referred people before, I rang up and checked with them. Look, here’s all the information. I printed it out before I came.” She slid the sheaf of papers across the table. They were held together with a big pink plastic paper clip; it was incongruous. “If they won’t refer you we can pay ourselves, Dad has said he’ll lend me some money.” Mandana started. “I said it was for home improvements, Mum, don’t worry,” Elle said. “He won’t know any different. We just have to go to your doctor on Monday.
I’ve booked an appointment at ten o’clock. That’s all we have to do. Just tell her you need help, it’ll be easy after that.” She knew that was a lie, but it had to sound true. Elle took a deep breath. “And I’ll be here, I’ll do anything you want. I’ll move back here, live with you, help you get better.” Mandana shook her head, weakly. “I’ve thought about it, I’ll give up the job and come back. I’d do it.”