Who's Afraid of Mr Wolfe? (40 page)

Ellie continued to sit there holding Edith’s hand. She was unwilling to let go or leave Edith alone in order to fetch a nurse. The rest of the world would be barging in soon enough. She needed some time to say her goodbyes
to Edith in her head, even if there was no point in saying them out loud.

In Edith’s face she saw traces of her own father and of herself, but no trace of the real Edith any more.

When she felt able, she bent forward and kissed Edith gently on the forehead. Then she thought how cross Edith would be about anybody else seeing her looking so un-Edith-like and reached for her handbag and got out her comb. Methodically she tidied up Edith’s hair for her.

Then the silence broke and the room was suddenly full of Constance and Pandora with their husbands in tow complaining about the price of hospital parking. The nurse was walking towards the bed.

As quickly as they had all burst in full of chat, they stopped, each one of them transfixed by the sight of Edith. Five pairs of eyes turned to Ellie.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘she’s gone.’ She let go of Edith’s hand and got up off the bed. The nurse became all action and concern. Ellie couldn’t stand it. ‘I need some air,’ she said, and snatched up her handbag and ducked through the curtains.

Outside the hospital, she sat down on a bollard. Edith was dead. The impossible had happened.

Someone came and stood in front of her and she looked up to see Jack.

‘I was in the waiting room,’ he said. ‘I saw you go past… Edith …?’

That was when Ellie started to cry properly. Jack tried to put his arm round her, but she swatted him away. She was aware that he was still standing there as she sobbed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Here she was, crying in front of Jack again, but this time she didn’t give a damn what he thought.

Jack mumbled something about calling a taxi, and when it came, she climbed in and he sat next to her. Ellie looked out of the window. Everything seemed the same; the sun was shining; the streets were full. But London was one feisty old woman short.

Jack’s thoughts were on that other trip he had made home from hospital in a taxi and how he had hated every smiling fool he had seen out of the window. Now here he was in another taxi, watching someone else suffer, and he couldn’t even comfort her. He couldn’t even help the woman he loved because he’d magnificently, stupendously stuffed everything up. He tentatively moved his hand over Ellie’s and she didn’t pull away. But she didn’t look at him either.

Jack watched Ellie buttering the piece of bread as if she hated it. He wanted to offer to do it for her, but she hadn’t spoken to him since they’d got back to Edith’s house and there was no reason for him to believe she would talk to him now. She’d walked into the house and disappeared upstairs, leaving him to sit in Edith’s sitting room and go over, yet again, how much he’d messed everything up. She’d only re-emerged when Constance and Pandora, with husbands, had arrived back from the hospital.

This was the nearest he had got to her since the taxi ride, standing in the kitchen pulling together something for everyone to eat.

Ellie tore open a packet of ham, put some of it on the bread, then sliced up some cucumber and placed that on top of the ham. After she’d rammed another piece of bread on top, she cut the whole thing roughly into four triangles. Jack picked up a bottle of red wine from the counter and, as he was uncorking it, continued to watch
Ellie uneasily. She’d been crying upstairs, but now she was angry. He guessed it was at death, he knew that feeling, but probably it was also at him.

He was about to have another go at talking to her when Constance came into the kitchen and shooed them both into Edith’s sitting room.

Sitting in there on his own before, he’d remembered that night when he’d been playing Scrabble with Edith and Ellie had come home tipsy. Tipsy and beautiful.

Now here he was, balancing a plate on his knees and making small talk with a long streak of a guy called Gerald who was Pandora’s husband. Across the room sat Frank, a man who talked constantly about money and was about half the size of his wife, Constance.

Ellie didn’t look his way once. Mind you, she wasn’t looking at anybody else either. Just staring ahead of her, knocking back the wine. Constance and Pandora started to reminisce about Edith’s eccentricities and Jack saw Ellie cast a venomous glare in their direction.

‘Do you remember that speech day when she turned up in that appalling coat with the fox heads still attached at the neck?’ Constance slipped her court shoes off her large feet. ‘Terrified the first-year pupils. They had to be rounded up and frog-marched out of the hall.’

Pandora snorted and helped herself to more wine. ‘How could I forget? Or that skirt she wore the next year. Totally inappropriate.’

Constance nodded. ‘Totally.’

‘We could probably sell her clothes collection to a museum, or a travelling circus,’ Gerald said, and then sniggered.

‘Probably make a bob or too,’ added Frank.

Jack wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear the sound of Ellie grinding her teeth.

‘Wasn’t only the clothes, though, was it, Pan?’ Gerald said, taking a massive bite out of a sandwich and then proceeding to talk with his mouth full. ‘Remember when she turned up at our silver wedding with that salsa band she’d met in the pub?’ Gerald turned to Jack. ‘She got completely plastered and ended up trying to limbo under the dining-room table. Made a hell of a mess.’

‘Oh, don’t,’ said Constance. ‘I’ve lost track of the number of times I had to apologise for her. Remember that disgusting thing she suggested to Mr Hunter? How Father stood it I don’t know.’

Jack saw Ellie’s hand reach out for the wine bottles again. That was her third glass and he hadn’t seen her eat anything yet. He picked up the plate of sandwiches and took them over to her. She shook her head and waved him away.

‘So,’ said Frank, his eyes glistening, ‘what are house prices like around here?’

‘Had a quick scout when I went out for some matches,’ Gerald said. ‘Still look pretty buoyant. Reckon you’re
looking at around eight hundred and fifty thousand for this.’

There were appreciative noises all round, which didn’t quite mask the sound of Ellie putting her glass down on the table with some force.

Jack felt Frank tap him on the arm. ‘Where do you live, then?’

‘Down by the river. Greenwich.’

‘Flat or house?’

‘Flat. Warehouse conversion.’

Frank whistled appreciatively. ‘Bet that’s worth a bob or two now, then?’

Jack glanced uneasily at Ellie. ‘Well, I bought at a good time …’

‘Bet you did. You look like a man who knows a good deal. What line of business you in? The City?’

‘No. Advertising and marketing.’

A cheeky smile spread over Frank’s face. ‘Advertising and marketing. Same as Ellie, eh? You two don’t work together, do you?’

‘Well, we used to.’

‘Office romance, eh?’ Frank said, jabbing Jack with his elbow. ‘Boss and secretary?’

Jack wondered if it was acceptable to slap the husband of a recently bereaved woman.

‘Ellie wasn’t my secretary. She’s a senior copywriter and—’

‘Secret’s safe with us,’ said Gerald.

Jack chanced another look at Ellie. She had filled her wineglass yet again.

‘Leave Ellie alone,’ Constance said, and then patted Ellie’s knee. ‘We all know that you were very fond of Edith. We’re very grateful for the way you looked after her. She was such a worry to us before you took her under your wing.’

‘Not such a worry that you got off your backsides and came to visit her,’ Ellie snapped, standing up so abruptly that she sloshed wine on to the carpet. ‘I mean, God knows it’s hundreds of treacherous miles from Surrey to here. Shame it took her dying for you all to pay her a visit.’

Ellie stood there glowering and then shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry,’ she said quietly, and walked unsteadily out of the room.

After a sticky silence Constance and Pandora started to mutter about how easy it was for Ellie because Edith hadn’t been her mother.

Jack figured that Ellie needed to be alone for a while to pull herself together. And really, what help was he going to be? He had no idea how things stood between them. Anything he wanted to say to her she wouldn’t want to listen to tonight. He should leave her alone.

He got up slowly, excused himself and went to look for her.

He found her out in the back garden on her knees. She
appeared to be digging a hole in a flowerbed with a large soup spoon.

‘Don’t you have a trowel?’ he asked gently.

She didn’t look up. ‘If I had a trowel, I wouldn’t be using a soup spoon, would I?’

‘Fair point,’ he said, and walked back into the kitchen. He opened a few drawers until he found what he was looking for and then went back into the garden and got down on his knees next to Ellie. She looked at the fish slice in his hand but kept on shovelling earth out of the hole.

Jack started to slice chunks out of the hole too. Every now and again he noticed Ellie stop and wipe her eyes with the back of her hand; she had a smear of earth down one cheek. He had no idea what she was doing or why she was doing it. But
how
she was doing it was definitely scary, like she was possessed. He fumbled for something to say, some little bridge to build between them.

‘Ellie, this hole you’re digging?’

‘It’s not actually for Edith, before you ask.’

There was that physical pain, as if she’d punched him in the chest.

‘Ellie, for God’s sake, do you really think I would say something so heartless? I liked Edith. She was … she was a one-off, funny, sharp as a knife … wicked. Why would I say that about her?’

‘I don’t know, Jack, but then I don’t know anything any
more.’ Jack winced at the bitterness in her tone as she continued to gouge great lumps of earth with her spoon. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t have thought two daughters would sit there pricing up their mother’s possessions and agreeing what a laughing stock she was when she’s probably not even completely cold yet. So, hey, what do I know?’

Again Ellie wiped her hand roughly over her eyes, leaving another smear of dirt behind and Jack wanted to reach over and wipe it away with his fingertips.

‘Different people deal with grief in different ways, Ellie,’ he said.

‘Oh, what the hell would you know about it?’ Ellie chucked a spoonful of loose earth on to the growing pile. Then he saw her stop and close her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she said, opening them again. ‘Of course you’d know.’

Another punch to his chest. He dragged in a couple of deep breaths and kept his head down. ‘Forget it.’ He hacked at the sides of the hole, dislodging great lumps of earth.

They worked together in silence. Jack was glad to be close to her, even under these circumstances. Every now and again their hands would meet in the hole and once or twice he timed it deliberately so that they would. All he could do was try to help her with whatever this manic task meant to her.

She threw down the spoon. ‘That’s deep enough.’

Jack watched as she felt behind her, brought out an old
biscuit tin and then took the lid off and tipped its contents into the hole. He reached out and picked up a photograph of a young, smiling man in an RAF uniform.

‘An old boyfriend of Edith’s?’

Ellie nodded. ‘An affair, before and after she was married to George. He’s Pandora’s father. Pandora doesn’t know. Nobody but me knows and that’s the way it’s going to stay.’ She took the photograph out of his hand and placed it back on top of the other papers.

‘He died?’ Jack said, not really wanting to ask that question at all.

‘No, went back to his wife. Edith never saw him again.’ Ellie started to shovel the earth back into the hole and Jack helped her, trying not to think too deeply about Edith’s lost love.

If he wasn’t careful, he’d have another lost love of his own on his hands. Another one to add to Helen. He stopped shovelling so that he could gaze at her. Drink her in.

Here she was, still looking after Edith. He felt as if in that very instant, kneeling next to Ellie in the garden, he understood everything about her and loved her even more because of it. Such determination to do good.

Very soon the hole was filled and Jack took the spoon from Ellie and started to pat down the soil.

‘You look like you’re smashing the top on a boiled egg,’ she said, and then stood up and turned away from him. He saw her shoulders juddering and her hand go up and
pass across her eyes again and he desperately wanted to grab hold of her and kiss it all better.

Everything was completely still in the garden; around them the air was warm and perfumed with flowers and the lights were creating little glowing pools in the bushes and the trees. The perfect evening for romance if he hadn’t so spectacularly, magnificently, shagged everything up. It was going to take tiny steps to get back to her, even if she would let him. He stood up very quickly, determined to take one of the steps now.

‘Ellie, I know that tonight isn’t the right time to talk about this—’

Suddenly the back door opened and a corridor of light flooded out into the garden. They both turned to see Frank striding towards them.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he said, and then stared at the fish slice and spoon in Jack’s hands. His brow crinkled. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Planting bulbs,’ said Ellie.

‘This time of year?’

‘Edith bought some and never had a chance to plant them. I thought it would be apt if I did it now.’

‘Right,’ Frank said, still looking at the spoon and fish slice. ‘Right, well, good. Anyway, it’s nearly time to turn in and the girls have sent me out to ask about sheets and things … Could you show them where they are?’ He noticed the biscuit tin and bent to pick it up and then
turned it over in his hands. ‘Very nice, bit ropey condition, but it might be worth a bob or two.’ He put it under his arm, oblivious to the look he was getting from Ellie. ‘Come on, then, time to stop all this spooning in the moonlight.’ Mightily pleased with his own joke, he started to chuckle but stopped when he caught Jack’s eye. He looked quickly at Ellie. ‘OK. Well. Let’s go and find those sheets, then.’