Читать книгу What Women Want, Women of a Dangerous Age: 2-Book Collection - Fanny Blake - Страница 13

Chapter 4

‘’Bye, darling. I’ll be here when you get back. I’ll rustle up something for supper so you needn’t worry.’ Oliver put both hands on her shoulders and kissed Ellen’s forehead.

‘That would be lovely.’ She leaned into him, relishing his warmth, his solidity, the reassurance she felt when close to him. The long-forgotten feeling of being loved was pushing against the barrier of self-sufficiency and self-control that had protected her for so many years. She remembered Emma, when she was still a little girl, insisting that Sleeping Beauty was read to her every night. So, every night Ellen had picked up the illustrated Grimms’ Fairy Tales with a sigh, turned to the same page and begun reading aloud as her daughter snuggled up to her and drifted off to sleep. For the first time Ellen could almost empathise with Briar Rose, the sleeping princess who was woken with a kiss.

‘I love you,’ he murmured, as he raised his right hand to the back of her head and, somewhat to her amazement, stroked her wiry grey hair as if she was a woman twenty years younger. ‘Come home soon.’ He kissed her again, this time lingering on her lips. That’s more like it, she thought.

She pulled away, knowing that if she didn’t the temptation to go back inside and shut the door on the world for the rest of the weekend would be irresistible. ‘I’ve got to go. The gallery won’t open without me and Saturday’s my busiest day.’

‘I know. I’ll be thinking of you as I have another cup of tea, do a bit of weeding for you, read the paper.’

‘That’s right. Rub it in.’ Ellen laughed. As she turned down the front steps, she noticed her next-door neighbour staring at her curiously. ‘Morning, Mary. Isn’t it a lovely day?’

‘For some obviously more so than for others,’ growled Mary, as she hurled a bulging black bag into a bin and slammed down the lid before scuttling off down the street. Mary’s cage was easily rattled but today Ellen wasn’t in the mood to find out why. As her neighbour rounded the corner, Ellen walked down the steps and out of the gate, turning to wave, but Oliver was already inside. She imagined him walking along the corridor, straightening the pictures so they all hung exactly level. Already she knew that he liked things to be just so. Perhaps he would take himself down to the basement, tidy up their breakfast things before he went out to the patio with the paper. If only she could shut the gallery on Saturday mornings and be with him.

Their affair had been so sudden and unexpected. Only four weeks earlier, Ellen had been sitting behind her desk in the front room of the gallery, sorting through the accounts. The light had slanted through the small window behind her, reminding her that yet another summer was going by without her having bought the right blind. The back of her neck felt hot to the touch. Her headache was getting worse. She rustled in the desk drawer for the packet of ibuprofen she kept there. She stood up to get a glass of water from the small kitchenette behind her and felt a familiar prick of pleasure at the pictures that hung around the white walls.

This was the place where Ellen felt most comfortable. The hours she had spent alone here had been hours in which she had time for herself and for the quiet grieving and reflection that she needed to do after Simon’s death. Somehow the atmosphere of the gallery gave her an inner calm that she could never find at home with the children. Since her uncle Sidney had willed it to her three years earlier, she had worked hard at building up the business, extending the premises through into the large back room, knocking out one of the cupboards and the dividing wall behind it so a short passage led from the front to the back. Her uncle had taken her on at a moment in her life when she was directionless, kept going only by the need to support her kids. He had the mistaken belief that her art-college training would be qualification enough, but working there with him had taught her everything she needed to know. She had taken on the legacy and turned it into an increasingly vibrant business for him.

At the sound of the bell, she glanced up as the glass door opened and a customer came in. Him again! The same man had been at the latest exhibition opening, had been in twice during the previous week and once already this. Idle speculation had inevitably become Ellen’s way of passing the day as people wandered in and out of the gallery. The lean, angular planes of this man’s face and his dapper pin-stripe suit said ‘City’ although his unkempt, boyish, almost black hair suggested something more relaxed, perhaps in the media. He exuded a youthful self-confidence appropriate for someone in what she guessed must be his late thirties. When he’d put his hand on her desk yesterday, as he asked her a question, she had surprised herself slightly by glancing up to notice a pair of cornflower blue eyes edged with long dark lashes – eyes a girl would kill for. For a moment, he held her gaze, then turned to leave.

As she had expected, he walked past her desk, smiling as he wished her good morning. She returned the greeting. He went into the back room where, on the small black-and-white security monitor, she could see him standing in front of the same picture as he had before. Over the last couple of weeks, she had often stood there herself, transported by the richness and power of the colours. Rough semi-circles of neon pink, mustard yellow, Lenten purple and brilliant carmine were juxtaposed with others in shades of apple green, red and aquamarine, all roughly outlined and set against a background of cerulean blue edged by a darker, more mysterious night sky: Starship by Caroline Fowler. Caroline was one of the newer artists that Ellen had brought to the gallery, impressed by her use of colour and the bold statements made by her canvases. She had a strong following already and this, her second exhibition with Ellen, had cemented her success. Unusually, the man didn’t stand in front of the painting for long. As he walked through to the front of the gallery, Ellen hoped she might at last have a sale on her hands.

‘I love that painting, Starship,’ he said. ‘Every time I come in here, I’m drawn to it. I’d like to buy it but I don’t have anywhere to hang it at the moment.’

‘I could keep it here for you for a while, if you’d like.’ She opened the drawer where she kept her red stickers and receipt pads.

‘No. I don’t think that would work. It might not suit whatever place I buy.’

‘Are you moving to London?’ Ellen’s curiosity got the better of her.

That was how their conversation had begun. Within five minutes of him introducing himself, Ellen was offering him a coffee as he described where he’d been living in rural France. He’d run a small arts and crafts gallery there but felt after two years that it was time to come home, so had sold the business and was looking to start again in London. As they’d talked, they’d discovered that their shared interest in art and the business of running a gallery extended into the books they’d read, films they’d seen and even the stretch of Dorset coast she knew from her childhood holidays. As the time passed, Ellen had hardly noticed the bell signalling other customers, until one had interrupted to buy another of Caroline’s pictures.

Oliver had waited, flicking through the prints folder, as she took the customer’s details, then stuck a red spot on the label beside the picture. As she returned to her desk, he looked at his Rolex and asked if, at five to six, she was closing. Thrilled to have made the sale, she had had to phone Caroline first to tell her the good news, then happily agreed to go for a very quick drink before she had to rush home to cook the children’s supper.

She smiled as she got on the bus, remembering those magical days of snatched encounters: coffee in the gallery, a walk round the local park, lunch, a drink in the pub. Oliver was funny, concerned and, most importantly, interested in her life. Despite her half-hearted attempts at resistance, she had felt like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, unable to stop herself, simultaneously curious and alarmed about what might happen next. At last, three weeks after they’d first met, the moment had come when she had turned to him as they stepped out of Bistro Pepe and he had taken both her hands and leaned towards her. She had pulled back, aware of and unable to believe what was coming, but he had pretended not to notice. It didn’t matter to him that they were in a public place and that people might look askance at a younger man kissing a definitely middle-aged woman. As his lips touched hers, she felt as if she’d come home at last.

That night he’d accompanied her home and she’d invited him in for coffee. The day before, she had put the children on the train for Cornwall where, as always, they were spending the last five weeks of their long summer holiday with Simon’s family just outside St Mawes. Without them, the emptiness of the house bore down on her.

One kiss had been all that was needed to puncture the ten years of overwhelming numbness she’d felt since Simon’s death. Left on her own with two small children, then aged only five and three, she’d had no alternative but to batten down her emotions and concentrate on helping them cope with the lack of their father. What was important was that she kept Simon alive in their minds, making sure above all that they knew he’d loved them. To do that, she couldn’t include another man in their lives, however frequently her friends and family said that was exactly what the children, and indeed she, needed. Until now. At first the sex was awkward, unfamiliar, embarrassing, but Oliver’s confidence and consideration drew her out of herself until she relaxed and moved with him. Since that first night together, Oliver hadn’t left except to go to pick up a few clothes and check out of wherever he’d been staying. And she had never wanted him to.

Ellen couldn’t remember when she had felt so indifferent to what her neighbours thought of her. The net curtains of Oakham Road might be twitching as she and Oliver came and left together – let them! The only people, apart from her family, whose opinion she particularly cared about were Kate and Bea. She could imagine their faces when she told them about Oliver. After so many years of knowing her as a devoted widow and committed single mother, they would be completely taken by surprise. But keeping Oliver to herself made their relationship all the more precious, all the more intense. She didn’t want that to end by going public, even though she knew that, once the kids came home, she would have to. If not sooner.

When she did, Kate would listen to her without interrupting but Bea would probe, making Ellen give away details before she was ready. Up until now, Ellen had treated Bea’s own endeavours to hook a man with some scepticism, but suddenly she understood something of what her friend must be looking for. The discovery of Oliver had thrown a switch inside her that she had forgotten existed. That was all Bea wanted to experience. Ellen saw that now. With the menopause beckoning, they might have only a last few throws of the hormonal dice.

Musing on that unpleasant truth, she unlocked the door to the gallery, pushed up the security shutters and sorted her papers, ready for the usual steady flow of Saturday customers. She was in the back, looking at Starship, considering whether to buy the picture for Oliver as a memento of their meeting (so what if he didn’t have anywhere to hang it?), when the bell rang. Perhaps it was too soon to make such a big gesture, but she had the rest of the morning to think about it. In the meantime she would put her back into some work and go through the programme for her next exhibition, making sure everything was on track.

She went through to see her first customer of the day, and was surprised to find Kate standing there, the only woman she knew who was over fifty and could get away with a skimpy pale pink T-shirt and white linen trousers. Suddenly she felt self-conscious about the old cotton dress she’d yanked off its hanger that morning. What they said about a moment on the lips was true. All those consolatory biscuits that she’d packed away over the years had made their home very comfortably on her hips.

‘Kate! Good to see you. It’s been ages.’

‘That’s why I thought I’d drop by. Where have you been hiding yourself?’

Ellen’s mobile rescued her from having to answer. ‘Just phoning to tell you I love you.’ The sound of Oliver’s voice transported Ellen into her garden where she imagined him sitting.

‘Don’t be silly. You’ve already said that once today.’ Ellen laughed with pleasure.

‘Three times if I remember right,’ he corrected her.

‘I’ll see you later. Can’t wait.’ Ellen was anxious to cut the conversation short in front of Kate, who was staring at her open-mouthed. ‘I’ve got a customer with me.’

‘’Bye, darling. See you soon.’

‘Who on earth was that?’ Kate was watching Ellen’s face with amazement. ‘You’re absolutely glowing.’

Ellen couldn’t stop a grin spreading across her face. ‘I wanted to tell you,’ she began, ‘but I wasn’t ready or it wasn’t the right time. Look, sit down and I’ll fill you in before the gallery gets busy.’ An intense feeling of relief came with this unlooked-for opportunity to spill the beans as she launched into how she and Oliver had met.

When Kate heard that Oliver was only forty at most, she exploded: ‘Does he know that you’ve got at least eight years on him?’

‘Well, no. In fact, he hasn’t mentioned age at all. I thought that was so tactful that I decided to go along with it.’

‘But what will he think when he finds out?’

‘He won’t. Not yet anyway. He did ask me what my HRT pills were but I just told him they were contraceptives – if only – and I pretended the thread veins on my legs were scratches from the roses in the garden. And I told him I’d been grey since my early thirties! One of the drawbacks of having jet-black hair as a kid.’

‘Ellen Neill! I didn’t know you had it in you.’

‘Neither did I. At least, I’d forgotten. But white lying’s not the only thing I haven’t forgotten how to do.’

‘Not the only thing?’ Kate was so absorbed in the story that the exhaustion Ellen had noticed disappeared as her face grew more animated. Suddenly she cottoned on to what Ellen meant. ‘My God! How long have you known him? Four weeks? You don’t hang around, do you?’

‘I know. It does seem ridiculously quick but I haven’t felt like this since . . . I can’t remember when. Honestly, I feel like a teenager with a first crush. I think about him all the time, wondering what he’s doing, if he’ll phone. Do you remember that feeling? I’m as surprised as you are,’ she said, watching Kate’s expression. ‘I never imagined anything like this would happen. I never wanted anyone coming between the kids and Simon but I don’t think Oliver will. He’s so kind and considerate. I’d forgotten how good it feels to be wanted by someone and to share all those endless day-to-day tasks that otherwise you deal with on your own. It’s all happened so fast and – I know this sounds silly – I feel really happy for the first time since Simon died.’

‘Do the children know?’ As the most family-oriented member of the little group, Kate’s first thought, after her friends’ well-being, was always for their children, whom she loved almost as if they were her own.

‘Not yet.’ At the mention of them it suddenly occurred to Ellen that she’d been in massive denial. Of course she couldn’t wrap this delicious secret about herself and pretend the outside world didn’t exist for ever. What had she been thinking? Her children came first. ‘But you’re right. I must tell them. Now they’re older, I hope they’ll understand. Oliver loves kids and can’t wait to meet them. In fact, I’m thinking of taking him when I go down to see them before the bank holiday.’

‘Are you nuts? How do you think Simon’s family will react, never mind the children? His parents will probably both have a coronary. I know Simon’s mother’s been encouraging you to find someone else for years but, all the same, you’ve got to take this slowly. The reality might be harder for his family to take than they imagine.’

Kate was always so sensible. Now the secret was out, it wasn’t just about Ellen and Oliver any more. Ellen was going to have to confront and deal with the repercussions in the best way possible. If only she had kept her mouth shut, as she’d intended, and given herself a bit more thinking time – except she hadn’t been thinking.

‘You’re probably right there too but I know it’ll be OK.’ A finger of doubt gave her a sly poke but she slapped it away. ‘Oliver’s not going to try to replace Simon. How could he? But I’m so sure he’s going to get on with them.’

‘I still think you should take it a step at a time.’ Kate was obviously choosing her words, not wanting to prick the bubble. ‘It’s only been a month. You’ve got to be absolutely certain that you’re not making a mistake.’

The bubble wobbled but remained intact.

‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.’ As gentle a character as she was, a determined set came to Ellen’s jaw when she fought for something she believed in. ‘I’ve enjoyed keeping him secret so far, but now that’s over, I want people to know I love him.’

‘That’s fine. But take it easy. The children will adapt but they’ll find it difficult to start with. At least don’t make them deal with this in front of their grandparents. They need to be in their own home, near their friends and everything that makes them feel comfortable.’

Ellen knew that, as usual, Kate was talking sense. The excitement of the affair had temporarily blinded her to the realities of the situation. Much as she was dying to embark on her new family life, taking Oliver to Cornwall would be a mistake. She saw that. She would go down on her own, as originally planned, come back for one last glorious week alone with Oliver before Em and Matt finally came home in time for the start of the new school term. Then she would break the news slowly and carefully.