A Home for Broken Hearts, page 3
‘Mum’s made egg and cress,’ she’d said. ‘Do you want one?’
Ellen had not replied.
‘Look.’ Hannah had reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Look, I know how awful this is, how horrific – but you have to think that at least you had him, for a while. At least he belonged to you and everyone knew it. And now he always will.’
Unable to face her, Ellen had simply pulled another pillow over her head and cried herself to sleep. But later, when Hannah started making her regular visits, she thought about what she had said on that morning and wondered if her sister, who was so fond of personal dramas and life complications, was a little jealous of her. If Hannah somehow found grief, and the attention it garnered, glamorous.
It seemed impossible to Ellen, they were so different in every respect.
Ellen often speculated if it was because of the age difference. She had been born at the beginning of the seventies, when the world was still an optimistic and gentle place. Hannah, however, a surprise baby if ever there was one, had entered this world on the cusp of the eighties, kicking and screaming for more, seeming to embody the decade she grew up in, a brash and confident high achiever and always hungry for more success, more possessions.
Now almost thirty-eight, Ellen was dark, olive-skinned, with green eyes that Nick had loved and what Allegra Howard would describe as a comely figure, comfortably curvy, not that she gave much thought to her shape which she covered with supermarket-bought jeans and an assortment of T-shirts and shirts, most of which had been Nick’s. Ellen had never been one to care about what she looked like. Nick often told her that was one reason why he loved her so much, his pocket Venus he’d called her in the bedroom, his goddess alone for him to adore, her hidden charms a veiled mystery to all but him.
Ellen inhabited the world that Nick had created for her and rarely strayed from it. She existed in her home, in her books and for her husband and son. It had been a comfortable, comforting cocoon of a world, one that she struggled to find the energy to emerge from now, and one that she simply did not want to leave. Ellen did not want the world outside, she didn’t need it. Her life was small, detailed and rich in the minutiae that only she cared about, and that was exactly how she wanted it, especially now.
Hannah, on the other hand, thrived on being noticed. Tall, taller than anyone else in the family including her father, and unfeasibly leggy. She had long ago perfected her glamorous look, boosting her naturally reddish hair with a monthly shot of chemical auburn, so that it fell in luscious and glossy waves to the middle of her back, and she was one of the lucky few for whom slim hips and a flat stomach did not rule out enough natural cleavage to put on a reasonable display for her many admirers. At just thirty she was one of the few women fund managers at T Jenkins Waterford Asset Management. She had ridden out the financial storm of the last few months better than many of her colleagues, whom she’d left by the roadside without so much as a backward glance. Ellen knew that Hannah earned well in excess of six figures and that she probably had enough money in various accounts to buy her house outright if she wanted to. But if it wasn’t for Charlie’s skiing trip, Ellen would no more have dreamed of asking Hannah to help her out financially than she would hammer nails into her eyes. The real reason that Ellen found it so hard was because she knew that her sister would want to help her and Charlie, she knew that it would give Hannah pleasure, and Ellen baulked at that. It wasn’t an impulse that she was proud of, particularly when it meant that Charlie missed out, and she didn’t really understand her motivations herself. Maybe if Hannah was jealous of her, she was jealous of Hannah too – life had always been so easy for her. Even when she got things wrong or made mistakes, it always seemed that the universe rearranged itself around her to smooth things over and make things better. Ellen had given herself a good talking-to before Hannah had arrived, telling herself that this request was not about her, it was about her son – but still she hesitated, unable to bring it up.
‘The house is not just a pile of bricks – it’s Charlie’s home,’ she stated quietly instead, sipping her frothy cappuccino that she had made with the elaborate and expensive coffee machine that Nick had bought her for her last birthday, even though she mostly drank tea. ‘And when Nick and I bought that house it meant something special to us, it was the house we always dreamed of. The place – the place we planned to get old in together. Nick was going to do up a vintage motorbike in the garage and I was going to take up writing stories, you know, just for fun, and read them to him in the evening. And when … when we realised there would be no more children we’d decided that when Charlie was old enough we were going to convert the attic rooms into a little flat for him so he could have his privacy and we were going to get a dog, two dogs – a Labrador and a red setter. Nick always wanted a red setter.’
Ellen glanced up at Hannah whose features had tightened as she listened to her sister, as if the very idea of such a mundane and domestic existence offended her. Ellen could tell that Hannah understood so little of what she was saying that she might as well have been talking in a foreign language.
‘Yes, but Ellie – none of that is going to happen now,’ Hannah said impatiently. ‘Don’t you get it? Nick is dead.’ Hannah paused for a second, disbelieving, as if she too were hearing the news for the first time. She swallowed and took a breath. ‘Your life has changed, it’s not going to be like you thought it was. You need to wake up and deal with it.’
Ellen sucked in a sharp breath. ‘I think you should go,’ she said, pushing her chair back and handing Hannah her bag.
‘Ellie – please – don’t.’ Hannah leant across the table and rested her hands on Ellen’s forearm. ‘Don’t throw me out, I’m only trying to help.’
Ellen shook her head. ‘No, Hannah – you’re not trying to help. You’re trying to march in here and tell me how pointless and pathetic my life is and how I should just sweep it all away, sweep everything that I have left of Nick away and go and live in a poky little flat somewhere because that’s the sensible thing to do. Well, since when have you ever done the sensible thing? Just because none of what matters to me matters to you, it doesn’t mean you have the right to trample all over it.’
Hannah stared at her for a second. ‘All of the things that matter to you matter to me. I want the best for you and Charles. Look, you know me, Ellen – tact isn’t my strong point. Haven’t you heard of tough love? I know I sound like a heartless cow – but it’s not just me that thinks this, there’s your accountant, Mum and Dad – we’re all worried about you, Ellen. You just can’t go on sticking your head in book after book thinking that everything will turn out all right in the end. There aren’t those kind of happy endings in real life – there is no tall dark and handsome stranger waiting to rescue you …’ Hannah hesitated, and Ellen wondered if she heard a catch in her voice. ‘Or any of us. And I know it’s hard. I know Nick did every single thing for you and Charles – you’re not used to coping. But now you have to. You have to, otherwise the mess you’re in is just going to get worse and worse until there’s no way out and what about Charles then, when your house is repossessed and you don’t even have that?’
Ellen sank back down into her chair. Hitesh, Hannah, her dad on the phone last night – they were all right. She had to do something, but it wasn’t just that she had no idea what to do, she had no idea how to do anything. She closed her eyes briefly, fighting the urge to tell Hannah to get out. Hannah was right, she had to do something, and if anyone could think of what to do it would be Hannah, clever, resourceful Hannah. Her personal life might lurch from one catastrophe to the next, but when it came to problem-solving and lateral thinking Hannah was the expert.
‘OK,’ Ellen said. ‘OK, I know you’re right. But it’s Charlie that I’m thinking about. He’s lost so much – I don’t want him to lose his home too. There has to be another way, doesn’t there?’
‘Well, you could earn more, for a start,’ Hannah said, chewing her bottom lip, the way she always had from girlhood. ‘I mean that job you do for that publishers, Naked Desires, or whatever it’s called – how many books do you copy-edit for them?’
‘It depends – Simon knows which writers I enjoy so he waits until he’s got a new work from one of them. Somewhere between one and two every couple of months.’
‘Well, that’s crazy for starters.’ Hannah spoke at speed, words tumbling out of her mouth at a million miles an hour as if there were never going to be enough hours in the day for her to say everything she had to. ‘Especially when you only get – what – fifteen quid an hour? You need to stop treating the manuscripts like a hobby and start thinking of them as cash-making opportunities. They publish hundreds of those books, don’t they? The horny old ladies can’t get enough of them, right? If you stopped actually reading them and just concentrated on crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s then you could probably do one or even two a week. As for that Simon – he is the one that’s gay, right?’
‘We don’t know that he’s gay, just that he’s a bachelor,’ Ellen interjected, although she had to admit that the chances of a man as well dressed and as attractive as Simon Merry still being single in his mid-forties were unlikely unless his preferences did not include commitment-hungry females, and even then he seemed to have a distinct lack of men in his life too. Ellen suspected that he simply liked to keep his private life private and she respected him for that.
‘Yeah, single, forty-something, never been married and runs a raunchy potboiling publishers – um, hello? If he’s not gay then I’m not a ravishing redhead, and I obviously am. Anyway – talk to him. Maybe he could do more than just farm out bits and pieces to you. Maybe he could bring you in-house – or maybe he knows someone who knows someone. You have skills, Ellen, not to mention a First Class history degree that you’ve never used since you met Nick. You need to maximise your earning potential. How much do you earn per month right now?’
Ellen pursed her lips. Hannah’s conversational style could be somewhat relentless but she could sense her sister working towards forming some idea, so she went with it. ‘Not enough to pay the mortgage, the bills and keep Charlie in fish fingers. Not even if I read a book a day, which I don’t want to do. I don’t want to go through them like they’re cannon fodder. They’re books, Hannah. Wonderful books that someone has laboured over for months and months and put all their care and attention into. I want to treat them with the respect that they deserve.’
‘We’re talking about shag-a-minute bodice rippers here, Ellie, not Booker Prize nominees. Everyone knows the writers churn them out to a formula. I read in the Guardian that if the heroine isn’t being ravished every ten pages then the so-called writer’s not doing their job.’
‘Well – that’s just ignorance and prejudice,’ Ellen said crossly, privately thinking that she had never actually calculated the average ravish count per book, but that Hannah probably wasn’t that far off the mark. In fact in this new Allegra Howard it looked like Eliza was in for well-above-average ravishings.
‘OK – so if you worked a bit harder you could make up maybe half of what you need to pay the mortgage. Let’s think laterally – how can you make money with you and Charles still living in the house … well, even with you two still in situ that leaves three good-sized bedrooms … that’s it!’ Hannah clapped her hands together, her eyes bright, clearly pleased with herself.
‘That’s what?’ Ellen was alarmed.
‘You become a landlady. You take in lodgers! You said it yourself – those attic rooms are practically a self-contained flat already, what with the loo and shower that’s up there – that’s worth seven hundred a month. Six hundred for the other double with the en suite, and I know you, you won’t move Charles out of his room but even that third bedroom is worth about five hundred. That will more than cover the mortgage and what you earn from copy-editing you can use to live on. Ellen, I’ve solved all of your problems, you may thank me now!’
Hannah beamed at her, her eyes burning brightly, and Ellen longed to be able to get up and walk out, only this was her kitchen. Hannah had done exactly what Ellen knew she would, she’d come up with an idea that no one else had, that could work for Ellen if she had some time to think about it, but her first instinct at being presented with the idea of filling her house with strangers was to run away. As Hannah waited for her reaction Ellen fidgeted in her seat, getting the feeling that she had somewhere else she really had to be. And then she realised that somewhere else was the book she was working on. A make-believe world that felt safer and more familiar than the one she actually existed in was her only escape route now. Ellen sighed. She was desperate to find out exactly how Eliza planned to escape the evil clutches of her nefarious uncle who had snatched her back from the captain after he’d been called away on secret business for Charles I. But various financial problems would not be solved in Civil War-torn England.
Ellen looked up at Hannah, who was studying her intently.
‘But lodgers?’ Ellen said. ‘Two, maybe three strangers in the house? I’m not sure that would be good for Charlie – and besides I haven’t the first idea how to be a landlady. I mean how would I split the bills? Would I have to make them breakfast? Where would they sit?’
‘Where would they … ? Ellen, it would be like a house share. They’d cook for themselves, you could add on an amount to the rent to cover bills – you’d need to get a tenancy agreement drawn up, but I’m sure there’s probably a boilerplate of one we could print off the Internet. You’d get a deposit in advance, have a few house rules – like no nudity in the living room for example – and Bob’s your uncle. You’d probably hardly know they were there, I mean this is London. We’re not exactly all for hanging around making friends with each other, are we? And just think, you get to stay in your precious house, for ever and ever if you want to.’
Ellen wasn’t sure which of the words that Hannah had just sprayed her with hit home, but suddenly, she knew her sister was right. She was the only one who’d come up with an idea that could enable her and Charlie to stay in their home and survive. Yes, it meant opening up her home, the haven that Nick had promised her, where she could always close the door on the world and feel safe, to complete strangers, but as far as Ellen could see there was no alternative. Nick had done his best to look after her and protect her. He’d sheltered her from the world, made himself a cushion between her and its hard edges. But he was unable to continue to do that in death, no matter how carefully he’d planned to. Hannah had come up with a solution, imperfect as it was, and despite herself Ellen was grateful that she had a sister like Hannah, a sister who could always see a way round things.
‘OK,’ Ellen said cautiously. ‘So, explain it to me from the beginning – what would I have to do?’
Chapter Three
Eliza felt the edge of her uncle’s desk biting into the small of her back as he advanced towards her, his enormous weight suddenly bearing down on her, his foul wine-sodden breath hot and damp on her neck.
‘No!’ Eliza fought him, kicking and struggling against him, but her small frame was no match for his cumbersome bulk.
‘I say yes, dearest niece,’ he snarled, drooling, as his thick fingers pawed the twin moons of her bosom. ‘All these years I have watched you grow into a most tempting fruit under my very roof, a ripe, forbidden fruit that I could not pluck for myself. I believed that my dear late wife raised you to be a virgin, a modest maid – and yet the first chance you get you sully yourself on a Royalist dog! Well now I have the measure of you, my dear, you are nothing more than a common whore, and while your captain is away I will use you as I please. Niece or no – I will pluck you!’
A thin piercing trill cut through the air. Ellen sighed, pushing the manuscript back across the table. The doorbell had sounded, ripping through the morning with its sharp invasive ring. Phones could always be ignored. Doorbells could often be ignored, but not this time. This time Ellen had to answer it – her first lodger had arrived, exactly on time.
Sabine Neumann was on a secondment from the Berlin office of T Jenkins Waterford. She was to be posted in the London office for three months and needed a place to stay. As soon as Ellen had deferred to her sister’s money-making idea, Hannah had pounced on her BlackBerry, remembering an email requesting temporary accommodation that had been sent out the previous day.
‘This is perfect,’ Hannah chirped, pleased with herself. ‘She wants a recommendation and you don’t want just any old weirdo turning up on your doorstep. I’ll sort this out now, I’ll tell her that it’s the room with the en suite that’s available. Let’s hold back on the attic rooms, we want to get as much as possible for that, put in the room rate and presto – it’s sent.’
‘Whoa – wait a minute – how do we know that she’s not a weirdo?’ Ellen asked, panic rising, as her ever-decisive sister took action on her idea within seconds of having it.
‘She works for my company,’ Hannah shrugged.
‘Ted Bundy had a job, you know,’ Ellen told her.
‘We do all that Neural Linguistic Programming business at interview stage, so they’d definitely spot a psycho. Then again they gave me a job, so who knows!’ Ellen did not laugh. ‘Anyway she’s German, so she’s bound to be tidy, efficient, quiet and well mannered.’
‘If you choose to conform to a racial stereotype, that is,’ Ellen had muttered.
Hannah’s BlackBerry pinged. ‘See? What did I tell you, efficient. She’s replied already and … she wants the room! She’s arriving in a week. Right, now – what should I tell her about bedding, towels, etc – do you want her to bring her own or do you have enough? I’ll tell her she has to supply her own, after all you don’t want to be lumbered with a load of laundry, do you.’ Hannah beamed at Ellen, in her element, and briefly Ellen was reminded of her sister as a little girl, mastering riding a bike without stabilisers. It had taken Ellen a whole summer to teach Hannah how to ride a big girl’s bike, and the look on her face as she had sailed past Ellen who’d been whooping and clapping was exactly the same as the one she wore now. Ellen found herself smiling.
