What does this mean? She hardly dares hope that what she has wished for may have come true. The suntanned wife in a bikini has effectively vanished. The phantom freckled hand with its massaging fingers is now replaced by knuckles, whitened with frustration. She now pictures John and his wife arguing their way through a holiday they have privately billed as a last-ditch attempt to save their marriage. She sees him exhausted, furious, secretly pleased to get her message even as he has to warn her against sending another.
Don’t get your hopes up, she warns herself. This might be a little fillip. Everyone’s sick of their partner by the end of a holiday. Perhaps he just wants to ensure he still has her loyalty. But even as she counsels herself, she knows which version she wants to believe.
“And Ellie? The love-letters story?”
Oh, Christ.
She shuffles the papers on her lap, adopts a confident tone. “Well, I’ve got a lot more information. I met the woman. There’s definitely enough for a story.”
“Good.” Melissa’s eyebrows lift elegantly, as if Ellie’s surprised her.
“But”—Ellie swallows—“I’m not sure how much we should use. It does seem . . . a bit sensitive.”
“Are they both alive?”
“No. He’s dead. Or she believes he is.”
“Then change the woman’s name. I don’t see the problem. You’re using letters that she’d presumably forgotten.”
“Oh, I don’t think she had.” Ellie tries to pick her words carefully. “In fact, she seems to remember an awful lot about them. I was thinking it would be better if I used them as a peg to examine the language of love. You know, how love letters have changed over the years.”
“Without including the actual letters.”
“Yes.” As she answers, Ellie feels hugely relieved. She doesn’t want Jennifer’s letters made public. She sees her now, perched on her sofa, her face alive as she tells the story she has kept to herself for decades. She doesn’t want to add to her sense of loss. “I mean, maybe I could find some other examples.”
“By Tuesday.”
“Well, there must be books, compilations . . .”
“You want us to publish already published material?”
The room has fallen silent around them. It is as if she and Melissa Buckingham exist in a toxic bubble. She is conscious that nothing she does will satisfy this woman anymore.
“You’ve been working on this for the time it takes most writers to knock out three two-thousand-word features.” Melissa taps the end of her pen on her desk. “Just write the piece, Ellie.” Her voice is icily weary. “Just write it up, keep it anonymous, and your contact will probably never know whose letters you’re discussing. And I’m assuming, given the sheer amount of time you’ve now spent on this, that it’s going to be something extraordinary.”
Her smile, bestowed on the rest of the room, is glittering. “Right. Let’s move on. I haven’t had a list from Health. Has anyone got one?”
She sees him as she’s leaving the building. He shares a joke with Ronald, the security guard, treads lightly down the steps, and walks away. It’s raining, and he carries a small backpack, his head down against the cold.
“Hey.” She jogs until she’s beside him.
He glances at her. “Hey,” he says neutrally. He’s headed for the Tube station and doesn’t slow his pace as he reaches the steps down into it.
“I wondered . . . do you fancy a quick drink?”
“I’m busy.”
“Where are you off to?” She has to lift her voice to be heard against the thunderous noise of feet, the Victorian acoustics of the underground system.
“The new building.”
They’re surrounded by commuters. Her feet are almost lifting off the ground as she’s borne down the stairs among the sea of people. “Wow. That must be some overtime.”
“No. Just helping the boss with a few final things so that he doesn’t wear himself out completely.”
“I saw him today.”
When Rory doesn’t reply, she adds, “He was nice to me.”
“Yeah. Well. He’s a nice man.”
She manages to walk alongside him until they reach the ticket barrier. He steps to one side to allow others to pass through.
“Silly, really,” she says. “You pass people every day without having a clue—”
“Look, Ellie, what do you want?”
She bites her lip. Around them the commuters separate like water, earphones on, some tutting audibly at the human obstacles in their path. She rubs at her hair, which is now damp. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About the other morning.”
“It’s cool.”
“No, it’s not. But it’s . . . Look, what happened, it’s nothing to do with you, and I really like you. It’s just this is something that—”
“You know what? I’m not interested. It’s fine, Ellie. Let’s leave it at that.” He goes through the ticket barrier. She follows. She caught a glimpse of his expression before he turned, and it was horrible. She feels horrible.
She positions herself behind him on the escalator. Little pearls of water are dotted across his gray scarf, and she fights the urge to sweep them off. “Rory, I’m really sorry.”
He’s staring at his shoes. He glances at her, his eyes cold. “Married, huh?”
“What?”
“Your . . . friend. It was pretty obvious from what he said.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“I didn’t mean to fall in love.”
He lets out a short, unpleasant laugh. They have reached the bottom of the escalator. He picks up his pace, and she’s forced to run a little to keep up. The tunnel smells of stale air and burned rubber.
“I didn’t.”
“Rubbish—you make a choice. Everyone makes a choice.”
“So you’ve never been transported by something, never felt that pull?”
He faces her. “Of course I have. But if acting on it meant I was going to hurt someone else, I took a step back.”
Her face flames. “Well, aren’t you wonderful?”
“No. But you’re hardly a victim of circumstance. Presumably you knew he was married and chose to go along with it anyway. You had the choice to say no.”
“It didn’t feel like that.”