‘If that’s what you want...’
It wasn’t, but facts had to be faced. So the house had been sold—with just enough money left over to settle all bills and, Ellena hoped, pay rent—if they were careful for the next three years—until her twentieth birthday when she could claim the money from her father’s investment.
Justine had not cared for the first four apartments they’d looked at, but had started to perk up when Ellena, trying not to despair, found a flat at the more expensive end of the market.
‘The rent’s a bit more than I’d calculated.’ Ellena had thought it wouldn’t hurt to let Justine know there would have to be a few economies.
‘I’ll leave school and get a job too,’ Justine had declared.
‘I think we can manage while you finish your education,’ Ellena had smiled, and, because Justine was just Justine, she’d given her a loving hug. Justine had clung to her.
It had been a wrench for Ellena to leave the rambling old house she had been brought up in, but, with more than enough furniture to spare, she and Justine had moved into their new home and started to try to rebuild their lives.
On the plus side, Justine had begun behaving herself at school, and, joy of joys, Andrea Keyte, the head of A. Keyte and Company, the accountancy firm Ellena worked for, had called her into her office one wonderful morning. Mrs Keyte, then a divorced lady of thirty-seven, had interviewed her personally for the job, so knew all about her present qualifications, and that she had hoped to study accountancy. Mrs Keyte had, she’d said that wonderful morning, observed how much Ellena enjoyed her work and how easily she seemed to grasp complicated issues. How, she’d enquired, would Ellena feel about being articled to her?
‘You mean—train to be an accountant—to gain my qualifications here?’ Ellena gasped, suddenly starting to see light, unexpected, wonderful light, after the darkness of recent months.
Apparently, that was exactly what Mrs Keyte—who was later to invite Ellena to call her Andrea—did mean. ‘It will mean a lot of hard work,’ she cautioned. ‘Study in the evenings when you’d probably much rather be out with your boyfriend.’
Ellena didn’t have a boyfriend. What time did she have? Before her parents’ deaths she’d spent evenings and weekends either swotting over homework from school, or on some mad adventure with them. Since their deaths, Justine had taken precedence.
‘I can do it,’ she said eagerly. ‘I know I can do it.’
‘It will take all of five years for you to be ready to take your finals,’ Andrea had warned.
‘I want to do it; I really do.’ Ellena, fearful that her employer might change her mind, promised this earnestly.
‘Then you shall.’
And she had. It had not been easy. Left alone to cope with the work and the studying, Ellena knew she would have coped with only minor panics. But, in avowing, ‘I know I can do it’, she had not taken Justine—or rather Justine finally coming to terms with the loss of their parents—into consideration.
By the time Justine’s sixteenth birthday had approached, it seemed she was close to being expelled from school again.
‘I’d better find time to go and see if your headmaster will overlook your truancy one last time,’ Ellena stated when, having arrived home from the office with a load of studying to do, Justine owned up to not having been to school for a while.
‘I shouldn’t, if I were you,’ Justine grinned, ‘I’ve no intention of going back—even if they’d have me.’
‘Justine!’
‘Don’t go on, there’s a love. I’ve been awfully good today.’
Ellena did not trust the word ‘good’. ‘“Good”, as in...?’
‘As in, I’ve been and got myself a job in a boutique. I start tomorrow.’
‘You’re not sixteen yet!’ Ellena gasped.
‘I told them I was. And I will be, by the time they find out I wasn’t.’ She laughed. She was infectious. Ellena remembered she had laughed too.
Dear, dear Justine, she couldn’t be dead! Ellena choked on a sob of sound, and caught Gideon Langford’s sharp glance on her from across the aisle. She hastily turned to look, unseeing, out of the aircraft window at the night sky.
He looked pretty bleak too, she realised, and strangely felt she wanted to help his suffering in any way she could. She realised her sensitivities at this dreadful time must be bouncing about all over the place, and strove again to calm her emotions. She had no idea what lay before them—it could be the best or the worst of news—so she must gather what strength she could.
Determinedly she pushed the weakening worst thoughts from her. Concentrate on the good things, she instructed herself. That time Justine... Her thoughts were at once back with Justine: Justine laughing, Justine crying; Justine bringing her first boyfriend home, the great unwashed group of her friends who had—to the dismay of their neighbours—almost camped on their doorstep; Justine starting new jobs, lasting a day, a week—miracle of miracles one job had even lasted three months! Justine’s taste in boyfriends improving—her boyfriends starting to look as though they bathed and changed their clothes regularly.
By the time Ellena was twenty, and their finances were at last buoyant, however, she’d had enough of chasing halfway around London on what transport she could find, looking for Justine when she didn’t come home at night. Ellena had found time to have driving lessons, and bought a car. She’d had many qualms about letting Justine have driving lessons as well—she was hard enough to keep tabs on. But, as ever, her soft heart had won over her sensible head, and Justine learned to drive too—and Ellena bought her a car also. Then Justine fell in love—and the man she fell in love with seemed equally fluffy-minded.
Kit Langford wasn’t too keen on work either, by the sound of it. ‘What does he do?’ Ellena had asked.
‘Do?’ Justine seemed to have no idea what she meant. ‘Oh, you mean work! Oh, he’s not working at the moment; he’s having too good a time spending the money he came into on his twenty-first birthday from his father’s estate.’
Ellena was sorry that Kit was without a father too. But she couldn’t help but feel responsible for her younger sister. ‘Does he live at home with his mother?’ she asked.
‘His mother remarried a year after his father died—she’s living somewhere hot—the Bahamas, I think.’
‘So where does he live?’
‘He’s got a flat; his brother bought it for him when he booted him out of his house.’
‘His brother...’
‘Well, it was rather a riotous party, and Gideon was away. But we did try and clear up all the mess.’
Justine had no need to go on. Ellena saw the picture quite clearly. She had herself come home from a late evening office function one time to find all hell had been let loose in her absence—music blaring and all sorts of people, no two with hair the same colour—pinks and greens all competing.
