how long?’
‘Almost a year.’
‘Why evening classes?’
When she didn’t immediately answer, he added, ‘It just struck me that was the hard way to do it.’
‘I needed to keep working to support myself.’
‘What kind of job were you doing?’
‘I was working in a hotel.’
‘As a receptionist?’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You have an attractive voice, and you speak well.’
Dave had said much the same thing.
Seeing Robert Carrington was waiting for her affirmative, a kind of stubborn pride made her inform him flatly, ‘As a matter of fact I worked in the kitchens.’
‘All the time you were doing the course?’
‘Yes.’
‘No parental help?’
‘No.’
‘Couldn’t Benson help to support you?’
‘He wasn’t in a position to.’ In fact she had supported Dave during his final year at college.
‘So what made you decide to go into business, rather than just have a job?’
‘It was something we both wanted to do. I suppose we liked the idea of being free to work for ourselves…’
In truth she had, at first, only wanted something that was hers. A small business of some kind, a second-hand bookshop, or a tearoom perhaps, ideally with some living-accommodation over it.
Security and independence.
Only later had her dream widened to include Dave.
She had been a quiet, introvert child who, as Matron put it, “lived inside her own head”. Though rated as highly intelligent and bright, her grades at school had been only a little above average. She had shone at nothing.
When she finally left the classroom to start work in the kitchens at the children’s home, her sights already set on the future, it had been without too many regrets.
As soon as she was old enough, she had thanked the staff for their years of care and escaped from the grey drabness of Sunnyside, taking with her nothing but a few clothes, an abiding love of books and music, and a knowledge of plain cooking.
She had found herself a job as a kitchen assistant in a busy hotel less than a mile away from Sunnyside. The hours were long and the work hard, but with the job went a small room.
It was dark and draughty and overlooked the yard and the dustbins, but it was hers. Her refuge. Her private domain. She felt a heady sense of freedom. For the first time in her life she was in control of her own destiny.
Though the wages were far from good, because she had bed and board and no travelling expenses, she could save. She did save. Every penny.
The rest of the hotel staff, mostly young and out for a good time, invited her to join them at the local pubs and clubs, and no doubt thought her odd when she refused. But though she was always polite and friendly, she made no attempt to mix, and after a bit they stopped asking, and let her go her own way.
As soon as her working hours had been established, she took a job at the nearby supermarket stacking shelves in the evenings and on her day off. Adding to her bank balance.
After a while she moved to the checkouts where late-opening shopping meant she was working even longer hours, and by the time she crept into bed each night she was too tired even to dream.
But perhaps she didn’t need to. After more than three unrelenting years of hard work and dedicated saving, she was really getting somewhere. Another year, and she could start looking for a suitable shop to rent, and begin to turn her dreams into reality.
One Friday night, just before closing time, she had glanced up to see a young man in jeans and a thin, shabby jacket unloading a few meagre items from a shopping basket.
Dave.
Though she hadn’t seen him for more than five years, she would have known him anywhere. That handsome face, with its thin nose and dark brown eyes, the curved brows and lock of black wavy hair that fell over his narrow forehead like a question mark, was unforgettable.
Her heart gave a strange lurch.
He too had been at Sunnyside, and for a long time she had worshipped him from afar, dreaming of the day he would finally notice her.
But two or three years older than her, he hadn’t seemed to know she existed. When he had eventually left, without even a goodbye, she had felt desolate and bereft.
‘Well, hello there. It’s Ella, isn’t it?’ All at once he was smiling down at her, his slightly crooked teeth very white in his dark face. ‘This is a real blast from the past.’
‘I’m surprised you remember me,’ she admitted a shade awkwardly.
‘Apart from getting a bit older, you haven’t changed much.’
‘Neither have you.’
As she began to put his goods through, he asked, ‘How long is it since you left Sunnyside?’
‘Over three years.’
‘You must have been glad to get away. God, how I hated that place! So what have you been doing with yourself since?’
‘Working.’
‘Are you shacked up with anyone?’
‘No, I—’
‘I do wish these checkout girls wouldn’t stop to gossip,’ the woman in the queue behind him remarked in a loud voice.
‘And I wish these old biddies wouldn’t be so cantankerous,’ he retorted, equally loudly.
‘I really shouldn’t be talking,’ Eleanor said guiltily.
‘Why not?’ Fishing in his pocket, he added, ‘Surely they don’t own you body and soul?’
‘No, but—’
‘Oh, hell!’ he exclaimed. ‘With coming out in a rush I forgot to pick up my wallet. I’m afraid I can’t take the stuff.’
‘Do you have a credit card?’
‘That’s in my wallet, too.’ He made to hand her the carrier back.
‘Take it. It doesn’t amount to much. I’ll put it in out of my own money.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
