"It's Mrs. Spelling Bee."
She finds him sitting in the canteen. He unplugs his earphones as she sits opposite. He's reading a guidebook to South America. An empty plate tells of lunch already eaten.
"Rory, I'm in such trouble."
"Spelled antidisestablishmentarianism with four t's?"
"I let my mouth run away with me in front of Melissa Buckingham, and now I have to flesh out the Love Story to End All Love Stories for the features pages."
"You told her about the letter?"
"I got caught out. I needed to give her something. The way she was looking at me, I thought I was about to be transferred to Obits."
"Well, that's going to be interesting."
"I know. And before that, I've got to go through every problem page in the 1960 editions and find their moral equivalent in the modern day."
"That's straightforward, isn't it?"
"But it's time-consuming, and I've got loads of other things I'm meant to be doing. Even without finding out what happened to our mystery lovers." She smiled hopefully. "I don't suppose there's anything you could do to help me?"
"Sorry. Stacked up myself. I'll dig out the 1960 newspaper files for you when I go back downstairs."
"That's your job," she protests.
He grins. "Yup. And writing and researching is yours."
"It's my birthday."
"Then happy birthday."
"Oh, you're all heart."
"And you're too used to getting your own way." He smiles at her, and she watches him gather up his book and MP3 player. He salutes as he heads toward the door.
You have no idea, she thinks, as it swings shut behind him, just how wrong you are.
I am 25 and I have quite a good job but not a good enough job to do all the things I would like to do--to have a house and a car and a wife.
"Because obviously you acquire one of those along with the house and the car," Ellie mutters at the faded newsprint. Or perhaps after a washing machine. Maybe that should take priority.
I have noticed that many of my friends have got married and their standard of living has dropped considerably. I have been going fairly regularly with a girl for three years and I would very much like to marry her. I have asked her to wait three years until we can get married and live in rather better circumstances, but she says she is not going to wait for me.
Three years, Ellie muses. I don't blame her. You're hardly giving her the impression that yours is a great passion, are you?
Either we get married this year or she won't marry me at all. I think this is an unreasonable attitude since I have pointed out to her that she will have a rather lower standard of living. Do you think that there is any other argument that I can add to the ones I have made already?
"No, pal," she says aloud, as she slides another old sheet of newspaper under the lid of the photocopier. "I think you've made yourself quite clear."
She returns to her desk, sits down, and pulls the crumpled, handwritten letter from her folder.
My dearest and only love . . . If you don't come, I'll know that whatever we might feel for each other, it isn't quite enough. I won't blame you, my darling. I know the past weeks have put an intolerable strain on you, and I feel the weight of that keenly. I hate the thought that I could cause you any unhappiness.
She rereads the words again and again. They hold passion, force, even after so many years. Why would you suffer the priggish "I have pointed out to her that she will have a rather lower standard of living" when you could have "Know that you hold my heart, my hopes, in your hands"? She wishes the unknown girlfriend of the first correspondent a lucky escape.
Ellie makes a desultory check for new e-mail, then mobile-phone messages. She chews the end of a pencil. She picks up the photocopied problem page and puts it down again.
Then she clicks open a new message on her computer screen and, before she can think too hard about it, she types:
The one present I really want for my birthday is to know what
I mean to you. I need for us to have an honest conversation, and for me to be able to say what I feel. I need to know whether we have any kind of future together.
She adds:
I love you, John. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my whole life, and this is starting to drive me crazy.
Her eyes have filled with tears. Her hand moves to send. The department shrinks around her. She is dimly aware of Caroline, the health editor, chatting on the phone at the next desk, of the window cleaner on his teetering cradle outside the window, of the news editor having an argument with one of his reporters somewhere on the other side of the office, the missing carpet tile at her feet. She sees nothing but the winking cursor, her words, her future, laid bare on the screen in front of her.
I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my whole life.
If I do this now, she thinks, it will be decided for me. It will be my way of taking control. And if it isn't the answer I want, at least it's an answer.
Her forefinger rests gently on send.
And I will never touch that face, kiss those lips, feel those hands on me again. I will never hear the way he says "Ellie Haworth," as if the words themselves are precious.
The phone on her desk rings.
She jumps, glances at it, as if she'd forgotten where she is, then wipes her eyes with her hand. She straightens, then picks it up. "Hello."
"Hey, birthday girl," says Rory, "get yourself down to the cells at chucking-out time. I might just have something for you. And bring me a coffee while you're at it. That's the charge for my labors."
She puts down the receiver, turns back to her computer, and presses delete.
"So, what did you find?" She hands a cup of coffee over the counter, and he takes it. There's a fine sprinkling of dust in his hair, and she fights the urge to ruffle it off, as one would with a child. He has already felt patronized by her once; she doesn't want to risk offending him a second time.
"Any sugar?"
"No," she says. "I didn't think you took it."
"I don't." He leans forward over the countertop. "Look--boss is lurking. I need to be discreet. What time are you finishing?"
"Whenever," she says. "I'm pretty much through."
He rubs his hair. The dust forms an apologetic cloud around him. "I feel like that character in Peanuts. Which was it?"
She shook her head.
"Pig Pen. The one with the dirt floating around him . . . We're shifting boxes that haven't been touched in decades. I can't really believe we're ever going to need parliamentary minutes from 1932, whatever he says. Still. The Black Horse? Half an hour?"
"The pub?"
"Yes."
"I sort of might have plans . . ." She wants to ask, Can't you just give me what you've found? But even she can see how ungrateful that will sound.
"It'll only take ten minutes. I've got to meet some friends afterward, anyway. But it's cool. It can wait till tomorrow if you'd prefer."
She thinks about her mobile phone, mute and recriminating in her back pocket. What's her alternative? Rushing home and waiting for John to call there? Another evening spent sitting in front of the television, knowing that the world is revolving somewhere without her? "Oh--what the hell. A quick drink would be great."
"Half a shandy. Live dangerously."
"Shandy! Huh! I'll see you in there."
He grins. "I'll be the one clutching a file marked 'Top Secret.' "
"Oh, yes? I'll be the one shouting, 'Buy me a proper drink, cheapo. It's my birthday.' "
"No red carnation in your buttonhole? Just so I can identify you?"
"No means of identification. That way it's easier for me to escape if I don't like the look of you."
He nods approvingly. "Sensible."
"And you're not even going to give me a clue as to what you've found?"
"Some birthday surprise that would be!" With that he's gone, back through the double doors and into the bowels of the newspape
r.
The ladies' is empty. She washes her hands, noting that now the building's days are numbered, the company is no longer bothering to refresh the soap dispenser or the tampon machine. Next week, she suspects, they'll have to start bringing in emergency loo roll.
She checks her face, applies some mascara, and paints out the bags under her eyes. She puts on lipstick, then rubs it off. She looks tired, and tells herself the lighting in there is harsh, that this is not an inevitable consequence of being a year older. Then she sits beside a washbasin, pulls her phone from her bag, and types a message.
Just checking--does "later" mean this evening? Am trying to work out my plans.
E
It doesn't come across as clingy, possessive, or even desperate. It suggests that she's a woman with many offers, things to do, but implies that she'll put him first, if necessary. She fiddles with it for a further five minutes, making sure she has the tone completely right, then sends it.
The reply comes back almost immediately. Her heart jumps, as it always does when she knows it's him.
Difficult to say at the moment. Will call later if I think I can make it. J
A sudden rage ignites within her. That's it? she wants to yell at him. My birthday, and the best you can do is "Will call later if I think I can make it"?
Don't bother, she types back, her fingers jabbing at the little keys. I'll make my own plans.
And, for the first time in months, Ellie Haworth turns off her phone before she sticks it back into her bag.
She spends longer than she intended working on the problem-pages feature, writes up an interview with a woman whose child suffers from a form of juvenile arthritis, and when she arrives at the Black Horse Rory is there. She can see him across the room, his hair now free of dust. She makes her way through the crowd toward him, apologizing for the bumped elbows, the badly negotiated spaces, already preparing to say "Sorry I'm late" when she realizes he's not alone. The group of people with him are not familiar; they're not from the newspaper. He's at their center, laughing. Seeing him like this, out of context, throws her. She turns away to gather her thoughts.
"Hey! Ellie!"
She paints on a smile and turns back.
He lifts a hand. "Thought you weren't coming."
"Got held up. Sorry." She joins the group and says hello.
"Let me buy you a drink. It's Ellie's birthday. What would you like?" She accepts the flurry of greetings from the people she doesn't know, letting them falter to a few embarrassed smiles and wishing she wasn't there. Making small talk wasn't part of the deal. She wonders, briefly, if she can leave, but Rory is already at the bar buying her a drink.
"White wine," he says, turning to hand her a glass. "I would have got champagne, but--"
"I get my own way far too much already."
He laughs. "Yeah. Touche."
"Thanks anyway."
He introduces her to his friends, reels off names she's forgotten even before he's finished.
"So . . .," she says.
"Down to business. Excuse us, for a minute," he says, and they make their way to a corner where it's emptier and quieter. There is only one seat, and he motions her to it, squatting on his haunches beside her. He unzips his backpack, and pulls out a folder marked "Asbestos/ Case studies: symptoms."
"And this is relevant because . . . ?"
"Patience," he says, handing it over. "I was thinking about the letter we found last time. It was with a load of papers on asbestos, right? Well, there's heaps of stuff on asbestos downstairs, from the group legal actions of the last few years mainly. But I decided to dig around a bit further back and found some much older stuff. It's dated from much the same period as the bits I gave you last time. I think it must have become separated from that first file." He flicks through the papers with expert fingers. "And," he says, pulling at a clear plastic folder, "I found these."
Her heart stills. Two envelopes. The same handwriting. The same address, a PO box at the Langley Street post office.
"Have you read them?"
He grins. "How much restraint do I look like I have? Of course I read them."
"Can I?"
"Go ahead."
The first is simply headed "Wednesday."
I understand your fear that you will be misunderstood, but I tell you it is unfounded. Yes, I was a fool that night in Alberto's, and I will never be able to think of my outburst without shame, but it was not your words that prompted it. It was the absence of them. Can't you see, Jenny, that I am predisposed to see the best in what you say, what you do? But just as nature abhors a vacuum--so does the human heart. Foolish, insecure man that I am, as we both seem so unsure what this actually comprises, and we cannot talk about where it may go, all that is left to me is reassurance about what it may mean. I simply need to hear that this is for you what it is for me: in short, everything.
If those words still fill you with trepidation, I give you an easier option. Answer me simply, in one word: yes.
On the second there is a date, but again, no greeting. The handwriting, while recognizable, is scrawled, as if it has been dashed off before its author could give it careful thought.
I swore I wouldn't contact you again. But six weeks on, and I feel no better. Being without you--thousands of miles from you--offers no relief at all. The fact that I am no longer tormented by your presence, or presented with daily evidence of my inability to have the one thing I truly desire, has not healed me. It has made things worse. My future feels like a bleak, empty road.
I don't know what I'm trying to say, darling Jenny. Just that if you have any sense at all that you made the wrong decision, this door is still wide open.
And if you feel that your decision was the right one, know this at least: that somewhere in this world is a man who loves you, who understands how precious and clever and kind you are. A man who has always loved you and, to his detriment, suspects he always will.
Your
B.
"Jenny," he says.
She doesn't reply.
"She didn't go," he says.
"Yup. You were right."
He opens his mouth as if to speak, but perhaps something in her expression changes his mind.
She lets out a breath. "I don't know why," she says, "but that's made me feel a bit sad."
"But you have your answer. And you have a clue to the name, if you really want to write this feature."
"Jenny," she muses. "It's not a lot to go on."
"But it's the second letter that was found in files about asbestos, so perhaps she had some link to it. It might be worth going through the two files. Just to see if there's anything else."
"You're right." She takes the file from him, carefully replaces the letter in the plastic folder, and puts it all in her bag. "Thanks," she says. "Really. I know you're busy at the moment, and I appreciate it."
He studies her in the way someone might scan a file, searching for information. When John looks at her, she thinks, it's always with a kind of tender apology, for who they are, for what they have become. "You really do look sad."
"Aw . . . just a sucker for a happy ending." She forces a smile. "I guess I just thought when you said you'd found something that it might show it all ended well."
"Don't take it personally," he says, touching her arm.
"Oh, I couldn't care less, really," she says brusquely, "but it'd fit the feature much better if we could end on a high note. Melissa might not even want me to write the thing if it doesn't end well." She brushes a lock of hair from her face. "You know what she's like--'Let's keep it upbeat . . . readers get enough misery from the news pages.' "
"I feel like I rained on your birthday," he says, as they make their way back across the pub. He has to stoop and shout it into her ear.
"Don't worry about it," she shouts back. "It's a pretty apt finish to the day I've had."
"Come out with us," Rory says, stopping her with a hand on her elbow. "We're going ice-skating. Someone's pulled out, s
o we have a spare ticket."
"Ice-skating?"
"It's a laugh."
"I'm thirty-two years old! I can't go ice-skating!"
It's his turn to look incredulous. "Oh . . . Well, then." He nods understandingly. "We can't have you toppling off your walker."
"I thought ice-skating was for children. Teenagers."
"Then you're a very unimaginative person, Miss Haworth. Finish your drink and come with us. Have a bit of fun. Unless you really can't get out of what you'd planned."
She feels for her phone, tucked into her bag, tempted to turn it on again. But she doesn't want to read John's inevitable apology. Doesn't want the rest of this evening colored by his absence, his words, the ache for him.
"If I break my leg," she says, "you're contractually obliged to drive me in and out of work for six weeks."
"Might be interesting, as I don't own a car. Will you settle for a piggyback?"
He's not her type. He's sarcastic, a bit chippy, probably several years younger than she is. She suspects he earns significantly less than she does, and probably still shares a flat. It's possible he doesn't even drive. But he's the best offer she's likely to get at a quarter to seven on her thirty-second birthday, and Ellie has decided that pragmatism is an underrated virtue. "And if my fingers get sliced off by someone's random skate, you have to sit at my desk and type for me."
"You only need one finger for that. Or a nose. God, you hacks are a bunch of prima donnas," he says. "Right, everyone. Drink up. The tickets say we've got to be there for half past."
As Ellie walks back from the Tube some time later, she realizes the pain in her sides is not from the skating--although she hasn't fallen over so often since she was learning to walk--but because she has laughed pretty solidly for almost two hours. Skating was comic, and exhilarating, and she realized as she took her first successful baby steps onto the ice that she rarely experienced the pleasure of losing herself in simple physical activity.
Rory had been good at it; most of his friends were. "We come here every winter," he said, gesturing at the temporary rink, floodlit and surrounded by office buildings. "They put it up in November, and we probably come every fortnight. It's easier if you've had a few drinks first. You relax more. C'mon . . . let your limbs go. Just lean forward a bit." He had skated backward in front of her, his arms outstretched so that she clutched them. When she fell over, he laughed mercilessly. It was liberating to do this with someone whose opinion she cared so little for: if it had been John, she would have fretted that the chill of the ice was making her nose redden.