A home for broken hearts, p.15
A Home for Broken Hearts, page 15
‘Allegra?’
‘Ellen.’ Allegra spoke her name with some resignation, as if she had just been woken from a rather wonderful dream.
‘That was – that was utterly brilliant,’ Ellen breathed, unable to contain herself. ‘I was right in the moment, with Eliza. It’s so exhilarating and liberating! What happens next? Will Captain Parker come and rescue her and take her back to the manor?’
Allegra’s near-translucent lids fluttered open. She observed Ellen from across the room.
‘No my dear, it’s rather too soon in the story arc for a happy ending, we need to put Eliza in rather more peril first, I’d say.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Ellen agreed. ‘If it was up to me there wouldn’t be a story arc, all the characters would start out happy, be happy and then end up happy. But I suppose that would make for a rather dull read.’
‘Have you ever worked on any of Melanie Love’s titles, Ellen?’
‘Yes, once or twice,’ Ellen nodded, thinking of the sugary faux-Regency romance novels where the nearest any of the characters got to peril was dropping a handkerchief.
‘Well then you’ll know dull is exactly what that kind of book is. Not to mention moronic, but still if there are people to read that kind of rubbish there will always be people to write it.’ Allegra’s smile was razor-sharp. ‘Now it was you who got these rusty old cogs working again, and the words flowing. What do you think Eliza would do next?’
Ellen pondered Eliza standing over the corpse of her attacker. How would she feel? Frightened, exhilarated, confused? Allegra had agreed to move the action to London – now it was just a question of how to get a fugitive female murderer there.
‘What if she dressed herself in his clothes, cut her hair, took his horse and made her way to London dressed as a man?’ Ellen suggested tentatively.
‘How very Shakespearean,’ Allegra mused. ‘It could work, though. How much of a fraud does it make me, I wonder, that my assistant is the one coming up with all the ideas?’
Ellen got up from her chair and walked around the desk, resisting the urge to sit on its polished walnut surface, as she was certain that Allegra would not approve. Instead she leaned against it, enjoying the slight breeze that wafted in through the open French doors, carrying with it a scent of roses in full bloom, mingled with the aroma of next door’s freshly cut lawn. Less alluring was the stench of mouldering plant life, last summer’s dead splendour, never cleared away and still rotting slowly into the earth. Beyond the unruly and unpruned cherry tree at the bottom of the garden, its fruit rotting amidst its roots, there would be the neat, trimmed and weeded borders of the garden that backed on to hers, and the garden that backed on to that one, going on and on for ever in a suburban patchwork of love and attention. Ellen imagined her own garden standing out, a single frayed unruly square besmirching the whole design. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps it might be time to venture into the garden again. She watched a pair of cabbage whites dance and flutter around the open door before lifting off in haphazard zigzags into the empty sky. Perhaps another day she’d go out there and assess what needed doing. She’d think about it, anyway.
‘I might have had the idea, Allegra – but you put it into words,’ Ellen told her, her eyes shining from the thrill of being involved in the process. ‘You’re the one who makes it so exciting and so real! I could never have done what you just did, I don’t know how you do it – the words just streamed out of you. It’s amazing – you’re amazing. So just because you’re a bit stuck on the plot it doesn’t mean you are not a writer any more. You’re more than that, you’re a born storyteller. I feel so lucky that I get to see you in action.’
Allegra’s smile was wan, but she sat up a little and smoothed her hair back from her face, seeming somewhat bolstered by Ellen’s enthusiasm.
‘So,’ she said. ‘We have our heroine, in disguise, speeding towards London where … she hopes to find sanctuary with her father’s childhood friend.’
‘Yes, yes!’ Ellen nodded.
‘And for once he will be a kind and fatherly figure who will want to look after her and protect her, and not rip her clothes off,’ Allegra added. ‘We always need at least one decent man per book, apart from our soon-to-be-reformed hero. It adds balance. Now, as you quite rightly mentioned, at the moment the plot is lacking a little historical context – where should we send Eliza running to that will add that aspect to the book?’
‘Well, I was thinking – and this is just an idea, so say if you think it’s rubbish – that she could go to the Tower of London. In the Civil War it was a Roundhead armoury with a permanent garrison posted there. They also used it to imprison a couple of dangerous Royalist supporters. I thought we could make her protector the garrison’s general?’
‘Perfect – he could be an honest and forthright man who believes in the true cause of the war and in a republic for the people.’
‘Exactly – the people of London were so sick and tired of Charles and his blinkered belief in divine rule by that time,’ Ellen told her. ‘They really believed that England could be a republic, where all men and women were equal. It’s quite revolutionary when you think about it, not that it would have ever worked, especially not with Cromwell in charge.’
‘And,’ Allegra said thoughtfully, ‘perhaps while she is there Eliza can become involved in some secret mission, some way to help the Puritan cause? Now is the point in the arc when we want to start to show that her experiences have changed her.’
‘That she isn’t just a girl any more – but that she’s becoming a strong independent woman,’ Ellen added, seeing herself for a moment as if through a window. A woman on her own, earning her own money, paying her own bills. It gave her an unexpected jolt of exhilaration.
Allegra nodded. ‘Yes, yes – it’s perfect. Then our dear Royalist Captain Parker will have to stray right into the enemy’s nest to track down the woman whom he does not yet know he loves …’ Allegra paused. ‘Let’s say he’s followed her trail, gathered that it must have been her who murdered our villain – a villain that we can make into someone important to the Royalist cause – and perhaps it is Captain Parker who is charged with discovering the murderer and then has to bring his own true love to the noose!’ Allegra’s eyes sparkled as she spoke.
‘Brilliant!’ Ellen clasped her hands together. ‘You see? Now you are the one who’s coming up with all the ideas. Soon you won’t need me to do anything but type.’
‘I’m not at all sure about that,’ Allegra smiled. ‘I’ve known you only a short time and yet I have a feeling that you are my amulet, my lucky charm. You get this old brain creaking again, Ellen.’ The two women smiled at each other, Ellen feeling a rare moment of pure pleasure.
‘I have a splendid idea,’ Allegra went on. ‘We’ve worked so hard these last two weeks, knocking this manuscript into shape, we haven’t been out of the house! How about you and I go on a research trip to the Tower, you know, soak up the atmosphere, find out a little more about the history. Afterwards we can make Simon take us to lunch at that Conran restaurant – the one at the foot of Tower Bridge – what’s it called? He’s been promising me a good lunch for weeks now.’
‘Pont de la Tour,’ Ellen said slowly. ‘And yes, that would be a good idea – but don’t forget it’s peak tourist season. We wouldn’t be able to move for the crowds, we’d get no sense of atmosphere at all. And in this heat with all those people, I’m not sure you’d enjoy it, Allegra.’
Ellen thought of the throngs of people that were always pressing into every nook and cranny of London’s tourist hot-spots, and her heart raced at the thought of being caught up in that great indifferent crowd of strangers. She swallowed and shook the image from her head, choosing instead to focus on a ladybird that was crawling up the glass of the open French door. Now that the inside of the door had been freshly painted, Ellen noticed that the outside was peeling and cracked. Vaguely she wondered if all the external woodwork was in need of similar repair.
‘You have a point.’ Allegra wrinkled her nose at the thought of a mass of the great unwashed. ‘Although it rather irks me that I am getting too old for crowds. During my life I’ve found that almost all the best things happen in crowds, parties, orgies – that sort of thing. Still, how are we to know our locations if we do not visit them?’
‘Easy!’ Ellen smiled. ‘Google Maps.’ She opened the Web browser on her laptop and brought up the right page. After a few minutes she found the location and took it over to show Allegra. ‘See, you don’t actually need to go anywhere any more, you can walk down almost any street without ever leaving the house. It’s brilliant!’
‘Good Lord.’ Allegra peered uncertainly at the screen. ‘Soon no one will ever leave their homes, we will all be living virtual lives in a virtual reality.’
‘Yes, but when you think about it that’s sort of what a novel is, isn’t it – a virtual reality,’ Ellen said. ‘I don’t think it’s all that bad, is it? There’s nothing wrong with having a place to escape to. A place to feel safe in.’
‘Perhaps.’ Allegra watched her. ‘But I tend to think that life is made up of the muck and grit, the dirt and danger of the real world. The world we are born into, kicking and screaming and gasping for air. To try and escape the daily fight is to excuse yourself from living, isn’t it? And you want to be a writer, Ellen, to be a writer you need to live life. Not watch it go by your window.’
‘I don’t want to be a writer!’ Ellen smiled. ‘I don’t have the talent for it. I just love reading and sometimes I’ve had a go at writing for fun, but I could never do what you do, Allegra. It’s just not in me.’
‘Well, that is arguable, but if it isn’t in you then perhaps that’s only because you are not in it.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Ellen asked her, but Allegra merely shrugged.
‘Very well, agreed we will not visit the Tower in person, but I am still determined to have my good lunch and I am determined that you will come with me. After all you are just as deserving as I am, if not more.’
‘Well, um, thank you,’ Ellen said, her smile wavering. ‘Thank you. I’m sure that would be really nice and I’d love to come – if I can.’
‘That’s settled then, I shall telephone Simon about it this afternoon,’ Allegra said. ‘Now let’s talk about Eliza and Captain Parker. She hates him, and with good reason, after all he took from her something that should have been hers alone to bestow. But now she’s had those terrible experiences with her uncle and the man she’s killed she might perhaps see a subtle difference. The captain did not hurt her and he made her feel the awakening of desire that she is unable to forget, so although she hates him she yearns for him too.’
‘Mmmm,’ Ellen said. ‘The thing is, I’ve read all your books and I love them, but I’ve never quite been able to get my head around the fact that the man who forces himself on a woman at the beginning of a book can be the same man she falls in love with at the end. I mean while I’m reading it, swept along with all it, it makes sense, but afterwards, I wonder – would that really happen?’
‘Of course not, but this is fantasy, dear – and whether we admit it or not many women fantasise about being overpowered by a man, being absolved of any responsibility for whatever sexual pleasure might be about to befall them,’ Allegra told her. ‘Don’t forget most of my readers are married or older women, they are not practised seductresses – in real life they would never stray from the right path, so in their fantasies they often have no choice. Goodness knows, the debate about whether my sort of fiction glamorises rape has raged on for each of the thirty years I’ve been writing, but what I’m writing isn’t real, it’s a safe environment where a woman can indulge in certain thoughts. I haven’t met a woman yet who wouldn’t secretly like to be tied to the bedpost with a silk scarf or two and toyed with a little by her lover.’
‘Haven’t you?’ Ellen exclaimed, genuinely shocked.
Allegra’s smile was mischievous. ‘Well, wouldn’t you have liked it?’
‘Me? Tied up and … no it was never like that with me and Nick.’ Ellen found herself blushing, flashes of the last time she and Nick had made love materialising before her eyes for one painful moment, him moving above her, his eyes closed. Her watching him, willing him to look at her, just for one moment, to see her the way that only he ever could. It had been a quiet, sacred, special thing, the last time they had made love, and afterwards she had rested her head on Nick’s chest and listened to his heartbeat as he slept.
‘What a shame, so what was sex like?’ Allegra asked her baldly. Ellen hesitated. One thing she had never done was discuss her sex life with anyone other than her husband. Not even with him, to be honest. It simply wasn’t something they had ever sat down and talked about.
When she had first met Nick she’d been working as a research assistant at the British Museum, cataloguing and dating the mass of artefacts that the museum owned but did not have the room to put on permanent display. And when she’d come into work glowing after a night out with him, her friends and colleagues would quiz her on every tiny detail of her date, even questioning her on Nick’s prowess in bed. Ellen had told them nothing, partly because she was far too shy to talk about anything like that, and partly because there was hardly anything to tell. For the first few months of their relationship Nick had barely touched her, their physical contact hardly stretching beyond a goodnight kiss, his hand resting chastely on her waist. This would invariably leave Ellen on the wrong side of her front door wondering exactly what it was he saw in her, when he seemed to desire her so little. Once, after months of dating him, over dinner after a glass of wine too many she had asked him flat out if he fancied her. Nick had laughed out loud, making Ellen feel, she remembered, rather foolish.
‘Do I fancy you?’ He’d sounded amazed. ‘Have you seen yourself, Ellen, with your black hair and green eyes and those curves …? My God, I don’t think there is a man alive who wouldn’t want you.’
‘But then why haven’t we … I mean it’s been nearly six months and we haven’t even, you know.’ Ellen had leaned across the table, feeling the excess of wine slosh around inside her skull. ‘You haven’t even tried to put your hand up my top.’
Nick had looked at her as if he were very slightly disappointed in her for even asking. It was a look that had set her back in her chair.
‘Don’t you get it, Ellen?’ he’d asked her, seeming a little offended. ‘You are the woman I am going to marry. The woman who is going to have my children and who I am going to spend the rest of my life with. What’s six months in a lifetime? When we make love for the first time I want you to know that it’s special, that it’s for ever. When I make you mine, I want to make sure that you are mine. We have all the time in the world, Ellen. We have for ever, after all.’
Ellen remembered how breathless she’d felt when his fingertips had reached across the table and touched the back of her hand, the electric shock that had shivered through her body at the merest suggestion of contact. She had been overwhelmed by the romance of the moment, consumed with happiness at her luck in finding a man who would cherish her so.
‘Yes,’ she’d whispered happily. ‘Oh yes Nick, I will marry you.’
‘Hang on, darling,’ Nick had chuckled. ‘I haven’t asked you yet. All in good time, you’ll find out when I’m ready – and for now let’s just take our time, shall we?’
And after Nick had chosen his moment, proposing to her over a picnic held on the banks of the Seine, and they were married on the date that he chose, Ellen had decided to take his advice and give up working for the museum. Her friendships had gradually dropped away and by degrees Nick and then a little later Charlie had become her life, a life that she revelled in. It was funny, but in all those years, up until that very moment, Ellen had never once missed the tipsy nights out that she used to enjoy with the girls. Somehow, though, talking to Allegra brought back to her what it used to be like, how she never laughed in quite the same way or as hard with her husband as she had with her female friends. And yet now she wasn’t at all certain that any of the numbers she had for them in her battered address book would still be relevant. She’d lost all those people who were once so important to her without even noticing, she’d been so caught up in her new life with Nick.
Hannah had asked her once with a raised eyebrow and a nipped lip what her sex life with Nick was like, and Ellen had told her to mind her own business. She never talked about that kind of thing with anyone, but especially not Hannah. Nick would have been appalled. And yet, somehow, it sort of felt OK to talk about it to Allegra. Allegra was impartial, like some Greek goddess reigning over a chessboard of mortals. Her interest in Ellen’s sex life wasn’t salacious or intrusive, it was impartial.
Ellen slid her bottom up on to the surface of the desk, forgetting what Allegra might think as she pondered her question.
‘It was quiet – you know. Nick was always so gentle with me, so tender. I mean he made me feel unbelievably beautiful. He used to love it that he was the only man in the world who got to … well, look at me, you know – that way.’
‘You are unbelievably beautiful, that’s simply a fact,’ Allegra told her. ‘It’s a rare beauty when even in those sacks you insist on wearing, with your hair all scraped up and having clearly been nowhere near make-up in several years, you still have that glow about you, that look of a woman, to paraphrase Margaret Mitchell, who needs to be kissed, and well, by someone who knows how.’
‘I’m not sure about that.’ Ellen’s eyes widened, haunted momentarily by her fantasy vision of Matt gripping her firmly in a hay barn.
‘So your husband was gentle with you, was he passionate too?’ Allegra persisted with her line of questioning.
