‘It usually is, in the end.’
‘Andrew, do you believe that, or is it what you try to tell yourself?’
He sighed. ‘Does it matter?’
When he’d gone upstairs she wandered out into the garden with Fudge, who still had matters to attend to. She waited for him, sitting on a bench under the trees.
‘May I join you?’ It was Andrew with two glasses of wine.
She received one gratefully and he sat down beside her, looking up at the moon, which hung low in the sky, bright and silver. It was a night for lovers, but just now she felt only contentment.
‘By the way,’ she said after a moment, ‘don’t forget a wedding present for Myra.’
‘Why would I want to do that? She’s getting her hands on the Hellerman millions.’
‘It’s in the cause of good relations. It’ll make Simon happy.’
‘Then I’ll do it. Or rather you’ll do it.’
‘No, Simon will do it. He’s searched the Internet and found a great store in Detroit. All he needs now is your credit card.’
‘Fine. I trust you to make sure he doesn’t clean me out.’
Through Simon’s daily phone calls with Myra they followed the progress of her wedding. Backed by Cyrus’s gold card she’d embarked on a spending spree, not always with happy results. A dozen pictures of her in various prospective wedding outfits turned up on Simon’s computer. He and Hetta regarded them with awe, which Elinor fully understood when she joined them. Andrew returned one evening to find the three of them gazing at the screen.
‘Something interesting?’ he asked, walking over. ‘Why is your mother in a scarlet satin dress?’
‘To get married in?’ Simon said, making it a question.
‘Really.’ Andrew pursed his lips and said no more. To Elinor’s pleasure, man and boy regarded each other in silent masculine sympathy.
With Elinor’s guidance Simon had chosen some elegant silver for the wedding gift. Myra was genuinely pleased, pretending to believe the fiction that Andrew had thought of it. She even sent him an email saying thank you, which Simon presented to him with pride.
At last the wedding pictures themselves arrived. Myra had avoided red satin and purple velvet in favour of a comparatively restrained dress of ivory brocade. Everything else was over the top, including six bridesmaids and four page-boys who, for no discernible reason, were dressed in highland kilts.
‘Are you sorry you weren’t there?’ Andrew asked his son.
Simon gave him a speaking look. ‘Mum would have wanted me to be a page-boy.’
‘Then you were definitely better off out of it.’
Every day Elinor set her mind to finding ways to help Andrew connect with his son. She joined in the children’s games, she made Simon talk to her, and he did so with a freedom that showed how badly he longed to confide. She remembered how good Andrew had been at chess, and it was no surprise to discover that at seven Simon was already a skilled player.
Once she’d discovered that she went onto the attack, buying a newspaper with a daily chess problem and getting him to solve it. Then she tried to arrange it so that Simon was sitting over the problem when Andrew arrived home. This was hard as Andrew’s arrivals could seldom be predicted, but one night she struck lucky. Best of all Simon was so absorbed that he failed to look up when his father entered, something rare enough to make Andrew stride across to see what was engrossing his son, and had to speak to him twice before he could get his attention. After that they worked on the problem together, and Elinor chalked up a minor victory.
‘I didn’t even know he could play,’ he told Elinor that evening as she was making a late-night snack.
‘He’s pretty good.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘As good as you at that age?’
‘I think so.’ He looked at her shrewdly. ‘Was it an accident, what happened tonight?’
‘Of course not. I got him into position a few minutes before you got home. But you did the rest yourself.’
‘When I employed you as child-minder I didn’t envisage you going this far.’
‘I’m like you. I like to do my job properly. Besides, the way I see it, I still owe you for Hetta’s life. If I can help you with Simon, we’re quits.’
‘I see,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes, I never thought of it like that.’
After that there were some phone calls that she didn’t understand, or, rather, didn’t ask about. She found herself talking to a woman with a voice like cut glass, who turned out to be the secretary of Sir Elmer Rylance. She fetched Andrew to the phone and returned to the children, trying not to speculate.
She made no further mention of his taking time off, and nor did he. She concluded that he’d either forgotten the matter or dismissed it. She was angry with him. She didn’t press the matter, but she had a sense of failure. She’d tried to believe that in this matter at least she could be good for him, but it seemed that he now dismissed her opinions as easily as he did everyone else’s.
Only when she’d totally given up hope did he arrive home one evening and say, ‘That’s it! No more hospital for a week.’
The children bounded about in excitement. Over their heads Andrew met her eyes with a look that startled her. It was almost as though he was asking for her approval.
‘Why did you keep it to yourself until now?’ she asked when she could make herself heard through the riot.
‘I wasn’t sure until the last minute. It depended on whether my replacement arrived in time, but he did.’
‘Is he as good as you?’ she couldn’t resist asking.
He looked at her. ‘Almost. He thinks he’s better.’
‘If he’s so brilliant, how come he’s available?’
‘He’s been offered three other jobs, but the one he wants is Elmer’s, so he’s been keeping himself free. He jumped at this.’
Of course he would, Elinor thought. It was the chance to work under Rylance’s nose and pip the other candidates to the post. And Andrew had stood back and let him do it, because she’d as good as asked him to. But her stab of pleasure was quickly suppressed. He’d done it for Simon, not her. And it might be a disaster for him.
Too late now to say anything. It was done. And Andrew was already going into the garden with the children.
He joined her later that night for their regular glass of wine while Fudge snuffled in the undergrowth.
‘Could your replacement really harm you?’ she asked.
‘In one week?’ he demanded. ‘You don’t think much of my skill.’
‘A determined man can do a lot in a week.’
‘He can do his worst,’ Andrew said arrogantly. ‘I gather you think I might soon be on my uppers. That’s a pity, because I was going to suggest that we should get married.’
‘It makes a lot of sense, Ellie. We make a pretty good family. Simon loves you and he’s crazy about Hetta.’
‘Just a minute-’
‘We have to think where this arrangement is going. If we don’t marry then sooner or later we’ll split up. You’re an excellent employee, but employees leave. I want you to stay.’
‘It takes a lot more than that to make a family,’ she said in a toneless voice. She’d thought Andrew had hurt her in every possible way, but she hadn’t thought of this. Marry her to keep a good employee!
‘Of course it does, but I’m sure we can make it work. I’m probably not putting this very well, but if you’ll only give it some thought-for everyone’s sake-’
‘Everyone? Does that include me?’
He stared at her, trying to discern on her face what had disturbed him in her voice. ‘You don’t think this might be a good idea for you?’
‘I don’t think there could be a worse idea for me. I’ve told you I’ll stay while you need me, but I’m making a condition. Don’t ever, ever mention this again.’
She rose and walked away towards the house, with Fudge trotting after her, leaving him sitting alone in the
