He fished out one of his newly minted business cards and scribbled his mobile number and address on the back. He handed it to her.
Squinting, she deciphered the scrawl. ‘Islington. How nice.’ And wrote hers down on a separate card.
Just the address and her work telephone number. The message was clear; her trust had to be earned if she was going to give him her personal unlisted number. She guarded it carefully to avoid Deidre’s interference.
He slid it into his back pocket. ‘How about you come over for dinner one evening? We can catch up properly.’
She radiated sunshine peeping out from a gloomy cloud. As if it hurt, she ducked her eyes down and the fleeting brilliance evaporated. ‘Sure. Absolutely.’ She needed and despised him in one efficient bundle of emotions. Most people would implode with the combination, but Ellen specialised in contradictions.
What now? Shake hands? Slap her on the back like his cousin, Alfie, whom he met from time to time. When in Manchester, Mark preferred to visit Uncle Tim. For those very occasional weekends that other house had been everything a home should be – tranquil with the odd outburst of appropriate laughter. The envy was almost unbearable.
He bent and she expectantly tilted her cheek towards his lips. The peck was swift, a minutiae glance, and she blushed. A connection had been made and he couldn’t let it die a death. If there was a reason for lassoing her back into his life, it was because Ellen presented a useful advantage: she was accomplished at manipulating Deidre.
3
Ellen
I met my brother today. By accident. He spilt his coffee over me.
Ellen waited half an hour for a reply, which wasn't unusual. She pottered about the bedsit, listening out for the familiar chirping that she’d assigned to his profile. Eventually, she heard it over the microwave. Hot noodles in a bowl… delicious.
Are you okay!?
She smiled. She expected his concern. She liked it.
Yes.
She typed quickly, eager to tell him her news.
He's working in the city, not too far from my office. I was running an errand, stopped for lunch in this cafe and I knocked his coffee cup. He didn't recognise me!
She curled her legs underneath her and slurped on a coke. The bedsit was piping hot. She had dispensed with her work clothes and slipped on a pair of ragged edged shorts and t-shirt. The red mark on her thigh was visible, but it didn't hurt. The faint white lines of her scars lurked beneath it. She hated looking at them. What an idiot she had been to think they would fade into nothing. By the time she started marking her arms, she had learnt how to do it properly and those ones hardly showed at all.
Back then, she had been a skinny sixteen-year-old hiding underneath baggy hoodies and cropped jeggings. Waiting to bloom, her mother had told Mrs Asani, the next-door neighbour, almost apologetically. Mrs Asani's daughter had beautiful brown eyes and smiled a lot at the soccer-mad boy who had lived opposite them. Ellen had worked out smiling wasn’t the best approach but had said nothing to her besotted rival. Neighbours had been a useful distraction from other things. Mark rarely came home and when he did, he constantly argued with Deidre about appeals and expensive solicitors.
Big brother! Must be exciting for you, sweetie.
Ah, Freddie, always saw the good in everything. It was why she liked him. Ever since she’d first chatted to him on Facebook, she had sought to garner his friendship. She’d had to lie to get into the private Facebook group. After a few weeks, the guilt at her deception gnawed and kept her awake at night. The truth was important, so she confessed to him – she wasn't a victim of a crime, she was the daughter of a murderer. She had told him she found out about her father’s sentence on her twelfth birthday. Told him how she had run away still dressed in her grubby school uniform, carrying a faded satchel on the crook of her elbow, and nearly colliding with the advertising board outside the local newsagents. The board had an image emblazoned across it of the front cover of the Manchester Evening News, a grainy photo beneath the headline – Life for local man jailed for cowardly murder. He had resembled a gorilla with his five o'clock shadow and hunched shoulders, and nothing like the dad she’d once adored. She had kicked over the stand and stamped on it until the shopkeeper shouted abuse at her. Later, she had gone home and opened her two presents: a see-through plastic bag of make-up to hide her “ridiculous amount of acne” – Deidre said this to Ellen’s face – and a Barbie doll from Uncle Tim, who had forgotten she wasn’t a little girl, although at least he had tried.
She had experienced a string of social workers in rapid succession and had presented, in a highly orchestrated manner, enough worrying issues for them. It wasn’t always nice attention. Their patience had dwindled when she had played up, and consequently she had been sent to a special unit for a month to learn, as her social worker had framed it, more about herself. Ellen had found out nothing she hadn’t already known – she was very good at keeping secrets.
Freddie, far from berating her about her lie, was very sympathetic to her circumstances. He had immediately bounced a message back clearly stating she was a victim, just like anyone else. A victim of her father's wrongdoing. An indirect victim, but one nevertheless. His reassurance was astounding. She poured out her fears, her hatred and loneliness to Freddie and he absorbed it all without judging her.
After exchanging
