Satisfied, she reached for the mug and balanced it on the washboard-flatness of her Lycra-covered abdomen. And she thought of her daughter, as she often did, smiling gently at the intensely vivid image of a curly-headed child on the floor and toys strewn all around. Fish fingers and baked beans. Plastic ponies and surreal dolls in bubble-gum-pink net and flashing neon earrings.
Recklessly she added a dark, heartbreakingly handsome man, lounging companionably with her on the sofa, an arm looped around her shoulders as they watched their child.
And, perfectly well aware that this was an unrealistic and downright stupid dream, which would give her grief if she allowed it to continue, she commanded it to vanish, turning her mind instead to safer, more mundane pleasures.
‘Heaven is hot, sweet tea after a long, hard day,’ she declared happily to the empty room, letting the exhaustion seep wonderfully away into the brown moquette. ‘Who needs silk knickers and Lapsang Souchong in bone china cups?’ She waved her mug—decorated with frolicking wart-hogs—in a toast to simplicity.
Without a scrap of regret, she thought of the pretentious mansion in Devon where she’d been brought up. The servants. Her overbearing father—who’d disowned her when she said she was going to marry one of his lorry drivers—and who felt awkward in his new surroundings like many self-made men. She thought sadly of her nervous mother, equally out of her depth and totally under her father’s thumb. Ellen mused that they probably weren’t as happy as she was.
It was odd how dramatically her life had changed. And she’d changed most of all. Ellen ruefully smoothed a hand over her cropped hair. Once she’d had a luxuriant mass of curls. It had always been her one big vanity. But not any more.
Luc had liked her to wear it loose. He’d adored it. Had loved to bury his nose in its perfumed strands or thread his fingers through the tumbling curls. But those moments were over for ever. A little wistfully her fingers sought the short hairs curving into the nape of her neck.
With a shrug, she dismissed the consequences of her marriage break-up, consigning them to the bin of bad experiences. And, feeling wonderfully in control of her life at last, she drank her tea and put down the mug with a sigh of deep pleasure.
Ahead lay half an hour of sheer and richly deserved self-indulgence. One bar of chocolate, to be devoured nibble by nibble; one zany-looking magazine to be read, which had been lent to her by one of the girls at work. She smiled, amused by her eager anticipation of such ordinary things. Was she a mover and shaker or what!
Thoughtfully she gave her bare toes a little wiggle. After that half-hour of wild excitement, it was back to her evening job. It had started by accident. She’d taken up art as a therapy during the long illness which had followed Gemma’s birth. Then one day the life model had announced that she was going abroad—and Ellen had temporarily taken her place, nervously stipulating that she’d never pose in the nude.
Something had happened when she’d been posing, though. Inexplicably, she’d acquired a confidence in herself again. Dear, kind Paul—the art teacher—had respected her shyness, and the class was so supportive that she felt able to trust them. Now she felt secure enough to expose a little more of her body, knowing that everyone there was interested only in reproducing muscle depth and structure. These people were her friends too, and she loved seeing them.
Luc, of course, would never understand this. He’d probably forbid her from ever seeing Gemma again. Thank God he never came within five miles of her! Giving a heartfelt grunt, she banished stray breadcrumbs from her stomach. Luc always sent his devoted PA to deliver and collect Gemma on the regulation four times a year she came to visit.
Ellen’s skin tightened like wafer-thin paper over her slanting Garbo cheekbones, her mood sobering despite her resolution. Luc shunned her because he couldn’t bear to set eyes on her, as if she were some vile kind of Gorgon. But then she’d committed the ultimate sin of walking out on him, their marriage and their six-month-old baby. No one did that to an Italian male and came off lightly.
‘Oh, hell!’ she muttered in exasperation.
For, despite all her high-flown intentions, she was reliving it all now and quivering like a leaf, desperately fighting down the nausea which always came with the unendurable memories.
Ellen stared blindly into space, wondering if she would ever get over what had happened, if one day the pain would become just a dull ache and then vanish completely. As much as she tried to forget, and to look to the future, some days she thought that she couldn’t stand the situation any longer. There were times when she felt it would be better never to see Gemma at all.
Ellen let out a long, unhappy sigh. Sometimes it was as if she were living on a perpetual white-knuckle ride. Every time she got her life back together again and stopped crying into her pillow, Gemma’s next visit hove into sight. And she, Ellen, had to go through the mill all over again.
Well, a short while ago she’d decided that she’d had enough. Living in the past was getting her nowhere. Grab happiness where she could, enjoy each moment—that was to be her rule. She had to protect herself from negative thoughts.
She pulled the cushion from behind her back and cuddled it. No wonder absent fathers sometimes chose not to retain their visiting rights, she thought sadly. Part-time parenting was a desperately painful thing to do. Her heart was in shreds every time Gemma left.
And everything became magnified out of all proportion. How could you act naturally when you desperately wanted everything to be perfect? Who could shrug off small organisational hiccups like stair-rod rain on the day you’d planned a picnic? Or when your child looked with contempt at a toy you’d spent hours searching for and couldn’t even afford?
Feeling aggrieved, she drew her knees up to her chest, hating Luc with all her heart, angry with him for not supporting her when she’d needed him so badly after Gemma’s birth. He’d thought the worst of her. And so she’d lost her child.
For the millionth time, Ellen tried to persuade herself to do the sensible thing: to call Luc and suggest Gemma stopped visiting at all. The kiddie hated coming to England. She hated the language, the weather, the food, and the insularity of everyone…
Nothing Ellen ever did could shift the boredom and resentment which showed in every line of Gemma’s small body. Oh, yes. She knew what she ought to do. But she couldn’t bring herself to make that final break because she loved her daughter desperately.
Tears sneaked up on her unawares and began to trickle into her hair, tracking their way over her temples in hot, sticky rivulets. It was natural that Gemma would find separation from her father hard to bear. Natural that she should be scared in a strange country and would reject everything connected with it.
And so Ellen had built a wall of protection around herself. It was the only way she’d coped with the heartbreaking goodbyes. The result was that the two of them remained politely suffering strangers.
There were no hugs, no spontaneous laughter and no kisses. She’d seen other women with their children and had ached to be loved so. But the bond had never been made between them.
Sitting up, she gazed in blurred sentimentality at the most recent photo of Gemma. And lovingly, unable to caress her child, she stroked its shiny surface instead. Then she picked up the photo from the table beside the sofa and held it to the softness of her breast.
This was what she was reduced to. Nursing a bit of glossy paper. Pathetic. Oh, Luc, she reflected, her eyes full of sorrow, if only we’d met now, and not seven years ago!
‘Telephone!’
She groaned at her landlord’s yell. Impatiently he began to pound on her door. ‘Who is it?’ she called irritably, expecting any minute to see his big hairy hand punching a hole in the thin plywood.
‘Some bloke for you!’ bellowed Cyril.
She heaved a sigh. It often was. Men