As soon as she was old enough, she had thanked the staff for their years of care and escaped from the grey drabness of Sunnyside, taking with her nothing but a few clothes, an abiding love of books and music, and a knowledge of plain cooking.
She had found herself a job as a kitchen assistant in a busy hotel less than a mile away from Sunnyside. The hours were long and the work hard, but with the job went a small room.
It was dark and draughty and overlooked the yard and the dustbins, but it was hers. Her refuge. Her private domain. She felt a heady sense of freedom. For the first time in her life she was in control of her own destiny.
Though the wages were far from good, because she had bed and board and no travelling expenses, she could save. She did save. Every penny.
The rest of the hotel staff, mostly young and out for a good time, invited her to join them at the local pubs and clubs, and no doubt thought her odd when she refused. But though she was always polite and friendly, she made no attempt to mix, and after a bit they stopped asking, and let her go her own way.
As soon as her working hours had been established, she took a job at the nearby supermarket stacking shelves in the evenings and on her day off. Adding to her bank balance.
After a while she moved to the checkouts where late-opening shopping meant she was working even longer hours, and by the time she crept into bed each night she was too tired even to dream.
But perhaps she didn’t need to. After more than three unrelenting years of hard work and dedicated saving, she was really getting somewhere. Another year, and she could start looking for a suitable shop to rent, and begin to turn her dreams into reality.
One Friday night, just before closing time, she had glanced up to see a young man in jeans and a thin, shabby jacket unloading a few meagre items from a shopping basket.
Dave.
Though she hadn’t seen him for more than five years, she would have known him anywhere. That handsome face, with its thin nose and dark brown eyes, the curved brows and lock of black wavy hair that fell over his narrow forehead like a question mark, was unforgettable.
Her heart gave a strange lurch.
He too had been at Sunnyside, and for a long time she had worshipped him from afar, dreaming of the day he would finally notice her.
But two or three years older than her, he hadn’t seemed to know she existed. When he had eventually left, without even a goodbye, she had felt desolate and bereft.
‘Well, hello there. It’s Ella, isn’t it?’ All at once he was smiling down at her, his slightly crooked teeth very white in his dark face. ‘This is a real blast from the past.’
‘I’m surprised you remember me,’ she admitted a shade awkwardly.
‘Apart from getting a bit older, you haven’t changed much.’
‘Neither have you.’
As she began to put his goods through, he asked, ‘How long is it since you left Sunnyside?’
‘Over three years.’
‘You must have been glad to get away. God, how I hated that place! So what have you been doing with yourself since?’
‘Working.’
‘Are you shacked up with anyone?’
‘No, I—’
‘I do wish these checkout girls wouldn’t stop to gossip,’ the woman in the queue behind him remarked in a loud voice.
‘And I wish these old biddies wouldn’t be so cantankerous,’ he retorted, equally loudly.
‘I really shouldn’t be talking,’ Eleanor said guiltily.
‘Why not?’ Fishing in his pocket, he added, ‘Surely they don’t own you body and soul?’
‘No, but—’
‘Oh, hell!’ he exclaimed. ‘With coming out in a rush I forgot to pick up my wallet. I’m afraid I can’t take the stuff.’
‘Do you have a credit card?’
‘That’s in my wallet, too.’ He made to hand her the carrier back.
‘Take it. It doesn’t amount to much. I’ll put it in out of my own money.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
‘Look, what time do you finish?’
‘In about ten minutes.’
‘See you outside.’
He was waiting in the street for her, looking cold and pinched in the chill September wind.
‘The Capuchin is still open if you want a hot—’ He broke off abruptly. ‘Damn! no money.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll pay.’
As they walked the short distance to the coffee-bar, she realised that though she was wearing flat heels, they were almost exactly the same height. At one time he had been taller than her, but now he was rather on the short side for a man.
Waiting by the steamy counter, she noticed him eyeing the clingfilmed ham sandwiches and asked, ‘Are you hungry by any chance?’
‘Starving. I was intending to get something when I’d shopped. Didn’t have time to eat earlier.’
When they were seated opposite each other, two packs of sandwiches and two mugs of coffee on the ringed and stained, piglet-pink, plastic-topped table, he asked, ‘So how’s the world been treating you? Tell me everything you’ve been doing since you escaped from Colditz.’
As she told him what little there was to tell, he wolfed his pack of sandwiches, and swallowed his mug of coffee.
Though he was as handsome as ever, he looked thinner than she remembered him, as if he hadn’t been taking care of himself.
All her childhood feeling for him returning in a rush, she pushed her own sandwiches and mug across, and asked, ‘Can you manage these?’
‘Don’t you want them?’
‘To tell you the truth I’m not hungry,’ she lied, ‘and it isn’t that long since I had a coffee.’
‘Why do you work in a hotel as well as the supermarket?’ he asked curiously, as he started into the second pack of sandwiches.
‘I’m saving hard. I’d like to be able to set up a little business of my own.’
‘Wouldn’t we all!’
Something about his reaction made her feel uncomfortable.
As though sensing it, he asked more mildly, ‘How close are you?’
‘Another year at the most and I should be able to start looking for somewhere suitable. I was thinking of a second-hand bookshop, or a maybe a tearoom,’ she explained.
Contempt in his voice, he said, ‘Surely that kind of thing is only for old maids?’
Hiding her hurt, she asked, ‘What about you?’
‘The same kind of dream, only keeping up with tomorrow’s world. When I’ve graduated—and I’d like to get a really good degree—I want to start my own business.’
‘Doing what?’
His dark eyes glowed. ‘Setting up and programming computer systems, with the emphasis on communications.’
‘So you’re at college?’
‘Yes. After two or three years of drifting from job to job, I decided to go for it.’
‘You got a grant?’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t want