Or at least the best they could afford.
That first hurdle over, it meant changes all round. Dave would no doubt want to move, and when she had worked her notice at the hotel, she would need to find somewhere else to live.
Full of barely suppressed excitement, she waited for Dave to suggest they find a small flat and move in together. When he said nothing, she plucked up courage and broached the subject herself.
He shook his head. ‘I was planning to stay where I am. Apart from the fact that Tony needs my help with the rent, it’s cheap and reasonably comfortable, and handy for the tube.’
‘But I thought we could be together…’
‘Too much of a temptation, kiddo.’
‘Oh, but surely—’
‘Look, we have to be sensible about this. We need time to build up the business before we can afford to take any chances. If you got pregnant where would we be? Right up the creek without a paddle. Say we give ourselves a year…’
A year…
‘For that length of time we’ll need to work all hours, seven days a week. Then if everything’s going well we’ll start to relax a bit, get married, tie the knot in the good old-fashioned way. Tell you what, as soon as we’ve been paid for our first job, I’ll buy you an engagement ring.’
She couldn’t help but think it sounded like a sop.
Seeing she still looked far from happy, he added, ‘Oh, and as it’s your money that’s getting us started, I think you should rate as senior partner, and your name come first on our business cards.
‘After all,’ he added magnanimously, as she began to shake her head, ‘You’ve more than pulled your weight.’
She really didn’t care whose name came first. Just his praise would have been enough.
After a fortnight of fruitless searching, her luck changed and she found a one-roomed flat complete with a kitchenette and a tiny bathroom at a rent she could just about afford. It was within walking distance of the office, which meant she would save on tube fares.
Having bought a small second-hand van, Dave had promised to help her move in her few possessions, but when the time came he was busy, so she managed on the tube with a couple of battered suitcases.
Her new flat was cramped and shabby and three flights up, but the bed-settee was reasonably comfortable, and compared to the room she had lived in for the past four years, it was the height of luxury.
She felt like a queen.
As soon as she was settled, she set about furnishing and repainting the office. That done, inside a week they were in business. Their printed cards read:
Smith and Benson
Computer and Communication Systems Installed
Within a few days they had established contact with the necessary suppliers, and secured their first job.
It was heady stuff.
Her only disappointment was that she still saw very little of Dave. When they weren’t actually working, he was always out and about trying to drum up business.
Once or twice he took her to the cinema, or to eat in some cheap restaurant. He never came to her flat.
‘Avoiding temptation…’ he told her, when she suggested he came round occasionally. ‘If you’re lonely, buy a second-hand telly.’
Used to being on her own, she wasn’t exactly lonely, she just missed him, and a television was the last thing she wanted. Books and music had always been her pleasure and her solace.
Some three months later, after they had been paid for their first job, true to his word, Dave bought her an engagement ring.
Slipping it onto her finger he asked, ‘There what do you think of that?’
A twist, with a couple of small zircons, it was clearly inexpensive, and at least one size too large, but she was thrilled with it.
‘As soon as the money starts rolling in, we’ll change it for diamonds,’ he promised.
She didn’t need diamonds. The ring he had put on her finger meant everything to her. Commitment. A future together. Love.
Perhaps afraid of the answer, she had never asked the question before, but now as he kissed her, she said, ‘Dave, do you love me?’
‘Course I do.’
‘It’s just that you’ve never told me.’
‘I’m not very good with words, but you must know I love you. We’re a pair. A partnership. I don’t know what I’d do without you…’
For the next few weeks that assurance had kept her floating on cloud nine.
As they neared the end of December, finding they had finished their current job and had nothing else on their books until early January, Eleanor started to plan for their best Christmas and New Year ever. Dave’s birthday was on the thirty-first of December, so it would be a double celebration.
When, wanting his input, she mentioned her plans, he said, ‘I’m sorry but I won’t be here. I’ve more than earned a break, so I’m joining Tony and the boys on a cheap trip to Belgium. We go on the twenty-fourth and come back January the second.’
‘Oh, but I thought we’d be spending Christmas and New Year together—’
‘I can’t afford to miss this chance. It’ll be the first holiday I’ve had for years. Pity it’s a men only, boozy thing, but that’s the way it goes. I’ll bring you back a present to make up for it.
‘I don’t suppose there’ll be much doing as regards business. Between Christmas and New Year is a bit of a dead period, so why don’t you have a break?
‘All you really need to do is pop into the office each day to check for mail and emails…’
So once again she had found herself facing the prospect of a solitary Christmas and New Year. But refusing to give way to gloom, she had decorated her tiny flat with holly and mistletoe, made mince pies, and stocked up with library books and CDs.
Christmas Eve she had gone to hear a carol concert, and Christmas morning she had walked in the frosty park and fed the ducks.
New Year’s Eve loomed, empty and lonely. She bought a cheap bottle of wine to see the new year in and, unused to drinking, got a little tipsy. Only then, thinking how lovely it would have been if Dave had been there, had she shed a tear.
He had returned on January the second, as promised, bringing her back a few tacky souvenirs. ‘Just to prove I’ve been thinking about you.’
Somehow the assurance had rung hollow…
Becoming suddenly aware that Robert Carrington was waiting for an answer to a question she hadn’t even heard, Eleanor pulled herself back from the past and stammered, ‘I-I’m sorry?’
‘I asked if you had any regrets about going into business?’
‘No. None at all.’
Though if they didn’t get this job, it looked as if they wouldn’t be in business much longer.
Apparently reading her thoughts, he asked, ‘What are your future prospects?’
Knowing instinctively that it was make or break, she said carefully, ‘They should be good. Dave’s brilliant at what he does, and we’re both prepared to put our hearts and souls into it, but to succeed we’ll need to get the work.’
‘How secure are you financially?’
Her lips tightening, she said, ‘I don’t believe you have any right to ask that.’