Moving On

College

College

WHEN ELLEN FINISHED WRITING HER THIRD BOOK, Dorothy sent the manuscript to the publishers who’d brought out her first two, they being entitled, according to the terms of Ellen’s contract, to first refusal of her next. A month later, an offer came back that Dorothy wasn’t happy with. ‘Leave it with me,’ she told Ellen. ‘I’ll see what other interest is out there.’

Within a month she’d found a different publisher. ‘Two more books,’ she announced. ‘More money for you, and they have better overseas connections too,’ so Ellen signed along a new dotted line.

Her editor was Vanessa, glamorous and beautifully spoken, with a list of household-name authors and none of Tony’s warmth. But within a short time of working with her Ellen could see that she was very, very good at what she did, editing with cool precision, steering tactfully, turning a rough first draft into a polished manuscript without seeming to have done very much at all.

In September, Grace started secondary school. Ellen was glad that three of her primary school friends were also enrolled there. ‘You want me to go with you on the first day?’ she asked, and Grace said, ‘Most definitely not,’ and went off with her friends.

Ellen thought of Claire in her teens, swiping things from shops, smuggling bottles of cider from the family pub, learning how to smoke – and while Ellen at that age had been thrilled to have such an adventurous friend, she hoped fervently that Grace would not meet someone similar. Her younger daughter, she suspected, would need little encouragement to let her wild side out. Ellen braced herself for teenage storms ahead.

She didn’t have long to wait. At mid-term, Grace dropped an entirely unexpected bombshell.

‘I want to go to London,’ she said. ‘I want to live with Dad.’

Tread carefully here, Ellen told herself. Stay calm. Stay reasoned. ‘Grace, you’re only twelve. You really can’t expect me to let you move to another country.’

‘I’ve lived in London – it’s not exactly a foreign land. And my father still lives there.’

‘He works full-time—’

‘Mum, I’m able to look after myself. Anyway, I’d be at school when he was at work.’

Ellen caught at this. ‘You’re not enrolled in any school there.’

‘I could find a school – or study at home. I don’t need teachers.’

This was getting ridiculous. ‘It’s not going to happen, Grace,’ Ellen said firmly. ‘You’re far too young.’

Grace adopted the mulish look Ellen knew so well. ‘He wants me to live with him.’

‘Has he said that?’

‘No, but I know he’d like it.’

Ellen was too tired for a battle. She was in the middle of her latest edits, and at the familiar stage of beginning to hate the manuscript. She had a job from Creative Ways waiting to be tackled, and one of the kitchen taps had started leaking. ‘Maybe in a few years we can talk about it again.’

Grace glowered at her. ‘I’m going to ask my dad. I’m ringing him now.’

‘Do.’ Ellen knew he’d back her up, and maybe Grace would listen to him – but after a brief conversation in the hall Grace returned to the kitchen and said, ‘He wants to talk to you.’

‘Maybe we could do a deal with her,’ Leo said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘She could come to me for a week at Christmas. That might keep her happy for the moment.’

‘Leo, she’s twelve. What would you do with her? She has no friends there any more; you’d have her all the time.’

‘Exactly. In a week she’d be delighted to go home again, and get away from her boring dad.’

He might have a point. ‘What about—?’ She broke off, unable to say the name. ‘Are you still—?’

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘I live alone.’

So they hadn’t lasted. At least she wouldn’t have to contend with that. ‘Have you said it to Grace about Christmas?’

‘Not until I ran it by you.’ An edge of impatience to his words. ‘Credit me with a little more sense, Ellen.’

‘Sorry. Juliet might want to go too – how would you feel about that?’

‘Fine. I’d be happy to have both.’

He was due time with them on his own. He’d been good about coming to Ireland to see them for so long, and he hadn’t pushed about them coming to him. She agreed to his plan, and three days before Christmas she put Grace on a plane to London, her heart in her mouth. Juliet had opted to stay at home, much to her mother’s private relief.

‘See you in a week,’ Ellen said to Grace, resisting the impulse to hug her tightly, contenting herself with a ruffle of the hair. Grace didn’t do hugs – or at least she didn’t hug her mother. ‘Be good for your dad.’

Contrary to Leo’s prediction, Grace wasn’t happy to come home. One look at her scowling face as she walked into the arrivals hall at Shannon a week later told Ellen that she was far from happy.

‘Frankie missed you,’ Ellen said, and all she got was a shrug. ‘Grace, you can go again. As long as your dad agrees, I’m happy for you to spend part of your holidays with him. And when you finish school, if you still want to, and if he’s is OK with it, we can talk about you moving there.’

‘That’s years away – and anyway I’ll be able to do what I like after school.’

Ellen let that go. ‘I’m sorry, love.’

‘I hate Ireland!’ Grace declared. ‘London is much cooler!’

Ellen recalled her own determination to leave the city after finding out about Leo and Claire. She remembered how endless the weeks had seemed till the girls got holidays from school and they could pack up. All she could think about was going home – but had she been wrong to uproot his daughters so thoroughly, to force them to live in a different country to him?

They could have found a little house to rent in Bath, or somewhere equally lovely. The girls could have had far more contact with him, even if it had meant them finding out about Claire, and Grace mightn’t have harboured such resentment towards her mother – but what was done was done.

To Juliet’s great delight, on leaving school she was offered a place in the National College of Art and Design. Ellen drove her to Dublin in September, conflicted. Proud to have a daughter going to college, sad to be losing her.

‘No Grace?’ her father enquired when they got there.

‘She’s staying the night with a friend. She says hello.’

In the morning she hugged Juliet goodbye, her daughter having opted to travel to college by bus, refusing her grandfather’s offer of a lift. ‘Start as I mean to go on,’ she said, tweaking the cherry-red beret Leo had bought her on his last visit to Galway. ‘It’s a straight run into town.’

She was so pretty, Ellen thought, with her creamy skin and Leo’s dark eyes. The boys would find her gentle femininity irresistible; they’d flock around her. By Christmas she’d have found someone, hopefully someone decent like Danny or Ben, even if he was also destined to be a penniless artist. It was time for her first real love – and possibly her first heartbreak. Ellen hated the thought of that, but protecting her daughter from it was beyond a parent’s power.

At the start of October, a letter arrived with Creative Ways’ logo on the envelope. This was surprising. Lucinda always communicated through email, not letters.

You are invited , Ellen read on the card she pulled out, to our celebration of twenty years in London .

Twenty years? Twenty years since she’d walked through the doors of Creative Ways as a new employee? Impossible. Unbelievable.

Twenty years, two decades. She sat on the bottom stair, spooling back over all they’d brought. Getting together with Leo, having Juliet and Grace, her mother dying, her father returning. Finding Iris, losing Leo, and Claire.

The event was taking place on a Friday evening at the end of November. She could stay with Leo – he’d stayed with them often enough. She could bring Grace, who’d love the chance for an extra weekend with her father.

She cast her mind back to the house in Lambeth where she and the girls had been so happy, and where he still lived. She didn’t know, because she hadn’t asked, if Claire had lived there with him after Ellen and the girls had vacated it. One part of her longed to see it again, to walk through its rooms and remember the times they’d enjoyed – but could she bear it, given the circumstances of their leaving? And was she ready to return to London?

She’d been to the company’s ten-year anniversary party. She’d been working there at the time, having reunited with Leo after their first split. He’d accompanied her to the party, and it had been a great night – but this time she’d be going alone, and meeting her old colleagues who no doubt would be full of questions, and while she was proud of the books she’d brought into being, and happy to be where she was now – well, half happy, half lonely – she wasn’t sure she wanted to be back in that world, even for one night.

She wrote an email:

Lucinda,

I’ve just got your invitation, and I’m so touched to be invited. I have nothing but happy memories of working at Creative Ways; it was wonderful to have been there at the start, and to be part of that exciting time. I’m not at all surprised that you’ve made it to twenty years, and I have no doubt there’ll be many more – but I’m going to pass, if you don’t mind. I’m not sure I want to be in London again, not yet . . . maybe I’ll make your thirtieth! I hope you understand.

And one came back, almost immediately:

Dearest Ellen,

Justin and I will miss you on the night, and so will everyone, but I understand completely. Did I tell you how much I loved Promises to Keep? So looking forward to the next.

There’s a new job coming in shortly that you’ll be perfect for, if you have the time. I still haven’t quite forgiven you for spoiling me for any other work partner – you and I were made to create great ads together!

L xx