The Back Road

13

The starters had gone down well, and there was plenty of buzz around the table, but Ellie had refused all offers of help to serve up the second course. She’d needed to escape. She was trying. God knows, she was doing her best. But her throat was almost closed with tension, and her jaw ached from maintaining a fixed grin. She had a feeling that her life was out of control. When she’d planned this dinner, she had expected it to be a joyful occasion, but it wasn’t.

Working on autopilot, she took the plates for the next course from the cupboard, and walked over to the fridge to take out the sea bass, already prepared for cooking. Opening the door, she stopped dead and stared into the fridge.

Sitting next to the plate of fish was a single yellow rose.

She could feel her body start to shake. He’s been in here - alone. She spun round, her eyes exploring every corner of the kitchen in case he was still there, hovering in the shadows. When had he done this? And why had she ever told him how much she loved yellow roses?

He wants me to know he’s watching me, she thought. But I already know that - he never lets me forget. How can I forget?

With one swift movement, she grasped the rose by its thorny stem and threw it in the waste bin. She placed both hands on the worktop and leant hard against them, trying to calm her shaking. Noticing blood pulsing from her thumb, she grabbed a piece of kitchen roll, and wrapped it tightly round the wound.

Then she saw her mobile sitting there. She needed some support, and there was only one person she could talk to. Grabbing the phone, she switched it on.

Six missed calls. All from the same person earlier this evening. She shouldn’t have ignored him. But what was he thinking, calling her here when Max was around. She should have answered and told him again to leave her alone. She’d thought he would get the message if she ignored him.

Stabbing her finger hard on the screen, she deleted the calls, and quickly started to write a text. Hearing a slight sound behind her, she turned round with a guilty start.

‘Ellie, are you okay? I came to see if I could help at all.’ She wondered how long Mimi had been standing there, and felt uncomfortable as she met her inscrutable gaze. She put her phone down quickly. The text could wait.

‘Sorry, Mimi. I caught my finger on something and wanted it to stop bleeding. It wouldn’t do to drip blood on the fish and I didn’t think it would matter much if the next course was delayed.’

‘I’m sure everybody will be fine for a while,’ Mimi said. ‘Thanks for introducing me to your friends. It’s good to meet more of Patrick’s circle. Maybe when we get a bigger place after his divorce we can invite everybody round to us.’

Ellie nearly choked at the word ‘divorce’ and wondered if Pat knew that he was getting one. She was damn sure Georgia didn’t.

‘Do you mind if I ask you about your friends? It’s just that you all seem to know each other so well, and I feel a bit out of it if you know what I mean.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ellie said. ‘That’s not intentional. What do you want to know?’

Ellie knew she sounded abrupt, but she couldn’t help it. She had to try harder, though – for Pat’s sake.

‘Fiona and Charles - they seem a bit different to the rest of you.’

Ellie nearly smiled at that.

‘Charles is a very wealthy investment banker. He works in London and he met Fiona when she was living there. She used to go to school with me, and then she left the village and we lost touch. She’s only been back a few years. Don’t worry about not knowing anybody, though. Tom knows nobody at all, and at least you’ve met me and Max before. You’re not the only newcomer.’

‘What about the other couple - Gary and Penny I think you said they were called.’

‘Gary’s head of planning for the local council – they used to be our neighbours before we moved here. You may have seen him in the pub, actually – although I’m not sure which one he goes to these days.’

‘I don’t remember him, but I get to meet a lot of people that way. My future husband for one,’ Mimi said with a tinkling laugh that Ellie couldn’t echo. ‘And of course, people come in from the school all the time. Max has been in a few times recently with that PE teacher he seems so fond of.’

You little cow, Ellie thought. And I was trying to be nice to you.

She’d only met Mimi three times, and this was the second time she’d mentioned the gorgeous Alannah, and Max’s relationship with her.

Well, whatever was going on, Ellie wasn’t going to rise to the bait now.

‘Yes, Max has mentioned that they’ve been in. Now look, Mimi, I need to get on with the next course, so if you don’t mind spreading the plates out, I’ll have the fish done in a few minutes. Do you think you could take the cling film off the chillies and ginger, and all those other bits, please? I’m going to grab my wine glass from the table.’

And I might just throw it in your face, she couldn’t help thinking.

* * *

As Ellie went out, Mimi started to do as she had been asked. There was no way she was giving them any more reasons to think she was a waste of space. They already thought Patrick was mental, and they didn’t try very hard to hide it. She knew she was a good actress, although occasionally she couldn’t stop the odd flush to her skin and neck. But these people were all so self-satisfied in their perfect little worlds, and she was struggling to keep a smile on her face.

She was going to keep Patrick, though, whatever they thought. Maybe causing a bit of disruption in the Ellie and Max household might distract them for long enough to forget about her and stop interfering. They may have invited her tonight, but she knew they were wishing Georgia was here instead. How did they think that made her feel?

She savagely tore the cling film off the highly organised individual dishes that Ellie had laid out with the ingredients to accompany the fish, screwing it up into a tight ball.

She despised them all - but one more than the rest.

Lifting the lid of the bin, she was about to hurl the ball of cling film in when she saw something that caused her frustration to be replaced by curiosity. A perfect single yellow rose lay on top of the rubbish. Strange. Why would Ellie have thrown it away?

As she turned back to the worktop, she caught sight of a mobile phone, and remembered that Ellie had been typing a text message when she’d interrupted her.

Mimi peeped around the opening into the dining room, and could see that Ellie was talking to Charles. She couldn’t help noticing that Patrick had left the room too. Her mouth tightened into a thin line.

Turning her back to the door, she picked up Ellie’s phone and touched the screen. And there was the message - incomplete, but complete enough. She narrowed her eyes at its content. So that’s why the rose was in the bin. An unwanted gift. And she knew exactly where it had come from.

Mimi’s skin prickled with the heat of anger when she saw who Ellie had been texting. She quickly typed a text of her own, pressed send, then erased the evidence.

At that moment she heard the message tone of her own phone, buried in her handbag on the kitchen table. She hadn’t thought she would be needing it tonight. She walked over and checked the screen, already knowing what it would say.