It Felt Like A Kiss

Chapter Twenty-five




When Ellie woke up she was on her own without even a David-shaped indentation on the duvet next to her, BUT there was a note on the pillow.

Ellie,

Didn’t want to wake you. Have to do 20km this morning with my running club. Hope you slept well.

Back at 11-ish – we’ll talk then.

David

It was ten. Usually Ellie only ever slept in that late on a Sunday, and only when she’d had a skinful the night before. As she showered, dressed, listlessly packed her bags and tried to force down a cup of coffee and a toasted bagel, she certainly felt as sick and weary as she did when she was hungover.

Then she checked her email and was reminded that she was going to Paris, which, according to legend and popular culture, always had the cure for whatever ailed you. Somehow she doubted it. Paris wasn’t that amazing, which was something she and Vaughn agreed on.

Cohen

No one stays in Paris in August, apart from idiotic tourists and surly Parisians who don’t have the funds to leave Paris for an entire month.

You also have a very idiosyncratic idea of what working your notice out entails. Still, if you’re set on this course, there are a few jobs I need you to do.

See attachment.

Vaughn

The attachment was another bullet-pointed list of items, which made Ellie’s head swim. When she got back from Paris and was feeling more like herself, she was going to have it out with Vaughn about her notice, the withdrawal thereof.

After last night, Ellie never wanted to have it out with anyone ever again, but some things couldn’t be left unsaid. Once she’d made the bed and attacked all surfaces in the spare room with a damp cloth so it looked as pristine as it had on the day she’d arrived, she tore out a page from her Smythson desk diary, which Vaughn always bought each of the staff as a Christmas present, and chewed ruminatively on the end of a pen. After ten minutes of staring at the blank page, she wrote,

Dear David,

Thank you so much for putting me up and putting up with me this last week.

I think we both realise that after last night I can’t stay here any longer. This situation between us is unworkable.

Even if we rewound back to Glastonbury, and this time there was no Richey, no other women you see casually, no Billy Kay, do you think we’d have managed more than a couple of dates? I don’t, because we both see the world in such a different way. You’re so fixated on figuring out what my angle is that you can’t see who I really am.

You’ve witnessed the very best and worst of me, because I’m living in extraordinary times, but you have to believe me when I tell you that the ordinary, everyday me is not that bad. I’m not a saint – hardly! – but I try to do the right thing. That should count for something but it doesn’t with you.

I’m going to Paris. It’s a work trip but also, if I need to lay low for a little while, then it might as well be in Paris.

If you need to talk to me about anything relating to Billy Kay, you have my number. There’s not much point in talking about anything else.

I am sorry. I wish things could work out differently. I wish we were different.

Thanks again.

Ellie

It would certainly never make the ranks of the Hundred Greatest Love Letters Of All Time, but it was the best that Ellie could do, especially when it was almost eleven and she didn’t want still to be kicking around when David came back.

Ellie left the flat, even peeping round corners and slowly prising open doors as if she were on a stake-out, but there was no sign of David, no paparazzi, and after a short downhill walk she was on the 134 bus to Camden.

Camden was heaving with tourists, and teenagers in heavy combat boots and heavy combat jackets, despite the heat. Ellie kept to the back roads, until she reached the little alley off Castlehaven Road and the rehearsal studios where whatever band Ari was currently in rehearsed at noon every Saturday, without fail.


There was no point going home before she went to Paris. She had everything she needed, including clean clothes, and though she was desperate to see Tess, it had been six days since she’d last seen Ari, and Ellie really needed to see Ari.

It wasn’t until she turned the corner that Ellie realised that she really needed to see Chester too, because there he was, sitting on the wall outside the studio, looking reassuringly Chester-like in white Fred Perry and pork pie hat as he alternated bites of a bacon butty with sips from a Styrofoam cup of tea.

He looked up at the same moment that Ellie abandoned suitcase, holdall and smaller holdall in the middle of the courtyard so she could get to him quicker.

‘Princess!’ he exclaimed, holding his arms out wide so Ellie could hurl herself into them. ‘How are you?’

‘I’ve missed you,’ Ellie told him. Then Chester was hugging her like only Chester could. He put everything into his hugs so the recipient was never in any doubt of the sincerity of the hug. ‘Did you have a nice time in Benidorm?’

He had. Ellie sat on the wall next to him as he talked about lazing on the beach by day and listening to Northern Soul by night. ‘If it had been up to me I’d have come home as soon as I read all the stuff in the papers but …’ he tailed off uncertainly.

‘I know you and Mum had a bit of an argy-bargy.’ Ellie sighed. Chester put up with quite a lot from Ari, and the Northern Soul week in Benidorm was his annual break from putting up with quite a lot from Ari. If Ari had just told Chester that, instead of making such a big deal about not needing him, there would have been no fight, but Ari never did anything easy. ‘Look, you called me every day and there was nothing much you could have done and it was fine. I’ve been fine. I’m not saying it’s been easy but Billy’s lawyer’s been very … helpful,’ she added stiffly.

‘Are you sure?’ Chester scrutinised Ellie’s face. ‘Some of that stuff in the papers was way out of line, even for them. If I ever track down that Richey, he can forget about having working kneecaps.’

‘You mustn’t!’ Ellie was genuinely horrified. ‘A week in Benidorm is one thing, but being sent down for God knows how long is something else completely. Promise me you’ll leave him alone.’

‘If that’s what you want.’ Chester gestured at her luggage. ‘You going home?’

‘No. I’m going to Paris.’

‘Really? Because I spoke to my mum and dad and they said you’re welcome to stay at theirs,’ Chester said, tugging at the collar of his shirt.

‘I’m going to Paris for work. Not because of the stuff in the papers,’ Ellie lied, because she couldn’t tell Chester about David. Besides, there was nothing to tell. It was over before it had even begun. ‘It’s really kind of Ron and Julie, but Paris does have the edge over Romford. Just a slight one.’

Chester grinned at that as Ari emerged from the studio clutching a bottle of water. Her hair was tucked up in a Rosie the Riveter-style headscarf and she was wearing a vest, cut-off jeans and a malevolent scowl, which disappeared as soon as she saw her daughter.

‘Babycakes!’ she said joyfully, hoisting herself up on the wall next to Ellie and putting an arm round her. ‘I was just wondering if you were still cloistered or if there was any chance of a sighting of my favourite daughter.’

‘I can’t. Going on a work trip to Paris. I’m staying at Esme and Sue’s,’ Ellie added, and she didn’t have to say any more because for Ari’s last two birthdays, they’d gone to Paris and stayed with Esme and Sue. Ellie was hoping it might become a birthday tradition.

‘I thought Paris was dead in August. Won’t all the shops be closed?’

Ellie hadn’t really believed that anyone with sense and money left the greater Paris area until September the first, but maybe it was true. ‘Do you think?’ She shook her head. ‘There’s an M&S on the Champs-Elysées. That won’t be closed.’

‘Of course everywhere will be open apart from a few poncey restaurants that you wouldn’t want to go to anyway,’ Chester declared stoutly.

‘Do you have to go to Paris right this very minute?’ Ari asked as if Chester hadn’t even spoken. ‘Why don’t you go on Monday and stay round mine this weekend? I swear I’m living paparazzi-free these days.’

‘I can’t. My Eurostar ticket isn’t flexible and, God, I have to get out of London,’ Ellie insisted, as if Ari was about to snatch her non-flexible Eurostar ticket from her. ‘After everything that’s happened, I need some space to get my head straight and think about what I’m going to do next.’

‘OK, honeychild, it was just an idea,’ Ari said, lifting up her shades so she could fix Ellie with a look. ‘Everything all right? Well, apart from the obvious, which really isn’t that obvious any more. I knew all the press attention would die down. And I hope that you told Georgina Pratt where she could go with her PR bullshit.’

‘Georgina Pratt?’ Chester stroked his chin. ‘Where do I know that name from?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ Ari said shortly. ‘It’s not important right now.’ She turned back to Ellie. ‘Anyways, where have you been staying for the last week?’

‘Didn’t you say something about—’

‘Not now, Chester,’ Ari snapped, cutting right through what he was about to say. She seemed ratty and rattled, which wasn’t a surprise. Like Ellie, she must have been thinking about Billy Kay a lot but, unlike Ellie, Ari must have had to confront her most gruesome demons and wonder if she could have done things differently. Ultimately, it had been Billy’s decision to stay away, not to provide any emotional or financial support, but maybe if Ari had been more … ‘I’ve hardly seen Ellie at all and now you’re gatecrashing what little time I do have with her.’

‘Mum!’ Ellie glared at Ari. ‘I’m happy to see you both. Don’t ruin it by arguing.’

Ari and Chester shared a sideways look that wasn’t the fondly exasperated sideways look of old friends that Ellie had seen countless times before. This was an entirely new look that was angry yet resigned. As if they were both fed up with the predictability of their relationship.

‘Just because Mummy and Daddy fight, princess, doesn’t mean we love you any less,’ Chester said.

‘You’re not Ellie’s father, Chester,’ Ari said so coldly that Ellie gasped. Then she reached round Ellie to remove his hand from her daughter’s grasp. ‘Never have been, never will.’

‘More’s the pity,’ Chester said and the way he sounded went beyond anger or resignation.

Ellie had heard enough. She jumped down from the wall. ‘I don’t want to hear this,’ she told them, hands on her hips. They’d sort it out, they always did, but she didn’t want to be around them until they were friends again. ‘I’m going to say goodbye now.’

‘Sweetie, don’t be like that,’ Ari pouted. ‘Being cross doesn’t suit you.’

‘That we can agree on,’ Chester conceded. ‘Turn the frown upside down.’

Chester’s eyebrows shot up and Ari stared at her curiously as Ellie tried to find the smile that always came so easily to her. It felt more like a terrifying grimace, but how was she meant to look carefree when she had the weight of many cares pressing down on her?


‘I really do have to go,’ she said heavily.

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Chester said, as he fished his van keys out of his pocket, because no matter what Ari said, Chester was the closest thing she’d ever had to a dad, and dads didn’t let their daughters get on a hot, stinky, crowded tube with the amount of luggage that Ellie had. ‘Let me take the suitcase and the holdalls.’

Ari nudged her. ‘Am I allowed a hug and kiss before you disappear?’

Ellie was hugging and kissing her before the question had even been asked. And then they were done. Or Ellie thought they were, but Ari wouldn’t disengage, which was odd because Ari was usually quite a perfunctory hugger. ‘Come on, Mum, you have to cut the cord some time. I have a train to catch.’

Ari cupped Ellie’s face in her hands and stared at her intently as if she’d expected the last week to have fundamentally changed the way her daughter looked. ‘I’ve missed you so much, kiddo. It’s been six whole days.’

‘I missed you too, Mum.’ Ellie squeezed Ari extra tight, then finally managed to free herself. ‘Are you all right? I know this must be hard for you too, but it’s not like you to be such a cling-on. You’re not about to tell me that you’re ill, are you?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Oh my God! Are you ill?’

‘No! Apart from dying of heatstroke.’ Ari put her hands on Ellie’s shoulders and gave her a little push. ‘Go on, then. Bugger off to Paris. See if I care. Just bring me back some nice biscuits in one of those cool art-deco tins. And I’m still missing a couple of Fran?oise Hardy albums. I’ll email you a list.’

Ellie clicked her heels and saluted. ‘Jawohl.’

‘Shouldn’t that be d’accord?’ Ari smiled. ‘Oh! So you never told me who was making you so unhappy or who you’ve been staying with all week. I hope they’re not one and the same because that sounds like a recipe for heartache.’ Ari had a good line in penetrating stares and it was all Ellie could do not to squirm. ‘Anything you want to tell me, darling daughter of mine?’

Ellie was saved by Chester leaning on the horn and sticking his head out of the van window to shout, ‘Get a bloody move on, Ellie! If you miss the train, I’m not driving you all the way to Paris.’

There was time only to give a disgruntled Ari one last hug, then Chester actually revved up the van as if he was planning to drive off and she had no choice but to run after him.