Rob fetched three long envelopes out of her shoulderbag.
‘Mail for William. I suppose he’s in his room.’
‘Yes.’
Rob thumped on his door, calling out, ‘Hoy! William!’ with little respect for the mental processes of genius.
William emerged.
‘Mail for you. Nigel dropped it into the office.’
They reached the kitchen as she was saying, ‘Looks as if the drought’s broken.’
‘If I’m lucky.’
William opened envelopes with more obvious emotion than Ella had yet seen in him.
He frowned over the contents of one and put it away in his pocket, detached a cheque from another with a look of satisfaction and looked at the next cheque with delight and astonishment.
‘Mirror has taken off in the States.’
‘Oh, great.’
He handed her the cheque. She read the amount with raised eyebrows and real pleasure.
Money was indeed the topic which brought them close.
‘I can leave now,’ he said with awful simplicity, then recollected himself and said formally to Ella, ‘I need not trespass any longer on your kindness.’
Ella found herself smiling over this but Sophie, she saw, was wounded.
‘There’s no hurry, William.’
Rob, who, like Ella, had been smiling over William’s gaucherie, asked, ‘Are you going back to that fleahouse? I think it’s getting too much even for Nigel. He says nobody’s touched a broom since you left. Doesn’t occur to him of course that he might pick up a broom himself.’
‘Until I find something else. I can’t be bothered about it just now.’
‘Why can’t you stay till the book’s finished?’ asked Sophie. ‘Who’s going to do your typing?’
William’s gaze for Sophie was unreadable. Kind, certainly, but what else did it convey?
‘You have better things to do with your young life than type manuscripts for me.’
Sadness. William knew the distance that stretched between him and any such representative of the joys of life. Ella was conscious of a dignity which checked her smiling.
‘I’ll certainly miss it. You’ve been doing an expert job.’
Sophie was mollified.
‘When are you leaving?’ asked Ella. ‘You aren’t going off into the night, are you?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Come and have dinner with us tonight then.’ And try to show a bit of social nous.
‘I need to finish what I’m doing, get it in order before I go.’
He nodded and escaped with the liberating mail.
‘Not one for pretty speeches,’ said Rob as she heard his door close.
For Ella he had made one very pretty speech. She hoped it had reached Sophie.
‘He hasn’t left yet.’
‘Oh, hell. I detect reproach. Deserved. I don’t mean that he isn’t grateful, I’m sure he is. Only that he isn’t articulate, doesn’t unpack the heart. Why do I bitch at William? Why do I seem to be bitching at William even when I’m not? Envy. The protean passion.’
Ella had no idea what a protean passion was. She was relieved that Rob had identified it.
‘You don’t have to be envious. You have your film.’
‘I envy him his singlemindedness.’
Sophie nodded agreement.
‘He certainly is singleminded,’ said Ella. ‘I think it could be quite difficult to live with in the long run.’
She remembered with a start that William was still in the house, with guest status, not a subject for discussion. No human being should be so unobtrusive. It was like living with a ghost.
However, she admitted to herself that she might miss the familiar haunting.
On Saturday morning Sophie slept late and came down to the kitchen flushed and yawning, wearing the customary teeshirt and jeans, and barefoot. Ella, allowing herself only the briefest of glances at Sophie’s feet, reminded herself that she was seeing some return for a lifetime of expensive, expertly fitted shoes. The high-arched feet were at least without blemish.
‘Do you want a cup of coffee, Mum? I think I’ll just have toast.’
Ella accepted the offer and was drinking the coffee when William came in and stood, awkward and silent, but prepared to be sociable.
He had got up early, had stripped his bed and taken the linen to the laundry, had cleaned the downstairs bathroom (every inch of the downstairs bathroom, thought Ella, who had from the kitchen been following his movements with some irritation), and had packed his belongings and set them outside the back door. Now it was time to tackle the pretty speech.
‘Hi,’ said Sophie. ‘Sit down and have a cup of coffee. Accept a small slice of toast. Just to show there’s no ill feeling.’
‘Why should there be ill feeling? You have been very kind. I’m grateful to you both.’
Well, there was a pretty speech. Ella regretted her irritation over the remorseless cleaning and scrubbing in the downstairs bathroom. It had been well meant.
‘Just a turn of phrase,’ said Sophie. ‘Do sit down and have some breakfast.’
William sat and said unexpectedly to Ella, ‘Do you live in this room? I always see you here.’
‘It’s the sunniest room.’
‘This is how I’ll see you in my mind. The woman in the kitchen.’
Sophie was amused.
‘Not very flattering.’
Ella, however, was flattered to appear in any guise in William’s mind.
‘And that door. I was thinking when I put my stuff out there, this is where they all come in, expecting to find you.’ He smiled and she experienced a moment of real affection for him.
‘Thanks for the cooking lessons and the meals. That was great.’
‘There are some packs left, you know. Can’t you take them with you? They’d last a few days in a fridge.’
She had been discreetly replenishing the stock for some time – in every casserole an extra helping for William. He had not appeared to notice and that suited her.
‘I don’t think I can carry them.’
‘Oh, the pair of you,’ said Sophie. ‘Food. Serious subject. Deadly earnest.’
‘Why shouldn’t food be a serious subject?’ William asked with interest.
Ella said sharply, ‘It’s serious enough when it’s hard to come by. And what is your first question when you come in the door?’
Sophie grinned.
‘Sorry. Sorry. You’ll never carry your stuff by yourself anyhow, William. You’d need three arms. Wait till I get my boots on and I’ll come with you.’
At Sophie’s age Ella would never have offered her company to a man in any circumstances. That would have been thought forward. Was Sophie being unwise?
If it had been anyone but William …
He said, ‘That would be a help,’ showing no emotion but slight relief, and Sophie went to survey the stack at the back door.
Coming back, she said, ‘I’ll borrow the airline bag, Mum. That should take the manuscript and some of the books – under the manuscript,’ she added hastily to William. ‘If you can get the rest of them into the dufflebag, we can take the food. I’ll just go get my boots on.’
Ella went to fetch the airline bag from the laundry cupboard, feeling depression settle its cloak on her.
She didn’t want Sophie to go. She didn’t want to be alone.
Clinging to Sophie, becoming possessive and demanding, was the danger to be avoided, with resolution.
If only Caroline would come back.
She will come back when she can do it without losing face. Now, of course, it would mean giving in to Max. Ella felt some sympathy for her situation. It didn’t do to give in to one’s husband, particularly when he was in the right.
This was the day to lace the hessian onto the frame, she thought, as she saw off the pair with an appearance of cheerfulness.
She had begun the cutting for Becky’s rug but she had left the tedious job of lacing the hessian to the frame for a rainy day. Mum had always said, When you feel life isn’t worth living, that’s the day to clean the stove. You’re going to feel bad anyhow, you might as well make use of it.
Ella hadn’t thought before to question her mother’s happiness – but how many of her mottoes and devices had been antidotes to despair.
Dad had been happy all right, a real party man, everybody’s friend. Perhaps his happiness hadn’t spilled over onto Mum.
Well, she had done right to teach us antidotes, thought Ella, as she fetched frame, hessian and twine into the kitchen and set to work.