Happily Ever After

Rory closed his eyes and smiled. ‘What will you think after that?’

‘How lovely it was.’

He kissed her again. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ Elle said. ‘This is weird,’ she added.

‘I don’t think so,’ Rory said, smiling, and she looked at him and knew he was much drunker than she’d realised, but it was Rory, it’d be OK, wouldn’t it?

Vaguely Elle wondered if she’d wake up in a minute, or what would happen tomorrow, at work: would she lose her job, would people find out, was this the right thing to do? But as she looked down at his hand, moving up her leg, she knew that at this exact moment, she didn’t care. He was a man, she was a woman. Worry about it tomorrow, Elle, she told herself. Just for once, worry about it tomorrow.

‘I thought you liked Jeremy,’ Rory whispered in her ear. She could feel his warm breath against her skin, her neck.

‘I like you more,’ said Elle simply, without time to think this through, and she realised it was true as she said it. She kissed him again.

‘Oh, really,’ Rory said. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. Very glad.’

He pulled her towards him, as the cab rolled west through the rainy, deserted streets.

I have noticed that when things happen in one’s imaginings, they never happen in one’s life, so I am curbing myself.

Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

November 2000

IT HAD RAINED for almost two weeks now, non-stop. Huge swathes of the countryside lay under water, and Elle was becoming used to opening her curtains every morning to grey skies, slicing rain on metallic streets. Her umbrella was never dry; it sat, soggy, in the bottom of her damp handbag.

Elle hurried up the stairs of the Savoy and paused at the entrance to the American Bar, gathering herself. She ran her hands through her hair, then rummaged for some lip gloss. She had dressed with care this morning; but she wished she wasn’t so nervous. Coming somewhere like here didn’t bother her these days. Agents didn’t bother her, authors, bosses – she wasn’t a little girl any more, she was twenty-six now. No, it was the meeting itself she was dreading, and why? It was only them, after all. She smiled at the urbane waiter at the door and scanned the room, trying to look calm, confident.

‘Elle, love? Over here!’ someone called from the furthest corner of the bar. ‘We’re here!’

Her mother was standing up, waving enthusiastically. Her voice was too loud; Elle walked over, feeling herself flushing with embarrassment. Mandana was smiling, her face red with pleasure. Elle returned her tight hug, thinking how thin she was, birdlike in fact.

‘Hi, Dad,’ she said, kissing her father on the cheek.

Her father and brother had stood up, identical in shape, both twice the size of her mother. ‘Hi, Elle, love,’ John said. He gave her a strong hug. ‘Lovely to see you.’

‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ She hugged him back. ‘I got caught up at work, I was editing—’

‘It’s fine.’ Rhodes gestured for her to sit down. ‘You’re here now. We’ll get you a drink. So this –’ he stepped aside, as if he were making a big reveal with a cloak, ‘is Melissa.’

Elle leaned forward and shook hands with Melissa, who stayed seated. ‘Hi!’ she said, smiling to reveal perfect white teeth. ‘It’s such a pleasure finally to meet Rhodes’s sister. He’s told me so much about you!’ Her grey cashmere cardigan slid off one slim shoulder. Melissa gracefully slipped it back into place, and put her hands back in her lap.

‘Waiter?’ Rhodes called. ‘Elle, what do you want?’

As Elle looked for a seat, her parents moved so far apart that she had no choice but to sit between them. She put her bag on the floor, and glanced blankly at the menu. ‘Oh – er –’ she said.

‘Elle?’ Rhodes said again.

‘Oh – I’ll have a vodka Martini please, with a twist,’ said Elle, and then instantly wished she hadn’t. She had wanted to seem sophisticated, and it looked quite the opposite, ostentatious and stupid, and besides, lately, she had stopped drinking when Mum was around.

‘Mum?’ Rhodes said. ‘Another drink?’

There was a pause. ‘Oh, I’ll stick to the orange juice, thanks!’ Mandana said. She raised her glass. The hand that clutched the tumbler shook slightly.

Having taken the rest of the order, the waiter moved off and there was a silence.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ Elle apologised again. ‘I have to go on somewhere afterwards, and I was in meetings all day.’

It was the wrong thing to say. Rhodes’s nostrils flared. ‘Melissa, you should know we’re lucky Elle’s been able to drop by, even for a few minutes—’

Melissa cut in, smiling again. ‘Wonderful that you’re here, anyway!’ she said. ‘And wonderful to meet you all.’

There was another silence. The last time her family had been together was when Elle had graduated from Edinburgh, over four years ago. Before that, God only knew. She stole a glance at her father, immaculate in his dark blue wool suit. He looked older than Elle remembered, but he always did. In her mind, he was ten years younger, around the time he’d left. It was strange, how ageing affected people. It was in his eyes, around his mouth. An expression; she couldn’t explain it. Elle smiled at Melissa.

‘So, welcome to the UK!’ she said brightly. ‘What have you been doing since you arrived? Have you been on the London Eye?’

‘Actually, I did a Masters at LSE so I’ve spent a lot of time in London’, Melissa said, one slim, perfectly manicured finger fiddling with the pearl earring in her finely scrolled ear. ‘And I just love it. It’s my favourite city, you know? So I’ve been catching up with some old friends, and we saw the Tate Modern, and Rhodes took me to Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant on Sloane Street, which is truly amazing.’

Next to Elle, Mandana nodded politely, the tiny circular mirrors on her fabric waistcoat flashing as they caught the light. Elle could tell she wasn’t really listening though; neither was her father, nor, in fact, was Rhodes.

‘So you’re missing the US election!’ Elle said, aware that, like her mother, her voice was slightly too loud. ‘That must be weird.’

Melissa gave a tinkling laugh. ‘You know what? It’s crazy, my girlfriends all think I’m insane for being here instead of there, but I told them, you know what? I have to meet Rhodes’s family, I just have to, and there were reasons – well!’ She smiled, and leaned forward to finish her drink.

‘How wonderful,’ Mandana said automatically.

‘So Elle, Rhodes tells me you work at a publishing house,’ Melissa said, smiling in a friendly way. ‘That’s so fascinating! What do you do there?’

Elle thought back to the book she’d been editing that evening, Romance with a Soldier of Rome, a time-slip erotica novel. Time-slip erotica novels were all the rage at the moment. ‘Well, I started there as a secretary, and I’m now an editor,’ she said.

‘Wow,’ Melissa said. ‘That is amazing. So, you edit the books? What does that mean?’

Elle said, ‘Oh, I’m just a junior, it doesn’t mean very much. It’s our romance list. Doctors and nurses, sheikhs and girls lost abroad, Regency heroines and dashing dukes. All that. A couple of werewolves, sometimes.’

‘Romance!’ Melissa laughed. ‘Oh, wow.’ Then she realised Elle was serious, and her expression changed. ‘That must be fascinating.’

Yes, fascinating, Elle wanted to say. I spent two hours on the phone to Regina Jordan listening to him whinge about sales and how he wasn’t going to change a scene in which a girl is chained up in a Gothic dungeon for two weeks and repeatedly has sex with the sinister Duke yet orgasms every time.

‘What do you read in your spare time, then?’ Melissa asked.

Elle didn’t want to say that she was currently rereading I Capture the Castle for the seventh time. ‘Oh, manuscripts,’ she said.

‘Elle’s done very well,’ her father said, as the drinks arrived. ‘I’m very proud of her.’

‘So am I,’ said her mother softly, beside her, and Elle felt a pain in her chest. ‘They’ve promoted her, she’s obviously very good.’

Elle picked up her drink. ‘Not really,’ she said, not wanting to sound rude but also not wanting to look like a vain bitch. ‘They made me junior editor last year, just so they could offload some work. My friend Libby was offered it but she left, so they gave it to me. I’ve been there over three years, they sort of had to.’

‘Libby?’ Rhodes, who had been looking bored throughout this exchange, sat up. ‘What, that girl I met? You … lived with her, something like that?’

‘I didn’t live with her, but yes, the one you met.’

‘Where’d she go?’

‘She’s gone to work for Eyre and Alcock, it’s a literary imprint at a massive publisher’s. Part of Bookprint.’

‘I’ve heard of them,’ Mandana said. ‘Well, Libby, I only met her once or twice, but you could tell she was a very ambitious girl.’ She said this as if it weren’t a good thing. Elle wondered again why you never heard men described as being ‘very ambitious’ in a pejorative way. ‘Well, it’s great, love. How’s Karen?’

Rhodes clinked his glass. ‘Actually – hurr.’ He coughed. ‘We’ve got an announcement.’

John and Mandana looked up, as Melissa raised the left hand she’d been hiding in her lap.

‘We’re engaged!’ she said. ‘Look!’ She flashed a diamond at them. It sparkled in the dark bar, along with her teeth.

‘Oh!’ Mandana said, leaping up. ‘That’s – well, that’s wonderful!’ She gave her son a clumsy hug. ‘And Melissa, welcome! Oh, welcome to the family.’

As she was hugging Melissa, who was holding her as much at arm’s length as she could, Elle caught her father looking at Mandana, and almost blanched.

My God. He really loathes her, she thought. Elle bit her lip, then stood up.

‘Congratulations,’ she said, hugging Melissa. ‘That’s such great news. I’m – so happy for you.’ She patted Rhodes’s shoulder. ‘Your diamond is so beautiful. And I love silver.’

There was a shocked pause. ‘It’s platinum,’ Melissa said. ‘From Tiffany. Rhodes chose it all by himself!’

Rhodes shrugged, his eyes half closed, and then he turned to Melissa, and kissed her briefly on the cheek.

‘Well,’ John said, as they all sat down. ‘This is great news. Have you set a date?’

Melissa and Rhodes looked at each other and laughed, in that infuriating way couples have when they want to impart what they think is fascinating news. ‘Well, yes, we have!’ Melissa said. ‘Next autumn! Maybe in September, my birthday’s in October and I definitely want to get married before I’m thirty!’ She stopped, and looked at Rhodes. ‘Shall I ask her?’

‘Go on.’ Rhodes smiled at her, and Elle nearly reared back in shock, she hadn’t seen her brother smile since the mid-eighties.

Melissa said breathlessly, ‘Elle, I would love it if you’d be my … bridesmaid?’

‘Me?’ Elle said, trying to sound delighted. ‘I’d – wow, I’d love to!’

Melissa clapped her hands. ‘Really? Oh, gosh, that’s so great. I really felt it was important to have Rhodes’s family involved too, and I want to get to know you better, you’re Rhodes’s sister!’ Elle opened her mouth, but Melissa went on, ‘My best girlfriends are Hayley and Darcy and they’re going to be my other bridesmaids along with my sister Francie, which is four, I know it’s not that many for a bridal party, but I just really don’t want it to be too confusing for the guests, and I can’t wait for you all to meet!’

Elle was touched. ‘That’s so sweet, Melissa,’ she said. ‘How exciting!’

‘Yes!’ Melissa said. ‘And I hope you’ll come over for the bachelorette party, it’s going to be so much fun! Do you have a boyfriend?’

‘Um –’ Elle was blindsided. ‘I – no, I don’t.’

‘Elle doesn’t have time for a boyfriend, do you, Elle?’ John said, and Elle realised there was pride in his voice. ‘She’s a Career Woman.’

‘The two aren’t mutually exclusive, Dad,’ Elle said. ‘They don’t make you sign an agreement at the Career Women’s Coven, you know.’

‘OK. That’s OK,’ said Melissa, ignoring this exchange. ‘But hey, maybe you’ll meet someone before the wedding!’

‘Hey!’ Elle said, holding up crossed fingers. ‘Maybe I will!’ She stared into her Martini glass. ‘Um … I might get another one of these, actually.’

A waiter shimmered into place beside her and took their order again. Mandana said suddenly, ‘Rhodes, love – where’s the wedding going to be?’

Melissa and Rhodes looked at each other and clasped hands again.

‘Well, we’re moving back to the UK after Christmas,’ Rhodes said. ‘I’m being relocated, I don’t know how long for.’

‘Which means it’s going to be so great you’re here to help me!’ Melissa turned to Elle.

‘Oh,’ said Elle. ‘Yes!’

‘Anyway, we want to get married in the States, so we get the chance to go back and see our friends and family,’ said Melissa. ‘My father has a place in upstate New York. It’s near Woodstock, it’s got beautiful gardens, right next to an old coaching inn. We’ll put a rose bower up at the bottom of the lawn, by the stream, and we’ll have the ceremony there. It’s very romantic.’

Elle’s mother sat back against the seat. ‘Oh.’

‘“Oh”?’ said Rhodes, turning to her aggressively. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘Don’t be rude to her,’ Elle was quick to defend. She hated the way Rhodes would side with Dad, act like that to Mum. They were so similar, they looked the same; so unapproachable, convinced of their own rightness, with a definite place in the world, never wrong.

Mandana was twisting her small, shiny paper napkin into a spiral between her fingers. Her big brown eyes were sunken smudges in her pale face.

Elle’s father crossed his arms and turned to Mandana. ‘Go on. Tell them.’ It was the first time he’d directly addressed his ex-wife since Elle had arrived.

‘Tell us what?’ Melissa smiled.

Elle felt an oiling trickle of discomfort, like sweat rolling down the back of her neck. Something was wrong. She didn’t know what. The alcohol rippled on her empty stomach. This was so unnatural, all of it, the four of them were never together as adults, and these words like family, engagement, bridesmaid, romantic – the Bee family didn’t use them. They didn’t do this kind of stuff.

Mandana swallowed. ‘I – oh, God. Love – Rhodes – look. I – can’t come.’

‘What?’ Rhodes said sharply. ‘What do you mean, you can’t come?’ John sat back against the banquette. ‘Go on. Tell them, then,’ he said, with something like satisfaction in his voice.

‘I can’t come … if the wedding’s … in …’ Mandana looked up, her eyes flicking from her ex-husband to her son, her thin fingers wrestling in her lap. She cleared her throat. ‘I can’t come if the wedding’s in the States. I’m not allowed back there.’

Melissa’s eyes grew huge and tendons appeared on the sides of her neck. She made a sound in her throat. ‘Mmm?’

Mandana glanced imploringly at her ex-husband. ‘Ah – well, when I was – when I was twenty-five, I was in California. In Haight-Ashbury. I got – ah.’ Her voice was so soft Elle could hardly hear her. ‘I was arrested. For dealing … for dealing pot. Just pot, a tiny bit, nothing else,’ she said, pleading. ‘I was convicted. Given a fine. I got a record. But my visa had expired too, and both those things together mean – well, I’m not allowed back in the country.’

There was a long silence.

‘I’m sorry – what?’ Rhodes said. His voice was light. ‘You what?’

Mandana didn’t say anything.

‘Mum, is that true?’ Elle asked, disbelieving. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘She didn’t ever bother to tell me,’ John said.

‘John, don’t,’ Mandana said, a flicker of impatience in her voice, like the furious, rollicking Mandana of old, not this timid woman terrified of making a mistake. ‘Just don’t.’

‘What, I’m the one who shouldn’t say anything?’ Elle’s father didn’t even look at her mother. ‘I always wanted you to know this, you two,’ he said, looking from Elle to Rhodes. ‘Now you understand why she didn’t come to Disney World. I didn’t find out until we actually arrived at the airport.’

The Disney World holiday. Instantly, Elle’s palms started sweating at the memory. The journey to the airport, both parents in a terrible mood, but Mandana worse than usual. She’d be fine for months, then suddenly she’d go mad, and this was one of those days. Queuing up to go through, Elle holding her Dumbo toy, making him fly along the fabric tape separating the queues. Then something happening, and Mandana screaming at John, him shouting back, in front of everyone, but they didn’t care: that was how it was with them. Rhodes and Elle, eleven and eight respectively, had stood to one side, silently watching and holding each other’s hand, not understanding how this holiday – which was basically the best thing that had ever happened to them, which their dad had booked as a surprise and only told them about a week ago – was now, suddenly, going so horribly wrong.

Their mum had left, not even said bye to them. John fussed with passports and pieces of paper, as if nothing had happened. Elle had watched her mother walk away, her shoulders hunched, head bowed, and the further away she’d got the faster she’d walked, as if she was glad to be free, till she was almost running down the long grey terminal building, no one else paying any attention. Elle gazed at her till suddenly she turned a corner and was gone.

‘Where’s Mummy?’ Elle had asked, as they were sitting in Wimpy a little later, eating burgers and chips, trying to recapture the excitement they’d had earlier.

‘She’s not coming. There was something wrong with her passport,’ John had said, and they’d left it at that, and the holiday had been great – children are selfish, it was Disney World, after all – but when they’d got back home a week later, it had been bad. Very bad, because Mum wasn’t good on her own. Curtains closed, a meaty, musty smell through the cottage, everything in a mess, Mum most of all, till she saw them and burst into tears. That was the first time Elle realised she drank too much. Not like Emily from Brownies’ mum who had three sherries and then started singing music hall songs. That was sort of funny. Different from that. This wasn’t funny. But she and Rhodes could boast about their Disney World holiday at school and things went back to normal, sort of, until the next time, and the time after that for a few years more, and then the holiday in Skye, which somehow was the final tipping point.

Elle glanced at Rhodes, wondering if he was thinking the same as she was. But he was watching their mother, and the look on his face was enough.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mandana said eventually. She looked up, her eyes full of tears, her cheeks hollow. ‘I am so awfully sorry. It was a stupid mistake when I was young. I’ve paid for it, but it’s – it’s so awful that you’re suffering too. Of course, you must have the wedding where you want. I’ll be so happy for you, wherever you do it.’

Rhodes spread his fingers out on his knees. ‘That’s not the point, is it?’ He looked at his mother. ‘How will it look, Mum? You’re always going on about that bloody San Francisco trip like it was so pure and free and everything else is crap by comparison and it’s bollocks. You’re full of shit.’

‘Rhodes,’ their dad said sharply. ‘That’s enough.’

‘Rhodes, no,’ Melissa said. She gave a fixed smile, her bottom lip pushing her top lip up, her cheeks puffed out. ‘We may well relocate to London in any case. Perhaps we should think about having the wedding here.’

‘Or in a castle in Ireland like Posh and Becks,’ Elle said, in a misplaced attempt to lighten the mood. The four of them looked at her oddly. The drinks arrived, the waiter putting them gingerly down one by one, and there was complete silence at the table.

‘Well, it would be wonderful if it was, if it was, if it was here.’ Mandana’s stuttering voice was still barely audible. ‘I am so sorry. For everything.’ She stared at her orange juice.

‘No,’ Melissa said suddenly, putting her hand on Mandana’s knee. She swallowed. ‘Um – it’s no problem. It’s good we found out now, so we can do something about it. It’s going to be great. If it’s in the UK, I’ll need Elle’s help even more. Thank goodness!’

Mandana nodded gratefully and Melissa smiled at her, and Elle found herself warming to her, though she didn’t think this was at all how Melissa had expected the announcement to turn out. She picked up her Martini, and drank half of it in a swift gulp. She’d known it was going to be a long night, but it already was.

JUST BEFORE NINE Elle left the Savoy and, dodging the rain and the churning buses, crossed the Strand. She passed the entrance to Lion Books and remembered, as she always did here, that terrible interview with Jenna Taylor where all she’d been able to say was, ‘I’m passionate about reading … I love books, I love them.’ She’d seen Jenna at a party about a year after she’d started at Bluebird and, gauchely, bounced up to her and said hello, but Jenna hadn’t recognised her. At least, she’d pretended not to. Elle had been in publishing for over three years now, and she knew enough to know that bouncing up to people and saying hello was not what you did. Sometimes she missed being gauche, though. She felt as if she’d grown up, but not necessarily learned anything.

Elle hurried up Bedford Street, past the big windows of the Garrick where you could see the walls lined with identical paintings of old white men, then past the diamond-leaded, brightly coloured panes of the Ivy. In the American diner on the corner of Cambridge Circus they were celebrating the US election with a special red, white and blue menu, and different seating areas saying ‘Gore’ or ‘Bush’. When she got to Dean Street, she pushed open a nondescript black door and went inside.

‘Hi,’ she said uncertainly to the man behind the black reception desk. ‘I’m here for the Eyre and Alcock party?’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Sign here. It’s upstairs, to the back. The TV’s on but the announcement hasn’t been made yet.’

‘Thanks,’ Elle said. She gave him her coat and glanced in the mirror. Her hair wasn’t too wet, her black lace choker was still in place, her mascara hadn’t run. She cleared her throat. For the second time that night, she wished she wasn’t nervous, and again, she didn’t know why, she should be used to it all by now.

This was what you were supposed to do if you were in publishing, wasn’t it? Go to cool Booker Prize parties at media hotspots, hang out at Babington House, get a table at Nobu? As she climbed the narrow stairs, from the main room below she could hear guffaws of laughter, a piano playing. Who was in there? Keith Allen and Meg Mathews? Chris Evans and Blur? On the first floor there were two doors. Both had signs, printed on A4 paper and stuck to the door with sellotape. The first said:

BOOKER PRIZE PARTY: PRIVATE

The second:

Publishing Party: Private

Feeling a bit like Alice in Wonderland, Elle pushed the first door open, and went in.

The room was full of people, and everyone seemed to have their backs to her. They were all talking intently, and in the corner was a smallish TV with the Booker Prize ceremony transmitted live from the Guildhall. Elle helped herself to a glass of wine, looking around for someone she knew and trying not to feel like a spare part. She caught sight of a flash of dark blonde hair, disappearing between two suits. ‘Libby!’ she cried, and the hair turned around.

‘Oh, Elle. There you are!’ Libby embraced her enthusiastically, her face breaking into a big smile. ‘I thought you might not come.’

Elle smelt Anaïs Anaïs and cigarettes, that familiar Libby smell, and closed her eyes briefly, it was so powerful. ‘I had a shocker—’

‘Hold on,’ said Libby immediately. ‘I’m just getting a drink for Jamie. I won’t be a sec.’

She disappeared into the throng. Elle took another large sip of her wine, and remembered she was two Martinis down already. But she didn’t care, to be honest. She was happy just to be out of the Savoy. She couldn’t even begin to process how strange the earlier part of the evening had been. The incongruous memory of the four of them around the table – five, now, of course five. Melissa was going to be part of her family. Elle smiled to herself: how could you join something that didn’t exist? She knew that at some point she had to talk to her mother. Go and see her, maybe this weekend? She knew she was free. These days, Elle was always free on the weekends, just in case.