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"Oliver?"
Elspbeth turned, looking way from the cafe mirror where she had seen something akin to a ghost. She was older now but still as wildly beautiful as she had always been. Indeed, it's him. He is immaculate, shaved, hair tousled, cashmere jumper.
He looked up, eyes wide as he noticed who it was calling his name.
"Elspeth!" Oliver said, awe struck as he stood. "My god!"
She rushed over at that, clinging to him, half- hugging, half-drowning.
"Oh Ollie! Oh how handsome you look! I can't believe it...But you're all grown up, you're..." She rambled, eyes gleaming with the threat of tears. "Of course you're grown up. Of course, silly of me, of course you grew up. Sorry. I'm all over the place at the moment."
"I read the news about Sir James. I'm so dreadfully sorry." Oliver said gently, releasing Elspbeth as she bit her lip.
"I was surprised he waited so long, in a way, you know. Still, it was a terrible shock." She said, before brushing it off. "Probably shock after Alexandra's book just became a bestseller! Did you catch that?"
Of course he did.
Over the years since Saltburn, Alexandra had become a tycoon in the writing world. Forming a cult audience of any from the dreadfully romantic to the deliciously deranged with both her poetry and novels. He would watch her interviews on a loop at times, discovering she had graduated early from Cambridge just a year after her siblings death and had come out with a poetry collection which some likened to Sylvia Plath.
That made Oliver's heart race.
"I heard, yeah." He said, scratching the back of his head. "She was always incredible."
"Yes, yes she is." Elspbeth nodded, looking close to tears but none escaped her eyes. "It's so funny to see you! I've actually just bought a little flat nearby."
"Oh, what are the odds!"
"Saltburn suddenly seemed so big and far away..."
"How is Saltburn?" Oliver asked fondly. "Is Duncan still there?"
"Oh God, he's still there. Oh, everything's the same. Exactly. Exactly the same as when you left it." Elspbeth nodded. "Alexandra still lives there, more than I do at least. All her best writing was written there. Sometimes it feels like she never left that summer."
It was quit for a moment, the past passing between them like a foul stench.
"Ollie, I didn't like it, the way James treated you." Elspbeth confessed, breaking the silence. "And I wanted to say something."
"Oh, it was a long time ago."
"No, but it's not to me. You see, I've thought about it a lot. And... You have to remember that he wasn't in his right mind then. After everything that happened. And he... You do forgive him?" Elspbeth practically begged. "You do understand?"
No.
"Of course." He said with a small smile, knowing full well that Elspbeth did not believe him.
"Have you been happy?" She asked instead, a painful smile breaching her features.
Oliver hesitates a little. This is a question he genuinely doesn't know how to answer. So he answers honestly.
"Not really. You?"
"Not really." Elspbeth said with a brave little smile but their moment was broken as the barista called out her coffee order. She doubles back for the counter, and grabs it but returns to Oliver on her way out. "Come up and stay. At Saltburn. The coast is clear now, isn't it? Lexi's missed you, more than you'd believe."
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"I can honestly say that these last few months have been the happiest of my life. It's just such a shame you got so ill." Oliver said, glancing at Elspeth, hooked up to a ventilator. Unconscious. He stands over her bed and blows a stream of cigarette smoke into Elspeth's ventilated, unconscious face. "But it's been a privilege to look after you. And reunite with Lexi."
He reminisces on the months spent caring for Elspbeth beside Lexi as it always should have been. Her long blonde hair beside him in bed as it tickled his bare skin in the morning light. The months spent reminding her why it was always just going to be him. Forever.
"Just as it will be a privilege to look after Saltburn. So thank you, for trusting me." He said, hands in his pockets. "Well myself and my wife."
He glances at the picture at her bedside of his and Lexi's wedding just half a year after returning to Saltburn. Elspbeth was already in her wheelchair at this point, the future looking bleak for her. That was her last wish.
"She was so beautiful, she's always so beautiful." He murmured, remembering the news his wife had told him but days earlier. "Especially now that we're going to have a little girl just like her, don't tell her I think it's a girl. She's praying it's a boy. I think she wants to name it Felix."
He walked to the edge of the bed, hovering above Elspbeth's face. Alexandra was preparing the grounds for a party that evening the way her mother had done a thousand times. She would be busy for a while until he would inevitably set her down in bed. She was carrying his child now. Orders would need to be obeyed.
"We got there in the end, didn't we? Somehow. Thank God." He said, clicking a button that lowered her mechanized homecare bed. "After all those terrible, terrible accidents... But... is there really ever such a thing as an accident, Elspeth?"
He begins to slip off his jacket at the end of the bed, smiling softly at his wedding band which had a beautiful 'A' carved in the middle as he did so.
"I don't know... Accidents are for people like you. For the rest of us, there's work." He said. "And unlike you, I actually know how to work."
Oliver hangs up his jacket, beginning to roll up his sleeves.
"I wasn't in love with him. I know everyone thought I was. But I wasn't." He confessed, finishing rolling up his sleeves. "I loved him as much as I hated him."
He crouches down at the end of her bed, putting his face at the base of the blanket covering her.
"I hated all of you."
He pulls the blanket and exposes her body.
"And you made it so easy. Spoiled dogs sleeping belly-up."
He climbs on top of her.
"No natural predators."
Oliver hovering over an unconscious Elspeth. He smiled.
"Well... Almost none."
His hand inches towards her face. But stops.
"I take that back." He said, his face softening. "I never hated Lexi. I adored her from the moment I set eyes on her. How diabolically angelic looking she was, perched on my desk. Just ripe for the taking. And I did. I took her. Worry not, Elspbeth. She's in good hands."
Oliver disconnects Elspeth's breathing apparatus. Air hisses out. Then, in one violent jerk of his arm, he yanks the breathing tube all the way out of her esophagus and tosses it onto the floor.
Elspeth's eyes snap open, her body starting to shake.
Oliver climbs on top of her, watching as she writhes on the bed. Eventually, she takes her final breath. Oliver leans down, rests his head on her chest. He reaches for her hand and drapes her lifeless arm around his back as if she's giving him a hug.
"God." He hummed. "Poor Lexi. Now all she has, is me."
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