Starting Over

Chapter 10

They’d arranged a late night soiree on the beach that night, Ellen found she was desperate for Jan, the impending separation looming like a dark cloud over her head. This weather was ironic; her mood matched by the heavy air. She made for the smaller hotel bar in the early evening, taking a table by the window, the sunset had been obscured by the blackest rolling cloud on the horizon, the air hung with the tension of the impending storm, Ellen was hot, sticky and nervous.

Her phone rang as she waited. Looking at the screen she was surprised to see her parents’ number flash on the screen.

“Hello?” her voice was tentative; she wasn’t exactly looking forward to speaking to anyone from home, not yet. She was in a bubble; a lovely, unrealistic happy bubble and they were likely to burst that.

“Ellen...It’s your mother.”

Ellen gulped at the deceptive voice, it sounded all delicate and sweet, but her mother was very strong, ruthless and determined when she wanted to be.

“Hi Mum.” She honestly didn’t know what to say to her mother, for the first time in her life she was thinking of herself, wasn’t conforming, doing what was expected. And she didn’t want that feeling to end.

“Ellen, I realise things have been difficult for you...we need to talk to you though, Richard was here yesterday.”

“He was?” The most selfish bastard in the world was at her house, that meant something. Suddenly she felt anxious.

“Ellen, why didn’t you tell us? We never realised it got to that stage...We would’ve helped you sort it without the aid of a lawyer!” Her mother genuinely sounded devastated.

Ellen was confused, she had no idea what her mother was talking about, “tell you what Mum?”

She could hear her mother inhale deeply, composing herself, “Richard came here, he was pale, worried, I’ve never seen him like that. He gave your father a cheque for twenty thousand pounds. Money he owes you for the wedding. He’ll apparently pay you redundancy next month. Then he told me to ask you to ‘pull the French lawyer off', he’s done all he asked!” Her mother muffled a little sob, “why didn’t you tell us he owed you so much? That he’d sacked you?”

Ellen groaned, “Mum, I paid for all the wedding, that was never a secret, and I got called by my replacement when I was in the airport flying here. I don’t know anything about a lawyer...” A French one? Oh Jan, I hope this wasn’t you...

She ended the call pretty rapidly, promising to call soon. Ellen needed to think. Her parents had deposited the money in her bank, at least her financial disaster was being averted...for a while. But why else would a French lawyer have pressured Richard? 

She was still deliberating as she left the bar. There was entertainment planned for downstairs, in the large function hall. She needed to know if this lawyer was his doing, so she had to find him, talk to him. It was a man interfering again. Controlling, demanding...hadn’t she just got free of that?

There was a game of Bingo in full swing as she arrived, and typically Jan was the caller, each number announced in five languages at least.... 

So she sat and ordered a glass of wine, and drank it slowly not really containing her anger as the drink disappeared.  She was stood at the back of the bar looking out over the dark storm that was any minute going to break over them when she felt rather than heard him walk towards him.

“Hey,” he offered in a gentle inconspicuous voice, “It’s not like you to wander into the entertainment. You ok?”

She turned to stare at him, taking in the dark beady eyes, the angular features, the things that she’d come to find SO attractive, “answer me honestly? Tell me the truth...did you organise a lawyer? To talk to Richard?”