‘Ellie was kind to me. She tried to comfort me, and to look out for me at school. But I withdrew into myself and shut her out most of the time. She tried to please our father and he enjoyed the attention, but as far as I could see she got little reward for her effort.’
Tom shook his head slowly, and reached over to squeeze her hand. Leo fought the urge to whip her hand away quickly. She gave it a moment, and then pulled back to grip the stem of her wine glass.
‘The worst of it was the names. Ellie was christened Eleanor, and when I came along my dad gave Mum some cock and bull story about why I should be christened Leonora, but it was entirely for his convenience. If he called us both Elle he could never get confused. He wouldn’t make a mistake. Anyway, once Ellie and I had realised why we were both called Elle, we told everybody to call us Ellie and Leo. But my dad continued to call us both Elle - out of indifference I think, although Ellie insists it was out of affection - and my stepmother didn’t call me anything at all. Having said that, in seven years under her roof, I never called her anything either. She wasn’t getting it all her own way. My final memories of my father are of a selfish, uninterested man. God knows where he was and what he was up to when he was away, but he provided plenty of money and all my stepmother cared about by then was vengeance.’
Leo looked at Tom’s horrified expression. He didn’t need to feel bad. She had told him the bald truth, without overdoing the emotion. They were both silent for a moment, but Tom’s eyes never left her face. Leo knew that she had rendered him speechless, and wondered if it wasn’t all too much, too soon.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I do appreciate you sharing all that with me. It must have been very difficult. But now at least I understand why you had some demons to lay to rest. Shall we order some food, and talk about something else?’
He summoned the waitress for the menus, while Leo debated whether to tell him the rest, the undercurrents he’d missed at Saturday’s party, and her fears about everything that was not being said. Particularly by Ellie.
23
For the first time that she could ever remember, Ellie hadn’t wanted to come to work today, even though it was only to do half a shift. She’d run the usual tests on Abbie soon after she had arrived and those had kept her busy for a while, and she had sent Abbie’s mum, Kath, to get herself a cup of coffee and something to eat. The poor woman looked shattered. Ellie sat down on the chair by Abbie’s bed, and for a moment allowed her mind to be bombarded by her own doubts and problems. She was praying that the answer would appear in a flash of clarity, but the trouble was, there was no magic solution.
Her doubts about Max were tearing her apart. Just the thought of not being with him was too painful to imagine. And if he found out what she’d done, she would lose him. At any moment, this could all blow up and put an end to everything that mattered. Somebody was bound to have seen either her car or his on Friday night, and when the police came knocking she was convinced that he wouldn’t keep her out of it. Why should he?
And then there was the phone call. Why would somebody call the house and withhold their number? What was Max hiding?
‘Stop fooling yourself,’ she muttered out loud. Because hard as it was to admit, she knew exactly what he was hiding.
Leo would say. ‘Ask him. Just bloody ask him.’ But that would open a door that she wanted to keep firmly shut. As long as Max believed Ellie didn’t know about his affair, he would have to find the words to tell her - and she didn’t think he’d be able to do it. So he would stay with her. With them. Everybody knew that choosing the right moment to tell your partner that you’re leaving is the hard bit. How many marriages had stayed together because nobody had had the guts to admit the truth? And over time, the danger dimmed slowly