Ella gritted her teeth and got down to work. She wouldn't have to think about him until Wednesday night. If he showed up.
He knocked at her door at 8 p.m. on Wednesday. He had no flowers, no wine.
"Hallo Don."
"What's all this about?"
"I don't understand," she said.
"Neither do I. I said goodbye to you here on Friday morning, I told you I loved you, you told me you loved me. Then I went to Spain on business and suddenly you won't take my calls and get your mother to lie for you. What's going on, Ella?"
I don't know. What is going on?" she said.
"You tell me. I've been straight up all the way, you're the one playing games." He looked very angry.
They were still on the doorstep.
"You have not been straight. You didn't tell me you were taking your wife to Spain." Ella let the words tumble out.
I took "my wife", as you call her, nowhere!" he shouted.
"Your "wife is what she is," Ella cried.
I don't care. I will go the distance here on the doorstep, but on mature reflection, as they say, you may prefer to do it indoors," he said.
Wearily she opened the door.
He marched into her sitting room as if he owned it and sat down. "Okay Ella, tell me," he began.
"No, you tell me. You said you were going to Spain on business and then I hear that you took your wife."
"And how do you hear this, Ella?"
"It's not important, you did take her."
"I did not take her, she decided to come at the same time, she owns half the house."
"But you didn't tell me that she was going."
"I didn't bloody know until she said she was going and anyway, it's not important. I don't have to tell you, you agreed to accept that we lived separate lives. You told me you agreed, that you believed that." He looked bewildered and upset.
"Huh," she said.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know," Ella said truthfully.
"You said it, so you must know. What do you mean? What are you asking me?"
There was a silence.
"What do you want to know?" he asked again.
Another silence and then she spoke. "Did you sleep with her? Do you still have sex with her?" Ella's voice was low.
Don Richardson stood up. His face was working, she had never seen him so upset. "I'm sorry, Ella, I'm really sorry. I thought I had made it all clear, I really thought I had come and told you the whole situation outside your school that day."
"Yes, but .. ." she began.
"And I thought you said that you understood."
"I thought I did but .. ."
"But you don't understand at all, you actually think that I could love you and have sex with Margery, you really do think that, don't you?"
"I think it's possible, yes."
"Then you and I, we haven't much more to talk about, Ella, my angel, have we?" he said sadly.
"Do you?" she asked.
"Do I what?"
"Do you have sex with her?"
"Goodbye, Ella," he said, moving towards the door.
"So it's yes," she said in a heavy tone.
"It's no actually, but it doesn't matter. I won't stay where there's such suspicion. Someone must have hurt you very badly somewhere along the line to make you feel hurt and anxious like this."
"Bullshit, Don Richardson, nobody hurt me before, nobody touched me before, I never loved anyone before. There's no mythical villain. You tell me it's a business trip and then I hear your wife is with you, what's so abnormal about being upset? Don't make me into some kind of freak."
"And how exactly did you hear, might I ask?" His voice was ice cold.
It was the end. Ella knew it. "Not that it matters, but I called your house, and I was told that the lady of the manor was in Spain." Another silence,
"Thanks, Ella, thanks for everything, thanks for coming to spy at the fund-raiser, thanks for calling to check on my family's movements, thanks for jumping to conclusions, and most of all thanks for not believing me when I say I love you. I'm sorry - but then what exactly am I sorry for?"
She looked at him in horror as he stood there saying goodbye. "Why should I apologise for being utterly honest from the start, telling you the score, telling you the truth, coming to meet your parents, calling them to say I was worried that you didn't answer your phone. Are these the actions of some kind of shit? No, I think they're what a man who loves you might do.
"But you know better. You have some different standard. I truly hope you find what you're looking for. You are a lovely girl, Ella. An angel in fact, and I'll always wish you well."
He was nearly at the gate when she caught him, held his arm and pleaded with him to come back. People walking their dogs on the leafy road saw the blonde girl in floods of tears pleading with the tall handsome man.
"I'm sorry. Forgive me. I want just one more chance. I'm such a fool, Don, it's only because I love you so desperately. I'm just afraid to believe you love me. Come back, please, please."
And if they had continued looking they would have seen the man leading her back into the lighted hall with his arm around her. "Does all this mean he'll be moving into your place now?" Deirdre asked some days later.
"Of course not, don't be silly," Ella said.
"Why is it so silly? It would save the rent on the place in the Financial Services area."
"But he has to say he's somewhere. He can't say he's here," Ella said as if it were totally obvious.
"No, of course not," Deirdre said, confused. "Why can't he say he's shacked up with Ella if it's a dead marriage?" Deirdre asked Nick later.
"Don't ask," Nick said. "I've found it much easier not to bring up cosmic questions like that."
Chapter Three.
The pattern of their life began then, at least three and sometimes five nights a week together. Ella saw no other friends in the evening because she was never sure whether Don might suddenly be free.
There were lunches, of course. Deirdre would voice the questions that Ella never spoke aloud. Is he going to leave her for you? He's practically living with you, for God's sake."
"He can't leave, because of his father-in-law. I told you that."
"Ricky Rice lives in the modern world. He's heard of divorce, he knows Don isn't in the family nest every night."
"Why rock the boat? We're fine as we are."
"And your parents, what do they think?"
"They're fine with it," Ella shrugged.
"No, Ella, they are not. Nobody's fine with their little girl being the plaything of a tycoon."
Ella pealed with laughter. I don't know why I have you as a friend. You try to unsettle me and you use ludicrous phrases. "Plaything." "Tycoon." For heaven's sake! You're so old-fashioned, so utterly disapproving."
Deirdre took a sip of wine, and spoke in a rare serious moment. "Actually, no, I'm not. I'm envious if you must know. I'd really love to be as absorbed and obsessed as you are."
Ella said nothing for a moment. It wasn't like Deirdre to be so utterly honest. It demanded a similar honesty in response. "Well, okay, if you must know, it's not at all fine with my parents."
"How could it be?" Deirdre was sympathetic.
"Well, it could be if they allowed themselves to move into this
century, Dee, if they just looked at the calendar and checked that
it's not nineteen twenty-something."
"They're no worse than anyone else of their generation." "Oh, but they are, even at school they don't go on that way." "Well, you can hardly tell the nuns you have a lover that lives in half the week."
"There are hardly any nuns left, only a few old ones doing the
accounts or the garden or something."
"But isn't it called a convent?" Deirdre protested.
"Oh, they're all called convent s, but that's not the point. Some