Now, I’ve had my fair share of bizarre experiences in my time; I’ve covered stories from war zones, followed breaking political stories until my eyes were ready to bleed, was even, at a far earlier stage in my career, forced to stake out various B-list celebs having rendezvous at various girlfriends’ flats that their wives knew absolutely nothing about. (And by the way, give me Afghanistan any day.)
But never, in all my years, have I ever experienced anything like this.
Having spent my whole entire life either chasing stories or else editing them, it is by far the single weirdest experience of my life to now find myself the actual story.
Everyone around me keeps telling me it’ll die down, that this is a flash in the pan, that all this newsprint is bound to be wrapping up fish and chips by tomorrow night, repeating it over and over as though repetition could somehow make it true.
But there’s no sign of it dying. If anything, it’s escalated.
So far, I’ve been the page two story on no fewer than four evening papers, the third lead item on three drive time radio talk shows and the second-last item on the six o’clock news bulletin, thank you to the shower of bastards that run Channel Six. Made me wonder what could possibly have been the last item: Ants Cross Street in Straight line, perhaps? The bad luck for me though, is that it’s a particularly slow news day and this is exactly the kind of salacious juicy story that fills in a good three minutes of airtime.
And by the way, just for added humiliation, I’m the joke item; the nugget of ‘news’ that people take a moment to snigger at, then gossip about the next day. ‘Did you hear about your woman who edits the Post covering up for her jailbird boyfriend?’ That kind of thing. Need I say any more? Plus another photo of us at the weekend away has ‘mysteriously’ surfaced and been emblazoned across every tacky website going; Jake with his arm round me, both of us roaring laughing at some private joke right before that awful dinner … back when all was well between us and when I was so hopeful for what lay ahead.
So now there’s no doubt about it, my name – my good name – and my reputation that I worked so long and hard to build from the ground up, have now become the punch line to a bad joke. Once I was held up as a poster girl for glass ceiling-smashing single women everywhere, and now all I’m waiting for is some smart-arsed comedian to do a ‘Did you hear the one about Eloise Elliot?’ skit on some late night news review show.
One thing’s for certain though; the story has an inside leak. I swear I can almost smell Seth Coleman behind it all; the way titbits are being drip fed, usually originating via Twitter and getting picked up from there. He’s way too clever to release this any other way; like this, he has full anonymity and all the licence to libel that only a made-up username can give you.
‘Exclusive! Read here about Eloise Elliot sneaking off during work hours to meet her jailbird lover’ went one story, which Jake gamely tried to make me laugh at, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to. What am I supposed to do anyway, sue them because technically Jake and I aren’t, never were and never will be lovers? Pointless; I know it and so do they. The fact is, I still covered up for a friend. I did the crime, as they say, so now I’m doing the time. And let’s face it, photos of Jake and me practically hanging off each other at the directors’ weekend away are hardly helping matters, are they?
Then there’s all the dozens and dozens of vague, unreferenced, indirect quotes, not one of which I’d ever allow to be printed; but it seems my rival papers have fewer scruples than me. ‘An undisclosed source at the Post tells us’ that kind of shite. Jake tries his best to poke fun at some of the nuttier stuff, like ‘Colleagues at the Post tell us that ever since meeting her ex-con lover, Eloise Elliot underwent what could only be described as a total personality change, mutating from a cold, work-obsessed slave driver to a far warmer, more considerate employer …’
I wasn’t laughing though. Mainly because that much at least was actually true.
‘How She Kept her Illicit Love Life Secret from Top Brass at the Post’ almost made me choke, until Jake physically switched off my computer and dragged me kicking and screaming away from it.
And every few minutes, to the accompaniment of a wave of nausea sweeping over me, the same old panic attack will hit me. Jake and Lily. How long before they find out? Is it a just matter of time before that hits the newsstands too? Because in spite of the living hell this whole thing has become, the one single thing I’m only too pathetically grateful for is that they still haven’t managed to unearth Jake’s connection to Lily yet.
Just this thought alone sends me off into another spiral of worry. Jesus Christ, is it possible? Can this nightmare really be happening to me? Where there was one single photographer outside my house earlier, now it seems there’s a posse of the bastards at the gate outside, all weighed down with telescopic lenses the approximate width of my thigh. This, in spite of the fact that we’ve closed every curtain in the entire house, so none of the bastards can get a long shot of me lying prostrate on the kitchen sofa downstairs. Like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, minus the T.B.
For God’s sake, I think, suddenly furious, I live in a nice, safe house with an alarm system and a front door with deadbolts on it and matching bay trees beside it, on a road with Neighbourhood Watch; surely this is somebody else’s life and not mine? I’m not a drug baron, or a bankrupt property developer who owes billions. Just a newspaper editor who messed up, that’s all.
But as I sit mutely on the sofa in the family room at home, with a warm blanket wrapped around me like a car crash survivor, a hot mug of tea in front of me that the very sight of is making me sick, the tiny part of my brain that can still function through the haze is telling me loud and clear that yes, this is real. This is actually happening. To you. Right now. And by the looks of things, it’s not going to go away anytime soon.
Jake is by my side, hadn’t left my side, never leaves, and his warm, protective arm around my shoulders is probably the one single thing I’m capable of feeling now, given the state I’m in. Helen’s here too, of course, as well as a lovely, concerned guy called Ben Casey. He seems as sick with worry as I am myself and in the useless, inert state I’m in, I’m genuinely grateful to have him here. He’d introduced himself earlier as Jake’s parole officer and has been hugely helpful all day; even drove Jake and me back here from the office, as God knows, I’d have been a danger to anyone behind a wheel.
And Lily is safe and happy in her little friend Rose’s house, playing in her Wendy house and having great fun and games putting make-up on each other. I called her earlier to wish her goodnight and to tell her I’d be picking her up first thing tomorrow, forcing my voice into its highest and happiest register, so she wouldn’t suspect that Mama was on the brink of tears. One good thing to report though, as ever, her little voice acted like a soothing tonic on me and I knew she was having a ball for herself when she said, ‘Not too early in the morning Mama, me and Wose want to have pancakes for bweakfast!’
And now hours must have passed and I’m still sitting on the kitchen sofa, with a hot drink in my hand courtesy of Helen. Everyone around me is being utterly fabulous. Jake especially, who’s almost like a human anaesthetic, numbing me, holding me, telling me over and over that everything will work out for the best and that this will all blow over. Funny, but in my detached state, I’m deeply touched at how concerned they all are and feel surrounded with care and attention that’s comforting beyond belief.
‘After all, it was only a job …’ Helen is saying, and I do my best to smile back at her, and look like I actually mean it.
‘And with all your experience and sterling record, you’re bound to pick up something else …’ nice-guy Ben chips in kindly.
‘Plus,’ Jake adds wisely, ‘remember how fast these stories all blow over. It flared up in no time, so let everyone just have their gossip about it, be done with it. And in a few days no one will even be able to remember what the fuss was about.’
He squeezes my hand and I squeeze his right back. Lovely thought, and even though I don’t quite believe it, it’s calming, reassuring to hear. For the first time all day, I allow myself the luxury of a deep breath.
Maybe they’re all right and I’m wrong. Maybe this is just a minor embarrassment, a tiny inkblot on an otherwise spotless copybook that will soon be forgotten about. Something I’ll look back on in years to come and have a good giggle at. Maybe it will all be done and dusted in a day or two. Maybe the board will overlook this mess and give me another chance. Maybe.
This sensation lasts all of about two minutes until the upstairs doorbell goes. Helen rushes upstairs to check it’s not a journo, then comes back down to the kitchen a few moments later, white-faced.
‘Eloise, you’ve got a visitor in the drawing room,’ she tells me, sounding shakier than she has done all evening.
‘Come on, she can’t see anyone, she’s not in any fit state …’ Jake says on my behalf, but Helen interrupts him.
‘It’s Sir Gavin,’ she tells me. ‘And he’s waiting for you.’
Takes approximately ten minutes for my seven-year career to come crashing down in flames and the weirdest thing of all is that somehow I can’t bring myself to feel a single thing. Sir Gavin is cool, courteous, but ruthless; as you’d expect. Won’t even sit down, or have a drink, just stands close to the door, impatient to get this over with. Probably dreading that I’ll start to cry and therefore ready for a fast exit.
His theme is unchanged since we spoke early this morning, or rather, since he lectured me; I made a massive error of judgement, I messed up royally, I had the appalling rudeness to stand up the board this afternoon and now it seems the editor of the paper of record has become a salacious news story herself.
In my detached, almost composed state of mind, I could almost count the number of times he repeats the same tired old clichés. ‘We gave you every chance to explain yourself …’ was one particular beaut. ‘You have a duty to be impartial and to uphold the standards and good name of the Post and have failed in that most spectacularly,’ another gem. This must be what it feels like to be expelled from school, I think. In fact, I’m half-expecting him to come out with a line like, ‘I’ve already phoned your parents …’
But the punchline is the same. I’m out, and Seth is in, simple as. Funny thing is though, if Sir Gavin expected pleading, tears and handkerchief-twisting from me, he was disappointed. All I can do is look at him as though I’m having some kind of out-of-body experience and think, I gave you blood, sweat and tears all those years. I barely even got to see my little girl, who means more to me than any shagging job. Sacrificed all that, and for what? At the end of the day, for nothing, that’s what.
I even surprise myself by smiling at him as I show him out. He of course, moaning and groaning at suffering the indignity of being papped on the way in and out of my house, me not much caring either way. Thinking, you were quick enough to shove me to the lions, now see how you like it.
‘I must say Eloise,’ are his parting words to me, ‘you’re taking this extremely well.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ I tell him evenly. ‘I think you’ve possibly done me the biggest favour of my whole life.’
And now it’s well past ten at night, I’m still tucked up on the sofa, not quite able to believe what’s just happened. I got fired – and somehow, it’s all okay. The sky didn’t fall in. The world continues to turn on its axis. It’s weird, I actually feel physically lighter than I’ve done in years, not to mention deliciously woozy from the wine that the others have been practically ladling down my throat. Relieved in the same way that a crash survivor does when an out-of-control car finally stops spinning. Your whole life flashes before your eyes, but then you think, you know what? It’s over and I’m going to be okay. I’ve survived the worst. And if it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this. With the people that I’m lucky enough to have around me, I know I’ll pull through, start over.
Ben, by the way, has been invaluable all evening, and I can’t help noticing with a smile, is paying more than particular attention to Helen. Making her eat plenty of sandwiches and constantly topping up her wine glass, engaging her in chat and asking her loads of questions about herself. Attentive, caring, interested, not conventionally handsome, but certainly attractive in a scruffy, fell-out-of-bed way … I already like this guy.
He’s over at the kitchen table making her laugh now, telling her some yarn about a guy he’s working with on parole at the moment, who Ben had really gone out on a limb for, eventually managing to find him a job working on a forklift truck in a machinery plant out on the Westgate Industrial Estate.
‘So I told him the good news, thinking he’d be delighted with the work,’ Ben smiles at Helen, ‘and that he was all set to start Monday and you know what this kid said back to me?’
‘Tell me,’ says Helen.
‘He said, “You want me to work in Westgate? Two buses? Feck right off with yourself!”’
The pair of them guffaw as I look on silently.
Oh Christ, I think, immediately dismissing the thought with a smile; I got fired today, am facing into a dole queue without any visible means of being able to support my daughter and now I’m trying to play matchmaker?
Must be even more in shock than I thought.
Though now that I come to think of it, she hasn’t once even mentioned the awful Darren’s name, not even to drop his name into the conversation, or checked her mobile to see if he’s rung, like she does a dozen times a day on average. Which is so not like her.
I’m not passing any comments, I’m just saying, that’s all.
‘You must be tired as well by now,’ Ben says to her, looking gently across the table at her.
‘Hmmm, I think all this wine is doing the trick,’ Helen smiles warmly back at him, then stifles a yawn.
‘Been a long day for you, as well as Eloise,’ he says. ‘Maybe it’s time you tried to get some sleep?’
‘Not a bad plan,’ Helen nods, stretching her arms out tiredly.
‘I’d better make a move too,’ Ben says to me and Jake, as we sit side by side on the sofa, him nursing a beer and me I think already on my fourth glass of wine. It’s doing the trick nicely though. After the horrors of today, I’m now beginning to feel more relaxed, calmer and, well, a bit floaty, like I’m on drugs.
‘I arranged for Josh to have a playdate and sleepover after school, with his best buddy,’ Ben explains, ‘so I need to get back so I can pick him up first thing in the morning.’
‘Josh?’ says Helen. ‘Is that your son?’
‘Yup,’ says Ben, pulling his jacket on and getting ready to hit the road. ‘Six years of age and the light of my life.’
‘That’s, well, that’s pretty much how I feel about Lily,’ she smiles very prettily back at him.
‘If it wasn’t for Josh,’ he goes on, ‘I honestly don’t know how I’d have coped these last few years since his mum … Since she left us.’
‘Oh. You’re divorced, then?’
He didn’t answer immediately, which catches my attention.
‘Separated?’
‘Widowed.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’
Funny, I couldn’t help thinking through my slightly woozy haze, Helen didn’t look the tiniest little bit sorry. Not at all.
‘Well, let me show you out on my way upstairs to bed,’ she says, coming over to hug me and Jake goodnight.
‘Do you want a lift home with me, Jake?’ Ben offers.
Say no, please say no, I need you here tonight …
‘I think I’ll hang around for a bit longer,’ Jake tells him, then turns back to me. ‘If that’s okay with you?’
I don’t answer; just grin stupidly, drunkenly back at him. Marvelling that such a shitty day could have ended so miraculously. A minute later, Helen and Ben are clattering their way upstairs and finally, it’s just us, just me and Jake, alone.
Next thing, his arm is tight round my shoulders and he’s gently caressing my hair.
‘You’ve had a rough day,’ he says.
And although it’s true, I haven’t the heart or the energy to even start delving into work stuff, not to mention the fact that I’m officially on the brink of a dole queue. Besides, compared with the fact that he’s here, actually here beside me, it all seems so unimportant right now. And at the end of the day, like I keep telling myself over and over, wasn’t it only a job?
‘But Jake, if you hadn’t been around … I don’t know what I would have done without you today. You’ve been amazing, a rock.’
‘Eloise,’ he sighs deeply, ‘There’s no way you would have had to suffer through what you did if it wasn’t for your link to me. And I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for that. Jesus, do you know how much the very thought of it is killing me? Everything you worked so hard for?’
Now my arm is around him, and I’m stroking his cheek. My turn to comfort him, after everything he’s done for me today.
‘I know, of course I know how you must feel,’ I tell him softly, ‘but none of this was your fault, how could it have been? The only person responsible for what I did, is me.’
He’s looking down though and for once I’m finding it impossible to gauge what he’s thinking.
‘Jake, look at me,’ I tell him firmly.
He does, his eyes misty, bloodshot, exhausted looking.
‘The past is behind us now,’ I tell him insistently. ‘Everything’s out in the open. No one can ever throw an accusation at me or anyone connected with you again. It’s OVER. Really and truly over.’
I want to throw in every other cliché I’ve even heard from ‘tomorrow is another day,’ to ‘the sun will come out tomorrow,’ but manage to shut myself up in time. Jake’s smart. He already knows.
‘Then my next question is this,’ he says, leaning in closer to me now.
‘Go ahead, ask me anything.’
‘Can you forgive me? For taking off the way I did? For walking away from you? I was so angry, and a bit shocked, if I’m being honest …’
I slump back against his chest, relief flooding through me.
‘Jake, it’s the other way round. I’m the one who should be thanking you for even talking to me again after what I put you through. All that deceit, all those lies – that bloody weekend …’
‘Seems like it happened another lifetime ago, doesn’t it?’ he says, arms locked around me now. ‘And I felt like such a heel for leaving you there, for deserting you the way I did.’
‘Stop, really there’s no need …’ I try to say exhaustedly into his shirt, but the sound comes out all muffled.
‘Looking back, I think I was just completely knocked for six,’ he goes on, lifting my legs up so I’m sitting on his knee now, lifting me like I weigh almost nothing. Making me love how big he is and how tiny I feel next to him.
‘I mean I’d absolutely no idea … about Lily I mean, and although I was furious with you back then for keeping the truth from me, by the time I got to Ben’s and cooled the head a bit, I realised – well, that everything you’d done, you’d only done for her.’
I nod, tearing up for about the fortieth time that day.
‘And … well, what I’m really trying to say in a ham-fisted way is this; you’ve put yourself out so much for me already and I’ll completely respect any decision you make about her, but …’
‘But?’
‘But if it was okay with you and with Lily of course, I’d love to be a part of her life. Meet her properly, not just bump into her in the park. Really be a proper dad to her, that is. I’d love to take her to the movies and teach her how to ride a bike and buy her ice cream whenever you’re not looking and spoil her rotten. She seems like an amazing kid and it would be a privilege to be her father figure, it really would.’
I don’t even need to think about it. Though I do smile, thinking back to the days when I’d proudly boast that single parenthood was the only possible way for an Alpha female like me to go.
All changed now though, changed unrecognisably.
‘Jake, that would be wonderful,’ I tell him simply. ‘And I know you’ll never just be her father figure, you’ll be more than that. You’ll be her dad.’
He smiles at me then pulls me in closer to him, lightly kissing my forehead now, his eyes burning. And in the woozy, drowsy state I’m in, it’s sexy and lovely and comforting and suddenly, in spite of deep exhaustion, I want more.
Next thing, his hands are cupping my face, his kiss growing deeper and more intense now as I slip my arms tighter round him and feel his whole body tensing under me. Then he traces a soft line of kisses all along my cheeks before I can’t take anymore, I’m like a hormonal teenager burning up for him, so I slide gently on top of him, loving the feel of his tongue lightly flicking mine, suddenly wishing I’d had the foresight to dot a few scented candles around the place to make it all the more romantic. He’s slowly unbuttoning my blouse now, tracing a path of kisses all along my collar bone as I lean back, mmmmm-ing and breathing heavier, and trying to calculate exactly how long it would take the two of us to get upstairs to my bedroom.