Then – 29th September
‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ Ella said, dragging her fingertips across Dylan’s bare stomach, gravitating to the scar on his hip, earned in childhood when his sister shot him with a bow and arrow.
He’d grown up in the countryside, just like her, and initially she’d thought it would bond them. Until he started talking about the isolated farmhouse, the lambs dying in snowy fields and the sheepdogs shot behind the barns when they became too old to work or too expensive to be treated by the vet. It had surprised her how easily he spoke about his unhappy early life but then, people talked to her, they trusted her. She didn’t know why, but it was a gift that sometimes felt like a burden.
As her forefinger traced the line of the scar, he reached down and took her hand, brought it up to his chest and held it there in the thatch of wiry hair.
‘If anyone finds out. . .’
‘It happens all the time,’ Dylan said. ‘It’s frowned on, sure, but as long as we don’t go streaking up Camden High Street hand in hand then nobody’s going to say anything.’
Ella smiled, automatically mirroring him. But not really feeling it.
‘Have you done this before?’
‘I didn’t have you down for the jealous type.’
‘I’m not,’ Ella said, already picturing another woman here with him, tangled up in the sheets, which hadn’t been aired thoroughly enough, another woman’s head on the too-thin pillow now smudged with her lipstick. If she flipped it over would she find a smear of some gaudier hue on the other side? The image made her angrier than she expected. She barely thought about him when she wasn’t with him but at moments like this she felt a possessive tug, which scared her in its intensity. ‘Have you, though?’
‘No.’
She didn’t believe him.
Men like Dylan were magpies, always looking for the shiny new thing to play with. Even when it was expressly prohibited. Especially when it was. She could cost him his job. They both knew that. And there was little he could do to her in return.
She was the innocent in this inappropriate relationship, after all; the impressionable one, the vulnerable one.
Ella stretched out, pressing hard against him for a few long seconds before she relaxed again, throwing her arm across her eyes to block out the early-evening sun, which had found its way in through the dormer window of this tiny attic room. Clarinet music seeped in from the neighbouring flat. A simple melody played over and again in ever more complex variations, the musician turning it inside out with an ease Ella thought you’d have to consider virtuoso.
Times like this, when they didn’t speak, she could almost convince herself that what they had was healthy and normal. Pretend one day he would take the train up to Durham with her to meet her parents. That eventually she would get to hear his sister’s version of the bow-and-arrow story and they would laugh together and gradually become like sisters themselves.
‘Do you want to tell me what’s wrong now?’ Dylan asked. ‘We can keep pretending a bit longer if you prefer, but just so you’re aware, you’re not fooling me.’
Ella sat up, drawing the pillow to her chest without thinking, hugging it tightly.
‘This,’ he gestured at her. ‘Tell me how you feel.’
‘The same.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, hiding her mouth behind the edge of the pillow, smelling her coconut shampoo on the polycotton. ‘Stressed, obviously. Tired, obviously. The same as always.’
‘Are you sleeping?’
‘Five hours a night. It’s enough.’
Five hours on a good night, but he didn’t need to know that. What good would it do to tell him about the nights she was too anxious to even close her eyes? That sometimes she could barely even blink she was so wired, trying to keep everything straight in her head.
‘I’ve got pills if you want them,’ he said. ‘But it’d be better if we worked out why you’re not sleeping.’
Ella rolled her eyes. ‘Are you serious? I can’t sleep because I’m trying to keep up with my PhD and save the fucking world and I’ve got all these people on my back constantly, wanting me to help with this campaign and that campaign, and I can’t turn anyone down because if I do then I’m an elitist bitch or a fraud or I’m only interested in doing stuff that builds my profile. Like I’m seriously killing myself for the sake of my blog stats.’ She raked her fingers back through her hair and tugged at the ends. ‘People are losing their homes and they’re looking to me to make it stop. I don’t know how to do that. But I can’t tell them to take the money and run, can I? One of the old ladies is in such a state she’s just had a stroke. A stroke! And Molly’s telling her husband to hang in for a better offer because now his wife’s going to need expensive extra care. I – it’s stupid – it’s a stupid fight to have. Why does nobody see that?’
Dylan reached out and wrapped his fingers around her ankle, a look on his face she didn’t like. It went beyond basic concern. She shouldn’t have said so much. But there was nobody else she could vent at. Not about the pressure she was under, not about the people who she sometimes felt were using her up and draining her dry. She had to be the most perfect version of Ella Riordan to everyone else in her life, because if she slipped, even for a moment, they might not like who she was underneath. They wanted her to be righteous and incorruptible and . . . pure. Nobody could be that all the time.
‘You can stop,’ he said gently. ‘Whenever you want.’
‘I don’t want to stop.’
‘You can’t tell me you’re enjoying this.’
‘Because that would be a great reason to do it? Fun?’ she sneered. ‘I thought you’d get it.’
‘I do. I can see that you’re driving yourself into the ground and I think you need to start to think about putting yourself first. It’s obviously fucking your health up. And what are you achieving? Really?’
She reeled from his words, suddenly light-headed, realising that in his eyes she’d already failed, that there was absolutely no point pushing on because he didn’t believe she could make a difference.
Was he right?
Maybe she genuinely wasn’t up to this. No longer the smartest student in class, the effortless A-grader. It was a cliché for a reason, that university is where intelligent kids find out precisely how ordinary they are, competing against their actual intellectual peers for perhaps the first time in their lives.
Is that what was happening here? Ella felt like she was coping well with her PhD. She knew she was making progress, but everything else? The campaigning, the protests; was suceeding there simply beyond her capabilities?
‘Ella, we talked about this, didn’t we?’ He was using his quiet/loud voice, the one she hated. She’d prefer he shouted at her. ‘You need to be honest with yourself. Acknowledge when you’re taking on too much and let some of it go.’
No, she wasn’t ready to give up.
‘This isn’t going to beat me,’ she said, low and hard.
‘Is that how you see what’s happening?’ he asked. ‘Like a fight?’
‘It’s just a saying, stop over-analysing every word out of my mouth.’ She growled with frustration, wishing she’d never let the conversation go this far. ‘You know what, yes, I do see it like a fight. If this isn’t one, then what the hell is? I’m fighting for something important here.’
‘But you feel like you’re losing?’
‘At Castle Rise, yes. We’ve already lost.’
Dylan sat up, placed his hands on her knees. ‘You were always going to lose, Ella. Don’t you remember what we talked about when you decided to get involved there? Do you remember what I told you?’
‘You told me to focus on the big picture.’ She looked away from him, the intensity in his eyes making her uncomfortable. ‘But this is big-picture stuff. Castle Rise is going to get demolished, we all know that, but it’s brought people together. I’ve met dozens of other protestors and activists because I got on board there and helped Molly when nobody else was prepared to. I can make a real difference with those people.’
‘Do you feel like you’re making a difference?’
‘It’s slow-going, but yes. I’m making good contacts and that’s where it starts, right? You can’t overthrow the establishment from scratch, can you?’
He nodded, uncertain-looking, and Ella changed the subject while she was slightly ahead.
‘Molly’s asked if I can help out with some fundraising for a local homeless shelter. She wants to crowdfund a book of essays.’
‘Yes, that’s really going to stick to the man,’ Dylan said, an acidic edge coming through.
He didn’t like Molly. He’d never met her but he seemed to dislike her instinctively. And Ella suspected she knew why; Molly had helped her and Dylan resented that. He wanted to be the one she went to for advice, the only one. It was beneath him, she thought, but he could be jealous too.
‘I’ve met some of the people who’re submitting pieces,’ she said. ‘They’re serious, dedicated people. She’s got Martin Sinclair to write something about the monetisation of homelessness. I didn’t think he’d remember me but he acted like we were old friends. It was . . .’ She wanted to say ‘nice’, but she knew how Dylan would intepret the safe little word, that he’d recognise the hint of lust she was trying to hide under it. ‘I think it was promising. He’s given me some good advice about my PhD too. He was very generous with his time.’
Dylan’s eyes had lit up at the mention of Sinclair’s name, but he shut down again, as if he didn’t want to acknowledge her rising status. She wondered if he felt diminished by it and realised, with a tender pang, that he was diminished slightly in her eyes, measured against her new friends.
‘Sounds like Molly has plenty of other people to make this book happen,’ Dylan said coolly. ‘She doesn’t need you as well.’
‘But I’ve said I’ll do it already. If I let everyone down, they’ll think I’m a lightweight. And Molly’s only asking me to do the media side of things. It’s manageable.’
‘It wasn’t five minutes ago.’
She never should have told him. Why couldn’t he let her vent like a normal person?
‘Tell her no,’ he said, sliding his hands up the outside of her thighs, squeezing the flesh there. ‘Tell her you’re too busy with your PhD. She’ll understand and if she doesn’t, then she isn’t much of a friend.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Is she really that important to you?’
‘You know what she’s done for me,’ Ella said softly, feeling suddenly vulnerable, sitting there naked with only the pillow covering her.
Dylan took a deep breath, lifted his hands off her. ‘I know, Ella. Believe me, nobody understands better than I do.’
‘She’s vouched for me with people who wouldn’t give me the time of day before she said it was okay. Half the women I’ve interviewed for my PhD brushed me off when I approached them. They weren’t going to talk to a policeman’s daughter in a million years. But they know Molly and she knows me, so now they’ll talk. They actually like me now. Do you know what a big deal that is for me?’
Annoyance twisted his face and Ella didn’t know if it was what she’d said or the whiny tone she was irritated to realise she was using.
She looked at her clothes scattered across the white-painted floorboards, thrown off with a hot abandon that felt more distant than it really was. Less than ninety minutes since he’d answered the door to her, holding up a hand to tell her to stay quiet while he finished a phone call. She’d smiled at him, standing close enough to recognise the voice on the other end, started to unbutton the fly of his jeans, followed him as he stepped back, giving her a warning look. She’d ignored it, worked her hand down past the waistband of his boxers and felt him harden against her palm, his voice lifting very slightly as he gave a final assurance that yes, of course, he would find out, he understood, yes, yes, he would get right on it this afternoon.
All of that pleasure and now look where they were, she thought. Eyeing one another defensively across the rumpled sheets, sad and sexless in their nudity.
‘So, let me ask you something,’ he said. ‘How long are you going to let Molly keep directing your life?’
‘That’s not what I’m doing.’
‘You want to keep her happy, though? You’re going to take on a stupid, completely pointless project just because she wants you to. Despite the fact that you’re exhausted and stressed out and have a hundred other things to worry about. How is that not Molly dominating your decision-making process?’
Sometimes Ella thought he’d made a wrong career choice, that he would have been better becoming a psychiatrist. Or some imitation of one.
‘I got an interview with Carol Dearborne,’ she told him, slapping down her last and strongest card. ‘Through Molly.’
Dylan’s brows lifted, not hiding the surprise. ‘About—’
‘Yes, about,’ Ella said, delighted that she’d finally impressed him. ‘Carol Dearborne, who never talked, who trusts almost nobody, who is still a ball of anarchic fury thirty years later, invited me into her home for the weekend and gave me fifteen hours of on-the- record information that’s absolutely fresh to the market.’
‘Shit.’ Dylan grinned, rubbed his cheek. ‘Well, your PhD just got a lot more interesting.’
‘Interesting doesn’t even begin to get close to what it is,’ Ella said, fluffing her pillow and lying back down. ‘And the off-the- record stuff. . .’
‘Is it taped?’
‘I can’t use it,’ Ella said, shoving him in the chest with her foot. Hard enough to make him wince. ‘I’m probably committing some kind of criminal act just by knowing most of it.’
‘You could pass it on to the police.’ He crawled up the bed and lowered himself over her. ‘If your conscience is getting twitchy.’
‘Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to do that.’
‘You’ll be an accessory if you don’t.’
‘Only if she gets in trouble,’ Ella said, tipping up her hips as his teeth played at her ear. ‘And for all I know it’s just a bunch of talk, right?’
‘Right,’ he murmured. ‘But what if it isn’t talk?’
Ella smiled. ‘Then I’ve made a very cool new friend.’