Happily Ever After. Harriet Evans

the battered old sofa in the corner of the kitchen Libby chimed in. ‘Elle, that’s rubbish. You talked about romance novels and then she stitched you up. If you ask me she played you like a Stradivarius.’ She threw some peanuts in her mouth and crossed her legs, as Rhodes watched her admiringly.

      ‘… Anyway,’ Elle ploughed on, ‘Rory was really cross with me, he said I was the one who’d stuffed everything up.’ She remembered Rory’s grim face as he stood over her. You’re a snob, Elle. She hated him thinking badly of her.

      ‘He’s playing you too,’ Libby said. ‘The pair of them. Sometimes I think I can’t wait to leave that place. It seems all cosy-cosy, but the politics will ruin them in the end.’

      ‘Mm.’ Elle didn’t like it when Libby talked like that. ‘Supper’s nearly ready.’ She drained the pasta and stared at it, desperately, not sure what to do next.

      ‘I’m starving,’ Rhodes said, as though he could read her mind.

      ‘Just applying the finishing touches!’ Elle trilled, slightly too loudly.

      If Sam was here she’d have bought some four cheese pasta sauce from Sainsbury’s just in case. Sam planned her meals in advance. But Elle liked to wing it, with mixed results. She grabbed a glass of red wine that she happened to know had been there since the previous day, and chucked it into the pan, then some basil leaves from the withered plant on a saucer by the sink. It didn’t look like much so, rather desperately, she shook some soy sauce and vegetable oil in after them.

      ‘Who’s hungry?’ she said, clapping her hands and trying to sound like an Italian mamma. ‘Hey? Come and get it!’

      Rhodes sat down at the tiny table and stared at the pan, and Elle felt a flash of weary despair. They had a whole evening to get through. Her own brother, and he was a stranger to her.

      ‘Mm,’ Libby said. ‘Smells delicious. Is Sam coming back?’

      ‘No, she’s out tonight.’ Sam had gone to Kensington Palace after all, taking Dave with her. Elle was glad she wasn’t here. There was a guilelessness about her that made Elle fear for her at Rhodes’s hands. She knew he’d be vile about Princess Di, for starters. She handed Libby and Rhodes each a bowl. The winey-soy-oil had gathered at the bottom, leaving a faint red sediment on the pasta. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Sorry for going on about work, it’s just been a crazy day. It’s brilliant, but it is weird. You know.’

      ‘Not really,’ said Rhodes. Elle opened her mouth, but he carried on. ‘Ellie, you didn’t do anything wrong. They’re the ones using you, not the other way round.’ He took another mouthful and stopped, then waved his fork in the air. ‘Hm. What’s in this pasta?’

      ‘Yes, it’s delicious, Elle,’ Libby said, cutting across him. ‘Rhodes is right, don’t let them mess you around, Elle. Just be careful next time. Rory’s out for himself, you know, so’s Felicity.’

      ‘Rory’s not out for himself.’

      ‘Ya-hah,’ said Libby, sardonically. ‘Right.’ She turned to Rhodes. ‘So, what do you do? Something with money, then?’

      ‘I work at Bloomberg. Analyst,’ Rhodes said. ‘In New York – went to college there, stayed on to do an MBA, got the job at Bloomberg after that. They love the Brits.’

      ‘Hm. Isn’t New York dangerous?’ Libby said. ‘My dad wants to go, and my mum’s always terrified. “No way, Eric! I’m not setting foot in that place! Who wants to be mugged and shot, eh?”’ she said, exaggerating her Northern accent. Elle knew she was deliberately provoking him; Libby was always going on about how they should go to New York for a few days. She was obsessed with the place.

      ‘What? No way is it dangerous,’ said Rhodes. He seemed incensed by this. ‘Typical small-minded Brits, that’s what it is. You know, it’s bollocks, this is 1997, those were problems in the eighties, they’re long gone. It’s a fucking great place.’

      He pushed his plate away.

      ‘Sorry, Ellie. I can’t eat this. I think it’s the jet lag. Have you got a pizza menu?’

      Elle stared at him, a red flush of fury mixed with embarrassment creeping up her chest to her neck. ‘No, I bloody haven’t!’ she said.

      ‘What’s that on the fridge?’ Rhodes pointed to a takeaway menu.

      She hated the way he wound her up, she wished she didn’t care what he thought, didn’t want to try and make him like her, be impressed by her. It was pathetic. Something inside Elle snapped. ‘You’re not having a fucking pizza,’ she shouted.

      ‘Why?’

      Elle was practically gibbering. ‘You can’t just rock up here and be all, “Oh you’re being stupid and I work in New York and I’m sooooooooooo amayyyyyyyyyyzing.” You always have to be the coolest person in the room, don’t you?’

      ‘I am cooler than you,’ Rhodes said, blankly. ‘I mean, Jeez, Ellie—’

      ‘Don’t call me Ellie! It’s babyish!’

      Rhodes watched her impassively. ‘Look, don’t go mad,’ he said. ‘I only wanted to see how you were and find out about your job. Ellie.’

      Elle wiped her nose with her arm. ‘No, you don’t! You come because you have to, you never ask about Mum and how she is—’

      Rhodes interrupted. ‘Hey! You haven’t asked me a single question about how I am. You rabbit on about your job and these people I have no idea about, you serve some kind of soy sauce pasta mulch, and then you start throwing stuff around and shouting at me.’

      Elle stared at him. It was horrible how much she let him wind her up, always had done, how they wouldn’t ever talk about the stuff that lurked just beneath the surface. ‘Don’t you understand –?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Rhodes, nodding, as though he was trying to be reasonable. ‘I do. Promise. It’s just the facts are quite simple. You chucked coffee over the head of your company. Because of this she is aware of you for the first time since you joined, so you actually effectively networked, though I wouldn’t use that method again. She asks your opinion because she needs back-up for her own strategy, and your boss is angry because she used you against him. That shows they both value your opinion, to an extent. It’s a good thing. And it shows it’s not your fight, it’s theirs.’

      ‘That’s what I said,’ said Libby.

      ‘So the question becomes,’ pursued Rhodes, putting his fingertips together, ‘what do you do next to maximise this situation for yourself?’

      ‘Er – does it?’ said Elle. ‘Isn’t that a bit – creepy?’

      Rhodes laughed, and flung his leg out, pulling his trouser leg up. He put one hand on his thigh, and cupped his chin with the other.

      ‘It’s business. The business may be selling books to grannies who like knitting patterns, but it’s still a business. And if they’re at loggerheads you can use it to your own ends. But first, you’ve got to work out who’s got the biggest dick. Pick that person and stick with them. The old lady, or the son? Sounds like the old lady to me, he sounds like a prick.’

      ‘Rory’s not a prick,’ Elle said. ‘He’s great. Isn’t he, Libs?’

      Libby cleared her throat and said, ‘But Rhodes, if he’s a prick, doesn’t that mean the same thing as the biggest dick?’

      ‘No,’ Rhodes said, still serious. ‘It’s totally different.’

      Libby got up, shaking her shoulders. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I have to go. I said I’d meet Jeremy and some of the others at Filthy MacNasty’s.’

      ‘What the hell is that?’ Rhodes said, looking cross and yet intrigued.

      ‘It’s a bar, Shane MacGowan