Bring Me Back (B.A. Paris)(3)

My silent sigh of relief at finding her there is checked by the way she’s staring unseeingly out of the window, her eyes on a distant past. It’s a look I haven’t seen for a while but a look I know only too well. It explains why Peggy – always sensitive to Ellen’s mood – is lying silently at her feet.

‘Ellen?’ I say softly.

She turns her head towards me and as her eyes come into focus, she scrambles to her feet.

‘Sorry,’ she says ruefully, hurrying over to me, Peggy following more sedately behind her, her age showing. ‘I was miles away.’

‘I can see that.’

She reaches up and kisses me. ‘How was your day?’

‘Good,’ I say, putting my news about the contract on hold for a moment. ‘What about yours?’

‘Good too.’ But her smile is just a little too bright.

‘So what were you thinking about when I came in?’

She shakes her head. ‘Nothing.’

I put my finger under her chin and tilt her head upwards so that she can’t avoid my eyes. ‘You know that doesn’t work with me.’

‘It really is nothing,’ she insists.

‘Tell me.’

She gives a small shrug. ‘It’s just that when I came back from taking Peggy for a walk this afternoon, I found this’ – she puts her hand into the front pocket of the shirt and takes something out – ‘lying on the pavement outside the house.’

I look down at the painted wooden doll sitting in her palm and a jolt of shock runs through me, quickly followed by a flash of anger, because for one mad moment I think she’s been rummaging around in my office. But then I remember that Ellen would never do such a thing, and concentrate on chasing the red mist away. Anyway, hadn’t she said that she found it on the pavement outside the house?

‘Someone must have dropped it,’ I say, as casually as I’m able. ‘A child, on her way back from school or something.’

‘I know. It’s just that it reminded me—’ She stops.

‘Yes?’ I prompt, preparing myself mentally, because I know what she’s going to say.

‘Of Layla.’ As always, her name hangs suspended in the air between us. And today, because of Tony’s phone call, it feels heavier than usual.

Ellen laughs suddenly, lightening the moment. ‘At least I have a full set now.’ And of course, I know what she’s referring to.

It was Layla who first told me the story, of how she and Ellen both had a set of Russian dolls, the sort that stack one inside the other and how one day the smallest one from Ellen’s set had gone missing. Ellen had accused Layla of taking it but Layla denied that she had, and it had never been found. Now, thirteen years after I first heard that story, the irony strikes me because, like Ellen’s little Russian doll, Layla went missing and has never been found.

‘Maybe you should put it on the wall outside, like people do with dropped gloves,’ I say. ‘Someone might come looking for it.’

Her face falls and I feel bad, because it’s only a Russian doll. But coming on the back of Tony’s phone call, it feels a bit too much.

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she says.

‘Anyway, I’ll be able to buy you as many Russian dolls as you like now,’ I say, although we both know that isn’t what this is about.

Her eyes grow wide. ‘Do you mean . . .?’

‘Yes,’ I say, lifting her into my arms and spinning her around, noting – not for the first time – how much lighter she is than Layla was. Tendrils of chestnut hair escape her short ponytail and fall around her face. Her hands grip my shoulders.

‘Grant James invested?’ she squeals.

‘He did!’ I say, pushing thoughts of Layla away. I stop spinning and lower her to the ground. Dizzy, she stumbles a little against me and I enclose her in my arms.

‘That’s wonderful! Harry must be over the moon!’ She wriggles out of my embrace. ‘Stay there, I’ll be back in a minute.’

She disappears into the kitchen and I sit down on the sofa to wait. Peggy pushes herself between my legs and I take her head between my hands, noting with a heavy heart how grey she’s getting. I pull her ears gently, as she loves me to do, and tell her how beautiful she is. It’s something I often tell her, too often maybe. But the truth is, Peggy has always represented more than just Peggy to me. And now, because of the Russian doll, it seems wrong.

I feel restless, too full of kinetic energy to sit. I want to go to my office – a bespoke outhouse in the garden – and make sure that my Russian doll, the one Ellen doesn’t know about, is there, in its hiding place. But I force myself to be patient, reminding myself that everything is good in my world. Still, it’s difficult, and I’m about to go and find Ellen when she comes back, a bottle of champagne in one hand, two glasses in the other.

‘Perfect,’ I say, smiling at her.

‘I hid it at the back of the fridge a couple of weeks ago,’ she says, putting the glasses down on the table and holding the bottle out to me.

‘No,’ I say, grasping the bottle and using it to pull her towards me. ‘I mean you.’ I hold her tight for a moment, the champagne trapped between our bodies. ‘Do you know how beautiful you are?’ Uncomfortable with compliments, she drops her head and plants a kiss on my shoulder. ‘How did you know that Grant would come through?’ I go on.