The Home for Broken Hearts (9 page)

“You should stay right there, relax,” he instructed her.

Carla flopped back onto the bed, stretching her arms above her head and smiling.

“If you insist.” She smiled happily. “Today certainly turned out a lot better than I expected. Not that I do this sort of thing all the time—never, actually. There was just something about you that seemed… right.”

“For me, too.” Matt pulled his jacket on and sat briefly on the edge of the bed. “You are a fantastic girl, Carla.”

He meant it—Carla was funny, beautiful, and warm and engaging in bed. She deserved someone a lot better than him.

“And life’s for living, isn’t it? I mean, how boring would it be if no one ever took a chance…”

Matt didn’t reply, even though he knew that Carla was looking for some sort of reassurance. Obviously, going to bed with a man she had met only a few hours earlier wasn’t normally her style, and she wanted him to tell her that she hadn’t made a terrible mistake.

“So when do you want to meet up again?” Carla went on after a moment’s silence. “I’m supposed to be hanging out with my girlfriends tomorrow, but I could cancel if you want.”

Don’t do that,
Matt thought.
Don’t just decide to change all your plans for me.

“I’ve got to work,” Matt told her, glancing at his watch. “New boy—lot to prove. Need to deliver a kick-ass column.”

“Oh, okay, no worries—well, just call me when you’re free then,” Carla said, a tiny frown line insinuating its way between her eyebrows.

“Sure. See you.” Matt got up, picked up his cases, and closed Carla’s front door behind him, knowing that she’d be flopping back on the bed, her fingers in her hair, wondering what she’d done.

“Hello.” A boy opened the front door and greeted Matt without the faintest flicker of a smile. He was a good-looking boy, with intense eyes and an odd smudge of lilac paint across the bridge of his nose. “Are you Matt Bolton, because if you are, you’re late.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Matt said, taken aback by the boy, suddenly very glad that the last remnants of the vodka he’d indulged in with Carla had receded to no more than a slight fuzziness around his temples. Somehow, he got the feeling that he was going to need all his wits about him. “I got held up at work, you know.”

“What were you doing?” The boy questioned him closely, with slightly narrowed eyes. “Were you interviewing Chloe Brand, Britain’s sexiest babe 2009—was she wearing a bra?”

“Wha… what?” Matt spluttered, glancing around as if this were a trap set to catch him out. “How do you know about Chloe, kid?”

“This kid, Harvey, from school, nicks his dad’s copies of
Bang It!
out of the recycling bin and brings them to school. He charges us a quid a look. It’s worth it, though.”

“Christ!” Matt laughed. “Does your mum know?”

“No, and she’d kill me if she did, she still thinks I’m a little boy… so anyway—were you?”

“No, I was not.” Matt shook his head. “I don’t do that sort of thing—no one really does that sort of thing. They take those photos somewhere else, far away from the office, and then a staff writer makes up the interview.”

“Really?” The boy looked disappointed. “You mean Chole isn’t really a huge Arsenal fan, and she doesn’t really love to watch a match wearing only the team colors and a pair of stilletos?”

“How old are you?” Matt asked, peering through the crack in the door to take in what looked like an ordinary hallway in an ordinary home.

“Twelve, nearly,” the kid told him. Matt could tell that the “nearly” part was very important to him.

“Makes sense. I guess I was interested in the same things at your age. Guess I have been ever since.” Matt lowered his voice. “Look, if you want to pay a pound a pop to look at your mate’s mags, that’s your business, but all I do is write stuff, all the words that you and your friends probably never look twice at. My job’s boring, mate, I promise you.”

“Oh.” Charlie looked disappointed, then perking up slightly he added, “Do you have PS3?”

“Not on me,” Matt said. “I shared one with my old flat-mate but I had to leave it behind when I moved. I’ve got a PSP, though, and a DS—is that enough for you to let me in?” Matt nodded at the doorway.

“S’pose.” The kid shrugged and stepped aside, yelling, “Mum, he’s here!”

A woman hurried out of a back room, wearing an oversized man’s shirt and a pair of baggy jeans; her dark hair was tied in a knot on her head, and, like the boy, she was splattered with lilac paint. She had the most remarkable pair of green eyes, like a summer meadow.

“Oh, you must be Matt,” she said, greeting him with an outstretched paint-spattered hand. “We were worried that you’d been mugged or got lost; it’s a jungle out there. I’m Ellen and this is Charlie.” She placed a hand on Charlie’s shoulder and he reflexively shrugged it off.

“No, no—nothing so interesting…” Matt thought briefly of Carla’s closed eyes as he had kissed her, the setting sun turning her skin a shade of pale gold. “Just caught up with work, first day and all that. Sorry, your sister, Hannah, is it? She gave me your number, I should have called and let you know I’d be late.”

“No, no—I don’t want you to think you have to keep me apprised of all your movements. I’m not that kind of landlady. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what being a landlady is all about yet. I’m sort of making it up as I go along.”

She began to walk up the stairs, talking as she went, and Matt assumed that he was to follow her. “Well, I’m not sure what Hannah told you. You know what the rent is and that it includes utilities. You’ll get a key, of course, and a shelf in the fridge in the kitchen if you want one—it saves on labeling, apparently—but there is room for a fridge in your room and a microwave if you like. Otherwise, just come and go as you please.”

Slightly breathless as they reached the top of the stairs,
Ellen pushed open the attic door and stood back, allowing Matt into the room first.

“There’s a large bedroom, and a bathroom, my husband and I always thought that…” She trailed off for a second, to a moment in time that Matt couldn’t fathom, before snapping back into the present. “Anyway, I hope you like it.”

Matt walked into the room and looked around. It was large, almost the whole footprint of the sizable house, with dormer windows on one side that looked out over the street and VELUX windows on the other, letting in plenty of light. It was furnished with a slightly aged-looking double bed, a rather worn red sofa, a dark wood wardrobe, and a desk. Through a door to the right Matt could see the bathroom. It was basic; it was perfect.

“It’s great,” he said, turning to Ellen, smiling.

“Oh, well—good.” Ellen dropped her eyes from his and tentatively touched her hair, as if she had only just remembered that she had screwed it up into a careless knot a few hours earlier. Matt noticed the holes in her pierced earlobes, redundant without earrings.

“Um, Matt…” Matt watched as Ellen’s mouth undulated with uncertainty.

“Yep?” he said, offering an encouraging smile.

From the look of her, she was somewhere in her thirties, pleasant-looking—something like the women who after getting married and having kids sort of give up on trying to attract men because they just don’t need to anymore. Matt had to admit that he was relieved; after talking to the openly flirtatious sister, he’d been a little concerned that his new landlady would be something of a temptation, the kind of temptation that it would be a very bad idea to give in to and the kind that he invariably did, hence his swift exit from the
Manchester Evening News
. But as sweet as she seemed, there was nothing about this woman to tempt him. She was a widow and a mum, and as far as Matt could see, those two things defined her. There was no danger of entanglement here.

“Ellen, I’m hard to offend—tell me what you’re worried about.”

“Well, it’s just that you’ve met Charlie.” Ellen finally found the courage to look up at him again. “He’s at an impressionable age and, well, it’s only been a year since his dad died. I don’t think he’s even begun to work that out yet.”

“Must be tough.” Matt nodded; his father had walked out on him and his mother when he had been a little younger than Charlie was now. The fact that his dad was still alive somewhere didn’t ease the sense of bereavement that Matt had felt for a very long time.

“You won’t… I mean you wouldn’t…” Ellen struggled to form a sentence. “It’s just Hannah told me a bit about your work and…”

“You want to know if I’ll be parading topless models through the house and leading Charlie astray?” Matt asked, thinking of Charlie’s opening interview a few minutes earlier.

“Well, yes, frankly.” Ellen’s smile was bashful, and Matt noticed the very fine crinkles that blossomed prettily around the corners of her eyes.

“No, I won’t. I promise.”

“Of course, you’re a young man,” Ellen said, as if the twelve years between them were really a hundred and twelve. “You’ll want to bring friends back. A girl sometimes, maybe even girl
s.
” She stressed the last letter of the sentence with a raised brow.

Matt couldn’t help but grin as the color rose in Ellen’s cheeks.

“All I’m asking is that you be discreet—you know, in the shared parts of the house.”

“Of course,” Matt assured her. “Look, Ellen, this is your home. I know that. Your sister told me what happened and why you’re taking in lodgers. I don’t want to make things any more difficult for you. You’ll hardly know I’m here, I swear.”

“Thank you,” Ellen said. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude or put you off or anything like that.”

“Don’t be silly.” Matt picked up one suitcase and dumped in onto the bed, where it bounced once. “You’re a mum, looking out for your kid. I wouldn’t expect differently.”

“Right. Well, if you want to come down and make yourself something to eat or drink, then feel free. I’ve got to finish painting the dining room for my last lodger. I think Hannah told you about her. She’s due in a few days.”

“Old lady who writes sex books, right?” Matt asked as he unzipped his suitcase and opened the wardrobe to find a selection of mismatched hangers.

“Well, it’s more like historical fiction, but anyway, Charlie and I—and Sabine, that’s our German guest—will be in there if you need us.”

Matt glanced at his watch. It had just struck nine.

“She’s arriving in a few days, you say?”

“Yes, I know.” Ellen looked stricken. “I’ll be lucky if the paint’s even dry. I had no idea it would take so long. Trouble was, the patterned wallpaper kept on showing through the paint. We’re on our fourth coat now and it needs at least one more, and apparently the room absolutely mustn’t smell of paint by the time she arrives. Come to think of it, Simon hasn’t even told me when her chaise longue is to be delivered.…”

Ellen frowned, the tiny crease deepening between her brows.

Matt pulled his work shirt off over his head, discarding it in a tangled heap on the bed as he fished a faded T-shirt out of his case.

“Sounds to me like you need a hand.” He grinned briefly at Ellen before pulling the top back over his naked torso. “It’s the room at the back, right?”

“Only if you’re sure.” Ellen’s smile was uncertain.

“Sure I’m sure.” Matt trotted down the stairs and Ellen waited for a moment before following.

For some reason, she felt more out of breath on her descent that she had on the way up.

Ellen jumped when the alarm clock sounded so that the pages of
The Sword Erect
that she had been reading slipped to the floor, skimming one over the other as they fluttered gracefully downward. Her clock was set for 6:30
A.M
., but sleeping much beyond 5:00 in the morning was something that Ellen had been a stranger to since she’d lost her husband. She’d stay up late, as late as she could, fighting the drag of her heavy lids to the very last second in the hope that she would eventually wear herself out enough to sleep through until morning. But no matter how hard she tried, Ellen’s nights had evolved into an exhausting routine. She’d drift off over a book somewhere around 2:00, sleep for a few fitful, restless hours, and just before 5:00 her mind would jerk her awake with the panicked sensation that she had forgotten something. Ellen’s heart would be pounding in her ears, her eyes wide open as they adjusted to the dark, her weary mind seeking, against her will, to remember the terrible truth. Then it would all come back to her, and in those first seconds it would tear through her just as vividly and as painfully as it had when the poor young policewoman first broke the news. Nick was gone. He was not asleep in bed beside her and he never would be again. She would never again hear his voice, never feel his touch, never listen to the sound of his breathing. And as that reality washed over her yet again with the cold indifference of a wave breaking over a rock, Ellen would have
to spend several moments gasping for air, fighting both for and against life, until her heartbeat slowed and she thought of Charlie, asleep in his bed, waiting for her to make him breakfast. Then she would have a reason, her only reason, to get up.

It was then that Ellen would turn to her latest book, losing herself with relief among its pages until her alarm clock sounded the official break of day.

Bending over the edge of the bed, Ellen gathered up the pages of Allegra Howard’s latest work and carefully reordered them. She remembered with a shock of nerves that it was Thursday morning; today Allegra was due to arrive at 11:00
A.M.
, which meant midday, Simon had promised. As Allegra made it her business always to be an hour late to everything, Ellen was relieved that the extra time would allow the paint smells to fade, and the chaise longue was just about in position. Against all odds, she had got everything ready for her VIP guest, and even though it had taken the help of virtual strangers to do it, she was still proud of herself.

The timing of Allegra’s stay could not have been better, since Ellen had just finished the last of the pages of her latest that Nick had sent her. She smoothed the sheets of paper out against her thighs and wondered about the book. Ellen couldn’t deny that she was enjoying it; every second that she had been immersed in Eliza’s story—a young puritan maid caught up with the passions of the Royalist captain whom she barely understood—she had been there with her, enjoying the guilty pleasure of imagining herself as the fulsome young woman with an exquisite body and beauty to match. Yet, in
The Sword Erect
the heroine had endured more ravishing than Ellen could remember in any other Allegra Howard novel or indeed any other book on which she had worked on the Cherished Desires list. Ellen had read only up to page thirty-three, yet poor Eliza had already had her body manhandled by three different men in the space of barely a week!