then, I’d better get back to work,’ Ellie said cheerily, taking her coffee with her.
‘Catch you later, El. Full details at lunchtime. I’ll get us a Krispy Kreme.’ Gemma grinned.
Back in from work, her feet throbbing from the walk from the metro station to the house – not ideal in two-inch heels on uneven pavements with a gaggle of commuters.
Her mum shouted from the lounge as Ellie’s feet hit the welcome mat, ‘There’s been a call for you.’
Ooooh. ‘Oh, okay, who?’ She sounded calmer than she felt.
‘Joe, somebody-or-other … Uhm, Ward, I think.’
A lump tightened her throat. So this was it – the decision. The rejection. She’d be staying at the insurance office for the foreseeable future, then.
‘Any message?’ Deep intake of breath.
Ellie was frozen in the hall, her mum behind the closed door of the living room, by the muffled sound of her voice.
‘Just, could you call him back? He’ll be there until six. I’ve jotted the number down on the pad.’
Deeper breath. She glanced at her wristwatch. OH MY GOD – she only had ten minutes left to ring him back. She wanted to know, but it was almost better not to. At least now, not knowing, there was still the slightest possibility that she might be in with a chance. Her stomach lurched. She was planted to the spot.
Right, Ellie May Hall, her mind gave her a kick, keep to the 3 Cs – cool, calm, collected. She kicked off her stiletto shoes, wriggled her toes. The relief was fabulous. And now for the phone. All this fannying about had already lost her, she glanced at her watch again, two minutes.
‘Okay, then,’ she spoke aloud to herself, in her best calming tone. ‘Let’s do this thing.’ She grabbed the notepad, pen, handset. All she had to do was dial the number. Gulp.
She didn’t want to. What if she broke down, couldn’t reply at the ‘Sorry, but’ bit?
And there was this horrid nagging thought that this would be the last time she would hear Joe’s voice, and then she could forget about ever seeing him again. And why did that matter? It was weird, unsettling. And now there were only seven minutes to go … He might have left a bit early … JUST BLOODY RING HIM!
So she did.
Dial-a-dream coming up … or was it Dial-a-disaster?
0-1-6-6-5 … every punch on the handset seemed to impact on her heart.
The dialling tone. Her pulse quickened.
‘Good afternoon, Claverham Castle, Deana speaking.’
Aah, Deana, a friendly voice.
‘Hello, Deana. It’s me, Ellie … umn, about the job. Umn, I think Joe called earlier, when I was out at work.’ She was babbling, she knew; it always happened when she was nervous. ‘Anyway, is he still there? Could you put me through?’
‘Yes, I think he’s still in the office. Give me a sec, Ellie, and I’ll transfer the call.’
The longest pause, it felt like her dreams were holding their breath. Then his mellow tone, ‘Joe Ward speaking.’ He sounded formal.
‘Oh, hello … you asked for me to call back. It’s Ellie … about the tearooms.’
‘Ah, Ellie, yes,’ his tone softened. Was he just preparing her for the blow? ‘Right, well …’
Another second of agony.
‘We’d like to see you again, for a second interview.’
‘You would?’ Her tone was slightly incredulous. She wanted to laugh, for some weird reason.
‘Yes, this Thursday, if that’s at all possible.’
Two days.
‘Would you be able to make it for eleven a.m.?’
She would. Of course she would.
‘Yes, of course.’ She’d have to play a sickie, but she’d do it, needs must. Gemma would cover for her, for sure. ‘That’ll be fine.’ Oh My God, she’d have to prepare herself more this time, apply immediately for a course for her food and hygiene certificates, and find some other evidence of how fantastic she might be … but what? Oh well, she had two days to think about it. Google was going to get a lot of hits.
‘Well, that’s good. We were impressed with you at the interview.’ It sounded like he was smiling.
You were?
‘And we just want to find out a few more details. Check your experience, perhaps get a couple of references, that kind of thing.’
Ah, the one second of elation was replaced by a sinking feeling at his last words. She wondered if Kirsty at the café would give her a reference, make her sound more experienced than she was.
Mum poked her head out from the living-room door, eyebrows raised. Ellie made a small thumbs-up gesture and then tilted her head sideways with a jerk, indicating the phone call was still ongoing, as if to tell her to disappear.
‘Right, well that’s settled, Ellie. We’ll see you on Thursday at eleven, then.’
‘Yes … and thank you.’ She hung on the line, heard the click and silence. It wasn’t a yes by a long way, but it was a definite maybe. Impressed – the word swum in her mind. And she’d thought all she’d done was gabble on like a loony at the interview.
She did a little dance into the lounge, where Jason lay draped across a sofa and her mum was making a pretence of watching the telly, ‘Well, then?’
‘It’s a maybe,’ she sung, ‘Guess who’s got a second interview?’
Jason managed a nod and the word ‘Cool’. Mum was more cautious, ‘Well, that’s good news, pet,’ adding, ‘Now don’t get your hopes up too high,’ with a knowing smile.
Ellie was undeterred, skipped out into the hall, punched the air and then wondered how the hell she was going to keep up the good impression with virtually no experience and no qualifications to show for herself. Her skipping slowed.
Ellie
Sickie pulled, she was heading north again. Ellie turned off the A1, away from the trail of lorries and cars, driving one-handedly at times, the other securing the cake box that sat on her passenger seat as the lanes got more winding. The box contained the choffee cake, Nanna Beryl’s special recipe, that she had created last night. A batch of cherry-and-almond scones, baked fresh at six-thirty this morning, were nestled in a tub in the foot well.
She’d thought and thought about how she might impress Lord Henry and Joe, but with her ‘on paper’ lack of experience, the only thing she could come up with was to take a sample of her baking along with her and suggest a spot of ‘afternoon tea’ at eleven o’clock. It was her best shot.
Ellie had turned to Nanna’s recipe for ‘choffee cake’ in her hour of need, mixing and baking, and decorating it with fat curls of white and dark chocolate and those lovely dark-chocolate-covered coffee beans (her own tweak on the original recipe). She had been up until the early hours, as the first attempt hadn’t risen as well as she wanted. Her mum appeared in the kitchen in her dressing gown and slippers, bleary-eyed, wondering what the heck her daughter was doing at one o’clock in the morning still cooking; she had thought they were being burgled. Oh, yes, she was an intruder bearing a palette knife and chocolate buttercream, Ellie had joked.
Anyway, there she was driving rather precariously along the lanes, whilst securing her precious cargo. There was no way