A Very Accidental Love Story

  CLAUDIA CARROLL

  A Very Accidental Love Story

  For Anita Notaro, with love.

  Watch your thoughts, for they become words,

  Watch your words, for they become actions,

  Watch your actions, for they become habits,

  Watch your habits, for they become character,

  Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

  Anonymous

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One: Eloise

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Part Two

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Part Three: Eloise

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Four

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part Five: Eloise

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Read on for an exclusive Daily Echo feature by Eloise Elliot

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  They say no man is an island, but Eloise Elliot was.

  Not that this particularly bothered her most of the time, but tonight was different.

  It was her thirtieth birthday, and, bar a few stragglers from the accounts department who’d famously go to the opening of a fridge door if they thought they might scab a free drink out of it, no one had turned up.

  No one.

  Not a single one of the Board of Directors she worked so slavishly for; nor any of her senior editorial team, colleagues she’d known and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with for the past seven gruelling years. Not even the few – the very few – co-workers who, if she didn’t exactly think of them as friends, at least didn’t physically hurl furniture at her as she passed them by.

  And so this was it. This was how Eloise Elliot came to mark her thirtieth year: upstairs in The Daily Post’s conference room, surrounded by a few mangy-looking helium balloons and trays of dismal egg and watercress sandwiches that were already curling up at the edges, making faux-polite small talk with a bunch of semi-strangers. All of whom, for the record, then cried off early, pleading early starts the next day and in all likelihood only dying to get out of there the minute the free gargle ran out.

  ‘Sure you wouldn’t like a vol-au-vent?’ Eloise asked a smiley-faced blonde girl, whose name she hadn’t quite caught. ‘Go on, look, there’s loads left. You can’t leave now, look at all this grub! You’ve got to help me get rid of at least some of it.’

  ‘Emm,’ Blonde Girl said uncertainly, glancing at the others for support, ‘well … I’d love to stay, but … I’ve got this really early meeting in the morning.’

  ‘Mini vegetarian frittata then?’ said Eloise, wafting an untouched tray under her nose. Like this might make a difference.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I really have to go …’

  ‘Yeah … me too, it’s so late,’ said her pal, a tall modelly-looking one who Eloise vaguely recognised from seeing in the staff canteen a few times.

  ‘Go on, just have a slice of birthday cake before you go. You know you want to!’ Eloise offered, trying her best to keep the slightly hysterical note out of her voice. And not succeeding very well.

  ‘Can’t, I’m afraid. I live miles away and if I miss my bus …’

  ‘How about yourself?’ Eloise said to a new intern, whose name she thought might be Susan, as she thrust a plateful of vanilla sponge gateaux at her.

  ‘Oh … ehh … thanks so much,’ Susan answered politely, the only one to look even slightly sympathetic, ‘but you see, I really do need to make tracks as well, been a really long day …’

  Lost cause, Eloise thought. Waste of her time even asking them to stay. Instead she stood and watched the three of them clatter out the door and on towards the lift bank in their too-high heels, getting giddier by the minute it seemed, the further they were away from her.

  So this was it, she thought, this was the start of a brand-new decade for her. And so far, it was her worst nightmare come true.

  She hadn’t even wanted a party in the first place – no time, thanks very much – but then Eloise was famous for rarely socialising with anyone unless it was a) work related, b) would involve making several important new business contacts or c) there was just no possible way out of it. Even then, she’d be the last to arrive, the first to leave and would impatiently nurse a glass of still water for the hour or so that she was there, all while checking emails on her iPhone approximately every ten minutes or so.

  Oh sure, she’d put in an appearance at the staff Christmas party mainly because she didn’t really have a choice after all, she was the boss and even she knew how crap it would look if she didn’t. But by and large, she was her own best friend and perfectly happy to be so. She was an island and islands are rarely bothered about popularity. Which at that particular moment in time, as she sat all alone on an empty desk beside rows and rows of untouched wineglasses, was probably just as well.

  Absent-mindedly, she started to play with the string hanging off the end of a gaudy pink ‘Congratulations!’ helium balloon anchored beside her and for the first time in years, allowed herself a rare moment of introspection.

  Welcome to my life, she thought. Thirty years of age and utterly alone. No friends, no ‘significant other’, no office colleagues who, perish the thought, might actually want to spend some non-work-related time with her – no one. When it came down to it, she was basically living the life of a nun on a six-figure salary.

  Sure she had family, but she saw them so rarely, they barely even figured. Her darling dad had passed away years ago and her mother now lived in Marbella with a duplex, a perma-tan and a worrying habit of drinking during the day. But although they’d have a weekly chat on the phone and in spite of countless invitations to ‘jump on a plane and come and get some sun for yourself,’ Eloise really only got to see her mum once a year, when she’d fly home for Christmas. If work permitted even that much. Last Christmas Day, a story had unexpectedly broken in the Middle East and Eloise ended up having to rush back to the Post to cover it.

  She had a younger sister too, Helen, but she’d upped sticks and moved down to Cork a few years back. Besides, it was unspoken between the sisters, but deep down each knew they’d next to nothing in common. They saw each other rarely, spoke even less and even that was just for form’s sake, little more.

  In fairness, most of the time, Eloise didn’t particularly miss having friends, mainly because how can you miss what you never really had in the first place? Dating right the way back to primary school, when she continually came top of her class, the other kids, viciously cruel as small kids usually are, would ostracise her and call her a freak, mainly because no one wanted to be pals with the girl who constantly badgered the teacher about their homework load being insufficient and unchallenging.

  Eloise read at Junior Cert level by the age of four, was declared a member of Mensa at five and by nine, had composed a violin concerto to accompany the senior school’s production of Romeo and Juliet.

  For God’s sake, even the teachers were a bit scared of her.

  And so unsurprisingly, she grew up being utterly self-reliant and not really needing other people,
thanks very much. Totally married to her job; in fact, she was the job. Youngest senior editor the Post had ever had, by the way, with all the stress ulcers to prove it, and in the space of a few short years she had not only trebled their circulation but completely turned their readership around, a la Tina Brown. First at her desk every morning, last to leave at night; this is not a woman who did down time, friends, family or socialising, ever. Sorry, no time.

  Small wonder people didn’t warm to her. She had a clatter of various nicknames behind her back among subordinates at her office, none of which stuck, mainly because the very phrase ‘Eloise Elliot wants to see you in her office, now,’ delivered just like that, unfrilled and straight up, was pretty much enough to terrify any poor unfortunate who worked for her into white-faced, trembling, silence.

  And now on this of all nights, Eloise was suddenly seeing the rest of her whole life stretching right out in front of her. Seeing it as vividly as if she’d already lived it. Clear as crystal, she could see herself at forty, then at fifty, then right up all the way to retirement age, still editing the paper, still working eighteen-hour days, and still alone.

  Pretending to celebrate a day she didn’t particularly care about, while a handful of strangers looked at her the way everyone seemed to look at her these days; with a mixture of pity and terror.

  Sometimes we don’t recognise the most significant moments of our lives till they’ve long passed, but not Eloise. Hard to believe that miserable night would change the whole course of her carefully ordered existence, and yet that’s exactly how it would pan out.

  Years later, she’d look back and pinpoint this as the precise moment when heaven whispered in her ear and when she suddenly knew what needed to be done to kill this life, to fix this problem. Because to someone with Eloise’s keen mathematical brain, that was all this was; a problem to be solved, like a simple maths equation.

  And make no mistake: solve it, she would.

  So with that same dazzling clarity that you only ever get on rare, road-to-Damascus moments in life, Eloise Elliot rubbed sore, red eyes, took a deep breath and made one of the lightning-quick, clear-headed decisions for which she’d become legendary.

  It was time to take action.

  PART ONE

  ELOISE

  THREE YEARS LATER

  Chapter One

  Not today. Just please not today. I can’t tell you how I so do NOT need this today.

  It’s barely five thirty in the morning and already my whole life seems to be spiralling dangerously out of all control, something that’s happening with all-too alarming frequency these days. For starters, while I’m trying to slip out the door at the crack of dawn (nothing unusual there, this is when I have to leave for work every morning), Elka, my Polish nanny, picks today of all shagging days to have an out-and-out meltdown.

  There I am, sneaking downstairs in my bare feet, trying not to wake anyone, already running late for the early morning news briefing. Never, ever a good start to the day. Next thing, madam stomps out of her bedroom, still in her dressing gown, not so much asking, as demanding, to have a ‘queek word with you.’

  ‘Emm … yes, of course, Elka,’ I say, instantly smelling trouble and deliberately keeping my voice down to a low hiss, so as not to disturb Lily.

  Lily, by the way, is my little girl; almost three years old now and the light of this exhausted, knackered-to-her-very-bone-marrow mummy’s life.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ I ask politely, biting my tongue and bracing myself for the answer. Elka is the one nanny we’ve had who Lily adores and behaves beautifully for, and for her part, Elka herself genuinely seems fond of her too.

  ‘I neeeeed to speak with you, and this crazy hour of morning is only time I am seeing you all this week,’ she tells me in her still-rubbishy English, in spite of the small fortune I’ve forked out on audio books and private lessons for her over the past few months.

  Please don’t tell me you’re about to leave. Please for the love of God, don’t let another one leave …

  ‘Go ahead, Elka,’ I manage to say calmly, but with bowels clenched, only dreading what’s going to come out of her mouth next.

  ‘In my contract, it say that you am paying me to look after Lily,’ she says crisply, arms folded, ponytail swishing back, nostrils flaring. ‘But you must understand me when I tell to you, this mean during reasoning hours.’

  ‘I think you might mean reasonable hours,’ I tell her. ‘Can I ask you what’s suddenly brought all this on?’

  ‘You have huge nerve to ask that of me!’

  ‘Shhh! Can you keep it down please? You’ll wake Lily.’

  ‘I have many, many problem with the hours you expect me to be working. None of the other nannies who am my friends work as long days as I must.’

  ‘But Elka, your hours are hardly long. At least, not compared with mine, they’re not …’

  ‘Look at time now! Five thirty a.m.! And already you are going to office, which mean I am in care of Lily. You meant to be home at seven in the night times so I can have free time for me, and you never are. Ever!’

  Okay, I’m momentarily silenced here. Because actually, the girl does have a point. Technically I’m supposed to be home at seven-ish in the evening so she can clock off, but … well, for the past while, it’s been a tiny bit later than that. Like eleven p.m. Or even midnight.

  ‘All other nannies have evenings free! They am all meeting for coffee and beer and movies. All having good time in Ireland! All have boyfriends and days off and nights out! But never me! No fun for me, ever. I tell you I am sick of it, have enough! Is total crap!’

  ‘Shhh! Elka, please will you keep your voice down,’ I stage whisper at her, but madam’s having none of it. Instead she’s whipped herself up into a right frenzy and there’s no stopping her now.

  ‘No, you must be listening to me. Because you am working late, I must too. It’s too much and I want to quit!’

  ‘I hear what you’re saying and I completely understand but can I also remind you that this is the nature of my job?’ I tell her as soothingly as I can, knowing full well she has me backed into a corner now. Because if she walks out on me … Oh dear God, it just doesn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘And if you don’t like the schedule I have to work Elka, well … I’m really sorry but there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. Believe me, I don’t like working such long hours, any more than you do. So if you’re looking for someone to blame, then take it up with … Eurozone leaders and the global economic meltdown. Or … blame the Arab Spring in the Middle East, which is hardly my fault, now is it?’

  ‘I no understand … you must use little words for me!’

  I take another deep breath.

  ‘I’m so sorry Elka,’ I tell her as calmly as I can, given that I should have been out the door ten minutes ago and even though the day has barely started, I’m now already well behind schedule, ‘but if there’s a big news story, the editor has to be there to oversee it. That’s my life. News doesn’t take time off and therefore neither can I. Editors at the Post don’t sit around. In fairness, I did make this perfectly clear to you when I hired you. Plus, can I point out that I pay you far and above the rates all your other nanny pals are earning? But of course,’ I tack on brightly, hoping against hope that this might just work, ‘if it’s a question of giving you yet another salary increase, I’d be perfectly happy to discuss it with you later.’

  No, not even that sways her though. In fact, I might as well be talking to the back of my hand.

  ‘You work too long days and it no good for Lily, as well as no good for me,’ she lobs in, a cheap shot if ever there was one. The old emotional guilt-card thrown at a busy working mother.

  ‘She miss her mama so much when you not here. All the time she ask me, when is Mama coming home?’

  ‘Come on Elka, that is blatantly ridiculous and deeply hurtful …’

  ‘Even at the weekend time, when you should be with her, you am still in the off
ice. Always, always working.’

  Now that bloody stung, and just as this conversation was heating up, temporarily stuns me into silence. I mean, yes, of course I wish I could spend twenty-four hours a day with Lily, I mean, who wouldn’t? But how can I possibly?

  I get a lightning-quick flashback to the first year she was born, when somehow, I seemed to manage just fine; got to spend whole weekends with her, even managed to get home relatively early most nights. I can do this, I thought; I can have the best of both worlds. I can be Superwoman. I had my whole work/life balance sussed back then and can honestly say it was the happiest time of my life. By far.

  But then the recession hit hard and the staff cutbacks started and that was the end of that. Suddenly I was expected to do the work of three people for the same money or else get out, that was it. Well, it was worse than Sophie’s bleeding Choice. Because much as I love and adore the ground Lily walks on, work is a hugely important part of my life too and if these are my new working hours, then bar resigning, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.

  In brutal moments of introspection, I just know I’m someone who’d go off her head in less than a week without a full-time career to nourish my soul. Sure, parenthood is a huge high, but then so is my job. Peppa Pig and Barney videos could never possibly give me the same buzz. So, if it’s not too much to ask, can’t I just have both? I mean, plenty of other women do, don’t they?

  But I have at least established clear boundaries with the office and made it perfectly clear to everyone that my Sundays with Lily are sacrosanct. The one day out of an otherwise mental week when I get to read her stories and make pancakes with her, then maybe take her to a Disney movie, or else to feed the ducks in the park. You know, spoil her rotten. Be a proper mummy.

  Mind you, ever since the most recent staff culling started, I reluctantly have to admit that Elka might have a point and that even Sacred Sunday Mummy Time seems to have been seriously curtailed lately. Last week for instance; I’d made Lily her breakfast, played imaginary tea parties with her small army of dolls and was just about to take her to the toystore for a very special treat, when I got a call to get into the office ASAP. There was an emergency news conference about a breaking story developing in Afghanistan, so what else could I do? I had to be there, simple as that. Goes with the job.