Adrienne Chinn - The English Wife

‘Newfoundland.’

‘Holy shit. I heard about that place. Dated a bloke from there before I met Dave. Better you than me.’

‘Boat,’ Emmett says, fixing Ellie with his serious gaze.

‘Yes, darling. We’re on a boat. And now you’re on a bed. You’ll sleep with me while we’re on the boat and then we’ll go live with Daddy, like I told you.’

She leans over and gives him a kiss on his chubby cheek. Sniffing, she wrinkles her nose. Taking off her coat and her feathered fedora, Ellie lays them neatly on the bed and fishes a cloth nappy out of her suitcase.

‘’Old on, luv! What’re you doing?’

‘Changing his nappy.’

‘Give us a flippin’ break.’ Mona climbs down from her perch and shoves her feet into a pair of sturdy shoes.

The cabin door swings open. A young red-haired woman in a net snood and camel-hair coat stands in the entrance, cradling an infant. She glances around the room in confusion. ‘Is this first class?’

Mona rolls her eyes as she pushes past the new arrival. ‘Bloody Nora. Dave bloody better be worth five days of this or I’ll be straight back to Blighty on a troop ship.’

***

Five days later

Halifax harbour is drab and grey. A flurry of snow swirls over a rocky shoreline and wooden houses like upturned apple crates. Ellie edges her way past the others onto the deck, Emmett clutching her hand as he toddles along beside her.

The crossing had been awful, the waves a seascape of mountains and valleys, the ship like a cork bouncing and tipping its way across the Atlantic. She’d given up trying to eat after the first day, and would have stayed prone on her bed if the stench of vomit and drying nappies hadn’t driven her out to sit on the stairs to the deck where she at least could breathe in the fresh, salty air.

As the grey bulk of the Mauritania steams into the harbour, the juddering black line on the harbour front transforms into a mass of shouting, waving people. Ellie clutches Emmett closer. Thomas is out there somewhere. Waiting to take her and the baby on the train up through Nova Scotia and onto the ferry across to Newfoundland. They’ll be a family in this new land of hers. She can make this work. It will be fine.

She picks up Emmett. Resting his weight against her hip, she points at the wooden buildings clustered along the harbour. ‘Look, Emmy. Houses. Daddy’s there to meet us.’

Emmett fixes his mother with a serious gaze. ‘Boat.’

When she finally disembarks, Thomas is there waiting for them in a dark brown wool coat and a felt fedora. He leans on a crutch and holds up a bag of oranges. His face is lean and lines fan out from the corners of his eyes as he smiles. A thin scar like a sickle loops around his left eye and cheek. He leans forward and kisses her.

‘Ellie Mae.’

Her eyes sweep over the pinned-up trouser leg; at the space where his lower right leg and foot should have been. Setting her jaw in a firm line, she smiles at him. At this stranger. Her husband.

A movement outside the window catches Sophie’s eye. The hawk turns its head, fixing her in its yellow eye as it glides past the shining glass, its orange-red tail feathers a stark contrast to the blue summer sky above the city’s skyscrapers.

‘Sophie? Can I have Jackie book your flight to Newfoundland? You’re clear what the consortium needs you to do?’

Sophie looks across the vast Italian glass desk at Richard Niven, the man whose award-winning architecture practice had drawn her over from London to New York ten years before. His thinning grey hair is cropped close to his bull-like head, and round, black-rimmed glasses frame his piercing hazel eyes. You look like a buzzard. She imagines him in twenty years’ time, jowls dropping from his square jawline, his eyes drooping and watery. By then he’d look like a vulture. Turning into his spirit creature.

‘I understand, Richard.’

‘Those photos you took up on the Newfoundland coast ten years ago, well, that coastline is just what the consortium has been looking for. Luxury travellers love nothing more than a place in an exotic, “eco”—’ he tweaks his fingers to indicate quotation marks ‘—location. Especially one that’s virtually impossible to access. Keeps out the riffraff. We’re talking about absolute exclusivity here, Sophie. They love the idea of Newfoundland. No one’s even heard of the place.’

‘Richard, the photos weren’t really meant … I mean, they were basically holiday snaps. The local community … I’m not sure how the consortium’s vision is going to go down with them. The hotel’s going to be a hard enough sell, but, seriously, Richard, a golf course? It’s winter there for eight months of the year, and it’s all moss and wonky trees. You have no idea. Those cliffs are a death trap. You know the locals call it The Rock? There’s a reason for that.’

Her boss waves his hand as if he’s swatting an annoying fly. ‘They play golf in Scotland, don’t they? My God, they haven’t seen the sun there for centuries. I got dragged around St Andrews last June with that obnoxious TV guy, pitching for his hotel job in a bloody parka. Couldn’t feel my fingers for hours. Bloody June! I could see my breath! Newfoundland can’t be any worse than that.’

‘Yes, but, you know, the locals in Tippy’s Tickle … I mean, don’t you think it’s better to get the locals on board rather than buying them out? It could be a wonderful employment opportunity for them. They’ve been having a hard time up there since the cod fishery shut down. There are a lot of talented people—’

Richard’s fleshy face folds into a frown. ‘That’s another thing. Tippy’s Tickle? What kind of a name is that? That’ll have to go.’ He pushes his glasses down his large nose and peers at her over the top of the frames. ‘All you need to do is secure the land, Sophie. Everyone has a price and the treasure chest is full. We need hotel staff with experience, not some local yokels. Get them to sell up, and I’ll make you the lead architect on the project.’

Sophie sits back in the black leather chair. ‘The lead architect?’

‘Absolutely.’

This was a turn-up for the books. No matter the awards she’d brought to the practice, the front-cover features in Architectural Digest , the hard graft on the front line as the project architect, she’d never been made lead architect. That was a job for the big boys. Richard Niven, Tony Mason and Baxter T. Randall. The Triumvirate.

She frowns. ‘I’m not sure, Richard.’

A thick black eyebrow twitches above his glasses. ‘You’re not sure?’

‘I want you to make me a partner in the firm.’

Richard’s eyebrows shoot upwards like two birds taking flight. ‘Partner? You know I can’t promise that. I have to speak to the other partners. It has to be a unanimous decision, which is … well. I’m sure you understand.’

Yeah, sure I understand. She could almost feel the glass ceiling bang against her head. ‘You’re the controlling partner. I’m sure you can sway the others.’ She stands and straightens the jacket of her Armani suit. ‘Think of the consortium, Richard. Think of all the awards the firm will win. Think of the publicity. Richard Niven & Associates Architects will be up there with Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright.’

Richard fixes her with a stare, his eyes like two green marbles flecked with orange. ‘Fine. A partner, then.’ He presses the intercom on his desk. ‘Jackie, get Sophie on the next flight to Newfoundland.’ He glances over at Sophie. ‘Book economy.’