‘So you and he bonded over being different.’
‘Sure, why not?’ Elle frowned at his scepticism. ‘We were the outliers. The oddballs who didn’t fit in. When my mother died, my father was so lonely that he remarried. I think he was trying recapture what he’d lost with Mum, but it wasn’t the same. She was cruel, but I suppose when I look back she was jealous of what my parents had had. But Stevie was there. Back then he was loyal, and kind, and generous. He kept telling me to fight for my dream even when she was nasty and told me I had ideas above my station. She told me I was wasting my time getting A Levels when I’d never be able to afford university anyway. She tried to make me get a job in the local factory—everyone got a job in the local factory—and bring a wage in instead of scrounging off her.’
‘But you got to uni. You joined the army and got a scholarship and did it by yourself.’
‘No.’ Elle shook her head. ‘I didn’t. She was right, I couldn’t afford university. I didn’t know the army gave bursaries for medical degrees and I knew I didn’t stand a hope in hell of making it through. But by then Stevie had made it to professional league football and he wouldn’t let me give up on my dream. He used his money and he paid for my degree, my accommodation, my books, my food, he paid for everything.’
‘As long as you turned a blind eye to his cheating?’
‘No. Not back then. I’m sure of it. The old Stevie wasn’t like that. Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he did. He certainly never gave me a key to his place in all those years, and I never just turned up apart from that last time. His doorman recognised me and let me in.’
‘So he did cheat on you.’
‘Maybe. But, God, Fitz, you have to understand, we were two kids from nothing. And he was suddenly catapulted into this world where he was idolised. Seems like everybody loves a footballer when they’re winning. He had fans, groupies, people who adored him, and he was nineteen with no home life to speak of to keep him grounded. Is it any wonder he let the fame and adulation get to him?’
Fitz sneered.
‘You’re seriously making excuses for him?’
‘No,’ she cried. ‘I’m the last person who would do that. I’m just saying I can see how it happened. And I wonder if I couldn’t have been the one thing to keep him steady...if I’d only cared enough to try. But I didn’t. I didn’t care enough and I didn’t try. We never saw each other, between his training and his matches he didn’t have much spare time, and by then I’d got an army bursary and I didn’t want to make the time either. So he was pretty much on his own, surrounded by sycophants and girls throwing themselves at him. The cheating started after that and things deteriorated year on year.’
‘Yet you still didn’t leave?’
‘Like I said, I felt guilty.’ Elle shrugged. ‘Not guilty enough to make an effort, but guilty enough not to leave. I didn’t want the responsibility of ending things. I think I was waiting for him to do it. When it all boils down to it, I still felt as though I owed him, that without his help that first year I would never have become a doctor.’
‘You’d have found another way.’
‘Maybe.’ She shrugged. ‘But we’ll never know. Stevie made sure I never had to risk that.’
‘If he was so great, why didn’t you love him?’
‘I never said he was so great. He was impossibly moody, and he had his father’s temper. And I did love him, in the beginning. But it was teenage love, tainted by where we grew up. We got together through circumstance, we were never a good fit. And Stevie was a brilliant footballer but...well, we could never have what you might call an in-depth conversation. If it wasn’t about football or movies then forget it.’
‘But when he cheated, you still felt guilty?’
‘Don’t underestimate guilt, Fitz. It can tie you up in knots. You can’t understand what it’s like.’
‘I can,’ he muttered unexpectedly. ‘More than you think.’
‘Your mother and sister?’ she guessed hesitantly. ‘Or Janine?’
The room was so thick with tension Elle thought the dust storm might as well have entered the building.
‘What have you heard about her?’
‘Not a lot,’ Elle confessed. ‘But you’re an eligible male around the site. You know what gossip is like. I heard she was a logistics officer and you were once engaged?’
It took a long time before he broke the silence.
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Try me,’ Elle asked.
He shook his head but she couldn’t let it drop. It was about more than just words.
‘Trust me. Please, Fitz. Like I just trusted you.’
This time he didn’t reply. The silence in the compact space grew, slowly but surely seeming to suck all the oxygen out of the room until Elle felt she was on the verge of suffocating. When he finally opened his mouth to speak, to break the spell, it wasn’t with a murmur but with a growl that seemed to explode in her head.