For Better for Worse

When Eleanor had bumped into her seat, jolted by the swaying movement of the carriage, Jade had been scowling over the huge capital letters in which she had written her name on the notebook on her lap.

Janet Anne Hewitt.

She had looked up at Eleanor, still scowling as Eleanor hastily apologised to her. Eleanor had spent her final holiday before going up to university with her grandparents and had been wearing the hand-knitted jade-green sweater her grandmother had presented her with.

‘That’s it,’ Jade had announced, staring at her.

‘Jade… Fensham. That’s going to be my new name,’ she had told Eleanor firmly. ‘Jade Fensham. Oh, and by the way, that colour is disgusting on you. What on earth made you choose it?’

Eleanor smiled to herself as she recalled that first meeting.

It had been an unlikely friendship; they couldn’t after all have been more different, but it was one which had endured, perhaps because of their differences.

Jade was now a fashion writer with one of the glossies, a bone-thin, elegant creature who despite all her efforts had never quite managed to tame the wild tangle of glossy black curls which Eleanor remembered so vividly from their first meeting.

Her olive skin-tone and thick black hair were the result of a secret liaison between her grandmother and a black American blues singer, Jade had once claimed. Whether or not it was true, Eleanor had no idea, but it was typical of Jade that she should lay claim to such a heritage.

Eleanor grinned now as she thought about her, the thought of seeing her momentarily lifting her spirits.

She and Louise were due to see their accountant at half-past ten to formalise the ending of their partnership and to sort out all the remaining financial details.

Their accountant was late, causing Louise to twitch irritably and remind Eleanor that Paul had suggested some time ago that they switch to his accountant, who in his view was far more efficient than their own.

‘We’ve been with Charles ever since we started,’ Eleanor pointed out equably.

‘And of course he’s a friend—of yours,’ Louise told her shortly.

Grimly Eleanor refrained from pointing out that their decision to take him had been a joint one, and that it had been Charles who had negotiated the mortgage Paul and Louise had so desperately needed when they had bought their house—a mortgage which Paul’s own accountant had seemed either unable or unwilling to find.

When Charles did arrive he immediately apologised, explaining that there had been a traffic accident which had delayed him.

The meeting proved to be every bit as unpleasant as Eleanor had dreaded. Despite the fact that she was the one who wanted to end the partnership, Louise seemed to take pleasure in being as obstructive and difficult as possible, arguing over every single point and making it plain that she felt their partnership had somehow been angled unfairly in Eleanor’s direction and that she was determined in putting an end to it that this should be redressed.

Several times Eleanor had to bite her tongue and remind herself that it was Paul she was really listening to and not Louise, or at least not the Louise she knew or rather had thought she knew, but when Louise announced that she ought to retain their partnership name for her sole use Eleanor finally rebelled. That name had been her invention, but when she firmly pointed this out Louise erupted into such a flood of invective and accusation that Eleanor was finally forced to acknowledge that she could not have really known her after all.

Half an hour later, sitting in her own office with Charles, she listened disbelievingly while he told her gently that Louise had always been jealous of her.

‘No,’ she denied vehemently. ‘No. We were friends.’

‘Well, yes, but you were always the leader, Eleanor, the innovator, while Louise was the follower. There’s nothing wrong with that; the world, businesses need leaders and followers.

‘Louise admired you and was quite happy to let you take the lead. The problems probably started when she met Paul. You see, he’s a leader too, and I suspect he didn’t like his follower, Louise, being your follower as well.’

‘And because of that he’s broken up our partnership… turned Louise against me? But that’s ridiculous!’

‘Is it?’ Charles asked her mildly. ‘You’d be surprised how often it happens. I suspect, though, that Louise is in for a rather unpleasant shock, and so too is Paul. He isn’t the kind of man who takes advice easily. I’ve already tried to warn him that he’s over-committing himself in taking on this château but… He has his own financial advisers and they, it seems, see things differently.

‘How’s Marcus, by the way?’

‘Fine, but very busy.’ Eleanor chewed on her bottom lip. ‘Actually there’s something else I need to discuss with you, Charles. Marcus and I are thinking of moving.’

‘Are you?’ He both sounded and looked surprised. ‘The last time I saw Marcus, he was saying how ideal the house is.’

‘Was,’ Eleanor corrected him wryly. ‘It just isn’t large enough for all of us… and it’s on the wrong side of London for the boys’ schools. And now that I’m going to have to give up the lease on this place…’ She gave a small shrug. ‘We’ve both agreed that I simply can’t generate the kind of income which would support London’s rents, and there’s nowhere for me to work at home so we have to find somewhere else.

‘Actually I think we might already have done so,’ she told him. ‘Fingers crossed. We’re going to see it this weekend.’

‘Mmm… Which part of London is it?’