Exclusive Second Chapter of It Felt Like A Kiss by Sarra Manning

Chapter 2

The next morning Ellie was pulled out of sleep and fitful dreams of being followed around by a family of fluffy ducklings, who had a nasty habit of falling off kerbstones into the path of oncoming traffic, by the chirp of her phone.

She opened one eye. It was only six fifteen, three quarters of an hour before her alarm. The number of the Mayfair gallery where she worked was flashing on the screen. Her boss had no respect for an eight- or even a nine- or ten-hour working day. If he was paying your wages and a hefty sales commission on top, then he owned your arse.

‘Hello? Is there a problem?’ Ellie hoped she sounded vaguely alert.

‘You have to come in right now. I’m in a world of trouble.’ It was Piers, her boss’s hapless assistant, so, no, she didn’t have to come to the gallery right now.

‘Give me one reason why you felt it necessary to wake me up at such an ungodly hour,’ she demanded, because, contrary to popular opinion, there were lots and lots of people who Ellie could say ‘no’ to, and Piers was at the top of the list. ‘It had better be a really, really good reason.’

‘Oh, please, Ellie. I’ve been here all night trying to fix it and I’ve just made it worse.’ Piers sounded shrill and hysterical. ‘There’s a virus on my computer and somehow it’s spread to all the other computers.’

That got Ellie’s attention. She sat up. ‘What kind of virus?’

She heard Piers swallow hard. ‘Penises,’ he whispered.

‘There are pop-up penises on all the computers.’

‘Have you been looking at porn? Again? You were warned about this.’ She was already throwing back her duvet. ‘I’ll be there in an hour.’

Piers moaned. ‘It’s an emergency! Just this once can you not walk to work? I’ll order you a car.’

Ellie always walked into work. She walked through heatwaves, torrential rainfall and even the occasional blizzard, and although pop-up penises on the gallery server were serious, they didn’t warrant extraordinary measures. Besides, since their boss had got married he’d become boringly fixated about his own work/life balance – not that of his employees – and his wife got very pouty if he left for the office before eight thirty, so there was plenty of time.

‘I don’t need a car. But I’m going to need copious amounts of coffee when I get to work,’ Ellie said, phone clamped between ear and shoulder as she rifled through her summer work dresses, which ranged from taupe to white to pale blue to show off her tan, and also because anything brighter (or, God forbid, with a print) tended to clash with the art. ‘Also, I’m planning to smack you repeatedly with Davenport’s Art Reference & Price Guide.’

Fifteen minutes later she was stepping out onto Delancey Street, showered, dressed and wearing really big sunglasses because it was an emergency and there wasn’t time for a light I’ll-apply-my-proper-make-up-later make-up.

Regent’s Park was deserted apart from a few dog walkers and dedicated runners, but there was no time to appreciate the almost preternatural stillness of the early morning, as if the trees rustled in the breeze and the water rippled on the boating lake only when there were people around to appreciate these selfless acts.

There wasn’t even enough time to pop into Le PainQuotidien on Marylebone High Street. Ellie crossed Oxford Street, which was just starting to come to life, and headed for the rarefied thoroughfares of Mayfair and instantly, the bustle was muted. The hedge fund managers had been at their desks for at least an hour but it was too soon for the imperious-looking girls who worked in the luxury stores to start work and it was far, far, far too early for the ladies who still lunched to be heading for Miu Miu or Moschino or Marc Jacobs for a quick retail hit before their roast chicken, saffron, almond& parmesan salad (without the parmesan) and a bottle of sparkling water at Cecconi’s.

Ellie didn’t even dare dawdle for a little window shopping as she walked past the hip boutiques on Dover Street and arrived at Thirlestone Mews, a pretty cobbled street just round the corner from Berkeley Square, at thirty-one minutes past seven. Piers hurried towards her. He was tall, thin and effete-looking, which made people automatically want to look after him, which was fortunate as his greatest talent was for getting himself into serious trouble.

‘I thought you’d never get here,’ he cried, grabbing Ellie’s hand and tugging her towards number seventeen, which was identical to all the other stucco-covered houses in the mews, its door wide open.

‘You must never leave the gallery unattended,’ Ellie gasped as she was yanked through the door. ‘Someone could already have had a painting off the wall.’

‘Don’t even joke about things like that,’ Piers snapped, as they both turned and looked across the reception area into the main gallery to make sure there were still fourteen paintings by an obscure yet collectable British Pop artist. There were.

‘See? Things could be worse,’ Ellie said brightly, though she didn’t feel bright and Piers didn’t seem to have delivered on the coffee front. ‘Now shall we sort out this penis infestation?’

It was just as well that Ellie hadn’t had breakfast because the sight of so many angry red, tumescent cocks multiplying every time she pressed a key on any of the gallery’s computers made her feel bilious.

Piers twitched behind her. ‘Oh my days! I never want to see an erect penis again.’

‘If you hadn’t been trawling the internet for erect penises in the first place this would never have happened,’

Ellie told him sternly, though she knew they’d laugh about this, probably in a few short hours. Right now, it was Penis Apocalypse. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done. I can’t fix it. We have to call IT.’

‘You can’t! They’ll log it and he’ll know. He’ll fire me for absolute certain this time.’

Ellie doubted that. Anyway, it wasn’t as if Piers needed to work when he had a private income and trust funds. This wasn’t even as bad as the time he’d put his foot through a painting when he’d been mucking about in the packing room, though that time he’d go this long-suffering mother to buy the painting. So Ellie ignored Piers and dialled their IT service’s emergency number.

She was put straight through to Danny, her ex, who happened to be on-call. Ellie always prided herself on remaining on good terms with her exes, but now having to speak to Danny after last night’s conversation with Tess and Lola made her feel raw and exposed. Maybe staying on speakers with all the men who’d done her wrong, hurt her heart and made her cry was just another example of her total pushoverdom.

‘Ellie? How are you?’ At least Danny sounded pleased to hear from her, which was nice, even if there was the sound of a baby squalling in the background.

‘I’m good, except we have a porn virus on the computer system,’ Ellie said, deciding it was best to get straight down to business, because Piers was now huffing on his asthma inhaler.

Danny chatted away as he took control of their servers by remote access and painstakingly removed each and every penis from the system. He and Sophie had just got back from their first weekend away without the twins, who’d been left with her parents, and were teething and refusing to sleep through the night.

‘Anyway, enough about me,’ Danny said when the last penis had magically melted away and he was doing something with their firewall to make it penis-repellent in future. ‘What’s your news?’

Now that the crisis had been averted, Piers, inevitably, was nowhere to be found. ‘Oh, nothing much. Work is busy and I’m going to Glastonbury this weekend. You know how my mum feels about Glastonbury.’

‘It’s like her Christmas, birthday and all other major holidays rolled into one,’ Danny said, and he chuckled and then suggested that they should get together for lunch or, even better, she should come round for dinner and some twin-cuddling time because Sophie was saying only the other day that they hadn’t seen her in ages.

Ellie finished the call in much better spirits. She’d also come to a new conclusion about her past relationships. Yes, she’d been involved with men who’d been challenging, and yes, they’d become a lot less challenging thanks to her support and guidance, but that was what she brought to a relationship. The fact that they stayed in touch proved that she was a person worth having in their lives. How could that be bad?

She was only twenty-six. Of course she was going to rack up a few failed relationships. It didn’t mean she was addicted to lame ducks. What it meant was that every time her heart got broken, it healed and was stronger than it had been before. Like her grandfather said, ‘Brokenhearts make the best vessels.’

Ellie wasn’t ready to write off Richey because of half an hour on Saturday night. Richey liked a good time, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that, but he also liked talking quietly for hours over pizza and beer about everything from French New Wave cinema to climate change to how they could both see themselves buying a dilapidated house near Deauville and doing it up on long weekends, as the restaurant staff pointedly kept wiping their table down because it was well past closing time. Ellie and Richey had a connection and Ellie wasn’t sure how deep it went but she owed it to herself – to them – to get Richey’s side of the story before she walked away. Anyway, nobody was perfect. Not Tess, who was always jumping to conclusions, and especially not Lola, so they could get off her case.

‘So . . . is everything all right? Is my nightmare over?’

Ellie swivelled round to see Piers standing behind her, asthma inhaler poised. She gestured at the computer. ‘Do you see any penises? Danny is going to log the job as anon-specific virus and system reboot, so you’re off the hook.’

Piers still looked as if he was about to burst into tears. ‘Are you really sure that there isn’t some great big todger that you’ve overlooked that’s going to pop up and it will start all over again and never end until I’m fired and I’ll have to explain to Mummy why I’ve been fired and then she’ll tell my grandfather and he’ll—’

‘Piers, shut up,’ Ellie said very gently, as she levered herself out of the chair. ‘Just stop talking.’

She took hold of his elbows and gave him a tiny shake. Up close he had the sour smell of someone who’d stayed up all night awash in his own fear, and his elfin face was puffy and sallow. He was still gibbering about his grand -father and the very real possibility that he might get cut off from his trust fund if he couldn’t stay gainfully employed and prove he was a worthwhile member of society. ‘You need to go home...’

‘I can’t! It’s almost nine and I promised that I’d have all the customs declarations finished and on his desk this morning.’ Piers looked at her pleadingly. ‘I don’t suppose you could—’

‘If I were you I’d go home, have a shower and a shave and change your shirt,’ Ellie said quickly before Piers could completely take advantage of her good nature. ‘You’ll feel much better, and don’t worry about the customs declarations. The courier company aren’t coming to pick up that shipment until the end of the week. It’s only Tuesday. You can do them when you get back.’

Piers surreptitiously sniffed an armpit, then agreed to Ellie’s plan of action. After setting the alarm, she walked out with him as far as the nearest Leon for a triple skimmed latte and granola with strawberry compote.

By the time she got back to the gallery, Muffin and Inge were waiting for her. Neither of them was trusted to have her own keys, because they were just two more posh girls in a long line of posh girls that Ellie had seen come and go in the five years that she’d worked at the gallery. As far as she could remember Muffin and Inge were Posh Girl Ten and Posh Girl Eleven respectively, though after a while all the posh girls seemed to merge into one posh girl composite of shiny hair, expensive clothes and strident voice, who lived in Chelsea and was morbidly fascinated by the fact that Ellie lived in North London, had gone to a state school and didn’t know anybody called Bunny.

Still, most of the posh girls were perfectly nice and friendly, and both Muffin and especially Inge looked pleased to see Ellie as she rocked unsteadily over the cobbles because she hadn’t had time to swap her toning trainers for the Bloch ballet flats she had stashed in the bottom drawer of her desk.

‘Oh my, your natural look is looking very natural today,’ Muffin said by way of a greeting. Inge muttered something that might have been agreement or dissent but it was hard to tell with Inge because she never said much of anything, but sat behind the reception desk dreamily staring into space for most of the day. ‘It’s odd, you really do have quite a good complexion.’

It was a bit of a headspin for Muffin, who’d been raised in the country on food grown on the home farm and lots of untainted fresh air, that Ellie, born and bred in Camden, wasn’t riddled with rickets and tuberculosis.

‘It’s not a natural look, I just haven’t had time to put any make-up on,’ Ellie said and as she unlocked the door and they began to go through the morning ritual of turning off the alarm, switching on the water cooler and sorting through the post, she gave them a brief account of Piers’s latest mishap.

‘He’s such a silly boy,’ Muffin said, even though Piers, unlike Muffin, had never mistaken a very famous con - ceptual artist for the window cleaner. ‘I’d go and put your face on if I were you. Don’t worry, we can hold the fort.’

Ellie doubted that very much because Inge had already abandoned the onerous task of opening the post to assume her usual position behind the reception desk so she could gaze into the middle distance while Muffin was glued to her iPhone, fingers skating over the screen.

‘Let me know if we have any walk-ins,’ Ellie said, just as she did every morning, because every walk-in was a potential client and every potential client meant potential commission and she refused to mount even one stair until she got a verbal commitment from both girls. Then, and only then, was she able to head upstairs for the sanctuary of her office.

Check back tomorrow for the third chapter!
Click here to get yourself a copy!