He grunts and heads for the door.
I stare after him in bewilderment. He couldn’t get away fast enough.
And he didn’t even tell me his name…
*****
Back at the van, I decide to get an early night so that I can be at the hotel bright and early the next morning.
Yawning, I trickle water into the kettle for a final cup of tea and sit on the bed reading my book while it’s boiling. But I can’t concentrate. My mind keeps straying to Jump Leads Man and his rudeness.
I was perfectly polite – friendly, even – but it was as if he actually couldn’t wait to to escape from me. I take a dubious sniff of an armpit. Obviously, I’m not showering as much as I usually do, but even so…
Feeling restless, I get up to make my tea and almost trip over the box on the floor containing my cans of beans and tuna and other provisions. There’s a shelf above the sink and I manage to push the box into the small space. It hangs slightly over the edge but at least it’ll be out of the way there.
The kettle still isn’t boiled, so I wander back over to the bed.
It’s dark outside now.
I twitch the curtain aside to see if it’s a clear night – and my heart almost jumps out of my chest with fright.
A dark figure is standing in the middle of Mrs West’s lawn, looking in at me. I can just make out the sinister silhouette through the gloom.
Heart hammering, I flip the curtain closed.
Does Mrs West have a life-size statue in her garden that I somehow never noticed before?
Holding my breath, I kneel on the bed and peer through a tiny opening.
But the figure has disappeared, which is even more scary.
I swallow hard, telling myself to stay calm. Did I really see something out there? Or is it my mind playing tricks on me again?
Suddenly, there’s a tremendous crash behind me and I let out a piercing scream.
Spinning around, I’m fully expecting to see Eleanor standing there, bent on revenge. And it’s a full three seconds before I realise that the box I’d tried to wedge up on the shelf has fallen to the floor, disgorging all the tins in the process.
A few seconds after that, I nearly leap out of my skin again at a frantic banging on the door.
‘Lucy? What the hell is going on?’
I open the door and peer out. ‘Sorry, Mrs West. I thought I saw someone lurking outside. I panicked because I thought it was…’ I trail off.
She narrows her eyes. ‘Who? Who did you think it was?’
I swallow. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, you clearly had a suspicion, and from the look of your deathly white face, I’d guess it wasn’t a welcome visitor?’
I shake my head, tears pricking my eyelids.
She sighs. ‘Now, look here, Lucy, I don’t want you bringing trouble to my door. If I have any more incidents like this, I’ll have no choice but to move you on. Do you understand?’
‘Yes. And I’m really sorry. There won’t be any more trouble, I promise.’
‘Really?’ She raises a cynical eyebrow.
‘Mrs West, the last thing I want is drama,’ I tell her desperately. ‘I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime. I just want an ordinary life, to blend in with the crowd – to be invisible, really.’
‘Invisible? With hair like that?’ she jeers. ‘Not a hope in hell!’
And with that, she stomps off, slamming the van door behind her.
I sink down onto the bed, a sick feeling inside. I can’t afford to antagonise Mrs West. And I’m still spooked by the sinister figure in the garden. Was it there? Or did I imagine it?
I’ve got to stop imagining Eleanor is after me. But in that final encounter with her, the day I fled, I saw as plain as day that she despised me, and that glint of malevolence in her eyes has haunted me ever since.
It was an Eleanor I hadn’t seen before. Either it was an uncharacteristic burst of rage, or the mask had suddenly slipped, showing me her true nature for the very first time…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was a few days after the spiders-in-the-drawer incident, a Friday morning, and Dad had driven down to the post office in the village.
He came to my room to let me know he’d be gone for an hour, and I knew he was checking up on me, making sure I was okay. After witnessing my display the other day, I could tell he was even more worried about my state of mind. He wanted me to talk to the GP but I was refusing to make an appointment. I just kept telling him there was nothing wrong with me, although deep down, I knew that was far from the truth.
After he left, Eleanor knocked on my door.
‘I thought you might like this.’ She smiled, and handed me a bottle of lavender bath oil. ‘I really swear by it when I’m feeling tense. It helps me unwind. You should try it.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’ I took the bottle. ‘I will.’
‘Good. I’ll go and run it for you,’ she said, taking the bottle into my en suite bathroom. I’d just had a shower, but I was too exhausted to tell her I’d take a bath later. It seemed easier just to go along with it.
I sat on the bed, listening to the water flowing into the bath, and Eleanor kept popping out, chatting cheerfully about the health properties of natural products like lavender. I listened in a daze. Why was she being so kind to me?
At last, she left, and I got undressed and sank into the perfumed bath. But it was a little too hot, and after a few minutes, I was starting to feel faint and very thirsty.
Getting out, I wrapped myself in my towelling robe and went downstairs to get a glass of water. Relieved not to bump into Eleanor, I filled my glass, intending to scurry straight back upstairs. But as I crossed the hall, I saw Dad’s study door was slightly ajar.
There was a light on in there. Had he forgotten to switch it off before he left?
I went to shut it, and that’s when I realised Eleanor was in there.
I paused on the threshold. What was she doing, sitting at his desk? She never went into Dad’s study. She always said business stuff bored her rigid.
Something didn’t feel right, so I walked in.
Eleanor was crouched over Dad’s laptop, her back to me, so intently focused on the screen that she didn’t even hear the door creak slightly when I entered the room. I watched her scrolling through a document but I couldn’t make out what it was from where I was standing.
She reached into a side drawer of the desk, took out a key and went to open the filing cabinet nearby. I watched her curiously as she started flicking through the files in there. What was she looking for?
I cleared my throat and she spun around, a shocked look on her face.
‘Erm, hi?’ My tone was questioning.
Quickly pulling herself together, she snapped, ‘I thought you were in the bath.’
‘I was. I needed a drink of water. Are you looking for something?’ I walked towards her and she quickly replaced a document in the section marked ‘L’ and slammed the filing cabinet shut.
‘I needed some information. About…licenses. My driver’s license is due for renewal and your father told me he keeps the documentation in here.’ She tapped the cabinet.
‘Right.’
She seemed oddly on edge but I thought maybe she was mirroring my own discomfort. Things had never been natural between us. Her eyes flicked to a file on Dad’s desk and she swept it up, clutching it across her chest. ‘My financial stuff,’ she said, and I noticed something had been lying underneath the file.