‘Is that Dad’s passport?’ I picked it up and checked in the back, but instead of a picture of Dad, I was puzzled to see a photo of a woman. Someone who looked very like Eleanor. Except this woman had dark hair and glasses. I glanced at the name, just as the passport was snatched from my hand.
‘I’ll take that, thank you,’ she said frostily, and I watched her put it into a plastic wallet inside the file she was holding. Then she swept out of the room.
I stared after her. What the hell was that all about? Why was she rooting through Dad’s things? It seemed pretty obvious to me that she was lying. But why?
I had a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach all afternoon, and eventually, I decided to talk to Dad. There was no harm in finding out if what she’d told me was true. That she was looking for driver’s license information.
‘Hi, love.’ Dad looked up from his desk and smiled. ‘You okay?’
I smiled and nodded. ‘I’m fine. I just…did Eleanor find the papers she was looking for?’
He looked puzzled. ‘What papers?’
‘Driving license documents? She was in here earlier, looking in the filing cabinet.’
‘Was she? She never mentioned anything to me about her license.’
We both looked up as Eleanor walked in. ‘That’s because I didn’t want to disturb you, darling! I thought I’d find what I needed myself.’
Dad’s face glowed as he smiled at her. The look of love. ‘And did you? Find it?’
‘I did.’ She stood behind Dad and wrapped herself around him, her hands across his chest. It was a gesture full of warmth and affection, but by contrast, the look she gave me behind his back made my blood run cold.
Triumph glittered in her stony eyes, mixed with an expression of pure hatred.
In that moment, I knew every kind gesture she’d ever shown me had been a lie. An act to convince Dad that she was an angel. And I stood there, chilled to the bone by this shocking revelation.
Eleanor wanted rid of me. I was getting in the way. The crazy daughter, needing help, taking Dad’s attention away from her.
I stumbled from the room and ran upstairs, feeling sick to my stomach.
How could I stay in a house where I wasn’t wanted?
Dad knocked on my door a minute later and I tried to hold back my emotion. But in the end it all came bursting out and I told him I knew Eleanor didn’t want me there. I felt uncomfortable in my own house. It was time I moved out.
Eleanor appeared in the doorway at one point, staring at us with a total lack of emotion, although Dad had his back to the door and didn’t notice.
‘The landscape gardeners are here, Marcus,’ she said, and Dad kissed me and stood up.
‘Right.’ He looked down at the carpet.
‘Dad? What’s going on?’
He glanced at me, and I could see something was bothering him. ‘We’re…having some work done in the garden, Lucy.’
‘What do you mean? A new lawn?’
Eleanor laughed. ‘No, no. We’re getting fake grass. It’s all the rage and so much easier to handle. I’ve been talking it over with your father and we’ve decided he’s getting too old to manage the garden the way it is. So the vegetable patch is going and the rose bushes. We’re just going to have some lovely decking and a brand new lawn. Won’t that be nice?’
I swallowed hard, staring up at Dad.
He saw the disbelief in my eyes, but he just shrugged, his eyes sliding away from mine. ‘Eleanor hates the insects a garden attracts.’
‘Oh, so this was her idea? To rip up our garden? And get rid of Mum’s rose bush?’
His face tightened. ‘No, Lucy, we made the decision together. And please don’t speak about Eleanor like that. I’ve had just about enough of you accusing her of all manner of things that she had nothing at all to do with! I’m making an appointment with the GP and you will go, Lucy – even if I have to frogmarch you along there!’ He joined Eleanor at the door. Then he stopped and looked back at me, his shoulders slumping. ‘It’s for your own good, my love. We have to get you well again.’
I sat on the bed after they left me, a multitude of emotions rolling through.
One thing was certain. I couldn’t stay in the house a moment longer. Eleanor wanted me gone. That was quite obvious. She’d bewitched Dad. He was so besotted with her, he’d even agreed to her plan to have our garden dismantled. I couldn’t fight that kind of love obsession. It was clear that Eleanor would use Dad’s passion for her to make my life a misery and drive me out.
I wasn’t going to stick around, waiting for that to happen.
Feeling more motivated than I had in months, I started flinging belongings into a case, rapidly turning things over in my mind, making a plan.
I’d take Mum’s camper van and just drive. Anywhere. Start a new life, far away from here. Dad had nailed his colours to the mast by agreeing to dig up the garden. I’d never convince him that Eleanor wasn’t the angel he believed her to be. And I wasn’t going to stick around to watch the charade, day after day…
I scribbled Dad a note and left it in his slipper so that Eleanor wouldn’t find it.
I grabbed my portable easel and stacked my paintings in their special carrier on top, and I carried them out to the camper van with the rest of my art equipment. I hadn’t painted since Mum died but I knew I wanted to get back to it. Maybe I would. In the new place…
Nipping back into the house, I zipped up my case, grabbed my handbag and crept softly downstairs, praying I wouldn’t bump into Eleanor.
But as I crossed the hall, she slid out of the shadows.
‘So you’re off, are you?’ she said, her tone cutting through me like a blade of ice. ‘For a very long trip, I hope.’
‘You’ve wanted me gone all along, haven’t you? But please don’t think you’ve won because you haven’t. I’m onto you, Eleanor. You’re nothing but a fake.’ My voice trembled but I kept my head held high.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I really don’t know what you mean, Lucy.’
‘Oh, I think you do.’
She came right up to me then, her face ugly with menace, and I knew I was seeing the real Eleanor at last.
‘You’re pathetic. Daddy’s little girl. But even Daddy is fed up now with your lunatic imaginings.’ She hissed the words in my face, so close I could smell the peppermint from her toothpaste.
‘There’s lots I could tell Dad about you.’
She laughed. ‘You’ve already tried. But did he believe you? The hysterics of a crazy lady? Of course he didn’t!’
I swallowed hard. ‘But he will. One day, he’ll see what you’re really like. I’ll make damn sure of it.’
She walked towards me, her face full of rage. ‘Don’t you dare threaten me, you pathetic excuse for a woman.’ She raised her hand and I felt it slam into my face, and I stumbled away, a searing pain in my cheekbone.
Her eyes were glittering with a warped satisfaction. ‘Dearie me. You’re bleeding, Lucy.’
Shocked, I put my hand to my face and felt the blood. She must have hit me with the back of her hand, her sapphire ring gouging the flesh. Scared by the fury in her eyes, I stepped back, but she was coming at me again and I instinctively dropped the case and jerked my arms up in front of me to protect my face.