by Penny Jordan
In one of them, full of racks of dull dusty-looking second-hand clothes, Eleanor tried not to wrinkle her nose in distaste as the fusty, ancient smell filled the air.
Fortunately it seemed that nothing here appealed to Vanessa either, although Eleanor wondered if she had congratulated herself too soon when the next shop Vanessa announced she wanted to try turned out to be the junior version of an upmarket and very expensive high-profile designer range.
‘It’s only Diffusion stuff,’ Vanessa informed her with a bored shrug when she expressed her doubts. ‘Much cheaper than his main designer line. Sondra said that everyone in New York wears his stuff.’
Ten minutes later, blinking a little at both the clothes and their prices, Eleanor decided wryly that if ‘everyone in New York’ did wear it they must possess extremely indulgent and wealthy parents.
While Vanessa disappeared in the direction of the showroom with a handful of outrageously priced Lycra, Eleanor stood silently staring out of the window. Not at the models, but thinking instead about Marcus’s comments to her earlier.
Why had he left it until now to tell her that he didn’t want to move to Broughton House? Was he right when he said that it was not for everyone else that she wanted the house but for herself, not because she hoped it would bind them all together as a family, but to fulfil her own childhood fantasies?
And in those few words he had given her an image of herself she didn’t want to see: an image of a woman too determined to have her own way, too caught up in her own desires, too obsessed by her own needs to recognise the needs of others.
Was that really what she was like? Was that really how Marcus saw her…?
‘I want to see what this looks like outside…’ Vanessa had emerged from the changing-room wearing a dress that was surely far too tight and short for a girl of her age, but Eleanor could see from the mutinous expression on her face that it would not be wise to point this out to her.
Having been given permission by the salesgirl to go outside, they walked through the doorway, setting off the security tags with a noise that made Eleanor wince.
‘No, I don’t like it,’ Vanessa announced, both to Eleanor’s surprise and relief. ‘Hold this for me, will you?’ she commanded Eleanor, handing her the large, heavy shoulder-bag which seemed to go everywhere with her, adding as she turned round, ‘There’s no need for you to come back inside with me.’ Silently Eleanor waited while Vanessa went back inside the changing-room and then reappeared in her own clothes, handing the dress to the salesgirl before coming to join her outside.
Despite the fact that she had not found anything she liked, there was an air of suppressed excitement and energy about her as they headed back to the car; Eleanor even caught her grinning at one point, and her spirits started to lift. Perhaps they could after all establish some sort of common ground… some sort of workable relationship…
‘We could have lunch out if you like,’ she suggested, but Vanessa immediately shook her head.
‘I want to ring Sasha,’ she told her, ‘and then I’ll have to pack. Did Ma say what time she would be picking me up?’
‘No. She wasn’t sure what time her flight would land,’ Eleanor told her, trying to ignore the way she was beginning to scowl.
They had been back half an hour when she went upstairs to ask Vanessa what she wanted for lunch. Her bedroom door was open and Vanessa was lying on the bed, facing away from the door, speaking into the telephone.
‘Yeah, it was a doddle… just like you said. She never knew a thing. I’ve got it with me now…’
As she spoke she rolled over and saw Eleanor standing inside the door. Immediately her expression changed.
‘Look, Sasha, I’ve got to go,’ she announced into the receiver, quickly replacing it before turning back to confront Eleanor. ‘You don’t have to spy on me… I’m not a prisoner,’ she began belligerently, but Eleanor ignored her, demanding quietly instead,
‘Where did that dress come from, Vanessa?’
Both of them knew the answer. It was identical to the one Vanessa had tried on in the designer shop, the label was still on it, and no doubt the security tag was still inside it, Eleanor recognised sickly.
‘Vanessa?’ she repeated.
Vanessa shrugged sulkily. ‘All right, so I took it,’ she admitted irritably. ‘So what? Everyone does it. They even add the cost of it on to the clothes because they know it’s going to happen. It doesn’t mean anything.’
Eleanor stared at her in disbelief. ‘You stole a dress and you don’t think it means anything?’
‘I didn’t steal it. I just put it in my bag,’ Vanessa told her smirking at her. ‘You were the one who walked off with it…’
Eleanor stared at her, suddenly recalling with vivid intensity the moment Vanessa had asked her to carry her bag for her, and to wait outside the shop with it.
Too angry to dare to allow herself to express what she was feeling, she bent down and picked up the dress.
‘What are you doing?’ Vanessa demanded. ‘That’s mine.’
‘No. It belongs to the shop and that’s exactly where it’s going,’ Eleanor told her fiercely. ‘Vanessa, how could you do such a thing?’ she added in shaky bewilderment. ‘Your father…’
‘Oh, you have to bring him into it, don’t you? I bet you just can’t wait to go running to tell him all about it. Well, it’s no big deal—everyone does it. It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Vanessa, it’s theft!’ Eleanor protested. ‘Don’t you realise the consequences? And to just take something…’ Eleanor’s feelings overwhelmed her for a moment.
‘Yeah, it’s wrong for me to take something,’ Vanessa shouted at her, ‘but it’s OK for people like you, isn’t it? Only—’
‘What do you mean?’ Eleanor demanded. ‘I’ve never taken anything… stolen anything…’
‘You took my father,’ Vanessa told her bitterly.
Eleanor sat down on the bed, half unable to comprehend what she was hearing.
‘You… adults… grown-ups…’ Vanessa sneered. ‘You just do what you like, don’t you… take what you like, and then you turn round and tell us that it’s wrong? Well—’
‘Vanessa! Is that really what you think; that I’ve taken Marcus away from you? Your parents were divorced long before he and I met…’
‘Yes. But everything’s different now. You want to change everything. I bet you wish I was dead really, don’t you… dead or in prison? You pretend that you want me here but I know you don’t really. I’ve seen it all before. Some of the girls at school… they’ve got stepmothers. At first they’re all over them, giving them things, making a big fuss of them—that’s before they get married, but once they are it’s all different… then they start having babies and complaining about the noise teenagers make, about how disruptive they are… saying there isn’t enough room for them…’
Numbly Eleanor remembered what Tom had said to her about her and Marcus having children; then she had simply thought Vanessa was being malicious.
‘And Ma’s just as bad. She can’t wait to dump me on you and go to America…’
Eleanor watched her helplessly. Had she been her own child her instinctive reaction would have been to take her in her arms and hold her very tightly while she told her how much she loved her, how important she was to her and how she would always be a part of her life. But she wasn’t her child, she was Marcus’s, and it was his love and reassurance she wanted, not hers.
Besides, one look at her hostile, stiff body confirmed that the last thing Vanessa wanted was any display of physical affection or compassion from her.
Was all this emotion genuine or simply a means of deflecting her attention from the real issue? Either way, she couldn’t afford to take any chances, she recognised.
‘I’m going to have to take this dress back to the shop, Vanessa… When I have I—’
‘You’ll what?’ Vanessa interrupted her aggressively. ‘Report me to Dad? He doesn’t want me here any mo
re than you do. He never wanted me. I was an accident. They weren’t supposed to be having any children… Ma told me that, not that you’d know it to listen to him now. It’s always Tom this and Gavin that…’
Eleanor swallowed hard as she heard the frustrated anger and pain in her accusation.
‘Lots of people have children they haven’t deliberately planned, Vanessa. It doesn’t mean that they don’t want and love them. As a matter of fact I didn’t plan to have Gavin—’
‘Oh, come off it,’ Vanessa interrupted her, saying rudely, ‘Mrs Perfect, making a mistake like that? Well you might be perfect at everything else, but you’ll never be a perfect stepmother. I’d rather Dad was married to someone like Sondra.’
Perfect? Was that really how Vanessa saw her? If only she knew the truth!
‘I’m not a fool, you know,’ Vanessa carried on aggressively. ‘Ma pretends that there’s nothing she wants more than to take me with her to LA, but I know better… and you don’t want me here either.’
‘That’s not true,’ Eleanor objected.
‘Yes, it is. You can’t wait for me to leave so that your precious sons can have my room.’
‘Vanessa, you’re wrong. We are short of space here, and that’s the whole reason why we want to move, but…’
She stopped. It was Marcus she needed to talk to, not Vanessa… Marcus who could and must find a way of assuring his daughter that she was loved and valued.
* * *
Eleanor winced as the dress set off the shop’s alarms when she walked inside it. She asked to see the manager, mentally rehearsing her prepared speech, but when she gave it, avoiding her eyes as she explained that the dress must have slipped into her bag by accident, she could see that the girl did not believe her.
‘It happens all the time,’ the girl told her as she took the dress from Eleanor. ‘We do what we can to stop it, but it’s impossible to get them all. It’s a game to them, you see… a challenge. Most of them could easily afford to pay for what they take. Ask the police.’
* * *
Upstairs Vanessa was packing. She hadn’t spoken to Eleanor since her return from the shop; Eleanor herself was supposed to be working but it was impossible for her to concentrate.
When the doorbell rang she got up tiredly to answer it.
‘Jade!’ she exclaimed in surprised pleasure as she saw her friend standing outside.
‘The very same,’ Jade agreed as she came in. ‘I’d got a couple of hours to spare, so I thought I’d come round. I’m leaving for the States at the end of next week…’
‘With Sam?’ Eleanor asked her.
Jade shrugged. ‘That’s up to him. I’m getting too old and too tired to play games any more, Nell,’ she confessed. ‘Trust me to go and fall in love with a guy right at the very time when… What’s wrong?’ she demanded quietly.
Eleanor grimaced. Were her feelings really so obvious?
‘It would be easier to tell you what’s not,’ she said feelingly.
‘Tell me,’ Jade invited…
‘So, Marcus doesn’t want the house,’ she interrupted Eleanor several minutes later. ‘So find another…’
‘You don’t understand… he didn’t say anything to me, Jade. He just let me go on making plans, believing that it was something we shared when all the time… It’s almost as though I don’t really know him any more. He made me feel so… so self-centred. So unaware. He accused me of wanting the house to fulfil my own childhood fantasies… of using it as some kind of magic formula, when…’
‘Weren’t you?’ Jade asked her with unusual gentleness. ‘I’m not trying to criticise, Nell, I know how much you love Marcus… and I understand what you’re trying to do, but Marcus is right, you know. A house can’t miraculously bond you all together in some kind of perfect blissful family unit. To be perfectly truthful, I don’t think that kind of unity actually does exist, outside the imaginations of advertising executives.’
‘But Jade, all I wanted was for all of us to be happy, and now Marcus is making me feel as though… as though I’m deliberately ignoring everyone else’s feelings and needs and concentrating purely on my own.
‘When he talked about the house I could hear the resentment in his voice and I began to wonder if it was the house he actually resented or me.’
‘Nell! Marcus loves you!’
‘The worst thing about it all,’ Eleanor told her quietly, ‘is that all along everything that’s happened has underlined the fact that the house isn’t really for us and yet I’ve ignored it all, gone ahead… just as I’ve ignored what Marcus says he’s been trying to tell me. What kind of woman am I, Jade? I can’t tell when my own sons are unhappy… I don’t know what my husband is really thinking or feeling… I don’t recognise it when my partner wants to end our relationship… I apparently can’t see that my stepdaughter thinks I’ve stolen her father from her… Women are supposed to know all these things… we’re supposed to understand and empathise. We’re supposed to be emotionally aware and sympathetic and yet here I am…’
‘You’re a human being, Nell, not God,’ Jade told her drily. ‘You can’t know how everybody else will react or read their minds.’
‘No, but I could be more receptive to what they’re trying to tell me instead of apparently ignoring them. I wanted to make it all so good for us, Jade, and all I’ve done is make things worse.’
‘It isn’t just down to you to make things good,’ Jade told her. ‘That takes input and willingness from everyone. Stop worrying so much about other people’s happiness and concentrate a little instead on your own.’
‘According to Marcus I’m doing too much of that already,’ Eleanor told her bitterly. ‘And that isn’t the worst of it,’ she added, tiredly telling her about Vanessa and the dress.
‘Let Marcus deal with it,’ Jade advised her. ‘That’s probably half the reason she did it anyway.’
Eleanor looked at her.
‘You mean a bid for his attention? But, Jade, Marcus does love her. He…’
‘Does he?’ Jade asked her quietly. ‘How much did he actually see of her until you came on the scene, Nell? And now ask yourself how you’d feel in Vanessa’s shoes, suspecting that your father tolerated you simply because your stepmother thought it was her duty to make sure he saw you. Look, I’ve got to go… I’ve got an appointment with my trainer in half an hour.’ She gave a small shudder. ‘He’s brutal… but very effective… My thighs…’
Eleanor laughed. ‘Your thighs are perfect,’ she told her drily. ‘Just like the rest of your body.’
‘Talk to Marcus,’ Jade urged her as Eleanor escorted her to the front door. ‘And if you really want Vanessa to have a taste of what adult repression can be like, how about sending her over to me in New York for a few days?’
She had gone before Eleanor could say anything, or thank her.
For a while after Jade had gone Eleanor simply sat, assessing what she had said, and then she went and got the file containing all the papers relating to Broughton House.
Slowly she removed the sale brochure and studied it, tears filming her eyes.
Whoever it was who had said that the truth didn’t hurt couldn’t possibly have had a good understanding of the vulnerability of the human psyche, especially the female human psyche.
* * *
‘Marcus…’
Marcus frowned. He had arrived home late and tired. It had been a bad day, made worse by his own awareness of his feelings of guilt over this morning’s row. He knew that they needed to talk, but right now…
‘Marcus…’
He turned round abruptly. ‘Not now, Eleanor, please,’ he protested. ‘I’ve got a flight to catch and I’m already running late. Look,’ he added bitterly, ‘if the house means so much to you then go ahead and buy it. I’ve tried explaining to you how I feel, but you obviously don’t consider my feelings to be important, so go ahead. Do what the hell you like. But I…’ He broke off as he saw her face, suddenly sharply aware of what
he was saying and doing. ‘Nell…’
The doorbell rang. Ignoring him, Eleanor went to answer it. ‘It’s your taxi,’ she told him quietly, coming back. Marcus cursed under his breath. There wasn’t time now to explain, to tell her…
‘Look, Nell, I’ve got to go. When I come back…’
Quietly, without responding to him, Eleanor walked past him.
He had been gone less than fifteen minutes when the icy calm of her anger splintered and the pain broke through.
Why hadn’t she told him that it wasn’t the house she wanted to discuss… why had she let him leave like that?
She glanced at the clock and snatched up her keys; there was still time to catch him before his flight left.
She was lucky and had a good run to the airport. At Heathrow the terminal itself was very busy and it took her several minutes to make her way towards the First Class check-in desk. As she pushed her way past the travellers and cases she could see Marcus standing with his back towards her. As she watched him, a small yearning ache began inside her.
She was just about to go to him, to call his name, when she saw the woman walking towards him.
It was as though a giant fist was squeezing her heart, the pain, the betrayal she was experiencing too intense to be borne.
Barely able to breathe, never mind move, she watched as the American joined Marcus, linking her arm through his, pressing her body close to his, leaning her face against him.
After the pain came sickness, a cold, sweating nausea similar to that which preceded a faint.
Dizzily Eleanor staggered back away from them, quickly turning on her heel before they looked round and saw her, completing her humiliation.
Despite the accusation she had flung at him before, she had never really believed that Marcus would be unfaithful to her.
‘Come with me,’ Marcus had urged her, and she had refused. When had he decided to take the American girl instead? Were they already having an affair, or was this trip to be the start of it?
Her tears blinded her as she pushed her way through the uncaring crowds in the busy airport.
