So, he was deliberately avoiding me.
I nodded, ignoring the tear that dribbled out as I levered my stiff leg over the doorstep. Ignoring that there was no strong, caring man here to help me.
It was a long, laborious ordeal to get up to my bedroom. My head throbbed in time with every broken heartbeat, and the wound in my knee felt as though it had been shredded open all over again. Still the tears streamed constantly, like a faulty tap. I mutely started opening drawers while Becky beavered beside me, packing several bags by the time I’d weakly stuffed three tops into a holdall.
Noticing my pathetic progress, she stopped and handed me a towel that had been draped over the chair. ‘I’ll sort this, you go and have a shower. Even better, run a bath.’
I glanced towards the window. ‘I think I’m best just getting out of here as soon as possible.’
‘Eleanor, do you really want your parents to see you like this?’ She gently turned me towards the mirror, and I watched my face crumpling.
Hair looking like a bad wig, face and arms flecked with dark red scrapes and purple bruises, an ugly crimson slash across my chin, haggard eyes ringed with black. I was almost relieved that Daniel hadn’t seen me. Becky was right. Never mind my parents, no respectable taxi driver would allow me in their cab looking like this.
Once in the shower, it was almost impossible to drag myself back out again. The sensation of the near-scalding spray, how the sound muffled both the world outside and within my ravaged head, the frail hope that if I let the water wash over me for long enough, I would feel clean.
Eventually I had to come out, or else risk passing out into the shower tray. I gingerly got dried and dressed, every wincing movement a vivid recollection of the last time I had stood in this bathroom battered and bruised. A lifetime ago. Back then, I had been mourning the loss of Charlie. Now, the grief at having to leave her family engulfed me.
And yet.
Beneath the shroud of bleak despair, I still had a tiny spark of hope.
Maybe Daniel was busy.
He needed some time, like Ziva said.
He wouldn’t leave the others to clear up the orchard without him, he wasn’t that type of person.
He loved me… he would listen because he loved me…
He would see that the woman he’d fallen in love with was the real me, after all…
He would surely ask me to stay, at least until we’d talked about it, until he’d let me explain…
* * *
He was waiting in the kitchen.
Face grim, arms folded. It was only when he looked at me that I saw hiding behind the defensive stance was pain.
Becky helped lower me into a chair. ‘Right. We’re all packed up. Taxi should be here in about half an hour. I’ll leave you two to talk.’ She bent down to envelop me in a hug, her face pressed against my now not-quite-so-terrible hair. ‘I’ll speak to you soon. Don’t worry about the retreats, I’ll keep things going until you’re ready.’
I nodded, meekly, not having the strength to argue. She turned to Daniel. ‘You’ll make her a drink and something to eat before she goes?’
Daniel gave one sharp nod, before Becky gave me a squeeze goodbye and left us to it.
For a long moment, the silence hung between us, dripping with unspoken questions and the unwelcome answers. Eventually, Daniel flicked the kettle on, fetching two mugs from the dresser. I felt another flicker of hope when I saw he’d used my favourite mug.
‘I don’t really know where to start,’ I said, voice trembling.
‘You don’t need to say anything. The internet told me plenty. Brenda filled me in on the rest.’
‘I was going to tell you,’ I gabbled. ‘Yesterday. After Damson Day.’
‘Tell me what?’ he asked, placing my drink on the table. ‘That you’ve been concealing from me who you really are? That you weren’t an honest, hardworking, uplifting food critic, but one who got famous through being vile? Or that you knew a potentially violent stalker was here, on my farm, where me, my daughter and hundreds of innocent people were gathered, and you didn’t even tell me, let alone call the police, because you were afraid that we might all find out that you’re not a nice person?’
‘Tell you that I’d worked as Nora Sharp, and why I did it, and why I left, and how I hadn’t told you because I hated who Nora had become, which was largely out of my control and not what I wanted. I loathed myself, and the only way I could bear to keep on existing was to stop being her, and go back to being the person I really am. If I’d told you, you’d not have let me stay. You’d not have given me time to show you that I’m not her. If you read her actual reviews, you’ll see they’re mostly constructive, positive ones.’
Daniel shook his head, scoffing in disgust.
