Just Like the Other Girls(48)

She’s dancing.

I take a step forward, unable to believe my eyes, but I’m not mistaken. Elspeth is dancing around the room, her arms framed as though in a waltz with an invisible partner. I’m so shocked that I can only stand there for a few minutes, frozen to the spot, watching her waltz around the room. Then the song comes to an end. She stops and I take a step back in case she sees me.

‘Una!’ she calls, her voice breaking the silence and I jump. I run to the stairs, trying to make out I’ve only just come down. ‘Is that you? I’m in the study. I need your help.’

I return to the study where she’s slumped into a chair, her hand on her heart. There is a film of sweat above her top lip. ‘Can you help me up? While you were off doing God knows what, I got so fed up waiting for you I had no choice but to come down here alone. Now I’m out of breath and can’t get out of this chair.’

I stare at her, puzzled. I long to tell her I saw her dancing around the room just a few minutes ago but I can’t. She shoots me a look as though daring me to challenge her. Does she know I saw her?

‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ she snaps. ‘Help me up!’

I go to her and she grabs my arm as I lever her out of the chair. She clutches me as though she can barely walk and we return to the lounge in silence, my mind whirling. I’ve always suspected Elspeth wasn’t as frail as she tried to make out, but still. The sight of her prancing around the room like a woman half her age and then her pretence at being unable to stand up has shocked me. She’s even more manipulative than I thought.

The day is unbearably long. We don’t go anywhere, and the only person I see is a postman delivering a canvas swathed in bubble-wrap that is nearly my height, which I have to lug across the hall and into the library, while Elspeth says, ‘Be careful, that’s an expensive painting,’ every five seconds. By the time we head to the kitchen for what Elspeth calls supper but I call tea I’m desperate for someone, anyone, to talk to. Aggie is bustling around us but we can’t have a proper conversation with Elspeth’s brooding presence sullying the atmosphere. She’s perfectly pleasant to Aggie, which just highlights exactly what she thinks of me at the moment.

When Aggie goes out of the room, grimacing at me in solidarity over her shoulder as she leaves, I can bear it no longer. If I want to keep this job, I have to play the game too.

‘You know,’ I say, as I pick at my meat pie and potatoes, the atmosphere between us diminishing my appetite, ‘I won’t be seeing Lewis again. It was a mistake.’

She’s sitting opposite me but she doesn’t glance up from her food. And at first I wonder if she’s even heard me as she pops a forkful of potato into her mouth elegantly and swallows. Then she looks up. ‘That’s good to know.’

‘Can I ask …’ I clear my throat, my palms sweating, hating myself for stooping to her level, but I need the money. I have to think of the future. ‘… why you dislike Lewis so much?’

She doesn’t answer straight away and the silence that ensues makes my scalp prickle.

Eventually: ‘He’s got no prospects. He’s a roamer, a loser. And I could smell …’ she wrinkles her nose as though the memory troubles her ‘… marijuana on him.’

I want to laugh, but I don’t. So that’s why she sacked him. She thinks he’s a pot head.

‘I don’t want a boyfriend,’ I say truthfully. ‘I’ve had it with men.’

I must have said the right thing, for once, because she looks at me, properly, for the first time today, her eyes lighting. ‘Good for you,’ she says. ‘Now be a dear and go and fetch some wine from the cellar. I think this is cause for a celebration.’

I despise myself for matching her manipulation but I know I have to suck up to Elspeth if I want to survive this job for the next seven months. I diligently oblige her, even though I don’t want a glass of wine, and go to the cellar, if you can call it that. It’s a small room built underneath the house below the garden. You get to it by going out of the French windows and descending a few stone steps. It has a latched wooden door, with a padlock that, according to Elspeth, doesn’t have a key but is more of a deterrent.

I push open the door and the smell of damp and rot hits me straight away. The ceilings are low, and even though I’m small, I still have to crouch as I enter. It’s dark and a bit creepy with the cobwebs and rat droppings, and I have to hold my phone in front of me to light the way. I’ve never been in here before, and this is the first time Elspeth has suggested wine. Her moods swing faster than the pendulum of my gran’s old grandfather clock. In the corner I notice a huge wine rack, the bottles covered with dust. They must have been down here for years. I wouldn’t know an expensive vintage from a cheap bottle at Asda. I select one that looks like a white, although it’s hard to tell in this light, but the label is pretty and it has Chateau Something-or-other on the front. I hope it isn’t too prestigious – it will be wasted on me. I don’t even really like wine. I prefer shots that taste of peaches or strawberries.

I grip the bottle and make my way to the entrance when my leg knocks against something. I turn sharply, my heart pounding, worried I’ve brushed against a rat or some other animal, my phone casting an arc of light where I’ve swung my arm, eventually landing on the shape at my feet. I bend down. It’s not an animal but a bag. On closer inspection I see that it’s a canvas holdall, the handles fraying. Courtney’s suspicions come back to haunt me and, for a mad moment, I wonder if the holdall contains money. I said it in jest, but maybe I’m right. Maybe they are involved in something dodgy. I’ve obviously watched too many heist movies with Vince because, when I open the bag, there are only women’s clothes shoved inside, as if someone has packed in a hurry. I’m about to dismiss it as old things ready to take to the charity shop but I notice a pair of jeans from a shop called Chelsea Girl. I can’t imagine Elspeth or Kathryn ever owning such an item. Curiosity gets the better of me and before I know what I’m doing I’m rummaging through the bag, the bottle of wine forgotten at my feet. There’s more clothes, a crop top, a floaty summer dress, a tatty pair of white tennis shoes, a few cardigans, two pairs of pyjamas with Snoopy on the front, as well as some Body Shop toiletries and a comb. There’s no phone, or purse, and I’m just about to stuff everything back into the bag when I notice a passport tucked into one of the inside pockets. I take it out and open it, shining the light from my phone onto the photo. A girl of around my age with blonde hair and a familiar face stares back at me. It’s Jemima.