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‘Why couldn’t we go with Marcus to meet Vanessa?’ Gavin complained once Marcus had gone. ‘I wanted to see the plane come in and—–’
‘You know why we couldn’t go,’ Tom told his brother before Eleanor could respond. ‘It’s a surprise for Vanessa.’
‘Well, I want to tell her about the pond and the fish and…’
‘She already knows about them, stupid,’ Tom told his younger brother dampeningly. ‘She saw the house before she went to New York.’
‘Yes, but she didn’t see the fish, did she?’
‘No, but she knows about them because you wrote to her about them, didn’t you?’
‘Stop it, both of you,’ Eleanor interrupted them firmly. ‘You’ll both see Vanessa soon enough, and no, Gavin, you can’t take her out to show her the goldfish this evening, and remember, this is Vanessa’s home as well as yours and she might want to discover some things for herself.’
She would never have believed what a difference a few months could make, Eleanor admitted as her sons reluctantly settled down with their homework. With hindsight, she felt it was probably the news from Julia that she intended to stay in America which had brought the first crack in the wall Vanessa had erected against them.
It had been Marcus who had told his daughter that her permanent home was going to be with them. Marcus, who had held her stiff, angry body when she had told him that she didn’t want their charity, that she knew they didn’t really want her; Marcus who had told her that she was wrong. But it had been Tom, of all people, who had really made the first breakthrough, funny, emotional, over-sensitive Tom, who out of his own spending money and entirely of his own volition had bought and made the cheap pegboard noticeboard which he had independently and unknown to Eleanor hung up crookedly in the bedroom he and Gavin had vacated.
‘Tom, you’ve forgotten something,’ Vanessa had announced tersely, after her silent arrival and even more silent walk up to her bedroom.
‘No, it’s for you,’ Tom had told her stoically. ‘Me and Gavin have one. Grandad and me made that one for you. It’s for your photographs and things. Me and Gavin have one of Dad and Karen on ours and—–’
‘Yes, and we’re getting a new one of baby Hannah, only she isn’t a baby any more because it’s her birthday next week, and she’ll be having a birthday party, but not until half-term so that we can be there.’
Nothing else had been said, and, despite the contempt and bitterness Eleanor had been sure she had seen in Vanessa’s eyes, the board had remained where it was.
There was no point in her changing schools, Vanessa had informed them. She could board, and besides, she knew really they would be glad to have her out of the way, but she had still asked for a camera for her birthday, and the photos she had taken of the boys, ostensibly to test the quality of the camera and film, had been removed from the board when she went off to school, only to return with her at Christmas.
It hadn’t been easy; she had still been openly hostile towards Eleanor, but now that Eleanor no longer felt that Vanessa threatened her relationship with Marcus she was able to deal with it better, even to the point of firmly dealing with Vanessa’s bad behaviour with the sort of punishment she would have given her had she been her own daughter.
‘Treat her as you would if she was your child,’ Jade had advised her. ‘She won’t love you for it, but she will respect you.’
And Jade, it had seemed, was right.
But, surprisingly, the one single thing which had altered their relationship most of all was the correspondence Jade had instigated between herself and Vanessa.
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bsp; When Jade had said casually that Vanessa was going to write to her, Eleanor had been stunned; she had been even more surprised when the correspondence turned out to be a regular exchange of letters, culminating in Jade’s inviting Vanessa out to New York to spend almost the entire school summer holiday with her.
Vanessa had wanted to go, a final fling before she settled down to work towards her GCSEs, and, uncertainly, Marcus had agreed.
Before she had left, almost twelve months since they had first made the decision to move, Eleanor and Marcus found their home.
It wasn’t in the country, not unless you classified Wimbledon as such; it didn’t have as large a garden as Broughton House, nor as many rooms, but Eleanor found it surprisingly appealing, and, much to her astonishment, so, it seemed, did Vanessa.
Admittedly she had shrugged and appeared uninterested when they all viewed it, but later she had said she supposed it was a good idea, even adding that it was time Tom had a room of his own and that he must be sick of Gavin’s sports stuff filling the room they shared.
Completion had taken place just before Vanessa flew to New York.
She would have to choose the furnishings and décor for her room before she left, Eleanor had told her.
‘What’s the point?’ Vanessa had responded. ‘I don’t spend that much time in it. I’m away at school and…’
She and Eleanor had been alone at the time; Eleanor had taken a deep breath and warned herself not to get excited; keeping her voice as neutral and casual as she could she had responded, ‘You could always change schools, Vanessa. In fact, your father has already made tentative enquiries; there’s an excellent one locally. Of course, I know you’re at a very important stage with your exam courses…’
‘Dad wants me to come and live here with him…?’
Vanessa’s face had been slightly flushed, her eyes sparkling.
