The Perfect Life

by Nuala Ellwood

  I nod my head. He pulls me towards him and as I sink into his arms I feel like I’m falling.

  I arrive at my office with five minutes to spare. As I walk in all is as it should be – the wide reception desk flanked by two glass columns, the pink velvet sofa with rose-gold cushions, the gold-rimmed glass coffee table on which are piled design books and magazines next to a tall vase with pale-pink peonies poking out. All familiar and reassuring features I have barely noticed as I walked through each day for the last five years. This time, however, I note every detail and, though they haven’t changed, I have. What is more, I know as I walk towards my office that this will be the last time.

  I see Anne before she sees me. She and the HR manager – a tall, pale, auburn-haired woman called Heidi Wilson – are standing in Anne’s glass-fronted office, their backs to the door.

  I feel a pang of sadness as I knock on the glass and enter, remembering how Anne had taken a chance on me – a green, inexperienced young woman with only enthusiasm and half-formed ideas to offer – all those years ago. Now here I am, about to throw it all away. Still, I only have myself to blame.

  The fifteen minutes after I hand in my resignation pass in a blur. Where Anne is incredibly sympathetic, though bewildered at my lack of an explanation, Heidi Wilson is steely-eyed and professional. Both of them want answers but I’m reluctant to give any, save to say, vaguely, that I have some personal issues I need to deal with.

  I sit in the comfy chair opposite Anne, as I have done so many times, and she looks at me like a mother would look at a daughter who has transformed, seemingly overnight, from a positive, eloquent, happy child to a surly teenager. I can see she is desperately trying to reach out to me but I refuse to meet her eye, knowing that if I do I will crumble. I can’t allow myself to do that.

  Heidi Wilson is impatient and pressing for a reason but I remain vague.

  ‘Vanessa, the company has recently introduced the Luna London Living scheme, which I’m sure you’re aware of,’ she says, glancing down at her notebook.

  I am well aware of the scheme. In fact, I helped devise it with Anne at the end of last year. I had seen a lot of the team, particularly the younger members, struggle with city living over the years and both Anne and I felt we should do something to help. The scheme offered therapy, counselling, mindfulness and yoga sessions, and was available to all employees.

  ‘I am aware of it, yes,’ I say, trying not to look at Anne, imagining her bemused expression. ‘But I don’t feel it’s relevant to my situation.’

  ‘Vanessa, please talk to me,’ says Anne, reaching her hand out to touch my arm, her voice trembling with emotion. ‘I don’t know what has happened but you know that I am here for you twenty-four/seven. You’re my right-hand woman, Vanessa. I … I can’t imagine Luna London without you.’

  She stares at me intently, as though willing me to share whatever it is that is going on in my head. ‘We just need you to be open with us, Vanessa,’ she says pleadingly. ‘Whatever it is that’s troubling you, we can sort it out.’

  As she says those words I make the mistake of meeting her eye. When I do I remember those endless Sunday lunches round her kitchen table, the joy on her face when I cut my first deal; then, in a blink, I see crumpled sheets, two bloodied boxers staring each other down, the nurse asking me if I am quite sure, Connor’s mother clutching her face, my own blood smeared on hotel towels, and my eyes fill with tears.

  I can’t do this, can’t carry on being Vanessa, the level-headed professional. She, and the life she had enjoyed, are gone for ever. This is the new reality: trembling hands, heart palpitations, anger and fear. In the course of a few weeks I have turned into a wreck. I have to get out of here. I have to not be around people because I can’t keep my anger in check and that is what scares me more than anything.

  ‘I’m sorry, Anne,’ I say, getting unsteadily to my feet. ‘I just can’t do this. And I don’t want to cause you and the team any more inconvenience. You don’t deserve that. I can’t work here any more. I’m sorry.’

  It’s like a stranger has invaded my body and is speaking on my behalf. This place, this job, the pretty art deco building overlooking Sloane Square, has been my life, my dream. The elation I felt, five years ago, when Anne offered me the position, was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I had become an adult. My life had begun.

  ‘Vanessa,’ cries Anne as I head for the door. ‘Please think about this. Let us help you. You’re obviously going through something stressful, that’s clear to see, but it’s not insurmountable. Talk to us, Vanessa, before you do something you’ll regret.’

  I turn then and look at her. Anne, my mentor and confidante, the woman who took a chance on me, who cared for me and nurtured me, had filled a mother-shaped gap like Georgie had – and Lottie too, I suddenly realize. How can I treat her like this? I owe Anne so much more.

  But the pain inside me is so great it outweighs any sense of loyalty or duty. All I know is that I have to get out of here. I have to do as Connor says.

  ‘I’m sorry, Anne,’ I say, wiping my eyes. ‘But this is my final decision.’

  ‘You did the right thing,’ whispers Connor as we lie in bed that evening. ‘I’m proud of you, baby.’

  I’m curled up in my usual foetal position. Connor pulls me towards him and kisses me deeply. At first it’s nice but then as I feel him growing hard I remember the gnawing pain as the baby came away, the blood on the sheets, the towels.

  ‘No, Connor,’ I say, pushing him off gently. ‘I’m not feeling too good.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ says Connor, a sharp edge to his voice. ‘I read that frigidity is another symptom of nervous breakdowns.’

  He kisses my forehead.

  ‘But don’t worry,’ he says, turning away from me. ‘We’ll get you well again.’

  After a few moments I hear him start to snore. I lie here looking up at the ceiling, street lights casting strange shapes. I feel exhausted but sleep won’t come, so, taking my phone from the side table, I climb out of bed and go into the living room.

  Sitting in what has become my usual spot in the corner of the sofa, I click open the Dream Properties app and allow myself to fall away. Most of the period properties I have seen before so I type ‘new build’ into the search engine. I don’t particularly like new-build houses but tonight I feel so on edge I need to have something to look at.

  The first couple of houses are depressingly ugly and ostentatious, the sort of thing a footballer might buy, but then halfway down the page I see something that makes me pause.

  It’s described as ‘An eco house with spectacular sea views located in the heart of fashionable Whitstable.’ I click through the images. The decor is sparse, all white and silver and rounded edges. Its clean lines are so at odds with the dirt and mess my life has been reduced to. Maybe if I go to see it I will feel a bit better. Maybe some of its purity will rub off on me, I think to myself as I click on the ‘Book an appointment’ box.

  And then, seemingly unbidden, a name pops into my head. Eleanor Hawkins. I have no idea who Eleanor is or what she wants from me but I know that if I become her for a few hours then I’ll be able to escape the crushing sadness that is pressing into my chest.

  I type the name and as I do I feel something lighten. The magic is happening again. I’m about to become someone else.

  28. Now

  When I get to Warwick Avenue there is a queue to get through the turnstiles and I quickly scan the crowd. There’s a woman with a rucksack, a teenage boy wearing headphones, a mother with a baby strapped to her chest and two men in suits who look like they’re on their way to a work meeting. All of them are focused on getting out of the station and heading to their respective destinations. No one seems in the least bit interested in the anxious young woman following them through the turnstiles. It seems, for now, I’m safe.

  As the crowd disperses I make my way out on to Warwick Avenue. It’s a bright morning and the sun beats down on the stucco
buildings, making sugar houses of them. To the left of me the Little Venice canal shimmers snake-like as it passes under the bridge. It’s a perfect summer’s day and as I cross the road and head to Formosa Street I almost forget the looming appointment at the police station. It feels like old times, when Lottie and I would spend a summer’s day drinking iced coffee on the King’s Road, people watching and putting the world to rights as the hours rolled by.

  When I reach the corner of Formosa Street I get a flutter of nerves. Last time I had seen Lottie she was shaking with rage. What will she say when she finds out what I’ve done?

  A sharp ray of sunshine hits the street, temporarily blinding me, and I nearly walk straight into a startled passer-by. I should have brought my sunglasses to hide behind, but I left the house in such a hurry. I glance around, looking to see if anyone is following me.

  As I approach the coffee shop, which sits in the middle of the curved street, the sun dips and I blink as white dots bounce in front of my eyes. Then I hear it. A familiar voice: animated and warm. A voice I haven’t heard in months. Lottie.

  I look ahead and see her. She’s sitting at one of the tables outside the coffee shop, deep in conversation with a man. The man has his back to me but I recognize the dark-brown curls, the straight back, the blue-and-white Adidas Gazelle trainers.

  It’s Connor.

  29. Then

  Sitting on the 10.30 from Victoria to Whitstable, I look down at the loose-fitting cotton harem pants and linen shirt I’m wearing and breathe a sigh of relief. For the next few hours I will be Zen-like Eleanor Hawkins, floating off on a cloud of patchouli oil and loose linen clothing to view her future home.

  As the train hurtles through open countryside, the Kentish oast houses rising like wicker men from the scorched earth, I practise the mid-Atlantic accent I’d ascribed to Eleanor when I first saw the pictures of the house on the app. My initial attempt was a bit hammy, like Madonna’s voice when she married Guy Ritchie, yet the more I talk, the more Eleanor emerges. A teenager dressed in tracksuit top, jeans and trainers smirks at me from the seat opposite. He probably thinks I’m mad but I don’t care. I’m on a roll now as more pieces of Eleanor’s backstory come together. Her upbringing in New York, the only child of Rosa and Anthony, two high-achieving college professors who placed more importance on academic excellence than spiritual well-being. Eleanor growing up feeling pressured and out of place, not helped by the fact that she was dyslexic and therefore found the books her parents thrust under her nose almost impossible to decipher. Words, to Eleanor, were a great mystery, a puzzle she had no chance of solving. Her parents threw money at her ‘condition’ as they called it and sent her to the best schools but she still ended up flunking out of high school with a set of grades that made her mother cry. Lost and in need of some kind of direction, Eleanor found herself answering an online advert in the New York Times to attend something called a Transcendental Meditation class. Though she was unsure of what to expect, what happened next changed the course of her life. Meditation became the key to discovering the happiness and peace she had spent her young life searching for and she became a true devotee. Trips to retreats in India and the Himalayas followed, which culminated in Eleanor becoming a yoga and meditation practitioner and setting up a highly successful YouTube channel while based in LA. With a cult following and six million subscribers, Eleanor soon became a financial as well as spiritual success. Now, she has one goal left. To set up a wellness clinic in her favourite part of the world: the south-east coast of England.

  So absorbed am I in Eleanor and her story that, before I know it, the train is trundling into Whitstable station. As I step off the train, I run over what the estate agent had told me on the phone. We have arranged to meet at the property, which is accessed via a private lane called Toad’s Hatch. The name made me think of Tolkien and I smiled, remembering my mother reading The Hobbit to me each night before bed.

  Best not to think of that, I tell myself as I type the postcode into Google maps and take a left out of the station car park, best to focus, because for the next few hours all that exists is Eleanor Hawkins and her quest to find the perfect home.

  When I see the sign for Toad’s Hatch, I take my compact out of my handbag and have a look at myself. I’ve kept my make-up dewy and understated, with a liberal use of highlighter on my cheekbones to give the impression of inner wellness. My hair is swept back in a loose bun tied together with a wooden clip. All good.

  As I set off down the broad driveway I practise my opening greeting, taking care to stick to the flat vowels of New York-born Eleanor. There’s a silver car parked up outside the house. As I draw level with it the door opens and a sharp-faced woman with cropped red hair steps out.

  ‘Ros Coverley,’ she says brusquely, extending her hand. ‘You must be Mrs Hawkins?’

  I open my mouth to reply that it’s actually Ms Hawkins but before I can get the words out Ros Coverley is striding ahead of me towards the house.

  The squat, white building looks as though it has sprung out of the ground. It’s nothing like the photos on the app. As I draw closer my heart sinks. It looks more like a prison than a potential wellness centre.

  When we reach the glass front door, Ros Coverley takes a square fob out of her pocket and points it at the alarm panel. A green light flashes and the glass door opens.

  ‘So, Mrs Hawkins,’ she says as we step into a vast hexagonal space that appears to be made solely of glass and metal, ‘you didn’t say what your position is. Are you chain free?’

  ‘Er … yes,’ I say, scrambling for the New York accent I had perfected on the train. ‘I’m a … a cash buyer.’

  She frowns, her eyes locking on me.

  ‘A cash buyer?’ she says incredulously. ‘I see.’

  I gulp down my nerves as she leads me across the nuclear wasteland that is the entrance hall towards another set of glass doors that open automatically as we approach. It feels wrong, all of it.

  ‘Through here to the living area.’

  I follow her through the doors and into what looks like the inside of a spaceship. The walls are white and sparse, and everywhere I look there are panels with flashing lights, like the alarm at the front door. It feels as if I’ve stepped into some kind of interrogation centre. Beside me, Ros Coverley does little to dispel this feeling.

  ‘You’re from New York?’ she says as we step from the soulless living space into a kitchen that has all the warmth of an industrial refrigerator. ‘My partner’s a New Yorker. Whereabouts are you from?’

  I take a breath to buy some time, try to remember the bio I’d put together for Eleanor Hawkins so effortlessly, but my mind is blank.

  ‘I … er … grew up in … Manhattan,’ I say, almost swallowing the word back down.

  ‘Oh, really?’ she replies, her eyes flashing. ‘What district?’

  I search my mind for an answer but all I can think of is toads. Toad’s Hatch. Hatching eggs. Think, Vanessa, I tell myself. Think of a district of Manhattan. But it’s no use. My head is full of nonsense.

  ‘I … er … perhaps you can show me the bedrooms?’ I say, my cheeks reddening. ‘The description on the website said they have amazing sea views.’

  ‘Sure,’ says Ros, her eyes narrowing. ‘The master bedroom is on the first floor. This way, please.’

  She leads me up a flight of stairs that are so polished I have to grip the metal banister to stop myself from slipping. At the top there is a vast landing with floor-to-ceiling windows. I follow Ros through a doorway and step into what looks like a padded cell. The walls have been decorated with a strange, textured paper, there’s a stone floor and a metal bed with pale-blue, prison-style bedding.

  ‘Here you are,’ says Ros, striding towards the window. ‘You can see all the way to Margate from here.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I say, but I’m not looking at the view. Instead, my eye has been drawn to a tiny picture hanging to the left of the window. I step aside to take a closer look and see tha
t it’s by Grimshaw, my mother’s favourite artist. It depicts a mother and child walking down a moonlit path and looks so out of place in this white mausoleum I feel I have to liberate it.

  ‘Over here is the en suite,’ says Ros, walking over to a metal door at the far side of the room. ‘Again with sea views.’

  I watch as she opens the door and steps inside. I quickly lift the picture from its hook and I’m about to slide it into my bag when she puts her head round the door.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she says, striding towards me and grabbing the picture from my hands.

  ‘I … I was just taking a closer look,’ I say, my heart flipping in my chest. ‘My, er … mom loved this artist and I wanted to see if it was him.’

  ‘You were about to put it in your bag,’ she cries, her eyes blazing. ‘Now come on, get the hell out of here.’

  She grabs my arm and escorts me down the stairs.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my voice trembling, my accent slipping. ‘I’ve been having a bad time lately. I don’t know what came over me. Please don’t call the police, I beg you.’

  She pauses by the front door and looks at me, her face softening slightly.

  ‘Just get out of here, okay?’ she says, pointing the fob at the front door, which opens with a whooshing noise. ‘I’m not going to call the police this time but I am going to put the word out among my agency colleagues across the county and if I ever catch you trying to do this again I will call the police, do you understand?’

  I nod my head then stumble out of the house, taking gulps of cold air as I hurry down the driveway. When I reach the gate I take a cursory look back and see Ros Coverley standing in the doorway, her phone pressed to her ear. Watching me.

  I run all the way back to the station. Luckily, there’s a London-bound train waiting at the platform. I jump on and find a window seat. As the train pulls away I press my face to the glass, a sick feeling in my stomach.