Bella

OH... SHIT. WHAT WAS Ithinking?

I step out of the bathroom. I've just splashed a load of cold water on my face and feel a lot more sober. I mean, still drunk, yes, but now painfully aware of every detail of what just happened.

The Hutch is empty, the front door banging on its latch. Eddie the bartender has gone. I'm relieved, but also mortified. Did he feel like he had to run away?

Jesus. I'm a mother, for God's sake. Maybe even old enough to be his?

The thing is, I didn't want to be alone here beside the woods.

I booked this place months ago. I've been thinking about my stay for so long. But now I've arrived I'm riddled with doubt. I can't believe I'm really here. I'm not sure I'm brave enough.

I take a long, hot shower. Then I sit down at the dressing table to try and collect my thoughts. I'm wearing the soft forest-green gown provided: THE MANOR embroidered on the pocket, same as the typeface on the little stationery kit they've left in the room. There's a sage stick, too, for "cleansing" the space. A branded box of matches beside it, which seems brave. Also a "bespoke selection of crystals." Very The Manor: woo-woo, but still chic. As the young woman on reception explained, they come with a little velvet pouch and gold chain, fashioned by a hot young jewelry designer, to wear round your neck for the duration of your stay. I pick up one of the stones—small and black, smoothly polished—and roll it inside my palm. The little booklet on the table tells me, "Your crystals all come ready charged for your use and healing," and I wonder how you go about charging a crystal. I think of my own soul-sickness. A chronic condition, one I've lived with since my teens. Somehow I don't think crystals are going to cut it.

I glance in the mirror and get a shock. I don't recognize the person reflected there. In the dim light my lipstick is a red gash. My eyes have a black glitter.

The thing is, tonight was an experiment. I don't think I've ever ordered a martini before in my life. And everything with the bartender was totally out of character, but that makes a sort of sense because I am in character. This person in the mirror, this room, those clothes hanging in the closet... even the name on the booking are not mine. One of the quirks of The Manor: I had to send a biography over in advance. "We like to know who we're welcoming into our family here." Putting it together reminded me of how I once enjoyed creative writing at school, the diaries I used to keep. It was almost fun, constructing a new persona around my rented wardrobe. The woman in the mirror works in an obscure part of film production. She's the sort of person who has so much self-confidence she's happy staying on her own in a hotel for a weekend. Apparently she's also someone who enjoys seducing members of staff.

I glance at the velvet armchairs and think of how we sat, the two of us, with our drinks. And the moment I realized that Eddie was waiting—waiting even to take a sip of his drink, his full glass held awkwardly in one hand. It was up to me to set the agenda. This is how men must feel, I realized. Older men, wealthy men. The power felt alien. Dangerous. He seemed like a sweet guy, too. There was an innocence, a goodness, there. They don't make them like that anymore. Or at least, I thought they didn't. I knew a boy like him once, with that same lack of edge.

I grab a tissue and dash off my lipstick. I never wear red, or this much make-up full stop, and the foreignness of my own reflection is freaking me out. When I take the tissue away, I see lipstick has smeared beneath my mouth on one side. I look like an evil succubus that rejuvenates herself by drinking the blood of young bartenders. I also look drunk and several years older than I am.

I put my head in my hands and try to think. Try to breathe normally.

What the fuck am I doing here?

I glance toward the dressing table, see all the clippings piled haphazardly on top. So Eddie saw them. I try and work out just how weird it would seem through his eyes. Maybe it just looks like I really do my research before I stay somewhere? But I suppose the image with CUNT scrawled across it kind of puts paid to that idea.

The photo of Francesca Meadows comes from the Harper's Bazaar article. Her hair combed into buttery pre-Raphaelite waves, spilling over gleaming bare shoulders. She appears to be entirely naked, but the photo's cropped below the elbows and her torso is obscured by the white cockerel she's cradling in her arms, its feathers as lustrous as her hair, its crest the same strawberry-stained red as her lips. The headline: MEET THE CHATELAINE OF YOUR NEW COUNTRYSIDE EDEN.

Someone sent it to me. That's the really strange part, the thing that's kept me awake at night since, wondering: who? Why?

I remember the post hitting the doormat. Picking it up while chewing on a slice of toast. Opening the envelope, pulling out the article.

By now I can practically quote it.

"Such happy memories of my time there..."

"Idyllic summer days..."

"Such larks. Midnight feasts and parties in the treehouse. I want to capture the adult version of that."

The strange fizzing sensation in my ears.

I remember gagging as the toast stuck in my throat. For a moment I thought I might vomit.

"Bookings open in a few days' time," the article read.

My daughter, Grace, upstairs, crying because she'd woken from her nap.

Shit, I realize I forgot to check if bedtime went OK. She's staying with Mum while I'm here on my "work trip." My "Team Bonding Weekend." Because receptionists in estate agents' offices really get invited on this sort of thing. This is the kind of place our clients would stay—the ones who come in shopping for a second home in the countryside. Not little old me. What would Mum say, if she knew where I was?

I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be doing this.

Shouldn't be charging around making drunken passes at barmen. Shouldn't be doing anything that takes me more than a few centimeters from that warm, chubby little body, those small, grasping, surprisingly strong hands, those serious dark eyes that seem to stare into my soul with a kind of ancient wisdom: who are you?

This isn't my place. It's such a strange feeling. Like I'm playing truant from my own life.

No, I remind myself. This is the place. This is necessary. In a funny way I'm doing this for her, for my tiny helpless daughter. What will I pass on to her? Who do I want to be for her?

But I should be honest: I'm doing it for me, too.

The branches scrabble against the roof again. I can see them through the windows, pressing against the glass. I get up and draw the curtains, but it doesn't make me feel all that much better.

The questions I've been asking myself since I first read about the opening of The Manor come to me again. Who sent me that article? Why? And more importantly, most important of all: what do they know?