Based on a True Story

She doesn’t even know that Eleanor has recently been wondering how much longer she will be able to write because her ability to spin a story, which has always been relatively effortless, is proving difficult for the first time. It would mean confessing to the thing she barely thinks about, but which is always there in her subconscious; the most formative event of her life; intrinsic to who she has become, fundamental on a granular level to her story, though something she can never share. And so, the plan has been to challenge her: to present her with evidence – tangible, physical evidence – of the pain she has inflicted; to show that her story – the story of Eleanor Kingman, the doting mother inspired by her daughter – doesn’t quite stack up. Was this the point at which Michael mentioned Louisa, and the penny finally dropped that he was sitting opposite his son?