Don't Look Back

by Ben Cheetham

  “I don’t find that funny.”

  “Oh don’t be like that, Ella. Think about us. Think about how much closer the house has brought us together already.”

  “I am thinking about that, but I’m also thinking about Henry. If there’s even the slightest chance that this might put him in danger–”

  “What danger?” Adam pointed at the contract. “Do you really think I’d sign that if there was any danger? We’ve also established that the mysteries of Fenton House aren’t all that mysterious. Walter Lewarne killed himself because he was about to go bankrupt, and George Trehearne went on the run from French gangsters.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but...” Ella sighed. “Oh I don’t know. It’s impossible to make sense of all this.”

  “Then don’t try to. Just go with it. Enjoy it. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. If we don’t do this, we’ll spend the next forty or fifty years wondering what might have been. Or at least I will.”

  Smiling, Ella conceded, “I would too.”

  “Tell you what. Let’s finish going through the contract then put it away and not speak about it until after the weekend.”

  “There’s not much more to go through. Once every quarter a representative of Mabyn and Moon will pay us a visit to ensure we haven’t broken any of the conditions. You can guess what will happen if we have. And finally, if we’re still...” Ella trailed off, then said in a voice of quiet amazement, “Oh my god. If we’re still in Fenton House at the time of Rozen’s death we’ll inherit the house and its contents.”

  Adam whistled. “Do you realise how much a place like that is worth?”

  “It’s got to be three or four million.”

  “And then some.” Adam waggled his eyebrows. “That’s just given me a really nasty idea.”

  “Adam! You’d better not be thinking what I think you are.”

  He chuckled. “That’s how my mind works. I’m a writer. But seriously, how much longer before Rozen pops her clogs? Five, ten, fifteen years max?”

  “Stop it.” Ella made as if to tear up the contract. “I’m warning you, one more word and–”

  “OK, OK.” Adam made a mouth-zipped gesture.

  Chapter 9

  Adam and Ella barely left the cottage all weekend. They made love, drank wine, watched the sun extinguish itself in the sea, made love again and slept in each other’s arms. It was as if they were in a bubble where the years between them falling in love and now didn’t exist. But the instant they packed their bags into the car, the bubble burst. “It’s been wonderful, hasn’t it?” said Ella, reaching for Adam’s hand.

  “Yes,” he replied, but there was a flatness to his voice. He got into the car without looking at her.

  They spoke little during the long drive to London. Ella’s attempts to make conversation met with an unenthusiastic response or no response at all. The familiar sadness filled Adam more with every passing mile. By the time they reached the M25 he felt as grey as the concrete supports of the motorway flyovers. They detoured into Hounslow to collect Henry from Ella’s parents.

  “Are you coming in?” Ella asked when Adam didn’t get out of the car.

  Despite his eagerness to see Henry, he shook his head. He’d avoided Richard and Linda as much as possible since the accident. Although they hadn’t openly blamed him for Jacob’s death, he sensed their silent accusation. Ella had assured him he was wrong, and he realised that he was probably just seeing his own guilt reflected in their eyes, but he couldn’t shake the feeling.

  “Just come to the door and say hello.”

  “I’m tired.”

  Ella sucked her lips as if unsure whether to be concerned or annoyed. “There’s no talking to you when you’re in this mood.”

  Adam heaved a sigh. “OK, I’ll come.”

  They approached the front door and Ella knocked. The door was opened by a man with a smiling red face and grizzled grey hair. “Hi, Dad,” said Ella, leaning in to kiss his cheek. She added a touch apprehensively, “How’s he been?”

  “Fine, except for a little incident last night.”

  Adam felt a pinch in his stomach. “A bad dream?”

  Richard nodded. “It was nothing much. Linda settled him down soon enough.”

  Henry came into the hallway with his grandma – a trim woman from whom Ella had inherited her peaches-and-cream complexion and thick brown hair. There were dark smudges under Henry’s eyes. His lips were set in the same sad line as Adam’s.

  Ella tried to smile but only succeeded in looking worried. “Have you had a nice time, darling?”

  Henry replied with a barely-there nod.

  “What about you?” asked Linda. “How did it go?”

  “We’ll talk on the phone later.” Ella glanced meaningfully at Henry. As far as he knew, they’d gone to Cornwall for a weekend break, nothing more. “Say goodbye to Grandma and Grandad, Henry.”

  Henry kissed his grandparents. Richard put an arm around Henry’s shoulders and carried his bag to the car. As Adam and Ella made to follow, Linda caught hold of her daughter’s hand. She looked at Ella as if reading the fine lines on her face. “They offered you the house, didn’t they?”

  “I said we’ll talk later.”

  Linda turned to Adam. “Please don’t tell me you’re seriously considering moving down there. Henry doesn’t need any more upheaval. He needs stability.”

  Adam bit down on the impulse to reply that Ella and he would be the judges of what Henry needed. “Thanks for looking after him, Linda.”

  Ella disentangled her hand from her mother’s. They hastened to the car before Linda could say anything else. Henry was sitting silently, staring ahead. Seeing the frown on his daughter’s face, Richard asked, “What’s the matter?” When Ella flicked her eyes towards her mother, he continued, “I know she sticks her nose in sometimes, but it’s only because she cares.”

  Ella’s frown faded into a sighing smile. She kissed her dad again and ducked into the car. Adam nodded a quick goodbye at Richard and headed around to the driver’s side. Richard and Linda waved as the car accelerated away. Ella was the only one who waved back.

  There was a quiet tension in the car as they crossed London. “The Lizard was amazing,” Ella told Henry. “You’d love it.”

  Her words briefly snapped Adam out of his gloom. “You should see the beaches, Henry,” he said enthusiastically. “All the kids down there go surfing.”

  “Isn’t surfing dangerous?” asked Henry. Since the accident he’d become averse to doing anything even vaguely risky – his bike had gone unridden, his football had been left to gather dust. Adam had struggled to resist the temptation to encourage this new trait. He wanted to wrap Henry up in cotton-wool, but knew that in the long run it would do more harm than good.

  “It can be I suppose.”

  The silence resumed and, as they neared Walthamstow, seemed to grow more oppressive. Adam took a longer route home to avoid Whipps Cross Hospital. As Ella and Henry got out of the car, Adam sat staring at the house – the front yard cluttered with wheelie bins, the net-curtain veiled windows. It all looked so small and drab after Fenton House. His gaze came to rest on the porch. It took all of his willpower to leave his seat. He fetched the bags from the boot while Ella unlocked the front door and punched in the alarm code. His pace quickened as he passed through the porch.

  “I’ll make us a cup of tea,” said Ella, heading for the kitchen.

  Adam took the bags upstairs and started to unpack. He stopped suddenly and sank onto the bed, face in hands. He stayed like that until Ella called him downstairs. Henry was staring expressionlessly into the TV, a plate of untouched toast on his lap. Adam sat down beside him. Ella took the cordless phone upstairs. Adam could guess who she intended to ring. He went to the bottom of the stairs and listened to her conversation.

  “I just can’t make up my mind, Mum,” Ella was saying. “Henry’s so unhappy. Adam too. It makes me think it would be for the best. But then I think about you
and Dad and all our friends and Henry’s school and my job...”

  Adam returned to the sofa and turned off the TV.

  “Hey, I was watching that,” Henry complained.

  “I need to speak to you about something important. How would you feel about going to live in Cornwall? It would be very different to here. We’d be living by the sea just outside a little village. There’d be no cinemas nearby, no shopping centres, obviously you’d have to go to a new school, make new friends. But we’d have a big house and garden. We’d be able to go to the beach every day in the summer. Does that sound good?”

  Henry’s face gave away nothing. “Do you and Mum want to live there?”

  Adam resisted the urge to tell him how much he wanted that. “Forget what we want for now. If you don’t want to live there, we won’t. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Would Grandma and Grandad be able to come and visit us?”

  “Of course.”

  Henry’s eyes dropped in thought. Adam held his breath as he waited for him to say something. He broke into a smile when Henry looked at him again and said, “Then I’d like to live there. When are we going?”

  Adam cupped his hands against Henry’s cheeks. “Soon. I hope.” He glanced towards the ceiling. He couldn’t hear Ella talking anymore. He switched the TV back on and went upstairs. Ella was staring out of the bedroom window. She turned as Adam approached, her soft brown eyes wide with indecision.

  “Your parents would think differently about us moving away if they’d heard Henry crying in his sleep,” said Adam.

  “They have heard him.”

  “Not night after night. They’re not thinking about what’s best for Henry. They’re just worried they won’t get to see much of him if we move.”

  “Of course they are. They love him. They love all of us.”

  Adam inclined his head doubtfully. “Henry wants to go.”

  Ella frowned. “I thought we agreed to talk to him together.”

  “I...” A guilty hesitation came into Adam’s voice. He’d known Ella would be irritated, but after hearing her on the phone he’d felt the need for some extra ammunition to tip the scales in Fenton House’s favour. “I didn’t pressure him into an answer. I made it clear it was his choice whether we stay or go.”

  “Oh so no pressure at all then.” Ella turned back to the window.

  Adam gently put his hands on her arms. “The same goes for you. You were right to stop me from signing the contract in Treworder. We all have to want this or it won’t happen.”

  Ella leaned her head back against his chest, exhaling a long breath. “What if Fenton House really is haunted?”

  “I’ll tell you what house is haunted. This one. Everywhere I look I see Jacob.” Adam’s gaze travelled the room, passing over the patterned rug that Jacob had used to pretend was a road network for his cars, the bed where he’d loved to snuggle up between his parents. “Memories. That’s all ghosts are, Ella. We have no memories attached to Fenton House, so for us it’s not haunted.”

  “Just give me a little more time.”

  Adam kissed Ella’s hair. “OK.”

  They went downstairs. Henry had nodded off on the sofa – something he often did these days. He found it easier to fall asleep to the noise of the TV than the silence of his bedroom. Adam and Ella exchanged a sad glance. Adam lifted his son, carried him upstairs to bed, undressed him and laid the duvet over him. He watched Henry sleeping for a moment, noting the faint knot between his eyebrows, before returning downstairs.

  “He didn’t wake,” he told Ella.

  “He must be tired out.”

  “I know how he feels. I’m going to get an early night too. Are you coming to bed?”

  “I won’t be long. I need to think.”

  Adam trudged upstairs, weighed down by the thought of spending even one more night in the house. He wearily dumped his clothes on the carpet and got into bed. He closed his eyes not expecting sleep to come quickly – but, for once, it did. He dreamed of Fenton House. He could see it away in the distance, bathed in sunlight. He walked towards it, his pace quickening with every step, but it never seemed to get any closer. The light began to shrink into a circle until the house disappeared and only darkness was left.

  Adam snapped awake to the familiar, gut-wrenching sound of Henry sobbing. He jumped out of bed and hurried to his son’s bedroom. Ella was already in there, cradling and shushing Henry. The lines between Henry’s closed eyes had deepened into crevasses. His freckled forehead shone with sweat and his body trembled as if he was in the grip of a fever.

  Ella looked at Adam hopelessly. “He’s been like this for twenty minutes. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Yes you do,” he said.

  A brief silence passed between them, then Ella said, “Sign the contract.”

  Chapter 10

  Day One

  Adam and Ella took one final look around the house to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. The wardrobes and drawers were empty, the bookshelves were bare, there were ghostly outlines on the walls where pictures had once hung. Most of the furniture was remaining behind, but still the place felt naked to Adam, stripped of personality, not a home anymore, just an anonymous house. He peered under Henry’s bed. There was something lodged between the skirting board and a bed leg. He stretched to retrieve it. His heart squeezed. It was a Diecast red racing car that had been a favourite of Jacob’s until he outgrew it. The bedroom walls were scarred with the tracks of its wheels.

  “There’s nothing in our room,” Ella said from the landing. “What about in here?”

  Adam quickly pocketed the toy. Ella had been on edge all morning, tearing up several times as they packed the car and trailer. He didn’t want to set her off again. “Same.”

  Ella peered into the bedroom. From the way she sucked her lips against her teeth, Adam could tell she was struggling not to breakdown. He took her hand and drew her downstairs. Linda and Richard were sitting with Henry on the sofa. Linda’s expression was a mirror of Ella’s. Richard was pressing money into Henry’s palm. “It’s for his birthday,” he explained.

  “In case we don’t see him,” added Linda.

  “You’ll see him,” Ella assured her. A strained note suggested they’d already been over this subject several times. “You’re both welcome to come and stay whenever you want, for as long as you want. Aren’t they, Adam?”

  Adam pushed out a smile. “Of course.” He felt a twinge of guilt. Richard and Linda were good people. They hadn’t judged him when he was a penniless writer, and Ella was almost certainly right that they weren’t judging him now. They deserved better than a forced smile.

  “Thanks, Grandad,” said Henry, pocketing the money. He kissed Richard and turned to do the same to Linda.

  She hugged him. “I’ll miss you.”

  Adam hid his impatience as he waited for Linda to release Henry. He felt a powerful impulse to get away from his old home and get to his new one, exacerbated by a nagging fear that Ella would suddenly change her mind about the move. Linda finally let go and rose to embrace Ella. Tears wobbled on both women’s eyelids.

  Adam couldn’t resist any longer. “We need to get going.”

  “I’ll call you when we get there,” Ella told her mum. She ushered Henry out of the house. Richard and Linda followed them.

  Adam was the last to leave. His footsteps faltered in the porch. He looked at the floor, seeing Jacob’s pale, blood-speckled face. His lips formed four quiet words. “Bye my beautiful boy.”

  He shook himself free of the image and stepped outside. He locked the door and handed his house keys to Richard. Ella did likewise with hers. One set was to be passed on to the estate agents so they could show around potential buyers. Richard needed the other set to let in the house clearance company who were auctioning off the furniture. After another round of hugs and kisses, Ella and Henry got into the car. Adam pecked Linda’s cheek.

  “Look after them both,” said Richard, gripping
Adam’s hand almost painfully hard.

  Surely that goes without saying, thought Adam. He silently reproached himself. Within the space of ten months, Richard had lost a grandson and now his only child was moving hundreds of miles away. He had every right to be concerned. “I will.”

  Linda broke down and pressed her face into her husband’s shoulder as the car pulled away. Ella’s tears overflowed too at the sight. Doubts suddenly found their way into Adam’s mind. Are we doing the right thing? What if we’re no happier in Cornwall than we are here? Then the house disappeared from view and with it the questions. He exhaled as if a heavy weight had fallen from him.

  “Well that’s that,” Ella said in a half-disbelieving tone. “We’ve actually done it. How do you feel?”

  “I feel...” Adam sought for the right word – relieved? excited? yes, he was both of those things, but more than anything he felt... “lighter. How about you?”

  “Right now I mostly feel guilty about my mum and dad.” Ella glanced at Henry. He had headphones on and was staring into an iPad. “He seems OK.”

  “He’ll be better than OK.” As Adam said the words he was surprised to realise that he truly believed them. “We all will be. You’ll see.”

  “I’m not sure the same can be said for my parents.”

  “They’ll be fine too. We’re moving to Cornwall not Australia. Once we’re settled in, we’ll invite them down. When they see Fenton House, they’ll realise this is the best thing that could have happened.” Adam’s mood was so high that even the thought of Richard and Linda invading his cliff top sanctuary couldn’t bring him down. He smiled at Ella. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For saying yes. I love you.”

  “I love you too.” A thickness came into Ella’s voice as if she was fighting off more tears. “I do have one other feeling. I feel as if we’ve forgotten to bring something with us.”

  A sting of tears rose into Adam’s eyes too. He took Ella’s hand and held it tightly.