by Lucy Clarke
Previously
A single-lane track carves through tall hedgerows, climbing towards the cliff top.
‘It’s at the very end,’ I tell the taxi driver.
The driveway is gravelled with grey and white stone, no doubt selected to complement the exterior paintwork and natural wood weatherboarding.
The house sits imposingly on the cliff top, steel struts bored into the rock so that the sea-facing side of the house seems to hang suspended above the cliff. There is something in the contrast of the fresh warmth of the house, versus the jagged dark hues of the rocks below. It is an incredible feat of architecture.
‘Lovely place you’ve got here,’ the driver says as the taxi crunches to a halt.
‘Yes, indeed,’ I say with a private smile.
I pay the fare, tipping him more than is necessary.
I carry my holdall to the front door, setting it down on the flagstone steps. I wait until the taxi has circled from the driveway and disappeared within the tunnel of hedgerows. Then I cross to the edge of the property where, as described in the email, the wheelie bins are stored within a discreet fenced area.
I drag the green recycling bin aside, which clinks with bottles. Beneath it lies a large pebble. I lift it carefully, feeling like a child turning over rocks in search of a treasured glimpse of woodlice or bugs.
There it is: the key to the house.
I return the wheelie bin into position, then cross the drive to the doorstep. My fingertips meet the solid wood door, painted in a grey-green shade that recalls the sea. I pause for a moment, aware of the magnitude of this moment stretching around me, raising the beat of my heart.
I glance once over my shoulder, just to be sure that there’s no one watching. I take a breath, then slot the key into the lock.
2
Elle
‘Thank God you were in,’ I say, refilling Fiona’s wine glass, then sinking back onto the sofa.
‘And if I hadn’t been?’
‘Flynn’s the only other person with a key.’
‘He still has a key?’
I shrug. ‘It’d feel churlish to ask for it back.’
Fiona doesn’t say anything. She never needs to. Her eyebrows – dark and angular – speak for her.
‘How did Drake get on at Bill’s parents?’ I ask. ‘I missed him. Maybe he could come over this weekend? I got him a little treat while I was away.’
‘He needs a treat reprieve. Bill’s parents let him watch cartoons for two hours a day – and took him for ice cream every afternoon. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked to be formally adopted.’
‘You must have missed him.’
‘You’re kidding? I had lie-ins. I didn’t cook. I got more work done than I’ve managed in months. I’ve asked if they’ll make it an annual thing.’
‘Is that right?’ I say, my turn to arch an eyebrow. Drake has just turned two and it’s the first time he’s stayed a night away from home. Bill spent months carefully negotiating the week-long visit to his parents in Norfolk.
‘What about you? How was France?’
‘Oh, fine.’ I’d been invited as a guest-speaker on a writing retreat. I’d deliberated over going, anxious about my approaching book deadline, but equally the retreat was so well paid that it would have been a mistake to turn it down. ‘They put us up in this stunning old farmhouse in the middle of the countryside. There was a beautiful pool. I swam every morning.’
‘If you’ve come back skinnier than you went, then you didn’t eat enough cheese.’
‘I ate cheese for breakfast.’
‘Good girl,’ she says, taking a drink of wine. ‘What were the guests like?’
‘Interesting, intelligent, passionate about books. One or two were a little intense. Deadly serious about word counts. In bed by ten o’clock.’ I pause. ‘You’d have liked them.’
Fiona laughs – a laugh I’ve always loved, loud and unapologetic.
‘Yes, but did any of them take revision notes into the shower?’
During her A Levels, she used to tuck her revision notes into a plastic sleeve, so that she could continue to study while showering. She’s always been the one with the focus, the drive.
‘Can’t say I witnessed it.’
‘And what about …’ Fiona pauses dramatically, ‘… your work in progress?’
I glance towards the window, lamplight reflected in the dark pane. Just the thought of my second novel makes my stomach tighten.
‘Still floundering in the wilderness.’
‘Will you make the deadline?’
I lift my shoulders. ‘It’s in six weeks’ time.’
Fiona assesses me closely. ‘What if you don’t?’
‘I lose the book deal.’
And then I lose this house, I think, panic beating its wings within my ribcage. I can’t let that happen.
Fiona knows the energy I’ve committed to this house, the long process of architectural drawings and planning applications, the months and months of builders clambering over scaffolding, craning in huge glass panels, drilling into rock to fit unyielding iron struts, the hours I spent studying bathroom fittings and flooring and paint charts.
It was all so unlike me – the me who drifted through my twenties owning little more than I could squeeze into a backpack. But I wanted it more than anything. Cornwall was where Fiona was. A house overlooking the sea was our mother’s dream. It was putting down roots, it was stability.
One evening, mid-build, when I’d returned to our rented flat in Bristol, Flynn kept his back to me, watching the flames dance in the fireplace, as he’d said, ‘I wonder if you’re putting too much energy into that house.’
That house. Never our house.
I wish I’d noticed the distinction back then.
I replied, ‘I want to make it perfect, so we never have to leave.’
‘Thank you for looking after things while I was away,’ I say to Fiona. ‘The house looks immaculate.’
‘Surprised?’
‘Very.’
‘It’s because I hardly had to do a thing. It was spotless.’
‘Was it? I was worrying about it while I was away. It just felt so strange knowing there was someone in my home that wasn’t me.’
‘I knew you’d be like that.’
Bill was actually the one who’d suggested I rent the house.
‘You know, if money is tight,’ he’d begun while we were barbecuing on the bay one evening, ‘you should think about putting the house on Airbnb over the summer.’
‘Remember my friend Kirsty from university?’ Fiona had asked.
I must have looked blank.
‘The English teacher. Had sex with the headmaster in his office – and a parent walked in.’
‘That Kirsty!’
‘She has a three-bed house in Twickenham and goes away over the school holidays and rents her place. She gets two grand a week for it.’
‘Two grand?’ I crouched down to examine a shell that Drake had brought to me. ‘It’s beautiful, baby,’ I said, planting a kiss on the smooth curve of his forehead, then folding my fingers around the shell. He trundled off in search of more.
‘Everyone’s doing it,’ Bill said. ‘Easy little earner.’
‘Yes, but this is Elle.’ Fiona threw me a look. ‘She took three days to choose the right handles for her doors.’
‘I can handle it,’ I said, grinning.
‘Anyway, don’t encourage her, Bill. You know who’ll have to look after it when she jets off on another book tour and some porn company decides to use it as the location for their next shoot—’
‘God, don’t!’ I laughed.
‘Contract cleaners in that case,’ Bill said.
‘Kirsty puts all their valuables in their study and locks off the room. Easy.’ Fiona plucked a piece of mint from her glass of Pimm’s and tore it between her teeth. ‘You know that place Bill and I stayed at when we went to Pembrokeshire? That was an Airbnb. They left everything. The wardrobe
s were full of this woman’s clothes. I think she was a ballroom dancer.’
‘Tell me you tried on something sequinned.’
‘She was more Bill’s size.’
‘I do love a leotard,’ he said, patting his stomach fondly. ‘Seriously though, you could charge a fortune for your place. You should think about it.’
And I had. I thought about it as I stared at the final invoice from the builders, my fingers trembling as I tapped numbers into my calculator. Fiona and Bill didn’t know – they still don’t – that I had to remortgage to pay the builders.
So this first Airbnb rental is a trial, a test run. The idea is that I rent out the house again in the summer and bugger off somewhere. My two best friends both live on the other side of the world; Nadia has moved to Dubai to teach English, and Sadie lives on a farm in Tasmania with her husband’s family.
I turn to Fiona, asking, ‘What were the family like who rented it?’
‘Yes, fine,’ she says, setting her wine glass on the lounge table.
‘Did they seem nice?’
‘I only met them briefly.’
I detect a tightness in her tone, which makes me ask, ‘Everything did go okay?’
‘Yes, absolutely. No breakages. I’ve released the deposit. They left a couple of bits and pieces behind.’ As Fiona unfolds herself from the sofa, I notice she’s lost weight. We’ve both always been slim, but there’s something angular about the breadth of her shoulders, her sternum pronounced at the open neckline of her shirt.
Fiona moves to the sideboard, picking up a pot of nappy rash cream, and a well-chewed plastic giraffe.
‘These were the only things I came across,’ she says, squeezing the giraffe until it squeaks.
Unexpectedly, sadness swells in my chest.
‘I’ve washed all the bedding – hot wash,’ she adds with a wink, ‘and taken Drake’s high chair home.’
‘Oh yes, thanks for the loan.’
‘I dropped it in the evening before they arrived and almost had a heart-attack as the alarm was on. I’d forgotten you’d told me you’d set it.’
‘You turned it off okay?’
‘On the sixth attempt. My eardrums bled. Right,’ Fiona says, sweeping across the lounge towards the doorway. ‘I’m going. Told Bill I’d only be half an hour.’
‘Sorry for stealing you.’
‘It’s fine, he has the television. Three’s a crowd.’
I stand and kiss my sister, our cheekbones clashing.
Locking the door behind Fiona, I move into the kitchen, flicking on all the lights and the radio.
I take my notebook from my handbag and position a pencil beside it. I take a step back, looking through the screen of my phone at the configuration. I snap the picture, then upload it to Facebook, adding the caption:
After a lovely fortnight tutoring on a writing retreat, I’m back home and SO excited to be diving into my novel – on the home straight now! #amwriting #authorlife
Then I put the props away.
Opening the fridge, I inspect its contents, hoping Fiona might have left a pint of milk or a loaf of bread – but it’s bare.
Too tired to contemplate getting back in the car, I root around in the pantry and pull out a bag of pre-cooked quinoa and toss it through with tahini and lemon juice. I eat standing up, flicking through the post.
I glance at the bills, trying to ignore the words FINAL REMINDER blazoned across my electricity statement. Next there are a couple of packages from my agent containing proof copies of other authors’ books requesting advance praise. The remainder of the mail includes requests for charity donations, two fan letters forwarded on from my publishers, and an invite to a friend’s birthday. Nearing the bottom of the pile my hands reach for a thick cream envelope embossed with a gold logo. It’s from Flynn’s solicitor.
In France I’d been reminded of our first trip together in our mid-twenties, when we’d taken the ferry to Bilbao and then driven north to Hossegor in Flynn’s battered Seat Ibiza with a surfboard strapped to the roof and a tent in the boot. We’d camped in the shade of thick pine trees and lived on noodles and warm batons of French bread. We drank cheap stubby beers and wine from cardboard containers, and spent the evenings playing cards by headtorch, or lying in the tent, the door unzipped, salt and sun-cream glossing our entwined limbs.
On that trip Flynn had talked about all the places he wanted to travel – and I had said yes to it all, knowing that I wanted to be anywhere but home. When I was with him, the rest of my life seemed like something that had happened to a different person, someone I was happy to leave behind in the campus of a university town I’d never return to.
I scrape the rest of the quinoa into the bin, then collect my suitcase and go upstairs. Flicking on my bedroom light, I pause in the doorway, my gaze on my bed.
Fiona has done a half job of making it, of course. The cushions aren’t plumped, the soft olive throw is stretched across the entire bed, not just the foot of it. These tiny details remind me that I wasn’t the last person to sleep in this bed – rather another woman and her husband.
I set down my case, then wander round my room, eyes scanning the clean surfaces. I slide open my wardrobe door; my clothes are still hanging in one portion of the wardrobe just as I’d left them, the rest of the rail clear for the other couple’s clothes. I move to my bedside drawer and pull it open. Empty, as I’d left it – oh, except for a small pot of men’s hair wax pushed right to the back. I twist off the lid and, seeing it is almost empty, drop it into the bin.
Taking out my washbag, I move to the large free-standing mirror at the foot of my bed, where I dab cleanser onto a cotton pad and sweep it gently around my face. I’ve picked up a little colour in France, and my hair has been lightened by the sun to a warm caramel shade.
As I lean in, that’s when I notice them: fingerprints. Larger than mine. I look closer: a hand has been pressed flat to the mirror, the smear of a stranger’s skin marking the glass.
Standing here with the empty room reflected behind me, an unsettling feeling creeps over my skin. Someone else has been in this room. Been in my house. The woman who’d rented it – Joanna – must have stood where I am, her image caught in the mirror. It feels as if this stranger’s gaze is still here, watching.
As I step back, a hot pain bursts into my heel.
I snatch up my foot, reaching out for the wall for balance. There is a deep puncture in the very centre of my heel, a bead of blood springing to the surface. What the hell have I stood on? I crouch down, searching the carpet, running my palms across it until they meet the waspish scratch of something.
A shard of glass, knife-sharp, is lodged deep in the plush carpet. I grip it between my fingers and carefully pull it out. The downlights illuminate a beautiful blue icicle, something vaguely familiar in the glitter of the glass.
Has something of mine been broken? I can’t think of anything in my bedroom that this piece could’ve come from. I keep the surfaces of my bedside table clear, except for a tripod lamp and a jug for flowers. My bottles of perfume have been packed away with the other breakables and valuables, which I’d locked in my writing room. It’s unsettling to not be able to place this lethal dagger of glass.
I wrap it in a tissue and, as I drop it into the bin, I glance down at the cream carpet and see it is marked with the crimson blush of my blood.
Previously
Oak, jasmine and something citrus – those are the smells that greet me as I step inside. There is a clean, fresh quality to the air that is different to my house: it is dry, free of cooking smells, or that earthy dampness that comes from washing dried on radiators.
I can’t help myself. ‘Hello?’
There is, of course, no reply. I smile. The quiet is beautiful, softened by the distant sound of the sea.
My black holdall looks incongruous on the solid oak floor. I kick off my shoes and leave them discarded. Yours, I see, are placed neatly beneath the oak settle.
I walk through
the entrance hall, which leads straight into the spacious kitchen. The walls are a warm shade of white; I think the paint has been chosen with light-diffusing particles so that it feels as if the walls are breathing air into the room. The splashes of colour – chalky pastel shades – come from the painted wooden cabinets, the well-chosen artwork, the pottery carefully displayed.
The style is graceful, calming. It’s as if a handful of sea-bleached pebbles have been gathered and used as the basis for the palette. The modern, sleek lines of handle-less cabinets and a granite work surface have been married with a beautiful old farmhouse table, the wood ring-marked and age-worn. A long bench seat is set against the wall, strewn with hessian cushions. It’s a table for a family, or for dinner parties. Not a table for one.
I smile to see that the high chair, as requested, is placed at the end of this table, although it won’t be used, of course. On the kitchen counter there is a small bunch of wildflowers in an old honey pot, tied with brown string. Leaning against it is a handwritten card addressed to Joanna and family.
A thoughtful touch.
I pick up the card, tracing a finger across the elegant handwriting, but I don’t open it.
Setting it back down, I move past an aged dresser painted duck-egg blue, where earthenware mugs hang from neat iron hooks. Seagrass-speckled pots are stacked artfully between mason jars containing nuts, pulses and attractive spirals and ribbons of pasta. I slide open the dresser drawer and, as I reach into it, I experience the sharp sensation that someone is going to snap the drawer shut on my fingers, a child caught snooping.
I feel like a trespasser. Yet, in my pocket, I’m aware of the small but solid presence of the front door key resting against the top of my thigh.
I am no trespasser, I remind myself. You let me in.
3
Elle
‘If you’re going to throw a ticking bomb into the story, light the fuse at the beginning, and let us hear it tick.’
Author Elle Fielding
In the charcoal-coated dark of three a.m., I am awake. The cut to my heel throbs; my pulse seems to tick there.
