The Doll House

by Phoebe Morgan

  I put a hand on my rounded stomach, feel it’s reassuring solidity. Not long now. Soon we’ll be a proper family. It is becoming too warm in here, the gallery windows are sealed tight and I can feel my toes sticking together, rubbing against each other in my sandals. My swollen ankles strain against the leather.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  I look up. The woman is standing in front of me, resting one small hand against the counter. The other hand is curled up, as a child hiding a secret. When I see her face, my blood runs cold.

  It is what I have been terrified of for four months, as the police trail has gone cold and the officers have gradually lost interest. I’ve watched the posters tatter in the wind and rain, the media coverage lessen, the stories about us be replaced by new horrors. Everyone has been forgetting. Everyone except me.

  I open my mouth to scream but the sound doesn’t come out. The woman in front of me opens up her fingers and that’s when I see it, she’s clutching a little object in her hand. A shudder goes through me, moves its way through my body until I am shaking all over. How has she got hold of it? As I stare down at her hand, the woman smiles at me, a horrible smile as though she’s testing me, waiting to see how I’ll react.

  My heartbeat accelerates and sweat breaks out all over my body, beading my forehead and dampening the underside of my arms. My maternity dress starts to feel hot and tight and as I do a terrible sense of dread comes over me. Even though I’ve never met her, I know who this woman is. And she knows me.

  Instinctively, I wrap my arms around my stomach. I need to say something, to ask her what she wants, but somehow my voice won’t come, my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth and I can’t find the right words to begin questioning her. A slow sense of inevitability begins to build in my mind, as though some part of me has always known this moment would come.

  I can hear Marjorie behind me in the stockroom, faintly, moving around, unpacking, stacking. She’s listening to the radio; I can make out the soft hum of politicians squabbling, their voices talking over each other impatiently. I want to run to the sound, hide behind Marjorie whilst my mind tries to keep up with what my eyes are saying is true.

  The woman hasn’t moved, her hand is still open on the desk between us, challenging me to say something; her head is tilted to one side and she’s showing her teeth, small stumps in the darkness of her mouth. The little rocking horse is between us, lying in the flesh of her palm. It mocks me for my silence.

  ‘You need to leave,’ I say, my shaking voice echoing in the quiet of the gallery, praying Marjorie hears me, recognises the panic in my voice.

  She shakes her head, a teacher to a child, and turns away. I catch sight of her figure in the mirror opposite; the glass reflects her shape, bounces her back at me again and again so that she is everywhere, darting between the paintings like a black sprite. As I watch, she twists her head backwards, gives me a quick smile.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘I think I’ll come back another time.’

  The little bell jangles again and she’s gone. I stand and stare at the street, which already is deathly empty. My breathing is loud. I gulp air and crush closed my eyes until black shiny dots dance behind the lids. Think. Think. I have to call the police. But I can’t. But I have to.

  ‘Corinne?’ Marjorie is calling from the office doorway.

  I open my eyes and stand straight, about to turn to face her, but then I see it, she’s left it there by my discarded pen. It is rocking gently as if a tiny hand is pushing it back and forth, back and forth. It is just like the last time. I open my mouth. And then I scream.

  Marjorie comes running in. ‘What’s the matter? Who was that? Bloody hell, you scared me half to death!’

  I am gasping. My thoughts are racing. They never found her. They never found the doll house. No one else could have known but her. I see it then, and I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before: the shuffle of her footsteps, the flash of her grey hair, her weathered old face, always near me, always just out of reach. Watching me, waiting. On the stairs in my building, walking past me in the park. She wasn’t under her daughter’s control. It was the other way around. Panic skitters through my body and I moan, putting my arms across my stomach.

  ‘Marjorie,’ I say, ‘Marjorie!’ My breathing is strange, distorted. The pressure in my head is building, mounting behind my eyelids.

  She stares back at me. Since the accident she’s been really kind, she’s helped me get back to normal, one day at a time, turned the media away from the door until it all died down. She shielded me from the worst of the aftermath. I go to her, grab hold of her hands. She looks confused.

  ‘What’s the matter? Corinne? Come on, deep breaths, remember, like I showed you. In and out.’

  I’m trying, I’m sucking in air but I can’t calm down, I can’t stop staring at the rocking horse moving, the sway of the little wooden rails. How else would she have it unless she knew? In my mind I am piecing things together, I am bent over as though the weight on my shoulders is physical.

  ‘Marjorie,’ I say again, ‘they’ve got it wrong. I don’t think Erin was controlling her mother, I think her mother was controlling her. Oh my God.’

  ‘June de Bonnier? Is that who was just in here? Corinne, you need to call the police!’

  I am frozen to the spot. It is coming, it is building up inside me. The thing I have never been able to tell anyone, not the police, not Ashley, not even Dominic. The thing that keeps me awake at night, the real reason I have nightmares.

  Guilt.

  I don’t answer her. I race to the gallery door, slam the bolts across the top. Marjorie is staring at me. She comes towards me, puts a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘All right, all right. Try to keep calm. We will call the police but the woman isn’t dangerous, she was being manipulated. She’s nearly seventy, Corinne.’ She pauses. ‘Didn’t you read the stories? What would she want now?’

  I look up at her. I know what June wants. It’s the same thing she’s always wanted, and I’ve made it so much worse.

  It is the day of the anniversary. Erin and I are on the tube platform at West Hampstead Underground station. Her scarf tightens around my neck. We are right on the yellow line, my boots are beginning to slip. I hear the sound of the train approaching, I pull myself forward and we are both standing still, we are panting, our faces close together. She’s staring at me. I think of my baby. She opens her mouth to speak and that’s when I do it: I reach out and I push her into the path of the oncoming train.

  ‘Revenge.’

  The handle of the gallery door begins to turn.

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  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

  Copyright © Phoebe Morgan 2017

  Phoebe Morgan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  E-book Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 978-0-00-827169-5

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  Phoebe Morgan, The Doll House