The Perfect Life

by Nuala Ellwood

  By the time I get back to the flat I am mentally and physically exhausted. Even the walk up the stairs feels like an enormous effort. When I get to the top I hear voices coming from the living room and my heart sinks. Please don’t let Connor’s mother be here. I can’t face another grilling from her, not after the day I’ve had.

  I hang my coat on the hook in the corridor then push the living-room door open, bracing myself for the wrath of Jackie. But it’s not Connor’s mother I see, it’s something much worse.

  ‘Vanessa,’ cries Connor, leaping up from the naked woman lying beneath him. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  I’m in such shock I don’t register the ridiculousness of my naked, cheating boyfriend asking me what the hell I’m doing when he’s on top of another woman. Instead, I stand in the doorway, shock freezing my bones, while the woman places a cushion over her breasts. It’s then that I recognize her. The blonde bobbed hair, the flawless skin, the violet eyes. It’s Sara, the woman I last saw in the burlesque club.

  ‘I can explain,’ cries Connor as I finally find my feet and run out of the room and back down the stairs, grabbing my bag from the hook. ‘You’ve been so difficult lately, Vanessa. I had no choice.’

  Those are the last words I hear as I slam the front door behind me and run down the street.

  30. Now

  Before I can turn and run, Lottie sees me. She gestures to Connor. I have to get out of here.

  I can hear Connor’s footsteps gaining on me as I hurry up the street. I can’t make sense of what I have just seen. Why were Connor and Lottie together? They have always hated each other.

  I hear someone call my name and I run across the zebra crossing, the red-and-blue tube sign of Warwick Avenue station looming ahead of me.

  When I get to the other side I have to weave my way through a procession of schoolkids clutching clipboards and following their teacher.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I cry, pushing them aside in my agitation. ‘Please, I have to get past.’

  I hear the teacher say something about bad manners as I finally extricate myself and hurry towards the station.

  The sun is blazing into my eyes as I pause to cross another side road, the white stucco houses rising ominously in front of me. I put my hand up to shield my eyes and as I do someone grabs me from behind.

  I try to scream but they put their hand over my mouth.

  My eyes fix on a tabby cat lolling on the ground. I hear the grumble of the trains beneath my feet as I’m pushed towards the cat. The hand presses tighter. I can smell something, a sharp chemical scent, and then all is black.

  31. Then

  I stand on Georgie’s doorstep hammering the door with my fist, the image of Connor and Sara lying naked in each other’s arms imprinted on my mind.

  ‘Georgie, it’s me,’ I cry, tears obliterating my vision. ‘Open the door.’

  I ring the doorbell again, keeping my finger pressed down on it. A light goes on in the hallway then I see the tall outline of Jack walking towards me.

  ‘Good grief, Vanessa!’ Jack says in his clipped public-school voice as he opens the door. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

  He’s dressed in a pair of navy-and-cream striped pyjamas, his salt-and-pepper cropped hair sticking up on the top of his head. I have no idea what time it is as I’ve spent most of the evening walking around Clapham in a daze, but I guess I’ve woken them up.

  ‘I need to see Georgie,’ I whimper, my lip trembling. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Of course,’ says Jack, ushering me inside. ‘She’s sleeping but I’ll go and wake her. Why don’t you go into the living room and get yourself comfortable. I won’t be a moment.’

  I watch as he stumbles up the stairs, his hand gripping the sleek banister, then I head to the living room.

  I step inside and look around, as if for the first time. The soft, squishy sofas draped with thick cashmere throws, the delicate glass lamps pouring soft light on to the rug-strewn wooden floor, the reassuring warmth of home. Only, it’s not my home.

  I cross the room and stand in front of the large stone fireplace. Above it is the picture Mum left to Georgie. It’s a print by an artist named John Atkinson Grimshaw and depicts a cobbled street bathed in moonlight. It’s winter, the trees are bare, the street deserted save for one solitary walker. The only light comes from the moon, peeking through the trees, and from the windows of a beautiful house on the edge of the picture. The house, partly hidden behind the trees, has tall brick chimneys with wisps of smoke rising out and narrow windows behind which glows a warm and golden light. Mum used to say the painting, titled A Moonlit Road, should have been called Coming Home because that’s how it always made her feel.

  I stand for a moment and look up at the painting, my eyes drawn to the figure on the pavement. I’d barely noticed the picture when I was a child, though I knew Mum loved it. She had hung it in her bedroom, on the wall opposite the bed. She liked to look at it before going to sleep, said it soothed her.

  I think back to that terrible moment in the eco house when the estate agent caught me trying to steal an original Grimshaw painting, which would have been worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, and I cringe inwardly. Yet, as I stand here, I realize I have become the figure in the painting, cast out on the street, looking longingly at a warm and inviting home that will never be mine. I thought Connor was my home. I thought that he loved me. I see that image again, Sara’s hands clutching his back, the noises they were making, and it hurts so much I almost lose my breath.

  ‘Nessa, what is it? What’s happened?’

  I turn to see Georgie standing in the doorway. Her black hair is scooped back into a messy ponytail and she’s wearing Jack’s blue dressing gown, which is at least three sizes too big for her. My sister has always borne more resemblance to my dad, yet tonight the expression on Georgie’s face is so like Mum I start to cry.

  ‘Oh, darling, what is it?’ she says, rushing towards me and pulling me to her chest. ‘What’s the matter?’

  I want to tell her about Connor and Sara, about his mother and the abortion, about the night of the burlesque, those lost hours. I want to take all my fear and panic and pain and pour it out at the feet of my older, wiser sister, but I don’t have the words to even begin. She’ll be so disappointed in me for not telling her. For letting it get to this.

  ‘Is it Connor?’ she says. ‘Have you two had an argument?’

  ‘It’s over,’ I say, crying so heavily my voice is barely audible. ‘Connor and me, we’re … oh God, Georgie, I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Shh,’ says Georgie, stroking the back of my head just like my mum used to. ‘It’s okay, darling. You’re here now.’

  ‘Can I stay for a bit?’ I say, easing myself from her embrace. ‘Just until I get myself sorted?’

  ‘Of course you can,’ she says, wiping a tear from my face. ‘You can stay as long as you like.’

  ‘I … I need to get back on my feet,’ I say, trying to steady my voice. ‘I haven’t told you, but I quit my job.’

  ‘What?’ says Georgie, her eyes widening. ‘But why? What happened?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I say, trying not to think about the pain of the last few days. ‘I’ve been a bit stressed and …’

  ‘Come on, darling,’ says Georgie, taking my arm. ‘You need a good rest. We can talk about it in the morning.’

  She leads me upstairs to Imogen’s room where she hands me a pair of freshly laundered pyjamas and settles me into bed. As I get under the covers I think of clever, funny Imogen, who is doing great things at Oxford, blissfully unaware that her sad, washed-up aunt is taking up residence in her neat, pretty bedroom.

  ‘Try to get some sleep now,’ says Georgie as she turns out the light. ‘Whatever it is, we can sort it out, Nessa.’

  She stands for a moment in the doorway, the light from the landing illuminating her strong, solid figure. So unlike mine, which is so small, so insubstantial, I sometimes wonder why I haven’t floated
away.

  ‘Thanks, Georgie,’ I whisper. ‘Night, night.’

  ‘Night, night, my darling,’ she says as she closes the door.

  I lie for a moment looking at the shadows on the ceiling and try to make sense of what has happened. I think back to the text message from Sara, her flirtatious behaviour at the burlesque club, and I realize with sickening certainty that this must have been going on for a long time. I recall the day I came home early from work and found Connor dressed only in a towel. I’d heard voices as I came up the stairs and smelt cigarette smoke but, as always, he convinced me it was nothing. I think about the abortion, Connor’s mother lecturing me on morality. All the time he was sleeping with someone else behind my back.

  Across the landing I hear Georgie and Jack’s muffled voices. She will be telling him what has happened. They are so close; they tell each other everything. That’s what I wanted, what I thought I’d found in Connor, but it was all an illusion. As I lie here in a borrowed bed I feel like the last person on earth. Georgie has Jack and the kids, my dad has Lynda, Connor has Sara, Lottie is hundreds of miles away. The only person who could make me feel better is dead. Maybe that’s it, I think to myself, shivering despite the heat of the evening, maybe I need to go find Mum, maybe that’s the only way I will stop this hurt.

  My eyes fill with tears. Never, even in the terrible days and months after her death, did I ever think I wanted to die. I’ve always loved life and I wanted to bring my mother back to it, not end mine to join her. But now I look at my life and just see a series of fuck-ups. I have no boyfriend, no job, no home. There is nothing worth living for.

  My phone bleeps from inside my jeans, which are lying on the floor. It will likely be Connor, I think to myself as I get out of bed and take the phone from my pocket. He’d called me six times as I sat on the train from Clapham Junction to Wimbledon. I’d ignored all of his calls. There was nothing to say. I’d seen his deceit with my own eyes.

  I look at the screen. Sure enough, there are five more missed calls and a text.

  Please pick up the phone, Vanessa, I can explain everything. You can’t just throw it all away like this.

  My chest tightens with a mix of anger and grief. After all he has done, he’s still blaming me, telling me that I am throwing it all away. But behind my anger, even now, there’s a small part of me that agrees with him. That wants to do what he says.

  There are two more notifications on the screen. One is a text from my mobile provider, the other from the Dream Properties app: ‘One new property for you to see.’ After the disastrous eco-house viewing I know I should delete the app but I’m too upset to sleep. I need a distraction to stop me from doing something stupid.

  I click on the notification and as the image fills the screen I almost drop my phone in shock.

  There it is, displayed in thirty-seven high-res photos: a place I haven’t seen since childhood, the house depicted in the book my mother bought me just hours before she died.

  ‘It can’t be,’ I whisper as I scroll through the pictures. ‘It’s impossible.’

  But there it is, in bold lettering at the top of the page. Three words. The name of my life raft.

  HOLLY MAZE HOUSE.

  And I realize as I make a note of the viewing instructions that Mum has done it again, she has reached out just when I needed her most.

  32. Now

  I open my eyes to thick, velvet darkness. My head is throbbing and the ground beneath me is hard and cold.

  Blinking, I press my hands against the floor, try to haul myself up, but my body feels like lead. The events of the morning come back to me in fractured images: white stucco houses rising up around me, a tabby cat lolling in the sun, Lottie’s text message and Connor running after me down the street.

  He’s taken me somewhere, though in this half-light I can see only the outline of the room. Tall shapes rise up like distorted sea monsters, the air smells stale and fetid. I have to get to my feet, have to try to find my way out of here. I press down on the heels of my hand but my arms won’t carry my weight and I sink back down on to the hard floor. My heart palpitates with the exertion. I try to breathe slowly, try to calm the panic that is twisting up my insides.

  I’m on my second deep inhalation when I hear something, footsteps coming towards me. I crouch into a ball, a defensive posture that I realize is pointless. I hear the sound of curtains being pulled back then a sharp strand of light cuts across the floor.

  I feel a presence bearing down on me, the sound of shallow breathing. I pull my hands over my head and pray to my mum to keep me safe.

  ‘Come on,’ he says, his voice muffled. ‘You don’t have to be scared of me.’

  I feel a hand on the scruff of my neck then he slowly pulls me up. I instinctively look down at the ground, but he takes my chin and lifts my face to his.

  I scream.

  ‘Shh,’ he says, putting his hand over my mouth. ‘I told you. There’s no need to be scared.’

  He is dressed all in black – a long-sleeved T-shirt, jeans and a balaclava with holes for his eyes and mouth.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I ask when he takes his hand away from my mouth. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘We’re going to have a little adventure, just the two of us,’ he says, his voice muffled. ‘A little explore. You see, I know your secrets. The ones you tried to hide from everyone. The fact that you like looking at houses, other people’s houses that you can’t afford. Nosy little so-and-so, aren’t you?’

  At this, he grabs my shoulders and spins me round to face the room. My legs almost give way as I see the sweeping wooden staircase, the grand stone flooring covered in faded tapestry rugs, the moss-green velvet drapes, the outline of the stone griffins outside the window, and I realize with utter dread that I am in the hallway of Holly Maze House.

  33. Then

  The following day I make my way to Hampstead. The estate agent is a small boutique one, tucked away in a little square behind the high street. Its mullioned bay window and sage-green door with heavy brass knocker bring to mind Scrooge’s counting house in A Christmas Carol. It’s rather a fitting place to be marketing a property with such an illustrious literary heritage as Holly Maze House. I catch sight of my reflection in the window. I have borrowed Georgie’s pale-pink suede Stella McCartney shift dress. It’s a few seasons old but it gives the right impression: stylish, understated, wealthy.

  A bell rings as I step inside and a young man, thin and wiry with John Lennon glasses and a mop of curly black hair, looks up from his desk by the window.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he says, getting to his feet. ‘How can I help you?’

  I take a deep breath to steady myself, before explaining that I have come to enquire about viewing Holly Maze House.

  The man raises an eyebrow, then invites me to sit down on the rickety wooden chair opposite his desk, introducing himself as Ed. Behind us, a young woman with inky-black cropped hair is answering calls.

  ‘Good afternoon, Price Burrows, how may I help you?’ she trills as Ed gets the details up.

  ‘This is a very special property,’ he says, his eyes brightening. ‘I don’t know whether you’re aware, but the house was the setting for a famous series of books.’

  ‘Really?’ I reply, not wanting to let him into my secret. ‘How fascinating.’

  I smile as Ed gives me a quick summary of The Spirits of Holly Maze House, revealing himself, in the telling, to be utterly ignorant of the nature of both the books and their author.

  ‘Yes, it’s about, er … ghosts who haunt this house and … there’s a bird who, er, gets involved … and … well, the author, apparently has, er … lived in Hampstead all his life.’

  I nod my head, recalling Geoffrey’s countless interviews where he told the story of his West Country childhood, his early marriage, the teaching career he’d had to let go for the stories that were burning inside him.

  I grimace slightly. Ed must notice because he starts to backtrack.


  ‘Not that this house is haunted or anything like that,’ he says, his face reddening. ‘Not in the slightest. It’s just, the owner was inspired to write the story there. It’s a lovely place. Not a hint of any darkness at all.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I say, relaxing in the wake of Ed’s nervousness. ‘I’m not scared of ghosts. In fact, I’d find them rather reassuring. It’s the living we have to worry about more than the dead, don’t you think?’

  He regards me for a moment then, assuming I’m making a joke, bursts into uneasy laughter.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, straightening his tie. ‘I must say I’m far more scared of my mother than any poltergeist. Now, where were we? Right, I just need to get a few details from you before we proceed. If we could start with your name.’

  I freeze. For the first time I have quite forgotten to create a persona.

  ‘Iris,’ I say, letting the name fall from my lips like a delicate butterfly.

  ‘That’s great,’ says Ed, his head bowed over the computer. ‘And your surname?’

  I look up at the enlarged street map on the wall behind Ed’s desk. The first name I see is Lawson Industrial Park.

  ‘Lawson,’ I reply, hardly missing a beat. ‘Iris Lawson.’

  ‘Excellent,’ says Ed. ‘And I’m going to need a contact telephone number and address.’

  Shit. I hadn’t thought about that. I can’t give a fake address as Ed will quickly suss me out. I decide to give Georgie’s. It’s a suitably impressive postcode and it’s highly unlikely Ed or his colleagues will follow it up.

  ‘Okay,’ he says, once he’s entered the details into his computer. ‘Now, may I ask a little more about your situation? Are you a cash buyer? Chain?’

  ‘Cash buyer,’ I say, thinking on my feet. ‘I’ve been left an inheritance.’

  ‘Lucky for some,’ he says, grinning awkwardly. ‘Now, taking a look at the appointment schedule, we could get you in to view the property on Friday if that works for you.’