by Lisa Jewell
It’s thirty degrees, as hot as the south of France.
By the time they get to the house they are all sweating and the dog is panting.
The wooden hoarding is padlocked. They stand in a row and study the building.
‘Are you sure this is the right house?’ says Marco. ‘How does anyone live here?’
‘No one lives here at the moment,’ she says. ‘But we’re going to go inside and wait for the others to arrive.’
‘But how are we going to get in?’
Lucy breathes in deeply and says, ‘Follow me.’
39
Libby awakes the next morning in a shaft of bright sunlight. She trails her hand across the floor beneath her bed and then across the top of the bedside table trying to locate her phone. It’s not there. The night feels furry and unformed. She sits up quickly and scans the room. It is a small white room and she is on a very low wooden bed with an enormous mattress. And so is Miller.
She instinctively clutches the sheet to her chest before realising that she is dressed; she is wearing the top she had on the night before, and her underwear. She vaguely remembers pulling off her shorts while Miller was in the bathroom and ducking under the cover. She vaguely remembers swilling with toothpaste and can feel it still stuck to her teeth. She vaguely remembers a lot of things.
She is in Phin’s flat.
She is in bed with Miller.
They are both dressed and sleeping top to toe.
Last night Phin poured them glass after glass of wine. And insisted, almost to the point of being a bit weird about it, that they stay.
‘Don’t go,’ he’d said. ‘Please. I only just found you. I don’t want to lose you again.’
And she’d said, ‘You’re not going to lose me. We’re virtually neighbours now. Look!’ And she’d pointed across the river at the noble row of houses where number sixteen sat.
‘Please,’ he’d wheedled, his long eyelashes touching his perfectly coiffed eyebrows. ‘It’s got to be better than sleeping on those manky old mattresses over there. Come on. I’ll make you a delicious breakfast in the morning! I’ve got avocado. That’s what you millennials like, isn’t it?’
‘I prefer eggs,’ Miller had replied.
‘Are you actually a millennial?’ Phin had asked him, eyes narrowed, slightly bitchy.
‘Just,’ Miller had replied. ‘But I missed the avocado moment.’
Libby looks at the time on the alarm clock on the bedside table now and works out that if she leaves in eight minutes she’ll still make it to work by nine o’clock. Which is late, for her, but fine in terms of the phone ringing and customers walking in off the street.
She slides her shorts back on and hauls herself off the low-slung bed.
Miller stirs.
She glances at him.
She sees the suggestion of a tattoo on his upper arm where the sleeve of his T-shirt has ridden up. She can’t bear tattoos. Which makes dating particularly awkward in this day and age. But he looks sweet, she can’t help observing. Soft and appealing.
She pulls her gaze from his sleeping form and tiptoes to the en-suite bathroom she vaguely remembers using very late last night. In the mirror she looks reasonably unscathed. The previous morning’s blow dry has survived all the subsequent adventures. She swills again with toothpaste and gargles with tap water. She pulls her hair back into a ponytail and finds a can of deodorant in the bathroom cabinet.
When she comes back into the bedroom Miller is awake.
He smiles at her. ‘Good morning,’ he says. He stretches his arms above his head and she sees the full extent of his tattoo. It’s some kind of Celtic thing. It could be worse.
‘I’m going now,’ she says, picking up her handbag.
‘Going where?’
‘Work,’ she says.
‘God, are you really? You don’t think your boss would give you the morning off?’
She pauses. Of course she would give her the morning off. But Libby doesn’t work like that. It makes her feel edgy just thinking about it.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I want to go to work. I’ve got a big day. Some client meetings in the diary.’
‘You don’t want to let people down?’
‘I don’t want to let people down.’
‘Well,’ he says, throwing back the sheet, revealing the fact that he is wearing red and blue jersey boxer shorts and has solid rugby player legs, ‘give me thirty seconds and I’ll come with you.’
‘You don’t know where my phone is, do you?’ she asks.
‘No idea,’ he says, hauling himself out of bed and pulling on his trousers.
His hair is nuts. His beard is also nuts. She stifles a smile. ‘Are you going to, you know, check your reflection?’
‘Should I?’ He looks confused.
She thinks of the time and says, ‘No. You look fine. Let’s go and find our phones and get out of here.’
She puts her hand on the door handle and pushes it down. The door does not open. She pushes again. Again, it does not open. She pushes it four more times.
Then she turns to Miller and says, ‘It’s locked.’
40
CHELSEA, 1991
David kept Phin shut up in his room for a week after the night he pushed me in the river. A whole week. I was glad in some ways because I couldn’t bear to look Phin in the eye. He had pushed me in the river, but what I had done was much, much worse.
But mainly I just ached. I ached with remorse, with regret, with fury, with helplessness and with missing him. Phin’s meals were brought to him and he was allowed toilet visits twice a day, his father hovering outside the door with his arms folded across his stomach like a malevolent bouncer.
The atmosphere in the house during those days was ponderous and impossible to read. Everything emanated from David. He radiated a terrible dark energy and everyone avoided angering him further, including me.
One afternoon during Phin’s incarceration, I sat with Justin, sorting herbs with him. I glanced up at the back of the house towards Phin’s window.
‘Don’t you think it’s bad’, I said, ‘that David’s locking Phin up like that?’
He shrugged. ‘He could have killed you, mate. You could have died.’
‘Yeah, I know. But he didn’t. I didn’t. It’s just … wrong.’
‘Well, yeah, it’s probably not how I’d do things, but then I’m not a dad, I don’t know what it’s like to have kids. David’s just doing “his job”, I guess.’ He made quotes in the air as he said these words.
‘His job?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know, having ultimate control over absolutely everything.’
‘I hate him,’ I said, my voice breaking unexpectedly.
‘Yeah, well, that makes two of us.’
‘Why don’t you leave?’
He glanced first at me and then at the back door. ‘I intend to,’ he whispered. ‘But don’t tell a soul, OK?’
I nodded.
‘There’s a smallholding. In Wales. This woman I met at the market told me about it. They’re looking for someone to set up a herb garden. It’ll be like here, free board and lodging and all that. But no fucking dick-swinging overlords.’ He rolled his eyes towards the house again.
I smiled. Dick-swinging overlord. I liked it.
‘When are you going?’
‘Soon,’ he said. ‘Really soon.’ He looked up at me, quickly. ‘Want to come with?’
I blinked. ‘To Wales?’
‘Yeah. To Wales. You can carry on being my little apprentice buddy.’
‘But I’m only fourteen.’
He didn’t say anything, just nodded and continued tying the herbs.
It wasn’t until a little later that the significance of what he’d said hit me. He was not inviting me to Wales to be his little apprentice buddy; he wasn’t inviting me because he needed me. He was inviting me because he thought I’d be safer there than in my own home.
Justin disappeared t
wo days later. He told nobody he was going and left so early in the morning that even David had yet to wake up. Having learned a lesson about telling tales from what had happened with Phin, I told nobody about the Welsh smallholding. I got the impression he didn’t want anyone to know where he was going. I walked into his room later that day. He’d arrived with very little, and left with even less. I walked to the windowsill where all his books sat in a row.
The Modern Book of Witchcraft and Spells.
Wicca for Beginners.
Wicca Book of Herbal Spells.
I felt sure he’d left them for me on purpose.
I glanced out into the hallway and, having ascertained that there was nobody about, I bundled the books under my jumper.
I was about to run back to my bedroom when my eye was caught by something else on his bedside table. Something small and furry. I thought at first it was a dead mouse, but upon inspection I found it to be a disembodied rabbit’s foot attached to a small length of chain. I had a vague idea that it was supposed to be lucky in some way, like heather and four-leaved clovers. I jammed it quickly into my pocket and ran to my bedroom where I slid everything under my mattress.
I always expected to hear from Justin again.
After the bodies were discovered and the police were investigating the deaths and trying to trace the Lambs’ ‘tragic missing children’ I waited and I waited for Justin to suddenly appear on the six o’clock news to talk about his time in the house, about how David Thomsen used to lock his teenage son in his bedroom and tell everyone what to eat and what to wear and where they could and couldn’t go.
I’ve googled Justin since, many, many times, but found no trace of him, anywhere. I can only assume either that he died, that he emigrated somewhere obscure and remote or that he knew what had happened to us all but had decided to keep silent and not get involved. Whatever the truth, I was always secretly relieved. But once he was gone, I missed him. I hadn’t liked him at first, but he’d turned out to be the least of my bloody problems.
Months passed. Summer turned to winter. I took over Justin’s herb garden. David actively encouraged this as it fitted with his ideology. Children should be hard at work doing wholesome things. They should not be learning skills that might bring them into the evil ways of capitalism. He had no idea about the books under my bed or the very particular skill set I was developing. Each evening I brought whoever was cooking handfuls of fresh basil and fresh mint, and was petted and approved of. Birdie even ran me a bath one night when she saw me out in the rain covering over some delicate new seedlings.
‘You’re doing a good job,’ she said, handing me a towel as I walked up the stairs. ‘David’s very pleased with you.’
David’s very pleased with you.
I wanted to bite her, like a dog.
Predictably, Sally had not got the flat in Hammersmith and was still on the sofa in Brixton and was now talking about moving down to Cornwall.
She arrived one evening with Phin and Clemency in tow, three hours late after taking them to a friend’s party for the afternoon where it was clear that she had been drinking heavily. I had seen adults drunk before, many times, when my parents were still sociable and threw parties every weekend. But I’m not sure I’d seen anyone quite as drunk as Sally that evening.
‘I can’t believe’, I heard David say in a voice tense with anger, ‘that you think there is a chance in hell that anyone would let these children live with you. Look at the state of you.’
‘You!’ said Sally. ‘You can talk! Look at the state of you! Who do you think you are? You’re pathetic. Pathetic. You and that ugly girl. And God knows who else you’re fucking. God knows.’
I saw David trying to manhandle Sally towards the door. I could tell he really wanted to hit her and was trying his hardest not to.
But then my mother appeared. ‘I’ll make you a coffee,’ she said, touching Sally’s elbow, throwing David a warning glance. ‘Come on. Let’s get you sorted out.’
I feigned ignorance of the drama and appeared in the kitchen a moment later.
‘Just getting some water,’ I said, though nobody really cared. I pretended to leave but skulked quietly just inside the pantry door.
Sally was crying, silently, a handkerchief pressed to her face. I heard her say, ‘Please keep them safe. Please keep them safe for me. I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to …’ The rest of her words were swallowed up by a river boat honking its horn beyond the front door. ‘I’m so worried. Phin told me about being locked in his room and I can see, yes, that he did a bad thing. I mean God, I know, Henry could have died. But it’s just so … cold? Isn’t it? To lock a child away like that? He’s such a cold man …’
‘You know what David is like,’ replied my mother. ‘It’s his way of keeping everything together. He saved us, Sally. He really did. Before he came, I could not see the point of living each day. But now I wake up each morning and I feel happy about my existence. About myself. I am not taking from the planet. I am not plundering the earth. I am not contributing to global warming. My children are not going to end up sitting behind glass-topped desks taking money from the poor. I just wish’, she said, ‘that David had come into our lives many years before.’
41
Libby bangs her fists against the door. Miller bangs his too. The door is a solid fire door. He goes to the window to see if there are any means of escape there, but it is sealed shut and leads only to a sheer ten-floor drop.
They search the room once again for their phones but fail to unearth them.
After half an hour they stop banging and sit defeated on the floor with their backs against the foot of the bed.
‘Now what?’ says Libby.
‘Let’s give it half an hour and then I’ll try and kick it down.’
‘Why don’t you try and kick it down now?
‘I’m not as strong as I look, you know. I’ve got an old back injury. I have to be careful.’
‘Ten minutes then,’ she says.
‘OK, ten minutes.’
‘What the hell do you think he’s playing at?’ she asks.
‘I have literally no clue.’
‘Do you think he’s going to kill us?’
‘Oh, I doubt it.’
‘Then why has he locked us in here?’
‘By accident, maybe?’
Libby glances at him disbelievingly. ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’ The alarm clock says that it is now 7.37 a.m. She’s still trying to calculate how late she’s going to be for work when they both sit up straight at the sound of a door banging. Then they hear a voice. It’s Phin’s voice and he’s addressing one of the cats. They hear kissy-kissy sounds. They jump to their feet and start to pound on the bedroom door again.
A moment later the door opens and Phin is peering at them.
‘Oh God,’ he says, his hand clamped over his mouth. ‘Oh God. I am so sorry. I have this terrible sleepwalking habit. I’ve walked in on house guests before – actually tried to get into bed with them once. So I locked you in before I went to bed. And then I woke up this morning stupidly early and decided to go for a run. Completely forgot about you two. I am so incredibly sorry. Come on now. Come. Let’s have breakfast.’
‘I can’t have breakfast. I’m late for work.’
‘Oh, just call them up, tell them what happened. I’m sure they’ll understand. Come on. I got fresh orange juice and everything. It’s a beautiful day again. We can eat on the terrace. Please.’
He was doing the thing again, the wheedling thing he’d done the night before. Libby felt trapped.
‘Why didn’t you tell us’, she said, ‘last night? Why didn’t you tell us you were going to lock the door? Or tell us to lock it from the inside?’
‘It was very late,’ he replied, ‘and I was very drunk, and very stupid.’
‘You really freaked us out, you know. I was really scared.’ Libby feels her voice cracking on her words, the tension of the last moments starting t
o fade.
‘Please forgive me,’ he says. ‘I’m an idiot. I wasn’t thinking. You were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you. I just locked it. Mindlessly. Come on. Come and have something to eat.
She and Miller exchange a glance. She can tell he wants to stay. She nods. ‘OK, then, but just a quick one. And Phin?’
He looks at her sweetly.
‘Where are our phones?’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Are they not in your room?’
‘No,’ she replies. ‘Neither of them.’
‘Well, you must have left them out last night. Let’s find them.’
They follow him down the hallway and back into the open-plan living room. ‘Oh,’ he says lightly. ‘Here they are. You left them charging in the kitchen. We must all have been very, very drunk last night to have been that organised. Go,’ he says, ‘go and sit on the terrace. I’ll bring breakfast out to you.’
They sit side by side on the sofa. The sun is shining on the other side of the riverbank now, picking out the windows of the houses on Cheyne Walk.
She feels Miller move closer to her. ‘It doesn’t wash,’ he hisses in her ear. ‘I don’t buy the “I was drunk so I locked you in your bedroom without telling you” story. And I don’t buy the mobile phone thing either. I was drunk last night, but I remember my phone being in my hand when we went to bed. I smell a rat.’
Libby nods her agreement. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘Something doesn’t quite add up.’
She switches on her phone and calls Dido. It goes through to her voicemail. ‘It’s a long story,’ she says. ‘But I’m still in Chelsea. Would you be able to ask Claire to talk to the Morgans when they come in at ten? She has all the details. And the newest quotes are on the system. They just need to be printed off. And I’ll be in way before my next meeting. I promise. I’m so sorry, I’ll explain everything when I see you. And if I’m not in by ten thirty, call me. If I don’t answer’ – she looks quickly behind her where she can see Phin still behind the kitchen counter, slicing bread – ‘I’m in Battersea in an apartment block directly opposite the house. OK? I don’t know what number it is. But I’m about the tenth floor up. I’ll see you soon. I’m sorry. And bye.’