by B. A. Paris
I flip my pillow over and give it a thump to flatten it, then turn and look at Leo, his head half-buried under the covers, and realize something that I’ve never realized before, which is that family-wise, I’m all he’s got. He’s estranged from his parents and from the little he told me about them, they weren’t exactly the best role models.
He murmurs restlessly in his sleep and I feel a sudden rush of love. It’s not surprising he wants some stability in his life. Someone he can depend on.
FOUR
“I’ll see you on Thursday,” he says the next morning, lifting me off the kitchen chair and giving me a kiss. “Be careful, won’t you? Make sure you lock the doors at night.”
“There was no one there,” I remind him, pressing my face into his shirt and breathing in the scent of him. “We checked.”
He rests his chin on the top of my head for a moment. “I know. All the same, be careful.”
I pull at his tie, bringing him down for a last kiss. “Love you.”
In the hall, he picks up his bag and with a wave, disappears through the front door. It slams shut behind him and I listen to his footsteps receding down the drive until I can no longer hear them. For a moment, the silence is absolute and my mind flicks to the thought of someone here; a stranger watching us as we slept. It’s only as I stand there, shrouded in perfect stillness that a thought slams into my head.
I don’t like this house.
* * *
I’d been on holiday in Venice with Ginny when Leo called to tell me about a house he’d visited.
“It’s perfect,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice, because we had viewed at least twenty by then. “Tell Ginny she was right about Ben. He’s brilliant, he’s found us exactly what we need. The perfect house.”
Ginny looked up from the magazine she was reading and I gave her a thumbs-up. Before we’d left for Venice, Ginny had told Leo to go and see Ben, the estate agent who had found her and Mark their dream home a few months earlier.
“In what way is it perfect?” I asked Leo, because it seemed too easy. Too good to be true.
“I took some photos, I’ll send them to you now.”
“It looks big,” I said a couple of minutes later. And way too expensive, although I didn’t say it aloud. I carried on swiping through photos of a large white house with a front garden that opened onto a private road. It was at the polar end to my little cottage in Harlestone.
“It has four bedrooms, three upstairs and one down, and two bathrooms.” Leo explained.
“Four bedrooms! Leo, we don’t need four bedrooms.”
“Yes, but there’s stuff we can do, like use the downstairs one as a second study.”
I looked at the next photo. “Aren’t there any fences between the houses?”
“Only at the back. Take a look at the other photos. It’s a gated estate of twelve houses so it’s really secure. And there’s a lovely square in the middle, the houses are built around it.”
I swiped through more photos, showing Ginny as she sat next to me. Each house had been built to the left of its plot, with a garage and driveway on the right separating it from its neighbor. The square, enclosed by black railings, was beautifully laid with flowerbeds, benches and paths, with a small play area in a corner for children. It looked better than anything we’d seen. But it was light years away from what I knew—and what I was comfortable with.
“I’m not sure I want to live on an estate,” I said, stalling.
“It’s not your ordinary estate; it’s quite exclusive.”
“Where is it?”
“Near Finsbury Park.”
That puzzled me. We had previously excluded Finsbury as being out of our league.
“Isn’t Finsbury too expensive for us?”
“That’s the thing. The house has been unoccupied for a while, so Ben thinks I could get it for the same price as I’d get for my flat. It means you wouldn’t have to sell your cottage in Harlestone, Alice.”
“I don’t mind,” I protested. “I expected to.”
“I know. But I also know how much it means to you. That’s what I’ve wanted all along, to find a house that I can buy without you having to sell yours.” He paused. “You could rent it out for say, six months and then if you find that you don’t like living in London, you’ll still have your cottage in Harlestone to go back to.”
“That sounds a bit ominous,” I said, moving away from Ginny and walking into the bedroom. I waited until I’d closed the door behind me. “What are you saying, Leo? That you don’t think we’ll last more than six months?”
“No, not at all. It’s just that I know you’re worried about moving to London and I thought it might make it easier for you if you knew your cottage was there, waiting in the background, in case you ended up really hating it here. A safety-net, so that we could re-think our future plans, if we had to.”
Tears had filled my eyes. The thought of selling my cottage had been heartbreaking, and I’d tried desperately to keep those feelings from Leo, obviously without success. And he was right, it would make it much easier for me to move to London if I still had my cottage.
“Why are you so good to me?” I asked.
“Because I love you. So, shall I go ahead and make an offer? I’d like to get it in today.”
“I’ll call you back within the hour,” I promised.
I took my time scrolling through the photos again. Ginny loved the house and pointed out that it wasn’t far from where she and Mark lived.
“At least you won’t have to cross the whole of London to come and see me,” she said, reaching for her wide-brimmed sun hat and cramming it on her head. “Come on, let’s go for a glass of wine to celebrate you finally moving to London.”
“I haven’t said yes to the house yet,” I reminded her. Because there was something that was niggling me. If I didn’t sell my cottage, it would be Leo’s house, not our house. Did it matter, though? I thought back to what he had said about us not getting married. Would we love each other more if we co-owned a house? The answer had to be no, so I called Leo back and told him to go ahead.
I finally saw the house a week later. I realized what Leo meant by exclusive when he had to type a code into a pad to open the black wrought-iron gates that stood at the entrance to The Circle.
“Each house is linked to the entrance by video, so no unwelcome visitors can get in,” Leo explained.
The first house, number 1, was on the left of the main gate and the last, number 12, was on the right. Ours—number 6—was halfway around, directly opposite the gate, with the square in between.
“What do you think?” Leo asked as we got out of the car.
I’d taken in the white walls, the red-tiled sloping roof, the neatly cut lawn, the concrete driveway, the paved path that led from the drive to the front door. It looked the same as all the other houses.
“It’s like a clock of houses,” I said, smiling to hide the uncertainty I felt.
There was a spacious hallway, a rather grand dining room on the left—which I earmarked at once for a library—which led, through double doors, into an open-plan kitchen that ran the length of the back of the house. To the right of the hallway, there was a spacious sitting room and behind it, a ground-floor bedroom with an en-suite shower room. A staircase to the right of the front door led upstairs to an open landing with three bedrooms, a bathroom and a study.
“I thought we could turn the downstairs bedroom into a second study, then we’d be able to have one each,” Leo explained.
“Good idea, as long as I can have the one downstairs,” I said, kissing him. “I love the idea of being nearer the kettle.”
“No problem for me to have this one.” He opened one of the doors on the other side of the landing. “This is the biggest bedroom.”
“Nice,” I said, looking round the bright and airy room.
“Yes, but the room next door has the en-suite. Come and have a look.” I followed him in. It was a little smalle
r than the previous one but still large. “I thought we could knock the two bedrooms into one to make one big bedroom and an en-suite,” he explained. “It would still leave us with a guest bedroom for when Debbie comes to stay.”
“Sounds good,” I said, moving to the window so that I could see the garden. It was early May, and a beautiful Laburnum was in bloom. There was also what looked like a cherry tree and I could see raspberry canes along the left-hand fence.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, captivated. “Really lovely.”
He came to stand behind me and wrapped his arms around me. “I can see us sitting out there on a summer evening with a glass of wine,” he murmured.
His breath was warm on my neck and I instinctively tilted my head. “Me too.”
He turned me in his arms so that he could see my face. “Does that mean you like it, then?” he asked, his brown eyes searching mine.
“I love it,” I said, mentally crossing my fingers, because I didn’t love it, not really. But I would learn to love it, for his sake. It would grow on me.
Except that it hasn’t.
FIVE
I sit cross-legged on the kitchen floor, thinking about the inner voice which had told me with such intensity, just moments ago, that I don’t like this house. It’s not true, not really. There are things that I love, like my downstairs study. It has the palest of pink walls, a color I never thought I’d like, but which I do, and an en-suite, because it was destined to be a bedroom. The desk that once belonged to my father stands in front of the window and in the corner, there’s a sofa bed that came from Leo’s flat. I also love the kitchen, with its pale marble worktops and white Bulthaup units—or at least, I will once I’ve finished jazzing it up a bit. It’s too neat and clinical for me at the moment, all clean lines and everything hidden away in clever cupboards. So, I don’t hate the house, it’s more the atmosphere that I don’t like.
Maybe it’s just that there’s no atmosphere; the house was only built five years ago, whereas the cottage where I was born and brought up, and where I lived until a few weeks ago, is two hundred years old. I’m so grateful I was able to keep it. I did as Leo suggested and it’s rented for six months to a lovely couple from Manchester, who want to give country living a try.
I glance at the photographs spread on the floor in front of me. They are mostly of Debbie and my other friends back in Harlestone, but there are also some of me and Leo, taken during a week’s holiday in the Yorkshire Dales. Reaching out, I pick up one of the other photos, a headshot of my sister. I stare at it for a moment, then reach for another photo, this time of my parents and sister, taken on the day of her graduation, and raise it to my lips, pressing it there, my eyes closed, remembering. I can’t believe that I’m actually going to put these two precious photos on the fridge, where my eyes will automatically be drawn to them every time I open or close the door. And the eyes of other people, who might ask about my family, because then I’ll have to explain. It’s why I usually keep photos of them hidden away in the bedroom. But this move to London is a new start for me in more ways than one.
Moving to a kneeling position, I begin to fix the photos to the upper door of the fridge-freezer, using tiny magnets to keep them in place. When there’s no space left within reach, I get to my feet and continue adding photos until the whole of the door is covered. I stand back to admire my handiwork, and the two of my sister and parents leap out at me from among the others. I look around the kitchen; it still needs more color so I fetch a pile of cookbooks from the dining room, which I’ve lined with bookshelves. As I pass the sitting room, I glance through the door and smile when I see that Leo has laid the “New Home” cards face down on the mantelpiece, his little joke after our conversation yesterday.
Back in the kitchen, I stack the cookbooks along the worktop. Later, I’ll cut some flowers from the garden and put them on the table, in the red gold-lipped jug I found in a charity shop.
I’m still not dressed so I go upstairs, pausing when I get to our bedroom, still thrown by the size of the room. With the last of the boxes unpacked, and Leo gone, it seems sparser than usual. Overwhelmed by a sudden need to get out of the house, I look through the pile of clothes neatly folded over the back of the chair for my white sundress. The forecast for the rest of the week said to expect cooler temperatures, so today is probably the last time I’ll be able to wear it. But it’s not there. I know it’s not in the laundry basket because I wanted to get another day’s wear out of it. I must have put it back in the wardrobe.
I reach into its vast interior and look through the clothes on the rail. I still can’t find my dress so I pull out some blue shorts and a vest top, noticing that my neat rows of shoes on the wardrobe floor have become jumbled up. I bend to straighten them, wondering if I could go and see Eve. She blogs for a living, mainly about beauty products, and works as much or as little as she wants each day.
“The perfect job,” she told me that first day, when she came over to thank me for the invitation I’d posted on the WhatsApp group. “I’m so grateful to my sister; she’s the CEO of BeautyTech and she was the one who suggested I start a blog. I write about something I love, I get to test amazing products, I’m given so many freebies that my shelves are overflowing—remind me to give you some—and I can fit it in around the rest of my life. We’re lucky to be able to work from home, don’t you think, Alice? I even blog from my bed sometimes!”
I could only agree. I work as a freelance translator and although I usually translate sitting at a desk, I often do the reading part of my work in bed, especially in the winter. Like Eve, I love what I do and don’t miss having colleagues, or commuting. I also like that it varies in intensity. I’m in a lull at the moment, waiting for a book to come in from the Italian publisher I work with. I’ve enjoyed having a couple of weeks off, especially as the months leading up to the move were intense. But I need to start working again, before the boredom that I can already feel creeping up on me takes hold.
I leave the bedroom and as I walk past Leo’s study, I see that his office chair has been left at an angle. I go in, lay a hand on its back and spin it around so that it sits in line with his desk. As I glance out of the window, I realize that I can see every single house in The Circle from where I’m standing. Their windows look back at me like eyes, and I give an involuntary shiver. Is that why they built the houses in a circle, so that everyone can watch each other?
Downstairs, I find my keys and slip on my sneakers. I’m not going to disturb Eve, she’s probably busy. I have legs, I can go for a walk. I explored the area just outside The Circle with Leo but we never made it to Finsbury Park.
Crossing over the road outside, I cut through the square to the main entrance, which takes me all of five minutes, and that’s walking slowly. It’s lovely, though. With its benches and play area, it’s perfect for both children and older residents. Something for everyone; that’s the beauty of the place. But the play area, complete with swings and slides, is definitely in need of a few coats of paint, which explains the messages Leo and I saw on the WhatsApp group about maintenance.
I don’t know London at all, and the cacophony of car horns and sirens that hits me as soon as I leave The Circle is overwhelming. The overcrowded streets and people jostling to get past are also new to me and I realize how cocooned I’ve been in Harlestone, where the loudest noise are the combine-harvesters reaping crops in the surrounding fields during early summer. Still, there’s something invigorating about the buzz, the feeling that I’m part of a bigger picture, and I quickly pick up my pace to match that of the Londoners. With the help of Citymapper, I make my way to Finsbury Park. By the time I arrive, I feel as if I’ve completed an assault course.
In Harlestone, I can walk for hours over the fields without meeting anyone. It only takes me an hour to walk around the park but I’m pleased to have somewhere I can go without fear of being run over. Also, I need to stop comparing my life before, and my life now.
I arrive back at The Circ
le, and as I tap the code in at the side gate, the main gate opens and Maria’s people carrier drives through. She waves, so I turn right, walking past numbers 12, 11, and 10 until I get to number 9.
“Hi, Alice!” she calls, as she gets out of the car. “How are you? Have you settled in?”
“Yes, more or less. I’ve just been for a walk.”
“It’s beautiful today, isn’t it? I didn’t have any appointments this afternoon so I decided to leave work early and pick up the children from school.” Two boys scramble from the car while she lifts out the littlest one, who must be about three years old, and slides the heavy door shut. “Go on, into the house, boys. Ask Daddy to get you some juice.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t come on Saturday night,” I say, walking down the drive toward her.
She gives me a rueful smile. “Me too.” She has the gentlest of faces, with wide brown eyes and high cheekbones. “The babysitters we usually use deserted us.”
“Yes, Tim said. It was nice that he was able to come.”
“Tim?” A frown creases her forehead. “I don’t think so. He was here with me and the boys. Unless he went over to yours, once I’d gone to bed.”
“He must have done, because he was definitely there.”
She shakes her head in amusement. “Cheeky sod. He never said anything to me about it.” Grabbing her handbag from the floor of the passenger seat, she moves to the door and shouts into the hall. “Tim, you never told me you went to Alice and Leo’s on Saturday!”
“Hold on!” he calls back. “I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
“Selective hearing,” Maria mouths as he comes to stand in the doorway beside her.
“Sorry, what did you say?” He looks over to where I’m standing. “Hi,” he says. “Are you our new neighbor?”
And I find myself staring at a man I’ve never seen before.