About the Book
When Caroline and Francis receive the offer of a house swap, they jump at the chance to have a week away from home. After the difficulties of the past few years, they’ve worked hard to rebuild their marriage for their son’s sake; now they want to reconnect as a couple.
On arrival, they find a house that is stark and sinister in its emptiness – it’s hard to imagine what kind of person lives here. Then, gradually, Caroline begins to uncover some signs of life – signs of her life. The flowers in the bathroom and the music in the CD player might seem innocent to her husband, but to her they are anything but. It seems the person they have swapped with is someone she used to know; someone she’s desperate to leave in her past.
But that person is now in her home – and wants to make sure she’ll never forget …
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Prologue
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Home
Away
Going Home
Leaving Home
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
THE HOUSE SWAP
Rebecca Fleet
The key slides and turns in the lock, smooth and slippery as a silverfish. Lying in bed last night, staring at the trembling shadows of the branches grazing against the window and thinking of this moment, I thought it would be harder. I imagined scratching metal. Jarring resistance. After everything that has led me here, it feels as if it should be more of an effort. But it’s easy – an anticlimax, even. An eggshell cracked in the hand and tossed aside.
The door swings open and the pinewood boards of the hallway unfurl ahead, gleamingly polished and clean. Just inside, stiff, green branches studded brightly with plastic-looking berries protrude from an ornamental vase. Reflected in the mirror, I can see a row of framed photographs lining the far wall. Stepping inside and closing the door softly shut behind me, I move fast through the hall, keeping my back to the wall. I won’t look at them, not yet. Soon.
The country-style kitchen, oddly out of place in this third-floor city flat – decorated in pale green, artfully hung with saucepans and dried bunches of herbs. On the oak table lies a torn-out piece of paper, darkly scrawled with ink. Welcome! it reads. Instructions for all appliances in the green folder in the kitchen. Bread, milk, etc., in the fridge – help yourself. Do call if you need anything. Enjoy your stay and make yourself at home! Caroline. I stare at her name for a long time. The confident slash of the C, the spatter of ink where the dot of the i has bled across the page. I touch that spatter with the ball of my thumb, half expecting it to rub off on my skin, but of course it has long since dried up.
At last, I get up and make a cup of coffee. I will do as Caroline invites. I will make myself at home. I drink it sitting at the table, imagining the rooms that are still to be explored. The secrets that might be tucked inside them, tightly curled up in her possessions and ready to extract. I remember the fox I saw crouched by the roadside as I drove past this morning, digging into some unidentifiable corpse – the sharp flash of bloodied silver on its claws as it teased out what it wanted. This will be like that. Dirty, unpleasant. That’s the way it has to be. The way I want it. It’s the only way to get under the skin.
Away
Caroline, May 2015
WHEN WE TURN into the street, my first thought is that the houses around here all look the same. Neat, whitewashed rectangles with boxy little windows and flatly sloping roofs. They almost all have window boxes, too – lined up along the lower sills and filled uniformly with white-and-purple pansies, like they’re subject to some sort of dress code. There must be around thirty of these houses, all prettily popped off the production line.
‘Welcome to suburbia,’ Francis says, squinting through the setting sun that strikes the windscreen as he steers the car down the road. ‘I hope you’re happy.’ His voice is deliberately grumpy, self-mocking.
‘It’s not so bad.’ The reply is automatic, made before I have had the chance to consider whether or not I mean it. It happens between us a lot these days, this kind of conversational fast-tracking. Cut and thrust, back and forth. Adversarial, but non-threatening, like two children mildly squabbling in the playground. Francis glances at me out of the corner of his eye, makes a face.
I stare out of the window, taking in the line of houses again as we crawl down the narrow road. Now that I look more carefully, I can see the little touches of individuality that some of the owners have tried to impart. A garishly painted garage door here, a smart gold number plaque there. One of the houses, number 14, is a little less smart than the others, its walls scuffed faintly with dirt, the lawn longer and more overgrown, tangled with weeds.
‘They’re letting the side down,’ I say, gesturing out of the window. ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ll be on to them.’ Francis smiles faintly, not really listening.
‘Twenty-one, right?’ he asks, already swinging the car into the driveway. I scan the house, looking for distinctive features, but there are none. The lawn is precisely clipped, and the windows are framed with little bunches of curtain, white and spotless. The lights inside are off, and for an instant I see the reflection of the car bounced back at us from the downstairs window in the glare of the headlights, our shadows inside darkly outlined side by side. For some reason, the sight gives me a tremor of unease – a slight, irrational pulse that slips away as soon as it comes.
‘Looks all right,’ I say, wriggling out of my seatbelt and pushing open the car door. It’s colder outside than I imagined, the wind prickling the hairs on the back of my neck. Francis is climbing out of the driver’s seat, making a pantomime of his aching legs. The drive down from Leeds has taken a little over four hours – not a bad run, but long enough to breed that fusty, lethargic sense of having been enclosed and motionless for too long. In the old days, we would have shared the drive, but not long after I stopped offering, he stopped asking.
‘Yeah, as far as it goes. Couple more hours and we could have been in Paris,’ Francis says mournfully, grinning at me. ‘Romantic walks along the Champs-Élysées. Nice cup of café au lait and a croissant would have hit the spot right about now.’
‘I know,’ I admit, ‘but it just felt too complicated, and a bit far to go, leaving Eddie and all that. Think of it as a trial this time round, see how it works. Maybe next year.’
This is old ground. Right from the start, Francis’s plans for this week away had been more ambitious than mine. Still, his enthusiasm had spiralled out of nowhere when I had tentatively floated the idea of a house swap, lurching from apathy to manic energy in the space of seconds. He had been so appreciative of what he saw as my initiative that I had shrunk back from telling the truth: that I had signed up to the house-swap site on an idle whim months ago and forgotten about it. I had only seen the message notification by chance, sifting through my spam folder in search of a mislaid communication from a friend. Someone wants to swap with you! It was an intriguing little hook, tugging me forward. I clicked on the link and there it was: a polite, featureless message from someone who signed themselves S. Kennedy, expressing an interest in our Leeds city-centre flat and offering their Chiswick house in exchange, if a suitable time could be found.
I had flicked through the pictures of number 21 Everdene Avenue – the unremarkable decor and the cool, pale walls, the nicely kept front lawn – but, in truth, I had barely taken them in. All I could think was that here was a chance for a change of scene at minimal expense, a week away for just the two of us, if my mother could take Eddie. Close enough to London for sightseeing day trips, far enough out of the centre to feel like a break from city life. We had toyed with the idea of a holiday in Spain months ago and abandoned it. Too much money and too much effort, or at least so we had told each other. Perhaps Francis, too, had been secretly daunted by the implications of an exotically hot hotel room and candlelit evenings on a mimosa-scented terrace.
Francis is ferreting beneath the plant pots at the side of the house, locating the key. ‘Brace yourself,’ he says, brandishing it. ‘This is where we find out they’ve left a load of dead bodies festering in the kitchen.’
I roll my eyes, ignoring the decisive shudder that passes down my spine. Ridiculous as his words are, I can’t help feeling that it is a weird thing to be doing, squatting in the house of a stranger. I remember a programme I watched months ago: some crack-pot psychic floating around a supposedly haunted house, wittering on about how its past tragedies were ingrained in its walls. I had scoffed, but that night I had dreamt of walking through silent rooms and cool, dark corridors, breathing in the infected heaviness of their air.
Francis unlocks the door and lets it swing open, and we stand there in silence for a few moments on the threshold. ‘Well,’ he says at last, ‘we needn’t have worried. The cops have already been here and cleaned the place out.’
I half smile, intent on taking in our surroundings. It’s the emptiest house I have ever seen. Nothing on the walls, not even a mirror. Pale pine floorboards and smooth, blank doors opening on to near-vacant rooms. A lounge containing a black leather sofa, monolithic and stark, and a sparsely filled bookcase. At the end of the corridor, I glimpse the kitchen – the bare pinewood table and a gleaming oven that looks as if it’s just been installed.
‘Is this … normal?’ Francis asks, moving gingerly through the hallway and peering into the rooms one by one, then following me up the stairs. ‘I mean, it’s not very …’
‘Cosy,’ I finish, as we reach the bedroom. It’s like an exhibit in a modern-art show. The double bed is made up neatly with a dark chocolate-brown duvet and two pillows, and there is a bedside cabinet, as well as a wardrobe looming in the corner of the room, but it’s just as devoid of personal possessions as the other rooms.
There is a sheet of white paper lying on one of the pillows, folded precisely in half. I cross the room and unfold it; it’s typewritten, in a small type size, centred. Dear Caroline, it reads, I hope you enjoy your stay. Information in kitchen folder. Please help yourself to anything you find. S.
I read the note out to Francis, who starts wheezing uncontrollably with laughter before I have even finished. ‘What?’ I say irritably. ‘What’s so funny?’
Francis takes a moment to compose himself. ‘Where do I start?’ he says. ‘The way it’s only addressed to you, like I’m chopped liver. The idea of you helping yourself to precisely fucking nothing, which is all that’s on offer, as far as I can see. The fact that it’s been left on the bed like some sort of love letter, only it’s the least romantic note I’ve ever had the pleasure of receiving by proxy. The whole thing is—’
‘All right, all right.’ I screw the note up into a ball and throw it at him, laughing despite myself. ‘I’m sure the intention was good. And yes, it’s a bit basic, but it’s not like we have to spend all our time here, is it? We can go up to London, go out for dinner. That was the point, wasn’t it?’
Francis shrugs. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Well, one of the points.’
I glance at him across the room, and just like that the atmosphere shifts and changes, our laughter sucked up into the space between us. The silence lasts a little too long for recovery, and I let it stretch, leaning back against the bedroom wall and shifting my gaze to the chilly brightness of the sun striking the skylight window. I don’t have to look at him to see the expression on his face: lost and vacant, a strange mixture of mutiny and regret.
‘OK …’ I say, just for the sake of speaking, and as I do I can feel panic starting to rise. I’m already missing Eddie, and the bridge he provides between us, the shared love and focus we can turn on him. Now there’s only the sudden, claustrophobic terror of being trapped in this unfamiliar house with my husband, for seven whole days, with each hour feeling like a potential landmine that we will have to tiptoe around, avoiding anything that might explode the still-fragile truce we have woven over the past two years. It feels oddly apt that this house is so empty: stripped back, with nowhere to hide. And that was the point, of course. We’re both tired of hiding. Sooner or later, we will have to take a step back into the light and take a look at what we have, and find out if it is enough or not. When I rub the flat of my hand across my face, my palm is damp.
‘Better get unpacked!’ Francis’s tone is casually cheerful. He is busying himself with unzipping our suitcase on the bed, pulling out clothes and briskly shaking out their creases. ‘Might as well get it out of the way.’ He’s smiling, his eyes full of warmth, but I think I can read the message behind the smile. Time to move on and bury the moment back where it came from.
‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ I say, ‘and then I’ll come and help you.’ I need a few moments to smooth my frazzled nerves. Heart thumping, I walk down the corridor towards the bathroom. My footsteps sound surprisingly loud on the polished floorboards, sharp, echoing bursts of sound in the silent air, and I find myself speeding up. For an instant, I’m oddly reminded of the way I used to hurry down the corridor between my parents’ room and my own as a child – the vaguely supernatural sense that I wasn’t alone.
I shake the memory off and push open the bathroom door. It’s another gleamingly untouched room, polished to perfection: marble surfaces and metallic fixtures. The window has been left open an inch or two. Light gusts of air are blowing through the gap, ruffling my shirt collar.
I want to move forward, but I am rooted in the doorway, staring at the vase on the windowsill. It holds a bunch of pale pink roses, beautifully arranged and just coming into flower. I try to fight the thoughts, but they’re too quick for me. A pulse of despair thudding through my body – the split second of inevitability before the memory hits and explodes, too vivid to ignore. All these months of careful suppression and denial, and all it takes is the sight of some curled pink petals. Just like that, you’re back in my head.
Home
Caroline, December 2012
I WAKE UP alone again. In my sleep, my limbs have uncurled and stretched, sprawling across on to his side of the bed. The sheets are smoothly cold. I can’t remember if we started the night sleeping together or apart.
The bedside clock reads quarter to seven and the room is filled with dull, grey light, seeping through the curtains. I lie there for five or ten minutes, listening for sounds inside the silence. Nothing. Slowly, I clamber out of bed and pull on my dressing gown. An ache is already spreading across my temples and I reach for the glass of water I keep on the bedside table, but it’s empty. I fumble for the little packet of painkillers anyway. Swallow two down, wincing at the scrape of chalk against the back of my throat. The sight of my own face, briefly caught in the tilted mirror by the door, brings a throb of vertigo. Pale skin, eyes stained with rubbed mascara. I seldom bother to take it off before bed any more. Like so many things, the point of it seems lost, sucked up into the effort of existing.
I step quietly into the hall. Now I can hear the tinny, relentless waves of sound ebbing from the living room: dramatic music, the staccato murmuring of voices. I push open the door and peer inside. Light buzzes from the computer, faintly illuminating the darkness. He’s sitting there, head propped on one hand, elbow resting on the arm of the sofa. Staring at the screen. Some kind of Scandinavian cop show: cre
am and beige furnishings, haggard men in uniform speaking a foreign language in clipped, miserable tones.
‘Francis,’ I say, but he doesn’t react.
I’m shivering as I perch on the edge of the sofa. ‘You didn’t come to bed,’ I say. It’s a guess, but he doesn’t challenge it, his shoulders moving almost imperceptibly in a shrug.
‘Fell asleep here,’ he says at last. ‘Then woke up.’ His eyes are flat and glazed, still focused on the screen. These days, he seems to do little but sleep, and yet to look at him I am reminded of nothing so much as the black-and-white photos I have seen of torture victims kept awake for days on end by their captors.
‘That’s a shame,’ I say uselessly. If anything is shaking him awake in the middle of the night, I have no idea what it is. His head is no longer the open cave it once was. I used to be able to climb inside it as easily as breathing, read and touch the quality of his thoughts as if they were my own. Now, it’s a fortress. I spend my time fumbling in the dark for a key that isn’t there.
The episode on the computer ends. Credits roll, small and blurred against a grey-washed background. A wall of sound unfurls bleakly behind them, the kind of sinister, relentless music that makes me feel as if I am suffocating. I realize that my skin is hot. For a moment, I think I might faint. Blinking hard, I press the tips of my fingernails into my palms. ‘Are you working today?’ I ask. ‘Any appointments?’ As I ask, I realize that I can’t remember the last time he definitely went to the clinic. I try to imagine the man next to me sitting in his therapist’s chair, listening to his patients. It’s worryingly hard to do.
Francis looks vaguely jaded, as if I have reminded him of something unpleasant. ‘No.’
‘OK.’ I hesitate, knowing I shouldn’t continue. It’s too late; the words are rising to the surface and pushing themselves out of my mouth. ‘So what are you going to do, then? Any plans?’
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