The Perfect House

by R. P. Bolton

  ‘He should have told me. We tell each other everything,’ she said.

  ‘No one tells their partner everything, love. Everyone has secrets.’

  ‘We don’t,’ Ellie said, drawing the second-hand curtains that didn’t quite meet in the middle.

  ‘Well, I’m sure after everything you’ve been through, Tom didn’t want you to … ROGER!’

  A horn blared and Roger bellowed a string of swear words.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Carol muttered. ‘Look, I’d better go before he kills us both. I agree he should have told you, but don’t be too hard on him, love. The past is the past. It’s the future that matters.’

  During the evening, the wind intensified to a gale that rattled the windows but the house felt sturdy, secure. Like it had weathered far worse storms than this.

  She draped her legs across Tom on the sofa. While she was in hospital, he had developed an obsession with property shows and was currently heavily invested in the renovation of a crumbling chateau.

  The presenter’s hard hat wobbled as he nodded earnestly at the camera. With his hi-vis and rolled-up sleeves, he had the aura of someone to be taken seriously.

  ‘A home is more than bricks and mortar. It has a backstory. And this place has been bruised and battered, almost beaten by decades of neglect. This noble lady can’t be resurrected with a mere’ – he wafted his hand at the bare wall – ‘coat of paint. She needs to be nurtured and nourished, loved, in order to grow into the warm family home she deserves to be. And with sheer guts and graft, I think these two may just manage to bring her back to life.’

  ‘Guts and graft,’ Tom scoffed over the theme music. ‘Not to mention a film crew, a team of builders, a massive budget …’

  Ellie smiled, but the presenter had a point. Maybe neglected houses did need an emotional as well as physical overhaul before they could become homes. Like this one.

  Despite the bare floorboards and boxes stacked against the walls, the furniture from the flat seemed more at ease in the lounge now. The floor lamp contributed to the homely feel and the warm pool of light even subdued the monstrous fireplace.

  The credits ended and Tom took the last swallow of beer, tipping the bottle right back. Ellie slid in closer, tucking her head under his chin, feeling her hair rasp on his stubble.

  ‘Sorry for giving you a hard time about the Mary thing,’ she said.

  ‘Mary?’ He hooked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘No, I’m sorry. You’re right – I should have said something sooner. Is it really stressing you out?’

  Carol’s words echoed in Ellie’s consciousness: everyone has secrets.

  ‘I think …’ she said slowly, ‘that it was a shock because it’s so recent. And it might take a while to completely get my head around it. But the same could have happened ten, twenty years ago in the flat or at your dad’s or in any house and we’d never know. So I guess—’

  Tom interrupted with a yawn. ‘Sorry, tough day at the office.’

  ‘No more secrets?’ Ellie said.

  ‘No more secrets,’ he repeated, squeezing her leg just above the knee. ‘Right, I need my bed. You know I was half-asleep when I got to work this morning and I put the wrong date on all the paperwork. If it hadn’t been for Tanya double-checking the file, the whole job could have been screwed. She totally saved my bacon.’

  ‘Tanya’s the new DC?’

  ‘Yes, she’s an absolute diamond.’ He stretched again then clapped his hands on his thighs. ‘I’m going to lock up. Do you want to go to bed and I’ll sort Trinity?’

  ‘No, she’ll need a feed. I’ll take her up now.’

  As Tom stood, the motion caused his T-shirt to ride up. In the not-that-long-ago, a quick flash of that ripped stomach would have kindled a flare of lust, but now the taut smooth skin just kindled envy. And while she wasn’t knocking equality with the childcare, an equal share in the childbearing would be even better. Nothing major. A few pounds here, a reciprocal stretch mark there.

  She settled the baby on the nursing pillow and braced herself. Maybe even a sympathetic cracked nipple or two.

  By the time she put a sated Trinity down, Tom was under the covers, one arm flung above his head and his mouth slightly open. Outside, the gale continued to rage, but whatever magic he had wrought on the boiler had worked: the bedroom was toasty. Ellie quietly squeezed alongside him and winced as the mattress dipped, but he turned over without waking.

  Cosily safe, she snuggled deeper under the covers. Peace settled on the house. It was like the earnest TV presenter said: the story of a house was constantly being rewritten by the people within its walls. And while Mary Brennan’s death marked a sad time for 6 Moss Lane, her chapter was closed now. And Ellie, Tom and Trinity would be writing the rest.

  16. Now

  It seemed only minutes later that a noise jerked her from a dream-filled slumber. The wind had toppled something, rolling it around the concrete with a booming underwater sound.

  Tom snorted and turned on his side, hugging the duvet. The digits on the alarm clock switched from 2.36 to 2.37. Outside, the booming object rolled again. What the hell was that?

  Fingers of cold moonlight crept around the curtains and insinuated themselves in the gaps. And it was cold. So cold that her breath puffed out in a cloud.

  She shuffled to the foot of the bed to avoid disturbing Tom. But he slept the comatose sleep of the overworked. Slow rhythmic exhalations culminated in a throaty click.

  She inched the curtains open. Although clouds scudded across the sky, the bright moon still frosted the tops of the trees.

  A bone-white flash caught her eye. The dead climbers whipped like broken ropes, revealing a glimpse of a pale face. Something, no, someone, was down there in the rose bed. Her heart skipped a few anxious beats and she pinched the doughy flesh of her inner arm. Sucked down a squeal. Not a dream, then.

  ‘Tom,’ Ellie whispered urgently.

  He didn’t stir.

  She grabbed his foot. He startled upright, legs kicking wildly, fists flailing.

  ‘What the hell!’

  ‘Ssssh. Listen. Can you hear it?’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘Someone outside.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. Come and look.’

  Tom tugged at the covers. ‘Els, go back to sleep. You’ll wake the baby. It’s just your meds giving you nightmares again.’

  She pulled the duvet away. ‘I wasn’t asleep. Come and look. Please, Tom.’

  With a groan, he slid out of bed and joined her at the window. The moon ducked behind the racing clouds and the garden writhed with shadows.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the rose bed. There!’

  ‘There’s no one there,’ he muttered, rubbing the gooseflesh on his upper arms. ‘It’s the wind blowing stuff around.’

  She clutched his arm so hard her nails dug in. ‘Can’t you see them? There’s someone there.’

  ‘Sssh. The baby,’ he hissed as he dragged on yesterday’s joggers. ‘All right. I’ll go down.’

  Almost twitching from her heightened nerves, she followed him. At the back door, Tom stuffed his feet into trainers and switched the torch on his phone. When the door opened a crack, the wind stormed in, tossing a pile of bills and invoices on the floor.

  Chill air battered her skin as she stood in the doorway watching Tom pause to right the fallen bin on his way to the rose bed. He turned to the house and shouted, but the storm buried the words. Ellie picked the fluttering bits of paper from the floor.

  When Tom reappeared, he passed her a white plastic bag. Ellie stared dumbly.

  ‘This was flapping in the rose bushes,’ he said. ‘A bag, not a person.’

  He locked and bolted the door with one hand, sucking the fleshy base of his thumb. Blood welled in long scratches up his arm. He tore off a piece of kitchen roll and pressed down.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she said.

  ‘Fine,’ he replied, sounding anythin
g but. ‘If there’s nothing else, I’m off back to bed.’

  She smoothed the bag out on the kitchen table. Standard-issue white plastic with an unreadable black font on one side, slashed by thorns and daubed with streaks of Tom’s blood.

  The bedroom door closed followed by the creak of floorboards as Tom sank back into bed. Ellie double-checked the bolts. Definitely locked. She flipped the bin lid releasing the sweet decay of dead rose, and quickly stuffed the plastic bag on top.

  Her finger was poised on the light switch when she heard a voice.

  Let me in.

  No, no, no, no, no. Of course there was no voice. Only the wind and her tired imagination playing tricks on her. She scurried upstairs without looking back.

  Trinity slumbered on, but she’d kicked the blanket down again. Two long streaks of mud marred the snowy sheets, like tracks on either side of the baby. Mud, too, on the blanket, clumped as though it had been clasped in a muddy fist. Ellie touched the woven basket handle and rubbed her fingertips together. Sniffed the cold, damp smell of earth.

  For God’s sake. Could Tom not have washed his hands before he checked on the baby?

  With a feather-light touch, she rolled the baby over, trying to strip the mattress without disturbing her but Trinity had other plans involving indignant yelps. Soothing her required yet another feed and by the time she’d changed the sheets and settled the baby, Ellie tiptoed back to bed on feet of ice.

  Her head swam with fatigue as she slid under the duvet and rolled towards Tom.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, shifting to the edge of the bed. ‘I’ve haven’t slept a wink and I’ve got to be up in two hours for a meeting.’

  Outside, the wind moaned. Ellie squashed the pillow tightly over ears that rang with Tom’s observation from earlier. ‘It’s not the dead we need to protect our daughter from.’

  Her last conscious thought before exhaustion dragged her under was he had it all wrong.

  If the ten years since Mia’s death had taught her anything, it was that the dead could do just as much damage as the living.

  17. Then

  ‘Come on, you’ll enjoy it,’ Mia said, head tilted as she applied mascara. Her reflection grinned at Ellie in the mirror. ‘One drink and I promise if you hate it, we’ll leave. Deal?’

  Fairy lights, a giant Audrey Hepburn poster and a vase of red roses transformed Mia’s Henderson Hall bedroom from student cell to quirky cool.

  Ellie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I won’t know anyone.’

  ‘You’ll know me,’ she said, pumping the wand into the tube. ‘And Danny said he’d be there with some of his mates.’

  ‘Dan Dan the flower man?’ Ellie said, pointing at the roses. ‘Hasn’t he got a girlfriend at home?’

  Mia licked lipstick off her tooth and poured vodka into two mugs.

  ‘Ex-girlfriend,’ she corrected. ‘He finished it. Come on, there’ll be people from your course, I bet. It’ll be a good night.’

  And it was.

  Bodies thronged the Union bar and Ellie had to politely push her way through crowds of students talking and cackling over the thumping music. They’d only been at uni for one term and already Mia had a hug and a word for every second person.

  ‘Budge up,’ Mia shouted. A good-looking ginger-haired lad obligingly shuffled up the upholstered bench and they squeezed through the gap. Ellie smiled shyly and sat down. The tabletop was sticky and covered in torn shreds of beer mat.

  ‘Ellie, Danny,’ Mia said.

  He lifted his pint glass in a salute. ‘Hiya.’

  ‘Hi.’ She smiled in return and clutched her pint glass in both hands, trying not to trail her sleeves in the pools of spilled beer. So, this was potential new man Danny.

  Nice, she mouthed when he wasn’t looking and Mia screwed her face up in a joyous beam.

  Friday night at the Union was the biggest event of the week. Mia was right about seeing people she knew: a trio of girls from Henderson Hall waved fivers impatiently at the barman; a lad from her course leaned over the pool table.

  ‘Do you fancy another?’ Danny said, gesturing at Ellie’s almost-full glass.

  Lager swirled in her stomach, mingling with the unwise vodka shots she’d downed with Mia earlier. Vodka in a mug. Mugshots. She stifled a giggle.

  ‘No, I’m good thanks.’

  Danny jogged the table as he stood, sending the collection of glasses into a chorus of clinks.

  ‘I may be some time,’ he said, launching himself into the crowd.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Mia widened her eyes. ‘Well? What do you reckon?’

  Ellie watched Danny fight his way towards the bar. ‘Yeah, he seems really nice.’

  ‘He is,’ Mia said, twisting a thick strand of hair around her finger.

  ‘You like him then?’

  ‘This much.’ Mia stretched her arms back to touch the velvet booth.

  ‘What about his ex-girlfriend?’

  ‘Oh, she’ll get over it,’ Mia said, dismissively.

  ‘I still feel sorry for her, though.’

  Mia shrugged. ‘Me too, but at least he’s honest, telling her he’s met someone else. Better than stringing her along.’

  Ellie took a long sip of lager. ‘I don’t mind heading off if you want to be on your own. I’ve got an essay to finish.’

  ‘On a Friday night? No chance.’

  ‘I’m off to the loo anyway,’ Ellie said, pulling her bag crossways over her chest. ‘Wish me luck.’

  Why did the men never have to queue? Ellie shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Everyone huddled together, laughing, or singing, only separating when a cleaner pushed past, carrying a mop and bucket. Perfume mingled with a hundred other scents: chewing gum, smoke, hard-working deodorant.

  Inside, the lights were bright and fluorescent strips over the mirrors greyed out an anxious Ellie. A girl squeezed herself in at the sink with a ‘Sorry’.

  ‘No problem,’ Ellie said, but the girl was too engrossed in fluffing her hair to hear. The hand-dryer added to the cacophony and set her head spinning.

  In a parallel universe where her dad hadn’t died in her GCSE year, a different version of Ellie thrived on this raucous atmosphere. That other Ellie had celebrated birthdays and exam results with wild nights in pubs and clubs, not at home with her mum and an empty seat at the kitchen table. The real Ellie had spent the last few years hiding behind a wall of grief until her school friends stopped trying. She couldn’t blame them.

  She practised a friendly smile in the mirror. The girl next to her smiled back.

  Things were different now, weren’t they?

  Wiping her nearly dry hands down her jeans, she excuse me’d her way back to Mia. Oasis played over the speakers and a gang of red-cheeked lads yelled along, arms around each other’s shoulders.

  She spotted Danny’s red hair from halfway across the room, next to Mia and another guy who had just sat down and was shrugging off a green parka. He pushed his floppy fringe out of his eyes, nodding in time to the beat.

  ‘Ellie!’ Mia shouted, waving her over.

  Zigzagging through the mass of bodies, she caught eyes with the new guy. He smiled and Ellie half-smiled back, dipping her head, so her hair hid her face.

  ‘This is Danny’s flatmate,’ Mia said, her eyes glassy. ‘Name’s Tom. He’s lovely. I’m just going outside for a …’ She stuck a Marlboro Light in the corner of her mouth, tip first, frowned and took it back out. ‘Come on, Danny boy. Let’s get some fresh air.’

  Danny put both palms on the tabletop to steady himself. ‘See you in a minute.’

  Mia picked shreds of tobacco from her lip. ‘I’ll leave you two lovelies to get to know each other.’

  Ellie’s cheeks flamed and she hugged her bag to her chest. Did Mia have to be so obvious?

  But Tom didn’t seem fazed. He shuffled up the bench and Ellie squeezed in next to him.

  ‘So, you’re friends with Mia,’ he said. ‘Are you on the same course?’ />
  ‘No, we’re next to each other in halls. I’m doing Marketing. Are you doing Art as well?’

  ‘No, I went to school with Danny. I’m doing Psychology,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to analyse everything you say.’

  She smiled. Her fingers fussed with the bag buckle while she mentally begged Mia to hurry up. Throughout sixth form, these kind of interactions invariably ended up with Ellie tying herself in mental and verbal knots that made her cringe for days.

  Meanwhile, Tom chatted about his course; described his new part-time job in a restaurant and she chipped in with genuine-sounding responses until, after a few minutes, they were genuine. From the corner of her eye, she studied him: nice hair, kind eyes and a smile that made her want to smile back.

  And when Mia and Danny finally returned, smelling of mint-laced smoke and with their arms wrapped around each other, Ellie didn’t care when Tom shuffled along until his leg was centimetres from hers.

  By the time the barman shouted, ‘That’s your lot,’ the only weird thing she’d discovered about Tom was that he didn’t make her feel weird at all.

  ‘Can you see the others?’ Tom said, reaching for his phone.

  Ellie blinked in the sudden harsh light. She hadn’t even realised they’d gone. ‘There’s Danny. Where’s—?’

  ‘There she is,’ Tom said.

  Mia appeared by the bar. Her hair was mussed up and her mascara had run, turning her dark eyes into black holes. Red lipstick smudged into the corners of her mouth. Danny took her hand and caught sight of Tom.

  ‘Buddy,’ he shouted gesturing. ‘Come here.’

  Tom briefly caught the tips of Ellie’s fingers in his as they walked across the pub. Something fluttered in her belly and she bit her lip to hide an emerging grin.

  ‘We’re going back to ours,’ Danny said.

  Mia, who was buttoning her coat wrong, looked up. ‘Only if that’s OK with you, Ellie.’

  ‘Er, yeah. Course,’ she said with a shrug.