by Emma Rowley
NICKY: We’re fine, it’s just a kettle.
OLIVIA: I thought he’d be out this morning—anyway.
NICKY: OK, could I check a few things—you’re thirty-six?
OLIVIA: I’m thirty-two.
NICKY: Oh. It’s just there are different ages given online . . .
OLIVIA: Thirty-two. [pause] I would know.
NICKY: So did you skip some years at school?
OLIVIA: What? No.
NICKY: It’s just, I noticed Josh’s LinkedIn profile says he graduated from university in 2003. And on your blog, you say you met there in his final year, when you were in your first year. So if you work it all out . . . that would make you about thirty-six today.
OLIVIA: [long pause] I think all the reader needs to know is that after having a great time at university, where I first met Josh, I moved to London. As did he.
MAN 1: Annie! Could you give me a hand here?
NICKY: Let’s start at the beginning. Could you tell me about your childhood?
OLIVIA: Well. I was more into sports than sitting in a classroom [laughter]. But I did work hard. I believe that if you put your mind to something, you can achieve it.
NICKY: OK. Um, so what about your mother?
OLIVIA: What about my mother?
NICKY: You’re obviously such a great mother yourself. Were there any lessons your mother taught you, growing up?
OLIVIA: [inaudible]
MAN 1: Dying for this, thanks Annie.
NICKY: I know your followers would be keen to know—oh thanks, let me take that tray, just a cup of coffee would have been fine—careful—[Inaudible, noise drowns out conversation]
OLIVIA: Josh, watch what you’re doing—
WOMAN 1: Mind that, Mr. Hayes—
NICKY: Oh, it’s hot! My recorder—
TAPE ENDS
I groan as I finish reading the transcript of our first session. Then I drop my phone onto the duvet and flop back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling of the room they’ve put me in.
It’s lovely, really: pale eau de Nil walls, an old-fashioned brass bed and thick white towels in the gleaming en suite. It’s at the end of a corridor flanked with solid oak doors, all closed. Mine says “guest,” in a tiny neat script slotted into a brass nameplate.
Last night I was too busy unpacking to take in my immediate surroundings, getting on the Wi-Fi—Annie gave me a slip of paper with the password, alongside my plate of cheese, crackers, and grapes—and falling asleep early, sinking into the thick mattress topper.
I woke up feeling much calmer than when I’d arrived, ready for the week ahead. My room is at the back of the house, looking out over the garden. I leaned out of the window to check: no, I couldn’t hear the road from here, just the breeze through the leaves and the chirping of birds.
And that view! The wide flat lawn, rolling out to the water, silver in the morning sunshine—a pond, Olivia calls it online, but more like a small lake—and big enough to swim across, to reach the grassy meadow on the other side. And all around, the massed trees, oak and beech, lending privacy, before giving way to patchwork fields . . .
* * *
The kitchen was empty when I padded downstairs with my recording equipment and notepad. After helping myself to the muesli and juice that had been left out, I put my bowl and glass in the sink.
I was still a little early for Olivia, and wandered round the corner into the adjoining space: a living room, more casual than the rest of the house, with an overstuffed L-shaped sofa and vast wall TV.
I was standing in the corner, when Olivia stopped at the threshold, looking puzzled.
“Morning!” I said, ducking out from behind a bookshelf.
I gestured behind me: “That’s a beautiful painting. Is it by someone I should know?”
“Oh,” she said vaguely, “I don’t think so. Sentimental value only.”
She was in workout clothes—her default outfit, I know from her Instagram (it’s so much easier to fit in a workout if you’re already dressed for it #fittip).
“It’s so easy to get up when the weather’s like this,” I offered.
“I’ve been up for hours, actually. I’ve dropped Bea off at a playdate for the morning, so we shouldn’t be interrupted.” Bea. So that was her daughter’s name. “Shall we crack on?” she continued. “We can sit over here.”
And that’s when I started to roll the tape and we began talking, before Annie came in with a cafetière and cups balanced on a tray, Josh in her wake.
* * *
“It’s fine,” Olivia kept saying afterward. “Accidents happen.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, in case they thought it was my fault.
I couldn’t quite work out what had happened. Annie had been setting the tray down in front of us, when Josh had taken a cup, a little too soon, so Olivia had reached to steady the tray. Too late, I had thrown up a hand to try to stop the whole thing from tipping over, covering both myself and the sofa in hot coffee.
After that, Josh had disappeared, as Olivia steered me back into the kitchen, handing me paper towels. “Lucky you’re not scalded,” she said, as I mopped myself down. I’m glad I was wearing jeans, now in the custody of Annie.
At least my digital recorder, a little black oblong, is intact. I could still upload the recording of our brief interview to my laptop and send it off to the transcription service I use, as I always do. That’s the first step.
Afterward, I remove all traces of my questions and prompts. Then I start to weave the fragments of memory into a coherent whole.
But I haven’t much to work with here. The transcription service turned it round in an hour, the session was so short. On the page, without the veneer of politeness provided by Olivia’s measured voice, it is clear that her hackles were up from the start.
She wouldn’t be the first person to agree to do a book, then balk at what it involves. And she isn’t really a words person, either. I’m surprised, actually, that she agreed to this . . .
Still, she did agree.
So maybe it’s the age thing that made Olivia’s hackles rise. I am thirty myself. I am sure now, if I ever was in any doubt, that she is deliberately keeping her real age quiet. It will be a commercial decision, so many would-be rivals coming up the ranks.
Maybe she was nervous, too, I reassure myself. It can be awkward, until you get into a flow.
At least we’re over a hurdle: our first session done. And Olivia said we could pick up again before lunchtime.
But another thought occurs to me now, after what she said about her age: we’ve ticked off another first there, too. Her first lie to me.
Chapter 9
When I come back downstairs in fresh clothes, Annie is still scrubbing—rather ostentatiously for a woman so inexpressive—at the new brown stain on the sofa. At the kitchen table, Olivia takes the initiative: she has a few things she wants to cover.
“For starters, how I run my business, including the rewards and challenges of being a working mother, then we can talk more broadly about how every woman can create a lifestyle that works for her. Is that OK? After all”—I shut my mouth, as she overrides me—“It’s my book, isn’t it?”
“Of course,” I say mildly.
So she wants to focus on practical ways to replicate her success, avoiding anything very personal. It wouldn’t be the first time that a subject has set out boundaries. I’ve learned how to handle it: let them get whatever it is off their chest—“Wow. Who knew school geography trips could be so amusing?”—to warm them up for more interesting topics.
But, as we talk, she stays on message.
“Women should never be ashamed to ask for more, I’ve learned the importance of negotiation . . .”
And every time she says something a bit juicier, she edits herself.
“I don’t read every comment on my socials, and I stopped checking the gossip forums. It’s not a good idea to seek that stuff out—but . . . that’s off-brand. Leave that out.”
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It isn’t really what I’m looking for. Still, I get a sense of the discipline that drives her, as she plows through her mental checklist of topics, from her attitude to life—face each problem as it presents itself—to how she stays on top of her to-do list.
What strikes me most is the sheer effort involved: from managing her calendar, to her careful planning of meals and outfits, down to ranking her favorite Instagram filters.
“What?” she says at one point, catching my expression. “Did you think it would all be make-your-own-flower-crowns and my-favorite-smoothie recipes?”
“No, not at all.” That was exactly what I had been thinking.
“I can cover that for the book, too, I know what people expect,” she adds, slightly defensively.
“No, it’s fascinating. It’s just—it’s a lot of work,” I offer. “To have a life this perfect.”
She is silent a moment. “It’s not perfect. I’m not perfect.” She brightens, flashing me that white smile. “But perfect gives you something to aim for. Right?”
* * *
There is only one moment where she seems to get frustrated. We are talking about the jobs she had before all this, the latest in marketing for a major law firm, when she raises her voice. “Josh, aren’t you going to the site today?”
He has settled himself in an armchair in the adjoining family room. Normally I hate people listening in, but he seems absorbed in his copy of the Times.
“Maybe later,” he said, turning a page. “They know what they’re supposed to be doing.”
Her smile looks a little tight. It is Monday, after all: I make a mental note now to check if he is still working for that posh real estate agency. His LinkedIn profile hasn’t been updated for a while.
But after an hour, Olivia starts to get fidgety, and says she has to catch up with her e-mails; we’ll pick up again at three thirty.
I stay at the table a little longer, checking that my tape recorder is definitely still working and thinking of the session ahead. I will need more than she is willing to give me, if I am going to make this week work. I don’t have all the time in the world.
But I want a break, too, after an hour of paying close attention. Off the kitchen is a smaller room with an outside door: through the window by the door I can see the neat beds of the kitchen garden. I am suddenly eager to get out of the quiet house.
I leave my stuff on the table and wander through. Under a rail of coats is a row of green Wellingtons, ordered by size. The Converse I arrived in are here, too. I sit down on the stone floor, feeling the cold through my thin trousers, and start pulling them on.
“Everything all right, dear?”
I look up—it’s Annie, a basket of laundry in her arms.
“Oh, I’m fine! Thanks.”
With another tug, I have them on and stand up to face her.
“Now, your jeans are washed,” she says. “I’ll leave them in your bedroom when they’re ironed.”
I’m touched by the gesture. “There’s no need to iron them, really.”
She ignores that. “Can I do anything else for you?”
“Thanks, I have everything I need. I thought I’d get some fresh air.”
She glances at the clear sky through the glass. “If you stick to the path, it will take you on a loop round the grounds.” And with a nod, she is gone.
* * *
I follow her advice to start with, staying on the stone-flagged path that takes me out of the walled kitchen garden through an arch, skirts the edge of the broad terrace at the back of the house, and down the right-hand side of the lawn.
Despite its size, the garden feels secluded, framed by the trees that hang over beds of shrubs and shade the tennis court across the other side. Up close, the grass is yellowing in places after the long, dry summer, only turning lush and green on the sudden slope down to the reeds. Across the quiet water, ducks idling on the surface, the whole vista opens up: fields, thick hedgerows, cows in the distance.
When I reach the end of the lawn, the paved path twists left to lead me across and up round the other side. But to my right I can see a little earthen track. I turn and follow it up into the trees, wondering where it leads.
I smile when I see the stone bench in a shady clearing, and sit down on the mossy seat. Whoever put this here placed it perfectly to enjoy the view: the still water framed by the trees of this little copse, pale sunshine slanting through the canopy. In fact, I am surprised I don’t recognize this spot from one of Olivia’s garden shoots: I can just imagine a picnic blanket spread out here at dusk, fairy lights winking among the leaves . . .
Some of the tension leaves my shoulders. You don’t always realize how wound up you are until you get a chance to relax. I’d been more nervous than I thought about this first day. She hasn’t given me anything good yet, but I can still make it work . . .
There’s a rapid flutter in the corner of my eye. Among the low branches, a bird is preening furiously, ripping through its black and white feathers with its beak.
Slowly, I get up and take a step toward it. It stills, as if it can sense me watching, then in a flurry of movement it is off, tail flashing green and purple.
I wonder what it was. But—what was it perching on? I crouch down closer.
The stone is almost covered by old leaves. I brush them away, expecting to read ROVER, or SPOT: they’re mad about their pets, these country types . . .
ALEXANDER VANE
1956–1997
I stand up, cold skittering down my spine.
Don’t be silly, I tell myself. It’s not like I am standing on his grave. You can’t just bury people anywhere you like. It’s just a remembrance marker.
I twist around, suddenly sensing movement behind me.
“Oh!” I try to laugh. “You startled me.”
An old man in cap and waxed coat is standing at the mouth of the clearing. “You shouldn’t be looking there.”
“I was just exploring the garden.” I brush my hands on my trousers. He must be the gardener. “It’s really beautiful,” I add, flattering him—though it’s true. I gesture to the stone: “So—what do you know about this guy?”
But he just says again: “You shouldn’t be looking there.” And then he actually jerks his head away, the message clear: beat it.
“How was I to know anything was there?” I say, crossly. “Excuse me.”
I force myself not to hurry as I brush past him out of the copse, cutting across the grass back to the paved path. I feel his eyes on me, all the way back to the house.
Chapter 10
I shift on the bed, the small of my back aching: I have been hunched over my computer too long, the sandwich Annie brought up untouched on its tray.
It doesn’t take long to find the story if you know what to look for: searching for “Alexander Vane” and “Annersley House” has brought up all the details in the online newspaper cuttings service I use.
MANSION INFERNO
reads the first headline, which is dated Wednesday, August 27, 1997.
Not all the papers had the story as it broke. Those that did repeated much the same details.
Neighbours raised the alarm in the early hours of Tuesday to report a fire at a mansion in Cheshire. It took six fire crews to contain the flames.
Certainly no reporter was here at the house in the dark heat of that night, as the embers flew into the sky. Whoever arrived, as the village woke up after the Bank Holiday weekend, only had time to speak to a few locals.
The Vanes were on vacation, according to neighbors.
“Thank God they were away,” said Mary Bryant, owner of the local pub, the Bleeding Wolf. “But we can’t bear to think how they will feel when they see what’s happened to their beautiful house.”
Indeed, while police were keen to reach the Vanes, concern seemed focused on the family’s reaction when they realized their home had gone up in flames. It wasn’t so strange then to be unreachable, to not have your cell phone on at all times.
Officers have so far been unable to enter the property.
But then the authorities found Alexander Vane’s Aston Martin, parked on the side in a quiet country lane near the house. He would have stopped there to walk his dog home through the fields, locals suggested; he was often seen out walking.
Still. Wouldn’t you move your car before going on vacation?
The discovery—or, more, the feeling that it had surprised police—signaled a major shift in tone in the second day of reports, a step up in the level of coverage.
DID FAMILY PERISH IN BLAZE?
The Vanes have not been seen since firemen were called to a fire at their eighteenth-century manor house.
By then dramatic photos had emerged of the firefighting effort. It is odd to see them, to see the hoses pouring water into the very same building I am sitting in now, the bright flames belching from its windows in the light early hours of the morning.
Today, the exterior looks identical to that burning shell, but the damage was clearly devastating. They must have rebuilt this place almost from the ground up.
I keep reading. More background had been uncovered, too.
The ivy-covered Georgian mansion, situated amid farmland on the Cheshire border, has been in the family of Marlborough-educated Alexander Vane since 1861, when it became the home of Sir Patience Vane, a former Lord Mayor of London. During the First World War, the sprawling Grade II–listed house was used as a military hospital . . .
I skip ahead.
Mr. Vane and his wife Elsa, 36, a former model, have established themselves as pillars of local society since relocating from London, following the death of the elder Mr. Vane.
After working in finance at [I skim through various firms I’ve never heard of] Mr. Vane, 41, known to friends as Alex, has adopted the role of squire, embracing countryside sports . . .