‘Just me today. When I find the right place, I’ll bring my boyfriend round. We’ve been renting for a few years, but now we’re hoping to buy.’
Or, I am, I don’t tell him. Because when I told Simon that I’d registered us at a few local estate agents, ‘just in case something comes up’, he hadn’t actually sounded too keen. He was even less keen when he started receiving a daily barrage of text messages with particulars of every available flat in a five-mile radius. Sometimes I worry that to him, the rented ex-council flat in Docklands with the leather and chrome three-piece suite and the 50-inch 3D TV feels a little too much like home.
‘Good good.’ Marcus Hyde-Smythe’s thin lips curve into a smile. ‘Now do remind me again, are you looking for modern or a fixer-upper?’
‘Oh – nothing too modern. I’d love to find a place with lots of character and original features.’ Turning away, I look again at the front of the house. I can almost picture the women who might have lived here in the past: their long silk skirts rustling as they come out the front door; hailing a Hansom cab, rushing off to attend a fitting for a new hat on Regent’s Street, followed by tea at Fortnum and Masons… ‘In fact,’ I say dreamily, ‘from the outside, this house seems perfect.’
‘Original features.’ His long nose flares at the words like there’s a foul smell. ‘Good good.’ He checks an over-sized gold watch on his wrist. ‘Well, let’s go up then. The other viewing should be just about over.’
‘Other viewing?’
‘This flat is listed with a few different estate agents. I’ve been told that another couple is viewing it before you.’
‘Oh.’ Worry clumps in my chest. Unfortunately, my perfect flat might be someone else’s perfect flat too – lots of people’s, in fact. People with a lot more noughts on paper than Simon and me. But I can’t think about that now. ‘Great,’ I say briskly. ‘Let’s go up.’
He fishes out a bundle of keys from his pocket and opens the door. I step inside reverently. The foyer is littered with junk mail, but underneath there’s an original red and black tile floor in a geometric pattern. At the rear, a staircase with a railing painted in layers of white gloss rises upward below a cracked moulding of intricate plaster fruit. I breathe in the smell of Mr Sheen, old house, and a slight undernote of wet dog. It’s an unfamiliar smell, but one that I could definitely get used to.
From somewhere above there’s a clip-clop of heels. A moment later, a ginger-haired woman in a red trouser suit with a clashing fake-tanned face appears on the stairs.
‘Hello, Florence,’ my estate agent smarms. ‘Good viewing?’
The ginger-haired woman rolls her eyes. ‘Give them a few more minutes,’ she says. ‘They can’t keep their hands off each other. They like the flat so much that I think they’re about to try out the bedroom before the offer’s even gone in – or any furniture.’
The breath freezes in my lungs. Have I lost the flat before I’ve even seen it? ‘Um, I’d still like to view it, if that’s okay,’ I say.
My estate agent gives me a look like he’s a bit sorry for me. But I’m determined not to be put off by the competition. Before anyone can suggest otherwise, I march up the stairs.
There are several other flats in the building off the first and second floors, with doors painted in different colours of caked-on gloss. The final flight of stairs that goes up to the attic flat is narrow and rickety. From behind the shiny black door at the top I can hear high-pitched laughter that devolves into a passionate squeal. All of a sudden, I’m reminded of the scene where Jane Eyre discovers Mr Rochester’s nasty little secret locked away up in the attic and her ill-fate is sealed. My resolve begins to waiver. Maybe I should come back another day…
‘Do you want me to go first?’ My estate agent comes up beside me. ‘Make sure they’re decent?’ He gives me another irritating wink.
Ignoring the smarm, I steer him back to business. ‘So can you tell me how this works?’ I say. ‘If I love the flat can we put in an offer today, or what?’ I’m counting on the or what option since I’ll need to get Simon on board first. As we reach the top of the stairs, I take out my phone and draft him a one-line text. If he can meet me after work to view the flat, then we might have a better chance of getting in before there’s a bidding war.
‘One step at a time,’ Marcus Hyde-Smythe says, somewhat condescendingly. ‘Let’s make sure you really do love it first, okay?’
‘Okay.’ My thumb hovers over the send button.
I turn the brass knob and gently push open the door. One glance and I just know. It’s the right home for Simon and me; the perfect canvas for our new life together. My heart curls up inside me like a contented cat in front of a fire. I step inside a lovely little reception room with a polished wooden floor. On one wall there’s a cosy cast-iron fireplace with blue and white tiles. Beyond that, under the eaves, is a perfect corner for me to set up my desk – just below the row of sash windows that flood the flat with pink and orange autumn light. I can just see us living here: me holding little soirees for my book group; Simon having a dinner party for his workmates. I picture us standing together at the window, clinking our wine glasses and watching the sky grow dark and hazy over the chimney pots of London.
The sound of footsteps and cooing voices coming from the kitchen shatters my daydreaming. Hopefully the lovey-dovey couple will get a room for a few hours so I can get Simon here and start the process of putting in an offer. I quickly hit ‘send’ on the text I’ve drafted.
‘Let’s look at the bedroom again!’ the woman says. For a split second I see a flash of blonde hair at the door to the kitchen. From inside, there’s the sound of a phone beeping with a text message.
‘Oh bugger,’ a man’s voice. ‘Just a second.’
The man comes to the kitchen door.
Our eyes meet.
The moment freezes into slow motion.
‘Simon?’ I gasp.
‘Amy?’ he gasps.
Everything speeds up again as the terrible truth registers. The rising nausea in my stomach; the guilty look on Simon’s face; the weight of the phone in my hand; and then the lightness as I swing back my arm and let go; the phone flying through the air, bridging the gap between us. And then the horrible little thud as the throw goes wide and my iPhone makes impact with the woman’s pert little upturned nose. And she screams, and I scream; and I turn and run down the stairs; as the walls of my life come crumbling down around me.
- I -
Letter 1 (Transcription)
Rosemont Hall
April 10, 1952
Dear Henry,
I trust that you are studying hard in your last few weeks at university. Soon you will return home to Rosemont Hall. I fear you will find it changed for the worse.
Yesterday I sold the Gainsborough that hung in the green salon. For me, it was like losing your mother all over again. The house is diminished: the walls stark and empty, the room devoid of the life and laughter it once held. It is little consolation that the beams in the attic may now be replaced, the boiler fixed, and the rose bedroom repapered. I know what you would say to me were you here – ‘the house is just a house; a painting just a painting’. And we would argue about it and agree to disagree.
But now, my indulgence has ended. It is time for you to make something of yourself. I have a plan that will end this sorry plight and restore the fortunes of our family and our proud heritage. By the time you return, the arrangements will be in place. Until then, I remain…
Your father
- 1 -
November …
Nailsea, Somerset
The car sputters as I pull into the driveway of the bungalow, as if it doesn’t want to be seen outside. I find third gear instead of first, and everything clunks to a halt. Mrs Harvey, the neighbour next door, twitches the curtains at her kitchen window and gives me a little wave. I force myself to smile back at her until she disappears again, no doubt off to phone her friends at the Scrabble club to tell them tha
t not only is Amy Wood back at home living with her parents, but she can’t drive properly either.
I open the car door but can’t quite muster the will to get out. Leaning against the headrest, I close my eyes. Everything that happened on that horrible afternoon – was it really a month ago already? – comes rushing back. The horror, the crushing panic, the jealous disbelief at seeing my boyfriend of seven years standing there in that quaint little flat, canoodling with another woman. It was only afterwards that I realised that I knew her – ‘Ashley’, the P.E. teacher at the sixth-form college where I taught – a little blonde, American thing who’s also some kind of Olympic athlete. Now with a wonky nose, thanks to me and my poor aim.
But worst of all was the aftermath… The chairman of the department’s voice: ‘I’m sorry, Ms Wood, but the Board of Governors cannot condone a teacher-on-teacher assault – no matter what the circumstances.’ My tears and protestations, and his further reply: ‘Yes, I’m sure the flat did have the most wonderful original features…’
‘You okay, Princess?’
I blink back to reality. My dad is standing on a ladder at the front of the bungalow, tussling with a wisteria vine that’s drooping over the window. I force myself to get out of the car and walk over to him. The bungalow was built in the 70s – all red-brick, pebble-dash and stained wood, identical to every other one on the road. When my parents decided to sell the little half-timbered cottage I grew up in and move to town, I felt like a little plant uprooted from my plot of earth and plopped into a plastic pot in a DIY store. I hated the bungalow; everything – from the orange pile carpet and avocado bathroom suite, to the view of the lightening-blackened oak tree out my bedroom window – felt wrong.
But to be fair, over the years, Dad has worked hard on the place. The bungalow always has a fresh coat of white paint around the door, and the garden still looks lush in the pale November sun. To them, home is being walking distance from the shops and the local church, and down the road from the pub where they play Scrabble and bridge every week. It’s a comfortable, friendly place for their retirement, and I really can’t argue with that.
Dad sets down his ball of twine on the top rung, and it promptly rolls off and unwinds.
‘Yes Dad, I’m fine.’ I accept the sudden reversion to infancy that my parents have inflicted on me ever since the night I turned up on their doorstep almost exactly a month ago, tearful and incredulous at having lost my boyfriend, the perfect flat, and my dream job all in less than 24 hours. I pick up the ball of twine. ‘Do you need a hand?’
‘Sure.’
Dutifully, I snip a piece of twine and hold it out to him. He ties the recalcitrant tendril to the trellis. It’s the first time I’ve felt useful all day. I cut two more pieces and hand them to him.
‘Have you been out shopping or something?’ Dad asks.
‘No, I went to see about a job.’
‘A job!’ He comes a few steps down the ladder and shakes my hand like he’s amazed I would do something so grown-up. ‘What is it? No, don’t tell me… Let’s see… Badminton Girls School? Teaching impressionable young ladies about the dangers of corsets?’
‘Actually, it was a comprehensive in Bridgwater. And unfortunately, it turns out that they’re not hiring.’ Me. They’re not hiring me. Nor are any of the other colleges and secondary schools within a 30-mile radius of Bristol that I’ve tried over the last month. Not even to teach an evening course.
‘Well,’ he scratches his receding hair, ‘chin up. You’ll find something.’
‘Yeah, Dad.’ I smile bravely. ‘I will.’ But what? I’ve even started checking the ads on Gumtree twice a day. Everything in the local area seems to involve cleaning toilets at a pub or stocking groceries at Tesco. And just like below-stairs in Victorian times, even those places probably wouldn’t hire a mobile-phone-throwing trouble-maker who’s been sacked without a character reference.
‘That should do it.’ Dad ties the last piece of twine and climbs down the ladder. ‘I’ll take it from here.’
‘Sure, Dad. I’m going inside to change.’
The screen door slams behind me as I enter the house and peek inside the kitchen. Mum is standing at the stove wearing a Wallis and Gromit apron that one of her reception kids gave her last Christmas. She’s cooking a huge pan of sausages. The grease sizzles and spits in the pan and splatters against Wallis – or Gromit? – as Mum painstakingly adds the onions and leeks. My stomach roils. Ever since I was little, I’ve hated sausages. But I wouldn’t want to hurt Mum’s feelings by actually saying so.
‘Smells good, Mum.’
Mum glances at me over her shoulder and frowns. ‘The top button on your jacket is hanging by a thread. Do you want me to sew it back on?’
The top button does seem loose, I notice, as I peer down at my ‘go-to’ black suit jacket. I wish I could blame my failure at the interview on looking bedraggled, but I know that’s just wishful thinking. ‘That’s okay, Mum. I’ll do it later.’ I walk off towards my bedroom.
‘How was the interview?’ Mum says.
I stop and turn back. ‘It wasn’t exactly an interview – it was an informational interview. You know, like an enquiry.’
‘Oh.’ She turns over the sausages with a fork. ‘So you didn’t get the job.’
‘No.’ I sigh.
She turns the heat down on the hob and covers the foul-smelling concoction. ‘Well, if you’re as keen to get a job as you say you are, Mrs Harvey from next door might be able to set you up. Her niece is pregnant and her office is looking for a temp.’
‘A temp?’
‘Just until you get back on your feet.’
‘A temp what?’ I practically choke. ‘In an office?’
‘It’s in Bath – that’s all I know. But I can get the details from her.’ Mum dishes out the sausages, heaping spoonfuls of congealed grease onto three plates.
‘I don’t really think that’s quite the thing I’m looking for. I mean, I spent years at uni getting a first and doing my doctorate…’ The words dissolve on my tongue. I may have been good at doing research and writing clever little essays for scholarly journals – I wrote a thesis on ‘Houses as Characters in 19th Century Fiction’ that won a prize. As a teacher, I prided myself on my ability to bring to life some of the great literary classics for my flock of university-bound students – together we explored every nuance of Mr Darcy’s behaviour through the eyes of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice; studied each fluttering heartbeat of Jane Eyre’s descent into love with her troubled employer, Rochester, in Jane Eyre; jumped at sinister shadows on every page at Manderley along with the second Mrs de Winter in Rebecca. But let’s face it – those aren’t exactly real-world skills.
‘Suit yourself.’ Mum shrugs.
I hang my head. ‘I guess it couldn’t hurt to have the details – just in case nothing else comes along.’
Mum smiles a little too smugly. ‘That’s my girl. When the going gets tough, the tough get going…’
‘Yeah, Mum.’ I give her a half-hearted high five. ‘Stiff upper lip and all that.’
Mum seems almost gleeful as she phones Mrs Harvey next door and gets the details. The details consist only of an address and the name of a firm in Bath: Tetherington Bowen Knowles. As soon as I hear the name, I take heart. It sounds like an ultra-respectable firm of solicitors, or maybe an accountancy office. Someplace with comfortable sofas and brass lamps with green glass shades that smells of ancient cigar smoke, leather-bound books and yellowing papers. My parents don’t have internet access, so I can’t find out for sure.
‘She says you should go tomorrow,’ Mum says. ‘Apparently her niece is “about to pop”.’
I grimace at the image. ‘Okay, I will.’
*
At dinner, I douse the sausages with mustard and pick at them, half-listening to Mum and Dad gossiping about their neighbours, the church-roof fundraiser, and the merits of Aldi vs Lidl. Afterwards, we spend a quiet evening in front of the television
watching Celebrity Antiques Road Trip, and Mastermind. When Dad puts on a recording of Autumnwatch, I excuse myself on the grounds that I want to ‘see about the temp job’ first thing the next morning. Dad looks impressed. ‘Okay Princess,’ he says. ‘We’ll be here cheering for you.’
‘Great Dad,’ I say. ‘That’s nice to know.’
‘And make sure you sew on that button,’ Mum says as I leave the sitting room.
I go into the bathroom, rub on my five-minute facial mud mask, and stick cucumber slices over my eyes. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, the more I try not to think about the past, the clearer it is in my mind. Simon is there in vivid colour – sitting two rows behind me in the lecture hall where we first met. We got to talking and found that we shared the same night bus home. Great love stories through the ages are built on less, I suppose. One thing led to another, and pretty soon, Simon was over at my little basement flat so often that, in his words, it was ‘mad to throw away money renting two flats’. Not, admittedly, the most romantic reason ever given for moving in together. Still, I dutifully moved my books, my clothing, and myself into his bachelor pad in Docklands – that was already complete with free weight set, Xbox, nose-hair trimmer, and trouser press. I always felt slightly out of place there – like I never truly made my mark. At night, I used to dream about the day when we could finally afford a real ‘together home’.
Although the living situation wasn’t perfect, Simon was a model boyfriend. I could always count on the odd token of affection: a bouquet of 50% off flowers from the Whistlestop at Waterloo Station; my favourite falafel wrap with no onions brought home when he was working late; text messages that he was sitting in another boring meeting with Saudi investors and would rather be home with me watching University Challenge. After a year or so, the tokens dwindled, and the lean years began: me working round the clock on my thesis; him working round the clock at the investment bank. But we still had the weekends, mostly spent curled up together on the orange crush velvet sofa that we found in a skip in Wapping and together managed to upend through the window of the flat. We ate a lot of takeaway, drank a lot of wine, watched a fair few films, and when we weren’t too tired, had sex in the narrow double bed decorated with the crocheted duvet cover I bought at Petticoat Lane market. All in all, it was a nice existence rather than a great love story – but in the real world, there’s nothing wrong with nice. And in the last few months, things had been looking up: I began teaching English literature at the college, and the bank promoted Simon to vice president of emerging markets. My life, signed, sealed and delivered. My life…
Finding Secrets Page 37