The Housewarming: A completely unputdownable psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by S. E. Lynes

  ‘Ava,’ he says softly. ‘I didn’t mean…’

  ‘I know you didn’t. I don’t know why I’m like this.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s fine. I’m sorry.’

  He strokes my hair, once. Finding it to be greasy, perhaps, he runs his hand down my arm.

  ‘I know it’s hard,’ he says.

  ‘Go. Go on. You’ll be late for work.’ I want him to go. I really want him to go.

  ‘I hate leaving you when you’re like this. Are you going to be OK?’

  Of course not. ‘I’m not having another breakdown, don’t worry.’

  ‘Ave,’ he pleads. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Joke. It was a joke. I’ll be fine. Really. I’m allowed to be sad. Being sad is the appropriate response. I just need to be on my own now, OK? Go on – go.’

  ‘All right. Sorry.’ He batters a brief drum solo on the wooden door frame. I sense him receding into the hall.

  ‘Bye then,’ he calls out a moment later, and there is such longing in the words that my eyes prickle again. He is doing his best. We both are.

  Eleven

  Ava

  I am changing Fred upstairs in the nursery when the doorbell goes. At half past ten, I assume it must be a delivery Matt has forgotten to tell me about, since the likelihood of a friend calling round is almost non-existent.

  I pick up Fred and carry him to the top of the stairs, hoping that he doesn’t wee on me as often happens, his joyful response to fresh air.

  ‘Coming,’ I shout, before dashing back and quickly putting a nappy on him. With any luck, they will leave the parcel on the step.

  A minute later and I can see through the frosted glass that whoever it is has not gone, but despite vaguely recognising the elegant silhouette, when I open the door it is still a shock to find Jennifer Lovegood standing on my doorstep. On a Friday.

  ‘Jennifer! Aren’t you at work?’

  She smirks. ‘Working from home today. I was about to make a coffee and I thought, I wonder if that Atkins woman might be skulking about, and if so, can I con her into making me a coffee instead?’

  I feel myself smile. ‘Well, I am and you can. Come in.’

  ‘Grand.’

  She follows me into the kitchen and takes a seat at the bar. Wordlessly I hand Fred to her and head over to the coffee machine. My face is hot. I’m delighted, I realise, thrilled, even, to see her.

  ‘So how come you’re not in the office?’ I ask, pulling cups down from the cupboard.

  ‘I had to wait in for a gourmet frozen-food delivery, would you believe? Johnnie ordered it for the party then promptly told me he had a client and couldn’t be here when it came, which is classic Johnnie, to be honest. Anyway, it arrived about five minutes ago, so I thought I’d take a quick break and catch up with you.’

  I smile. Her laid-back Irish delivery soothes me. Apart from my mum, she is probably the only person I am comfortable having in the house since Abi disappeared. A few days after it happened, she called round before work. I remember her beautiful trouser suit, the soft line of her red silk blouse, the green scent of her perfume.

  ‘Ava,’ she said. ‘I’m Jennifer Lovegood. I’m so sorry about what’s happened. How’re you bearing up?’

  I shook my head and wept into my hands.

  She sat on the edge of the sofa next to me and took one hand in both of hers. She said nothing, nothing at all. Her hands were soft, the nails short, clean, unpainted. A white-gold wedding ring, nothing else.

  ‘I just wish they’d find her,’ I sobbed.

  ‘Of course. Of course you do. What a terrible business.’

  I didn’t know her, not at all, but I leant into her shoulder and cried onto her beautiful jacket.

  ‘Listen,’ she said eventually. ‘I have to get to work, but here’s my number.’

  She handed me a card:

  Jennifer Lovegood

  Lovegood and Fosketh

  Specialist Family Law

  A central London number, a mobile number.

  ‘Call this one,’ she said, turning the card over. On the back was another mobile number scribbled in purple ink. ‘That’s the bat phone, OK?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I realise now that she must have written it out at home before coming over, that this was her way of giving me permission to disturb her.

  ‘Text me anything you need,’ she said. ‘I’ll call in at the supermarket on my way home. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll pick up some bits and pieces anyway, so don’t worry about texting. You’ve got enough to deal with.’

  And then she did something extraordinary. In her elegant clothes, she knelt – knelt – in front of me and took my hands again in hers.

  ‘I’ve got to go now,’ she said, her warm grey eyes filling. ‘But whatever you need, don’t hesitate.’

  The sight of her on her knees on my kitchen floor was astonishing – as if an expensive pair of trousers was worthless to her, as if she were someone who understood, despite the trappings of wealth, what was important in life. I remember her so clearly, kneeling. But I have no memory of her leaving the house.

  Since then, we’ve had four, maybe five cups of coffee together, always at my house, and on those occasions I have found her so easy to talk to, easier than any of my close friends. Sometimes a stranger is better. That there is no expectation of intimacy can make it come more naturally; your loneliness doesn’t feel quite so acute.

  I bring our coffee over to the bar.

  ‘So, how’s things?’ she asks, her grey eyes searching mine.

  ‘Oh, you know.’

  We sip our coffee. Caffè latte: espresso, foamed milk. This suburban town has become a place where everyone can make perfect Italian coffee at home.

  ‘Listen,’ she says. ‘I just wanted to check in and say you don’t have to come to the party. Obviously I’d love you to, but you have to do what you feel comfortable with, OK? I just wanted to make sure you knew that.’

  My eyes fill. ‘I suppose I need to thank the neighbours for the chicken casseroles sometime.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t send home-made thank-you cards?’ She raises one eyebrow. ‘Rude.’

  I laugh – I actually laugh. ‘Matt says we have to make an effort for Fred and that sooner or later we have to face everyone. They were all so kind. I didn’t even read the sympathy cards, and that was ungrateful.’

  ‘By whose standards?’ She gives a derisive snort. ‘Good grief, Ava, that’s a big stick you’re beating yourself with there.’

  Despite myself, another laugh escapes me – a little one. ‘I need to wipe the ingratitude off my attitude.’

  ‘Yeah, you spoilt bitch.’

  For a miraculous third time, I laugh properly, but just as quickly my eyes fill and a moment later I’m in tears.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry – my eyes are incontinent.’

  ‘Hey, hey, that’s OK.’ She is out of her chair. She pulls my head to her soft loose linen top. ‘You need to give yourself a break. Are you still seeing the counsellor?’

  I nod. ‘But it doesn’t change anything, that’s the problem. It doesn’t change that I left the door open. It doesn’t change that all I want is my little girl. I just want her back so badly, unharmed, unchanged, and if that can’t happen, I’m not interested in anything else and that’s all there is to it. Not chicken casseroles, not lemon drizzle cakes. And I feel shitty about that, I do, but I’d rather people just said hello to me in a normal way, like you do; I can’t stand the pained expressions of sympathy all the time, do you know what I mean? I just want to not hear them whispering once I’ve gone past them in the street, and for them to take the fear out of their eyes when they speak to me. Honestly, it’s as if I have some horrible disease and they think they can catch it by standing near me or something. As if their children or grandchildren could be cursed just by having contact with me.’

  ‘That’s so shit,’ she says, her accent so
ftening the words. She is still holding my head, and even though I’m crying, it still occurs to me that I’m beyond relieved I washed my hair this morning.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, pulling away and wiping my nose with the back of my hand. ‘I need to start seeing people.’

  ‘You don’t need to do anything you’re not up to. And you don’t need to RSVP to the party invitation either. Every single person on the street has replied with a yes, which, I have to say, is a little alarming, so it’s not like I’ll be standing there on my own listening to the tumbleweed. Just in case you were wanting to beat yourself up about either of those things. Listen, I have a call at eleven, so I’ve got to scoot, but just see how you go, OK, and even if it’s at the last second, you can come – or not. You won’t offend me, and Johnnie’s so thick-skinned he’d barely notice anyway as long as he’s got someone to tell about his underfloor heating.’

  ‘Thanks, Jennifer.’ I tear off some kitchen roll and press it to my eyes.

  ‘Jen,’ she says, laying a hand on my arm. ‘I always go to Jen on the fifth coffee.’

  ‘Jen.’ I laugh, blowing my nose on the kitchen roll. ‘Thanks.’

  When she’s gone, I realise that her coming over was not, in fact, to catch up over coffee at all but to tell me that her friendship is not conditional in any way upon my attending her big, important party. When she said I didn’t have to go, I believed her in a way I didn’t believe Matt. And because of that, now I think I might almost want to; that wanting to is not impossible anymore.

  Twelve

  Ava

  In the bath, Fred lies on Abi’s old red plastic support seat. In the shallow water, his arms and legs flail about violently. He looks like he’s having a spasmodic fight with an invisible attacker while remaining completely calm.

  Afterwards, I feed him downstairs on the sofa – he in a towelling Babygro, me in new light cotton pyjamas my mum sent me last week. Today has been fuelled in some strange way by Jennifer’s impromptu visit. Jen. My friend, I think now, with a cosy feeling. Barbara has told me to try to focus on these small things – when something nice happens or I experience some small physical pleasure. Today, the feeling of having made a friend. Right now, in this moment, the tingle on my skin as the summer day cools into evening, the exquisite burgundy filigree of veins on Fred’s tiny eyelids, his deep pink mouth. He has Matt’s mouth: the same philtrum, the same Cupid’s bow.

  The front door rattles, clicks. Matt, returning from work. A minute later and he appears at the living-room door.

  ‘Hey.’ The word is little more than a whisper. He’s never sure how he’ll find me; my moods roll in like weather.

  ‘Hey,’ I say.

  He blows out like the wolf on the little pig’s house and his hands land on his hips, his eyes closing briefly. He’s out of breath from the ride home, his kit damp with what must be sweat, since it has been baking hot all day. The hair on his legs is dusty with dry mud and, as usual, he looks drained, black-eyed, gaunt.

  ‘You OK?’ His eyebrows rise in hope.

  I smile. ‘Just feeding the little munchkin.’

  His shoulders drop a millimetre; guilt washes over me. He is relieved to find me OK, or at least capable of pretending to be, for his sake. I want to tell him that, actually, I do feel OK; today has been a good day, and at this precise second, I feel, yes, I feel… OK.

  ‘Have you been out today?’ His eyebrows are still high. It is hope that will kill us in the end.

  ‘Not today, no.’ I avert my eyes from his face. ‘But I did play the piano for an hour.’

  ‘That’s good! Great!’ He is too pleased, far too pleased. ‘We could go for a walk later?’

  Oh, the wild optimism.

  ‘I thought you were training with Neil?’

  ‘I can cancel.’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ I switch my gaze to Fred’s soft, dark, impossible mass of hair. ‘I’ll go out tomorrow, I promise. Jen came over actually.’

  ‘Jen?’

  ‘Jennifer from next door. She was working from home so she dropped by for a coffee.’

  ‘That’s great! That’s so great!’

  ‘I really like her.’

  The air shifts. He is still at the door. I can feel him hovering. I know he wants to ask me if I’ve changed my mind about the party. I almost have. I think. But I don’t want to give up this shelter in case my weather changes.

  ‘I’ll just get changed then,’ he says after a moment. ‘I can’t run in these shorts.’

  ‘Sure.’

  His feet pad up the stairs. He is changing one sports kit for another. He will barely eat between now and when he goes out running, telling me he can’t run on a full stomach. What began as a fitness crusade has become an obsession. He must have lost a stone since that morning and he never had it to lose.

  Fred finishes feeding and lies back like a man inebriated. Like the bath, like fresh cotton on clean skin, the sight of my baby boy after a feed has the power to stir the small beginnings of joy in me: his sated obliviousness, his heavy-lidded eyes, his dopey, gummy grin. There were fears I wouldn’t bond with him. My mother came down for two weeks when he was born.

  ‘I’ll look after you,’ she said with the affectionate pragmatism she has given me all my life. ‘You look after him.’

  She was calm, she was quiet, she was there. In down times we sat together and did the crossword. Endless tea. Endless talking. Now, she calls me every day on the landline, knowing she’ll find me here, at home, and this too helps, alongside the counselling, which Matt’s parents insisted on paying for.

  Love has not been an issue. It is not without terror, but every new mother feels a certain amount of terror, and again, thanks to Barbara, I have learnt to see this love, my ability to feel it, to give it, as a triumph on a par with a Nobel prize. With help, I have time, I think, for Fred to never see this ragged version of me. I am working on it – on her – on me. I am trying to get near to who I used to be. It is hard – gruelling, in fact – to aim for something that seems so out of reach without crucifying yourself when you miss. But Barbara talks about charging my batteries with the good moments so as to store energy for the bad. She talks a lot about being in the moment, about being kind to myself. Compassion is a word she uses a lot. Compassion for myself is necessary if I am to treat myself better. But it seems to me a tragedy both specific and cruel that all the things we might do to lift ourselves out of our lowest moments – a long walk, a carefully prepared meal, a favourite piece of music – are, in those moments, all the things we cannot face, while all the things that will make us feel worse, much worse – eating junk, drinking too many glasses of wine, staying in a room that vibrates with haunted silence – seem infinitely enticing.

  Today, Jen’s unexpected visit charged my batteries and gave me enough energy to play the piano for the first time since Abi’s disappearance. It felt so good I am at a loss as to why I haven’t played in so long. I knew, must have known, that it would soothe me. It always did. I have waited too long, but today I got there and that’s what matters. I got there eventually. And if I can sit at my long-neglected mini grand, if I can feel the smooth, sliding embrace of the keys under my fingertips, if I can close my eyes to melodies forgotten, familiar and beloved – Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninov – and find myself coming to a kind of home, I know that there is healing here, that there can be, at least, and that one day, fresh air and people will heal me too.

  Matt’s footsteps return down the stairs. The moment he goes into the kitchen, he will see I haven’t prepared any dinner. It will bother him, but not for himself. He will not voice his concern, not to me at least, nor will he remind me that the supermarket delivery he ordered came only yesterday afternoon, that there is plenty to eat, even though he eats so little himself. He doesn’t need to say any of it, just as he doesn’t need to tell me I need to try to find a way to live despite the hanging chord of our bodyless daughter. We both do. We both know it. We both know that we know it, so what�
��s the point?

  ‘Do you want an omelette?’ he says instead of all these things. Instead of I will take care of you. For as long as it takes.

  ‘I’ll make it,’ I reply, instead of I’m sorry for still being like this.

  ‘I don’t mind.’ I am tired, so tired, but if you need me to do this, I will.

  ‘Don’t be silly, I’ll make something.’ I’m sorry I’m not looking after you.

  The clank of bottles as he opens the fridge door. ‘There’s some couscous. Some salad leaves and some ham and cheese?’ Sod cooking. Let’s just agree to eat, at least.

  ‘Perfect. I might have a small glass of wine.’ See? I am returning. Please wait for me.

  ‘Great.’ Oh, the relief.

  ‘Great.’ I’m sorry.

  Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great.

  Who knows? Who knows what anything means?

  Who knows what we are saying to each other anymore?

  After dinner, which I eat and Matt doesn’t, he tells me to go and sit down while he cleans up the kitchen. Encouraged by my practice this afternoon, I take out the sheet music for Beethoven’s Pathétique and prop it against the piano. Deciding the first movement is too dramatic, I opt instead for the Adagio. A mistake. I don’t make it past the first three bars before I can no longer see.

  The doorbell rings. It will be Neil.

  I wipe my eyes with my sleeves, try to compose myself. That’s the trouble with beautiful music, beautiful anything: it makes you cry.

  The doorbell rings again.

  Fred is asleep in his Moses basket by my feet. I don’t want to face Neil – things are too awkward between us – but Matt must be upstairs and I don’t want the doorbell to go again in case it wakes the baby.

  I haul myself off the piano stool and hurry down the hallway. ‘Coming.’