The Perfect Life

by Nuala Ellwood

  I need a distraction.

  I take my phone from the side table and tiptoe out of the room. Then, sitting on the sofa, I click on the Dream Properties app. The sight of all those beautiful houses soothes me as the hours tick away. And then I see it: an Edwardian Arts and Crafts house in Bishop’s Stortford. I can feel the adrenaline returning, the same buzz I got when I saw Rosedale Manor advertised. This feeling is better than drugs or alcohol. It is pure euphoria.

  ‘This will be the last time,’ I whisper to myself as I type another fake name into the booking form, ‘then no more. I promise.’

  13. Now

  I can hear the children but I can’t see them. Their voices, high-pitched and merry, follow me as I try to find my way out of the maze. The holly nips at my skin as I turn left then right, stumbling into the ragged hedge. Above me, the sky explodes with red and blue and golden fire, and I clutch my chest in fright. I need to get to the centre of the maze before it’s too late. Behind me the children’s voices grow fainter and I realize I’m getting close. The air seems to get thinner with every step I take and I feel my lungs tighten. Almost there, Vanessa, I tell myself, just a few more steps. And then I see him. Lying there, spread-eagled like some ancient sacrifice. Legs jutting out at awkward angles, eyes bulging from his dead, grey face.

  Geoffrey.

  I try to turn back but the way is blocked by overgrown holly. It pierces my ankles, wraps itself around my chest until I can’t breathe. I’m going to die and no one will know where I am. I push back at the sharp leaves, blood running down my arms. Then I feel something touch my shoulder. I turn and see Geoffrey. He’s still alive. He’s holding something in his hand. My blood runs cold when I see what it is. Then, all of a sudden, I feel a pressure on my neck. I try to scream but no sound will come out.

  ‘Vanessa.’

  I sit up in bed, sweat sticking to my forehead, my heart racing.

  ‘Vanessa, are you okay? You were screaming.’

  I look up and see my sister standing at the door, her eyes drowsy with sleep.

  ‘I was dreaming,’ I say as I slowly come to. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Just gone midnight,’ she says, leaning her head against the door frame. ‘I was going to call you down for supper but when I looked in you were sound asleep, so I left yours in the fridge. Are you hungry? I can get you something if you like?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks, Georgie,’ I say, trying my best to sound like I am. ‘I’m really sorry I woke you.’

  She stands for a moment, watching me, her face a mixture of fatigue and concern.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ she says, with what looks like a forced smile. ‘As long as you’re okay, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘I am,’ I reply, putting my head back on the pillow. ‘Just a bad dream, that’s all. Night, night, Georgie.’

  I hear her close the door. Then, once I’m sure she’s back in bed, I reach across and turn on the lamp. The dream has left me feeling shaken. The image of Geoffrey’s body lying in the maze, the holly wrapping itself around my chest, makes me feel sick. I look at my bare arms, sure there must be scratches and cuts, but there’s nothing. It was just a dream.

  Then I remember. The bird.

  I get out of bed and pull open the bottom drawer. The first thing I see is the signed paperback of The Spirits of Holly Maze House that I took from the house viewing in Battersea. I lift it out and run my fingers along the indents of Geoffrey’s handwriting. Then, setting it aside, I take out the glass bird. The bird I took from his house.

  As I stare back at it, I tell myself that people lie all the time, they make up versions of themselves on Instagram and Facebook and job applications that bear no resemblance to who they really are. It’s not a crime to want to be someone else, to live someone else’s life. But it is a crime to take one, and as long as this bird and the book are in my possession then I am in deep trouble.

  I place them back in the drawer and turn out the light. Tomorrow I will get rid of them, I tell myself as I get back into bed. Then, and only then, will I be safe.

  I stand on the packed Northern Line train, holding on to the rail and trying to keep my balance. Sweat gathers on my forehead as the train doors open to let another wave of passengers on.

  The doors close and, as the train pulls out of the station, I put my hand in my bag to check the book and the bird are still there. I know it’s not a good idea to go back to the house, but I can’t escape the feeling that if I just dump them somewhere then bad things might happen: karma, whatever you want to call it. The bird, particularly, has always possessed a strange power and now, more than ever, I can’t risk it. By returning the bird to its rightful place, I feel I’m honouring it somehow, as well as atoning for my crime. As for the book, well, it was only going to be thrown away in Battersea. Best to take it with the bird, back to the place where it was written.

  When the train pulls into Hampstead I join the crush of bodies surging towards the exit. It’s only 10 a.m. but, according to my phone, the temperature is already in the high twenties. As I reach the top of the stairs the crush intensifies. I put my hand out to grab the rail but before I can get a grip someone shoves me in the small of my back. I lose my footing and half fall down the stairs.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’

  I look up and see an elderly woman with short grey hair and red lipstick. She is standing above me, holding out her hand.

  ‘That idiot could have killed you.’

  ‘Who?’ I whimper, taking her hand and hauling myself up.

  ‘The man who knocked into you,’ says the woman, shaking her head. ‘He’d already nearly sent me flying as I got off the train. I don’t know, you expect behaviour like that during rush hour but on a Saturday morning – well, it’s just not on. Are you sure you’re okay, dear?’

  I tell her that I’m fine, then, as she walks away I stand for a moment to catch my breath. The fall has disorientated me. Then I remember: the bird. I thrust my hand into my bag and, to my relief, find it’s still there, unharmed. The thought of it being crushed under a hundred pairs of feet doesn’t bear thinking about.

  I run my fingers along its smooth glass surface, then, taking a deep breath, make my way out of the station and on to the high street.

  The sun is baking hot on my back as I cross the road, aware of the volume of people, their eyes watching me. I take a left down a narrow side street and breathe a sigh of relief as I leave the crowds behind.

  But as I get closer, my optimism fades. Ahead of me I see a line of police tape sealing off the end of the street. Two patrol cars are parked across the entrance to the house.

  I look around. The street is empty. I feel conspicuous. What if Bains is up there? How would I explain my being here? I need to get away. Fast.

  I turn on my heels, the weight of the bird and book pressing on my shoulders, but as I reach the bustle of the high street and prepare to join the throng of tourists heading from the station, I tell myself that I have to hold my nerve. I have to finish this.

  Then I remember something. The stones. The gravestones that Geoffrey stumbled upon on a walk, before he had even written the books. He had often said in interviews that the stones seemed to exert a force on him, drawing him in until he could read the names on them – Tom and Cecil. Then he saw the third stone and how the name had been scratched away, and he couldn’t get them out of his mind. He decided to use those names for his ghost boys and came up with a new name and a new identity for the inhabitant of the mysterious third grave. And so Angus’s great love, Iris, was created.

  The patch of grass where the stones are laid is accessible via a little pathway to the left of the house. If I judge it right, I can be in and out in under a minute without being seen.

  I turn back, my heart hammering in my chest. Any moment now, Bains is going to appear and then it’s all over. But the road is still empty; the occupants of the police cars nowhere to be seen.

  Without pausing, I turn left and find
myself on a gravel pathway, overgrown with weeds. Only those who really paid attention to Geoffrey and his books would know of this shortcut. It was the focus of one of his lesser-known books, Trouble at Holly Maze House, which was published as a Christmas special in 1997. By then, Geoffrey’s star had begun to wane a little and there was talk in the press that he was having trouble at home himself, though no one was really sure of the details. I know, because after Mum’s death I did as much research into him as I could. After that he disappeared from view for a couple of years, returning in 1999 with a much-celebrated anthology of children’s ghost stories before stepping away from the limelight altogether.

  The air feels cooler as I head further down the path, the spindly branches of an elder tree forming a natural canopy above me. The noise of the high street feels a million miles away as I draw closer to the stones.

  As I walk towards them more of the story comes back to me.

  Angus liked to make model aeroplanes. His desk was covered in bits of cardboard and glue and scissors. He liked logic and patterns, and when he grew up he planned to be an engineer so he could save enough money to leave Holly Maze House and go home. Home was the little terraced house with the blue door in Mallison Street where Angus had lived with his mum and dad. But when his mum died, everything had changed.

  In Mallison Street he had been an ordinary kid. One of the things he loved most was playing football in the park across the road – that and eating biscuits with Mrs Perkins, the nice old lady who lived next door.

  Yes, Mrs Perkins! I remember her. She was the one who said that lovely thing about home, that ‘a house is built on money; a home is built on love’.

  Mr and Mrs Perkins were good people. Angus’s mother loved Mrs Perkins because she had reminded her of her own mother, who had died just before Angus was born. They used to look after him when his mum was ill and Mrs Perkins used to help organize his birthday parties.

  The birthday party, I remember that bit too. Angus’s sixth birthday party, his last in Mallison Street. All his friends came and he danced wildly to his favourite song: ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ by Queen.

  Mrs Perkins was at the party. That’s right. My brain is moving faster than my feet.

  He had loved the glass bird that sat on Mrs Perkins’s mantelpiece ever since he was a baby. Mrs Perkins had told him that he could play with the bird and that it was special because its eyes were blue and sparkly just like his.

  And when Mrs Perkins died, her husband had given Angus the bird, telling him that his wife wanted him to have it.

  Her gravestone. Yes. It’s all returning to me now.

  Angus and his mum had gone to lay flowers on Mrs Perkins’s grave and Angus had brought the bird along. He sat down next to the gravestone and told Mrs Perkins that the bird was their messenger, that if she had anything to say she could tell the bird and it would pass the message on to him.

  How could I have forgotten that? It was such a big part of the story. I used to dream about that bird. It was just as real to me as Angus was. I can’t believe I actually got to see it, to touch it, to hold it, to keep it for a little while.

  And now I have to do the right thing and give it back.

  Cecil and Tom are still there, though their stones are weatherworn and covered in moss and lichen. The third stone is gnarled and worn and sits in the shade of a large yew tree. As I stand here looking at it, I recall the opening line of the final chapter of the book where Angus has to say goodbye to his ghostly friends: ‘The girl he loved lived in a shady spot, next door to the angels. Her protectors in this life and the next.’

  This stone is larger than the other two and is decorated with cherubic figures and musical notes. There are two stone vases on either side, empty of flowers. I kneel down in front of the stone, a deep sense of sadness enveloping me.

  I take the book out of my bag first, rolling it up and pushing it into one of the vases. Next, I take the glass bird and place it in the palm of my hand. It looks smaller somehow. Its eyes have lost their sparkle.

  ‘Goodnight, Geoffrey,’ I whisper as I slip the bird into the second vase. ‘I’m sorry for what I did.’

  Sitting on the train as it approaches Wimbledon, I feel like a great burden has been lifted from me. As the train pulls into the station, I stand up and head for the door, enjoying the feeling. I press the button and step out into glorious August sunshine. I’ll stop off at Waitrose on the way back and buy some food for supper. Georgie and Jack have been so good to me, it’s about time I gave something back.

  I exit the turnstiles and I’m just heading for the high street when my phone beeps in my hand. As always, I get a little flutter of hope that it might be Lottie, but as I stop by the pizza restaurant on the corner of the street I see that it’s a Messenger notification from someone called G.

  I can’t quite make out the profile picture in the glare of the sun, but I’m sure that I don’t have a Facebook contact called G. I’m rather cautious about adding people I don’t know. Curious, I click open the message and what I see makes my heart freeze.

  There is a photograph, clear and seemingly taken up close, of me placing the glass bird on Iris’s grave.

  But it’s the message underneath that sends chills down my spine.

  Found you.

  I almost drop my phone in fright. I want to delete the message but I need to see who the person is. I click on their name and a Facebook profile comes up. G has no ‘friends’ and has shared no posts. The only photo is that of his/her profile image which, now that I’m standing in the shade, I can see clearly. My heart twists inside my chest as I enlarge the photo and see, looking back at me with vacant, open eyes, the dead face of Geoffrey Rivers.

  14. Then

  March 2018

  It’s Friday afternoon and the offices of Luna London are a hive of excitement. The younger interns and PAs are clustered round each other’s desks, testing out some of our new make-up lines and getting ready for the night ahead. I smile as one of them, Layla – a strikingly attractive woman with long brown hair – swaggers up and down the gangway, pouting to the sound of Sia’s ‘Chandelier’, which is blasting out across the office. This is their unofficial catwalk and as I watch them I feel a tinge of envy, remembering how Lottie and I would make a ritual of getting ready for a night out when we were at Durham. We’d pour a glass of wine and give each other’s outfits the once-over. She’d do my eyeliner, which I was terrible at, and I’d tease her hair into big curls. I recall that strange butterfly sensation I used to feel in my stomach before a big night out, the thought that anything could happen.

  Then I look at the image I have just pulled up on my screen – a five-storey Victorian townhouse in Highgate – and I think how the idea of creating a perfect home now outweighs any desire to go out drinking and clubbing. How did that happen? Is it an age thing? You reach your thirties and suddenly your needs change. I prefer to think that it’s down to meeting Connor. Creating a home that we can be a family in is all part of that.

  I click through a few more images of the Highgate house, imagining what I would do to it if I owned it. There’s a secluded sixty-foot garden with a raised seating area. I picture the herbs I would plant in terracotta pots, the subtle lighting I would introduce. Inside the house there’s a huge bathroom that would benefit from a roll-top bath and Moroccan-style tiling. As I’m lost in this reverie my phone rings on the desk beside me. I smile when I see Connor’s name on the screen.

  ‘Hello,’ I say, minimizing the webpage on my computer. ‘I was just thinking about you.’

  ‘Good thoughts, I hope,’ he says, his voice rather breathless.

  ‘Always,’ I reply. ‘Where are you? You sound like you’ve been running.’

  ‘I’m just on my way to Shoreditch,’ he says, his voice momentarily drowned out by a piercing siren. ‘Which is why I’m calling. There’s a boxing match tonight. The company’s sponsoring it. I meant to tell you about it earlier but I’ve been so busy this week …’

>   His voice cuts out and there’s a fizzing noise on the line.

  ‘Connor? I can’t hear you.’

  ‘Sorry, is that better? I’ve stopped in a doorway.’

  ‘Yes, I can hear you now. What were you saying? Something about a boxing match?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I meant to tell you but I got caught up with work. Anyway, it’s tonight at 7.30.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, feeling crestfallen. ‘So you’re going to be out tonight? That’s a shame. We’ve hardly seen each other this week.’

  ‘I know. Which is why I want you to come and join me. It’ll be fun.’

  ‘But you know I don’t like boxing,’ I say, flinching as one of the girls lets out a shriek of laughter. ‘It makes me squeamish.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not a full-on bout,’ he says. ‘It’s more of a corporate evening, an exhibition fight.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘I really wanted a night in with you this evening. It’s been a long week.’

  ‘It won’t go on for long,’ says Connor. ‘An hour max and then we can go and have a nice meal somewhere. What do you say? I’d love it if you could come.’

  I think for a moment, imagining the long evening ahead, all alone in the flat with just a bottle of wine and the Dream Property app for company. It’s been like this for a few weeks now, I realize – Connor being out a lot. Not that I mind a quiet night in. But now he’s inviting me along, and I know that I should make the effort. He’s been to enough of my works gatherings and family lunches. And it’s unfair of me to want him all to myself.

  ‘Okay, I’ll come,’ I say, closing down my computer. ‘What’s the address?’

  ‘That’s brilliant, baby,’ he says. ‘I’ll text you the details now.’

  ‘I love you,’ I say, but he has already clicked off.

  One hour later I’m walking up and down Shoreditch High Street trying to find Redchurch Street, where, Connor informed me in his text, I will find a black-painted building with no number or signage. Huh, not very helpful. ‘It’s a pop-up venue,’ he’d replied vaguely when I’d texted him from Sloane Square station expressing my confusion.