I care where the money’s coming from, as long as it’s coming!’
Dominic winces. ‘Right, right.’
Warren grins at me. ‘I can show you the house, if you like. Any excuse to show off our work, that’s what I always say.’
We are treated to a few statistics on Warren’s builders before we all stand up and Dominic takes a couple of photos. I close my eyes when the camera flashes; I hate cameras. Dad always said he hated them too, but I don’t think he did. He loved the attention, the limelight he used to get in London whenever he unveiled a new design. Flash. Flash. Dominic sees me wincing and touches my hair, asking if I’m all right, and I force myself to smile at him. The house surrounds us. I feel like it’s watching me.
Warren leads us both around the back, to where a hole in the wall gapes brutally, exposing the half-finished rooms inside. I remove a mitten and run my hand over the sturdy stone, enjoying the cold sensation. It is an off-white colour, argent grey, I think, the paint number popping into my head, an old habit from my first gallery days. A spider drifts downwards, its legs moving quickly like tiny knitting needles, spinning itself towards the soft padding of my outstretched arm. Drops of water glisten on its silvery web.
As we wander through the garden, around the crumbling walls, I feel the building enveloping me, touching me with its feelers, pulling me in. Cold fronds of air creep towards me from the dark holes where the windows should be. I stare up at the highest window, wondering who lived here, what secrets this house has held. As I turn away I see it – a flash in the darkness, a white movement. A face. There’s a face in the blackness, ghostly pale. I can see it.
I scream, put a hand to my chest and stumble backwards, my heart thudding.
‘No!’ I am saying, the words bursting out of my mouth before I can stop them. ‘No!’
‘Ssh, Corinne, ssh now, it’s all right.’ Dominic is there, holding me, telling me to calm down, it’s just him, just the flash of his camera. Nothing to see. There is nobody there. He holds me against his chest and I take deep breaths, my legs shaking, cheeks flushing as Warren stares at me. My heart is thudding uncomfortably. I can’t keep doing this, living on my nerves, panicking at nothing. Dom continues to stroke my hair and tell me everything is fine, and I know he’s right but I can’t help it, I keep picturing the sight: a face at the window, looking out at me, staring straight into my eyes.
*
I run a bath that evening while Dominic goes to buy dinner for us both. My discarded boots sit by the radiator, their insides stuffed with old newspaper. We always have far too much of it; Dominic keeps his old copies of the Herald stacked up in the hallway.
I sit on the side of the bathtub, my legs cold against the white enamel, and turn the page of a book called Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I’m trying not to think about earlier, the way I panicked at the house. It’s not good for me, these bursts of irrationality. Dom thinks it’s to do with my dad, the shock of his death. He’s said as much too.
I flip the book in my hands over. It has a picture of a serious-looking woman on the back and a photograph of a baby in a pushchair on the inside jacket flap. I have been hiding the book from Dominic since I bought it on Amazon. I’m embarrassed by it, I suppose, because actually I don’t really believe in any of this stuff, never have.
I saw the fertility book in Waterstones the other day and found myself hovering, looking around to see if anyone was watching me research ways to have children the way other people look up hobbies. I picked the book up, started to carry it to the counter, but the woman in the queue looked at me sympathetically when she saw what I was holding. I left the shop in a hurry, cheeks flaming, unable to bear her pity, but that night I found myself on the computer with my purse open beside me, typing in my bank security details and our address.
I have forgotten that I am running a bath until I feel the ends of my dressing gown getting wet against my skin. The water has reached the rim of the tub and is threatening to overflow. Swearing, I reach for the tap and turn it off, plunging my hand down into the wet heat to release the plug. The book falls from my lap onto the floor, landing with a dull thud.
Once the bath water has resigned itself to an acceptable level, I undress, my dressing gown pooling on the floor. My stomach is flat, white. I imagine it stretched out in front of me, like Ashley’s was with Holly, and the hairs on my body stand up against the cold air, only relaxing as I slide into the hot water. I put my shoulders back against the enamel, feel the points of my shoulder blades flinch at the sensation. I lean down to pick up the book. I should be more open-minded. Perhaps it will work. After all, I am fast running out of options.
Around me, the water goes cold but I stay in the bath, letting my body relax. I used to have baths when I was a little girl, I’ve always preferred them to showers. Images of Carlington House keep surfacing in my mind; the way I screamed, the darkness of the windows. I need to get a grip. I’ve always been a bit like this. When I was a little girl, I was always thinking I saw faces, ghosts in the dark. There was never anyone there. Dad used to say I had an overactive imagination. ‘Seeing the spooks again, Corinne?’ He’d laugh, ruffle my hair. He thought it was funny, but actually it made me feel scared. Still. I’m an adult now, I ought to know better.
My mobile rings twice, a sharp trill followed by a thudding vibration that echoes through the silent flat, but I don’t want to get out of the water just yet. It’s probably my sister. As the sound of the phone begins again, I give up and sink my head under the water, enjoying the cold rush enveloping me, my hair floating up and around me like a dark halo.
The next thing I know, Dominic is shouting, his hands are underneath my armpits, slipping and sliding, and there is water splashing everywhere. The bath mat is bristly under my feet and the towel as he rubs it over me is rough. My teeth are chattering and my fingertips are prune-like. He has pulled the plug and the water is draining out, forming rivulets around the sides of the sodden paperback lying on the floor of the tub.
‘Jesus Christ, Corinne,’ Dominic says, and his voice is shaky.
I blink, focus on his hands as they wrap my dressing gown around me. I can’t quite work out why he’s so worked up. Did I close my eyes in the bath?
Dominic is still staring at me, shaking his head from side to side. There is a funny gasping sound that I realise is coming from me. I need to think of something to say.
‘Did you pick up the dinner?’
13 January 2017
London
Ashley
Ashley shifts her daughter from one hip to the other so that she can bend to pick up the mail on the doormat. Holly lets out a cry, a short, sharp sound followed by a wail that makes the muscles in Ashley’s shoulders clench. Every bone in her body is aching. Her hands clasp Holly’s warm body to her own; her daughter’s soft, downy hair brushes against her chest and she feels the familiar aching thud in her breasts. Please, not now.
She feels exhausted; even on days when she’s not at the café it’s as though she’s on a never-ending treadmill of nappies and tantrums, homework and school runs. It’s not as if James is around to help her; her husband has been staying at the office later and later, leaving early each morning before the children are even out of bed. He is pulling the sheets back usually around the time that Ashley is starting to drift off to sleep, having spent the night rocking Holly, trying to calm her red little body as she screams. She has never known anything like it; her third child is by far the most unsettled of the three. It has been nine months and still Holly refuses to sleep through the night; if anything she is getting worse. Ashley doesn’t think it’s normal. James stopped waking up at around the four-month mark, has been sleeping lately as though he is dead to the world. She doesn’t know how he manages it.
Ashley had woken yesterday to find his side of the bed empty and the sound of the tap running in