‘Right.’
‘So either we call someone now, or you investigate what’s up there, or we get the hell out of here and sleep in the car.’
‘In the car! It’s a Nissan Micra!’
‘He was hit on the nose, Lily. On the nose. With a teacup.’
‘Right.’ Lily knew better than to challenge Emily on zero sleep, a shed load of alcohol and what seemed to be the beginning of a nervous breakdown. Instead, the quickest route back to her much-needed rest seemed to be for her to poke her head through the hatch in the attic, confirm that they had mice or rats or birds or something else non paranormal, and put her friend’s mind at rest.
Not that the idea of sticking her actual head into a room full of rodents appealed in any sense. She’d watched enough I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! to know that rats, mice and other vermin had no qualms when it came to clambering over faces, or putting little claws into entry-points.
But her need to sleep seemed to override everything else. As she wearily pulled on her dressing gown she was reminded of nights with a younger version of Ty when she’d have to chase moths out of the window, or deal with a wayward wasp. The need to actually get her body back into bed overrode any fear she had herself.
It was similar now. Deal with the problem, back to bed. If a rat decided to perch on her head, so be it.
The main problem was the lack of furniture. She certainly didn’t have a ladder, and although there might be one inside the hatch of the loft, she had no way of getting to it without a chair to balance on or a pole to knock it open. Eventually, they dragged the end of the ancient (and probably haunted) iron bedstead out of the spare room, turning it on its side to fit through the doorway, and half wedged it on the landing. ‘That’ll be fine,’ Emily said. ‘You can use the struts as a kind of ladder! And you’ve got a torch on your phone, right?
‘I take it you’re not going to climb up and investigate?’
‘Er, no. I’ll one hundred per cent support you though,’ Emily said, giving her a thumbs up and sheepish grin combination.
‘Thought as much. Well, if I get murdered by a poltergeist, or eaten by some sort of giant rat, it’s entirely your fault.’
‘Agreed.’
Sighing, Lily clambered up the wobbling bedstead, pushed open the hatch, cautiously, and shone the torch light from her phone into the interior of the attic. The scrabbling stopped.
Raising her head into the gloom, she moved the light around and was suddenly met with a tiny pair of round black eyes. The animal froze in terror, then performed a sudden leap to the left, whisking what looked like an enormous feather duster behind it. Then all at once, it was as if the movement had provoked some sort of rodent riot, as several other small animals began darting around, their shadows looming large in the light from the torch. The tiny animals jumped and scratched and skittered and panicked around, and a fluffy tail whipped the side of Lily’s ear as one creature passed.
As the soft hair of the tail touched her, Lily let out a cry that was somewhere between a shout and a scream and drew her head sharply back through the opening, banging it for good measure and letting the wooden hatch fall back into place. The sudden movement caused the bedstead below her to wobble and she slipped and fell heavily onto the floor at Emily’s feet.
15
It was impossible to sleep.
Nothing was broken, they were fairly sure, but Lily ached from head to toe.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Emily had said. ‘I should have climbed up the fucking bedstead.’
‘No,’ Lily had replied. ‘Neither of us should have.’ Their eyes met briefly and they’d exchanged a smile. ‘But no harm done,’ she’d lied.
‘Today’s disaster is tomorrow’s brilliant anecdote,’ her friend had added, giving her a squeeze. ‘You’ll be dining out on this one for years.’
‘Well, in that case, thank you for your help.’ Lily had replied.
Then, after Emily had helped her back onto the unforgiving mattress, she’d disappeared to her room leaving Lily aching in the dark. The noise of rodents overhead seemed twenty times louder than it had before, and she pictured them, scurrying, their enormous tails flicking behind them; their black, beady eyes shining in the slivers of moonlight that shot in between the tiles.
Eventually, she fell into a light doze, but awoke each time she tried to turn. By seven, she gave up any hope of proper sleep. Instead, she dragged herself up from the floor, slipped on her dressing gown and went to wake Emily, who’d apparently now found the ability to sleep no matter how many poltergeists or rats were making merry above her head. Lily gave her prone figure a poke with her slippered foot.
‘Eh?’ Emily said, blinking blearily.
‘Come on,’ Lily replied. ‘We’re getting out of here.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Just after seven, but I’ve been up since, well, you know.’
‘Ouch, how are you feeling?’ Emily grimaced.
‘I’ve been better.’
‘I feel completely responsible.’
‘Good!’ Lily said, with a wry smile. ‘You are! But… look, it doesn’t matter. I’ve decided: why don’t we spend a couple of nights on a decent bed, and get someone to deal with the squirrel things before we come back? Might see if I can’t pick up a couple of proper mattresses before we do too – those air things are bad enough when you haven’t fallen from height, but believe me when your body is one big bruise, they are seriously uncomfortable.’
‘Again, really sorry,’ said Emily, patting Lily’s leg from her prone position. ‘But decent beds? Sounds lovely. Where were you thinking? There was a hotel I saw in Eymoutiers when we drove through that looked relatively habitable…’
‘I thought we’d go to La Petite Maison.’
‘Of course! Chloé’s place. Do you think she’ll have rooms?’
‘Hopefully.’
Leaving her friend to gather an overnight bag and stick on some clothes, Lily went down to the kitchen and filled the kettle. Then she drew out her mobile phone and, after checking the time – half past seven: Chloé served breakfast from seven, so surely it was OK to call? – she went to dial Chloé’s number.
Before she did, she noticed a missed call from late last night. It was from her old home number and the sight of it there, still displaying as ‘Home’ on her screen, made her heart flip. She clicked quickly on the icon for her answerphone and listened as the automated voice told her she had one new message. Then she heard Ben’s voice: ‘Look, Lily. I need to ask you one more time. Please come back home. I know you have this dream or whatever, but what you’re doing is crazy. We can buy a holiday place, maybe? Or travel a bit more if you like – to all sorts of places. But you need to come home. I miss you. Tyler misses you. Surely that should mean something?’
Lily felt her eyes fill, first with tears of guilt and worry, then with anger. Had her husband just called her crazy and suggested she didn’t love her son, or him? Could he literally not see things from her perspective? All those promises; years of dreams, shattered.
She’d spoken to Ty yesterday evening and he’d seemed fairly upbeat. He’d finally sorted his accommodation for uni and had opened a student bank account. If anything, not having his mum constantly looking over his shoulder would be a chance for him to stand on his own two feet – he was, after all, an adult now. She’d told him she missed him, and he’d said ‘you too’ but it had sounded simply affectionate rather than desperate. Meaning Ben had just used their son as a pawn in his guilt-inducing game.
Then she looked at the time of the message. One o’clock in the morning. It wasn’t like Ben to stay up late and she felt a sudden pang for everything she was putting him through. Perhaps he hadn’t been thinking straight, she told herself.
She decided to try to put it out of her mind and called Chloé, who confirmed that she still had one room available that she and Emily could share. Lily wondered what it might be like sharing a bed with her oldest friend. The last time they’d done it was aged twelve at a sleepover, when Emily had been all kicking legs and sleep-talking, had stolen the duvet and woken her up at 3 a.m. because she thought she might have seen a spider.
Hopefully, at least some of her behaviour had been caused by teenage hormones and too many midnight snacks. If not, she was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
After several coffees and the dry end of a French loaf, she called Frédérique.
‘Oui ’ello?’
‘Frédérique? It’s Lily.’
‘Ah, Madame Buttercup! Comment ?a va?’
‘Oui, ?a va bien merci, et vous?’
‘Tutoie-moi.’
‘Sorry, what?’
‘Tutoie-moi, we are friends, no? You can say tu, not vous.’
‘Oh.’ For god’s sake, was this really the moment for a grammar lesson? ‘OK, well, in that case tu as un problème.’