‘Sell it?’ She spoke without thinking; the words jumped out of her mouth.
‘I know. But after what happened . . .’ The light seemed to fade from his eyes, as if he’d just remembered. ‘Neither of us can imagine living here again, Mum and I. Every time we looked at the garden, we’d just . . .’
‘No, of course.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry, it was just the shock – I hadn’t thought. And I couldn’t imagine this place without you all here.’ As soon as she’d said it, she wanted to kick herself again but Adam nodded.
‘Exactly.’
—
His presence, brief as it was, made the house feel less alien, and when he’d gone, she stayed in the sitting room and watched TV. She was too unsettled to read. She considered going for a walk to try to burn off some of the nervous energy but she didn’t want to come back into the empty house. Even at six, she’d spun around twice on Norham Road thinking someone was behind her.
She was starting to develop a siege mentality about the house, she recognised, as if as soon as the sun went down, a ring of darkness pulled around it, filled with threats. She’d never liked being alone at night. As a teenager, she used to sit up until the small hours when her father was travelling, her body tensing at every sound outside. Several times over the years she’d stood at the back door, knuckles white on the carving knife as she waited for the handle to turn from the other side. She’d gone to school exhausted. She’d be able to cope with that house now but Fyfield Road was different.
There was no blind at the window over the sink and at the end of the evening, she kept her eyes down as she washed up the dinner things. Reaching to turn off the tap, however, she caught her own eye in the reflection and thought about Cory at the wake.
I see you, his stare had seemed to say. I see you and I am not afraid to look.
She turned quickly, hair lifting off her shoulders, and as she did, she saw a movement on the other side of the glass. She went cold.
Giving herself no time to hesitate, she grabbed the key from the ladybird dish and rammed it into the hole. In a single fluid move, she unlocked the door, kicked it open and sprung out on to the patio.
Nothing. The patio was empty. She scanned the rest of the garden as far as it was visible – surely as far as anyone could have moved in the time – but no one was there. The bare branches of the birch trees rattled in the breeze, an ironic round of applause. She’d seen something blown on the wind, that was all, perhaps just the dead leaves that even now were whirling around her feet.
Fourteen
Summertown was the northernmost part of Oxford, the last airy streets before the bypass and then fields and villages, Woodstock, the Cotswolds. Beyond a certain point on the Banbury Road, there were few, if any, faculty buildings or university offices. The city’s professionals lived here, doctors and lawyers, the more financially successful of the dons, sending their children to its clutch of over-achieving schools – Oxford High, Cherwell, St Edward’s and St Helena’s.
Resolutely middle-class, then, always, but since she’d last been back, the flavour of the place had changed. The Oxfam shop still held out, along with the Blue Cross and the independent bookshop, but Farrow & Ball had muscled in, and JoJo Maman Bébé. Bang & Olufsen was round the corner on South Parade. The video shop, the family-run Italian and the bakery where they used to buy sandwiches were gone and instead there were estate agents. How many, for God’s sake? Hamptons, John D Wood, Savills, Chancellors, Knight Frank – by the end of the little parade she wanted to laugh.
She stopped to look in the window of Strutt & Parker. The prices were dizzying: two and a half million, three and a quarter. Her eyes found a house very like the Glasses’ on Bradmore Road, the street that ran parallel to Fyfield. Like theirs, it had six bedrooms but the garden was smaller and a note said it needed updating, agent-speak for a total gut-job. The price was still four million pounds.
We’re going to sell. Did Adam and Jacqueline own it together, then? Had Marianne owned a third? What if she’d been in the way, living there, while Adam had needed the money? The madness of the idea: Adam – hey, why not her mother? – bumping Mazz off to realise some cash.
She’d brought Jacqueline’s African basket with her, planning to go to the Co-op, but in a what-the-hell frame of mind all of a sudden, she went to Marks & Spencer instead. She wanted that version of life today, easy and comfortable, no cutting corners, getting by. Under the bright lights, in front of fridges stocked with expensive pre-prepared meals, the phantoms of the small hours disappeared, vampires turned to ashes by the sun.