Page 20 of We Live Here Now

19

Emily

“This is such a beautiful house.” Russell’s ready to leave first, always the most organized. While he waits for Cat to finish getting her stuff together, I stand with him on the drive by the front door, drinking coffee. The air is crisp and cold but clean and the sun is bright.

“And you have all that right here on your doorstep. Unbelievable.”

“I don’t miss the bus fumes, that’s for sure.” The moor does look wonderful in a barren, austere kind of way, craggy outcrops and wild land littered with hardy shrubs built to survive.

“I saw a massive raven on the wall this morning,” he continues. “Through the window on the top floor. When I went upstairs to have a proper look around. The views from there are incredible. And that main room is as big as our flat. It’s gorgeous.”

He obviously didn’t feel anything horrible up there. It must have been my imagination.

“And,” he goes on, “if me and Cat don’t stop sniping, then maybe I’ll rent it from you.”

“You guys are okay though, right?” We turn our backs to the front door and take a couple of steps from the house. “Is this what all the ‘people change’ stuff was about last night?”

“I don’t know.” He stares out over the moors but isn’t really looking at them as he pushes his glasses up on his nose. “I’m irritating her, I think. She’s definitely irritating me.”

“Everyone irritates their partners. Look at Iso and Mark. Always fighting but they adore each other. That’s marriage.”

“I used to love that she was religious. Weird, I know, because I can’t buy into it, but I loved that she had that level of ability to have faith. Now I find it’s her excuse to be holier-than-thou. I guess familiarity breeds contempt.”

“Maybe that’s where being forgiving comes in. Nobody’s perfect, whatever illusion they create at the start.”

“You and Freddie are always happy.”

“No one’s always happy.” I stare at the ground as a gust of chilly wind whips around us. “And there are plenty of things about Freddie I used to find charming but now just annoy the shit out of me so much I could happily strangle him. But marriage is teamwork, and so I ignore them. And you and Cat are a great team.” I squeeze his arm. “And you will be fine.”

“Yeah.” He stands taller and grins at me. “Thanks. Oh, and well done on the Ouija board last night. You and Iso made it seem so real. Totally creeped us all out. You planned it, right? That Find it over and over. Inspired. Find what?”

“I don’t know.” It’s my turn to look over the moors so he can’t see my discomfort. There’s no point in denying it again because he won’t believe me, so I lie. “Just came to me.” My unease is back. We hadn’t planned it. And if it wasn’t Iso, why would I have moved the planchette to spell that? Such a random thing to say and yet so urgent. “I’ll stay up later next time you visit,” I say to change the subject. “I was so knackered.”

“You didn’t miss anything. The rest of us weren’t long after you.”

“Oh, I thought you’d carried on for a while.” I’m slightly confused. Freddie wasn’t in bed until late, and if the two people I heard weren’t on their way to bed, then who was talking so quietly on the landing? Bumped into each other going to the bathroom maybe?

When they’ve piled into their cars and left us alone in the quiet of the countryside, I go up to bed for an hour and find that Iso has left a beautiful Moleskine notebook by the bed with a note. I thought you’d maybe like to diarize your new life! You always kept one at uni! It gives me a rush of joy as I relish the feel of the expensive paper inside. There’s a pen there too—a Montblanc—and the thoughtfulness of it gives me a rush of sudden warmth toward her. I open it to the back and write in small, careful letters, Find it , before putting it in my bedside drawer and lying down on the soft mattress.