Page 36 of We Live Here Now

35

Emily

I lean over the sink to spit as I brush my teeth, exhausted. Yesterday was a quiet day, Freddie working from home, and I thought I’d sleep better, but I managed only a few hours’ sleep, and they were filled with awful dreams of Freddie standing in the study holding a dead baby covered in blood and looking at me with such horror, moaning, There was a cuckoo in my nest , as books hung in the air around him. When I turned to run, I was back on the ridge on the hike, with Freddie telling me to go faster, and then in my dream I felt his hand on my back and I was falling all over again.

In the humidity of the bathroom, full of steam after my too-hot shower, I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus, and we’ve got lunch with Sally and Joe today. I swear I never felt this bad in the hospital. I splash cold water on my face. It didn’t help that the bedroom was so hot all night; I must be dehydrated. The only cold thing in the room were Freddie’s feet, ice blocks under the covers. Maybe he needs to see a doctor.

I straighten up, leaning my hands on the sink, and look in the mirror. My reflection is invisible in the steamed-up glass, as if maybe I’m the ghost. Maybe I died back there in the fall and this is all a dream.

You will die here.

Just book titles. Just a coincidence. Just a breeze knocked them out. There’s nothing to find. There was no nail. You cannot trust yourself.

I repeat the sentences over and over until in my tiredness I very nearly believe it. I don’t like this house, whatever, whether it’s my condition or something else. I only went on about how great it was back then because it had just popped up on Rightmove after Freddie and I had been sniping at each other. I didn’t even remember setting an alert for country homes. I didn’t really want to move here. Not really.

God, I wish we were back in London and going for lunch with our old friends. I could turn up in sweatpants and a hoodie with them.

I’m still staring lost in thought at the blurred mirror when a scratching comes from behind it. No, not a scratching. A squeaking. My eyes widen as letters start to spell out in the condensation, writing from the other side. No no no, what now?

The three letters have been written in the wetness, but as if from inside the mirror, each one backward, right to left, not left to right, scrawled by a finger pressing from the other side of the wall behind. The shapes are shaky, as if they’ve taken a huge amount of energy and effort to write, but the letters are clear.

Freddie. Is it trying to spell Freddie? No sooner have I had the thought then another is shakily and slowly scrawled. It’s thinner, as if the effort of communicating has become too great a struggle.

No, not Freddie. Another letter starts, so faint I almost can’t see it at all.

It fades before the bottom of the last stroke, but I know it’s an M. Free me? Surely that’s what was being written before it stopped.

“What’s the matter?”

Freddie’s voice is so unexpected that I gasp and stumble backward, my legs banging into the bath. “You’re white as a sheet.” He’s in the doorway, phone in hand, looking at me, concerned.

“Look.” I grab his arm and drag him in. “Look at the mirror.”

“What am I supposed to be seeing here?”

“The letters.” The words are out before I see what he’s seeing. The letters are gone. Just drips of waters smearing down the glass as the steam cools. My heart sinks and my head spins momentarily. It can’t have vanished. It can’t have. But it has.

“Letters?” His disbelief is clear on his face. Disbelief. Pity. Annoyance.

“I saw something. They looked like letters.” My words are hollow. There’s nothing there. Just like the nail.

“Can you see why I called Dr. Canning?” He wipes the mirror clean with a cloth, both our reflections clear now. “You’re seeing and hearing and smelling stuff that just isn’t happening.”

“It was there.” All I can see now are our reflections staring back. I look like shit. An exhausted, pale mess next to my healthy husband.

“It was steam and your imagination, that’s all.” He looks around, distracted. “But we need to find where that draft is coming from. It’s driving me mad. Why do you keep turning the heating off when it’s so bloody cold?”

“Because it’s baking in here,” I bite back. “And I’m not imagining that—just go and look at the thermostat. It’s about twenty-five degrees everywhere in the house because you keep turning it on and lighting fires. And there isn’t a draft.” I pause. “Maybe you’re imagining it.”

“I’m not.” It’s his turn to be unsettled. “I can feel it around my ankles. It’s like ice.”

“So if you’re feeling something that I’m not, it’s real, but the other way around, I’m having some post-sepsis episode? Maybe the draft is part of whatever weird shit is going on in this house. Something messing with you. Have you thought about that?”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts, Emily.” He goes past me and out into the corridor to head downstairs. “Listen to yourself. I could strangle Iso for playing that prank with the Ouija board.”

“You know a cold draft is how most people feel a presence in an old house, don’t you?” I follow him down, annoyed that my slow pace makes me look weak.

“Old houses have drafts.” He doesn’t slow down but goes straight to the kitchen, angrily pulling out slices of bread for the toaster, not asking me if I want any. In his pocket his phone flashes up through the fabric, vibrating, but he ignores it.

“Some really odd stuff is going on here, Freddie. Look at this.” In the heat of my anger I pull up the photo of the study. “I heard noises and found it like this. The first time there were only four books on the floor. This time, the same four were the only ones left on the shelves amid all this mess. And those four books, look what they spell. You will die here. And you wonder why I’m freaked out?”

I’m so busy talking while shoving my phone under his nose, I don’t see his expression change. There’s a long pause before he eventually looks up from my phone screen. He’s appalled. “Jesus, Emily. When did you do this?”

“I didn’t.” I stare at him. “Of course I didn’t. It was like that and then next time I went in it was all back to normal. Whatever did it, it wasn’t me. Maybe it was your icy draft.”

“I think we need to talk to Dr. Canning about this.”

His phone flashes again through his pocket.

“What are you doing on your phone all the time anyway?”

“Work stuff. A lot of email round-robins. One of us has a job.”

“Wow.” My spine stiffens. “I’m sorry my near-death experience stole my dream promotion. But I’m still getting paid for the year, so what do you care? And on the subject of caring, I don’t care if you believe me or not. I saw those letters in the mirror.”

“Just like you saw the nail in the floorboard?”

His words ooze casual venom, and we stare at each other like enemies across battle lines. We might as well be strangers. I get so hot in my anger it feels like every drop of blood is boiling metal in my veins. Looking at Freddie, I’d say that he’s feeling exactly the same. He opens his mouth to say something and I know it’s going to be awful, that it will end us, but just then the doorbell goes, startling us both, and suddenly the rage vanishes as quickly as it had come. The heat floods from me as I look back toward the front door.

“Oh god. The vicar’s cleaning lady. I forgot.”

I hurry as best I can to answer it, and when I glance back Freddie’s looking down, confused, at his toast, as if his anger has also left so suddenly he’s feeling hollow and unsteady.

Something’s up with him, and it’s not me and whatever post-sepsis thing is or isn’t going on. Just as I pull open the door, I’m sure I see his phone flashing bright again, and it must be buzzing because his face darkens. My stomach tightens. Maybe there’s trouble at work.

“You must be Emily. I’m Mrs. Tucker.” I stare at the tiny old woman on the doorstep carrying a bag of cleaning products and wearing a housecoat like something out of a 1970s sitcom rerun. “The cleaner? The vicar sent me.”

“Sorry. Of course. Please, come in.” I step back to let her in. She’s far older than I was expecting, and I feel bad thinking of her mopping and scrubbing after us. What was Paul thinking hiring someone so ancient ?

“I didn’t know what you had so I brought my own things, if that’s all right?”

“That’s great.”

“Would you like a cup of tea before you start?” Freddie’s in the kitchen doorway, all charm and light as if we hadn’t been snarling at each other moments ago. “I’m Freddie. Emily’s husband.”

She nods, birdlike, as she puts down her bag. “Good to meet you. And that would be grand. I’ll drink it as I work. Milk and two sugars.” When she smiles, her tiny teeth are stained from what must be years of smoking. Her hair is still dark, with streaks of silver, and it’s pulled back in a tight bun. “I won’t get in your way.”

“We’re going out for lunch in a bit, so you’ll have the run of the place.” I wonder if she’ll find it , whatever it is.

“Don’t worry about the top floor,” Freddie says, sorting a mug out for her. “We’re not using it yet.”

My heart sinks. I’ll have to try harder to find it myself. I need to prove my sanity to myself, let alone to Freddie.