Page 57 of We Live Here Now

56

Emily

Mrs. Tucker comes about half an hour after my call with Mark ends, by which time I’m a little vague on why I went for blackmail rather than telling Iso. My head thumps nauseatingly hard when I think about it. Blackmail. I go up to the bedroom and take a couple of pills, needing a lie-down. I’m a blackmailer. The word makes me feel queasy and unpleasant. It’s like the very worst of me came out for that call, but I can hardly ring Mark back and say I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to change my mind. I hate financial insecurity and this will save us. I don’t want to be that person, but neither do I want to be drowning in debt and possibly a homeless single mother.

The sound of vacuuming downstairs soothes my head as I close my eyes and rest, and by the time the cleaner makes it up to the middle landing the sickening pain has thankfully eased. The bedroom door’s open and I hear her cleaning the bathroom, humming to herself, before she runs a mop over the wooden floor and then checks the spare bedrooms, and I figure it’s probably time I got up and made us both a cup of tea. In my socks I pad out to the hall to find her staring up at the third floor, eyes slightly glazed, as if she’s looking at something that isn’t there. My heart skips a beat. Is she feeling something odd up there too?

“Are you okay, Mrs. Tucker?”

She startles slightly and then lets out a small laugh. “Was lost in the past for a moment. That’s all. A rush of almost forgotten memories. Funny how that happens. The smell of the wood did it.”

“The past?”

“Oh, you see, my father was the gardener here when I was small,” she says, taking another glance up at the third floor. “When it was Fortuna Carmichael’s place. I spent a lot of time playing here. I’d almost forgotten all about it. The strangest thing happened to me here.”

“Oh really?” My heart flutters hard like raven wings against a chimney. “I was going to make us both a cup of tea. I’ve got some carrot cake too. I’d love to hear about it. And upstairs doesn’t need any work anyway.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” She picks up her bag of cleaning products and hurries toward me, smiling. Is she wary of going up to the third floor too?

She waits until we’re at the kitchen table, mugs of tea in hand, before she starts to talk. “Like I said, it was the strangest thing. Must have been a dream, but it was so vivid.”

“What happened?”

“When Fortuna had the place, there was a cupboard up on that top floor. Might still be there, in fact. It looks like a radiator cover, but there’s a storage space behind it. Carved holes in the wood, that kind of thing. They kept their luggage in there; it was my favorite hiding place when I was little. I’d make a den and pretend I was on a pirate ship or in a fairy castle. The usual thing. Anyway, Fortuna used that suite at the top as her creative space. It was where she’d drink and make her outrageous clothes and play music and, to be honest, do all the things that made me think she was utterly exquisite. I was in awe of her. And her husband, to be fair. Gerald, his name was. He was injured in the war so walked with a limp, but he was pure Clark Gable. We didn’t have people like them living here. They were so different. And they had one of those passionate relationships you think you want until you’re in one. All fire and ice. A lot of fights. A lot of making up. To a child, it was all so glamorous.”

I listen, rapt, drawn as much by the mention of the top-floor room as by Fortuna Carmichael’s excesses.

“People would forget I was playing, and from the cupboard I could listen to Fortuna’s music and wonder what it must be like to be someone so unusual.”

“So what happened?” I ask.

“It was a very hot summer and it got stuffy in there. I dozed off and I must have had one hell of a dream because I was sure that when I woke up there was a racket going on—a fight—and then through the gaps in the wood I saw Gerald fall on the floor. I could see his face through the carved holes in the cupboard door, and I was sure he was dead. His eyes had emptied. Then I saw her drag him into her third-floor suite. I could hear her panting and everything.”

“Gerald died of cancer, though, didn’t he?” I interrupt, confused. “I saw his grave in the churchyard.”

“Exactly.” She shrugs. “It must have been a dream. It felt so real though that I snuck out of the cupboard and ran all the way home. When I went back the next day, I was terrified to be inside the house with her, but then there was Gerald, right in front of me, coming down from upstairs, hale and hearty and off for lunch with friends.” She lets out a laugh. “No word of a lie, I was six years old and I almost wet myself right in front of him.”

“But what an odd dream.”

She picks up her slice of cake and bites into it and I make an attempt to do the same but my stomach is unsettled again. What is it with this house and that upstairs room? Mrs. Tucker had that strange experience, and I’ve heard all that oddness. It can’t just be coincidence. She carries on chattering and I half pay attention but she’s not talking about the house anymore and I’m still thinking about it. It must have been a dream or a child’s imagination, but still, it’s odd.

I see her off and then my phone pings with a text from Mark. I’ve started the process. Will need some personal details for the account. I’m emailing you a form.

When that money comes in, with or without Freddie, I’m getting out of this house. A fresh start. I try to imagine starting anew without Freddie. A part of me, maybe the same part that’s capable of blackmail, is thinking, Screw him. He deserves to be left in the shit. But a larger part, the me of me, knows I can’t leave him. I’ve been with Freddie for my whole adult life. I’m used to him. I love him. Most of him. I’m sure I do, and I’ve done some shitty stuff too.

Soon we’ll be putting the house up for sale and moving on. It can be someone else’s problem. I go upstairs and write what Mrs. Tucker has told me into the notebook, just to get it out of my head, before putting it away and making sure it’s firmly shut from any prying eyes. I need to stop keeping the record if I’m really putting the top floor out of my head. I lie back on the bed, finally calmer, and doze and daydream about a life away from here as the rain comes down harder outside.

Thankfully, the house stays quiet.