He turns his head slowly back to the green button as if it had spoken. “Have you tried it?” he asks Maria, gesturing to its green glow.
“No way,” Maria answers. “I haven’t even been inside the room. To tell you the truth, I thought the door might lock behind you, and trap you, as soon as you walked in.” She smiles, hoping he might place her honesty in higher esteem than her blatant disregard for his safety. “But that didn’t happen,” she reminds him. “And to be honest, I think I’ve just been freaking myself out about it.”
The man weighs her words, then his posture softens. “Yeah, it’s just a room,” he says, as much to himself as to her. And with a sudden reassurance and confidence that the world is ultimately a known quantity, he lifts his hand and pushes the green button.
CHAPTER 7
NINA
T he house finally comes into view as we reach the midpoint of the steep stone steps. Anderssen’s Opening. “This was all just headland before the house was erected. The house’s private beach was only accessible from the sea but they carved a staircase into the rock, just like this one, so it can be reached from the house,” James huffs back to me as we climb, one arm stretching down in the direction of the sea far below us.
“They cut into the rock?” I ask and watch the back of James’s head nod.
He catches his breath and continues. “Yes, the whole property structure is grafted into the rock. As far as I can see from the planning permits, a geological survey was done by a British company. There’s a cave system under us, so the lower level of the property might not have required much excavation given the existing spaces. But I can send you the original subsurface geomatic findings if you’re interested.” He pauses, momentarily, turning back to me with an amused smile. “If you’re concerned it might all fall into the sea in the night, be assured that your father oversaw construction.”
The least of my concerns is anything my father built falling into the sea.
“He was here, though? During construction?” I ask a little too fast off the back of James’s last comment, forcing him to snatch another hastily labored breath before answering.
“Perhaps not for the entirety of the project, but yes, he would have needed to sign off the individual stages of construction in person.”
I let that sink in. James reapplies himself to the steep staircase, and we continue our ascent.
The gardens pool out around us as we ascend, tightly grouped split levels of manicured tropical plant life, bright florid flowering monsters vying for space with spiky hardier vegetation accompanying us on our climb. James huffs on ahead as I note the blooms, looking for signs from him, signs of him.
“Two hundred and thirty steps up to the property from the gatehouse,” James says, chuckling, then splutters a cough as his breath catches. “I imagine deliveries were problematic,” he continues, breathless. “If I recall correctly, there are even more down to the beach, but the view is truly breathtaking there—so the time passes quicker.” In the heat I am finding this hard and I am ten years James’s junior, and a regular runner. “Not far now,” he sighs, head dipped with exertion, and that is when I catch sight of it above us.
The clean glass and steel of it bobs into view overhead, each step up revealing centimeters, meters of it to me. It is not a sprawling millionaire’s mansion but a tightly contained series of glass boxes: modern, minimal, and perfectly formed. It is by no means big but I know its size is deceptive, seemingly a bungalow from our approaching angle. I have to remind myself of what James has told me, that the building goes down also, into the rock, with rooms looking directly out of the sheer cliff face below us.
We reach the top and James gives an expansive grunt. “Here she is. Three thousand square feet of prime real estate built into the rock of the British Virgin Islands. And she’s all yours.”
All mine.
The edges of the glass-and-steel building glint and glimmer in the sunlight. Blue sky and passing clouds reflect from its immaculate surface.
Everything about this house is diametrically opposed to my father’s townhouse back in London—its dim rooms, restrained pomp, original moldings. And yet I see as plain as day that the house in front of me is entirely my father. The clarity of the lines, the purpose, the simplicity and synergy with the natural world around it. An emotion I had not anticipated shifts deep inside me: loss, profound loss. I feel my eyes fill and I quickly tear them from the building.
At the summit, James has collapsed into a sympathetically placed bench at the crest of the stone staircase and is invested in checking his phone while he recovers his breath—and dignity. I move past him, tacitly acknowledging that, perhaps, we both need a moment.
I head along the terrace that wraps around the entire property, my need overtaking me, then I stop dead in my tracks as the front, or rather the back, of the property reveals itself.
The terrace drops to three separate levels. On one, the gleaming blue-green of an immaculate infinity pool, around it thickly cushioned loungers. As if pulled by the tide, my eyes flow across the sweep of the architecture, everything positioned perfectly to direct the eye to the view: the vast expanse of the calm, crystal-clear Caribbean Sea that stretches out beneath, beyond, and around us.
My gaze finds the beach steps James mentioned and I follow their line down the cliff face, through the palms, to a small cove. Down there, my beach: through the foliage, I see the outline of loungers, a hammock, and pink-white sand.
Maybe he built this house for me. I let my thoughts roll and revel for a moment before shaking myself back to reality. He did not build this house for me; it was finished long ago and I was never made aware of it. My eyes prickle again, because I am tired, and I miss him, and I want to lie down.
I hear James rise behind me and I pull myself together. There will be time to cry and sleep later.
James draws level with me and takes in the view too. “I’ve seen a lot of properties on the islands but this is up there. Beautiful. Not the highest price tag, obviously, and certainly not the most ostentatious. But efficient luxury, as they say. Perfectly made. Everything you need. No more, no less.”
He points down to the next terrace level, and I see the large glass windows built into the rock face, and through them, into the indoor pool glowing like a jewel in the dimness of the lower level. “If it rains,” he says with a smile.
He indicates for us to head back to the entrance with a grand gesture. “Shall we?”
—
INSIDE THE HOUSE THE TEMPERATURE drops, pleasingly. “Fully integrated air-conditioning throughout. Integrated speakers, entertainment systems, lighting. A smart system with voice activation for pretty much everything. There’s no phone signal inside the property due to the concrete, so the integration is a practical choice rather than a flourish.
