‘Water.’ For a moment, I don’t remember what water is. Oh, wait. It comes out of a tap.
I walk towards the kitchen, my eyes trained on the floor, checking for traces of the horror that had unfolded here barely half an hour ago.
‘Your place is big and bright,’ Teri says. ‘Mine is like a cave.’
‘Yes, it would have been two or three rooms here once, but the previous owners took those walls down and made it all open,’ I say on autopilot, astonished I managed to string an entire sentence together.
‘I love that! And I love the carpets. And this!’ She looks up at the skylight. ‘Did you put this extension in?’
‘No. We’ve only been here a couple of months. The previous owner did the renovation.’ Didn’t I just say that?
I fill up her glass from the water dispenser tucked in the fridge door. Again, my hand is shaking but she doesn’t seem to notice. If she asks, I’ll say I’ve recently quit drinking.
She goes to stand in front of the French doors, gazing at the garden. ‘I don’t have a garden. Just a big slab of concrete.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Oh? You’ve seen it?’
‘You can see it from upstairs.’
‘Of course! I’ll have it all dug up, eventually. Once I get the money. I have to find a job first.’
‘All right. Let me find that screwdriver for you,’ I say.
‘I was an office administrator for a law firm in London,’ she says.
Now I’m wondering,did I just ask her what she did for a living?
‘I’m not sure I’ll find that kind of work here,’ she continues. ‘And probably not at that pay level, but I’ll do anything, receptionist, whatever.’
She has to leave. I can’t have this person who talks so much in my house right now.
‘You wouldn’t know of anyone looking for a receptionist, would you?’
‘Have you enquired at the Research Park?’ I say, rifling through a kitchen drawer. ‘What kind of screwdriver were you after?’
‘Is that where your husband works?’
‘What? Yes.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He’s a partner at a management consultancy.’
‘Oh? Which one?’
I’m going to faint. I can already see little black dots dancing at the edge of my vision. ‘Sterling and Wicks.’
‘Ah, yes. I’ve heard of them. I will definitely check out the Research Park. Thanks for the tip!’
‘What kind of a screwdriver?’ I ask again, my vision blurry. Everything in the drawer suddenly looks foreign to me. Batteries, rubber bands, half-burned birthday candles. Did I really bring all this junk with us from London? ‘A normal flat one? Or one with the little cross?’
‘What a beautiful family,’ she says.
I look up, startled. Am I actually speaking out loud? Or only in my head? Because we definitely don’t seem to be having the same conversation.
‘Erm, thank you.’
