I thought again about how effortlessly she’d held everyone’s attention in The Curtyard. Her hair. Her clothes. Her confidence. It seemed to come to her so…
Naturally.
I halted in the middle of the road. The sparrows in the hedgerow stopped their bickering. The breeze died and silence descended as the realisation hit me.
All those different people I’d imagined myself being. The stoic gardener. The talkative librarian. The magical florist. It was the same thing I’d always done. The new outfit for my first day at work. All the different ways I’d tried to engage my colleagues at the pub. How I’d tried to impress the director with my work. All the false smiles.
I’d moved here to become a better person, but I’ve spent my life trying to be better.
And it never worked.
So why did I think things would be any different this time?
My whole plan for this escape into the countryside, my new life, my new me, it was doomed from the start.
CHAPTER 26
I returned to the overgrown, gravel path leading up to the Sgàthan Sìth cottages and tramped up the hill to my house. I put my key in the door—my door this time, very much my door with its new lock and strange scratches down the front—and returned to the darkness within.
I stood alone in the living room. My living room. Though it didn’t feel like much living was done here. There was no warmth. Not even literally at that moment, as the fire in the boiler had died. There was nothing that said ‘home’. Just layers of shadows and not much else. Oh, and a rug that didn’t fit it. I turned on the light. The bare bulb illuminated the wooden floor in blue light. Not the golden hues I remembered growing up, when everything was coloured in terracotta and sunshine yellows. There was a cold greyness to it all, like how I imagined skin looked after the heart stops pumping. Pallid. They say the kitchen is the heart of the home. Does that still count when your kitchen isn’t much more than a fridge, a hob and a few cupboards? I guessed not. This place was heartless. Bloodless. Nothing to bleed. Everything I’d wanted. It should be perfect.
Down in the basement I set the boiler going with more wood, then I headed back up to the kitchen to make dinner.
As I heated up some beans on the stove, I turned my head to the wall I shared with next door.
I wondered again what the inside of 1a looked like. My earlier idea of neat doilies or dusty newspaper piles was replaced by a warm fireplace, tartan cushions, a nice rug. One that’s the right size for her living room, of course. She’d have a handknit blanket across the couch. The sofa would be second-hand, but expertly chosen. Warm wood legs and plush velvet cover. Upcycled, perhaps. A carved, wooden room divider would lazily separate the space between the kitchen and the living room. Her kitchen would have more than a fridge, a hob and a cupboard. There’d be a tidy range cooker. Copper pans hanging from the ceiling. A kitchen island. Lord knows how she managed to fit a kitchen island into such a tiny room, but she’d manage it. Herbs growing on the windowsill. A suncatcher hanging from the ironwork latch. No white PVC for her.
I ate the beans at the hob, dipping slices of sandwich bread into the saucepan to soak up the sauce.
Next door, she would dine, back through in the lounge, on a beautiful round table. Wood again, of course, on a single polished pedestal. Just like the one I’ve always wanted. With a chess board. No, a handblown vase, ribbons of coloured glass, holding pink peonies and only pink peonies. Shelves up the side of the fireplace would hold a few books, some boardgames, perhaps a wooden box of trinkets, or scented candles or wax melts. The wax melter, or whatever it’s called, would be on the tiled fireplace, lit and smelling wonderful. Not that garish cookie scent or fake washed linen smell, but something gently perfumed. Baltic amber in winter. Jasmine in spring. Maybe something retro like sunflower in the summer. There’d be pictures on the walls. Photos. Candid photos. Of all her friends and family. In tasteful frames with that white card thingy that went around the border to make them look classy. She’d probably need to change the photos out regularly, to make room for new ones. She would stare and tut and rest her chin on her palm and puzzle out how she could possibly fit more on the wall.
I thought of the old man and Dolly the Sheep. And Dolly’s donor. Did Dolly’s donor even have a name? I imagined her seeing herself in that cloned ewe, feeling envious of the attention, the care, the food Dolly got. This younger and more special sheep that looked just like her. Maybe she wondered what Dolly was doing that she didn’t.
Maybe she was secretly glad when Dolly died.
I shuddered and broke out of my imaginings. Goose pimples ran along the topography of my arms.
The sky outside had darkened to a hazy, inky blue, like fountain pen ink had bled into the white air.
Bed, I scolded myself, now.
Obedient, I turned off the lights and went upstairs. I brushed my teeth, mechanically and quick.
I put my phone on to charge, then stripped unceremoniously and put myself to bed.
I pulled my dressing gown bedsheet up to my neck, rolled onto my side and tucked up my knees. After a moment, I wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and rubbed my own back until I was too sleepy to feel embarrassed by my need for it.
I woke in darkness to the sound of 1a’s front door opening and a jangling of keys.
My eyes blinked open at the sound. My neighbour let the door fall shut behind her and the whole house shook with the slam. I bolted upright.
What the hell?
Had the front door always been that loud?
Oh God, she’d probably heard me come and go like that.
I sat there quietly listening. At least she hadn’t tried to open my door by mistake, har har. At least this meant she was definitely fine. I flopped back down onto my bed, but relief still didn’t meet me there.
