Page 11 of Serenity Falls

She motions us inside and swiftly shuts the door. We stare around the entrance hall. Again, the pictures in the brochure didn’t adequately convey the dimensions. What seems like acres of smooth marble flooring spread out before us. A winding staircase on the left leads up to the first floor, and four doors lead off the hall. Frances gestures ahead: ‘Living room and diner/kitchen. To your right is the study, recreation room and downstairs bathroom.’

Of course. I glance at Sadie – whose face is inscrutable – and we follow Frances dumbly around the ground floor in something of a daze. A vast study with a built-in bookcase spanning one wall. Another huge room next door: ‘You could have a gym or maybe make it a games room,’ Frances suggests. I nod, mutely.

The open-plan living and dining area is furnished, minimally but tastefully. Cream sofas, rugs in taupe and green, modern abstract pictures on the walls – a swirling mix of greens, browns and amber. The kitchen is sleek and modern in shades of muted grey. Mum would have hated it, I think. She was more of a pine cabinets and floral china person. Tea cosies and chintzy tablecloths. And yet, here we are.

‘The kitchen is new. Installed just last year.’ Frances beams.

‘Last year?’ I query.

‘Yes, the maintenance contract ensures all appliances and furnishings are kept up to date. You’ll also find food in the freezer, and juice and milk in the fridge. In case you don’t get to the shops today.’ She smiles beatifically and gestures back towards the living room. ‘Sliding doors open out to the back yard and pool.’

The doors are shaded by pale grey blinds, presumably to keep out the sun. Before I can look outside, Frances is whisking us upstairs.

‘Six bedrooms. Four en suites. The master has a dressing room and views out over the pool.’

She ushers us into the room, which is beautiful if very beige. I can’t see the views out to the pool because, again, blinds shade the windows. A wooden ceiling fan spins lazily over the huge bed and another of the abstract pictures looms above the headboard. I frown. The paintings downstairs are okay, if not really to my taste (but then I’m a man who still has posters of Scooby-Doo on his walls). This picture is … consuming, I think, and then wonder where the hell that word came from. It’s mostly a very dark blue which gets gradually lighter towards the centre, like some kind of swirling vortex. It makes me feel a little dizzy if I stare at it for too long, but the weird thing is, I want to stare at it. Like it’s sucking me in. I blink and shake my head. Frances is talking again.

‘And finally …’ She sweeps back out on to the landing. Sadie and I trail, like debris, in her wake. ‘I know your grandmother wanted this to be your room, Sadie.’

Frances pushes open the door for Sadie to step inside. Sadie glances at me. I nod. ‘Go on.’

I can sense her reluctance, and her continued silence is worrying me. She isn’t usually this quiet for this long. Almost fifteen minutes without any sass, sighing or even a roll of the eyes. Something is wrong.

She steps into the room. It’s big, obviously. Unlike the rest of the house, which is a shrine to the palate of neutral, the walls here have been painted a very pale lilac. It didn’t feature in the brochure. Another abstract painting, this time in reds and mauves, hangs on a wall by the door. In the centre of the room is a large four-poster bed with billowing drapes. A name has been etched into the footboard of the bed. Sadie.

Sadie stares around. And then, without a word, she turns and runs out of the room and back down the stairs. Frances stands just inside the door, looking bemused. ‘Is she okay?’

‘I don’t think so.’ I turn and head after her.

I get it. The flight, this room, the heat – all of it. It’s too much. But Sadie doesn’t usually cut and run. I reach the hall and glance towards the half-open sliding doors in the open-plan living area. I jog across, push the blinds aside and step out into the yard. The heat washes over me in a suffocating wave and the sunlight momentarily blinds me. I fumble for my sunglasses, slip them on and stare around. I can’t see Sadie anywhere. But my eyes are drawn to the pool.

It’s large, at least twenty metres. A curved-off rectangle with steps leading down into the shallow end. Aquamarine water sparkles under the sunshine. A bunch of brightly coloured balloons bobs gently near the steps. At the other end, bobbing less brightly, a body is submerged face down in the water.

4

Sadie pounds down the stairs and across the vast hall. She reaches the front door, yanks it open and steps outside. She needs some fresh air, but the air here is so hot and sluggish she might as well stick her head in an oven. Still, at least she’s out of the house.

She walks across the porch to the front steps and sits down. Her heart is pounding; she feels dizzy and a little sick. She wonders if she’s having another anxiety attack. It’s all too much. The size of the house, the extravagance. She can’t imagine Grandma ever buying a house like this. The thought is as preposterous as the queen coming for tea. And she can’t imagine her and Dad living in it either.

The marble floors are too hard and cold; the furniture is too pale – she feels like she’d be making a mess just by sitting on it – and the pictures on the walls make her want to vomit. Then there’s the bedroom – her bedroom. I mean, it’s beautiful and huge, obviously. Crazy huge compared to her rabbit hutch back home. But it is so not her, and Grandma knew her better than that. I mean, lilac and a four-poster bed. For fuck’s sake. Who is she – Regina fucking George?

Sadie pushes her hair back behind her ears and tries to steady her breathing. At least the porch provides a little shade from the incessant bloody sun. She squints out at the street. There’s a house almost exactly opposite. Similar design to theirs, but smaller. Bet that pisses them off, she thinks. She wonders if they’re curious about her and Dad, the newcomers, or maybe a tad envious, already bitching about the folk from the UK ‘coming here and buying our houses’.

She tries to picture the residents. The house is pristine, but then so are all the houses on the street. She can just make out curtains in the windows, not blinds, and what looks like a house name on the gate. She stands and walks down the porch steps to the bottom of the path.

The sign is wooden and engraved in florid white writing which reads: Home and Spry.

Ah, a house name with a pun. So, obviously an older couple. White hair and leathery tans. Always dressed in matching polo shirts, shorts and baseball caps. And they have a dog. A terrier or chihuahua. Dale and Nancy, she decides, and their dog, Ruffles.

Sprinklers twirl lazily on Dale and Nancy’s front lawn; a bird flaps between the trees and in the downstairs window, a curtain twitches. Sadie can’t see the person inside, not from this distance, but she gets the impression of a face staring back at her.

Well, there you are, Dale or Nancy, she thinks. She raises a hand and waves. I see you, watching me, watching you. The curtain falls back. Sadie smiles. Okay, neighbour. I’ve got your number.

She looks up and down the road. It’s quiet, almost unnaturally so. No cars, no other people. The only sign of life are a few tiny lizards scuttling across the pavement. She should probably go back inside. Dad must be worried. She’s surprised he hasn’t come looking for her, but maybe he wanted to give her some time. He’s probably just as freaked out about all of this as she is, and she promised herself she would try to make this work for him. She starts to turn … and then pauses.

There’s a woman walking towards her. Blonde, wearing a vest, leggings and large dark sunglasses. She’s looking around, like she’s searching for something, or someone. As the woman draws closer, Sadie realizes she’s older than she first thought. Not quite Grandma’s age, but old. Late sixties or seventies. Her arms are thin but loose with crinkled skin, and her face is lined and speckled with sun damage. Although when she smiles her teeth are still very white and even. Veneers, Sadie thinks.

‘Hi there.’ The woman beams.