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1
SATURDAY
Nicole
I’m so lucky, Nicole tells herself. If the first thirty-two years of her life were exceptionally ordinary, the last two have been anything but. It’s almost impossible to believe. There are so many younger versions of herself she’d like to travel back in time and describe this new life to and not one of them would believe her.
The car’s soft top is down and sun glints off the bonnet. Nicole’s new Chanel sunglasses filter everything the prettiest blush pink, even the lovely sheep grazing in the fields. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt so hopeful or so happy before, not even on her wedding day or the day it was confirmed that she and Tom were lottery winners and were about to become filthy rich.
Even so, she drives carefully, hands at ten and two on the wheel. Maybe she’s gripping it a little tighter than usual as herendorphins surge, but she doesn’t consider putting her foot down. Nicole is risk averse; never in her life has she craved an adrenalin rush. Before they were rich, there was nothing impulsive about the tenacious way she sought promotion to the position of Administrative Manager at Carter, Carter & Dun, solicitors specialising in conveyancing, and persuaded Tom they should put aside every spare penny to save up for a deposit to buy their first home, a tiny house in Swindon’s dormitory suburbs. She put in long hours, turned herself out well on a tight budget, and everything she did was for her and Tom, her childhood sweetheart, the love of her life.
Even now that their life has become a fairy tale, she’s proud of what she achieved then and she’s proud of how she’s handled things since they won the money. When the people from the National Lottery arrived at their home to confirm the win and Tom was acting, well, as shocked and stupefied as someone who had won the lottery, she listened attentively to their advice, took notes on everything they told her, twice underlining the advisers’ suggestion to think carefully and take their time before making any radical decisions. The only decision Nicole made swiftly was not to go public with the win. The thought of people knowing appalled her. She’s instinctually private and Tom is incredibly laid-back, so he didn’t welcome the idea of the fuss it would bring, either.
She also paid special attention to the financial adviser who opened new accounts for them to take receipt of the money and she took heed of the cautionary tales he told, about previous winners who behaved rashly and lost it all, and decided that would not, ever, be her and Tom. Over her dead body. Tommight have been happy working as a mechanic and going to the pub with his mates on Friday, but she always dreamed of having a bigger, better life and this was their chance.
She slows the car as she approaches a neglected wooden sign that points left, towards Lancaut Nature Reserve, and makes the turn onto the lane that leads to their home, which is also their biggest investment to date. She and Tom built the Glass Barn on the Lancaut Peninsula, an outcrop of land formed by a dramatic bend in the River Wye, on the border between England and Wales. Her father, a keen birder, brought her there as a child. He called it a lost, special place, and it hasn’t changed.
Woodland envelops the car, throwing dappled shade across the lane. Trees cover the peninsula like lichen. She drives past the small lay-by where her dad used to park, from where they would walk along the lane and down the steep track to the nature reserve, binoculars swinging from their necks. The walk took them past the Manor House gates, which were, and still are, tall and imposing and offer a tantalising glimpse of the house behind them. As a girl, she marvelled at the place and wondered who lived there. She never dreamed that she might be a neighbour one day in the future.
She doesn’t drive as far as the Manor House today. Within minutes, the view opens out to her right and the woodland shrinks back, forming the only large clearing on the peninsula. A patchwork of fields and meadows slopes down towards the river. Nicole’s heart rate quickens. It’s some months since they moved in but still, every time she arrives home, she feels as if she’s reached the end of the rainbow and found a pot of gold.
On a level piece of land in the middle of the area, the Glass Barn rises stark and proud from the remains of a cluster of eighteenth-century farm buildings. In Nicole’s eyes, the contrast between the strong angles and uncompromising materials of the new building and the mellow stone ruins at its base is stunning. The sun’s reflection flares hotly in the swathes of plate glass. The house is the dominant feature in the landscape, appearing to own not just its site, but the views around it and even the sky above it. Nicole loves it with her whole heart.
They’ve lived here for six months. She wants to raise a family – they’ve started trying for their first baby – and grow old here. She told Tom she won’t leave until they carry her out in a coffin.
She makes a right turn onto her long, straight driveway. She has so much to tell Tom about the County Show. She saw the cutest farm animals. They need to talk again about getting some sheep, just a small ornamental flock, to graze the fields beside the Barn. Tom’s not keen, but she hopes he’s persuadable. She parks beside his Maserati in their capacious driveway and grabs her bag from the passenger seat. As she approaches the Barn’s front door, she hears music playing from inside. Opera. She smiles. Tom must be in the living area, right behind the door. The Barn has smart systems installed. They track individuals through the house and are programmed so that if you play music, it follows you when you move from one room to another, coming from speakers hidden in the walls.
She looks directly into the camera that will scan her face and let her in. Usually, this is a smooth process and the door clicks open, but it doesn’t always work first time. She gets closer to it, stretches her eyelids wider, stares into the lens intentlyand, after a pause when she thinks the system might have gone wrong, it opens.
The system glitches, sometimes. There are days when it acts like a cranky relative who needs pacifying before they’ll do anything nice for you. If it had been up to Nicole, they’d have had a security system installed but none of the other features. She prefers things old school, but Tom got carried away with the tech. He wanted the Barn to be a state-of-the-art smart home.
‘Thank you,’ she says to the door and shuts it behind her. She’s happy to escape the heat. The Barn is climate controlled, each room kept at an ideal temperature. She drops her sunglasses and keys on the console table in the atrium and walks into the living area. The music is playing at top volume but Tom’s not there. ‘Hello!’ she shouts. ‘I’m home!’
There’s no answer. She sighs. She doesn’t know how to turn the music down manually. ‘Tom!’ she yells. ‘Nessun Dorma’ drowns out her voice. Tom recently decided to try to get into opera, one of a series of self-improvements he’s embarked on since they won the money. He’s had the Three Tenors playing on a loop for weeks.
‘Music down!’ she shouts. The volume is way too high. But the system still doesn’t respond. Perhaps it needs her to do something on her phone, or Tom’s. She’s still foggy on the details where the music system is concerned. That’s Tom’s department. ‘Tom!’ she yells again. ‘Turn the music down!’
The tenors answer her yell with a soaring crescendo, and she covers her ears with her hands. Tom could be anywhere in the house, or he could be outside on one of the decks. Ironically, the house probably knows where he is, but that doesn’t help Nicole.
The Glass Barn is enormous, a series of buildings linked via a quirky floor plan based on the original structures that were here. She messages him,I’m home where r u?and waits for a reply but the message remains undelivered. That’s odd. She proceeds through the kitchen, pausing to wipe the frother on the coffee machine which is scaly with dried milk and to pick up a used cereal bowl from the central island and put it in the dishwasher.
When the architect told them that their starkly minimalist interiors had to be kept immaculate to look good, she listened to him, too. And she’s determined not to hire a cleaner. Her mum worked two jobs and kept a tidy home and Nicole doesn’t want anyone to think she’s got above her station since winning the money.
She makes her way deeper into their home. The music is playing at full blast in every room, which it’s not supposed to do, and it’s giving her a tension headache. She checks their gym where the lights are all blazing, but there’s no sign of Tom. ‘Where is he?’ she asks the house. He’s not in the steam room, the sauna, or the shower.
Upstairs, she finds their bed unmade, and she sighs once more. Tom knows she likes it to look tidy once they’re both up. He should have made it. She straightens it out with a few deft movements and notices that one of the doors to their balcony is ajar. She steps out, expecting to find Tom dozing on one of the recliners, iPad on his chest, but he’s not there.
She shades her eyes and looks out over their grounds, down the meadow, through the fringe of woodland at its base, and towards the glinting river which shapes and encloses thepeninsula. Tall limestone cliffs rear up steeply from its far bank and follow the river’s curve.
Wow, you’ve got your own private natural amphitheatre, the architect said when he first saw it.We need to make the most of that view. And he did. They can see a version of it from many of the rooms in the Barn. It’s spectacular. Nicole smiles as her eyes drink it in. She never tires of it; it reminds her of her childhood trips here with her dad and makes her heart feel full. I’m so lucky, she thinks to herself for the second time that day. But she doesn’t want to linger outside. The heat is intense, there’s no shade out here at this time of day, and the tenors are still singing at top volume.
She’s about to step inside and resume her search for Tom when she sees him.
He’s directly below her, in the swimming pool, floating, face down and motionless.
She screams and after a beat, in which all the light seems to be sucked out of her world, the cliffs echo the sound faintly back at her.
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