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I watched him, wondering if that were really true.
‘But when did you buy it?’
He shakes his head. ‘After the Moondance money came through.’ It was a musical that had been made into a Hollywood film.
‘What, three… four years ago?’
He shrugged. I’m sure I saw the moment he stepped from this world back into his cloud again.
I took his phone and called back the last number and they confirmed they’d been booked for a job at Trevethan. I started explaining about my father’s illness, that I didn’t think he even owned the house in question. But the man on the other end said he’d been there to do an assessment, that my dad had let him in, that they’d had a lovely chat about the Buffy musical episode his daughter had made him watch many years ago.
I know I should have been thinking about the shock of him owning the house, of the possibility of seeing it and going in again. But what I was really thinking was: two point five million? So that’s how well he’s been doing.
Still, after saying goodnight, I drove straight there. It was so strange to think my dad actually owned it now. I’d never lived anywhere that wasn’t borrowed or rented.
The old harp sculpture was mottled orange with rust, and long grass tangled its strings. Some windows showed spider cracks and the brick looked dark and tired, and I could see the slates were sagging in the middle. One of the old green gutters was dangling off the roof, over the porch.
Someone had clearly been doing work in the garden. An enormous bucket sat under the old beech tree. Inside it lay what must once have been a mound of weeds but was now a dense, shrivelled mat. A shovel and a rake stood by the back door. On the picnic table sat a trowel, a rag and a yellow mug I recognised from my childhood.
I started to piece together the day I got that call from the hospital. They’d said he’d had a stroke in B&Q. Dad must’ve been sorting out the garden, sipping tea while cutting back roses and pulling up nettles. He must’ve realised he needed something – twine, bamboo – and left his mug here on the table because he wasn’t going to be long, and then he must’ve driven to the shop and there the world had seemed to slip and he had fallen to the floor.
I walked all the way round the house, my heart aching at the thought of him floundering in the aisle between fertiliser and novelty gnomes. He had been all alone. All these years, I had never pictured him alone.
I stood in the front drive, studying the reflection of the sky in the house windows. I didn’t need to go in.
Then I saw in a flash my mother setting down armfuls of Sainsbury’s bags, their orange plastic shining in the summer sun, patting herself down – pockets, handbag, pockets again – then sighing and standing on her tiptoes to reach into the lantern by the door.
And I stepped up and reached in myself, and dragged out the spare key.
66
NOW
If you’d like to see your children again, do come to Trevethan House. No police. No phones. No dilly-dallying. I don’t have Dot’s number but do extend the invitation. xx
My heart clenches like a fist around a blade.
The message was sent to a WhatsApp group with me, Mina, Tristan and Lydia. I don’t recognise the number.
I read it over and feel my heart contract again, being sliced again, blood leaking, never reaching my lungs, my brain.
‘What is it?’ asks Father.
Mina turns her phone in her hand and shows it to him then to my mother.
‘How nice you’ve been invited, dear,’ says my father.
Mother shakes her head, putting her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, goodness,’ she says, which is as strong as her language ever gets. ‘Oh my goodness.’
Silver sparkles dance before my eyes.
‘Let’s go,’ barks Tristan.
67
AFTER
Outside my cosy prison room, thick, resentful raindrops hurl themselves at the ground without pause. It sounds like war. Or peace.
