The Shadow House(10)

Calls came through at all hours, day and night. Texts arrived, one after the other, landing on the screen like little bombs. I deleted them all, ignored my voicemail, but kept my phone close, unable to turn it off. I had no intention of responding to the messages – but a small, pathetic part of me, inured to the adrenaline and drama, was perversely glad to see them.

The toilet flushed and Ollie emerged from the bathroom. I watched, bristling, as he returned to the sofa and flopped back into the teenager-shaped dent he’d made in the cushions.

‘Hey,’ I called. ‘Phone away now, please.’

‘What?’

‘You’ve been on it all morning. It’s time for a break.’

‘In a minute.’

‘No, now. Come on, I need your help.’

Ollie ignored me. Ping. Ping. Ping. Nothing got under my skin quite like that sound – despite the fact that my own phone was vibrating in my pocket with a stream of notifications.

I stormed through the hall and into the living room. ‘Put. Your. Phone. Down. Now. Please.’

From the travel cot in my bedroom, I heard a soft cry. Shit. Kara was waking up.

‘Turn it off,’ I said, ‘or, I swear to god, I’m going to lose it.’

‘So what else is new?’

I glared at him.

‘What?’ he snapped. ‘What do you want?’

‘Seriously?’ My voice rose a few octaves. ‘What I want is some help. Maybe a little enthusiasm for a change.’

Behind me, Kara’s grizzling was turning into an intense wail.

‘Enthusiasm?’ Ollie threw his phone down and sat up. ‘You want enthusiasm? About moving here? Okay, cool, here we go then. Oh, Mum, thank you so much for dragging me away from my home to this half-built dump in the middle of nowhere. Oh, I’m just so happy to be here! I just can’t wait to die of boredom, or from eating too many lentils or whatever. Let’s all go and make dreamcatchers and then dance around a maypole. This is my absolute dream life, and you’re the best mum in the whole entire world!’

‘Don’t get smart,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely here.’

‘It’s a fucking hole.’

‘You watch your mouth.’

‘No, it’s literally a hole, in the actual ground. I feel like I’m in a crater. And there’s nothing to do. Like, nothing. No shops, no clubs, no buses, no anything!’

‘Well, that’s kind of the point, that’s why we’re here.’

‘No, it’s why you’re here.’

Kara let out an ear-splitting shriek.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I took a deep breath. ‘Ollie, listen. I know things have been rough lately, and I know you don’t fully understand what’s going on, but sometimes you just have to trust me.’

‘Trust you?’ Ollie echoed. ‘Trust you?’

Kara screeched again, loud as a feral animal. On the sofa, Ollie’s phone lit up. Ping. Ping. Ping. I pressed my fingers to my forehead. There was so much noise.

‘You know what?’ said Ollie, standing up and pushing past me. ‘I’m out of here.’

‘Hey,’ I said, striding after him. ‘Don’t you dare walk away from me, we are not done here. And turn your bloody phone off, I can’t hear myself think.’

He shrugged me off. I saw red. I snatched at his T-shirt and heard the snick-snick-snick of cotton stitches coming loose. I froze. In my hand, I held a fistful of material; I’d ripped my son’s shirt almost clean off his body. We both stared at the hole I’d made – and then Ollie laughed out loud, which made me want to laugh, because the whole thing was kind of hilarious, a game gone too far, like when he was small and he’d ask me to play dinosaurs and I’d put just that little bit too much effort into perfecting my roars. But then Kara let out her very best howl, the one that attacked your skull like a jackhammer, and Ollie’s expression switched back to enraged.

‘For fuck’s sake, Kara,’ he yelled in the direction of my bedroom. ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’

I was stunned. My son’s face was flushed with rage – teeth bared, eyes bulging, fists clenched at his sides – and in that moment, he looked like a fully grown man. A man I was desperately trying to escape.

‘Okay,’ I said, as soon as I could speak. ‘Get out of my sight.’

He didn’t move.

‘I mean it, Oliver, go cool off. I don’t care where, just go. And don’t you ever speak to her like that again. She is a baby, and your sister.’

Still, Ollie didn’t move. The simmering potential of his body filled the room and I found myself tensing up, waiting, preparing …

In the end, though, he backed down.

‘Half-sister,’ he said, quietly. And then he stormed into his room and slammed the door.


An hour later, I ran out of jobs. I’d hoped we might all go for a walk together and explore the parts of the village we hadn’t yet seen, but Ollie hadn’t come out of his room and I was still fuming, so I pulled on my runners, strapped Kara into her baby carrier and set out to walk off my rage.

Turning left outside the house then left again at the edge of the forest, I walked uphill, looping around the topmost residential sections. Kara sucked her fists and kicked her little feet with excitement while I stickybeaked at the other homes, most of which had large decks, lush vegetable gardens and bright, gleaming exteriors. My favourites were the Tiny Houses, which reminded me of fortune-teller wagons or lavishly designed garden sheds. They seemed far too small to comfortably accommodate even a single person, but a few sneaky peeks through windows revealed surprisingly roomy spaces fitted with fully equipped kitchens, bathrooms and loft-style bedrooms with ladder access.