Good Girl, Bad Girl(45)

“I don’t like phones.”

Evie looks at Caroline as though they’ve stumbled upon the missing link. I try to explain but sound like a Luddite.

“I’ll need a mobile phone,” she says adamantly.

I don’t say yes or no, but a part of me is pleased that she’s making plans. This might work.

Caroline has returned to the drawing room, where the rugs are worn and old furniture gleams with polish. She pulls open the curtains and dust motes dance in the shaft of light. The large fireplace has decorative tiles around the edges of the hearth and family photographs arranged on the mantelpiece. Most are casual snapshots, random moments captured when the subjects were unaware of the camera. I’m feeding ducks with my mother at Henley or riding on my father’s shoulders or eating an ice cream on Brighton Pier. My favorite is a black-and-white portrait of my parents on their wedding day in 1975. My father was twenty-nine and my mother twenty-six. They are doubled over laughing; my mother holds the train of her dress, trying not to drop her bridal bouquet. The only official family portrait was taken in a studio and looks so staged and unnaturally bright that I wonder if the colors were painted in afterwards.

Evie seems fascinated by the photograph. She picks it up and traces her fingers over the faces.

“What were their names?”

I point to each of them. “April and Esme were the twins. They were seven when this was taken. I was nine. Elias was fifteen.”

“Where are they now?” asks Caroline.

“His parents are dead,” replies Evie. She points to my brother. “He did it.”

Caroline looks shocked. “What about your sisters?”

“They’re dead too,” I say, taking the photograph from Evie. I place it back on the mantelpiece, arranging it at exactly the same angle as before.

“You didn’t tell me that,” says Evie, sounding aggrieved.

“You didn’t ask.”

I change the subject. “I’ll show you upstairs.”

They follow. Whispering. Evie is limping from her blisters.

“This can be yours,” I say, opening a door. The room has a single bed, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and a window that’s so dirty we could be underwater. Evie looks unimpressed.

“I’ll tidy it up, of course.”

“And get me a new bed.”

“What’s wrong with that one?”

Evie wrinkles her nose. “Your grandparents probably had sex in it.”

“This was my bedroom.”

“Ew! Even worse.”

Caroline admonishes her. Evie isn’t fazed.

“Can I redecorate it?”

“If you wish.”

Evie turns in a slow circle, as if mentally measuring up the room and deciding on color schemes.

I can see Caroline having second thoughts. “Are you sure about this?” she whispers.

“Why?”

“Fostering Nottingham will have to approve of everything . . . including this place.”

“I’ll clean it up, I promise.”

Evie steps outside the room and glances up the stairs. “What’s up there?”

“It’s closed up.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t need any more rooms.”

“Can I see them?”

“No!”

My tone is harsher than I intended. I wish I could take it back. The moment registers with Evie, but she doesn’t react. Instead, I imagine her storing it away, stockpiling weapons for later skirmishes.

“We should get Evie back to Langford Hall,” I say.

“I’ll take her,” says Caroline.

Downstairs, Evie puts on her old duffel coat, which looks incongruous with her new clothes. Caroline gives me a quick hug and Evie hesitates, wondering if she should do the same. Her arms go up and out but never quite reach me.

“I’m sorry it’s so messy and old,” I say.

“At least it’s not haunted,” Evie replies.

“How can you tell?”

“I’ve been in haunted houses.”





23




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CYRUS




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That night I dream the dream.

My mother was the first to die, while cooking saffron chicken-and-prawn paella with peas. My mother with her wicked laugh, her soft spot for underdogs, her hatred of hypocrisy, her love for schoolteachers, dark chocolate, and Baileys Irish Cream. My mother with her posh phone voice and pink lipstick, potpourri-smelling lingerie drawer; her bubble baths behind a locked door, no children allowed. My mother, who could make rice pudding from leftover boiled rice and made us each take turns to get the wishbone when we ate roast chicken. My mother, who grew up on a farm and had a pony called Twelve (because it was twelve hands high), yet who refused to let us have a dog because she still mourned the loss of her own beloved childhood pet, a boxer called Sinbad.

On that night she was standing in front of the freezer with a bag of frozen peas in her hand when the knife scythed through her carotid artery, spilling green and red onto the white tiled floor. She had always complained about choosing white tiles because they showed every spilled crumb, scuff mark, and dropped pea.