The Family Upstairs(54)

‘Don’t go,’ he’d said. ‘Please. I only just found you. I don’t want to lose you again.’

And she’d said, ‘You’re not going to lose me. We’re virtually neighbours now. Look!’ And she’d pointed across the river at the noble row of houses where number sixteen sat.

‘Please,’ he’d wheedled, his long eyelashes touching his perfectly coiffed eyebrows. ‘It’s got to be better than sleeping on those manky old mattresses over there. Come on. I’ll make you a delicious breakfast in the morning! I’ve got avocado. That’s what you millennials like, isn’t it?’

‘I prefer eggs,’ Miller had replied.

‘Are you actually a millennial?’ Phin had asked him, eyes narrowed, slightly bitchy.

‘Just,’ Miller had replied. ‘But I missed the avocado moment.’

Libby looks at the time on the alarm clock on the bedside table now and works out that if she leaves in eight minutes she’ll still make it to work by nine o’clock. Which is late, for her, but fine in terms of the phone ringing and customers walking in off the street.

She slides her shorts back on and hauls herself off the low-slung bed.

Miller stirs.

She glances at him.

She sees the suggestion of a tattoo on his upper arm where the sleeve of his T-shirt has ridden up. She can’t bear tattoos. Which makes dating particularly awkward in this day and age. But he looks sweet, she can’t help observing. Soft and appealing.

She pulls her gaze from his sleeping form and tiptoes to the en-suite bathroom she vaguely remembers using very late last night. In the mirror she looks reasonably unscathed. The previous morning’s blow dry has survived all the subsequent adventures. She swills again with toothpaste and gargles with tap water. She pulls her hair back into a ponytail and finds a can of deodorant in the bathroom cabinet.

When she comes back into the bedroom Miller is awake.

He smiles at her. ‘Good morning,’ he says. He stretches his arms above his head and she sees the full extent of his tattoo. It’s some kind of Celtic thing. It could be worse.

‘I’m going now,’ she says, picking up her handbag.

‘Going where?’

‘Work,’ she says.

‘God, are you really? You don’t think your boss would give you the morning off?’

She pauses. Of course she would give her the morning off. But Libby doesn’t work like that. It makes her feel edgy just thinking about it.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I want to go to work. I’ve got a big day. Some client meetings in the diary.’

‘You don’t want to let people down?’

‘I don’t want to let people down.’

‘Well,’ he says, throwing back the sheet, revealing the fact that he is wearing red and blue jersey boxer shorts and has solid rugby player legs, ‘give me thirty seconds and I’ll come with you.’

‘You don’t know where my phone is, do you?’ she asks.

‘No idea,’ he says, hauling himself out of bed and pulling on his trousers.

His hair is nuts. His beard is also nuts. She stifles a smile. ‘Are you going to, you know, check your reflection?’

‘Should I?’ He looks confused.

She thinks of the time and says, ‘No. You look fine. Let’s go and find our phones and get out of here.’

She puts her hand on the door handle and pushes it down. The door does not open. She pushes again. Again, it does not open. She pushes it four more times.

Then she turns to Miller and says, ‘It’s locked.’





40




CHELSEA, 1991


David kept Phin shut up in his room for a week after the night he pushed me in the river. A whole week. I was glad in some ways because I couldn’t bear to look Phin in the eye. He had pushed me in the river, but what I had done was much, much worse.

But mainly I just ached. I ached with remorse, with regret, with fury, with helplessness and with missing him. Phin’s meals were brought to him and he was allowed toilet visits twice a day, his father hovering outside the door with his arms folded across his stomach like a malevolent bouncer.

The atmosphere in the house during those days was ponderous and impossible to read. Everything emanated from David. He radiated a terrible dark energy and everyone avoided angering him further, including me.

One afternoon during Phin’s incarceration, I sat with Justin, sorting herbs with him. I glanced up at the back of the house towards Phin’s window.

‘Don’t you think it’s bad’, I said, ‘that David’s locking Phin up like that?’

He shrugged. ‘He could have killed you, mate. You could have died.’

‘Yeah, I know. But he didn’t. I didn’t. It’s just … wrong.’

‘Well, yeah, it’s probably not how I’d do things, but then I’m not a dad, I don’t know what it’s like to have kids. David’s just doing “his job”, I guess.’ He made quotes in the air as he said these words.

‘His job?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you know, having ultimate control over absolutely everything.’

‘I hate him,’ I said, my voice breaking unexpectedly.