The Family Upstairs(87)

‘And is it? Is it him?’

‘I’m ninety-nine per cent certain that it is. But there is only one way to find out for sure.’

He pulls some printed paper out of his jacket pocket and passes it to her. It’s an email confirmation of a booking for a deluxe room for two at the Chobe Game Lodge.

‘I can take my mum,’ he says. ‘If you don’t want to come. She’s always wanted to go on safari.’

Libby shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No. I want to come. Of course I want to come.’

She flicks through the papers, then back through the brochure. And then her eye is caught by a photo: a jeep filled with tourists looking at a pride of lions. She peers closer at the photo. She looks at the tour guide sitting at the front of the jeep, turning to smile at the camera. He has a thatch of thick, sun-burnished blond hair. His face is wide open; his smile is like the sun shining.

He looks like the happiest man in the world.

He looks like her.

‘Do you think that’s him?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know,’ says Miller. He glances across the table at Henry and Lucy, turns the brochure to face them. Their faces bunch up as they examine the photo. And then Lucy puts her fist to her mouth and Henry falls against the back of his chair.

Lucy nods, hard. ‘Yes,’ she says, her voice breaking. ‘Yes, that’s him. That’s Phin. He’s alive. Look at him! He’s alive.’





69


He’s alive. Phin is alive. My heart twists and roils and I feel dizzy. He is handsome as all damnation. Look at him there with his tan and his combats and his big shit-eating grin, sitting in a jeep in Africa with barely a care in the world. I bet he never thinks about me, bet he never thinks about any of us. Especially not you, Serenity. Especially not you. He wasn’t interested in you when you lived in our house. He won’t be interested in you now.

Lucy was clearly lying when she said that they talked about you all the time when they lived in France. Phin’s not a baby person. He’s not a ‘family guy’. He lives inside himself. He’s a loner. The only time, the only time I managed to get him out of himself was the first time we took the acid. The time we held hands, when I felt him passing into me, when I became Phin. He didn’t become me, of course – who would want to become me? But I became him. I used to write it all over the house, whenever I could, like silent shouts into corners and nooks and hidden places. ‘I AM PHIN’.

But how could I be Phin while Phin was there reminding me, constantly, of how much I was not Phin? With every careless flick of his fringe, shrug of his shoulders, brooding look across an empty room, slowly turned page of a cult novel.

It started as a love potion. It was supposed to make him love me. It didn’t work. All it did was diminish him. Make him weaker. Less beautiful. And the weaker he got the stronger I became. So I kept giving it to him, the tincture. Not to kill him, that was never my intention, but just to dim his lights so that I could shine a little brighter. And that night, the night of Birdie’s thirtieth birthday party, when Lucy told me that Phin was her baby’s father, I went into his room to kill him.

But when he told me to untie him, I said, ‘Only if you let me kiss you.’ And I kissed him. With his hand still tied to the water pipe, his body almost broken, I kissed him, on his lips, on his face. He didn’t fight. He let me do it. I kissed him for a long minute. I touched my finger to his lips, I ran my hands through his hair, I did everything I’d dreamed of doing from the very first minute he’d walked into our house when I was eleven years old, when I hadn’t known that I would ever want to kiss anyone.

I waited for him to push me off. But he didn’t. He was compliant.

Then, when I’d kissed him enough, I untied him from the radiator and I lay down next to him.

I wrapped my arm around his warm body.

I closed my eyes.

I fell asleep.

When I woke up, Phin was gone.

I’ve looked for him ever since.

But now he’s found.

I knew Libby’s big bear would find him.

And he did.

I look up at Miller; I look at you.

I slap on my best jolly Uncle Henry smile and I say, ‘Room for one more?’





Acknowledgements





Thank you to a trio of incredible editors; to my UK editor Selina Walker who worked through weekends and long into nights to splice, polish and rework my manuscript into something readable. Then to Lindsay Sagnette in the US who added a whole new layer of extra insight and clarity. And lastly, to Richenda Todd, who went way beyond the role of a copy editor and made me deal with lots of problematic issues I’d been trying to ignore because I couldn’t work out how to fix them. You three have been a masterclass in the difference that a good editor can make. Thanks also to my amazing agent, Jonny Geller, who did not let me send my book into the world without it being the best it possibly could be. The harder you’re made to work on an edit, the more your publishers care about you and your work. I am so, so lucky to have you all.

Thank you to Najma Finlay, my amazing UK publicist, who is heading off on maternity leave and won’t be back until we have the next book to publicise; enjoy every minute of your time with your beautiful baby.

Thank you to Deborah Schneider, my incredible agent in the US, for … well, you know what for! What a year it has been!