The House Swap(54)
‘I’m leaving you,’ I finish. The words are simple and strong, but I can hear the tremor of uncertainty in my voice and I know that, on some level, he will hear and understand it, too. Now that I’ve said it, we both know that I don’t quite mean it yet. But I will, I tell myself. Sometime soon, I will.
They’re back. This time, I’m ready for them. As soon as I see them pause outside the building, I’m pulling on my shoes and running down the staircase to the ground floor. I fumble with something in my coat pocket as I push my way out of the front doors, feigning self-absorption, then I let myself glance in their direction and do a double-take, smiling in surprised recognition.
I address the little boy directly. ‘You’re Eddie, aren’t you?’ He half smiles back, then puts a fist to his mouth and sucks on it, shy. His eyes slide up towards his grandmother, who is eyeing me with polite suspicion. ‘I’m house-sitting for Caroline and Francis,’ I explain. ‘Eddie’s photos are all over the flat.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Caroline’s mother sounds relieved to be presented with such a pat explanation. ‘We’re not really lurking,’ she explains. ‘The flat’s on our route back from school, and—’
‘Paddy,’ says Eddie suddenly and clearly, his silence temporarily broken. His wide grey eyes are filled with expectancy. For a moment, I have to stop and think, but then I remember the little silvery hamster that occasionally reminds me of its presence by scuttling around its wheel like a creature deranged. Caroline left painstakingly detailed instructions on its care, but I’ve simply thrown a handful of food into the cage every so often and nothing catastrophic has occurred. Most things take less effort than you think to keep alive.
‘I’m sorry,’ Caroline’s mother says gaily. ‘He’s been talking about him a lot. We could have had him this week, only I’m allergic.’
‘Well,’ I find myself saying, ‘you must come up and see him. Would you like that, Eddie?’ The child nods, his face brightening with anticipation. Even as he does so, I realize that I can’t let them into the flat now. Not with the possessions slung haphazardly all over the floors, the mutilated photographs in the hallway. ‘I have to go out now,’ I add, ‘but maybe tomorrow, on your way back from school?’
Eddie jumps up and down, letting loose an excited volley of approval. Caroline’s mother smiles, a little tightly. ‘Well, that’s very kind of you,’ she says. ‘We’ll see how we go tomorrow. Anyway, we won’t keep you any longer. Nice to meet you, um …’
She pauses, expecting me to fill the gap, but I simply smile and head off down the street, giving a quick wave of farewell. My footsteps are echoing in my head like gunshots. I’m not sure what I’ve just done, but it’s flooding me with exhilaration and my head is light and giddy. I was stupid to think that the way to get close to someone was through the place they lived, the things they owned. It’s the people they love that tell you the most about who they are.
Away
Caroline, May 2015
I’M LYING WIDE awake in the darkened bedroom, watching the rise and fall of the duvet next to me as Francis sleeps soundly, the furnishings gradually emerging from blackness and taking shape as my eyes grow accustomed to the dark. There’s a kind of unreality to being here at night. Anything seems possible, and as my thoughts churn I’m seized by restlessness. I want to get up, search the house yet again in the hope of finding some new clue.
Looking around at the stark, minimal lines of the bedroom, I know there’s nothing more to find. But there’s no way that this is the sum total of all you own. It can’t be. The wardrobes and cupboards are practically empty, and you can’t have taken an entire house’s worth of stuff away with you this week. Even the display cabinets are the kind no one has in real life – hollow wooden cubes studded sparsely here and there with a candle or decorative sculpture. You were never messy, but I can’t think of you as this stripped back. There must be more. So where is it? As I lie there a thought suddenly strikes me. Galvanized, I push the duvet quietly aside and slip out of bed, reaching for my phone and stepping out on to the darkened landing. A shiver racks me, part cold, part fear.
Looking up, I see the answer staring me in the face. There’s a neat whitewashed square in the ceiling with a small brass loop embedded at one side, the entrance to a loft. Now that I see it, I remember noticing a long metal pole standing in the hallway cupboard, and quickly I go and fetch it, hooking it up to the ceiling panel. Its wings open and I see that there is a ladder attached, one which unfolds as I tug on it. There’s no light on in the loft, but as I peer up I think I can make out an array of shapes in the darkness below the cross-hatched beams, faintly illuminated by the streetlights shining through the skylight window. The thought of climbing into the dark is terrifying, but I set my teeth, telling myself that there is nothing and no one up there. It’s only my own thoughts that are scaring me.
Grasping the ladder with both hands, I climb carefully up, mindful not to make too much noise, in case I wake Francis, my heart pumping with adrenaline. I scramble through the opening at the top, landing on my hands and knees on the loft’s wooden floorboards. Shining the light from my phone across them, I can see they’re heavy with dust, but when I squint across the darkened space I see that it has been recently disturbed. There are clear tracks, the kind that could have been made by dragging heavy objects across the floor. As I cautiously stand up, I notice a light switch on the nearby wall and flick it; a dim orange bulb glows nakedly in the centre of the room and, although it still strains my eyes, I can now see that there are several large white bin bags piled up in the corner of the room, at least a dozen. Stacked beside them are a few cardboard boxes – they’re brand new, untouched by dust or mildew.