The House Swap(55)

I find that I am holding my breath, my throat tight, and automatically softening the sound of my footsteps as I approach. Wild pictures form in my head: bags full of mangled severed limbs, leaking blood. I can’t suppress a shiver as I reach for the first bag and rip open the string tied at the top.

A jumble of kitchenware, tea towels and crockery, bundled together carelessly. The next few bags are similar: hastily assembled collections of utensils and ornaments that don’t seem to have any personal value or significance. There’s no reason to hide these things, none other than wanting to keep the mundanities of your life entirely secret and removed from me. I tear open bag after bag, finding nothing much of interest. A few of the boxes are stacked with books, and I linger for a while, sifting through the titles. Various classics, a few biographies, even some pop psychology that it’s hard to imagine you ever reading.

There are a few extra bags bundled behind the boxes, much lighter and softer than the others, and I feel a surge of nausea when I realize they must be clothes. This feels more intimate. If I close my eyes, I can still remember the way your clothes used to feel against my hands, and the scent of your aftershave that clung to them. My heart is beating a quick tattoo against my ribs as I open the nearest bag, but when I reach inside something feels instinctively wrong. I pull out a few items, studying them in the dim light. They’re jumpers, in soft pastel colours. I reach further down into the bag, shake its contents out on to the floor. These are all women’s clothes, not yours at all. They’re all in a size ten, and some of the brands are expensive. With a shiver, I realize they must belong to Amber. I sift through the other bags, and it’s more of the same. It’s as if practically her entire wardrobe has been transported up here.

My mind buzzing with confusion, I sit back. Why are there so many of these clothes, and why are they up here? I turn out the final bag and, amid the soft slide of fabric, something clatters, hard metal striking the floor. I snatch the object up. It’s a pale pewter locket, and as I ease open the catch I feel something familiar yet unexpected grazing my fingertips. It’s a lock of hair, frayed at the ends.

Instinctively, I draw my fingers away, dropping the locket. The hair is too dark to belong to Amber, unless her current shade is heavily dyed. Is it yours? I peer at it again and realize it’s possible. It’s a similar colour, and I think a similar thickness. I stretch a fingertip out to it again and close my eyes, trying to remember the way your hair felt against my skin. I can’t quite catch on to the memory, but something shifts inside me and the murky orange light blurs and fuzzes before my eyes and my head swims. I push the locket back into the bag, along with Amber’s clothes, feeling like an intruder.

Hunched on the attic floor in my vest and knickers, I’m shivering, and thoughts are racing around my head, demanding attention. I force myself to slow them down, and something rises to the surface – something that’s been nagging at the back of my mind for days. I’m remembering her that day in the coffee shop, the reserve that swept over her face when I asked her if she knew who lived here. Not really. You see people around, but that’s about it. Why would she lie? Did she suspect who I was even then, and want to hide the truth from me? But the more I turn over the possibility, the less right it feels. She hasn’t behaved like someone who wants to hide herself or her lover away; she’s sought out my friendship, gone beyond the call of duty. And then I remember something else: the way she prowled around this house the evening she came round, the intentness of her expression. I know on some visceral level that it wasn’t the way you would behave in a house you knew well. It was as if she wanted to soak it up – as if she didn’t belong here at all.

A quick, decisive shudder rocks my body, and I wrap myself up more tightly, clutching my knees to my chest, trying to think. Is it possible that Amber isn’t your girlfriend at all? That she’s developed some crazy obsession with you, is stalking you at close range from across the street? But then I remember the photograph on the fridge, and the women’s clothes in front of me, and the idea slips through my fingers again and I’m no better off than I was before.

I press my fingers to my aching temples, my breath hissing with frustration. Impulsively, I snatch up my phone and tap out a text message. I’m sorry I haven’t answered your calls. I will soon, I promise. Just tell me, if you didn’t know who I was, then why did you hide it from me that Carl lived here? Please. Just be straight with me and we can talk.

As soon as I’ve pressed send I’m unsure if it was the right thing to do, but it’s too late and I watch the screen, waiting tensely for a response. Some instinct tells me she’s as awake as I am and, sure enough, it’s barely a minute before the phone buzzes and the new-message icon flashes.

Caroline, we need to talk about all this face to face. I haven’t come over there, because I know this must be a difficult situation for you, and I don’t want to involve Francis, but I’m not going to wait for ever. The warning is lightly veiled, but tangible. There is nothing incongruous in the idea of Amber hammering on the front door in the middle of the night, demanding an immediate conference. I know she would do it, just as I would.

My fingers move slowly across the screen. I’ll come over. Five minutes. Then I climb down the ladder and go softly back into the bedroom, reach for the clothes that I slung across the back of the armchair an hour or two earlier and wriggle back into them. Combing my fingers roughly through my hair, I think about putting on some make-up, but I don’t want to switch any lights on, and perhaps it doesn’t matter what I look like now. I want her to see me as I am. Thirty-five, with the evidence of the past few years written all over my face. Giving Francis a final glance, I slip out of the bedroom and pad softly down the stairs, then ease open the front door and step out on to the street.