Page 42 of We Live Here Now

I stare at the dark-haired woman and the gallery wall of paintings behind her and then scan the text. I’m not really reading, my brain on fire and my face flushing. Everything he’s saying is true. This is her. There can’t be two Georgina Ushers with so much similarity in their past and of the right age. I’ve made such a fool of myself.

“Did Merrily say she’d died?” Paul asks gently. I know that tone of voice. Careful. Worried.

“No. I just—I just presumed.”

“Maybe you should let this idea of a ghost go.” He looks at me like I’m a child who’s done something stupid. “It’s just an old house, Emily. Old houses make noises. Their pipes and drains can smell.It’s easy to get lost in your imagination about those things, and being out here on the moors probably doesn’t help, but no one died in this house. There isn’t a ghost.”

“I know that.” My voice is quiet. “I’m so sorry. I just—I just got carried away for a moment. Please, please forget I said anything.”

I hurry out of the room, the heat stifling, and combined with my embarrassment, my chest is tight and I find it hard to breathe.

I go upstairs to the bathroom and lock the door, sitting on the side of the bath and taking deep breaths. He must think I’m crazy. God, what an idiot. How can I face any of them again?

When I come downstairs, Paul is saying his goodbyes and he gives me a hug as if nothing has happened, but I feel a careful resistance there and I don’t blame him.

As Cat pulls me away to put some music on, I want the house to swallow me whole.

52

Emily

I smile and laugh and watch as Iso and Cat dance, Iso still necking wine, her dancing becoming dangerously close to falling, while feeling completely lost in a bubble of my own. Time drags on, and even though I want to go and hide under the duvet and block everything out, I force myself to stay up for another hour before sneaking upstairs, feeling awful. I’m hoping for some time to myself, but within minutes Freddie is dropping his clothes on the floor and stumbling into bed with me, the wreckage of the party waiting until morning.

“I’m so sorry about everything, Em,” he mumbles, pulling me close. I don’t have the energy to push him away or remind him that he’d be in the spare room if we weren’t hiding our problems from our friends. “I really am,” he continues. “I hate myself for it. I’m sorry I lied. I’ll be better. I’ll sort it out. I promise. I love you. I do. I really do.” I don’t push him away, needing whatever comfort I can take.

As he slides into a heavy sleep, his weight uncomfortably draped over me, I want to cry. Everything’s crumbling around me. How has my life come to this? Surrounded by debt from my weak husband and losing my mind.

I lie there, listening as the others traipse to the bathroom, and then Mark’s annoyed mutterings as he virtually carries Iso up to the third floor, and finally the house falls quiet. I stare into the dark as Freddie grunts and snores and moves about in his sleep, and by three a.m. I give up trying to get any rest of my own and quietly get my notebook from the side table drawer and creep out to the bathroom.

With the book balanced on my knee, my writing’s a spidery scrawl as I purge my anxiety and upset onto the page, under the light of my phone’s flashlight. This is less a record of ghostly hauntings and more a reflection of my own mental instability.

There is nothing happening in the house. It’s all in my mind. Hallucinations. Sally hasn’t done anything at all. What is wrong with me? I’m fixated on a ghost that all evidence proves doesn’t exist.

I’ve made myself look really stupid—and mentally unstable—in front of the vicar. I should call Dr. Canning, I know I should. But I can’t face going back into the hospital. I just can’t. I have to learn to ignore all this until it stops. I can’t cope with it on top of everything going on in the “real” world.God, I write, and underline it.Maybe it would have been better if I’d just died?

It’s melodramatic and I don’t mean it. I’m in no rush to die again. All that nothingness terrifies me. The nonexistence of it all.

The toilet seat lid is cold and uncomfortable and I’m calmer after getting my shame down on the page. Not happier but at least calmer. There’s nothing I can do about it except try to talk to Paul next week. He’ll understand, I’m sure of it. Everyone can be prone to flights of fancy, and given my extenuating circumstances and his Christian nature, we’ll be laughing about it all by next weekend. It’s not like I explicitly accused anyone of anything, and it’s basically hisjobto forgive me.

I’m suddenly tired, hopefully now able to get to sleep, and turn off the phone light. Before I reach for the bathroom handle to unlock it, it quietly clicks by itself and opens a few inches. I freeze, staring at it, the cold draft around my ankles only part of the chill I’m suddenly feeling. I take a deep breath. I couldn’t have locked it properly and the draft has pushed it open. That’s all.

I reach forward to pull it open some more so I can leave, but the door, only a few inches open, refuses to budge. I yank harder, but nothing gives, an invisible force holding it solidly, unmoving, from the other side. I stand back, confused. Is it me again? My stupid, mad post-sepsis brain? Am I imagining I can’t open it?

I stare, not sure quite what to do, and then I hear something.Someone moving around. Very human footsteps coming down from the third floor. I pull at the door again but it still won’t budge, so I press my eye into the gap. In the gloom I catch sight of Mark as he whispers urgently to someone out of sight, and then there are more careful footsteps as they head down to the ground floor.

I stand back, confused, and then the door silently opens just wide enough for me to get out. I step out cautiously, feeling like I’ve walked into a secret. I peer over the banister.

“She’s totally out. What about him?”

“Snoring.”

A giggle and ashh.My breath catches. Is that Cat? What is she doing downstairs with Mark? I shiver in the chilly air—maybe Freddie is right, maybe there is a draft—and as they disappear along the boot room corridor, I give it a few seconds and then creep downstairs myself, rounding from the wooden floor onto the flagstones of the narrow corridor to the right of the front door.

The stones are like ice blocks underfoot, making my feet hurt, but I keep going, my racing heart warming me from the inside even as my extremities freeze. I grip my phone tight as I get nearer to the boot room door. It’s closed, but maybe if I press my ear against it I’ll be able to hear them. Figure out what they’re doing.

Deep inside, I know why they’re up. There’s only one reason two married adults would be creeping around together in the middle of the night, but I just can’t bring myself to believe it without evidence. Cat and Mark? Cat of Cat and Russell andmarriage is teamwork? And I can’t grasp the idea of Mark cheating on perfect Iso, who is toned and slim and doesn’t have the teeniest bit of cellulite and still acts like she’s twenty-one. Everyone’s in love with Iso.

I edge toward the door, remembering how much Iso drank tonight. Maybe thereistrouble in paradise. Iso has always loved booze more than the rest of us, but there was definitely an edge to how she was at the party. But Cat? How could Cat do that to her? How could they do this to any of us?

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