Page 45 of We Live Here Now

“What do you want, Emily? None of this sounds like you.”

He’s defensive now, the pieces coming together in his clever head. I’m not shouting at him, calling him a bastard and saying I’m telling his wife. All I’ve done is point out the very compelling reasons he wouldn’t want his wife to be enlightened.

“I want a hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”

He laughs momentarily but then stops when I don’t say anything else, and the silence between us becomes palpable. “God, you’re serious, aren’t you?”

“It’s a drop in the ocean compared to what Iso would take. I want you to set up a high-interest account for me and put it in there. Freddie’s been gambling again.”

“I knew it,” Mark mutters. “I asked him about it. He denied it.”

“Of course he denied it,” I snap. “It’s an addiction. You should have toldme.” This new piece of information gets rid of any vestige of guilt about what I’m doing. “Freddie’s got me in a hole and you’re going to get me out of it. You must have so many investments and accounts Iso knows nothing about. She’s never been interested in managing finances.”

There’s a long pause at the other end and I’m sure I hear the puff of a vape. “How do I know you won’t come back for more?”

“You don’t. Except I won’t. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.”

One hundred and fifty seems a big enough number to either leave and start out on my own or get me and Freddie clear of debts and get him into some rehab. I’ll just need to figure out a way of explaining where the money came from if I stay with him.

“It will take me a while to do it safely,” he says eventually. “A week or so at least.”

“That’s fine. Oh, and by the way, I’ve recorded this conversation.So even if you think you can escape the video evidence, you’ve confessed all on here.”

When I hang up, a big, fat grin on my face, I feel better than I have since falling, since those awfulI’m going to die, I don’t want to diefeelings. Maybe everything is going to work out just fine.

56

Emily

Mrs. Tucker comes about half an hour after my call with Mark ends, by which time I’m a little vague on why I went for blackmail rather than telling Iso. My head thumps nauseatingly hard when I think about it. Blackmail. I go up to the bedroom and take a couple of pills, needing a lie-down. I’m ablackmailer.The word makes me feel queasy and unpleasant. It’s like the very worst of me came out for that call, but I can hardly ring Mark back and say I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to change my mind. I hate financial insecurity and this will save us. I don’t want to be that person, but neither do I want to be drowning in debt and possibly a homeless single mother.

The sound of vacuuming downstairs soothes my head as I close my eyes and rest, and by the time the cleaner makes it up to the middle landing the sickening pain has thankfully eased. The bedroom door’s open and I hear her cleaning the bathroom, humming to herself, before she runs a mop over the wooden floor and then checks the spare bedrooms, and I figure it’s probably time I got up and made us both a cup of tea. In my socks I pad out to the hall to find her staring up at the third floor, eyes slightly glazed, as if she’s looking at something that isn’t there. My heart skips a beat. Is she feeling something odd up there too?

“Are you okay, Mrs. Tucker?”

She startles slightly and then lets out a small laugh. “Was lost in the past for a moment. That’s all. A rush of almost forgotten memories. Funny how that happens. The smell of the wood did it.”

“The past?”

“Oh, you see, my father was the gardener here when I was small,” she says, taking another glance up at the third floor. “When it was Fortuna Carmichael’s place. I spent a lot of time playing here. I’d almost forgotten all about it. The strangest thing happened to me here.”

“Oh really?” My heart flutters hard like raven wings against a chimney. “I was going to make us both a cup of tea. I’ve got some carrot cake too. I’d love to hear about it. And upstairs doesn’t need any work anyway.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” She picks up her bag of cleaning products and hurries toward me, smiling. Is she wary of going up to the third floor too?

She waits until we’re at the kitchen table, mugs of tea in hand, before she starts to talk. “Like I said, it was the strangest thing. Must have been a dream, but it was so vivid.”

“What happened?”

“When Fortuna had the place, there was a cupboard up on that top floor. Might still be there, in fact. It looks like a radiator cover, but there’s a storage space behind it. Carved holes in the wood, that kind of thing. They kept their luggage in there; it was my favorite hiding place when I was little. I’d make a den and pretend I was on a pirate ship or in a fairy castle. The usual thing. Anyway, Fortuna used that suite at the top as her creative space. It was where she’d drink and make her outrageous clothes and play music and, to be honest, do all the things that made me think she was utterly exquisite. I was in awe of her. And her husband, to be fair. Gerald, his name was. He was injured in the war so walked with a limp, but he was pure Clark Gable. We didn’t have people like them living here. They were so different. And they had one of those passionate relationships you think you want until you’re in one. All fire and ice. A lot of fights. A lot of making up. To a child, it was all so glamorous.”

I listen, rapt, drawn as much by the mention of the top-floor room as by Fortuna Carmichael’s excesses.

“People would forget I was playing, and from the cupboard Icould listen to Fortuna’s music and wonder what it must be like to be someone so unusual.”

“So what happened?” I ask.

“It was a very hot summer and it got stuffy in there. I dozed off and I must have had one hell of a dream because I was sure that when I woke up there was a racket going on—a fight—and then through the gaps in the wood I saw Gerald fall on the floor. I could see his face through the carved holes in the cupboard door, and I was sure he was dead. His eyes hademptied.Then I saw her drag him into her third-floor suite. I could hear her panting and everything.”

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