Page 9 of We Live Here Now

I smile back at her, half-amused that she’s dragged up that saying again, but I know that her heart is in the right place. Cat’s a good person, and I’m glad to see her.

The Christmas tree is decorated and lit in the dining room and Freddie and Russell have dressed the table already while prepping the food, the smell of cooking turkey permeating the warm house. Fires blaze in the downstairs grates and a massive icy downpour started just after Freddie and Russell finished bringing a bunch of boxes in from the outhouses so I could get my books put away. It’s a proper wintry day, and the house feels almost Dickensian.

Cat scans a couple of the old paperbacks before adding them to her end of the shelves. Unlike Freddie, Cat’s always been a bookworm like me. It’s what we bonded over in uni. Iso was thelight,the party life of our house-share trio, Cat was the studious one, and I was somewhere in between. Sometimes I think it’s strange we’ve stayed friends for so long, but once our boyfriends and then husbands clicked—different as they might be too—we were locked into a six. Right now, in a new house and new life, it’s comforting to have them here, and I feel a rush of affection for them all.

Given the built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace, this room might have been a drawing room or library at some point, smaller than the main lounge and not as imposing as the red room or the dining room, and it’s great to finally have somewhere to let my books breathe and a desk to sit at if I ever decide to write a book of my own.

“These are the last ones out of this box.” Cat hands me three hardbacks and I slot them in. All I need to make this room my own are a couple of wingback chairs and maybe some plants. I wasn’t keen on the thick green wallpaper, inlaid with a gold pattern, but I’m warming to its richness now that the room is coming to life.

“This place is amazing,” Cat says, flopping into my old Ikea chair, her baggy green sweater over her jeans almost matching the walls. “So much space. And god, the peace and quiet. I wonder if there’s a vacancy for a head of year in one of the local secondaries. Bet the kids are easier. I’d love to run away from London.”

“If you guys moved down here, that would be amazing.” I stand back, enjoying the look of the full shelves. “But ‘run away’ is a funny way of putting it.”

“Just a turn of phrase. Run away. Move away. Whatever. Come on,” she says. “Let’s go get another drink and check on the turkey.”

We head out into the hallway and the click of pool balls comes from the room that Freddie and Russell have turned into a games room while we’ve been setting up the study.

“I’ll see if the boys want anything,” Cat says, and I realize I’ve left my own glass behind. I turn back to the study to fetch it, a gentle wine-and-happiness buzz making me more relaxed than I’ve been since getting out of the hospital.

I’m about to pick up my glass when the study door creaks slowly shut behind me.

As I watch it click closed, I feel a sudden gust of icy wind and the fire goes out.

I stare into the grate, my heart pounding in my chest. The fire isn’t just out. It’s cold. There’s no smoke coming from the coals. No residual heat. Nothing. Rain hammers at the window, the sound my only company.Just a blast of stormy wind coming down the chimney. That’s all.Feeling a million miles away from the rest of the warm house, I pick up the glass and force my feet to move calmly toward the door.

It’s an old house and there’s a storm outside. This is nothing to be freaked out by. It’s only as I touch the handle, twisting it to free myself from the room, that I hear several soft thuds on the wooden floor behind me and I glance back in trepidation, half expecting sooty footprints coming toward me, but instead I see that four books have fallen off the shelves from various points, now on the rug in front of the dead fire.Just the wind, I tell myself again as my mouth dries.Nothing else.Determined not to be scared out of the room, I pick them up.Die or Dietby Dr. Ella Jones,Will You Love Meby Mhairi Atkinson,Here Come the Clownsby Armond Ellory, andYouby Caroline Kepnes.

Out in the hallway the door knocker bangs loudly, and I dropthe books onto the table, take my glass, and get out of the cold study, hurrying to greet Mark and Iso, who is already shrieking with delight, and to revel in the normality of our friendships.

Just the wind, I repeat like a mantra.Just the wind.

And I almost believe it until we go back into the study while giving them the tour of the house. As the others talk, all I can do is stand and stare. The fire is blazing again. The books are back on the shelves. It’s as if it didn’t happen at all.

It’s me. I must be going mad.

13

Emily

“Is that a fact?” Across the table in the candlelight Iso glows, her ice-white hair shining without a hint of any roots, and I’m sure she’s had more Botox—but even if she has, her figure is all her own work, and I have to salute the energy she puts into staying so hot. She isnotwearing a baggy sweater and jeans but a glamorous dress—Well, it is second Christmas, everyone—and a pair of very high heels. “I think people just change,” she says. “Most people anyway.”

“Sure, people change.” Russell shrugs. “That’s definitely part of it, but that’s what we say to be kind to ourselves when things don’t turn out. The essence of who we are doesn’t alter that much as we age. A few people make big changes that can affect relationships—alcoholics who quit drinking or the other way around—but most of us just get calmer as we get older. Not really much different.”

Russell waves his hands around, animated as he talks, and I wonder if he’s this engaged with the students he teaches psychology to at the college, or if it’s an intensity he can achieve only after half a bottle of wine. Either way, it’s a good distraction from my worry that I’ve got a brain tumor or post-sepsis syndrome or that this house is actually haunted.

“If you’re a five-star beach holiday person, you’re not suddenly going to become someone who wants to go camping. If anything, you start wantingmoreluxury.” His look is pointed directly at Iso and she laughs, and we laugh with her. It’s true. The more Mark earns—and it’s an eye-watering amount for someone only just over forty—the more ways Iso finds to enjoy it.

“The fact of the matter is,” Russell continues, “that when peoplefall in love the first thing they do islieto each other.” He smiles at all of us, his curly hair wilder after being caught in the rain. “And lies are hard to maintain.”

“I didn’t lie to you.” Cat hasn’t touched her own glass for a while, and I can see she’s annoyed. Her mouth is pursed tight. Russell always ends up holding court, and the rest of us don’t mind it—at least what he says is clever and interesting—but she gets embarrassed by him. “Except perhaps pretending I liked listening to you pontificate when we should be having fun.”

“Ouch.” He blows her a kiss and gives her a good-humored smile. “But are you sure about that? I lied. I came to church with you. I told you I was a Catholic to please your parents, and we both know now that I’m at best agnostic.”

“I think he’s right.” Mark refills our glasses with the expensive Barolo he brought six bottles of. “Blowjobs, for example. Women lie about loving those. Hey, if this is extra Christmas, does that mean I get an extra one this year?”

“What is this, pick on Iso night?” She throws the end of her bread roll at her husband. “You do better than most, darling.”

“Oh my god, Cat.” I laugh suddenly with a memory. “You said you liked jazz. Do you remember? After your second date with Russell—the first time you shagged, I think—we had to do a quick deep dive so you could pretend to know some obscure 1970s music to impress him.”

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