As it turned out, Lewis didn’t need to worry about selling his company in order to get rich. His hoarder-miser grandfather died and left him several million pounds that nobody in the Braid family had known the old man had. Lewis and Flora moved from a three-bedroom basement flat to 16 Wyddial Lane, which looks as if it must have at least eight bedrooms, and now perhaps Lewis has all those chefs and chauffeurs he used to joke about acquiring. Maybe he and Flora and their kids are all inside the house now, staring at their iPhones.
What age would Georgina be? Twelve, so not quite a teenager. We didn’t let Zannah have a phone until she was thirteen, but her teenager behaviour had definitely started by then. She was eleven the first time she raised her eyebrows and asked me why I imagined in my wildest dreams that she might want to go into town with someone wearing a carpet. (I was dressed in a beautiful woollen poncho at the time.)
I feel ashamed when I think about Georgina Braid, so I concentrate on the house instead. I got it wrong before – I glanced at it and decided it was modern, but, on closer inspection, it looks as if only the sides of it are newly built. The middle third of the building sticks out in front of the grand wings to the left and right, which are flat-fronted and have been added much more recently in what Zannah would call a ‘glow-up’. The dark-red pantiled roof of the newest sections starts higher up than the roof of the middle part, which has two dormer windows set into it. Presumably this was once an average-sized cottage. Only just visible above the closed wooden gates is a lychgate-style roofed porch, with the same red tiles. Apart from the two roofs – house and porch – the entire frontage is gleaming white. It looks as if it might have been painted yesterday. The overall effect is of a sleek, contemporary white-cube-style house that has swallowed a lumpy old cottage and been unable to digest it.
There’s a second building, long and low, standing between the house and the high wall, separating the two. Most likely it’s a double or triple garage. If there’s this much space at the front, there must be three times as much at the back, at least. I picture a long, striped lawn, alternating shades of lush green, and a smooth stone patio area, complete with top-of-the-range outdoor chairs and sofas: dark brown with plump cream cushions.
I wipe beads of sweat from my forehead. One open window isn’t enough. How has it got so hot, suddenly? I open my door slightly, to let more air in.
Could I …
No. Absolutely not. I can’t ring the bell and smile and say, ‘Hi, Flora. I was passing, and I thought I’d pop round on the off-chance.’ Not after twelve years.
Is that why I came here, really? Not only to see the house but because I’m secretly hoping to rewrite the story?
The Braids and the Leesons were best friends. Twelve years ago, they did not have any sort of argument, nor did they exchange harsh words. The last time they saw each other, everybody smiled and laughed and kissed and hugged goodbye. They talked about getting together again very soon – maybe next week, maybe taking the kids to the summer fair on Parker’s Piece. As they enthusiastically agreed to ring each other to arrange this outing, Flora Braid and Beth Leeson both knew that there would be no phone call in either direction, and no trip to the fair. Dominic Leeson and Lewis Braid did not know this, because no one had told them that the two families would never meet or speak again.
On the face of it, it makes no sense. Only Flora and I understand what happened – and I’ll never know whether our understandings of it are the same. I’ve tried to explain to Dominic what happened from my point of view, and I suppose Flora must have told Lewis something, though perhaps not the truth …
This is ridiculous. I should be watching Ben play football, or finding a supermarket. I really do need to get something for dinner. Who cares where the Braids live now? I’ve seen everything there is to see – cream curtains at the upstairs windows, fat, square red-brick gateposts topped with large balls of grey stone, perfectly smooth and round, clashing horribly with the red brick.
I should go.
I’m about to start the car when I notice one coming up behind me: a Range Rover driving extra slowly. Wyddial Lane is a twenty-mile-an-hour zone, and this car’s going at no more than ten. I’m watching it, willing it to speed up, when I notice a movement from another direction.
It’s Flora’s gates – they’re opening.
The silver-grey Range Rover slows still further as it approaches the Braids’ house. It inches forward, now almost level with my car. That’s where it’s heading: through the wooden gates, into the grounds of number 16. Of course: there’s no way Lewis and Flora would have gates that you have to get out and open; they’d have some kind of remote-control set-up.
I see glossy dark brown hair through the Range Rover’s half-open window. It could well be Flora. It’s bound to be.
Shit. Why did I think I could get away with this? She’s going to see me.
No, she won’t. No one looks at a random parked car. She’ll drive in through the gates and then they’ll close again, and she won’t think about what’s beyond her property.
I turn my face away, making sure to lean close to my open window in case there’s anything to hear.
There’s nothing for a few seconds. Then a crunch of tyres on gravel, and the sound of the Range Rover’s engine cutting out. A car door opens. Feet land on gravel and a woman’s voice, halfway through a sentence as it emerges into the open air, drifts across to me: ‘… said I’m ready now. You can start. Yes. Start.’
It’s Flora. Unmistakeably. She doesn’t sound happy. She sounds … I don’t know how to describe it. Afraid, resentful, prepared for the worst. Is something horrible about to happen?
Don’t be ridiculous. You heard, what, six words?
I listen for a response but I hear nothing. Flora’s probably on the phone.
I’ve never heard her sound like that before.
I can’t not look. I have to risk it. If the worst happens and she spots me and I decide I can’t face talking to her, I can just drive away, fast. That’d give her twenty-mile-an-hour-zone neighbours something to talk about. They could lobby to have Wyddial Lane sealed at both ends so that no one who doesn’t live here can enter in future.
The gates of Newnham House are still wide open. And there’s Flora: twelve years older, but it’s definitely her. Her hair hasn’t changed a bit: same dark brown with no hint of grey, same style. She’s wearing white lace-up pumps, a pale grey hoody and jeans.
‘Home,’ she says, holding her phone half an inch away from her ear. ‘I’m at home.’
I tried to push it away but it’s back again: the strong sense that what I’m seeing isn’t an ordinary conversation. There’s something wrong.
A short silence follows. Then she says, ‘Hey, Chimp.’ She stops, raises her voice slightly and says, ‘Hey, Chimpyyy!’
Strange. The words don’t match the expression on her face at all. She looks upset and worried, not in relaxed greeting mode.
Is she talking to a new person now? Did the person she told she was ready put a child on the phone? It must be a child, surely. Who else would allow themselves to be called Chimpy? Her change of tone, too, from normal to deliberate, slower, louder …
Suddenly, she turns away and stretches out her arm, holding her phone as far away from herself as possible. Then, a few seconds later, she brings it back to her ear and wipes her eyes with her other hand.