CHAPTER 1
Before we lived in the house, the nightmares lived in me.
The worst one came in the week of my twenty-fifth birthday. Logan and I were in IKEA, in a section filled with doll’s houses. We were choosing which one to live in. The dream logic was that if we found one we agreed on, we would shrink to fit inside or perhaps the doll’s house would become big enough to contain us. We weren’t having any luck, and the mood between us was bad. Dream Logan dragged his feet, checked his phone and generally wanted to be somewhere else. I gushed over house after house, but nothing would interest him.
Logan’s eyes popped and he ran to a house, yelping excitedly. I was excited, too. I would accept any house, if only Logan wanted to live in it with me. But the house he’d picked was already occupied. By Mary, Logan’s ex. She stuck out of the house like Alice in Wonderland, her shapely legs poking out the wooden slat exterior, her beautiful face and curly hair pressed against the inside of an upper-floor window.
‘This is the one I want!’ He said.
Mary fluttered her long, long eyelashes.
I tried not to sound uptight or distraught. ‘There’s already somebody in that one.’
‘But I want to live here!’ He pointed to the front door, between her legs. Then he moved to go inside.
‘Wait, Logan — look at this house.’ I pointed over my shoulder arbitrarily, not even knowing which house I was picking out.
‘What one—?’ He looked over my shoulder and stopped dead. ‘Not that one.’ He started shaking. ‘I don’t like that house.’
I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him towards the house I still had not looked at. ‘We’ll be happy in this one, trust me.’
He started to cry. (Logan hardly ever cried in real life.) ‘I’m scared, Selia, I’m so fucking scared. Look — look! Have you seen who’s in that house? Have you seen who it is?’
I moved behind him and grabbed his arms and pushed him away from Mary. He was strangely easy to push, like a helium balloon.
At first glance, the other house was perfectly nice. A gorgeous two-up two-down cottage, with wisteria growing over the door. The kind of place that, as a child, you imagine you will live in when you are grown up.
He grabbed at the picket fence, begging. ‘Selia, please, look who’s inside!’
He was right. The doll’s house was occupied. A single limb drooped from one of the top windows: an inhuman leg covered in mottled brownish hair. One of too many legs. Inside, a face with too many eyes. The thing wanted us to open the door and come inside its trap.
I pushed Logan harder. He screamed at the top of his lungs.
I woke up in my flat in Forest Hill, alarmed to find myself on top of Logan with my hands around his throat.
He woke up, alarmed but still paralysed from sleep. Before I regained control, I stared into his terrified eyes and said, ‘I love you.’
*
We laughed about it afterwards.
‘I love you too!’ He joked, mimicking a strangling action.
I didn’t tell Logan about the contents of the dream — about Mary, or the terrible thing waiting for us. I worried it might raise issues of jealousy that I had worked hard to move on from since the early days of our relationship, when his breakup with Mary was still fresh. But the nightmares — there were others, all with Mary and that thing waiting for us — were part of a growing sense of desperation that I knew would have to find an outlet soon.
Sounding Logan out about our relationship was difficult. He had always occupied the role of the more emotionally mature half of our relationship, which had allowed him to subtly influence what counted as a sensible discussion. When we met at university, I put it down to how I was a working-class girl from Sheffield and he was old money from London. This meant he had been to better clubs, taking better drugs, and sleeping with more people. He’d also had a big relationship and a big break-up. A relationship that ended only because Mary had to move to America. When he spoke about it, it all seemed so romantically tragic and grown-up.
After six years together, Logan always found a way to subtly diminish or sideline any anxieties I raised about our relationship. I don’t know if he did it deliberately, or if maybe I just wasn’t insistent enough. But if a conversation ever got too close to something to do with “us”, he would find a way to make the problems seem small and not worth talking about.
But on my twenty-fifth birthday, during this bout of terrible nightmares, I finally forced the conversation.
Logan had invited me round to his flat, which he shared with his fuckwitted friend Org. He wanted to cook for me. I would have preferred to go out, but he was broke. Like every other person from wealth I met at university, whilst Logan looked forward to a distant horizon of an inconceivably large inheritance, for now he had nothing, and his PhD meant he only had time to earn a little from bar shifts. But he was a great cook, so I didn’t mind staying in too much.
He arranged for Org to be away for the evening, and when I arrived I was pleased to find a candlelit atmosphere and a nice smell — something French with chicken, cream and anchovies.
Sometime shortly after we ate we sat at the dinner table in the flickering lights.
‘Where did you send Org off to?’
‘He’s on a date.’
‘That really annoying Australian woman?’
‘No. Some Italian.’
‘I thought he and the Australian were getting serious? I noticed her toothbrush next to mine.’
‘He’s still seeing her. He’s just dating a couple of other people, too.’
‘He’s dating three women? Org can’t remember what day the bins go out. How does he keep on top of the logistics?’
He laughed at my innocence. I couldn’t read his expression. Was he envious of Org?
‘You have to wonder,’ I said, running a finger around my wine glass, ‘if he’ll ever settle down.’
‘“Settle down”. God. That’s a rough phrase for our mid-twenties.’
I flushed. He started to speak, but I cut in: ‘Why is it a rough phrase?’
Logan made a face — what a strange question. ‘Org’s free-roaming and single, why would he ruin that by —’ he stopped himself. ‘I get it — you’re worried I feel the same?’
I flushed more, feeling exposed and silly. ‘Just something about how wistfully you talk about Org and his harem.’
‘I don’t envy Org. I’m really happy with how things are.’
He put his hand on mine, but I didn’t embrace it back. It felt like yet another time when Logan was going to slip out of a discussion about our relationship.
‘But how are things? We never talk about it.’
He leaned back. ‘What do you want to talk about?’ I sighed with anger and clenched my fists. He reacted with apparent befuddlement. ‘What? What did I say?’
‘That’s what you do. Whenever I raise this, you somehow turn it from a discussion to an interview. With my feelings as the subject.’
‘I thought you wanted to talk about your feelings.’
‘I’d like us to discuss our relationship.’
‘This is it, Selia,’ he pointed between us. ‘There’s you. And there’s me. That’s the relationship. We’re talking. This is it.’
‘That isn’t the relationship. The relationship is the thing between us.’ I offered an alternative to his gesture: a downturned hand between us as though clutching an object, or perhaps like a creature with many limbs. ‘So maybe you could start things off. From your point of view, where is all this going?’
‘Wow. OK. Big conversation.’
‘You’re acting like I’ve put a gun to your head.’
‘I just wasn’t ready for this conversation literally right now at this exact moment.’
He was doing such a good job of keeping his cool, while I was getting more and more upset. I knew this dynamic too well. The more I pressed him, the more it would make me the crazy, unreasonable one. I was going to get no assurances, no sense of certainty, and I would have to be completely calm about it.
But then, for the first time ever, Logan offered a picture of how he saw our future.
‘The honest answer is: I don’t think about it at all.’
Nothing he could have said would have hurt or shocked me more. I don’t know what my expression was, but Logan became alarmed, as if he’d accidentally hit me, and reached over for my hand.
‘Hey, woah, I don’t mean I don’t think about you. I think about you all the time. I’m crazy about you, Selia. I love you so much. And I’m really, really happy with this,’ he did his gesture again, him and me. ‘But…I don’t know. We’re in our mid-twenties. We’re so fucking young. I don’t know what I want to do once the PhD is done, whether I want to travel or whatever. And maybe you don’t want to be a teacher your whole life.’
‘Why are we talking about work?’
‘I just mean: the future is open. And the present is fucking great. And that’s enough for me.’
I don’t remember how it went from there. For the rest of the evening, I acted like we’d had an argument and made up for it. We even had make-up sex. But as I lay in his arms, listening to him sleep, I kept thinking about what he said. I don’t think about it at all…maybe I’ll travel…the future is really open.
The words made a nest in my mind.
CHAPTER 2
‘It’s a bit annoying, but it sounds like he was just being honest. OK, so he isn’t thinking about marriage or kids. That doesn’t mean he’s thinking of ending the relationship or anything.’
This was the analysis of Kathy, my flatmate, colleague, and best friend, during drinks after work the following Monday.
I stabbed at the ice in my G&T with my straw. I valued Kathy’s advice, but she was easygoing to a fault. This not only meant that she left our plughole full of hair and never topped up the rinse aid in the dishwasher. Her placidity left her blind to people’s faults. This made her popular, certainly. We’d both been working at the school for the same length of time, less than a year, but it was Kathy who always seemed to know when people’s birthday drinks or other socials were, and I’d always tag along in her wake, the icy, sardonic new RE teacher following the charismatic new English Lit teacher. But Kathy trusted the surfaces of things too much.
Also, she was single and didn’t want to be, whilst I was in a six-year-long relationship. So I felt I couldn’t complain too much, or for too long.
‘But after six years, isn’t it strange he doesn’t think about the future?’
She shrugged — was she getting bored of the conversation? ‘Isn’t that just the stereotypical dynamic? That blokes don’t really think about that stuff?’ She mimed a caveman persona. ‘Urgh. Relationship have future? Me make plan, say what feel?’ She laughed.
I didn’t like the implication: that I, too, was acting like a stereotype. ‘Isn’t it OK for me to want some certainty about the future?’
Her mouth was full of vodka and tonic, which she rushed to swallow, her eyes wide, racing to reassure me. ‘Mmm, no, I totally get that. You did the right thing — you communicated how you were feeling. Do you think it’s a red line for you? That maybe you can’t go on if he’s not willing to plan ahead a little?’
Now it was my turn to race to swallow my drink. ‘God, no. I’m not thinking of breaking up.’
She gave another shrug — so, what are you worried about?
‘I just…want to find some way to…’ I repeated the gesture I had made to Logan, my downturned hand in the air, ‘to guarantee things, somehow.’
She gave me a sympatheic, somewhat mocking look. ‘I don’t think it works like that, babe.’
I pretended to chuckle in agreement, but a terribly cruel thought flashed across my mind like lightning: and what the fuck would you know about it, Kathy?
I don’t know where the thought came from.
*
Suddenly, a miracle in the form of a death.
I had almost forgotten about Racist Great Aunty Linda. That’s what my cousins called her, because at family events she would always find a way to complain about how FULL everywhere was. She actually lived in a deserted village in Bedfordshire, and was always complaining about how she didn’t see enough of anyone. No matter how neutrally her younger relatives would non-respond to her little rants, she could never drop it. Other than her fear of foreign mobs, the only other thing Linda spoke about was her list of physical ailments, a set of minor problems that she loved and nurtured like pets. Linda was actually incredibly lucky in this regard. Apart from her weak heart, and she had huge amounts of money from her late husband which she used to underpay a long-suffering carer called Angela, from Poland (the irony was well noted within the family).
Her heart gave out one March day. I didn’t think she particularly valued me as her great-niece, or ever thought about me. But her lawyer rang to tell me she had left me £250,000.
I couldn’t comprehend that amount of money being associated with me. It was like the lawyer had said I’d inherited a unicorn. I kept saying ‘what?’ until he explained it to me slowly, like I was a child.
I rang my mum. She displayed her impressive ability to make everything about her.
‘She’s doing this to spite me, obviously.’
‘She’s not doing anything, mum, she’s dead.’
‘Left me out of her will. All because I didn’t go to see her after her toe operation.’
‘I mean, it’s possible. She was pretty vindictive. But, what are you saying? That you should have it, that I shouldn’t take it?’
‘No, no. I don’t want it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ She sounded sincere, though not particularly happy about it.
‘I suppose you and Dad are sort of fine, financially, aren’t you? You’ve got the house and your pensions and stuff.’
‘Mmm. Exactly.’
‘And I’ve just got a teacher’s salary and student debt and rent and everything…’
‘I just want to know why she would give it to you.’
‘Maybe she liked me, Mum.’
As if she hadn’t heard me: ‘I can’t think what it is.’
‘Anyway. I’m worried about Angela. Do you know if Linda left her anything?’
‘Linda’s carer? I don’t know.’
‘I want to check in on her, OK? Could you find out her number?’
‘Don’t go giving it all away as an act of charity, Selia.’
‘It’s not charity. Angela looked after Linda for nearly ten years. It would be just like Linda to leave her nothing because she’s Polish or whatever.’
‘I’ll find her number. But don’t do anything silly, Selia.’
Angela was very sweet. She actually seemed upset by Aunty Linda’s death, despite a decade of what looked to me like terrible treatment. I don’t know if it was religious conviction, basic decency, or Stockholm Syndrome, but Angela said she prayed for Linda and even said she was a good woman.
I broached the topic of inheritance and asked if Angela had been left in a good position.
‘Yes. Yes, your great-aunt left me a very generous amount. Generous enough that I will retire soon, I think.’
‘Wow. OK. Are you sure you’re all right, then? Because she left me something too. Quite a large amount. And I wouldn’t want you to be left without, you know…’
‘Ah, bless you. What a good girl you are. No, darling, no, I have enough. More than enough. You have a good soul.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘This is a gift from God, darling. He wants you to have it.’
I thought about this after I hung up. She had only offered it as a platitude: heartfelt, certainly, because Angela was a lifelong Orthodox Christian. I think it was one of the reasons Linda, who was Church of England like a lot of my family, respected her despite her being foreign. But I hadn’t been to church since before university, and hadn’t thought about providence for even longer. Yet Angela’s words felt significant. It felt odd to think about God now, in the context of a big pile of money. But I felt a metaphysical tug, as if a divine thread had been tied around my soul and had started to twitch. A will greater than my own, pulling me closer.
