Eleanor tried not to look at Rosie differently, but it was impossible, when she went wild and bit her, not to think about what Joanna said: the madhouse, unnatural, something wrong, the incident. She thought about the neighbours on either side of them; surely they would know more about the house and the Ashworths. She began to work up the courage to approach them.
They had not made much effort with them since moving in – she’d suggested putting a note through the door inviting them round for a drink, but Richard was protective of the house, not wanting too many people to see it before it was finished. The idea lost momentum. The woman at number 50 lived alone – she was grand and imposing and reminded Eleanor slightly of Richard’s mother. Occasionally, she saw young men bounding in and out of number 54 and they smiled at her warmly, although they never stopped to say hello. She decided to start with them.
Eleanor made her way up the steps to their front door and rang the bell. There was silence, then the sound of loud, rapid footsteps on the stairs and a man flung open the door, saying, ‘Yup?’ He had the round, smooth face of a teenager, but was wearing chinos and a shirt with wide blue stripes – Eleanor guessed he must be in his early twenties, his first job, something well paid. His shirt was open at the navel – she could see a triangle of smooth brown flesh. He leant forward in the doorway, his hand still on the catch, bobbing with enthusiasm, and Eleanor found herself recoiling slightly, from his height, his good looks, his buoyant, entitled manner. As she introduced herself, he took his hand off the catch and stood up straighter, deferring to her in a way that made her feel elderly.
‘Oh hello, Eleanor! I’m Jamie.’ He was speaking to her the way she expected Rosie and Isobel’s friends would, in twenty years’ time. ‘You’re from next door? Yeah, I’ve seen you around – you’ve got little kids, right?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘We were talking about you guys, actually, the other day, cos we’ve seen a red-haired girl come out of your house, with a bike? Is she, like, your au pair or another daughter or . . . ?’
‘She’s our lodger.’
‘Ah, right, OK! We didn’t get how you all fitted together.’
‘What about you – do you live here by yourself?’
‘Ha, no! I mean, I wish, right. There’s four of us – me, Luke, Hannah and Joe. It’s Han’s house – her dad bought it for her after uni and we all moved here together.’
‘And do you like it here?’
‘Yeah, it’s fucking cool round here, man.’ He caught himself and although he didn’t actually apologize, he looked embarrassed. Eleanor was mortified that he thought he couldn’t swear in front of her.
‘Look, I’m sorry to disturb you, but we’re trying to get in contact with the people who owned our house before us – the Ashworths – and I just thought they might have given you a forwarding address?’
‘The family? No – we didn’t really know them. They moved out before you guys moved in, so we didn’t really overlap that much.’
‘When did they move out?’
‘Like, six months before you got here, maybe? The house was empty for a little while anyway.’
‘I don’t suppose you know why they moved?’
‘No idea. Well, actually, Luke had this theory about – hang on—’ He turned back into the house and bellowed ‘HAN!’ so loudly that Eleanor started.
‘What?’ A girl appeared from the back room, holding a mug of tea. Eleanor guessed she had just come in from work; she was wearing an expensive-looking suit, clear tights and no shoes. Her dark blonde hair was loosely corralled in a low ponytail. Eleanor saw a row of high-heeled shoes in the hall; she noticed the labels and felt briefly insecure.
‘Han, mate, do you know when Luke’s back? It should be around now, right?’
‘He’s not in tonight, remember? He’s seeing that Soulmates girl.’
‘Oh yeah, I forgot about that! Han, this is Eleanor, from next door. That red-haired girl’s their lodger.’
‘Oh, right. These guys are all over your lodger,’ she said, disdainfully, as if this reflected badly on Eleanor. She turned to Jamie for a reaction, and he went red. ‘Han . . .’
‘What? You are.’
‘Eleanor was asking about the family that lived here before them?’
‘Oh, them! Christ, they were mental! Well, the girl was.’
‘Ah, come on, Han, she was just a little kid.’
‘I’ve got a nephew, Jamie, I know what kids are like. They’re not like that.’
‘What was wrong with her?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Oh, it was just . . . everything! The way she moved, she made these weird noises all the time, like sort of shrieks and animal noises, but really loud . . . I’m not saying I’m, like, a shrink or anything, but there was something really wrong. You could just tell. And the mum looked like kind of a bitch, and you never saw the dad.’
‘They were weird,’ Jamie said. ‘We used to talk about them a lot. Like, there was always a light on upstairs. Even if you were getting in, like, three, four in the morning, the light was always on.’
‘Whereabouts upstairs?’ Eleanor asked, even though she knew.
‘The top floor. And I just thought it was weird, cos you’d think they’d all be asleep at that time, right, a young family?’
‘Yes, you would,’ Eleanor said, the words barely more than a murmur.
‘I wish Luke was here, man – you should talk to him! He had the room next door to them at the top and he could hear crying and stuff, through the night, but not like normal crying. It used to freak him out. Something definitely wasn’t right. But Han, didn’t he think there’d been some kind of accident there? Didn’t he say he saw an ambulance outside the house, just before they moved out? He thought the little girl had died.’
Jamie had relaxed again and was leaning forward, enthused by the story. Eleanor wanted to back away.
‘Luke says he saw an ambulance,’ Hannah said. ‘He says the girl died.’
‘Yeah, OK, Luke can talk a lot of shit sometimes. But I reckon something happened. He definitely thought there’d been an accident anyway. And I kind of thought, actually that makes sense, because why else would they want to leave so quickly? I mean, it’s weird to move out of somewhere before you’ve even put it on the market, right?’
‘It is weird,’ Eleanor said, feeling her insides coil.
‘So it was empty for ages and Luke was all like, oh my God, the house is definitely haunted, the girl’s spirit is coming back, they’re never going to sell it . . . He said he heard noises coming from that room, like, after they’d moved out.’
‘Jamie,’ Hannah said. He registered Eleanor’s expression.
‘Oh! Oh, that’s just Luke, man – I mean, like I say, he’s full of shit. You know, maybe the ambulance stuff was real, but that could have been anything. And you guys have been all right there, right?’ He laughed nervously. ‘No things flying round your head? No strange tappings on the wall at night . . . ?’ He knocked the door frame.
‘No – no, nothing like that.’
‘Why do you need to get in contact with them anyway? Is something wrong?’
‘No, it’s just – house business, you know, problems with the sale – I won’t bore you with it. Look, thank you very much for your help.’
‘Sure, no problem, it was nice to meet you! You guys should all come round for, like, a drink or something some time?’ He looked at Hannah for approval; she withheld it.
‘That would be lovely,’ Eleanor said, secure that it would never happen.
‘OK, well, cheers then, Eleanor! Cheers, bye.’ He shut the door and she made her way back down the steps, her mind swarming.
*
Eleanor let herself back into the house. Richard was at the kitchen table on his laptop; he stood up when she walked in.
‘Where did you go? You said you were just going to walk round the block.’
She took off her coat in a daze and dropped it on the sofa. Her mind was overfull; she knew telling him about the neighbours would cause an argument, but the words spilt out of her mouth.
‘Richard, you have to hear this: I spoke to the people next door – they think there was something wrong with the girl here.’
‘You went round to the people next door?’
‘Yes, to ask them if they knew—’
‘Eleanor! What’s wrong with you?’
‘They think there was an accident here!’
He turned away and started emptying the dishwasher loudly, letting the plates clatter. She stood in front of him at the kitchen worktop. ‘They think that Emily might have died! That that’s why the family moved out.’
‘Hang on, they think there was an accident. They don’t know.’
‘But they were gone a full six months before they sold it – don’t you think that’s interesting? We thought they weren’t living here!’
‘I don’t think that’s interesting at all, actually – there could be a hundred reasons why they would have done that.’
‘Aren’t you curious, about what went on here before us?’
He put a handful of forks down on the counter. ‘No! I don’t want to know! It’s our house now. And this isn’t curiosity, Eleanor, it’s obsession! So what if there was an accident? What if we do find out that Emily’s alive or dead or whatever? What will that tell us?’
‘I just want to find out why I’m feeling like this.’
‘You’re feeling like this because you’re ill! It has nothing to do with the house!’
She came round the other side of the worktop and put the forks away in the drawer, arranging them so they faced in the same direction, nesting together. ‘They talk about the house to each other. Next door. They think it’s haunted.’
‘Well, there’s one problem with that theory, isn’t there: ghosts don’t exist. And ghosts don’t make people ill. My God, I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation – you have a degree from Cambridge University!’
She knelt down and opened a cupboard, took out the saucepan he’d put away and put it in the cupboard above the sink, inside a nest of larger saucepans. ‘Doesn’t it worry you, that people would say that about our house?’
‘No. I’ve seen those guys next door – they’re idiots. If a house is empty for any length of time, people will make up stories about it. That’s all there is.’
She stood up and turned to face him. ‘I just want to go back and speak to Luke. If I can just hear what he says . . .’
‘You’re not going back there, OK? They’ll think we’re mad.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re acting like you’re mad! Have you seen yourself? You look mad.’
Tears formed in her eyes. He moved towards her; she backed away. ‘Oh Eleanor . . . Eleanor, I’m sorry . . . You’re unwell, that’s all I meant . . .’
She ran upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror. He was right; she did look mad. Her hair was dirty and coarse strands were coming away from the crown. Her face was blotchy and the skin under her eyes was pouched and scored with lines. Her jumper was covered in mysterious white stains – she couldn’t even remember where from. She had never felt pretty, but she’d always felt presentable, together. Even when Rosie and Isobel were babies and her clothes were always covered in milk and vomit, she was as vigilant as she could be, washing and changing and neatening compulsively. Six months ago, she would have changed her jumper before meeting someone new. She’d unravelled without even noticing. What must they have thought of her, those people, so young, so callous, so sure of themselves? How could she go back?
Richard was outside the door. ‘Eleanor, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry – I didn’t mean it.’ His tone changed when she didn’t answer – he was speaking quietly so as not to wake the children or perhaps disturb Zoe, but he was beginning to get frustrated. ‘Eleanor? I’m sorry, OK? Eleanor? Come on!’
She couldn’t answer. She sat on the edge of the bath and waited till he’d gone back downstairs.