Nate’s bike pulled up outside an old cottage next to the village church. He stopped the engine and pulled his helmet off. ‘We’re here.’
I hopped off the bike, my legs still shaking from the ride, and removed my helmet. I turned away from Nate as I tried to mess up my hair and give it some body before I put back the ivy wreath that I’d had to take off to wear the helmet.
‘Very pretty,’ Nate said, walking around me.
‘Oh, ha, ha,’ I joked. ‘Motorbike hair is such a good look.’
Nate began to walk towards the house. He stopped abruptly and turned around. I just managed to stop myself crashing into him and looked up to meet his eye. ‘Look, you should know that this wasn’t my idea.’
‘What?’ I asked, confused.
‘Dinner, here, tonight,’ he said, looking me dead in the eye. ‘Trust me, I can see you don’t want to be here and I don’t particularly want you here either.’
That stung. I could tell by his behaviour that Nate didn’t want me here, but he didn’t actually have to say it out loud. ‘Well, I’m here now,’ I said bitterly. ‘So get over it.’
He shook his head and opened his mouth to speak but then quickly stopped himself. There was something in his eyes that I couldn’t quite make out – an apology? An explanation? ‘Look, Suzy …’ he said slowly. I waited for him to finish, but his words hung in the air unspoken. The hazel flecks in his eyes glinted in the twilight, and his gaze burnt into me as if there was something I should magically understand. ‘Come on,’ he said eventually. ‘You’ll see for yourself.’
He led me down a cobbled garden path and then through a narrow arched door into a warm, softly lit hallway. He hung his leather jacket on a wall hook and put his helmet down on the hall table. I put my helmet next to his, shrugged my jacket off and hung it up. I cast him a cautious glance, still feeling hurt by what he’d said to me outside, but Nate didn’t look back at me.
After spending over a week at Dudley Hall the cottage felt incredibly small. The tiny rooms and low ceilings were such a stark contrast to the cavernous and endless rooms I’d grown familiar with. Nate led me into a space that was both a sitting room and a dining room. A fire roared in the grate on one side of the room and a door leading to the kitchen sat on the other. Nell poked her head out from the kitchen. ‘Hi, Suzy. Take a seat.’ She gestured to the dining table that had been set for supper. ‘Dinner’s almost ready.’
I sat down opposite Nate and picked up my serviette, placing it over my lap. I looked up and caught him staring at me. I widened my eyes and mouthed, ‘What?’ at him.
‘You make your own clothes?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I replied proudly. ‘Fashion is an important form of self-expression. What you wear says a lot about you.’
He raised his eyebrow at me mockingly. ‘Really?’
Before I could knock out a witty reply a woman walked out of the kitchen with a bowl of mashed potato. She was willowy and pale, her clothes hanging off her in a way that they shouldn’t have. Her tired eyes cast me a quick glance as she said, ‘Hi, Suzy. I’m Fiona, Nate’s mum.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ I replied automatically. I looked over at Nate but his head was cast down; he was picking at the table cloth, his forehead creasing in a frown.
Nell came out of the kitchen with a large plate of sausages, a bowl of baked beans and an array of condiments on a tray. ‘I thought I’d keep it simple.’ She grinned at me. ‘Sausages and mash.’
‘Perfect.’ I nodded, silently thankful that I wasn’t currently going through one of my vegetarian phases. Fiona and Nell dished up the food and Nate poured us all glasses of juice. I noticed that Fiona was already drinking wine. It was Nell whose voice filled the silence; she chatted on about the trials and tribulations of cooking dinner on their ancient oven. Fiona moved through the room like a ghost, never looking at anyone or speaking. She eventually sat herself down and began to pick at her food. Once or twice I tried to catch Nate’s eye, but he seemed to be looking anywhere in the room but at me.
Once my plate was piled high with steaming food I began to tuck in. ‘This is lovely,’ I said after my first mouthful.
Nell smiled as she chewed. ‘I get so bored of cooking up at Dudley Hall when it comes to dinner here it’s all I can muster to mash a potato and put a few sausages under the grill.’ She was wearing her trademark orange turban and dangling gold earrings. Her pink top clashed loudly with the red coral she had draped around her neck.
Nell and I exchanged small talk for a while about food and the guests that she would cook for up at Dudley Hall. ‘I once had a fruitarian at one of Meredith’s parties,’ Nell told me. ‘Ate nothing but fruit – I couldn’t even cook her an apple pie because she refused to eat the pastry.’ Both Fiona and Nate remained silent, Fiona pushing her food around her plate as though it were poisoned and Nate eating so quickly I doubt he even tasted it. I could only assume his haste wasn’t because he was starved but because he couldn’t wait to get away. As he shovelled the last forkful of mashed potato into his mouth he let his cutlery fall onto his plate and he pushed his chair back to go.
‘So, Nate,’ I said before I could stop myself. He looked over at me, startled. ‘You’re at college?’
He cast his mum a nervous glance before looking back at me and answering. ‘I’m doing my AS-levels at a college in the next town.’ He leant forwards in his chair, resting his arms on the table, and I felt suddenly glad that he wasn’t about to leave. ‘I get to drive my bike there every day,’ he continued, looking straight at me. ‘I used to have a moped but I graduated on to the bike this year.’ Fiona tutted and shook her head in disapproval as she raised her glass to her lips. I realised that whilst she’d barely touched the food on her plate, she seemed to have poured herself another glass of wine since we’d all started eating. ‘You studying for AS-levels?’ Nate asked me.
‘Not quite yet,’ I replied, suddenly wanting to change the subject. I didn’t want to have to talk about myself. I hadn’t been in school for months, thanks to my breakdown. I had no idea if I’d finish my GCSEs or not, let alone ever graduate to AS-Levels.
‘You like living at Dudley Hall?’ Nate asked me quietly, as if we were alone in the room.
I finished the last of my food and placed my knife and fork in the centre of my plate. ‘It’s okay. Better than being at boarding school, which is where I was before.’ I skipped out the part about the lunatic asylum in between school and Dudley Hall.
‘If you knew what’s good for you you’d get yourself back to school as soon as possible,’ Fiona said quietly. I looked over at her, feeling slightly annoyed, expecting her to launch into some kind of lecture about the importance of education, but that wasn’t what I got. ‘It’s not right, a young girl living in that house. It’s bad enough that Nell goes there every day, but at least she knows what to expect.’
I stared at Fiona, dumbfounded, unsure what to say, as silence fell across the table. Nate stood up, reached for my plate and began to tidy up the table, a mild look of embarrassment on his face. Nell just looked down at the table, studying the food on her plate silently.
‘I don’t like being here in this village but we’ve got nowhere else to go,’ Fiona added, completely unaware of how her words were making everyone else feel so awkward.
‘What have you got against the village?’ I asked without thinking.
‘It’s not the village. It’s the house,’ Fiona replied.
‘That’s enough, Fiona,’ Nell said gently.
‘What’s wrong with the house?’ I asked.
Nate walked away into the kitchen and I heard him drop the plates down onto the kitchen counter with a loud clang. Fiona and Nell exchanged a look and I noticed Nell give her sister a warning glare.
‘It’s … it’s nothing,’ Fiona said, standing up. She drained the rest of her wine before pouring herself another full glass. ‘Excuse me, I’m overtired. It’s this weather – I don’t know if we’re having thunder or blue skies. It makes me anxious. It was lovely to meet you, Suzy, good night.’ And then Fiona turned and left the room, taking her wine glass but leaving her untouched plate of food behind.
I looked at Nell for an explanation, and Nell just shrugged as if that explained everything. She hadn’t warned me that her sister had obviously nothing good to say about Dudley-on-Water and especially about Dudley Hall. Nate had tried to warn me about his mum before I came into the house. And now Nell just wanted to shrug off Fiona’s behaviour as though there was nothing strange about it at all.
‘Is the reason Fiona doesn’t like Dudley Hall the same reason you won’t step foot upstairs there?’ I asked Nell.
Nate came back into the room with a steaming teapot and mugs on a tray. His mouth was set in a hard line. ‘They’re both superstitious old biddies,’ Nate said quietly, pouring the tea. ‘They got it from my grandmother, she was even worse. She was a schoolgirl at Dudley Hall back in the day, and she used to say that the house was cursed.’
‘Nate,’ Nell warned. ‘Suzy has to live there. Don’t go filling her head with your grandmother’s mumbo-jumbo.’
‘They’re just stories, Aunt Nell, you said so yourself,’ Nate replied.
‘What stories?’ I pressed.
‘Enough,’ Nell warned Nate, before he could say anything else.
The three of us took our tea onto the sofas and sat around the fire sipping it. Nell worked hard to steer the conversation away from Dudley Hall. She asked me about the clothes I made and the screenplay I was writing. Nate sat there quietly, staring off into space and seeming to be lost in his own thoughts. I noticed Nell didn’t ask me anything about school or about my time in Warren House. She obviously knew it was something I didn’t want to talk about, and I was incredibly thankful that I didn’t have to answer any awkward questions in front of Nate, even if he didn’t seem interested in anything I said.
The light outside had completely faded and the fire was dying out when Nate offered to give me a lift back to Dudley Hall. I thanked Nell for dinner and made her promise to say goodnight to Fiona for me – she hadn’t come back downstairs again since walking off.
I lifted my jacket from the hook in the hall, picked up Nate’s spare helmet and took my ivy wreath from round my head before I put the helmet on and clambered onto the back of Nate’s bike. I wrapped my arms around Nate’s waist and squeezed my knees against his hips as the bike began to power down the road. I’d never been on the back of a motorbike before that night. The feeling was intoxicating. I loved the sensation of the wind rushing against my limbs and the gush of air hitting the helmet. The cobbled houses and streetlights of Dudley-on-Water moved past us in a blur as we sped through the night together. I closed my eyes and imagined I was flying.
The ride was over too quickly, and before I knew it Nate was pulling up in front of Dudley Hall and switching off the engine. I passed him back his helmet and smiled before I could stop myself. ‘Thanks for the lift, Nate.’
I turned around and began to walk towards the house, stopping when Nate said, ‘Suzy, wait.’ I spun around. ‘I’m sorry about what I said earlier, about not wanting you to come for dinner.’
I shrugged at him and looked away, staring off into the dark night. ‘Your mum seems nice,’ I muttered.
He let out a small laugh. ‘My mum seems crazy.’
I looked back at him. ‘Is that why you didn’t want me to come over tonight?’
‘Can I have your number?’ he asked without warning, ignoring my question.
‘I don’t have a phone,’ I replied quickly, feeling slightly confused. Nate hadn’t seemed interested in a word I’d said all evening, he hadn’t even wanted me there, and now he was asking me for my number.
‘Who doesn’t have a phone? Well, do you have an email address?’
‘Not one that I check.’ My teeth began to chatter in the cool night air.
‘Well, you are a mystery, aren’t you?’ He smiled – a genuine smile, one that I hadn’t seen on him all evening.
I smiled back. ‘The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.’
He laughed. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Oscar Wilde,’ I explained, shivering in the moonlight.
He nodded his head, his eyes softening as he looked at me. ‘Well, I’d rather die enormous than live dormant.’ He looked at me expectantly and I shook my head in confusion. ‘You can quote Oscar Wilde but I can quote Jay-Z.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘I want to know what you think, Suzy, not some dead guy.’ Nate put his helmet on and revved up his bike engine. I stood back as the bike prepared to speed away, wishing I could think of something clever to say. Maybe Nate was right, maybe I shouldn’t hide behind other people’s words. But in truth I had no idea what I was thinking, and no idea what to say to him. I’d only met Nate a handful of times, but I couldn’t quite work him out. One minute he was cocky and full of it, the next he was quiet and lost in thought. And in one evening he’d gone from telling me he didn’t want me over for dinner to asking for my phone number.
‘Well, I guess I’ll just see you around then, Suzy,’ Nate shouted over the noise of the engine.
‘I guess so, Nate,’ I whispered into the wind as I watched him spin the bike around on the gravel and speed away into the night.