A CURTAIN FLINCHES AT ONE OF the windows. The silhouette of a head appears, then retreats behind the velvet.
Lily yanks her bobble hat down over her ears. She’d forgotten how the Yorkshire wind wants to get to know you; it probes at sleeves and collars, trying to winkle out your secrets. Well, it’s not getting hers. Pulling her coat tighter, she walks up to the front door. It’s a shinier black than she remembers. She touches it. The paint is slightly tacky. Someone’s been tarting up the house. Good luck with that. A lick of paint, a hiss of polish and a kiss of air freshener won’t hide its sins.
She raps the door knocker three times. They’ll have to deal with her being early. The knocks ring out across the gravel. For a moment she listens for the footsteps of Aunt Liliana, and then she remembers with a sickening lurch: Liliana is dead.
Other footsteps, though, echo behind the huge door. You’d think a forbidding door on a house like this would open with a skin-itching creak and behind it find a tall, morose butler whose face would be at home in a grave. Instead, the door glides open, bright light spills onto the steps and a woman with long red hair and a grin that seems to take over her whole face steps out. Lily can’t help smiling back. The more Lily looks at her, the more familiar she seems.
The woman bounds forward and Lily is wrapped up in her hug. ‘Lily!’ she says, also sounding familiar. It makes Lily feel hugged on the inside, too, a warmed-up, brandy-rich gluhwein of a voice. The Yorkshire twang makes Lily feel suddenly homesick. And yet she doesn’t have one.
The woman stands back, holding Lily by the shoulders. She looks her up and down. Her eyes fill. ‘You look like them both,’ she says, her voice splintering like snapped cinnamon bark.
And then Lily knows. Her heart crumples like wrapping paper. ‘Isabelle,’ she says.
They stand and take each other in. Isabelle has changed completely. She is now taller than Lily, her willowy limbs, red hair and solidity make Lily think of the copper beeches in autumn that stand sentry at the entrance to the Endgame woods. She’s the kind of stunning that makes you forget to breathe.
The last time they had stood on these steps together must be twenty-one years ago, maybe more. They were the other way round then, Lily welcoming Isabelle into the house to play. Isabelle would accompany her mum, Martha, who was the Armitages’ solicitor, and friend of Liliana, when she visited Endgame House. Lily can’t remember a time when she hadn’t known Isabelle. They went to the same nursery, and then the same school in the nearest village, ten miles away. During school holidays, Martha would drop Isabelle off at Endgame before commuting into Richmond, and they’d spend all day playing. Their favourite games were murder in the dark, wink murder, Cluedo . . . anything to do with death. Apart from their other game: kissing. That had everything to do with life. She was eleven when she stopped playing those games, along with her mum’s piano, the flute, and – her favourite – singing. Mum died and there was no point in play. Death got too close, and she didn’t want to be reminded of life.
‘Are you coming in, then?’ Isabelle asks, in a reversal of what Lily used to say to her. ‘Have tea with me before the rest descend.’
‘Only if you’ve got cake,’ Lily replies.
‘More kinds than you can count.’ Isabelle’s eyes twinkle but Lily can see sadness in there. She must be missing Liliana, too.
Isabelle turns and Lily follows. She sees Isabelle’s shoulders rise and drop suddenly as if she’s trying to forcibly relax. Why would she do that? Don’t get involved, Lily tells herself. This is why she stays away from people. Too complicated. Too many layers to unpick. Liliana once told her that people were like poems, there’s what lies on the surface and then there’s the internal rhyme, the apparent contradictions, the nuances and patterns and truths that are there to be read if you put in the effort. But Liliana was a professor of poetry and liked most people. Lily wasn’t. And didn’t.
‘Let me take your coat,’ Isabelle says.
Lily undoes her buttons and hands the coat over. She immediately feels vulnerable, a satsuma whose skin has been peeled.
‘That is an amazing dress,’ Isabelle says, her eyes travelling down Lily’s frock and back up to her face. ‘Where did you get it?’
Lily feels her cheeks flare. ‘I made it,’ she says.
‘It’s a poinsettia, right?’
Isabelle’s appreciative scrutiny as she gazes at the red bodice with its yellow fastenings, and the skirt constructed from dark green crinoline leaves, makes Lily wish she hadn’t changed at the last services. The poinsettia gown, and all of the dresses she’s made and brought, was supposed to be her armour in the country house, not a way to make her feel more exposed.
‘Liliana didn’t tell me you’d gone into couture,’ Isabelle says. ‘Last I heard, you were copying corsets worn by Elizabeth the First. This must be much more satisfying. Shows the real you.’
‘I’m still making reproduction corsets,’ Lily says. ‘I like having something to copy and bring back to life.’ Makes it harder to fail, too.
‘Sure,’ Isabelle says. ‘Of course.’ She gestures through into the hallway. ‘After you.’
The panelled walls of the hallway are darker than Lily remembers, the grand staircase that rises up seems duller, no longer buffed to a shine by generations of children using it as a slide. Strangely, though, the house isn’t smaller. You’d think it would seem that way, when you grow up somewhere, but if anything, it appears bigger and more forbidding. The staircase sweeps up to the first and second floors, the chandelier on a ceiling high as a dusty moon. Armitage family portraits stare down from the walls. They go back to 1944 – a blown-up, blurred photograph of Grandad – Captain Henry ‘Harry’ Armitage – standing on the Endgame terrace when it was taken over during the Second World War to rehabilitate shellshocked officers. The next photo is of Grandad shaking hands with a distraught-looking Lord Cappell, who had to sell the house in 1955. Then there’s Grandad Harry and Grandma Violet’s wedding photo, standing outside the Endgame chapel. And a picture of Mum, hugely pregnant, sitting under the willow tree. A protective hand rests on her belly.
The largest of the pictures is an actual painting. Lily can remember sitting for it, a few months before everything changed at Endgame. Uncle Robert and Grandad Harry had died by the time it was painted, but otherwise, they’re all there. Lily, eleven, acned and gangly, sits between Tom and Ronnie on the bottom step of the staircase. Sara scowls on the next stair, her arm around Gray as if holding him back. Next to him, Rachel looks off beyond the painter’s sight, already dreaming of leaving. Behind the cousins, Uncle Edward lounges over two steps, with Aunt Veronica draped over him. Mum and Aunt Liliana hold hands on the step above them and, at the top of the staircase, tiny Grandma Violet beams down, wearing a gold velour jumpsuit, arms outstretched like a Christmas star.
Lily looks away to stop the feelings from surfacing. She turns to the Christmas tree next to the staircase that reaches up to the minstrels’ gallery on the floor above. Unlit, it looks like a huge looming stranger in the shadows.
‘I should have turned that on already,’ Isabelle says, crouching down and plugging in the lights. Now beaded with hundreds of orange lights, the tree looks full of hidden creatures, watching without blinking. ‘Liliana specified the decorations.’ Isabelle gently lifts one of the ornaments from a branch and places it in Lily’s hand.
A turtle dove sits in Lily’s palm. Made from marl grey, blue and yellow felt, and embroidered with lazy daisies to look like feathers, it’s one of the twelve days of Christmas decorations that she’d crafted with Mum.
‘They’re all on there,’ Isabelle says. Her voice is soft as a dove’s breath. ‘With some typical Liliana bling.’ She points to the glitter ball baubles that punctuate the tree.
Lily walks around the tree, looking for all the other decorations she’d had a hand in making. She and Mum had set up a production line: Lily traced the templates onto felt; Mum had then cut out the pieces and embroidered each one by hand; then Lily added sequins and beads before sewing both sides of the pear, the partridge, the drummers, et cetera, together. They’d bonded and stitched right up to Christmas Eve the year she died. Now some stuffed birds and revellers are all that’s left.
Lily hands the turtle dove back to Isabelle. She won’t give in to the memories that knock like a bird’s beak at the window.
‘Must be difficult for you,’ Isabelle says, ‘coming back after all this time.’
‘I’ve had easier days,’ Lily replies.
‘It’s going to get more difficult. But I’m sure you can handle it.’ Isabelle places the turtle dove next to its mate, then turns to Lily. Her gaze is intense and contains layers of meaning. They’re standing so close that Lily can feel the heat radiating from Isabelle’s skin.
Lily turns away and walks towards the kitchen, sweating on the coldest day of the year. ‘Shall we have that tea?’ she says.
*
The kitchen is full of Christmas smells and memories. An image of her mum making pastry for mince pies smacks into Lily’s head like a robin into plate glass. She glances into the pantry, the door open, showing rows of jam and mincemeat and marmalade. Lily doesn’t know if she’s looking at the present or the past. This is the problem with going back to where you grew up. She’ll always be preserved at age twelve in this house.
Lily feels Isabelle watching her – summer sun burning her winter skin. ‘Do you remember when we used to crouch under here while Tom counted to a hundred?’ Isabelle asks.
‘It was always a very quick hundred,’ Lily replies. ‘He caught us every time, didn’t matter where we were.’
‘But then time seems slower—’
‘When you’re young,’ Isabelle says, finishing off one of Aunt Liliana’s many sayings.
‘Right now, Lily,’ Liliana would say to her, ‘you’re making slices of memory all the time, which makes time feel as if it’s passing more slowly than it does for me. Revel in it.’ And Lily had, until Mum died. Then she longed for time to speed up and away, for the days to pass as quickly as Mum. That is why she hasn’t been back.
Isabelle fills the kettle at the butler’s sink. ‘As you’re the first here, I thought we could have a catch-up before all the ceremonial stuff starts.’
‘Ceremonial?’
‘The rules read out, legal gubbins, served up with scones, parkin and tiny sandwiches. With champagne, of course.’
‘I’d expect nothing less from Aunt Lil.’
Isabelle places the kettle on the hot plate of the Aga and sits opposite Lily. She smiles and her eyes crease at the edges like the sun’s rays in a child’s drawing. ‘Where do we start?’
‘In her letter, Liliana said that my mum was m—’ Lily’s voice cracks down the middle. She can’t say that word. Can’t even think it.
Isabelle exhales a puff of air. ‘I was thinking we’d do the small talk first, you know – great loves, careers, that sort of thing, but no. You always did want to get to the heart of things.’ She pauses, takes Lily’s hand. ‘Your aunt thought that Mariana was killed. Murdered.’
There’s that word. Echoing against the kitchen’s surfaces, reflected in the knives shining in their block. Lily withdraws her hand and places it to her chest as if that could hold back her heart from beating too fast and stop the indigestion already rising. How do you process that word? Ever? ‘So, she didn’t . . .’ She can’t say these words either.
‘Kill herself? Not according to your aunt.’
The kettle begins to scream, stopper wobbling under pressure from the steam.
Lily gets up, holding out her hand to stop Isabelle from rising. ‘I’ll make the tea.’ She starts opening cupboards, looking for mugs. ‘Gives me something to do.’
‘Right of the sink, second along,’ Isabelle says. ‘The caddy is on the counter.’
Lily takes down two big mugs and opens the caddy, immediately smelling the familiar Yorkshire Tea tang of tannin and moor. She wonders if Isabelle is right in saying that Lily always got to the heart of things. That feels as far away from who she is now as her little flat in London. ‘Do you mind if we don’t talk about it? About my mum, I mean. I know I brought it up, but . . .’ She doesn’t look at Isabelle but she can feel her pity, sticky as treacle.
‘Whatever you want,’ Isabelle says.
Lily feels her eyes itching with backed-up tears, like she’s as allergic to thinking of murder as she is to cats. But that doesn’t stop her picking up cats and burying her face in their fur. She doesn’t want to get that close to murder.
Lily sticks teabags into the mugs and, after pouring on water, looks out of the window to the walled kitchen garden. It still has the same bench, but it is now surrounded by climbing roses, hips showing. Two holly bushes stand sentinel, and mistletoe entwines its limbs into a tango with the ivy. ‘Wherever I look, I see old games of hide-and-seek,’ she says. ‘I just had an image of counting down on the bench and coming to look for you all.’
‘You are the only person I’ve ever known to actually count to a hundred,’ Isabelle says. Lily can’t see her face, but she can tell Isabelle is smiling. Her voice warms up as if in the sun.
‘Those are the rules,’ Lily says.
‘Do you always follow rules?’ Isabelle asks.
Lily doesn’t answer at first. She squishes the teabags with a spoon. ‘Most of the time. Unless they’re unfair.’
Isabelle gets up and moves over to the huge fridge-freezer in the corner to bring over the milk. ‘I’m not speaking as a lawyer now, but you should be aware that not everyone will be playing the game as fairly and faithfully as you.’
‘Well, I’m not here for the game.’
Isabelle gives a big grin. Her eyes spark. She raises her mug. ‘Cheers to that.’
They clink mugs that are already chipped. Lily raises hers to her lips. It smells weird – a marine scent, as if a fishing net has been used to catch and contain the leaves.
She puts the mug back on the counter. ‘Liliana said all the hints about what happened to Mum would be hidden within the clues for everyone.’
‘If only she could have just spelt things out,’ Isabelle says.
‘Everything was a game to her,’ Lily replies. ‘Even death.’
‘You’ll work it out. You always were always good at the game.’
‘I was not!’
‘You’re forgetting – I was there. You got the clues almost every time, you just stopped coming forward as the others hated that you won.’
Lily has a sudden flash of memory – solving the final clue and finding the chest full of presents, only for her cousins to pile in and pull her away. Sara had even made off with her winning gift – a PlayStation 2, saying that Lily wouldn’t appreciate it as she would. And Lily had let her. So, yes, she had pretended she didn’t know the answers after that. But she always thought she’d kept it hidden. The thought of being seen makes her feel sick. A wave of dizziness sweeps over her. She sits back down at the table and tries to take a deep breath.
‘You OK?’ Isabelle places a hand on her arm. It feels familiar and right. And strangely intimate.
‘I will be.’ Lily closes her eyes. ‘It’s a lot. Especially after a long drive.’
‘I shouldn’t have bombarded you. But the others will be here soon and I have to get into official solicitor mode. I then must leave after reading out the method of the game. It’s part of Liliana’s commandments to me.’
‘So, you’re a rule follower, too.’
‘What can I say, we have a lot in common. We always have,’ Isabelle says. They look at each other for a moment, eyes connecting. Something illuminates between them like fairy lights. Isabelle leans forward, still touching Lily. Her face becomes serious. Her voice dips, as if on a dimmer switch. ‘I’ve got to tell you something. Before the rest arrive.’
‘What?’ Lily asks.
And then the door knocker booms from the hall.
Isabelle sighs. She withdraws her hand, slips her jacket back on, and pulls back her hair into a ponytail. When she next looks at Lily, her eyes have hardened like conkers baked in vinegar. Her face has almost changed shape, cheekbones more prominent. And then Lily remembers. This is Isabelle’s game face. Lily doesn’t think she has a game face, other than the one she chose to make herself a loser. Problem is, when you pretend something for long enough, you begin to believe it.
‘If you’ll come with me, please, Miss Armitage,’ Isabelle says. Her voice is now cut glass, with no brandy inside.
The shift fills Lily with unease. ‘You weren’t kidding when you said you had to slip into solicitor mode,’ she says.
‘I have a role to perform,’ Isabelle says. ‘As have you.’ She rings the bell by the kitchen door. Footsteps hurry down the stone back steps that come out into the pantry.
A woman appears, hands full of yellow dusters. She smells of wood polish, beeswax and Opium, the Yves Saint Laurent kind.
‘This is Mrs Castle,’ Isabelle says. ‘The housekeeper. She babysat for you when you were little. She’ll be looking after you all, and – most importantly – the house, during the game.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Castle.’ Lily has no memory of her, but then her prosopagnosia – face blindness – is particularly bad from that time.
‘Miss Lily,’ Mrs Castle says with a stiff nod. She does not look pleased to see Lily in return. Mrs Castle looks as if she has never been pleased in her life. She’s candy-cane thin without any of the sweetness. There are no lines around her lips or eyes, and yet she looks as if she’s lived a long time. A long time without smiling.
The door knocker sounds again. More insistent this time.
‘Would you please answer the door and take the guests through to the drawing room, Mrs Castle?’
Mrs Castle nods once then stalks into the hall. Lily tries to prise a conspiratorial smile out of Isabelle but gets nothing. Not even a hint of what had passed before. The world is shifting under her feet. And now her cousins are arriving. The door knocker goes again. She hopes it’s not Sara and Gray. She’s avoided them since leaving Liliana’s house at eighteen to go to Central Saint Martins. She feels a pang of guilt – Gray didn’t deserve to be ghosted. But Sara definitely did, and she never left Gray alone.
Lily stands on the rug in the centre of the hall, Endgame House around her, pressing down on her shoulders.
The knocker raps one more time. A voice behind the door calls out. ‘Anyone home?’
Mrs Castle strides forward and opens the door.
Sara and Gray are in the doorway. Gray peers round Mrs Castle and Isabelle and sees Lily looking at him. He turns away.
‘Good afternoon,’ Isabelle says. ‘And welcome back to Endgame House.’