It was a warm evening, what Imogen knew would be one of the last warm evenings of the year. She was restless, full of burning ambition. She needed to walk. She needed space like she used to have, where she’d either stroll around her three-acre garden, lost in its meditative enchantment, or if she needed to let off more steam, she’d head across the lawn then down the steps and out onto the reservoir path where she could walk for fourteen miles if she so wanted, right around the perimeter of the water, through the nature reserve, past the woods, until she arrived back at her house. Had arrived back at her house. It was no longer her house. But the path was bloody well open to all and Imogen got a sudden urge to claim it.
She snapped on Arthur’s lead and calling out to Dylan, who was marking books in the kitchen, and to Rosie, who was colouring in the living room, she left the house.
The minute the door shut behind her she felt less suffocated. She breathed in the night-scented air – someone’s dinner being cooked, a honeysuckle at a neighbour’s gate – and headed down the high street towards the water. Dusk had already claimed the sky in the east but over the reservoir, sitting above the horizon, the sun was still a golden orb. Imogen headed for the water’s edge and stopped for a moment. It was quiet; everyone else had gone home for the day. The cafe was shut and the fishermen and water sports enthusiasts had long ago put away their boats and kayaks and the water was still.
In the far distance, away from the sunset, the edges of the reservoir were nearly black. When Imogen stared at them the line between water and bank blurred together. Ahead of her, the sun lit a golden path across the reservoir. Bats flitted amongst the trees and a fish leapt out of the water, once, twice, a third time and it was as if it were welcoming her back. She smiled, remembering the times she would come down here, just she and Dylan at first, when they’d bring a bottle of wine and takeaway pizzas and sit on the bank, once making out behind some trees. Then later, with Rosie in a baby pouch strapped to her chest, Dylan holding her hand as they strolled around to get their daughter to sleep. All the while knowing their home was only a short distance away.
Arthur was eager to get walking and Imogen knew she didn’t have long before it would get dark. She could take the dog to the grassy bank around the cafe, let him have a run around or . . . She looked to her right. High up on the bank, the barn’s lights were on. She knew exactly how many minutes it would take to reach it. Twelve and a half. Bit too far really, seeing as she had to get back again and, judging by the sun, in fifteen minutes it would be dark.
The pull was too strong. Imogen turned and headed down the path and as the light faded she got a sense of excitement, a feeling the night was covering up her approach. It made her feel hidden, clandestine, as if she had special powers, the darkness offering her a cloak of invisibility from which she could observe unnoticed. Before long she was at the gate. The sign saying ‘Private Land’ was still nailed firmly to the wood. She opened the catch and slipped through, making her way past the trees and then up the steps into the garden itself.
Imogen’s breath caught in her throat. There was her house. She glanced up quickly to make sure no one was on the patio; the bi-fold doors were shut. It was the same upstairs on the balcony – no one was there. She breathed out, feeling safe enough to go closer. Keeping to the edge of the lawn, she smiled in recognition at the heleniums she’d planted three years ago with Rosie on a day when she was off sick from school, an attempt to cheer her from her cold. Their deep orange blooms glowed softly in the last of the light. Arthur was pulling her onwards, recognizing his home, Imogen knew, and she shortened the lead to keep him close. It wouldn’t do for Nancy to spot the movement of a dog in her back garden. And Arthur was straining at the lead as he had smelt the chickens that Imogen could hear clucking in a pen across the other side of the garden. He’d chase them, given half the chance. Imogen went further still, emboldened by the knowledge she hadn’t been seen, until she was within spitting distance of the house itself. She stopped for a moment, looking across at the windows, which had their curtains drawn. Imogen could see tantalizing glimpses of lights burning in rooms she used to own. But try as she might, she couldn’t see properly into any of the rooms. The cracks in the curtains were too small. She suddenly, desperately, wanted to see something, anything and so she would go a little further, she thought, just around to the front and then she would head home again.
She walked past the four-hundred-year-old oak tree where the swing still hung from one of the low branches and around the north side of the house to the front driveway. As she turned the corner of the building, she stopped. There, on the driveway, was a large skip. And in the darkness, various jagged, haphazard shapes protruded and suddenly Imogen recognized her beautiful grey front door on the top. Ripped off its hinges and discarded.
Thrown away. Devalued. Tossed aside.
It shouldn’t affect her the way it did – it was only a door, for God’s sake – but it was like a slap in the face. A reminder that it was no longer her house, it belonged to someone else and they could do whatever they liked to it. She looked back up at it, at its new front door – a bright yellow one – and it looked good, goddammit, but she hated it. Hated the fact it no longer looked like her home. Then, it was as if once she could see one thing, she could see many. The solar panels on the roof, the start of what looked like the installation of a heat pump. And in the skip itself, some carpets.
For the first time she felt as if she was trespassing – as if she’d been called out and made a fool of. Stealing up to an ex-lover only to find someone else in his arms. She couldn’t bear to look any more – and the dark was beginning to feel menacing instead of adventurous, and suddenly Imogen just wanted to get out of there. She was about to turn and hurry away when something else caught her eye. A movement in the kitchen. The main lights were off so it was semi-dark, only the under-counter lights cast a glow in the room. At a table, she saw Nancy, a glass of wine by her side. But she wasn’t drinking it, she was sobbing, her head resting on her arms, her shoulders heaving.
Imogen stopped and watched. The crying went on for a good minute or so and then Nancy pulled her head up, wiped her eyes. She looked utterly miserable.
Imogen was intrigued. Surely this upset was not a result of their earlier meeting. No, this seemed much more serious, much more . . . entrenched. She wondered what it could be. She continued to wonder all the way home.