pit and filled it with water and used it as a swimming hole, even when it degenerated into a mud wallow and we had to rinse each other off with the garden hose before we could go indoors. When we got older—when we were teenagers, after my grandparents had died—we would lie out on the grass after dinner, drinking illicit booze and talking and laughing as the owls called in the darkening sky and Hugo moved back and forth across the lit windows. Often there were other people there with us—it was true, what I’d told Melissa: Sean and Dec and the rest of my mates were always in and out, so were the others’ mates, sometimes for afternoons, sometimes for parties, occasionally for weeks. At the time I took the whole scenario for granted as a happy near-necessity of life, something everyone should have and what a shame that my friends had somehow missed out, but at least they could share mine. It’s only now, much too late, that I can’t help wondering if it was ever really so simple.
The ivy was still there, lush and glossy with summer, but the house was more dilapidated than it had been in my grandparents’ time; nothing dramatic, but there were rusty patches on the iron railings where the black paint had flaked away, the spiderweb fanlight was dusty and the lavender bushes in the snippet of front garden could have done with pruning. “Here we go,” I said, hefting our cases.
Someone was standing in the open door. At first I barely recognized it as a person; stripped of substance by the bright sunfall through the leaves, flutter of white T-shirt, confusing gold swirl of hair, white brushstroke face and dense dark smudges of eyes, it had something illusory about it, as if my mind had conjured it from patches of light and shadow and at any moment it might break up and be gone. The smell of lavender rose up to meet me, spectrally strong.
Then I got closer and realized that it was Susanna, holding a watering can and watching me, unmoving. I slowed down—I’d discovered that if I concentrated and kept it slow, I could sort of disguise the leg thing as an indolent, too-cool-to-care stroll. Even through the Xanax, the feel of her eyes on me made my jaw clench. I had to stop myself from reaching up to smooth down the hair over my scar.
“Holy shit,” Susanna said, as we reached the bottom of the steps. “You made it.”
“Like I said I would.”
“Well. More or less.” One corner of her wide mouth quirked up in a smile I couldn’t read. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine. No complaints.”
“You got skinny. Watch out for my mum. She’s got a lemon poppyseed cake and she’s not afraid to use it.” When I groaned: “Relax. I’ll tell her you’re allergic.” And to Melissa: “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” Melissa said. “Susanna, is it really OK, me being here? Toby says he’s sure it’s fine, but—”
“He’s right, it’s fine. Better than fine. Thanks for doing it.” She upended the watering can over the nearest lavender bush and turned back into the house. “Come on in.”
I dragged our cases up the steps, gritting my teeth, and left them inside the door, and somehow, before I really knew what was happening, I was inside the Ivy House. Melissa and I followed Susanna over the familiar worn tiles of the hall—wayward breezes blowing everywhere, all the windows had to be open—and down the steps towards the kitchen.
Voices rose up to meet us: my uncle Oliver’s emphatic declamation, a kid yelling in outrage, my aunt Miriam’s big throaty laugh. “Oh Jesus,” I said. Somehow it hadn’t even occurred to me. “Shit. Sunday lunch.”
Susanna, up ahead, didn’t hear that or ignored it, but Melissa’s face turned to me. “What?”
“On Sundays everyone comes here for lunch. I didn’t think—I haven’t gone in forever, and with Hugo sick, I never figured— Shit. I’m sorry.”
Melissa squeezed my hand for a second. “It’s fine. I like your family.”
I knew she hadn’t bargained for this any more than I had, but before I could answer we were into the big stone-flagged kitchen and the room hit me like a fire hose to the face. Hubbub of voices, the fly and strike of sunlight through the open French doors, meaty casserole smell catching the back of my throat and turning me somewhere between starving and nauseated, movement everywhere—I knew there could only be a dozen