but no curtains. A full-length mirror rested on a matching wood stand, and there were two bedside tables, but otherwise: nothing. An empty wastepaper bin. No baskets of make-up, or dirty socks. No cascading piles of books; no magazines; no overflowing boxes of jewellery or tide-marked glasses of water.
I crossed to the bed, and carefully pulled open the drawer of the closest bedside table. It contained a pair of Sony headphones, an iPad and four passports. The cupboard beneath was empty.
I walked round the bed, to the side closest to the window, and this time I had to tug hard to open the drawer. It burst open to reveal earplugs and eye-masks, a charger in a silk bag, a vial of ‘black onion oil’, several boxes of prescription pills, tubs of vitamins – evening primrose and black cabosh. Books were crammed into the cupboard beneath. They were all self-help tomes – Eat, Drink, Run: How I Got Fit Without Going Too Mad and You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Live an Awesome Life. Underneath was a slim volume, Bit Sad Today, but that seemed to be a collection of essays.
A door creaked open downstairs and I heard Bea shout at Max to check the wi-fi. I’d been crouching but I stood up and shut the cupboard and slid the drawer in and made to leave the room. I was aware of suddenly coming back to my senses, of saying, ‘What am I doing?’ to myself. I can only think I had got swept up in my search for some sign of warmth, some indication that the Tilsons had stamped their taste, their personality on the place. Perhaps, as the house had sat empty for so long, I also had a sense of entitlement. Totally misplaced, of course.
Bea was still talking, but in a different voice and with long pauses and sudden giggles; she was on her phone. ‘I know, right? It was fierce.’ I tiptoed to the door and was about to leave, when I noticed through the holes in the wicker wastepaper bin a scrap of grey; it wasn’t empty after all. I reached in – there were some scrunched-up tissues with what looked like blood on them. And a curled-up piece of thin, smokey grey, fabric which I unravelled: a cotton scarf, not square, but long and thin and badly damaged. Several jagged tears, or even cuts, ran along the edge of the fabric, and at one end was a dark reddish stain. But it might wash, I told myself, rubbing the cotten together to test, and when I had a moment, I could take a needle and thread to it. I put it in my pocket. Yes, I suppose looking back, I did already want a little bit of her. But waste not, want not: that was always our mantra growing up. And it’s a habit I confess I have found hard to let go.
‘Oh my God,’ Ailsa cried, seeing me at the kitchen table. ‘You’re still here! I don’t believe it. You poor thing.’ She took off her wedged boots. ‘No Tom?’ She frowned. ‘He told me he’d be home.’ Her expression changed; she looked thoughtful. ‘OK, so he won’t even know I’ve been out. OK. Fine.’ Then she smiled, recovered. ‘I’m so sorry. What must you think of us?’
‘It’s quite all right,’ I said. ‘These things happen.’
She was wearing black tights and a loose charcoal-grey silky dress with a cardigan around her waist; it was slipping, and she pulled it up to re-tie it. ‘The children must be starving. You must be starving.’
‘I’m afraid I cooked,’ I said. ‘Bea and Max were asking for food, so I put in the lasagne. Was that OK?’
‘Did they eat it?’
‘Yes.’
‘All of it? They’re such fussy eaters. Bea keeps trying to be veggie.’ She looked around the room, then she opened the fridge, and the dishwasher, and looked in the sink, as if she didn’t believe me. In fact, the twins had turned their noses up. I’d thrown most of theirs away. I was the one who had taken the lion’s share. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘We didn’t leave any for you.’
‘I didn’t need it anyway.’ She patted her stomach. ‘I’m on a diet. Thanks for washing up. I’m embarrassed, that’s all. You shouldn’t have had to. I’ll just check on the twins.’ She left the room then and I could hear her, clambering between the basement and the front room, harrying them both