The House at the End of Hope Street - By Menna van Praag Page 0,68

of heart transplants, Charlie and Lotte are still alive.”

Alba smiles. “So, what is it?”

“I want to see you, Al,” Edward says softly.

“Okay.”

“It’s nothing urgent. I just thought . . . I have some things to tell you, about our family, about our—my—father. You ran away before we could talk about it all. I thought maybe you’d have questions I could answer.”

Alba thinks of her mother’s death, the disappearance of her original father, and her biological father still at large. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I do.”

—

Alba sits on the edge of the bath, notebook in hand, reading the first few lines of her lyrics to Sylvia Plath and Dorothy Parker, who listen from their vantage points on opposite walls. She didn’t want to, but they’ve been asking every day how her writing is progressing, so eventually Alba succumbed.

“Not bad,” Dorothy says. “You have potential.”

“She’s overly critical,” Sylvia says. “You have a natural flair, but you need to be bolder. Your writing is too tentative, you care too much for the reader—”

“Which will kill you quicker than anything,” Dorothy interrupts. “The eyes of others are our prisons; their thoughts our cages.”

Alba frowns. “Really?”

“Dismiss that warning at your peril,” Dorothy says. “Literature is strewn with the wreckage of writers who have minded the opinions of others.”

“You must be completely alone when you write,” Sylvia adds. “Cast out everyone else from your mind so you can sit down and write the truth.”

“Okay, all right.” Alba nods, scribbling down their thoughts, still unable to believe she’s getting writing tips from her two literary heroines.

“But all this is moot if you’ve never been in love,” Dorothy says. “To write about love you first need to know it.”

Alba bites the end of her pen and glances at the floor. “Well, I, um . . .”

“Go out and live,” Sylvia says. “Then come back and write about it.”

“I thought writing was all about imagination,” Alba protests. “I thought—”

“Poppycock,” Dorothy snaps. “If you pass the rest of your life in this bathroom, you’ll never find anything worth writing about, nor the talent to do it.”

“Well—”

“She’s right,” Sylvia says. “You won’t be able to write anything true until you’ve felt it first. And I’m afraid it doesn’t seem as if you’re very willing to do that.”

“Hold on,” Alba says through gritted teeth. “Now, I’ll very gratefully take literary advice from you, but not life advice. I hardly think either of you is qualified to give it, since you killed yourself”—she nods at Sylvia—“and you tried to.” Alba nods at Dorothy before striding to the door. “So, thank you and good-bye.” And, with that, she’s gone. The bathroom door slams behind her, shaking every photograph on the walls.

“My, my, that was fun.” Dorothy laughs. “I think our girl is starting to get some fire.”

“Yes,” Sylvia says, her teeth still rattling, “though I do worry about her, I’ve never known anyone so scared to feel anything.”

Five minutes later Alba’s sitting in the kitchen reading her lyrics to Stella. When she’s finished Alba looks up, her heart in a holding pattern, waiting for Stella to speak.

“I like it. It’s a good beginning. Now you just need a little more—”

“Life experience, yes,” Alba snaps. “I know.”

“Especially since you’re writing about love, but you’ve never actually . . .”

“Felt it.” Alba sighs. “I know.”

They sit in silence until Alba nods nervously, biting a fingernail. “What’s it like?”

“True love will rip your heart right open and knock you for six.” Stella smiles. “But you’ll also feel safer than you’ve ever felt in your life.”

Alba considers this, still biting her nails.

“No.” She shakes her head at last. “I don’t think so. Not me.”

“Oh, yes,” Stella says. “I promise you will. Even you.”

Chapter Seventeen

He’s here.”

“Where?”

“In Cambridge.”

Alba looks at the private detective, incredulous. He’d called that morning and invited her to his office. “No, he can’t be, are you certain?”

“Of course I am. He lives on Gwydir Street. Number twenty-one.”

Her world is spinning. The green-striped wallpaper blurs. She closes her eyes. Her father lives less than a mile from Hope Street. They could have passed on the pavement. She might have seen him.

“He’s an English teacher. Has a part-time job in a bookshop on King’s Parade too.” The detective sits back in his chair. “He has strange habits; spends most of his time walking around, waiting outside certain places for hours. Still. I expect—”

“King’s Parade?” She went there months ago, the cashier told her to read . . . Him. It was him. And then, all of a sudden,