the road. ‘I’m not sure about this, Con,’ he kept saying. ‘You were fine before we decided to move. We can’t live in Cambridge if you’re allergic to your parents’ disapproval.’ He tried to make a joke of it: ‘I don’t want you turning into a bedridden Victorian-esque neurotic, all white lace nightgowns and smelling salts.’
‘I’ll get past this,’ I told him firmly. ‘It’s just a phase. I’ll be fine.’ My hair had started to fall out, but it wasn’t obvious yet. I was trying to hide it from Kit.
We found a beautiful house: 17 Pardoner Lane – a three-storey, high-ceilinged Victorian townhouse with original fireplaces in all the reception rooms and bedrooms, black railings outside, steps up to the front door and a roof terrace with a panoramic view of the city. Inside, it was beautifully decorated, gleaming, with a new kitchen and new bathrooms. Kit adored it the moment he set eyes on it. ‘This is it,’ he muttered to me, so that the estate agent wouldn’t hear.
It was the most expensive house we’d seen, by some distance, and the biggest. ‘How come we can afford it?’ I asked him, suspicious. It seemed too good to be true.
‘There’s no garden, and it’s attached to a school on one side,’ he said.
I remembered the sign we’d seen on the building next door. ‘The Beth Dutton Centre’s a school?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Kit. ‘I checked. It’s the sixth-form part of a private school that takes a maximum of fourteen students per year-group, so there’ll be no more than twenty-eight kids in it at any given time. They might chain their bikes to our railings, but I’m sure they’ll be civilised. Most things in Cambridge are civilised.’
‘What about the bell?’ I said. ‘Won’t it ring after every lesson? That might be annoying – we’d be able to hear it through the wall.’
Kit raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought you wanted buzzy urban vibrancy? We can move to Little Holling, next door to your folks, if you want to hear nothing but flowers growing and the occasional squeak of someone polishing their Aga.’
‘No, you’re right,’ I said. ‘I do love the house.’
‘Think of all the space. You’ll be able to have a dedicated darkened Victorian sick-room all to yourself.’
‘I suppose we’d be able to ask the Beth Dutton people to turn down the volume of the bell, if it was a problem.’
‘The bell won’t be a problem.’ Kit sighed. ‘Your fear is the only problem.’
I knew he was right, and that there was only one way to solve it: I had to do what I was afraid of doing, and prove to myself that the world wouldn’t end. Mum and Dad would come round, given time; I could visit them regularly. Them coming to stay with us in Cambridge was less feasible. Three years previously, Mum had been to Guildford to visit a friend. She’d had a panic attack on her second day there, and Dad had been summoned to fetch her home. Since then, Silsford town centre was the furthest she’d travelled.
‘So, what are we doing?’ Kit asked me. We were sitting in his car outside Cambridge Property Shop’s offices on Hills Road. ‘Are we buying this house or not?’
‘Definitely,’ I said.
We cancelled the rest of the viewings we’d arranged for that day. Kit made an offer for 17 Pardoner Lane, and the estate agent told him she’d get back to him as soon as she’d had a chance to speak to the vendor.
The next morning I woke up to find that I couldn’t move one side of my face. My right eye wouldn’t squeeze closed – the most I could do was draw the top eyelid down like a blind and leave it resting there – and when I stuck out my tongue, it went to the left instead of straight ahead. Kit was worried I’d had a stroke, but I assured him it wasn’t that. ‘It’s what you said yesterday,’ I told him. ‘Stress. Fear. Just ignore it – that’s what I’m planning to do.’ Fortunately, it wasn’t immediately obvious to anyone who saw my face. Kit was far more worried about it than I was. I promised him that as soon as we’d moved and settled in to what we were both now calling ‘our’ house, my symptoms would disappear. ‘You don’t understand me like I do,’ I kept telling him. ‘This is my brainwashed subconscious’s desperate last-ditch attempt to make sure I spend the rest of my life worshipping