Nicci French - Until it's Over

‘Can we go into the garden?’

‘No problemo,’ said Ponder, unlocking the back door. ‘Let me warn you, you’re going to need to use your imagination a bit.’

We stepped outside into the late-autumn sunshine, warm on my cheeks. I looked at my garden and immediately felt the hot tears on my face. I had to take a tissue from my pocket and pretend I was sneezing. The vegetables, the peas, courgettes and potatoes, had bolted and collapsed, rotted and grown again haphazardly, then bolted again. There was a huge sinister bush of rhubarb. There were strings of old stalks winding along the ground.

‘I don’t know what this was supposed to be,’ said Ponder, ‘but the garden is a hundred feet long. Get in one of those designers, like the ones they have on TV, put in some paths, shape some borders – this could be a nice place for a barbecue.’ There was a sudden electric tone of a pop song I could dimly recognize. Ponder took the mobile from his pocket. ‘Excuse me.’

Emlyn was staring up at the exterior of the house. I walked over to him and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you.’

As we made our way closer to the house I saw a dark patch on the paving-stones. I knelt and touched it with my finger, then smelled it. Nothing. But I knew what it was: oil from when I’d fixed my bike out here. Emlyn looked questioningly at me. I just smiled and shook my head. Ponder snapped his phone shut. ‘So, chaps, what do you think?’

‘I hope somebody nice buys this,’ I said. ‘Someone with children. It’s a place people should be happy in.’

‘But not for you?’

‘Not for me.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Come on, my friend,’ I said to Emlyn. ‘My love.’

I put my hand in his and led him from there, the place where I’d once lived, in a different world. There were faces at the windows and voices in the silence. There were stories in the shadows. My house of memories; my house of ghosts. I wouldn’t go there again.

So Emlyn and I walked along the road together and I didn’t look back, because it was over. I was in a different story now.