Lucy Clarke - You Let Me In

I drag the green recycling bin aside, which clinks with bottles. Beneath it lies a large pebble. I lift it carefully, feeling like a child turning over rocks in search of a treasured glimpse of woodlice or bugs.

There it is: the key to the house.

I return the wheelie bin into position, then cross the drive to the doorstep. My fingertips meet the solid wood door, painted in a grey-green shade that recalls the sea. I pause for a moment, aware of the magnitude of this moment stretching around me, raising the beat of my heart.

I glance once over my shoulder, just to be sure that there’s no one watching. I take a breath, then slot the key into the lock.

‘Thank God you were in,’ I say, refilling Fiona’s wine glass, then sinking back onto the sofa.

‘And if I hadn’t been?’

‘Flynn’s the only other person with a key.’

‘He still has a key?’

I shrug. ‘It’d feel churlish to ask for it back.’

Fiona doesn’t say anything. She never needs to. Her eyebrows – dark and angular – speak for her.

‘How did Drake get on at Bill’s parents?’ I ask. ‘I missed him. Maybe he could come over this weekend? I got him a little treat while I was away.’

‘He needs a treat reprieve. Bill’s parents let him watch cartoons for two hours a day – and took him for ice cream every afternoon. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked to be formally adopted.’

‘You must have missed him.’

‘You’re kidding? I had lie-ins. I didn’t cook. I got more work done than I’ve managed in months. I’ve asked if they’ll make it an annual thing.’

‘Is that right?’ I say, my turn to arch an eyebrow. Drake has just turned two and it’s the first time he’s stayed a night away from home. Bill spent months carefully negotiating the week-long visit to his parents in Norfolk.

‘What about you? How was France?’

‘Oh, fine.’ I’d been invited as a guest-speaker on a writing retreat. I’d deliberated over going, anxious about my approaching book deadline, but equally the retreat was so well paid that it would have been a mistake to turn it down. ‘They put us up in this stunning old farmhouse in the middle of the countryside. There was a beautiful pool. I swam every morning.’

‘If you’ve come back skinnier than you went, then you didn’t eat enough cheese.’

‘I ate cheese for breakfast.’

‘Good girl,’ she says, taking a drink of wine. ‘What were the guests like?’

‘Interesting, intelligent, passionate about books. One or two were a little intense. Deadly serious about word counts. In bed by ten o’clock.’ I pause. ‘You’d have liked them.’

Fiona laughs – a laugh I’ve always loved, loud and unapologetic.

‘Yes, but did any of them take revision notes into the shower?’

During her A Levels, she used to tuck her revision notes into a plastic sleeve, so that she could continue to study while showering. She’s always been the one with the focus, the drive.

‘Can’t say I witnessed it.’

‘And what about …’ Fiona pauses dramatically, ‘… your work in progress?’

I glance towards the window, lamplight reflected in the dark pane. Just the thought of my second novel makes my stomach tighten.

‘Still floundering in the wilderness.’

‘Will you make the deadline?’

I lift my shoulders. ‘It’s in six weeks’ time.’

Fiona assesses me closely. ‘What if you don’t?’

‘I lose the book deal.’

And then I lose this house, I think, panic beating its wings within my ribcage. I can’t let that happen.

Fiona knows the energy I’ve committed to this house, the long process of architectural drawings and planning applications, the months and months of builders clambering over scaffolding, craning in huge glass panels, drilling into rock to fit unyielding iron struts, the hours I spent studying bathroom fittings and flooring and paint charts.

It was all so unlike me – the me who drifted through my twenties owning little more than I could squeeze into a backpack. But I wanted it more than anything. Cornwall was where Fiona was. A house overlooking the sea was our mother’s dream. It was putting down roots, it was stability.

One evening, mid-build, when I’d returned to our rented flat in Bristol, Flynn kept his back to me, watching the flames dance in the fireplace, as he’d said, ‘I wonder if you’re putting too much energy into that house.’

That house. Never our house.

I wish I’d noticed the distinction back then.

I replied, ‘I want to make it perfect, so we never have to leave.’

‘Thank you for looking after things while I was away,’ I say to Fiona. ‘The house looks immaculate.’

‘Surprised?’

‘Very.’

‘It’s because I hardly had to do a thing. It was spotless.’

‘Was it? I was worrying about it while I was away. It just felt so strange knowing there was someone in my home that wasn’t me .’

‘I knew you’d be like that.’

Bill was actually the one who’d suggested I rent the house.

‘You know, if money is tight,’ he’d begun while we were barbecuing on the bay one evening, ‘you should think about putting the house on Airbnb over the summer.’

‘Remember my friend Kirsty from university?’ Fiona had asked.

I must have looked blank.

‘The English teacher. Had sex with the headmaster in his office – and a parent walked in.’

‘ That Kirsty!’

‘She has a three-bed house in Twickenham and goes away over the school holidays and rents her place. She gets two grand a week for it.’

‘Two grand?’ I crouched down to examine a shell that Drake had brought to me. ‘It’s beautiful, baby,’ I said, planting a kiss on the smooth curve of his forehead, then folding my fingers around the shell. He trundled off in search of more.

‘Everyone’s doing it,’ Bill said. ‘Easy little earner.’

‘Yes, but this is Elle.’ Fiona threw me a look. ‘She took three days to choose the right handles for her doors.’