Page 13 of The New House

‘If I’d left early, someone would’ve picked up the phone to theDaily Mail, and I’d have been pilloried as a bad mother.’

Millie smiles and holds out her hand. ‘Call me when you’ve spoken to your husband. If you want to go ahead, I’ll let my solicitor know and set things in motion my end.’

Stacey’s sleeve rides up as she reaches across the kitchen island to shake Millie’s hand. She sees Millie notice the ring of livid circular bruises on her forearm: the unmistakable grasp of violent fingers.

Quickly she twitches the sleeve back into place.

chapter 08

tom

Stacey Porter is very much taken by my wife.

As she should be: I put a lot of thought into making sure they’d hit it off.

I understand women in a way Millie never has. Stacey’s a minor celebrity used to being the centre of attention in any gathering. The women she meets outside work will either fawn all over her, or resent her for being famous and wait for the right moment to slide a knife between her ribs.

The simplest way to make a woman like Stacey feel secure is to remove the element of competition. Counterintuitively that doesn’t mean fading into the background.

People like beauty. In art, in nature, in architecture. In each other.

Ideas of beauty may change from one era or one culture to another – the curvy Fifties followed by the twiggy Sixties – but there are certain elements that remain the same. Symmetry. Proportion. Scientists have even come up with an actual measure of physical perfection: the golden ratio, which originates from the European Renaissance and is based upon the ancient Greeks’ measure of perfect beauty. We find it when we divide a line into two parts so that the long part divided by the short part is also equal to the whole length divided by the long part. You don’t need to know this, but the golden ratio is an irrational number that approximates to 1.6.

You don’t have to be a mathematician to appreciate its importance, either. You recognise it instinctively a dozen times a day without even being aware of it. While you’re looking at someone’s face, and returning their smile, your subconscious is busy measuring: the length of the face, divided by the width.

All of which means Millie has a natural born advantage. Not using it would be like turning up with a knife to a gunfight.

My wife has no idea quite how beautiful she is. She makes the most of her genetic lot through exercise and hard work, but there’s no vanity involved. When she looks in the mirror, she doesn’t see the beguiling woman I see.

She sees her mother.

Millie rarely capitalises on her appearance. She seldom wears make-up and lives in jeans or work scrubs: I can’t remember the last time I even saw her in a skirt. But I persuaded her to make an effort for Stacey Porter. And Stacey told herself a woman who looks like my wife doesn’t need to feel jealous or resentful of her success. Millie’s appearance lifts her out of the ranks of civilian non-celebrities and puts her on Stacey’s level, giving her a passport to her world.

I went to all this trouble so she’d see Millie as a worthy successor to the Glass House: so she’dwanther to live in it.

Because this is the third time the woman has put her house on the market in the last twelve months, only to withdraw it again before Millie had the chance to get her foot in the door. She’s clearly reluctant to sell: I could see it in her face as she followed us around her house. Stroking marble countertops. Repositioning perfectly aligned blinds. She’s still in love with this house. Who wouldn’t be?

We all gravitate towards beautiful things.

Stacey needs to be coaxed, to bewooed, into giving up her home. She’s only going to let it go if she finds someone she thinks deserves it. Her fingers have to be prised gently from the house keys one by one.

The viewing went better than I could have hoped. Stacey was clearly impressed by my wife: she barely even noticed me. I expect Millie to be bubbling with excitement on the drive back home, but instead she’s unnaturally quiet.

‘Well?’ I say finally, as we turn off the Fulham Road. ‘How d’you think it went?’

‘Did you see the bruises on her arm?’ Millie asks abruptly.

I’m taken aback. I’d anticipated elation, Christmas-morning exuberance: a stream of excited ideas and plans and a brisk to-do list. Maybe even a thank-you for helping make it happen. Afternoon sex.

‘What bruises?’

‘On Stacey’s forearm. Youmusthave noticed.’

‘Not really,’ I say, irritated.

Millie twists her left earring, her tell when she’s anxious. ‘It looked like someone had grabbed her wrists,’ she says.

‘Maybe someone pulled her out of the way of a bus,’ I say flippantly.

---