Page 5 of The New House

Honesty, no matter what.

Yes, that dress makes you look fat.

No, I don’t think you deserve to be on the school team.

The kids rebel on occasion. Sometimes I even join them. But Millie holds firm.

She’s giving us structure. She’s making ussafe.

She’s teaching us discipline.She’s teaching us the power of family.

She has her issues, certainly. I’m the first to admit her habit of breaking into other people’s houses is less than ideal. But she never takes anything they’ll miss. No one ever knows she’s been there. For some reason it soothes her soul – maybe because it reminds her not all families are as dysfunctional as the one in which she grew up. If it keeps her sane, what’s the harm?

The truth is I don’t care what she does, within reason: I’d never leave her. Not just because I love her, or because I love my children, although both those things are true.

I won’t leave because I can’t.

Millie is my obsession.

My dance with the dark.

I’ve loved her since we were infants in our prams. I never thought of her as agirl– she was just Millie, wild and fearless, tougher and braver than any of the boys. I took on all-comers to defend her right to run with us, frequently returning home with bruised knuckles and a bloody nose. I assumed we’d grow up and get married one day, because why wouldn’t we? I loved her far more than she loved me, but there’s always a lover and a lovee in any relationship. We complemented each other perfectly. Ofcoursewe’d get married.

The first time I proposed to her, the summer we turned eighteen, she laughed in my face.

In retrospect I can see I was suffering from some sort of romantic white knight syndrome. Millie made it clear she considered herself neither vulnerable nor in need of saving. As if to prove her point, I responded to my rejection with maturity and calm: I gave up my place at university and ran off to join the army.

I didn’t see her again for three years, not till the summer my mother died and I was given compassionate leave to return home for the funeral.

On the long journey backfrom Basra, my head was filled with thoughts not of my dear, sweet mother, but of seeing Millie again. I knew she’d just graduated from Cambridge and returned home for the summer: her father was dead by then. As my taxi pulled up outside the house, I looked for her, but the curtains next door were drawn, the house silent and still.

That night, I was lying on my bed, my hands clasped behind my head, staring blankly up at the ceiling. A new tattoo with a Latin inscription poked out from beneath the left sleeve of my T-shirt. I thought it made me look cool.

A tap on the glass made me look up. Millie had climbed out of her window and used the guttering to traverse our houses from her room to mine, just as she had when we were kids. She swung one leg into the room and sat astride the windowsill, half-in, half-out, dangling an object from her fingertips.

‘I have something for you,’ she said.

‘My mother’s dead,’ I said, without moving.

‘I know.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘You could at least say you’re sorry.’ I sat up and rubbed the palms of my hands back and forth against a buzz cut I still wasn’t sure suited me. ‘Jesus, Millie. I know feelings aren’t your thing, but shelovedyou.’

‘I know.’ She twirled something between her fingers and held it out to me. ‘Do you want my present or not?’

I’d had a front-row seat to Millie’s messed-up childhood. I honestly couldn’t tell you whether she’d have been a softer, easier person if her parents hadn’t been such almighty screw-ups or if her spiky personality was written in her DNA, but even as a kid Millie threw up walls to keep people out, then dug a moat around them andfilled it with Greek fire and barbed wire for good measure.

Of course I knew she cared about my mother. Just as I knew she’d never be able to admit it, least of all to herself.

‘For fuck’s sake, get in here before you fall,’ I said.

She swung her legs over the windowsill and climbed into the room. ‘I went to a lot of trouble to get this for you,’ she said, holding it out to me.

I took the object. It was a solid silver keyring shaped like a scuba diver, complete with belt weights and two tiny silver oxygen tanks. ‘Where d’you get this?’ I asked curiously.

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