Page 8 of The New House

‘A bigif,’ I warn.

‘Come on, Tom. If not now, then when?’

Millie’s a risk-taker. She’ll always spin the wheel, take the chance. She’s not reckless: she assesses the odds rationally and makes an informed, considered choice. But while I’ll always opt for the safer, higher ground, she’s never afraid to step out onto the ice.

‘You’ve only just finished renovating this place,’ I say. ‘The paint’s barely dry!’

‘Which is why it’s the perfect time to sell.’

I sigh. ‘Millie, I’ve got a shit-ton of stuff going on atwork at the moment. It’s my busiest time. And I’m not sure the kids need the upheaval right now, either. Peter’s still finding his feet, and Meddie’s already got to cope with changing schools in September.’

‘The Glass House is closer to the Tube,’ Millie wheedles. ‘Meddie will be able to get herself to and from school without a long walk home in the dark during the winter. And you’ve been saying for ages we need more space,’ she adds. ‘You’ll be able to have a proper office instead of having to use the basement. It’s ourdream house, Tom. You can’t say no.’

I never could, not to her.

She senses me weakening, and laughs, throwing her arms around my waist. ‘It’s on the list, Tom,’ she says. ‘It’s one of my five. You don’t actually have a choice.’

She isn’t joking. Her persuasive coaxing is no more than a fig leaf for my pride. There was never any question I’d agree. It’s a shame: I like the area we’re in now. We’ve got good neighbours – everyone turned out for the street party last summer. The kids have grown up here. It’s going to be a wrench.

But Millie isn’t asking for my permission. I should be grateful the twelfth-century stone tower she fell in love with in Italy a few years back never came onto the market.

‘Can you imagine?’ she says dreamily. ‘Usin the Glass House?’

Where we live, what car I drive, the number of zeros in my bank account – none of it’s ever mattered to me, not really. But I understand why it matters to Millie.

Her father worked as a carpet fitter – when he was sober, anyway. Nothing wrong with that: good, honest work. And Millie’s not a snob. But Terry Lennox knew he’d married up – Millie’s mother, Charlotte, was a teacher whose family had had money once upon a time– and he never forgave his wife for it. And he never forgave his daughter either: for being smarter than he was, for having ambitions beyond his horizons.

He blacked her eye when she won a scholarship to a private convent school at seven. He broke her arm when she was awarded a national science prize. He put her in hospital with a ruptured spleen when she came home with thirteen A* grades in her mock GCSEs. If he hadn’t died before she got into Cambridge, he’d have probably killed her for doing so.

Terry Lennox worked for people who owned places like the Glass House. It doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to work out why his daughter wants to buy it.

‘We might not get it,’ I warn. ‘That house is a landmark. The owners are going to be fighting off buyers.’

‘We’ll get it,’ she says confidently.

My wife is a mass of contradictions. She’s cool and forensic; she’s passionate and hot-tempered. She can be chillingly detached when she assesses our children’s flaws, but she wouldn’t think twice about killing to protect them. She has absolutely no self-doubt when it comes to her work, but she’s so afraid of being hurt she’s never learned to make friends. And she’d rather believe herself a sociopath incapable of human connection than admitthatparticular truth.

But when Millie sets her mind to something, there’s no stopping her. Like I said: it’s all or nothing with my wife. If she says we’ll get the Glass House, I believe her.

Put it this way: I wouldn’t want to be the person standing in her way.

chapter 06

millie

The estate agent twitches her high blonde ponytail forward over her left shoulder. It’s her tell: she does it every time she’s about to lie.

‘The Conways are interested in several other properties,’ Julia says. ‘A bit more competitively priced, I’m afraid, Mrs Downton. But I’ll let you know if they’d like to come back here for a second viewing.’

‘That’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’ve got several offers on the table already, so just email me before Friday if they want to put in a bid.’

‘Friday?’

‘I’m asking everyone to make their best offer by the end of the week,’ I say. ‘I’ll review them and make a decision on Monday. I think it’s fairer than the back-and-forth of a bidding war, don’t you?’

She swallows. She’s nervous and tentative just at the moment she should be assertive and bold. Most of her lipstick has gone now, a pale pink smear on the lip of the plastic water bottle she’s been toting from room to room as I’ve shown her and her buyers around. Her white skin is stretched over birdlike bones; a blue vein pulses at her temple.

‘The Conways have a lovely little pied-à-terre in Putney,’ she says. ‘I believe it’s about to go under offer. I know they’d be able to complete very quickly if they decide to put in a bid after all.’

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