Page 96 of The New House

Gracie doesn’t move. I crouch beside her wheelchair, positioned near the tall window so that she can see the view, and touch her cheek so she knows I’m here. After a moment, she turns her head towards me, and I tell myself I see recognition in her eyes.

‘Here,’ I smile, breaking off a piece of shortbread and handing it to her. ‘It’s your favourite.’

Under my guiding fingers Gracie slowly brings it to her mouth. She doesn’t close her lips as she sucks on the shortbread, and drool spills down her chin. I reach for a tissue from the box on the table near us and gently wipe it away.

The night Tom and I ran from my father, the night when I was nine and my mother told us toRun!and we sped barefoot over broken glass to the sanctuary of the Spar shop on the corner, I didn’t think about my four-year-old sister cowering upstairs beneath the bedclothes. I didn’t think about anything but getting as far from my father as possible before he killed me, before he killed Tom.

I didn’t think about Gracie.

It was my job to look after her, and I left her behind.

My father insisted my baby sister had fallen down the stairs. She couldn’t contradict him, because she couldn’t talk. Or walk, or brush her hair, or smile at a familiar face, or grow up and go to school or fall in love or do anything else by herself ever again.

My mother was so ashamed of herself for going back to him she told everyone Gracie was dead. She didn’t even tell me my sister was alive – no, not alive,existing, abandoned in a mental institution – until the morning of my father’s funeral seven years later. She thought itexcusedhim: the fact that Gracie wasn’t dead after all.I don’t want you to think the worst of him,she said.Your dad’s not as black as he’s painted.

I didn’t tell Tom then, because I didn’t want him to have to share the burden of guilt I felt for leaving Gracie behind. I visited her whenever I could, and later, once I was out of medical school and could afford it, I moved her to Alexander Manor, where I was sometimes allowed to stay with her overnight.

My ‘prison breaks’.

I let Tom imagine I’m doing dark deeds in dark places when I’m visiting my sweet, broken sister because I love him just a tiny bit more than I hate myself. He’s drawn to the darkness in me: I’m not going to be the one to disillusion him.

It’s almost dark when I say goodbye to Gracie, the chill of autumn hanging in the air. I get into my car and turn the heating up, my headlights picking up a swirl of ground mist as I turn onto the gravelled drive. I should be home by eight-thirty if the traffic isn’t too heavy.

I glance in my rearview mirror as Alexander Manor recedes into the darkness behind me and almost swerve onto the grass.

‘Jesus fuck!’ I exclaim.

‘You went digging around in my past,’ Stacey says, meeting my eyes in the mirror. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t start digging around in yours?’

chapter 57

millie

I’m a cardiothoracic surgeon: keeping cool under pressure is what I do best. ‘How did you get into my car?’ I ask calmly.

‘You left it unlocked when you went back into your house for your handbag,’ Stacey says. ‘You really should be more careful, Millie. London can be a dangerous place. There are all sorts of dodgy people around, and this is an expensive vehicle. In the time it took you to get your bag your car could’ve been stolen.’

‘Careless of me,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to remember to lock it next time.’

‘If there is a next time,’ Stacey says.

I shift in my seat to get a better angle in the mirror, trying to see if she has a weapon. I can only make out her head and shoulders in the dark: she could have a knife or even a gun in her lap.

‘Keep driving,’ she says, as I slow for the intersection with the main road.

‘And if I don’t?’

‘Well, that would be a little awkward for both of us, wouldn’t it?’

I pause at the junction, my hand on the indicator. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Home,’ she says.

‘Yours or mine?’

She laughs. ‘It doesn’t much matter, does it? We live less than a dozen streets apart, so either way we’re heading in the same direction.’

We could be car-pooling on the school run. I turn left onto the unlit lane at the end of the drive, my headlights picking out the cats’ eyes down the centre of the road. Stacey has never been more dangerous than she is now, cornered and on the back foot.

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