* * *
That night Dan and Faith were dining out with friends, Sharon and Steve, but from Dan’s circle, not Faith’s. She realised that over the years her friends had been jettisoned in favour of Dan’s because he never felt comfortable with any of them. It was a battle to get him to even acknowledge their presence when they made the mistake of popping round. She covered for Dan, making excuses, but everyone knew that he just wasn’t interested. Faith had become so used to this she barely noticed when old contacts drifted off, consoling herself in the knowledge that she still had something resembling a social life, even if it was entirely of Dan’s making.
That night she would always remember as something of a watershed. It started innocently enough, meeting in The Old Red Lion, then going off for a curry on the High Street about an hour later. Inevitably, over dinner, the conversation veered towards the property market. Sharon and Steve had bought their little house a year ago and were rather smug about it as they had bought it cheaply when prices had collapsed, and now they were on the move again, so they were very much on Faith’s side when it came to property ownership.
“You won’t regret it, mate,” said Steve, as he piled into his chicken masala, “why put money into a landlord’s pocket? Put it into your own. Our place we got at a knock down price as it goes, the guy was desperate. Never looked back, neither, the quickest fifty grand I’ve ever made.”
Faith and Dan had heard this story many times before. They always smiled politely and made the appropriate noises, but tonight Steve’s gloating irritated Faith, and she couldn’t even be bothered to respond.
Renowned for her lack of originality and true to form, Sharon said: “And with rented it never feels like it’s yours, always this feeling that you’ll be chucked out onto the street at the whim of the landlord.”
“Depends though, doesn’t it? On your circumstances,” Dan countered.
What does that mean, thought Faith, although really she knew what it meant – why kill yourself finding something permanent when you consider your relationship to be temporary. She’d been through all that with Nick.
“I’ve found us somewhere, actually,” Faith said.
“Where?” asked Sharon, surprised.
“Dalston.”
Everyone went quiet for a moment.
“Oh,” said Steve.
“Nice?” said Sharon.
“A wreck, a complete wreck, holes in the windows, the walls, even the bloody roof,” said Dan, triumphantly.
“Don’t touch it,” said Steve, like he was a fountain of knowledge about these things, “take my advice, a millstone round your neck, you don’t need that, get a new build, go out further and get a new build, and don’t touch Dalston, the place is a ghetto – you’re talking about the front line, trust me on this.”
“That’s exactly what I said. She’s looked at one property, just one, this house that’s falling down in this dodgy neighbourhood and she wants us to buy it.”
“Oh you’ve got to look at a few,” said Sharon, as though she was saying something no one had ever thought of. “And Steve’s right, you know, not Dalston,” said Sharon, dropping her voice to an emphatic whisper, “it’s not very nice.”
Faith gazed over at them across the table, flushed and chipper in their cosy little world, smug in their hideous new build, and she wanted to slap them. They had very limited experience of life, these two, and yet here they were pontificating, telling Dan exactly what he wanted to hear.
“Stop ganging up on me,” said Faith, surprising herself at the hostility in her voice. All three looked up at her smiling, presuming it to be a joke. One glance though said otherwise, it was anything but a joke, and suddenly they were unsure. Sharon giggled.
“Listen, love…” Steve began.
“And don’t call me love, stop patronizing me, as though I know nothing. Well I do know things, Steve, and what I know is this: we are worlds apart you and me, the only reason we go through this pathetic ritual every now and then is because you and Dan went to school together. And the truth is, I couldn’t care less about you, your new build house that will probably topple over someday soon, I expect, nor do I care what you think about DIY, Dalston or just about anything else for that matter, so shut up about it. In fact, do me a huge favour, will you, and shut up about everything.”
Sharon was mortified at this confrontation. She blushed scarlet, and tried to look interested in her chicken korma, chasing bits of it round her plate with a fork. Absorbing the shock, Steve could think of nothing whatsoever to say. Dan’s face, sweating already as he battled with his usual mutton vindaloo, looked so red, Faith thought there was a distinct possibility he might catch fire. Faced with these three people who between them, could not even muster one word of reply, Faith stood up, grabbed her bag and her jacket and left.
Out in the street she allowed herself a little smile. Nick had called her ‘love’ too, and it had made her laugh the way he had said it, but not Steve. In that one word Steve managed to conjure up a woman so stupid, so naive, so inconsequential, but maybe the reason that she could bear Nick saying it and not Steve was simply because she was in love.
Faith did not have a clue where she was going as she trudged down the High Street. She didn’t want to go home, but where else could she go? She had old friends who would put a roof over her head at a push, but she didn’t want to ask them. Her best friend Marianne lived out in the sticks, and it was late and a cab would cost her as much as a hotel room. It was then that she realised where she really wanted to go. She wanted to go back to the house.
It was only when Faith was standing outside 77 Renfield Road that she realised how pointless the journey had been. It was now 10 p.m., she had no way of gaining entrance, so all she could do was to trail up the steps, push the front door, resolutely locked, and then trail back down again to street level. It was then she noticed something she had completely failed to notice last time round, and that was a little set of twisting steps that led down through a small gate to another door that led into the basement, presumably. Nick had not mentioned the cellar, and in all the excitement of her encounter with him, she hadn’t asked; it hadn’t occurred to her to ask. Faith took the steps gingerly, standing finally in a small yard. This door was locked too as she had expected it to be, but there was a broken window beside it that hadn’t been closed properly. Not confident that she would be able to gain entry this way either, Faith made a tentative push at the frame and was surprised to find that she was able to slide it up. Seconds later she was climbing inside.
Bizarrely, the cellar was clear, just a wide empty space, dank and gloomy with festering walls. She crossed to a door and opened it to reveal a staircase that led up to the hall. Within seconds she was standing in the living room, staring out into the back garden where she had first seen Nick. She waited, hoping for him to come towards the house from the bushes, but no sign. Of course there was no sign, she said to herself. Did she really think he would be here at this time? Did she really think a gorgeous man like Nick would have nothing better to do than skulk around a derelict building at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night?
Faith made her way up to the back bedroom. The photograph album was still on the chest of drawers where Nick had left it. She picked it up, and glanced through it until something made her stop the flicking and take the album to the window to get a better view in the moonlight. And there he was, a young Nick in shorts and T-shirt about to compete in a race. There were people standing behind him and a car was parked up in the distance, a classic car by the looks of it. Something about this photograph was not quite right, but at that moment, in the half light, Faith could not work out what it was.
Keen to find other photos of Nick, she turned the pages and on the last page eventually she found one. An old man was behind him, unsmiling, a forbidding character, and Nick was in the foreground glaring straight ahead. Both of the photos seemed old, like they’d been taken years ago, (the 60’s or the 70’s) but that of course coul
d not have been. She put the album down again, left the room and glanced up the narrow staircase to the attic. Something made her take these steps, and although nervous to enter the room again, alone, she did, the train set still laid out on the floor. Everything was still, and she found herself enjoying the room’s own special ambience, its seclusion, tucked away from the thick of things. She started pushing the train round the track, just like Nick had done.
Then, from the corner of her eye she noticed something. Fear brought her to stillness, listening to the rhythmic thump of her heart. The rocking horse had started moving as though a child was riding it – an invisible child. Faith just stared, dumbfounded, as the rocking became more vigorous, then when she thought she might faint in terror, the rocking slowed; then the rocking was no more.
* * *
CHAPTER 3