CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
JESS
Without opening my eyes, I can tell it’s morning. The sheet is warm beneath me but cool if I reach out. I am boneless, my soul at rest. I’m not in Venice anymore; I know that much, because I hear a car driving on the road outside.
I allow my lids to drift open and don’t rush my eyes to focus right away. The ceiling is white. The walls are green. Not the flat, then. We’ve moved. We finally got our own house. I feel a pang of sadness for the one we lost, the one I lived in for five years but never had the opportunity to say goodbye to.
But then I let my gaze sharpen, wander around the top half of the room that I can see easily without turning my head. The light pendant hanging from the ceiling is familiar, practically the same as the one I chose for our other home. Most of the pictures on the walls are the same. One or two are different.
I roll over and face the windows. They’re arranged in a square bay, just like our old house. In fact, the layout is almost identical. But that’s not surprising, there must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of red-brick terraced houses like this all acrossLondon, and while the design varies slightly from road to road, they’re more similar than they are different.
I yawn, stretching my arms above my head, splaying my fingers, and that’s when I catch a glimpse of a sparkle on my right ring finger. Great-Great-Grannie’s engagement ring. I smile as I remember Luke giving it to me last night … last year. Its magic belongs to me now.
On one hand, I’m sad that finally owning it hasn’t transported me instantly back to my real life but on the other … maybe it’s better I ride this strange experience out. Luke and I are doing better in this reality. We couldn’t have been doing worse in the other.
Luke isn’t beside me, but the radio is on downstairs in the kitchen. I ease myself out of bed sleepily, pull my robe on, and open the bedroom door. When I see the landing, I stop, frozen in my tracks.
The landing is not just similar, but identical.
It can’t be, can it? This can’t beourhouse?
But as I make my way downstairs, I discover it must be, because the plaster moulding along the hallway ceiling is exactly the same size and shape as before. And there is the nick on the newel post near the bottom that someone damaged decades before we moved in, but we decided not to fill because it had character. History. We liked the idea that many families, hopefully happy, had lived here before us.
Thisisour house. It’s like fate or the universe, or whatever it is that’s playing this strange prank on me, is rewarding me, making up for the hell it’s been putting me through. I’m so happy I could sing.
Luke doesn’t hear me when I enter the kitchen – the fan is onabove the cooker hood – and he’s humming along to a Nineties hit on the radio. I’m tempted to surprise him by hugging him from behind, but it’s probably not a good idea when there are flames and hot pans involved.
‘Hey … ’ I say softly, and he spins around, surprised. I can’t help smiling. He’s wearing the apron his gran bought me for Christmas three years ago over the top of his pyjama bottoms. Blossom and honeybees suit him, it seems.
‘Morning, beautiful,’ he says, dropping the spatula he’s holding on to the worktop and turning to pull me into his arms. He kisses me softly and slowly at first, but then his hands begin to roam, and things get a little more urgent. It’s only the acrid smell of something close by burning that makes us spring apart.
‘Crap,’ says Luke, looking at the frying pan.
‘What was it?’
‘Blueberry and banana pancakes,’ he replies, taking the pan over to the bin, dumping the charred couple of doughy discs inside. ‘But no worries. I’ve got plenty more mixture.’
While these were a firm feature of the early years of our marriage, I don’t know if Luke ever made them for me once we moved to this house. Not last time around, anyway. That has to be a good sign, right? Something else to bolster this sense of buoyancy inside me, this feeling that something has shifted, that everything is going to be all right.
The day is sunny and warm, so we throw the French doors open and eat our pancakes at the bistro table in the garden. These are no misshapen dollops of good intention. These pancakes are perfect – golden and fluffy. The blueberries burst with a hint of sourness on my tongue. Luke keeps smiling at me as we eat, and I keep smiling back. Life is good. Life is really good.
Did you do this?I silently ask the circle of diamonds and emeralds on my finger.Did you grant my wish?
I don’t know, and maybe I don’t care, as long as it stays this way. I feel as if I can breathe out now, as if maybe I can enjoy the next few days rather than dread them.
I haven’t had a chance to check my bullet journal yet, so I ask, ‘What are the plans for today?’, hoping it won’t seem too out of place.
‘I’ve got to finish removing that chimney breast in the house in Shortlands. Dirty work, but someone’s got to do it.’
‘Your dad couldn’t put anyone else on it?’
‘Maybe, but … I don’t want to complain, you know. He was good letting me take time away from the business when the Sidcup house ran into issues, and I had to spend way more time there.’
I have no idea which house in Sidcup he’s talking about, but I guess this must be another house flip with Elena. ‘What’s your next renovation project?’ I ask, because I saw the look of wistfulness on his face as he talked about that house.
He sighs. ‘I don’t know. Everything was on hold while Elena was ill, and now she’s visiting her parents, and she’s not sure when she’s coming back. I’m not even sure if she wants to continue, and it’s not exactly the right time to badger her about it. I’ll probably have to find a new partner if I want to carry on. Or just go solo.’
‘But that’s doable, right?’
