I enjoy being snuggled in his arms and I do trust him not to mess up again. He made a mistake and I need to let go of the past. There are people in much worse positions than we’re in. We have a place to live, a chance to earn money from this house and we love each other. I still believe love conquers all.
He pulls away. ‘Right. I’m going down to turn the water mains on so we can make a coffee and have a shower.’
He leaves me in the lounge area. It’s not so bad. It’s like our house in miniature. We had a collection of rooms before and now we are open plan. I have a look around. The kitchen is at the far end and it’s cobbled together from what Aunt Dorette had downstairs in the main kitchen. We have a snug area and log burner. The bathroom has the tiniest shower cubicle that was my aunt’s ensuite for this room. Then there is our bedroom on the opposite side, left of the TV, which I don’t go in because Morgan and Cora are in there. A little further down, what I can only describe as a super large cupboard is the only room available for Morgan to sleep in. Ethan has already put her bed up and made it.
As I stand in the middle of the main living space, I imagine Aunt Dorette doing the same thing a few months ago. She treated this little section at the one end of the house like her apartment, while the rest of the building fell apart. I’m just grateful that we’re living on the complete opposite side to that dodgy balcony room and I can lock the door to keep our children safe from it.
Morgan follows Cora back in from the bedroom. Cora walks like a drunken person which makes me laugh, then she falls on the floor and sits.
‘Come here,’ I say as Cora beams up at me from the floor. She holds her hands up for me to lift her. Though she can run and climb now, she still likes to be picked up when she’s tired.
‘How long are we going to have to stay in this flea pit?’ Morgan removes her large headphones and hangs them around her neck.
‘It’s not that bad, Squidge,’ I say to her.
‘Mum, stop calling me that. I’m fourteen, not four.’ She lets out a sigh. ‘I’ve walked around the whole house. I can’t believe anyone ever lived here, and the Wi-Fi isn’t working which makes it extra crap.’
‘Language, Morgan.’ I nod towards Cora who is starting to pick up words nicely. The last thing I want is for her to start shouting the word ‘crap’ out loud.
‘But I need to speak to Mai. I said I’d call her when we got here, but I can’t. This place sucks.’
‘Have you tried phoning?’ Cora pulls my hair and she’s about to put several strands into her mouth. I gently wrestle them from her and she starts to cry.
‘I’ve run out of data, minutes, texts. I need Wi-Fi, Mum.’
‘We’ll sort it, okay, but it won’t be for a short while.’
Morgan casts one of her death stares my way. Her long black hair is framed by an attempt at creating a blonde streak at each side, but to her dismay, they turned orange.
‘How about you borrow my phone to call Mai?’ I ease Cora over to my other side so I can get my phone out of my pocket. I pass it to Morgan, and she snatches it from me.
‘I’m going to my cupboard so don’t come in. Did I say I hate this place?’
I go to say yes but Morgan has already slammed the door to her ‘new cupboard’ as she calls it – and I agree with her. That room isn’t suitable for a teenager. I swallow my feelings down. I want to say to Morgan, I get it, Squidge. I hate it here too. Cora starts wriggling and sporadically crying. She’s tired and we haven’t even put her cot together yet. She’ll be sleeping in our room while we’re here. I bob her up and down in the hope that she’ll give up the fight against the inevitable sleep that’s coming her way. Her body gets heavier and she begins to snuggle against my chest.
I walk across the room and the floorboards creak underneath the carpet. I glance out of the leaded windows at the lane I tried to ignore as we pulled up. So far, I have done a good job of pretending we’re not actually in Clover House, but reality is kicking in. I catch sight of the woods and look away. The past needs to stay where it is. I wish we had a car as well as the pickup because I feel trapped here. Darkness is starting to fall but I won’t turn the lights on yet. The only giveaway that we’re here is the pickup on the drive, but no one can clearly see it because Aunt Dorette left the hedges to overgrow.
I kiss Cora’s soft head and rock her a little. I can’t help but glance out again despite how fast my heart is racing. We can never go into the woods and I need to tell that to Morgan. I shudder at what happened and force myself to look at the rest of the lane.
The two houses opposite are lit up. I glance across the street and catch sight of a woman in a pure white, furry-edged winter hat. She’s tall and elegant, wearing high-heeled cherry-coloured boots and a white coat that falls over her hips like a perfectly fitted dress. She stops as if she feels my gaze, or maybe she’s reached a gap in the hedge and can just about see the glint of a streetlamp bouncing off our pickup. I feel like I should hide, even though I’m in darkness here, but I can’t. I pick up a glass of water with my free hand and take a sip. I wait patiently, wanting to see if it’s who I think it might be.
Morgan barges out of her cupboard room and turns the main light on, and the woman looks directly up at me. I drop the glass.
‘Mum, I got cut off. The phone’s all crackly.’
My gaze locks on the woman’s. She knows who I am and I know who she is.
Three
Gemma
I wake up to the sight of snow falling. Flakes gently settle on the outside window ledge. I shiver and that wakes Ethan up. Cora is still asleep in her cot, and she’s snug in her blankets. We’ve been here for almost a week now and, luckily, I haven’t had to leave the apartment once. I think of the woman in the white hat and I can’t face her, not now or ever.
Ethan stirs and turns the electric wall heater on, over his side. ‘It’ll soon warm up.’
Cora punches the air, her eyes still closed. I snuggle close to Ethan and place my head on his chest. He puts his arm over me and kisses my mussed-up hair.
I think of our workload and I get palpitations. I’ve only briefly walked around the rest of the house and it’s a shell of what it was all those years ago. I realise I need to be more hands-on with this project if we’re to get this house completed ASAP. In the past, I’ve bashed down walls, I’ve helped him to fit kitchens, bathrooms and with every other job needed. It’ll be time to roll up my sleeves, but this time it’s going to be harder, and not just because we have a baby in tow. Ethan places his hand on my stomach and I place my hand over his. We didn’t plan for this but we’re happy.
