The Girl Below(67)

He stepped into the living room, looked up and down at my wet hair and raincoat, and it was then that I recognized the scowl, the imperious look directed at me. “Harold?” I said. “I thought it was Caleb.”

“And you are?”

“Suki. I’m house-sitting.”

He repeated my name to himself, as though trying to remember where he’d heard it. “Where is everyone?” he said. “I’ve just come from Peggy’s, but the place was deserted. It struck me that I might be too late.”

“Too late?” I pulled the raincoat more tightly around me.

“That the old biddy had already croaked.”

“She was alive this morning when Pippa called from Skyros.”

“Skyros?”

“She fell over in the courtyard or something. I don’t think it’s serious.”

“Fuck.” He sat down heavily and sighed. “You’re telling me they’re in bloody Skyros?”

“Were you expecting them to be here?”

“Rather. Peggy called me last week to say she thought the end was near and that she’d cut me out of the will if I didn’t make it over. Of course, she was being overly dramatic and has nothing whatsoever to pass on, but I got it that she needed to see me.”

“And you didn’t check in first with Pippa?”

He got up. “I thought Pippa didn’t want me to come at all—at least that’s what Mummy told me over the phone.”

In photos, I hadn’t really noticed Caleb’s resemblance to Harold—or maybe I hadn’t wanted to—but in person, it was uncanny. They even had the same rebellious expression, only on Harold it had set into a sneer.

“You look familiar,” he said, scrutinizing me. “Were you one of the au pairs?”

“I used to live in the basement of Ladbroke Gardens, with my parents, the Pipers.”

He frowned. “No, I don’t remember you.”

“I looked different then. I wore pink glasses.” I mimed the spectacles, because it always seemed to help. As I did so, the raincoat drifted open and I hastily pulled it closed.

It was open for only a second, but it seemed to make all the difference to Harold’s powers of recollection. “Oh yes, now I remember—your mother was an absolute doll!” he exclaimed and shook my hand vigorously. “And your father—wasn’t he something of a cad?”

Though it was true, I couldn’t possibly agree with him. “My mother passed away,” I said, feeling flustered. “She had cancer.”

“Christ,” said Harold. “What a terrific waste.”

“Yes, I suppose it was.”

I excused myself and went upstairs to my old attic room to get dressed. On my way down again I saw that Harold had put his suitcase in Pippa’s room and strewn his clothes across their bed. I went in to retrieve a book I’d left on the bedside table, and my pajamas, which were screwed up in a heap on the bathroom floor. By the time I got downstairs, Harold had made a pot of coffee, and was connecting the telephone line to his laptop, so that if Caleb tried to call, or the police, they wouldn’t get through.

“I’m expecting a call,” I said. “Do you mind doing that later?”

“I won’t tie up the line for long,” he said, powering up his computer. “Where’s my nephew? Still asleep?”

“Soccer practice,” I said, spreading the lie a little further.

Not long after, I set out to look for Caleb. I had gone as far as his school in Holland Park when I realized what a futile search I was on. He could be anywhere in London, or, by then, anywhere in the world. I exited the park by the gate opposite the Kensington Odeon, and went into the cinema foyer for the sake of nostalgia. Every Thursday on our way home from school, Alana and I had taken a detour past here to see what new films were on. We’d pored over the posters in the lobby, really studied them, got up close and rubbed our fingers on the glass. We had even kissed one once. Only this time when I remembered it, the memory had changed: I saw myself kissing the poster and Alana hanging back a few feet, thinking I was weird. I had never realized before how unstable the past was, how easy to color and revise.

Harold was out when I got home, and I went straight upstairs to my room intending to write in my journal, but got sidetracked by the book I’d been reading, a trashy bestseller I’d found by Pippa’s bed. So engrossed was I that when my right arm and leg went dead from the strange position I had been lying in, I ignored the numbness until I was wracked with pins and needles. As the spasms hit, I rolled on the bed, gasping and groaning in pain—which was exactly the moment Harold chose to appear in the doorway.