The House That Jack Built

SIX

'It's warm,' Rob said, tugging off his paint-stained hoodie and tossing it into a corner of the room.

Julia wasn't listening. She was staring out of the bedroom window, watching the man she'd talked to earlier — the American in the big black car — run down next door's drive.

'What's he want now?' she wondered aloud. She hadn't expected an answer but Rob gave her one anyway.

'Who?' he asked, moving over to the window. Jack had vanished from sight.

'Nobody,' Julia answered, slightly embarrassed for speaking her thoughts aloud. 'Just some bloke that's been hanging around.'

'Hanging around?' Rob peered through the window, but there was nothing to see. 'He'll be hung from a lamp post if the Neighbourhood Watch catch him.' Turning to his wife he noticed her flinch slightly. 'What's up?'

She shook her head. 'Nothing.'

He wasn't so easily dissuaded. 'Yes there is. You've been funny all day. What is it?'

'Honestly, it's nothing. I didn't sleep well, that's all.'

Rob scratched at his stubble. She watched his dirty nails brush at the iron filings of his beard, wondering how many times she had seen him do it. It was an unconscious habit, like sticking the tip of his tongue out when he was concentrating or drumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa while they watched telly. She loved him, she really did, but she wished he'd shut up.

'Is it this place?' he asked.

'Who likes moving?' she replied, only too aware that she hadn't answered the question.

'Certainly not me,' said Steve from the doorway, 'and it's not even my bloody house.' He gave Rob a pointed look. 'Wardrobe ain't going to carry itself, is it?'

'Sorry, mate, right with you.' Rob gave Julia a pleading look, making sure she knew he wasn't satisfied with her lack of answer, and followed his friend downstairs.

Julia listened to their feet stomp along the creaking stairs, heard Steve make some dismissive comment and Rob bluster defensively. She would never understand what Rob saw in Steve. They had known each other since school and sometimes gave the impression they were still there, the bully and his flunky. It angered her. Rob wasn't weak, but Steve tried to make him so. He was that type of person, a man who grew tall by knocking down others. A hateful man.

The anger felt good, solid and constructive, directed at a physical object. Rather than an indefinable mood, it was a relief to feel something so honest. Rather than swallow it — and scold herself for being so hostile — she relished it.

She left the room as she heard them begin to climb back up the stairs with the flat-pack wardrobe. She had the sudden feeling that they would be able to tell what she had been thinking if they saw her. Her belly churned as her aggression became panic. She struggled to control her breathing. The sound of them walking upstairs was terrifying as she convinced herself that she would be in awful danger if they saw her.

She ran quietly into the spare bedroom, pulled open the chipped-formica doors of the built-in wardrobe and climbed inside. She sat down in the corner, breathing in the old, stale scent of a dead woman's clothes, mothballs and dust, and listening to the sound of her frantic heart pumping in her ears.

What was wrong with her? She felt as if every emotion she had was out of control. Scared, angry, confused… Was she having some kind of breakdown? The last time she'd felt like this was… well, there was no need to go there, that was months ago… and Rob had promised it would never happen again, that it had been a one-off mistake… Yes, thinking about that was only going to make things worse…

She tried to hear what Rob and Steve were doing. She could hear their voices but not their words. Were they talking about her? No, of course not. Why would they?

She could hear a dripping noise, a leaking tap making steel-drum percussion against the surface of an old bathtub. It sounded like it was coming from just outside the wardrobe. It must have been a trick of the acoustics, the noise bouncing off the old walls.

She became aware of the partly open door and felt another almost uncontrollable surge of panic, as if the slim crack of light alone were worthy of a scream. She forced herself to reach out and pull it closed — carefully — if her fingers poked out too far, who knew what might spot them and snap them off out of spite? When the door swung closed and she was wrapped in complete darkness, she brought her knees up to her chest and began inhaling slowly and deeply, trying to get her panic under control but not alert anything to her location by the noise of her breathing. She exhaled, and this was the hard part, opening her mouth wide and letting the air out as quietly as she could. She did this several times, picturing her pounding heart in the darkness and willing it to slow down. The sickness in her belly began to simmer and her jaw loosen. She pressed her back against the wall and imagined being able to turn to liquid, to just run into the cracks and the gaps between the floorboards, to escape… to be nothing.

The sound of dripping water persisted.