The Marriage Lie

by Ali Mercer

Genres: Family Life; Literary Fiction; Sagas; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Fourteen years ago Stella did something she has regretted ever since. But she did it for her daughter. Now, that mistake could mean she loses her precious girl forever… Stella follows her handsome husband Rob to the beautifully laid-out table in the restaurant he’s chosen specially for her fortieth birthday lunch. As the waiter pops the champagne, Rob proposes a toast and their crystal glasses clink together in celebration. Stella knows how they must look to anyone watching. Two people very much in love, with the perfect marriage and the perfect life. But Rob is about to drop a bombshell on Stella. He wants a divorce. If she doesn’t agree to his plan – to sell the house, divide the money and award him full custody of fourteen-year-old Georgie – he will tell their innocent daughter the one secret he promised to keep and that Stella has worked so hard to protect her from. Stella has a choice to make. To fight for her daughter, there is only one person she can turn to for help. A woman she hasn’t spoken to in over a decade. But to do it means facing up to her biggest regret, and risks losing Georgie forever, once she learns the truth… An absolutely heart-breaking and gripping novel about the price of keeping a secret. Fans of Amanda Prowse, Kate Hewitt and Susan Lewis will be gripped by this emotional family drama from the very first page. Readers are hooked by The Marriage Lie : ‘ You’ve got to read this "on the edge of your seat" novel… Absolutely fantastic… It’s like one of those tea-cup rides at the amusement park… you end up with bruises after being slammed from side to side as it whirls you all over the place… But you still smile and say the ride was awesome!… Will make you smile, yell out in frustration and gasp in disbelief… There’s so much going on in this spectacular book… A must read.’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Ali Mercer is one of my favourite authors, she writes with such tenderness yet is also able to shock in an instant. This is another excellent sorry of those who aren’t what they seem and the lengths we might go to protect those we love. A real thrill ride that I thoroughly enjoyed.’ NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Will pull you in, and you will not want to put it down… This book about the importance of relationships within a family will keep you guessing until the end.’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ I mean really... how could you not get hooked in the first chapter… Ali Mercer takes the concept of marriage and throws in every possible monkey wrench you could think of… Keeps you intrigued throughout the entire book and has you thinking that not one character is innocent… I highly recommend you read this book to find out this and so much more!!! ’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ I love a book that keeps you guessing until the end. Ali Mercer did a fantastic job… LOVED it! ’ Two Girls and a Book Obsession, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘I would wholeheartedly recommend this novel to all… Heartbreaking but also uplifting at the same time. How is that possible? I guess you will just have to read it to find out!’ Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ A huge twist that I definitely didn't see coming… Spectacular… Great plot that keeps you guessing throughout and lots to think about.’ Bobs and Books ‘ An excellent and emotional drama. I loved its characters. All were awesome.’ NetGalley reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘A textured and satisfying family drama… Highly believable and very finely observed… Uplifting and deeply humane. An excellent read.’ Goodreads reviewer

Release date: May 28, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

Rob had reserved a table for us, though he needn’t have bothered. There was plenty of space, not surprisingly given that it was a weekday lunchtime. But it was my birthday, and he wouldn’t have wanted to leave anything to chance.

Most of the other customers had gravitated to the beer garden, overlooking the river, but Rob wasn’t a fan of eating outside – too many insects, too much weather, too much risk of other people’s kids running round or being noisy. Inside it was calm and quiet and there were just a few other diners, who were either elderly or looked as if they were out on business and eating on expenses. There would be no interruptions to fray Rob’s nerves, and nobody would be close enough to eavesdrop on us. We’d be able to have a proper conversation without anybody else listening in.

The oak-panelled walls had been painted a dark shade of grey that soaked up the sunshine coming in through the tall sash windows, and the silver cutlery and crystal glasses on the tables gleamed in the muted light like jewellery in an old painting. Our table was set slightly apart from the others in its own little alcove, which was as shadowy and private as if it was dusk in winter rather than midday in June. As I took my seat I felt as if I had entered a dark cave, lit up by rectangles of brightness from a distant outside world.

Just for a moment, it was like one of those dreams where you start to panic and try to ask the people around you for help. But they’re too far away and too preoccupied to hear you, and anyway, you’ve lost the ability to speak.

I reminded myself to breathe. Here I was in the newly renovated dining room of one of the top-rated gastropubs in Oxfordshire, out for lunch with my husband sitting opposite me. My good-looking, successful, generous husband, who had brought me here as a treat to celebrate my fortieth birthday. I was safe. Our daughter was safe. Nothing bad was going to happen.

Live in the present. That was what they said. I had to let myself enjoy the here and now, because why not? What else was there?

Rob reached across the table to tap the menu resting in front of me.

‘Maybe you could start thinking about what you’d like to have,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty hungry.’

It was a reproof, but a gentle one. After all, it was my birthday.

‘Sure,’ I said.

I opened my menu and looked through it, and Rob did the same with his. The silence that fell between us was more or less companionable, though there was something about it that was just a touch off-key – an almost inaudible note that set my teeth on edge.

Nothing unusual there, though. My whole life was off-key. I just had to try to get by without anyone else noticing. Though Rob noticed. He saw and knew everything.

Sometimes all it took to make me feel small was to look at him when he was looking back at me.

But still… we had a beautiful daughter. A beautiful home. And here we were, just the two of us, about to eat a meal that would cost as much as it took to feed us and Georgie for a week, if I was careful.

The past was the past. These days, we had a good life, didn’t we? A fortunate life?

Or at least, that was what other people thought.

I decided to do as Rob had told me and focus on deciding what to eat.

Cost wasn’t the problem. It was the calories I had to look out for. Being a Greek god with a gym habit, Rob could eat potato dauphinoise till the cows came home without any obvious consequences. Not so for me. Especially not now I’d turned forty. And if I couldn’t get into the lingerie Rob had bought for me… he’d definitely notice.

I read through the list of starters yet again, but didn’t take it in. I couldn’t help thinking about Georgie. Four days, three nights. That was all. She was not far off fifteen now and I really ought to be able to let her go, at least for that long. Which wasn’t really very long at all.

But this whole thing of not being able to get in touch with her… so unnecessary. Even on my birthday! All I really wanted was one little text message from her saying she was OK. Then I’d be fine. I’d be able to relax. I might even be able to begin to enjoy myself.

It wasn’t really being overprotective. It was only natural for a mother to worry about her daughter being out there in the back of beyond, wandering around with nothing but a couple of other kids and a paper map to help her orientate herself. OK, so there were supervisors, but they were few and far between and they couldn’t watch the kids all the time.

Also, I knew all too well how easy it was for any school trip to come close to catastrophe. That heart-stopping moment when you counted heads for the coach back and realised someone was missing… And then they turned up, or were found, and the world righted itself. But you always knew that there could be a time when that didn’t happen, when the lost stayed lost and there was no miraculous restoration of normality, and no relief. There was so much that could go wrong.

There were so many ways for kids to vanish. What if Georgie got separated from the others in her group? What if someone else was watching… the wrong kind of someone? She was so trusting. She’d never yet had cause to learn that not all grown-ups could, or should, be trusted.

There was no way we could tell her she couldn’t trust us. It was much, much too late for that.

‘You all right?’ Rob said.

I gave myself a little shake and managed to smile at him.

‘Of course I am. Couldn’t be better. This is wonderful. Thank you.’

The only way to stay sane – as I often reminded myself – was to be grateful for what you had. I had been lucky. I had got what I wanted. It was just that, one way or another, there was a price to be paid. But then, you couldn’t expect to gain your heart’s desire for free…

The champagne arrived and the waitress poured it and withdrew, and Rob and I raised our glasses to each other.

The crystal glittered and chinked and the booze fizzed, but I didn’t see it. Instead I glimpsed a different scene: a long straight road through woodland on another summer’s day, and something half seen in the shadows at the verge.

I blinked and my vision cleared. I was back in the restaurant and my handsome husband was toasting me. Rob said, ‘Happy birthday,’ and we clinked glasses again and drank.

Then he said something strange. ‘Make the most of it, because there’ll never be another one. Not like this.’

What on earth did he mean? Had I misheard him?

I set down my glass. Best not overdo it. I’d skipped breakfast this morning to avoid bloating. A jumpsuit wasn’t the most forgiving garment if you had a less than perfectly flat stomach. He liked me in it, though, which is why I’d picked it out.

The first time I’d worn it, he tore it at the front and I had to get it mended. It makes you look like a sexy mama. Which is what you are.

Would tonight be one of those nights? Did I want it to be? Would I want it to be, when it came to it?

The room swam – the tables, the people eating, the dark panelling on the walls that seemed to absorb the sunlight – then righted itself. Rob was smiling. He seemed to be waiting for me to get the joke.

I said, ‘What do you mean, “there’ll never be another one”?’

His smile widened but didn’t reach his eyes.

‘Just that you always used to say you were going to stop having birthdays after you turned forty.’

‘I never said that.’ I attempted a smile in return. After all, he was only joking. ‘I said I was going to stop counting. I didn’t mean I was going to stop celebrating. Or having presents, so don’t get any ideas about that.’

I was still waiting for my birthday present from him, which was going to be a surprise, as usual. He never let slip what he was planning in advance. A gift has to be unexpected, was what he always said. Otherwise it’s not a proper present. It’s just part of an exchange. All he’d been willing to tell me was that I’d have to wait until after lunch to find out.

It would be jewellery, probably – something in a box that he would hand over when we got home, or leave on the bed for me to find. Diamonds? Gold? Or it could be an experience – a trip to a spa, or a family holiday.

Rob said, ‘Do you like the table they’ve given us? I thought you’d like to be seen but not heard.’

He had let me have the seat with the best view of the restaurant, while he had his back to everyone else. It’s absolutely fine by me, he’d said. You’re the only person I’m interested in right now.

In the far corner to my right a silver-haired couple were holding hands across the table and talking in low voices. The picture of what we could be, one day? Two elderly people, content to be together as only those who have kept each other’s secrets for decades can be? To the left there was a man in a suit and a woman in a formal shift dress. Their conversation had flagged. The woman was picking over what was left of her salad, and the man looked as if he had the beginnings of indigestion.

‘It’s a great spot,’ I said, and sipped some more champagne.

Maybe I should just knock it back. Insist on having more. After all, it was my birthday.

But no… you just couldn’t do that kind of thing when you were married and a mother. And a teacher at a local school. When you had a certain reputation to uphold, even if it was a quiet one. You certainly couldn’t get smashed at lunchtime, in public.

Anyway, Georgie wasn’t going to be away that long.

If I could just focus on that – the moment when the coach would arrive back at school on Saturday evening, and I’d spot her waving from the window – I’d be able to keep it together between now and then.

Knowing her, she’d be desperate to get back. She liked her home comforts.

‘I’m glad you approve of the restaurant,’ Rob said. ‘I must say, I like the way they’ve done the place up.’

‘It’s perfect,’ I said, and gave him my best, most winning smile, the one I usually saved for photos.

I was conscious of the woman to my left, the one who was on a business lunch, watching us. I didn’t want her thinking I was miserable. After all, it should be easy to come across as happy if you and your date are safely out of earshot.

She was still picking at her salad, and still struggling to make small talk to the man she was with. Maybe she even envied me. Drinking champagne, being toasted. Celebrating my special day.

Then she caught my eye. I felt my smile turn rigid and falter and both of us looked away.

Rob paid for lunch, as he always did. He had always picked up the tab when we went out, right from the start. Back then I’d just thought it was nice to be treated. It hadn’t occurred to me that I was letting him set a pattern that it might be hard to break.

After lunch, again as always, he was the one who drove us home.

Which was fine by me. If it wasn’t for Georgie, I could quite happily have never driven again. It still terrified me. But Georgie needed ferrying around and Rob worked long hours and was often away. There wasn’t much choice but to get on with it and do my best not to let anyone see how I felt.

And that was nothing, really, in the scheme of things. Nothing compared to what I would have been prepared to do for her.

When it came down to it, it was all because of her, all for her.

I had always wanted her to have the things I hadn’t had. A storybook childhood: the house in the country, roses round the door, fresh-baked cake on the table. Stability. Security. A good education. Routine, even if that was a little boring for her sometimes – but that meant no nasty surprises. A dad who adored her and told her she could be anything she wanted and the world was hers for the taking. A mum who was there for her no matter what, who was willing to put her first…

The choices that had been made, the sacrifices – it had worked. She was the living proof of that, and I was so proud of her she made my heart want to burst.

OK, there had been had a few slammed doors, a few pensive moods. But she’d never really been difficult. She still talked to me. Confided in me. Let me hug her. She had bought me a new purse for my birthday, maroon leather from the gift shop in Kettlebridge, which she’d chosen herself and paid for out of her pocket money. She’d even baked me a cake, all off her own bat, without asking for a recipe or ingredients or anything.

As she was due to go off on her school trip the day before my birthday, she’d made the cake in advance, at the weekend. As soon as her Saturday morning maths lesson was finished and the tutor had gone, she’d set to work. At teatime she’d brought the cake ceremoniously out to the dining room, where I was sitting at the table marking homework, and set it down in front of me. The candles were already lit, and there was a piped message on top of the just-set water icing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM.

Rob had been just behind her, having come in from his garden office, and as I admired the cake he’d watched me with just a hint of challenge.

‘Aren’t you the lucky one,’ he’d said, with a coolly questioning look.

‘I certainly am,’ I’d told him.

And I was. She was such a loving daughter. The ideal daughter. So kind-hearted, so good-natured. So sheltered. Rob had always insisted on sending her to private schools, and I’d had my doubts, not just because of the expense. I had worried that she might learn to be a snob, that we were cutting her off from other kids in the neighbourhood and the community we had chosen to live in, and that one day she might even learn to look down on us. Then I’d ended up teaching part-time at her secondary school. She had taken that in her stride. If she had ever found it embarrassing or awkward, she had never admitted it.

She worried about other people – people who were less happy and less lucky than we were – and wished she could do more to help them. For her, cruelty and injustice were far away and outside the home, in the news. Still, they troubled her.

Once she had asked me – hesitantly, because she was smart enough to know that it was a sensitive topic – ‘Did you and Dad ever think of having any more children?’

And I had told her, ‘No, Georgie. You were enough for us. You were all we ever wanted.’

Then, as an afterthought, in answer to the question she hadn’t asked – why hadn’t we had more children? – ‘To be honest, it was hard enough having you.’

I had been so lost in thoughts of Georgie that I hadn’t taken any notice of where Rob and I were going. But then I saw that the scenery around us was completely unfamiliar. We were in the middle of nowhere when we should have been well on the way home.

‘Rob, where are we?’

Rob tapped the satnav to remind me the answer was right there, if I could only be bothered to look for it. The satnav was new, and I’d never used it. I didn’t have one in my car. Rob had said that if I did, I’d probably end up following it down a one-way street.

‘Heading towards Fox Hill,’ he said.

‘But Rob… that’s completely the wrong direction.’

He didn’t reply. The road ahead of us was completely deserted and led straight between fields of wheat to vanish into woodland on the horizon. I told myself there was no reason to feel uneasy. Maybe this was all part of my birthday surprise.

I said, ‘Is this the scenic route or something?’

‘Patience is a virtue, virtue is a grace. Isn’t that how the old rhyme goes? Patience, Stella. Hang on in there, and it will all begin to make sense. Now hush up and enjoy the ride.’

By and by we came to the woodland on Fox Hill. Between the trees I glimpsed scattered houses set back from the road. Some of them were half-timbered and thatched, while others were Victorian Gothic places with steeply angled roofs and there were one or two new builds, square concrete houses with solar panels and huge windows gleaming in the sun.

Right at the end of the lane, Rob pulled up in front of a white-painted, stucco-fronted cottage set behind a substantial gate with a security keypad. I guessed it had maybe been built sometime before the Second World War and modernised since, though it was hard to tell. It had the slightly dead-eyed look of a house that hasn’t been lived in for a while and has just been done up.

Maybe this was one of his property development projects. But why had he brought me here? He didn’t usually care for my opinion on these things.

He hopped out of the car and punched a code into the keypad. The gate opened. He got back into the car and drove us through and the gate shut smoothly behind us.

Would you be able to get out and drive away if you didn’t know the code? Maybe not. You’d have to walk. Or run. There was a pedestrian gate to the side and that was secured with a keypad too. You’d have to start by climbing…

But that was a paranoid thought, anyway. Rob was always telling me I had an overactive imagination. He knew better than anyone how often I slept badly, and how little it took for me to start obsessing about possible disasters. There had been a time when he’d been able to sympathise, but these days my habitual anxiety just wore him down.

He killed the engine and turned to face me.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘what do you think?’

‘It’s very… quiet, isn’t it?’

‘It’s up-and-coming,’ he said. ‘On the other side of the hill, with views of Oxford, places like this cost a fortune. The centre of the village is only ten minutes’ walk away. OK, there isn’t that much there – convenience store, church, pub, primary school – but day-to-day, it’s all you need. It’s a fifteen-minute drive to Kettlebridge, twenty in rush hour, and then you’ve got the supermarkets and so on. Same distance to Oxford – though if you time it wrong, you’ll be sitting in traffic till you’ve lost the will to live.’ He opened his car door. ‘Let’s go in. If there’s anything you don’t like about the décor, do let me know.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

And then he smiled at me with a warmth I hadn’t seen for ages.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t take offence,’ he said. ‘Not today. After all, it is your birthday.’

‘OK, then take me on the tour. You know I love nosing round other people’s houses.’

‘Everybody does,’ he said.

I thought he might be about to lean across and kiss me, but instead he got out of the car and strode purposefully towards the front door. I was wearing a new pair of high heels, spindly things designed more to show off a pedicure than for actual walking, and nearly twisted an ankle as I hurried to keep up.

Inside, my first impression was of whiteness, brightness and emptiness. It was like walking into a lightbox.

I knew that was the look Rob favoured – pale walls, a lack of clutter, a little bit of natural wood and a few splashes of accent colour for contrast. Over the years, I’d quietly resisted it back home in Kettlebridge, with limited success. We’d ended up with a compromise between my hankering for cosiness and his more austere tastes: minimalism plus mementoes and a few carefully maintained pot plants. But the inside of this house was pure unadulterated Rob, and as immaculate as if the decorators had just moved out – which perhaps they had.

The entrance hall was unusually wide, almost square, with a chequerboard tiled floor. There were closed doors to the left and at the end of the hallway, and a wooden floating staircase rising to the first floor. Behind me, the front porch had a rack for shoes – in Rob’s view, shoes needed somewhere to go, and should always be lined up. There was also a short row of rubberised coat hooks in a quirky shade of orange, which was the kind of design flourish Rob liked.

There was less storage space for outdoor things than we had back home at Fairfield Road: any family living here would have to be disciplined about how many coats they kept to hand. And there wouldn’t be much extra space if they had visitors, or a party. But I decided not to say anything about that. It was unusual for Rob to ask me for my opinion, and I had a hunch that criticism wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear.

Rob was smiling at me like the magician at the beginning of a trick, patient and knowing, willing to indulge his audience in the build-up to the big reveal.

He said, ‘Ready?’

‘Sure.’

‘We’ll start with the kitchen-diner. It’s really the heart of the house.’

The reply that came to mind was, Come on, you can spare me the sales patter. I bit my tongue.

You couldn’t say that kind of thing to your husband, not after he’d just taken you out for a nice lunch on your birthday. You shouldn’t say that kind of thing to your husband ever. You shouldn’t even think that kind of thing, because it was just evidence of how critical and ungrateful you’d become. Anyway, Rob couldn’t help it. He’d spent years doing this kind of thing. He’d been working in the world of property so long, he’d absorbed its language and used it as if it was his own.

He held open the door at the end of the hallway and waved me through. The gesture was ironic, as if letting me go first was some kind of private joke. Mocking, even. As if he was treating me like a lady when both of us knew I didn’t deserve that kind of courtesy.

As I went into the kitchen I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye – something moving, a white shadow against white. But it must just have been a trick of the light. There was no breeze coming in and no curtains to stir. In fact, the room was stifling.

‘Very nice. Plenty of space,’ I said.

It was L-shaped, and ran the full length of the house as well as behind the width of the hall. The kitchen units were at the back, so you could stand at the sink and look out into the garden. It was all done out in white. With windows at either end, on a sunny day like today it was almost dazzling. The echo of my heels on the shiny tiled floor was like a ricochet.

There was a small round wooden table in the middle of the room, with a chair on either side. Rob must be planning to let the place part-furnished. It seemed an odd size of table to choose, whether he was looking for a family to rent it out to or a group of young professional housemates. Surely they’d want something bigger? And it wasn’t the kind of starter place a couple would look for.

‘Come and check out the living room,’ Rob said. He seemed to be enjoying himself, as if this little tour was all part of some kind of grand unveiling and he’d been looking forward to it for longer than he dared say.

The living room was part-furnished too. A flat screen TV stood on an otherwise empty matte white unit in one corner, near a small grey sofa that seemed to float in the space like a piece of furniture bobbing on top of an expanse of water after a flood. The wooden floor was spotless and unmarked, as if nobody had ever walked on it. Perhaps nobody had, apart from the workmen and Rob and now me.

I was drawn to the garden at the back of the house. Drawn to it and vaguely appalled by it, though I didn’t let on. It was framed by French windows that gave onto a small paved patio and a modest square of lawn with gravelled borders, surrounded by a high wooden fence that had been freshly painted with oak-brown creosote. There were no trees, no flowers, no bushes or shrubs. If anything had been growing there, Rob had torn it out.

‘The turf looks like you’ve just laid it,’ I said.

‘It’s artificial, actually. It’s very convincing, isn’t it? A lot of people like it, nowadays. It’s very hardwearing, and saves all the trouble with weeds and mowing.’

Barren. The word echoed in my head so loudly I almost thought I’d said it out loud. A harsh, bleak word. It conjured up a landscape of dust. A weeping woman with red-rimmed eyes. An empty cradle and blood on the sheets with nothing to show for it.

The house was silent. I pressed my hand to my heart: I could feel it beating through the black crepe of my jumpsuit. I was beginning to sweat.

‘You’ve thought of everything,’ I said.

‘I try,’ Rob told me. ‘Are you ready to go upstairs? I want to show you the bedrooms.’

‘Sure. Ready when you are,’ I said. We went back into the hall, and he waved me on to make my way up the slippery wooden stairs before him.

There were three bedrooms and an immaculate white-and-grey bathroom. Two of the bedrooms were empty, but one, the largest, which overlooked the front of the house, had a single bed in it. Decent quality, by the look of it, with a good plump mattress. Rob hadn’t skimped. But then, he never did. That was another of his maxims, that it was worth a little bit of extra outlay to create the effect you wanted.

The bed smelt brand new, as if it had only just been delivered and stripped of its packaging. It was odd that Rob hadn’t ordered a double – there was easily space for one, and if he let the place to a family, this would probably be the parents’ room. Or, if it was a house-share, a young professional couple might take it. Or a singleton with a love life, who might sometimes have a boyfriend or girlfriend staying over.

Why were the other bedrooms still unfurnished? Maybe there was a delivery on the way.

They were obvious questions. Reasonable questions, you might think. Maybe they had reasonable answers. But I still didn’t say anything. I knew from experience that there was a difference between Rob asking for an opinion and being pleased to hear one.

He led the way back downstairs and I followed him, slow and careful on the stairs in my awkwardly high heels. My heart was still racing. Maybe because I half expected him to be irritated with me for not keeping up. Or maybe for some other reason that I couldn’t quite put my finger on yet.

We ended up back where we’d started, in the hallway with the chequerboard floor. I touched my forehead and felt beads of sweat. Rob would be repulsed; he disliked any sign of perspiration on me unless it was just after exercise. But he didn’t seem to have noticed. He wasn’t sweating at all. He was smiling still, and waiting for my verdict.

‘Well?’

The whole place seemed unreal. Or perhaps just as if it was waiting to be put to use. A blank canvas. A set for a certain kind of drama, the sort where lonely people had affairs and tried to kill each other, and maybe succeeded. Or sought revenge. Or were haunted.

My throat was dry and it was an effort to speak.

‘It’s lovely. Very classy,’ I said.

I sounded nervous. And defensive, as if the house itself was some kind of threat.

But that was ridiculous. Taking paranoia to whole new heights. It really was time to get a grip.

‘No criticisms? Don’t hold back,’ Rob said. ‘I can take it.’

It was as if he wanted me to find fault. Was he looking to pick a fight? I was going to have to come up with something to say.

‘Well… it’s quite isolated. Tucked away at the end of the lane with the woods all around. That might not suit everybody. In the middle of winter, in bad weather… if there was heavy snowfall… it could end up being cut off. The only way to get out would be on foot, and you wouldn’t be able to get much further than the village. If you could manage even that.’

I hesitated. Rob pulled a little face as if to say, Fair point. I tried to take heart. Perhaps I was on safer ground commenting on the location than I would be if I questioned the way he’d done the place up, or the furniture he’d chosen.

‘It could be spooky if you were here on your own at night,’ I went on. ‘Also, you’d pretty much have to get in the car to go anywhere. I mean, I guess there is a bus service, but it’s probably about once a day. But for a certain kind of family I guess it could work… or if you can find tenants who want to live in the country and don’t mind a bit of a commute…’

I ground to a halt. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him whether he was planning to sell the place or let it out. But something stopped me.

Rob frowned. ‘So do you think you could be happy here?’

For once, I decided to risk being blunt.

‘This might be somebody’s dream house,’ I said. ‘But it would never be mine.’

‘I’m sure you’ll adapt,’ he said.

Then he reached into his pocket and held out a set of keys.

I didn’t take them. Instead I glanced round the hallway as if half expecting someone to spring forward out of hiding to explain it all. But nothing stirred – not even dust.

I said, ‘What is this? Is this some kind of practical joke?’

‘No, it’s not a joke. It’s a surprise. Your birthday surprise.’ He shook his outstretched hand so the keys rattled. ‘Go on, take them. Congratulations! The place is as good as yours – just a few formalities to complete first, but we can sort all of that out in good time. I think I’m right in saying this will be the first house you’ve ever owned outright.’

It was as if I had been hypnotised. I cupped my hand and held it out without wanting to or meaning to, just because it was what he expected, and he dropped the keys into it.

They were cool and heavy. Substantial keys for substantial locks. He must have thought carefully about se. . .