17 Church Row Read online

  ‘Of course you can. But you’d need to feed them every day.’

  Bella nodded.

  ‘And you’ll need to learn how to look after them properly. This type of fish requires a lot of looking after. Assuming, of course, we end up buying the house.’

  They both turned to look at Nikki. Their smiles were identical. As was the childlike excitement in their eyes. Looking back later, this was the moment when she knew that they would be moving here.

  Chapter 2

  Ethan didn’t say much on the journey back to St John’s Wood. For him, the viewing had been a formality. If he hadn’t made his mind up before they arrived at Church Row, then he’d definitely made it up by the time Catriona Fisher had finished showing them around. That glint of boyish enthusiasm in his eye had got brighter with each room they had seen and by the time they reached the basement with its pool and cinema room, he was sold, hook, line and sinker. Things weren’t so clear cut for Nikki. One second she’d be thinking they could make it work; the next she would be seeing this as the worst idea ever. Applying pressure wasn’t going to help, which was why Ethan had wisely opted to keep his mouth shut.

  The second they turned into Bedford Street she felt that old familiar knot of anxiety twisting through her gut. This happened every time, so she should be used to it by now, but she wasn’t. It was also something that was supposed to get easier with time. It didn’t. She’d get a day like today where everything felt raw again and it would be as though she was back at square one. Ethan slowed when they approached the house, searching for a parking space. As they cruised past the line of parked cars, all Nikki could see was their front door. It took up her whole focus and for a moment she was reliving the accident and its aftermath in every last detail: the pain, the loss, the guilt, the what-ifs, everything. Ethan suddenly pressed down hard on the accelerator, jerking her from her thoughts. He had spotted a space and was damned if anyone else was going to get it. The Tesla was barely audible at the best of times but when the motor cut out this seemed to highlight the silence between them. As Nikki unfastened her seatbelt she noticed that Ethan was making no move to unfasten his.

  ‘Aren’t you coming in?’

  Ethan shook his head. ‘I’ve got a meeting with Cally about the new show.’

  Cally was his agent. He was currently in the process of transitioning from Radio Two’s drive-time show to the breakfast slot. He’d actually wound the old show up back in January and it was now reaching the point where he was bored and ready to get back to work. To start with it had been nice having him around more, but Nikki was now counting the days too. The show was launching in April and there had been a lot of meetings lately. He hadn’t mentioned this one, though.

  ‘A meeting with Cally, eh? It’s the first I’ve heard about it.’

  Ethan frowned and it was very obviously put on. ‘I thought I mentioned it.’

  ‘You didn’t. What’s more, you know you didn’t.’ Nikki laughed. ‘You are such a crap liar, Ethan.’

  Ethan was laughing too. Busted. ‘Okay, you got me. I just wanted to give you some space. You have a lot to think about.’

  ‘You want that house, don’t you?’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  Nikki glanced over her shoulder. ‘What about you, Bella Boo?’

  Bella answered with a nod.

  ‘So it’s two against one.’

  ‘That’s not how this one works,’ Ethan said. ‘All three of us need to be in agreement, otherwise it’s not going to happen.’

  ‘So when will you be back?’

  ‘How about dinner time? That gives you the whole afternoon. I can bring Indian.’

  ‘Indian works for me.

  Bella tapped the screen of her tablet. ‘Korma please.’

  Ethan smiled over his shoulder at her. ‘That goes without saying.’

  ‘And I’ll have a chicken bhuna, please.’ Nikki leant over and kissed him. ‘Love you.’

  ‘Right back at you,’ Ethan said, returning the kiss.

  Nikki got out and opened the back door for Bella.

  ‘Love you, Daddy.’

  ‘And right back at you too, sweetheart,’ Ethan said, blowing her a kiss.

  The exchange was bittersweet. It was one of those moments where Nikki realised how much the three of them had lost. Hearing Bella tell Ethan that she loved him in that cold, emotionless voice was like being stabbed in the heart.

  Nikki helped Bella out and together they watched the Tesla pull away from the kerb. They kept watching until it turned out of Bedford Street, Bella waving one last time as it disappeared from sight, the tablet clutched tight in her hand. That was yet another reminder of what had happened. She never went anywhere without it. Other parents joked about how their kids were addicted to their electronic gadgets, but for Bella this tablet was the lifeline that connected her to the rest of the world. The cover was pink and decorated with hearts and stars, and starting to look a bit bashed up. Nikki wondered how long it would be before she wanted to change it for something more grown-up. The thought provoked a pang of sadness. In a lot of ways Bella was still her little girl, but in too many ways she was older than her six years. Hand in hand, they started walking, Bella on her right side, to shield her from the road.

  Their house was an elegant white Edwardian that sat at the end of a terrace of identical-looking properties. It was filled with character, charming in a way the Church Row house would never be. They climbed the steps to the front door, the memory of the accident pushing Nikki’s apprehension higher with each one. She couldn’t remember her anxiety being this bad – certainly not for a while, at any rate. She took her keys out and unlocked the door, her hand shaking a little as she did so. She glanced down at Bella, but she was looking at her tablet, blissfully unaware of her discomfort.

  Nikki let them inside, closing the door behind them. She rattled the security chain into place then turned the key to engage the five-lever mortice lock. If she had done this two years ago, then things would have turned out very different. It was a thought that occurred to her every time she walked through this door. Was this something that would get left behind if they moved house, or was this particular piece of neurosis transferable? Only time would tell, she guessed.

  The smell of home-made soup hung hot and heavy in the air, and they followed it along the hallway. Sofia was washing up when they walked into the kitchen. She smiled at them when she heard them enter, then grabbed a tea towel and started drying her hands. Bella ran across and Sofia scooped her into a hug and kissed her.

  ‘Are you hungry, Corazoncito? It’s way past your lunchtime.’ Her Spanish accent was still strong even though she had lived in the UK for more than half of her life.

  Bella answered with an enthusiastic nod and Sofia stole another kiss before putting her down and turning to look at Nikki. ‘What about you, mi cariño? It’s chicken soup. Your favourite.’

  Nikki shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You really should eat something, you know.’

  ‘It’s okay I’ll have some later.’

  Nikki helped Bella out of her coat before removing hers. She draped them over the back of one of the chairs then sat down. By the time Bella had washed her hands and sat down too, there was a bowl of soup and a plate with some bread waiting for her on the table. The portion was too big, but Nikki had given up on that battle. Sofia’s stock answer was that Bella was a growing girl. Anyway, Bella was pretty good at self-regulating. She would stop when she was full.

  ‘So, Corazoncito,’ Sofia said, ‘what was the house like?’

  Bella put her spoon down in her bowl and started tapping the screen of her tablet. ‘Amazing. I have my own fish pond in my room.’

  Sofia’s eyes widened with disbelief. ‘In your room? Surely not.’

  Bella shook her head, frowning. Tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth, she started tapping frantically at her tablet. Both Nikki and Sofia resisted the urge to fill the silence
. One thing the therapists had agreed on was that it was important that Bella felt as though she was being heard.

  ‘There is a garden outside the room. That’s where the pond is. Daddy says I can look after the fish.’

  ‘That does sound amazing.’

  ‘There are three of them. I’m going to call them Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald.’

  ‘Such beautiful names. I can’t wait to see them.’ Sofia sat down in the empty seat next to Nikki and waited for her to meet her eye. ‘And what do you think of the house, mi cariño?’

  Nikki glanced at Bella and Sofia got the message. She changed the subject smoothly, filling the silence with details of what she had been up to that morning. Sofia had been with them for years. They employed her as a housekeeper, but she was so much more than that. She was in her late fifties with long black hair and a quick, easy smile that made her look ten years younger. She always wore something red because she believed the colour brought good luck. Today it was her shoes. Sofia had been brought up in a small farming village north of Barcelona, but had found this too claustrophobic. She had escaped as soon as she could, first to Madrid, then to London, where she had met her husband, Philip. He had died five years ago from cancer and she had nursed him through the illness. Even now she still hadn’t dealt fully with the grief. She probably never would. As Nikki knew only too well, some losses you never fully recovered from.

  Sofia had never had children and treated Bella like the granddaughter she would never have. She loved her to bits, a feeling that was mutual. Corazoncito was her pet name for her, which translated as “little heart”, which fitted perfectly. Nikki’s own parents had died before she met Ethan – her mother from breast cancer and her father a couple of years later from a brain aneurysm. After the accident, Sofia had become a surrogate mother to her, helping put the pieces back together. To say she was worth her weight in gold would be an understatement.

  Bella took another mouthful of soup then let the spoon clatter into the bowl, picked up her tablet and announced that she was going to her room. She had hardly eaten any of her soup and the bread hadn’t been touched. Usually she ate everything they put in front of her, but sometimes she got like this when she was excited about something. Not that Nikki minded. It was good to see her all fired up and acting like a normal kid. That didn’t happen often enough these days. Nikki waited for the door to close before speaking.

  ‘I’m sorry. It looks like nobody’s eating your soup.’

  Sofia just stared. Her mouth was tight, her eyes tighter. For once there wasn’t even the hint of a smile.

  ‘What?’ Nikki said.

  ‘I’m just waiting for you to answer my question. So what did you think of the house?’

  Chapter 3

  Sofia was still staring, waiting for an answer.

  ‘The house is beautiful,’ Nikki replied carefully. ‘Bella and Ethan love it.’

  ‘That much is clear. Well, as far as Bella is concerned, at any rate. The way she was talking she had already moved in. The thing is, mi cariño, do you love it?’

  ‘I don’t hate it.’

  ‘That’s not the same, and you know it.’

  Nikki let go of a sigh. ‘I love this house. When we first looked at it I knew this was the place where we were going to bring up our babies.’

  ‘Love or loved? Because the thing about love is that it can die as easily as it can grow. Maybe even easier.’

  Nikki said nothing.

  ‘Face it, you haven’t been happy here since Grace died.’

  Hearing Grace’s name took her right back to the accident. It was the start of the summer holidays, a beautiful day, the temperature pushing towards thirty degrees. The girls had turned four that June and were playing with a tennis ball in the hall, rolling it back and forward along the length of floor to each other. Nikki had gone to the kitchen to make them their afternoon snack. She was only a dozen feet away, close enough to hear them chattering away. Like a lot of twins they had even developed their own language – cryptophasia was the technical term. Had she been able to understand them, then she might have known that they were too hot, and that their solution was to open the front door to let some air in, even though they had been told time and time again not to open it.

  The second she heard the van skidding to a halt outside the house she knew that something bad had happened. The sound was much too loud, as though it was actually in the house. The juice jug she was holding had fallen to the floor, smashing into pieces, and she had sprinted out of the kitchen. There was no sign of the girls in the hall and the front door was wide open. She found Bella standing on the kerb staring open-mouthed at the white delivery van. Grace was lying in front of it, her body twisted into an awkward, broken shape. The green tennis ball had rolled to stop a short distance from her.

  The doctors and surgeons did their best, but they couldn’t save Grace. Her head injuries were so severe that even if she had regained consciousness she would have been a vegetable for the rest of her life. The following week was a living hell, just watching Grace lying in a bed surrounded by machines, wishing for a miracle while all the time knowing there was nothing anyone could do. Explaining to Bella that her twin sister was going to die was the hardest thing Nikki had ever done. She still had no idea how she managed to get through it. She and Ethan had explained the situation as best they could, opting for as much honesty as they thought she could handle. There were lots of tears and head shaking, and her little face was filled with confusion, but since she had stopped talking it was difficult to know what she was actually thinking. When Grace finally passed away, Nikki had just wanted to disappear.

  Grace had died a couple of weeks after her fourth birthday. She was buried in the churchyard at Sandridge, the small Hertfordshire village where Nikki had grown up. The plot was next to her parents’, in the shade of an ash tree. It was a beautiful spot that caught the mid-afternoon sun. Nikki visited the grave at least once a month to change the flowers and tidy it up. The sight of the white headstone always got to her, but what got her even more were the words inscribed into the marble.

  Here lies Grace Rhodes

  Gone to dance with the angels

  *

  ‘Let me ask you something.’ Sofia was saying. ‘Do you think you could learn to love this house?’

  Nikki shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘Which is a start. Okay, so do you think you can turn it into a home for the three of you?’

  Nikki nodded. ‘I think so.’

  Sofia went quiet and waited for Nikki to meet her eye again. ‘Can you imagine ever being happy in this house again? Truly happy? And be honest, mi cariño. For you, not for me.’

  Nikki hesitated then shook her head.

  ‘So you need to move.’

  ‘But not necessarily to this house.’

  ‘That is true, but do you know what I think? I think that you could find a way to talk yourself out of moving to any house.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  ‘Houses don’t just hold on to the ghosts of the dead,’ Sofia said sombrely. ‘They hold on to the souls of the living too. Until you let go, Grace will remain trapped here.’

  ‘But I don’t want to let go,’ Nikki said quietly.

  A tear rolled down her cheek, but before she could do anything about it, Sofia had wiped it away with her thumb and taken hold of her hand. Her skin was warm and rough, her touch comforting.

  ‘God took Grace, and believe me when I tell you that I ask him every day how He could do such a thing.’ Sofia paused and waited for Nikki to look at her again. ‘However, He let you keep Bella, and I believe he did that to give you the strength to go on. You need to move on, mi cariño. For Bella, and for you, and for Ethan. And for Grace too.’

  ‘I know. But it’s so hard.’

  ‘You know, when my Philip passed away I never thought that I would be able to carry on, but somehow I did. We’re all stronger than we think we are, and you’re one of the str
ongest women I know.’

  Nikki shook her head. Sofia was just saying that to make her feel better. She wasn’t strong. Far from it. Most days she felt as though she was teetering on the ledge, just one small step away from disaster.

  ‘It’s true,’ Sofia added.

  ‘What do you think I should do?’

  ‘That’s not my decision to make.’

  Sofia patted her hand then stood and walked back over to the sink to finish the washing up. Nikki watched her for a moment then took out her mobile, laid it on the table, and for a long time just sat there staring at it. Bella’s room was directly above the kitchen and she could hear her moving around up there. Grace was dead and there was nothing they could do to change that; Bella, however, was very much alive. What was best for her? Because whatever they did, whatever decision they made, it had to be the one that worked for Bella. Here, Grace’s ghost was everywhere she looked; the memories of her twin sister were embedded into the DNA of the house. Maybe moving to Church Row would be the new start they so badly needed. And who knew, maybe it would be the first step to finally getting Bella to talk again.

  Nikki reached for her mobile before she had the chance to change her mind. Ethan answered on the second ring, as though the phone was already in his hand and he was just waiting for her to ring.

  ‘Hey there, Nik. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Everything’s fine. I was just calling to tell you that you can come home. We can buy the house.’

  Chapter 4

  Today was 12th June. Seven years ago Nikki had been in a birthing pool, high as a kite on Entonox, crushing Ethan’s hand, while trying to convince him that Entonox was a London nightclub that she used to go to when she was younger.

  The girls had loved birthdays and always had a big party to which they would invite all their friends. For their last one together everyone had dressed up as Disney Princesses and it had been a complete riot. There had been thirty kids in total, all of them dressed in brightly coloured ball gowns and hyped up on sugar and excitement.