Never Alone Read Free Page B

washing machine,’ she says. ‘But if you need to dry things you can always bring them in here.’
    ‘Thanks,’ you say, trying to picture yourself coming in here with a laundry basket when she’s not here. Or when she is.
    ‘The door’s usually unlocked,’ she says.
    You give her a questioning look.
    ‘I’ve never worried about it. I don’t think anyone locks their doors round here.’
    She leads the way up the narrow staircase to the first floor. You are distracted from the close-up view of her arse in those tight jeans by the original artworks on the walls. They are her illustrations for The Candy Cotton Piglet , her first and most successful book. She won awards for the series that followed. The illustrations look so much brighter than the books themselves, and you tell her this.
    ‘You think?’ she calls, from the landing. ‘I don’t think I even look at them any more.’
    You join her upstairs. The house is set into a hillside and is clearly old, with sloping floors and low ceilings. She shows you two of the five bedrooms, one of them still obviously belonging to the absent daughter, Kitty, who must be at university. What about the son, Louis? There doesn’t seem to be much left of his room. He went away to study, then you seem to remember he dropped out after a year. The same year that Jim died. You wonder what happened after that.
    ‘How are the kids?’ you ask.
    ‘They’re fine,’ she says. ‘Kitty is doing well. She should be coming home for a visit soon; you’ll get to meet her.’
    ‘Where’s she studying?’
    ‘Manchester. She’s doing civil engineering.’
    ‘And Louis?’
    ‘This is the bathroom,’ she says, standing to one side.
    It’s clear from her wide smile that she’s particularly proud of this room, and it is very nice. A roll-top bath stands in front of the window, down two steps. There’s a shower too, and oak beams. The bath is in front of the window and there aren’t any curtains.
    ‘Bit public, isn’t it?’ you say, before you think about it.
    She laughs. ‘Nobody around for miles,’ she says. ‘And if there were, I don’t think they’d be interested.’
    You want to disagree but you’ve seen the flush that’s creeping across her cheeks and you know she’s embarrassedherself, so you restrict your response to a polite smile. Besides, she’s given up on the tour. ‘There are another three bedrooms,’ she says casually. One of them will be the master bedroom – hers alone now, you think – but she has no need to show that off.
    ‘Where do you work?’ you ask.
    ‘I’ve got a studio behind the garage. Jim used it as a workshop, but I had some skylights put in and I took it over. I’ll show you another time.’
    She heads back downstairs. After a moment, in which you look down the narrow hallway to a door at the end, slightly open, you follow.
    ‘When are you going to move in?’ she asks.
    ‘Straight away,’ you say. ‘If that’s not too cheeky.’
    ‘Of course not,’ she says. ‘The place is yours now.’
    You head out to the car. She doesn’t offer to help and you’re glad to be on your own again. You drive the Focus back up towards the cottage, which has its own parking space next to the front door. The boot is full: two suitcases, a holdall and a suit-carrier. You unlock the door of the cottage again and enter, this time with a proprietorial air. You collect the luggage from the car and leave it in the hallway, closing the door behind you and standing for a moment, listening to the quiet.
    At last: you can breathe.
    Nobody knows where you are. Nobody, except Sarah. You are safe here, thanks to her.
    Her generosity is astonishing. Perhaps even alarming. But then, she has this cottage and you can understand her reluctance to have a stranger live in it. You’re just surprised that she’s willing to let you take it over, since you’re practically a stranger too. And it is a great space, exactly what you need: a large open-plan living room