I stretch one leg out of the bed and, when Thomas does not stir, ease the rest of me from under the white sheets. They are just a little scratchy from not being washed very often. I tread slowly out of the bedroom and on to the landing. Only when I am downstairs do I let myself take a breath.
These rooms are new to me, though I have planned this route in my head so many times since we arrived that I feel I know them well: I have turned the corner, tiptoed down the stairs and edged open the sitting-room door slowly again and again as I lie silently in bed, waiting for the right time to leave.
When we arrived last night in darkness, Thomas explored every inch of the maisonette, throwing on light switch after light switch as he went, as though he could make it more welcoming and familiar. It’s another from the list of safe houses we’ve been to and each one has been as soulless as the last. A little too tidy, stiff sheets pulled across the bed sharply; none of the indents of life or character of love.
If I’d had a choice, I wouldn’t have left the festering heap of bedclothes in our bedroom at home. There, our curtains are lined with dust. Little, silvery moths circle the air, breeding somewhere, making a home in my stagnancy.
But now we are in this white, bright place.
Rooms with no memories.
Walls with no photographs.
I made a wall of photographs of our families when I was pregnant. Mimi squirmed and hiccupped inside me as I drilled holes, hung frames and dug out old photographs of Mum, Dad and Evie I’d forgotten I’d ever had. I couldn’t find any of Maia, my little sister who’d died as a young baby, although I have a memory of seeing one once – a tiny, wrinkled face, a bundle of white blanket. There was a recent one of Santa and Thomas; they were not looking at the camera but caught unawares, laughing, their heads dipped towards each other.
Our family was unusual in having both Evie and me; siblings were something of an anomaly. My parents, in an unbelievable lottery, happened to fall into that very rare sliver of the population who could conceive naturally. Only a few years before Evie was born, the infertility cases had begun to rise and by the time Mum was pregnant with us, almost everyone was undergoing induction if they wanted to have children.
Evie and I were atypical in that there were two of us but we were extraordinary in that we had been conceived naturally. I can’t remember when I first learnt the truth of it, although I have a memory of Dad telling us we shouldn’t talk about it. It made other people uncomfortable, he said.
Uncomfortable. I remember parroting the word back at him, stumbling over its syllables. I can’t recall how old I was at the time.
Pregnant with Mimi, I would stand by that wall of family photographs and trace a finger over the faces of my mother and father, hand in hand on their wedding day. They were so like any other newly married couple amongst their confetti petals, so remarkable and yet unremarkable in their joy. You would not be able to tell from that photograph the miracle that would befall them – that somehow, they would be able to conceive without help.
Then I would turn to the other pictures, telling Mimi who they were and what they were like. It became a constant in our day from when she was a newborn, standing by that wall and me repeating the same things to her, in a sing-song voice that I could not stop using even when I tried.
I can imagine those photographs clearly before me now as I stand before the beige blankness of the walls of this transitory place. And, as if by magic, I can see it all, I can transform this soulless room into the home Thomas and I made together. I can picture the view from the nursery window that faced out on to the mulberry tree we planted when we first moved in. We spent time, Mimi and I, examining its spindly branches that resembled long, thin fingers, beckoning to us. There was the quilted playmat with its jewel-coloured squares, which lay scattered with whatever toys held her interest at that time. My dad’s chair. Paintings by Thomas and Santa. All those little pieces that fitted together to make up our home, now abandoned.
Here, everything that we own is out of place. The bread and bananas and box of tea that Thomas bought in a fit of organisation sit in an uneasy pile on the polished, flecked worktop. The carton of milk stands in the middle of an empty fridge at a rakish angle as though trying to take up some more space, just because it can. My coat lies slung across the plumped, cherry-red sofa where I discarded it, crumpled and tatty against the furnishings.
I reach for my coat without thinking and button it securely over the T-shirt and worn-soft pyjama bottoms I’m wearing. With each button, I’m a little more together, a little more like a person who is standing in the morning, a day in front of them to do with as they choose.
With the last button done, I am covered, protected.
I shove my shoes
