Miller looks vaguely petrified but quickly rallies and says, ‘Yes. Right.’
The house is dark, lit only by the blur of streetlights from outside and the silver shimmer of the moon on the river. Libby follows Miller, reassured by the solid width of him. They stop at the foot of the staircase. Then they take each step slowly and surely, until they are on the first-floor landing. Here it is lighter, the moon visible through the large window overlooking the street. They both glance upwards and then at each other.
‘OK?’ whispers Miller.
‘OK,’ replies Libby.
The hatch in the ceiling of the attic floor is open and the bathroom door is shut. They can hear the sound of pee hitting a toilet bowl, the stop-start of it as it comes to an end, the tap running, a throat being cleared. Then the door is open and a man walks out and he is cute. That is Libby’s first thought. A cute guy, with neatly cut fair hair, a youthful, clean-shaven face, toned arms, a grey T-shirt, narrow black jeans, trendy glasses, nice trainers.
He jumps a foot in the air and clutches his chest when he sees them standing there. ‘Oh my fucking God,’ he says.
Libby jumps too. And so does Miller.
They all stare at each other for a moment.
‘Are you …？’ asks the man eventually, at the precise moment that Libby says, ‘Are you …？’
They point at each other and then both turn to look at Miller as though he might have an answer for them. Then the man turns back to Libby and says, ‘Are you Serenity?’
Libby nods. ‘Are you Henry?’
The man looks at them blankly for a moment but then his face clears and he says, ‘No, I’m not Henry. I’m Phin.’
II
34
CHELSEA, 1990
My mother, being German, knew how to do a good Christmas. It was her speciality. The house was festooned from the beginning of December with homemade decorations made of candied oranges and red gingham and painted pine cones and filled with the aroma of gingerbread, stollen and mulled wine. No tacky tinsel or paper garlands for her, no tin of Quality Street or Cadbury’s selection boxes.
Even my father enjoyed Christmas. He had a Father Christmas outfit which he used to don every Christmas Eve when we were little, and I still can’t explain how I could both know it was him, but also have no idea it was him, at the same time. Looking back on it now, I can see that it was the same sort of terrible self-deception that played a part in the way everyone felt about David Thomsen. People could look and see just a man, but in the same glance, the answer to all their problems.
My father didn’t wear the outfit that Christmas Eve. He said we were all too old for it, and he was probably right. But he also said he didn’t feel too well. My mother laid on the usual Christmas Eve celebration anyway. We sat around a （smaller than usual） Nordic pine and unwrapped our （fewer than usual） gifts while Christmas carols played on the radio and a fire crackled in the grate. After about half an hour, just before dinner, my father said he needed to go and lie down, he had a terrible headache.
Thirty seconds later he was on the floor of the drawing room, having a stroke.
We didn’t know it was a stroke at the time. We thought he was having some kind of fit. Or a heart attack. Dr Broughton, my father’s private physician, came to look him over, still in his Christmas Eve outfit of red woollen V-neck and holly-print bow tie. I remember his face when my father said that he no longer had private health cover, how quickly he left the house, how he dropped his unctuous demeanour like a brick. He sent him straight to hospital in an NHS ambulance and left without saying goodbye.
My father came home on Boxing Day.
They said he was fine, that he’d have some cognitive challenges for a while, some motor problems, but that his brain would fix itself, that he would be back to normal within weeks. Maybe sooner.