But such a beautiful eyesore. Libby inhales sharply. ‘It’s very big,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ says Mr Royle. ‘Twelve rooms in total. Not including the basement.’
The house stands well back from the pavement behind ornate metal railings and an overgrown parterre garden. There is a wrought-iron canopy running towards the front door and to the left is a full-size cannon set on a concrete block.
‘Would you like me to do the honours?’ Mr Royle indicates the padlock securing the board over the front door.
Libby nods and he unlocks it, hefting the hoarding away by looping his fingers around it. It comes away with a terrible groan and behind it is a huge black door. He rubs his fingertips together and then goes through the keys methodically until he finds the one that opens the door.
‘When was the last time anyone was in this house?’ she asks.
‘Gosh, I suppose a few years back now when something flooded. We had to get in with the emergency plumbers. Repair some damage. That sort of thing. Right, here we are.’
They step into the hallway. The heat of outdoors, the hum of traffic, the echo of the river all fades away. It’s cool in here. The floor is a soft dark parquet, scarred and dusty. A staircase ahead has a dark wood barley-twist banister, with an overflowing bowl of fruit carved into the top of the newel post. The doors are carved with linen folds and have ornate bronze handles. The walls are half panelled with more dark wood and papered with tatty wine-red flock wallpaper, which has vast bald patches where the moths have eaten it away. The air is dense and full of dust motes. The only light comes from the fanlights above each doorway.
Libby shudders. There’s too much wood. Not enough light. Not enough air. She feels like she’s in a coffin. ‘Can I?’ She puts her hand to one of the doors.
‘You can do whatever you like. It’s your house.’
The door opens up into a long rectangular room at the back of the house with four windows overlooking a dense tangle of trees and bushes. More wooden panelling. Wooden shutters. More parquet underfoot.
‘Where does that go?’ she asks Mr Royle pointing at a narrow door built into the panelling.
‘That’， he replies, ‘is the door to the staff staircase. It leads directly to the smaller rooms on the attic floor, with another hidden door on the first-floor landing. Very normal in these old houses. Built like hamster cages.’
They explore the house room by room, floor by floor.
‘What happened to all the furniture? All the fittings?’ Libby asks.
‘Long gone. The family sold everything to keep afloat. They all slept on mattresses. Made their own clothes.’
‘So they were poor?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I suppose, in effect, they were poor.’
Libby nods. She hadn’t imagined her birth parents as poor. Of course she had allowed herself to create fantasy birth parents. Even children who aren’t adopted create fantasy birth parents. Her fantasy parents were young and gregarious. Their house by the river had two full walls of plate-glass windows and a wraparound terrace. They had dogs, small ones, both girls, with diamonds on their collars. Her fantasy mother worked in fashion PR, her fantasy father was a graphic designer. When she was their baby they would take her for breakfast and put her in a high chair and break up brioches for her and play footsie with each other under the table where the small dogs lay curled together. They had died driving back from a cocktail party. Most probably in a crash involving a sports car.
‘Was there anything else?’ she says. ‘Apart from the suicide note?’
Mr Royle shakes his head. ‘Well, nothing official. But there was one thing. When you were found. Something in your cot with you. I believe it’s still here. In your nursery. Shall we …？’