Of Things Gone Astray
Janina Matthewson

Copyright

The Friday Project

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014

Copyright © Janina Matthewson 2014

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

Janina Matthewson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007562473

Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007562480

Version: 2015-10-13

Dedication

For Ronnie

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Mrs Featherby.

Cassie.

Delia.

Robert.

Marcus.

Jake.

Delia.

Mrs Featherby.

Robert.

Jake.

Cassie.

Delia.

Robert.

Marcus.

Delia.

Jake.

Mrs Featherby.

Cassie.

Robert.

Marcus.

Delia.

Mrs Featherby.

Robert.

Jake.

Cassie.

The Status.

The Fight.

The Looks.

The Heart.

Jake.

Delia.

Marcus.

Robert.

Cassie.

Delia.

Mrs Featherby.

Robert.

Cassie.

Jake.

Marcus.

Delia.

Robert.

Cassie.

The Watch.

Delia.

Mrs Featherby.

Jake.

Marcus.

Robert.

Delia.

Cassie.

Jake.

Marcus.

Delia.

Robert.

Mrs Featherby.

Jake.

Delia.

Robert.

The Notebook.

Robert.

Mrs Featherby.

Jake.

Cassie.

Delia.

Marcus.

Cassie.

Mrs Featherby.

Robert.

Jake.

Cassie.

Delia.

Robert.

Mrs Featherby.

The Ring.

Delia.

Robert.

Cassie.

Jake.

Marcus.

Cassie.

Mrs Featherby.

Robert.

Delia.

Mrs Featherby.

Cassie.

Delia.

Marcus.

Jake.

Robert.

The Perfume Bottle.

Mrs Featherby.

Cassie.

Delia.

Marcus.

Mrs Featherby.

Robert.

Jake.

Mrs Featherby.

Cassie.

Marcus.

Delia.

Mrs Featherby.

Cassie.

Jake.

The Wedding Certificate.

Mrs Featherby.

Jake.

Cassie.

Robert.

Jake.

Marcus.

Robert.

Delia.

Jake.

Delia.

Acknowledgements.

About the Publisher

Mrs Featherby.

MRS FEATHERBY HAD BEEN HAVING pleasant dreams until she woke to discover the front of her house had vanished overnight.

They had been dreams of when she was younger and more energetic, dreams of a time when she had full use of her knees. She had saved someone in one of them, someone helpless, she thought, but once awake she couldn’t remember who or why or what had happened next.

It was the breeze that woke her, naturally. It wasn’t that it was a cold breeze, or even a particularly strong one, but when a person has gone to sleep in perfect stillness, the unexplained movement of air around the room is a rousing influence, and Mrs Featherby had never been a deep sleeper.

She looked around her for a moment in that state of bewilderment that often occurs in the moments after waking. The light from the street was flooding into the room through the gaping hole that the previous evening had been her bedroom wall. Mrs Featherby blinked hard twice and decided to pull herself together. She stepped out of her bed and walked to the edge of the floor, the wind whipping the hem of her ancient nightgown and pulling at her long, flint-coloured hair.

It was early, barely five o’clock, so there were no people around, but Mrs Featherby knew that when there were people, those people would stare. She knew that they might even approach the house. That they might ask questions. That they might attempt to breach the sanctity of her home, of her fortress. She set her mouth and turned away.

Mrs Featherby, whose first name was Wendy, or had been many years earlier, did not waste time in wondering how a tonne of brick and mortar could have been uplifted and transported away without waking her or leaving a trace of masonry on the road. She did what was practical and called the police. She didn’t particularly trust the police, but she felt that it was the correct procedure.

She was informed that an officer would be sent within the hour, so, thanking her stars that the bathroom was at the back of the house, she performed her ablutions efficiently and impeccably and moved downstairs to the sitting room to wait.

She wondered if she should have anything ready for the constable when he arrived. She’d always considered herself lucky to not have had the police in her home before, but the downside to this was becoming apparent: she had no idea of the correct etiquette.

Indeed, it had been so long since she’d had anyone of any kind in the house that she’d all but forgotten how to go about it. The only person that had crossed her threshold in recent months was the young man who delivered her groceries at nine fifteen every Tuesday.

Was it correct, Mrs Featherby wondered, to refer to the impending officer of the law as a guest? If he was to be a guest she should certainly have, at the very least, a cup of tea waiting, and possibly a biscuit. The cake she’d made on Sunday had been past its best yesterday and she’d thrown it out. She had intended to bake a replacement, but doing so before seven in the morning simply for the imminent arrival of an officer of the law seemed a little extravagant. And he might arrive in the middle of the process, which would be entirely inappropriate. She would make some biscuits later in the day, she decided, as she’d intended. There was no need to rush the process.

Tea would do, she decided. Tea would be enough.

Mrs Featherby sat still and upright in her chair, gazing through her absence of wall into the garden beyond. She sat still and upright and waited.

Cassie.

CASSIE WAS LIT FROM WITHIN, or so she felt. She gloried for a moment in how little she cared about the strangers that surrounded her, that may have noticed her. Let them look, she thought, let them marvel at her secret joy. Let them recognise her as one of the few for whom life holds wonder. For it must be only a few, she thought, who are designed to know this kind of exultation. If it were everyone, the earth’s orbit would be altered by it, forever thrown off course by the collective gladness of its inhabitants.

Her eyes seemed to throb with the smile hidden behind them. The corners of her mouth were set in a curve that any moment threatened to beam.

Cassie ran a hand through her hair and looked at the arrivals board.

IB2202 from São Paulo: LANDED

The letters rearranged themselves: FLOSS IS HERE.

Cassie had been playing this moment over in her mind for weeks. Months. All her life. There were many versions.

There was the one where Floss ran through the gate, paused for a moment on her toes, scanning the crowd like a blithe and confident huntress, until she spotted Cassie and soared into her arms.

There was the version where she walked through slowly and carefully, not even looking at Cassie till they were six inches apart, but smiling all the while.

There was the version where she stopped as soon as she’d come through and the two of them stand there for fully five minutes, for forever, just looking. Staring at each other, right in the eyes, across the space between them, both knowing they have an eternity in which to touch.

Now, though, now it was moments away, she couldn’t imagine anything at all. All she could do was wait and watch.

IB2202 from São Paulo: LANDED

Cassie watched the steady stream of people walking through the gate. She wondered how many planes had recently landed and how many passengers there were on each plane and what the statistical likelihood was of Floss being the next person through at any given point. She knew it was stupid, but it thrilled her to think that the odds were rising with each reunion.

IB2202 from São Paulo: LANDED

There was a child crying. Cassie watched. The girl’s mother was trying to make her hug her father, but she wouldn’t. He was in uniform and Cassie wondered if he’d been away so long his daughter had forgotten him.

The crowd around her thinned and swelled again.

Cassie hadn’t noticed, but the corners of her mouth were no longer curved. She gazed at the gate.

A flight attendant led through a boy of about seven. His mother hugged him briefly, cautiously, and took his bag.

IB2202 from São Paulo had disappeared from the arrivals board to make way for other flights.

A woman jostled Cassie in an attempt to get to a tanned teenage girl with a pack on her back. Cassie planted her feet more firmly on the floor.

She planted her feet and waited.

She gazed at the gate.

Delia.

DELIA TRIED TO BE QUIET, she tried really hard, but there was that door, that one door, the one into the kitchen, which always, every time, in spite of her best efforts, banged just a little as she closed it.

‘Bloody bollocks,’ she muttered, screwing her eyes closed and waiting.

It was thirty seconds before the tremulous ‘Dee?’ floated down the hall, but it felt longer. Still, it was always going to come, obviously.

‘Morning, Mum,’ Delia called back. ‘Go back to sleep. I’m heading out for a couple of hours. Not long. I’ll be back to make breakfast before you’re ready to get up.’

‘Why? Why are you going out? It’s so early.’

Delia fought the urge to answer with a petulant ‘I do what I want’.

‘It’s a clear morning, Mum,’ she said instead. ‘There’s not another forecast for ages.’

Delia waited hopefully, barely breathing, until she was sure there was going to be no further reply. She grabbed her bag off the floor, where she’d left it in preparation, and let herself out. The heavy front door was so much easier to control than the flighty ones inside.

The two girls who lived together over the road, the ones Delia always thought seemed about twelve, were coming back from a party, turning into their house casually, as if this was a perfectly normal thing to be doing shortly after five o’clock in the morning on a weekday. Watching them, Delia felt immediately that she was always, and by nature, simultaneously underdressed and wearing too many clothes. She didn’t remember ever going out with so little covered, not even in what she had always considered a comparatively wild first year of university.

She wondered briefly what was going on with teenagers these days, whether they ever properly considered the impression they were making on the world, before she felt suddenly that she was in danger of turning into the worst kind of maiden aunt. At least, she would be if she had any brothers or sisters. The worst kind of nosy spinster. If she continued on this way, she’d end up a bitter old woman who lived alone and never spoke to anyone. Who resented the laughter she heard on the street because it interrupted her peaceful, isolated days; trapped in a prison of her own bitterness, she’d wither and die and no one would know.

She sighed, and resolved, not for the first time, to be less judgemental of how stupid all the young people were. To be less judgemental in general. After all, those girls couldn’t have been twelve – they lived alone, that would be ridiculous. Probably they were twenty, maybe even as old as twenty-two. They may have been at high school at the same time as Delia. If they’d gone to the same school, she could have been their prefect. She could have told them that skirts are traditionally worn to conceal the buttocks, rather than to reveal them, and that they can actually do so and still look quite alluring. Presuming that still held true, of course; Delia suddenly felt unsure.

As she wended her way through the neighbourhood, Delia began constructing a detailed fantasy in which the two girls ran into a string of amusing mishaps, and came to Delia for advice. They looked at her in wide-eyed gratitude as she dispensed the theories she held on life and love and the world, that a serious lack of life experience had thus far prevented her from proving correct.

She walked with a kind of sick eagerness. It had rained brutally for the last two weeks, leaving her in dire need of escape.

There was a small square on a small hill a short walk away from the house. Delia planned to sit in it, on a certain bench, and breathe the air, and let the world wake around her.

After half an hour she realised to her surprise that, instead of being at the small square, she was drawing close to the much larger park. She was disconcerted, the park wasn’t anywhere near the square, she couldn’t figure out how she’d got there. Probably she’d just not been paying attention to where she was going. Her feet had heard park and her head had said square and the two hadn’t communicated. She told herself to be more of a grown up, and headed into the park.

This was a park she’d once gone to every fine day.

There was a picnic rug she used to take, and a thermos, and a basket with room for books as well as food to last her hours. She’d sit near a particular tree, an oak tree, moving in and out of the shade every so often, books and notes spread out around her, which she’d weighed down with rocks to stop them flying away.

Being outside had made her feel like her studying was less fevered and panicked. It had made her feel like the stakes were lower, or as if the outcome was already assured. When she was outside, even if it was the day before an exam, it felt like a gentle, pleasant pastime, rather than a stressful and emotionally fraught step on the way to her happy and successful future. She always did better with assignments and tests when the weather was fine. When she’d moved away to university, she’d spent an entire month trying to find a tree as effective as the one in this park.

Delia wandered through the park looking around; suddenly she wanted to find her old study tree. Maybe she’d read beside it for a while. Maybe she’d just sit there and watch the sun rise. She walked around what she thought was the entire park without finding it, wondering if maybe it had been cut down. Of course that was a ridiculous thing to think; the tree had been large and healthy, and if someone had been foolish enough to slay it, there would have been a giant tree trunk in place of the tree itself.

Delia was becoming petulant. The tree, her tree, didn’t seem to be anywhere. She felt betrayed, as if the park, unhappy at her long absence, had reconfigured itself like a labyrinth, had made itself a stranger to her. She walked round and round and up and down, until, frustrated, she threw herself down on the top of the hill in the middle of the park. She drew her knees up and buried her face in her crossed arms.

She stayed like that for several moments, before raising her head and looking out.

The clear dawn that had been promised turned out to be twenty minutes of low morning sun before a bank of clouds swallowed the light. The city was now spread grey before her, but Delia kind of liked it that way.

She knew her mother would be up soon, and she knew she should be there to help her, but she couldn’t resist staying a while longer. She would only be ten minutes. Ten minutes couldn’t hurt.

Robert.

IT WAS AS IF THE alarm clock had gone off. But it hadn’t. Robert lay, blinking, feeling the ring echo in his ears as if he’d heard it moments before. But he hadn’t.

Mara was asleep beside him, her face serious in a way it never was when she was awake. The light of the alarm clock spilled across her forehead.

5:07

Robert was at a loss. He hated being inactive and he very rarely was. There was always something to do. There was always an excess of things to do. But not at just after five in the morning.

He groaned with frustration, and then grimaced with guilt and glanced at Mara. She slept on.

Robert carefully slid out of bed. He’d go for a run. It had been months since he’d found the time, and here the time was, gifted to him out of nowhere. He hunted out his battered running shoes, the same he’d had since university, and changed into an old t-shirt and shorts.

The air was clear and easy to breathe, and Robert felt energised and enthusiastic as he jogged past the silent houses on his street.

After half a mile a frown crossed his face. This was harder than he’d thought it would be.

He jogged onward.

He reached a nearby park and slipped inside to run on the grass, feeling a moment of relief as his knees registered the absence of concrete. Then he promptly developed a stitch.

He came to a panting halt and bent over, clutching his sides. Taking a couple of breaths, he staggered on.

By the time he got back home, his face was red and streaming and he was limping. He stood outside the house for two minutes, arms akimbo, gasping for air, before he opened the door and dragged himself upstairs. As he walked into the bedroom Mara stirred and opened her eyes. She blinked at him a couple of times and burst out laughing.

Robert poked his tongue out at her and headed for the bathroom.

‘You shouldn’t laugh you know,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘This is me recognising the need to hang onto you by maintaining a slammin’ bod.’

‘Oh god, please don’t take my laughter as a sign I’m not grateful.’

‘I’ll fill your grate,’ Robert said. ‘Be quiet and let me shower, woman.’

He could hear Mara chuckling into her pillow as he closed the bedroom door on her, trying to make sure she didn’t see him wince.

Marcus.

BIRDS. DIDN’T FEEL LIKE TIME yet. Didn’t feel late enough for birds. But there they were, so that was that. Birds could sense time better than him, so they must be right.

He opened his eyes. Ah. There was the problem. The blinds were down. He usually slept with them open, he usually woke with the light.

Strange. That they were closed.

He sat up and slid on his glasses. He crossed to the window and opened the blinds. It was later than he’d thought. It was later than he usually woke up. It was much later.

He had a routine for the mornings. Always the same. A light breakfast of fruit. A full breakfast later, after some time in the music room. Now it wouldn’t work. Now it had gone wrong. It was already too late.

He went downstairs and stood in the kitchen. He was hungrier than usual. He opened the fridge and took out the eggs.

It wasn’t until almost eight o’clock that he made it to the music room. Much later than normal.

The music room was the nicest room in the house. It was the most important place in the house. Floor to ceiling windows along two walls. Lots of light. He liked lots of light to practise, although when he performed he always requested that the stage be kept as dim as possible. People should be listening, he said, not looking.

When he had performed. When he used to perform. It had always seemed important.

There were few decorations, nothing to distract him. The rest of the house was covered in pictures, in paintings and photos and sketches. Not here. Just one small photo of Albert propped on top of the shelf by the door.

The piano stood in the middle of the room.

He walked around it a couple of times, as he always did. He closed his eyes and threw his head back. He breathed deeply, and sat down.

He rested his hands for a moment on the cover before lifting it.

He stared. His hands, always so reliable, began to shake.

The world had ended. His life had ended.

Jake.

Jake stands on the footpath facing his house. His schoolbag is heavy because of all the library books his mother has finally remembered he has to take back.

No, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t been going to school that day. If he’d been going to school he would have been there already, for hours.

Jake stands on the footpath facing his house. The street is quiet for a Saturday. Because it isn’t Saturday. It’s Tuesday. It feels like Saturday to Jake because he’s not wearing his school uniform. He’s not going to school.

Why was he not going to school? It wasn’t the holidays.

He’s not going to school because he has a doctor’s appointment about his foot and then his mum is going to take him to McDonald’s for a sundae. He wonders if she’ll let him have one with a flake.

He is sweating. He is sweating because it is very hot. The sun is big and bright above him and seems to be soaking him right through to his bones. Deeper than his bones. He wishes he was wearing jandals instead of lace-up shoes. His mum doesn’t like him to wear jandals anymore because she likes him to always wear his orthotics. Jake looks down at his feet and frowns. He hadn’t thought his feet would betray him like this. He’d thought they were allies.

He wishes his mum would hurry up. She’s gone back in to the house because she forgot to bring –

What? What had she forgotten?

She forgot to bring something for the smiling lady that had visited last week. She promised to drop something off to her and she’s annoyed about it.

Jake’s mum is also annoyed that they have to go to the doctor’s at midday. When they’ve gone before it’s always been after school but she couldn’t get an appointment with the doctor because the doctor’s about to get married and go away, Jake thinks perhaps forever. He thinks that maybe if the doctor gets married and goes away forever he’ll be able to stop wearing his orthotics and his mum won’t be able to tell him off.

Jake has been waiting for a long time. He thinks perhaps seven hours. He wonders if his mum would notice if he snuck past her upstairs and put on his jandals.

When the ground moves, he isn’t scared. It does that a lot and all that happens is his cat will run all over the house really fast. Jake thinks that is pretty funny.

He doesn’t expect the house to fall down like it does.

Jake lay still on his bed for a while. He didn’t think he was right about it being that hot. He thought he was right about most things, but he didn’t think it had been hot that day.

He didn’t feel much like going downstairs. On this day two years ago his mum had made waffles with bacon and banana and syrup for breakfast, with a candle sticking out of one of the waffles.

Jake didn’t think there would be waffles this morning.

He didn’t think there would be waffles any morning.

Delia.

AFTER A WHILE DELIA GLANCED at her watch and swore. She’d been gone longer than she should have, naturally. Until a few years ago Delia had never been late, not once in her life, now it happened all the time. Not that there ever was anything in particular to be on time for now, but she didn’t like to be so long away.

As she walked down the street, however, her pace slackened. She couldn’t help it. She knew that once she got home, it was unlikely she’d get another chance to go out. There was always so much to do, incidental, unimportant things to do: cups of tea to make, lunch to prepare, washing to fold, all the things your average housewife usually had to do.

She could never go off for too long without worrying that something would go wrong, that her mother would need help and be alone, but being in the house sometimes became intolerable. Resolving that ten extra minutes now would help maintain her equilibrium for the rest of the day, she allowed her pace to slow to a light meander. As she walked, she convinced herself that her mother would probably not get out of bed until she was home in any case.

It was still early enough for the streets to be quiet; there were just a few joggers, the keys in their bum pockets jingling slightly as they ran, and some tired-looking besuited men who probably didn’t need to spend as much time at work as they thought.

Delia breathed deeply as she went, savouring the bright morning air. Again, she paid little attention to her specific route, veering down streets at random, looking at houses she didn’t know. She stopped to look at unusual trees and flowers in people’s gardens, and spent a while trying to get a reluctant cat to approach her.

The sky grew ever brighter, the day was warming, the clouds were moving on.

Delia reached a church she didn’t know and she suddenly felt disconcerted. She should be nearly home by now, there shouldn’t be any churches she didn’t know.

She looked around her. She’d been walking in the right direction, she was sure of it, but she suddenly realised that it wasn’t just the church – she hadn’t recognised anything in ages. She shook her head and pressed on. She must only be a couple of streets away; she’d find herself soon.

Mrs Featherby.

MRS FEATHERBY HAD BOILED THE kettle four times whilst waiting for the police constable to arrive. Although she told herself she wanted to be prepared, she also wanted to avoid being the spectacle she knew she’d become. The kitchen was out of sight of the absent wall.

People were beginning to walk along the footpath and, as she had expected, they were staring. Those walking in pairs stopped and muttered to each other. She saw a few take pictures. She wanted to move out of their sight permanently, to live out the rest of her life in the back of the house, but she was afraid of missing the policeman when he arrived. It wasn’t as if he would be able to ring the doorbell, after all. She pursed her lips and moved to the kitchen to boil the kettle once more.

When he did eventually arrive he stood on the footpath for what must have been a full two minutes, staring, saying nothing. He didn’t seem to notice Mrs Featherby at all until she stepped out into the garden and said, ‘Good morning, Constable.’

She supposed constable was still the correct term to use, although, in all honesty, he didn’t look much like her idea of a constable. He was of an age at which, according to Mrs Featherby’s ideas, a policeman ought to be married, but he was not wearing a ring. He seemed to be suffering from hay fever or a severe head cold, but he was neglecting to use a handkerchief. He arrived with a sandwich in one hand and continually took bites from it as he talked, inconsistently remembering to swallow.

He introduced himself as PC Grigson, gave a hearty sniff, whistled towards the general vicinity of Mrs Featherby’s house and said, ‘Not sure what I’m going to be able to do for you, love; it’s a builder you’re going to need.’

Mrs Featherby felt her brow furrow involuntarily at being called ‘love’, but she decided not to comment.

‘Obviously I shall need a builder to fix it, young man. You are here to tell me how it happened. You are here to find out who is responsible and see that the person, or persons, are brought to justice.’

‘Right,’ said Grigson, running a wrist under his streaming nose. ‘So you think we should be looking for a perpetrator?’

‘Naturally I think you should be looking for a perpetrator. There has been a theft. Someone has stolen the front wall of my house. I wish to see that person found and held to account.’

‘Only thing is, pet, I just don’t see how someone can have stolen a whole wall of a house.’

‘No, Constable, I’m sure you do not. No more do I. But I believe part of your job consists of investigating how mysterious occurrences have, in fact, occurred. You must find it out.’

‘Right,’ he sniffed again. ‘Sure. Tell you what, I’m going to give you the name of a builder. He’s my ex-wife’s cousin, as a matter of fact, but he is actually pretty good anyway, and quite reliable, did my bathroom a few months back, and if I give him a call to let him know you’re in need, he’ll bump you up the list.’ He paused and glanced at the gaping hole in the side of the house. ‘And I’ll have a look through recent records, see if any similar, ah, thefts have occurred in the area.’

‘So what am I to do?’

‘Oh, you know. Let us know if you think of any other information. If you remember seeing anyone suspicious hanging around, or if you see someone in the future.’

Mrs Featherby didn’t quite know how to point out that none of this was in any way useful to her or other potential victims. She elected not to offer PC Grigson a cup of tea.

The copper gave a final sniff, said a non-committal goodbye, and headed back to his car. Mrs Featherby stood alone in her fractured home, vainly attempting to disregard the whispers and stares of her passing neighbours.

Robert.

WHEN HE CAME DOWN TO the kitchen, Robert found Bonny sitting at the table, studiously drawing on one of the bamboo place mats.

‘Dad,’ said Bonny, fixing Robert with a serious gaze. ‘Can I do something different with my cereal today?’

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Well, instead of having just one kind of cereal, can I have cornflakes and coco pops mixed all together?’

‘That is an excellent idea, Bonny. I’m going to do the same. Would you like a banana sliced on top of yours?’

‘Um, not so much. Can I have a banana just on its own?’

Mara walked into the kitchen as they were eating. She had dressed, but not yet done anything with her hair, which stood out from her head in a wild mane of tawny brown. Robert stood and walked over to her. He twisted his hands into the mass of hair and kissed her.

‘Nice of you to wait till you’d showered before doing that, my love,’ she said.

‘Anything for you.’

‘I’m glad you feel that way,’ said Mara, concentrating harder than was strictly necessary on the cup of coffee she was pouring. ‘I’ve been asked to go in to see Bonny’s teacher this afternoon. Can you come?’

‘Do they need both of us?’

‘No, they didn’t say that, it’s just that I’m nervous and I’d rather not go alone. It’s the first time I’ve been called in to see a teacher and I don’t know what they want. I’m worried I won’t act like enough of a grown up.’

‘If it were next week I probably could. I’ve a lot on at the moment. A few people are away at a conference, you know, and we’ve taken on a couple of important new clients. You’ll be fine. They’re used to dealing with children, after all. Or can you move the meeting?’

‘Next week something else will come up and you still won’t be able to go.’

‘You can’t be sure of that.’

‘I am 87 per cent sure of that … 87 and a half. There is always something that needs to be done, and it always needs to be done by you because you’re a big girly swot who can’t delegate.’ She rubbed her eyes and took a sip of her coffee. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I can go alone. It’s probably no big deal.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure, whatever; your job can’t be arranged to suit your convenience. Mine can.’

Robert kissed her.

‘Don’t think I don’t envy you that, by the way.’

‘Oh, you’ve no idea,’ said Mara, speaking right into his ear, all low and suggestive. ‘I can work naked if I want.’

‘Bloody hell, Mara,’ Robert muttered back. ‘And with that image I have to leave. To go to my office. The land where nakedness is a crime. Why didn’t I become a website designer? You lot have it so damn sweet.’

‘Please. You couldn’t handle it. And you’ve terrible taste.’

‘Ooh, right in the feelings.’

Mara gave a bloodthirsty chuckle and ruffled Robert’s hair as she walked past him to the cereal.

Robert grabbed his bag from the lounge and headed for the front door.

‘Babe,’ Mara called from behind him. Robert turned to see her standing in the hall holding her shirt open.

‘Mum, can I have a juice?’ Bonny called from the kitchen. Mara poked her tongue out and turned to go back to their daughter.

‘Bloody hell,’ Robert said again as he turned and stepped out into the world.

Jake.

JAKE TRIED HIS HARDEST NOT to expect waffles when he walked into the kitchen, and it was a good thing he did. His dad was eating cereal standing up, staring into the small, overgrown garden. Jake chewed his lip and crossed to the cupboard to look for bread. There were only two pieces left and one of them was an end. He sighed and immediately regretted it. He hated it when people sighed. His dad never sighed, although you’d think he had plenty of reason to. Jake put the bread in the toaster.

‘Good morning,’ his dad said while Jake was spreading peanut butter on his toast. Jake wondered if it had taken him that long to notice him, or just that long to remember to say hello.

‘Hi,’ Jake replied.

‘Your teacher says you’re doing well at school. I called her last night to ask how things were going, how you were settling in.’

Jake had trouble remembering what it had been like talking to his dad before, but he was pretty sure they’d never had conversations like this. Had they talked about TV? Did they tell each other jokes?

‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘I have a spelling test today.’

‘Good,’ said his dad. ‘That’s good.’

Jake tried to think of something sensible to say. ‘How’s your work?’ he settled on with a tiny grimace.

‘Oh, fine. It’s fine. I should get started for the day, actually.’

Jake watched his dad walk out of the kitchen and head slowly to his office. He wondered if he should have had some kind of funny story from school. He couldn’t remember if anything funny had happened there recently.

He sat at the table and finished his toast. His dad had forgotten what day it was. He’d forgotten there was something to celebrate. Jake decided not to mind. He decided to try his hardest not to mind. He washed his dishes and went to his room to get his school bag.

Cassie.

CASSIE DIDN’T NOTICE AT FIRST when her phone started to ring. She didn’t hear it. At least, she heard it but it felt remote, even though it was in her pocket and vibrating as well as ringing; it wasn’t connected to her. It wasn’t until she saw someone staring at her that she realised she was supposed to do something about it. That it was hers.

She pulled out the phone, suddenly thinking that maybe it was Floss, that soon they would be laughing over whatever mix up it was that had meant they weren’t yet together.

The photo on the display wasn’t Floss.

Cassie stood still and gazed at the phone as it went silent and the picture that stared at her from the screen, her mother, disappeared. Disappointment started at the nape of her neck and trickled slowly down her spine, seeping into her through her skin. She breathed deeply for a moment, blinking hard, and called her mother back.

‘Well, well?’ her mother asked on answering. ‘Did she arrive OK? Are you bringing her here? I thought you were bringing her here. I thought you’d be here a couple of hours ago.’

‘Um, she’s not here yet,’ said Cassie, chewing her lip.

‘What? Why not?’

‘I don’t know. I guess something went wrong. She was delayed, maybe.’

‘The flight was delayed?’

‘No, the flight arrived. She wasn’t on it.’

‘Where are you?’

‘At the airport still. I’m waiting.’

‘For what? Planes from Argentina don’t arrive every five minutes, Cass. You’d best come home and find out what’s happened.’

‘Brazil.’

‘What? Yes. What? Come home, love, I’ve a roast in the oven.’

‘I’m going to wait a while, Mum. See if I can find out anything here.’

Cassie’s mum was still talking, but a large German tour group was walking past, their voices raised in excitement, and Cassie couldn’t hear her anymore. She hung up and slipped her phone back into her pocket.

The crowd surged around her, pushing at her, catching her hair in the zips of their bags, but she did not move.

She didn’t realise it, but she had not moved in five hours.

Delia.

DELIA’S SHOULDER WAS ACHING FROM carrying her bag. Why had she even brought it? It felt like she’d packed for a weekend away, instead of a light stroll and a read. She’d been walking for over an hour and she had no idea where she was. She couldn’t figure out how she could have got lost. She never did pay much attention to where she was going, but then she’d never really needed to. She always found her way.

She pulled out her phone, feeling stupid for needing it, and brought up her little blue dot. There she was, standing on a street. She could see the street she wanted; it was much further away than she’d realised. She’d bypassed her neighbourhood completely and veered off wildly to the north. She checked which direction she needed to walk in and set off purposefully down the road.

It was five minutes before she realised she’d gone in the wrong direction. She checked the map, and tried again.

She could see clearly where she needed to go, but every time she looked up and started moving, she lost sight of it. She tried holding her phone in front of her face, but even then it didn’t seem to relate. No matter what she tried she ended up walking further away.

Delia decided to find the nearest bus stop and get home from there. After giving up on her phone, she walked, even more purposefully, for another ten minutes. The street she was on was tiny and winding. She stopped for a moment, wondering if it was best to go back the way she’d come or continue on in the same direction. She couldn’t remember seeing a bus stop recently so there had to be one coming up.

She kept walking. The area was small and residential and void of transport links. Each winding road, flanked by brick houses, led to another, more winding road, flanked by more brick houses.

The sun had returned in full force and Delia’s back was itchy with sweat.

After a further twenty-five minutes, Delia heard what she was certain was a lorry. It didn’t sound far away; it was somewhere ahead of her. She picked up the pace, her eyes set forwards, weary and desperate, and the street soon broke out into a small row of shops with, oh joy, a bus stop.

After a few minutes, a bus pulled up and a weary Delia hopped onto it. A whimper rose up within her, but she remembered she was in public for long enough to quell it. She flung herself into a seat and closed her eyes. She had no idea how she’d managed to go so far astray. She leant forward with her head in her hands as the bus trundled her towards home.

Robert.

ROBERT FOUGHT HIS WAY THROUGH the crowd of commuters to exit the tube station. He climbed the escalators with more of a wince than usual, regretting the morning’s ill-advised run. He should do that more often, he thought. Or never again. As always, he got out a stop early to get a bit of air before being confined at his desk all day. As he walked, his mind was still at home with Mara and Bonny. He knew the day would be long, he knew he’d be tired and moody by the end of it, he wished he could have just called in sick. He hadn’t faked a sick day since he was fifteen though; he’d almost forgotten how to do it. He sighed as he turned onto his street, thinking about what he and Mara could be doing if he didn’t have a responsible job.

He’d gone two blocks too far before he noticed he’d passed his building. He turned back, still smirking, and walked three blocks too far in the other direction. He stopped and tried to concentrate. He walked directly and purposely to the position of his office. He didn’t get there. He paused and looked around. This time he’d made it to roughly the right position on the road, but for some reason he wasn’t at his building. In fact, he couldn’t see his building at all.

Suddenly he chuckled. He was clearly on the wrong street. He retraced his steps back a couple of blocks. He was sure he was on the right track now. He turned down the street he’d turned down every weekday morning and quite a few Saturdays for the last six and a half years. How had he got this wrong? He strode on.

He stopped. He’d gone too far again. No, he hadn’t, he’d not gone far enough.

No. No, that wasn’t it at all.

He was in the right place, he was in the exact spot, but there was no work. His work wasn’t there.

The entire building was gone, vanished as if it had never been there at all.

Robert turned around slowly, twice. There was the travel agent he’d booked his and Mara’s last holiday in. There was the French restaurant that used to be really great but had then changed hands and gone sharply downhill. There was the hotel that seemed a bit rugged but that Robert had once seen a quite famous actor he could never remember the name of leaving. There was the new building that housed three identical nondescript businesses with shiny receptions and ambiguous names. Robert’s building should have been next to the hotel, but it wasn’t.

Robert stood staring at the lack of his work for ten minutes, with no idea what to do. His body was frozen while his mind tried and failed to comprehend the vanishing of the building that should have been right in front of him.

Marcus.

HE SPENT TWO HOURS STARING at his piano before he could think clearly enough to do anything. He would have to call her. He didn’t want to worry her, but he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t deal with it alone. He went to the phone in the kitchen.

The phone rang five times and her voice came on: ‘Hi hi, Katy here, I’m obviously busy. Leave a message if you want.’

He hung up and immediately dialled again. On his fourth attempt it was answered by a gruff-sounding male.

‘’Lo?’

‘Hello. May I speak with Katharine?’

‘Um, yeah, all right. Who’s it?’

‘It’s her father.’

‘Oh, right! Hiya Marcus, it’s Jasper.’

He’d forgotten there was a new boy. ‘Oh. Hello Jasper.’ There was a brief pause.

‘I’ll get Kate, then, yeah?

‘Thank you.’

He waited, listening to his daughter and her lover exchange the phone.

‘Dad? What’s up?’

‘They’re gone. My keys. Gone.’

‘You can’t find your keys? Do you need to go out somewhere? I’m sure it’ll be OK; you’ve a quiet neighbourhood. Ask your neighbour, that lovely woman with all the hair, to keep an eye out.’

‘No, no. Not the house keys. The other keys. My keys. My piano keys.’

There was a pause.

‘Dad? Dad, are you all right?’

‘Of course I’m not all right. I need to play. I need to play my piano and my piano keys are gone.’

There was a long pause on the phone. He stood still and waited for her to talk.

‘Dad,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t, I mean, they can’t be.’

‘How am I supposed to play?’

‘How can they just be missing?’

‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘Just are.’

‘OK.’ She paused for a moment. ‘It’ll be fine, Dad. I’m coming over. We’ll sort this out.’

‘Right.’ He hung up and walked back towards the music room. He stood in the door. Couldn’t bear to go further. Two or three more steps and he’d be able to see it. He didn’t want to see it. He couldn’t see it. Not again. Not alone. He would wait.

Delia.

‘MUM!’ DELIA CALLED AS SHE staggered in through the front door after a twenty-five-minute bus ride. ‘I’m sorry! Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine, of course, Dee, darling, but where have you been?’ Delia’s mum wheeled herself through from the living room, appearing to be more curious than worried or distressed.

‘Sorry. I suppose I got lost. Are you hungry?’

‘Oh yes. I’ve had a banana, but it’s not quite, you know … It’s not like you to get lost, Dee. I don’t think you ever have before.’

Delia followed her mother into the kitchen and began making them both breakfast.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened. It’s a lovely day out there now, though. Maybe we should go for a walk later. We could have a picnic.’

‘Oh. Perhaps. It’s just, well, I’ve gotten to a rather exciting point in the Willow Tree Sampler and I want to keep going.’

‘We could bring that with us, though, Mum.’ Delia tried not to sound as if she was pleading. ‘You could work on it in the park.’

‘Oh no. No, the wind could pick up and wreak havoc with the cotton. It’s far too risky. Let’s have a nice day indoors. You can read or play on your computer and I’ll work on the sampler and we can have cups of tea whenever we want.’

Jake.

JAKE STOOD ALONE IN THE corridor, frowning at the wall. He had been lying all day. He’d lied to his class. His teacher had asked him if it was a special day for him, using that extra-chirpy voice she had sometimes, as if she was winking with her entire head, and he’d lied and said no. He’d said there must be a mistake on the register.

He didn’t know why he’d lied. It was a special day for him. He wanted it to be special. He wanted to be sung to, but he’d lied and said no, and no one had sung.

There was a clip clopping of shoes behind him and Jake turned around.

‘Mr Baxter, school finished fifteen minutes ago. I’m sure someone’s waiting outside to collect you.’

She wasn’t Jake’s teacher so he didn’t know her name. He thought she maybe taught in the room next to his or the one next to that. She was looking at him the way adults always did: as though unsure of how to talk to him, as though they didn’t know if he could hear their words, and they wanted to make extra sure he understood what they were saying. They looked in his eyes a lot, all the adults.

She was wrong, there would be no one to collect him. Of course there wouldn’t; Jake had been walking to school by himself for ages. Ever since they’d moved here and school had been close enough to walk to. If someone had been collecting him, it would have to be his dad, and if his dad was collecting him, he’d be late or he’d forget. Jake didn’t know if his dad would have been late if he’d had to pick him up in the old days, but he knew he’d be late now.

Jake said nothing and walked slowly towards the doors.

It was usually only a ten-minute walk to Jake’s house, but Jake stretched it out to almost twenty.

He could tell his dad was in his office, but he didn’t go in. Instead he went to the kitchen. He opened the cupboards and looked inside. Then he looked in the fridge. There were no special foods. There was no cake. There was no fizzy drink. There were no lollies.

It was Jake’s birthday and no one knew.

Jake wondered if it would be better if he didn’t know himself. Part of him wanted to never have another birthday at all.

Jake’s last birthday had been the worst day ever. The second-worst day ever. No one had known how to celebrate it. No one had really wanted to celebrate it anyway. Jake hadn’t. Last year he’d felt as if he’d never wanted to celebrate anything ever again. His mum had always made amazing food. Jake hadn’t wanted anyone trying to make food as good as his mum’s food.

This year, though, he wanted something to happen. He didn’t really mind what it was. He didn’t mind if someone tried to make amazing food and it actually turned out to be quite bad food. He just wanted them to try. He just wanted it to still be important to someone that he was having a birthday.

Mrs Featherby.

THE BUILDER, WHO’D INTRODUCED HIMSELF simply as Bruno, sucked air through his teeth and looked at Mrs Featherby’s absence of wall speculatively.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Featherby. ‘How soon can you have a wall for me?’

‘Christ,’ he said, as if that was a sufficient answer. He walked across Mrs Featherby’s yard with callous disregard for her roses, and he gazed in at her exposed rooms. Mrs Featherby was glad to see her roses put up a bit of a fight, in the form of a thorn snagging on the corner of the man’s t-shirt as he passed, pulling a thread loose.

‘I mean, holy shit, you know,’ he continued. Mrs Featherby did not deign to reply. She waited, arms crossed low on her hips, one brogued foot resisting the urge to tap impatiently. She reminded herself that she ought to be grateful for the builder’s quick arrival, grateful she’d not had to wait until tomorrow.

‘It’s not going to be easy,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to be quick. I mean, I’ve never even seen this happen. How did this happen?’

‘I have put the police in charge of ascertaining that.’

Bruno scoffed lightly.

Mrs Featherby suddenly found him a much more sympathetic character; she felt an unexpected urge to give an answering smirk. ‘How long?’ she asked. ‘How long will it take? When will you have a wall for me?’

‘Well, it’s not like I can just order in one wall, please, and slot it into place. I have to match the materials; I have to integrate what I do with the existing house, which, by the way, is over 150 years old. And the other walls are plaster over brick, which I can do, or I can put up a dry wall and then just put bricks over the outside.’

‘But that wouldn’t be the same as the rest of the house. It wouldn’t be the same as it was.’

‘No. But it would be easier for you. There would be something up to protect you.’

‘Please rebuild it as it was. Keep it the same.’

‘Well, it’s up to you,’ said the builder.

‘How long will it be?’

‘Hard to say. I’ll have to find the exact brick, or as close as I can, so I’ll need to call a few people before I can say. I don’t like to give an estimate, you know, and then have it take longer.’

‘I appreciate that, young man, but I have to live here. This is my home. You may think you have a problem of an old house that’s missing a wall; I have a problem that my home is broken.’

‘You might want to think about where else you can stay. You got family or friends that’d put you up? That’s what you’re going to need to do.’

‘That’s not possible,’ said Mrs Featherby cooly. ‘Nor am I willing to stay in a hotel. This is my home and I do not wish to leave it.’

‘Well. I guess, if you’re sure. The most I can do for now is rig up some kind of temporary protection for you. Something to keep the weather outside. Bloody lucky it’s still warm. No telling how long that’ll last, mind.’

‘Indeed.’

Mrs Featherby tried to get on with her day while the builder attached a thick sheet of plastic to the gaping side of the house. She baked a chocolate cake and darned a batch of old socks. She laundered the guest linens she kept, in spite of the fact that she never had any guests.

Finally, after the builder was done, he gave Mrs Featherby a sympathetic nod as he went to leave.

‘Not sure what this’ll end up costing. If you put me in touch with your insurance company I can deal with it all directly with them. Save you some stress, right?’

‘Thank you. I shall call them directly and let them have your number.’

Mrs Featherby gave Bruno the builder a slice of cake and sent him on his way.

Cassie.

CASSIE HAD ALMOST STOPPED SEEING her surroundings. Her eyelids drooped and flickered, and although her gaze was still fixed on the arrivals gate, she was having trouble differentiating between the people who walked through it.

She was just becoming aware of an ache in her neck when a woman walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

‘Cass?’

Cassie gave a start and blinked a couple of times.

‘Oh, Mum. You didn’t have to come all the way out here.’

‘You stopped answering your phone. I was worried.’

‘No, I’m fine. I’m just waiting. I’ll wait here.’

‘Cass, I think you should come home.’

Cassie was so tired. Too tired to argue really, but she didn’t want to give in. She bit her lip and stared stubbornly at the gate.

‘It’s going to get late, love. You’ve been here for hours. Come home and we’ll figure out what’s happened. Maybe she’s going to come tomorrow. You can come back tomorrow. I’ll come with you.’

Cassie swallowed.

‘You must be hungry, Cass. There’s dinner at home. I did a crumble.’

Cassie breathed in deeply and closed her eyes.

‘Come on. We’ll sort it out in the morning.’

Cassie sighed and took her mother’s arm. ‘I can’t move,’ she said. ‘I can’t move my feet.’

They both looked down at Cassie’s feet. The brown leather of her sandals had become rough as bark. Her skin had merged with them and her toes had put forth roots into the floor. She was growing into the ground.

Robert.

AFTER A WHILE ROBERT DECIDED to call his assistant. Assistants were supposed to always know what was going on, so Derek would know. It was Derek’s job to know. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contact list. He was halfway through the Fs before he realised he’d gone too far. He scrolled back up. Derek’s name wasn’t there. This was obviously ridiculous, it had been there yesterday; he’d hardly have deleted it. You don’t delete your assistant’s number, otherwise how can you call him when you’ve sent him out somewhere and tell him to bring you back an almond croissant? You can’t. He looked again. There was no Derek. Derek was gone. Feverishly, he scrolled through the names on his phone, looking for his boss, his intern, the receptionist, but none of them were there. His colleagues were gone. Work was gone. Everything was gone.

Robert walked back down the street in a daze. He wandered past buildings that had not disappeared, through crowds of people who would manage to arrive at their destinations. He didn’t stop until he reached the river. He sat on a bench and stared in front of him.

Slowly the foot traffic that passed him changed from harried business people into slowly meandering tourists. A young couple approached him and asked for directions.

‘I told you,’ the girl said, elbowing the boy in the ribs. ‘You should always listen to me.’

‘OK, OK,’ the boy said. ‘I mean, I’m sure you’re right about that, maybe, but I’m probably not going to.’

Robert stared after them as they walked away. He got out his phone and stared at it, suddenly frightened. Derek had vanished from it, what if Mara had too? What if he’d go home to find his house had vanished as well, and Mara and Bonny with it? Robert once again scrolled through the contacts list on his phone. Mara. There she was. Mara. His torchbearer.

He called her but it went to voicemail. Of course it did, he thought, he ought to have known better; she hated being interrupted, she would have left her phone upstairs where it wouldn’t distract her.

Robert sat and stared at the Thames. He got up and walked along it and sat on another bench. He crossed over and walked back up the other side. He browsed the gift shops of the theatres and art galleries. He sat at a rickety table outside and drank a burnt coffee. He walked over to the river again and stared down into its muddy dullness. He wandered away.

It wasn’t until a few hours later that he came across a tube station and decided to go home.

Marcus.

THE DOOR OPENING STARTLED HIM. He had no idea how much time had passed.

‘Dad?’

She looked like her mother. Funny how a girl raised by two men can so closely resemble the mother she barely knew. Not that ‘mother’ was really the right word. But then, what was? Nothing. There was no right word.

‘Don’t you have a class?’

‘Jasper’s taking notes for me. I was worried.’

‘I don’t know what to do.’

She blinked at him and walked into the room. She crossed to the piano and opened the cover.

‘Oh my god.’

‘What?’

‘They’re really gone.’

He’d been hoping he was crazy.

‘What did you do with them?’ she asked.

‘Me? I didn’t touch them. Not since yesterday. Not since I was playing yesterday. They were fine.’

‘So, they just vanished?’

‘Yes. I came down this morning, I had my breakfast, I went to play. They were gone.’

She stared. She wrinkled her nose. No, she didn’t look like her mother. She looked like Albert. Thank god.

She hesitantly put out a hand as if to touch the keys that weren’t there, then abruptly shut the lid.

‘Let’s have a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘I went to Fortnum’s and got some new ones for us to try.’

She walked out of the room, giving Albert’s picture a casual pat as she passed it, and led the way into the kitchen.

‘I thought we could all have dinner tonight,’ she said, pulling down a tea pot. ‘I asked Jasper to come over and bring some food from the Iraqi place around the corner. That’s the place that we got the really good fish from that time, isn’t it? And you haven’t really spent any time with Jasper; haven’t you only met him the once? It’s my fault, of course. I should have brought him around here earlier.’

She stopped pottering around and sat at the table across from him.

‘What do I do?’

‘I don’t know, Dad. I suppose I’ll call a piano repair company. Do you think it’d cost a lot to replace them?’

The question unsettled him. It was his piano. He didn’t want someone else’s hands on his piano.

He suddenly didn’t like being still. He took his cup to the sink even though it wasn’t yet even half empty. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to empty it or keep drinking.

‘Dad?’

‘When’s he, when’s he coming? Your boy?’

‘It’s OK. I don’t have to ring someone now. We’ll just take some time. We won’t think about it for a while.’

His arm was itchy. Something had bitten him.

‘Dad?’

He turned back.

‘Right. Yes. Dinner will be lovely. We’ll have dinner.’

Delia.

DELIA LAY IN BED THAT night, still embarrassed about how wildly she’d got lost. There weren’t all that many things she prided herself on these days, but her unerring sense of direction was one of them, and it was something she needed.

Most of her days were spent in the same way, in the same place. She’d grown to rely on being able to escape, to wander in any direction for as long as she needed to, being fully confident that she’d have no trouble finding her way back when she needed to. Admitting to this tiny failure was somehow more difficult than admitting to all the giant ones.

Although she wasn’t yet aware of it, and would never fully figure it out, a very specific thing was happening to Delia, and had been happening for years. The morning’s unwanted adventure was nothing more than the latest in a slow decline that had been precipitated by a small van full of tea and biscuits running a red light when Delia was 147 words away from finishing her dissertation.

Those 147 words had never been written.

Mrs Featherby.

‘YOUR WHAT’S BEEN STOLEN?’ said the brisk voice on the phone. It was several notes higher in tone than it had been thirty seconds previously. The bored indifference was almost entirely gone.

‘My wall,’ replied Mrs Featherby, patiently and efficiently. ‘The front wall of my house.’

‘Bloody hell, how did that happen?’

‘I don’t know how. I’ve reported it to the police. I’m sure they’ll have some kind of answer shortly.’ Mrs Featherby was not at all convinced that the police were going to come up with any kind of solution, but it would not do to express doubt to the insurance agent. Insurance agents pounce on doubt like rabid terriers. They could probably smell it, the way dogs can smell fear.

‘To be honest, Mrs, I’m not sure about this. I’m not sure about it at all.’

‘My home and contents insurance covers me against theft, does it not?’

‘Well, yeah, sure, but that’s theft of, well, the contents. Not theft of the house.’

‘The house has not been stolen. Only part of it has.’

‘Yeah, I know, but—’

‘If an unruly university student uplifted my mail box or my rose bush or my door knocker, which is an antique in the shape of an elephant, would that be covered?’

‘I suppose—’

‘Well, this is precisely the same situation. Someone has stolen from me; they’ve stolen a part of my house, including, I might add, my front door and, by extension, my rather lovely door knocker.’

The insurance agent changed tack: ‘Yeah, well, we can’t even know for sure that it’s theft, can we? Your wall disappearing. Can’t be that common, wall thieves. And you’re not covered for acts of God, so—’

‘Acts of God?’ said Mrs Featherby, audibly raising her eyebrow. ‘Are you actually suggesting that our Lord and Saviour, in His infinite wisdom, has used His omnipotent power to cause my front wall to dissolve away? Balaam had his donkey, Joan had her magic voices and I have a disappearing house? Is that, in your mind, the most logical explanation?’

‘Look, there’s no need—’

‘Perhaps you would be so good as to allow me to put in a claim, and if in the processing of that claim it is decided that the theft of my wall was, in fact, not theft but the divine intervention of the Almighty, you can take the moral high ground.’

There was a brief silence.

‘Could you confirm your post code, please?’

Robert.

ROBERT ARRIVED HOME JUST AS Mara and Bonny were getting out of the car.

‘Dad!’ said Bonny. ‘Did you know that lions can’t purr and we get to have pizza for dinner even though it’s not a Friday or a birthday? But not shop pizza; Mum’s going to make it. I would be sad if I were a lion that couldn’t purr. I wish humans could purr.’

‘You’re home early and oh my god, you’re not going to believe it,’ said Mara.

‘What?’ said Robert.

‘Just, just wait. A bit. Bonny, do you want to play a game while your dad and I cook dinner?’

‘Can dad not play with me?’

‘Not this time, pal,’ said Robert, staring curiously at Mara.

‘So,’ she said once she and Robert were alone in the kitchen. ‘So, I may have pulled her out of school.’

‘What?’ said Robert. ‘Why? Where are we going to send her?’

‘I know, oh I know, but honestly, I can’t even—’

‘Jeepers, Mara, breathe.’

Mara closed her mouth and glared at him.

‘Just, what happened, OK?’

‘All right. So, I get there, and everyone’s acting super nice, you know, would you like tea and a biscuit, like the school is a little old woman luring you into her house before she bakes you into a pie.’

‘I think she’d probably get more than one pie out of a whole human.’

‘And then they sit you down and start talking and it seems like they’re being nice, but halfway through you think, “hold on, you think I’m a idiot” and “fuck right off”, but you don’t want to interrupt them, because you’ve a mouth full of tea-dunked biscuit and it’s just not necessary to show people the inside of your mouth when it’s all coated in brown.’

‘But what did they say?’

Mara sighed and leaned forward with her elbows on the bench and her face in her hands.

‘OK, OK. So, apparently, a few weeks ago, when they took the register, instead of saying “present” like all the other children, Bonny got up, climbed onto her chair, and sang “Go Your Own Way”.’

‘Great song.’

‘And I mean, she didn’t just sing the chorus, she sang the whole song.’

‘Well, it’s not long, once you’ve taken out all the guitar solos. Unless she sang those too.’

‘I didn’t ask. Anyway, the next day it was “Short People”.’

‘Hey, that’s our song. She and I play it together. Well, I play the actual song and she plays a rather Dadaist solo. And sings, obviously.’

‘Well, her teacher’s only five foot tall, so I doubt it went down particularly well.’

‘That’s a bit rude of her; she’s still much taller than Bonny.’

‘Next it was “The Only Living Boy in New York”.’

‘Ooh, she’s been listening to your music.’

‘After a week or so, the other children started copying her.’

‘Typical. That’s exactly how indie trends become mainstream.’

‘Apparently it now takes an average of an hour and twenty minutes to take the register.’

‘Yeah, but it’s an hour and twenty minutes of pure joy. Well, assuming the other children are OK at carrying a tune.’

‘I think they’re more worried about cutting into valuable learning time. Anyway, they told her she couldn’t sing in class and she asked them why and they said because class wasn’t an appropriate place to sing and she asked them why not and obviously they’d started a never-ending discussion, because she’s a child, isn’t she, so they tried to cut it short by saying that if she ever answered the register with a song again she’d have to stay in for playtime and she wouldn’t be allowed to read or play with the toys, and she just cried and cried and all the other children cried, so they asked me if we would punish her at home for doing it so they don’t have to punish her at school and make all the children cry.’

‘Bloody hell. Bloody hell! They were going to … a school was going to tell a child she wasn’t allowed to read? Because she sings, she’s not allowed to read?’

‘I’m not telling her she can’t stand on a chair and sing, Rob. I’m not ever telling her that.’

Robert put a hand on the back of Mara’s neck and began massaging the base of her head.

‘I think we shouldn’t start off by letting her have a holiday.’

‘No. I think you’re right. I guess I’ll home-school her until we’ve found somewhere else.’

‘How will you meet your deadlines?’

‘I’ll have to work that out, won’t I? I don’t have anything due till the middle of next week.’

‘We have the best kid, Mara.’

‘The best.’

She sighed and pulled out the chopping board.

‘How was your day?’

‘Oh,’ said Robert. ‘Fine. You know. Nothing as dramatic as this.’

The day no longer seemed real to him. The impossibility of his work having actually vanished was far more real than his memory of it having done so. He wondered if he’d imagined it. He’d go back to work the next day and it would all be as normal.

Jake.

JAKE SAT AT THE KITCHEN table and did his homework without being asked. He started reading a book his teacher had said was good. His dad came in and looked in the cupboards. He looked in the fridge. He took out the leftover chicken from the night before and made soup. He defrosted bread rolls. He asked Jake about school and nodded as Jake talked. They went to the living room and silently watched some reality TV.

Jake blinked a couple of times as he looked at his dad. He seemed unclear, almost blurred. It was as if Jake was looking at him through a faint mist.

When Jake went to bed there was a card on his pillow. It had a picture of Spider-Man on it. Inside, below the printed message, it said, ‘Love you. Sorry. Dad.’

Cassie.

CASSIE WAS EXHAUSTED. THE TIDE of people that had surged around her after the discovery of her roots had baffled and broken her.

Her mother’s panicked screams had first brought security running. Then there had been medics, and a call over the loudspeaker for a doctor that resulted only in a seething crowd of curious onlookers.

All attempts to prise Cassie out of the floor had failed. The roots that her feet had become looked small, but they were strong and seemed to run deep. It wasn’t until Cassie was shaking with hysteria that someone saw fit to move the people on. They had brought some screens, like the kind you see in hospitals, and placed them around Cassie so she was protected from the curious stares. Cassie had forbidden her mother from spending the night behind the screens with her, but she was sure she was somewhere around. The nearest chair, probably.

The relief at being alone, or at least feeling alone, was dizzying. The freedom to think hit her like a drug. There was one thought that she had been frantic to return to: where was Floss? Cassie had checked the flight details until she had them by heart, and then gone on checking them. She couldn’t have been wrong.

And Floss must have been on the plane. If she had missed it, there were hours in which she could have let Cassie know what had gone wrong and how it was being fixed. She had been coming. She had been coming to Cassie.

Cassie didn’t doubt Floss’s intent to be there. Floss loved her. Floss would do anything to be there. It was not possible that Cassie could love Floss with so much of herself and Floss not love her back. It was not possible that the tether connecting Cassie to Floss went only in one direction.

Floss was coming. She was coming and Cassie was determined to be waiting for her.

The Status.

ONCE UPON A TIME, GEORGE Fortescue had status. Until one day, he lost it.

He had always been the kind to turn heads. Not because he was particularly good looking, he wasn’t. Not because he was tall, he was average. There was simply something about him. At school he’d been listened to by his peers. When he gave answers in class, the other students were silent. No one ever made fun of him, not because they were afraid of him, or liked him particularly, but because somehow the idea of making fun of George was too remote to consider. When he started work he was quickly promoted, although his work was not noticeably better than anyone else’s. He was marked out for leadership from the start; without talent, or charisma, he had status.

And then he didn’t. He himself didn’t realise that he’d lost it. But all of a sudden people were slower to make way for him in the street. His success rate at hailing cabs went down by 40 per cent overnight. The board of directors took no note of his opinions. His staff started whispering behind his back, nothing he wanted done got done.

A few months later he would retire and move to Cornwall. He would get a cat on the misplaced assumption that it, at least, would show him some respect.

The Fight.

WILL GOWAN AND JEFF BROWN lost a fight. Both boys knew where it was when they left their respective houses. They walked confidently towards it, flanked by their gangs. They met a block away from the fight’s last known location, but pretended not to notice each other. Their gangs didn’t pretend not to notice each other, they scowled and glowered for all they were worth.

Two crowds of boys headed down opposite sides of the street until they reached the same corner, the corner around which the fight was.

It wasn’t there.

For the first time, the leaders looked at each other.

‘Where is it?’ said Will.

‘Have we lost it?’ said Jeff.

‘We can’t both have lost it,’ said Will.

But they had.

The Looks.

WINIFRED GRAHAM LOST HER LOOKS. She hunted for them carefully and methodically, but they were all gone. It seemed remarkable for them to have all disappeared at once, but although she tried, she could not find a single one.

Her looks had been so many. So many looks, and they were glorious: a look to show a secret, a look to freeze blood, one to curdle milk, a look of longing, a look of rejection, a look of despair. A look of love.

It would be several weeks before she managed to leave her house. To confront a world in which she would now have to rely on words.

The Heart.

AND BARNABY JONES LOST HIS heart. He was fifty-seven years old and had kept a good handle on it until that day. He’d never had to question its whereabouts at school or university, even when his friends were finding theirs so hard to keep track of. He’d checked for its presence as he left the house each morning, along with his keys and wallet. There was a brief moment in his mid-thirties when he couldn’t remember where he’d left it, but a quick search revealed not far from its usual place.

Then this day, seven weeks before his 58th birthday, it was gone. After searching his house thoroughly and to no avail, he retraced his steps, eventually coming across the finder of his heart. Unfortunately he would be unable to get it back from her, and before he would have time to think of staying near her, just so as to always be near his heart, she would not have it anymore.

From then, Barnaby’s heart would change hands with dizzying frequency. He would do his best to keep up with it, but it would show itself determined to evade him. Try as he might to get it back, in the end he would have to learn to do without it.

Jake.

Jake stands on the footpath facing his house. The street is quiet, because it is not Saturday. Even though it’s Tuesday, Jake is not wearing his uniform. Not wearing his school uniform on a Tuesday that’s not in the holidays makes Jake feel like he’s breaking the rules. But he can’t get into trouble because his mum is the one who’s told him not to wear it.

Jake doesn’t want to go to the doctor. The doctor is boring and he doesn’t like someone looking at his feet that closely. He doesn’t want to go to the doctor, but he does want to go to McDonald’s.

He is not wearing a jersey, but he should be. The day is cold; the first cold day in ages and Jake isn’t prepared for it. His mum said that he should put on a jumper, but he didn’t. He looks down at the goosebumps on his arm and wishes his mum would hurry up.

She’s gone back into the house because she forgot to bring a recipe she’d promised to drop off to the smiling lady that sometimes comes over with her friend Mel. Jake knows his mum doesn’t like the smiling lady, because she never uses her name. She always just calls her Goldilocks, which is not a real name at all. Jake doesn’t know what the smiling lady’s real name is.

Jake can tell his mum is really grumpy because she’s already dropped her keys on the floor three times. Jake’s mum is always clumsy when she’s cross. When she’d turned to go back into the house, Jake had started to go with her and she’d snapped at him to stay where he was and wait for her. Jake’s mum hardly ever snaps.

Jake has been waiting for a long time.

The ground moves like it does a lot. Like it never used to. It started happening a few months ago, after that one big time when buildings came down. Jake was scared when it started, when it happened months ago, but he isn’t anymore. It doesn’t really make anything happen.

This time, though, something does. This time something awful happens.

Jake looked down at his arm. There were goosebumps on it now. Had there been that day? He didn’t think so. He couldn’t remember feeling cold, but he couldn’t remember not feeling cold either. He couldn’t be sure.

He so wanted to be sure.

He trudged slowly along the road towards his house. Without really planning to, he kept walking past it and around the corner. He wandered until he was on a street he didn’t know, walking along a row of shops. Also without planning to, Jake stopped walking. He looked around himself, up and down the quiet street.

The shop he was standing outside didn’t seem to have a name. He stood looking for several minutes but there wasn’t one anywhere. There was the street number, hand-painted in pea green, and that was all except for a small blackboard hanging on the door which read, ‘Nothing can be found that is not lost’. Jake wasn’t sure he knew what that meant.

He pushed open the door and walked in. The shop was dark inside, and dusty, and full of second-hand things. There was a shelf of old typewriters by the door, and a pile of battered books stacked precariously on top of a rusty umbrella stand.

‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’ said a voice from the ether.

‘Yes.’ Jake blinked and peered around the shop, trying to locate the speaker.

The Voice was sitting in an armchair in the corner. She had her legs slung over one arm of the chair and a book in her lap. She watched Jake for a while as he looked around.

‘Well?’ she said eventually. ‘Buying or selling?’

‘What?’

The Voice got up from her armchair and leaned over the shop counter towards Jake.

‘Are you buying or are you selling?’

‘I don’t have anything to sell.’

‘Well, wouldn’t you suppose that that means you’re buying?’

Jake fingered the money in his pocket. His dad had left it on the table and probably forgotten about it. They had run out of milk and bread. His dad had probably forgotten about that too.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m buying.’

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Something interesting.’

‘Everything’s interesting.’

Jake’s wandering gaze fell on a small, silvery, old mirror.

‘Who’s was that?’

The Voice followed Jake’s eyes, shook her head and leaned further forward, with a conspiratorial air. ‘That,’ she began dramatically, ‘belonged to a war heroine. She came from a small village near Cambridge, and when things started to turn to custard over the way, she ran off to Paris and joined the French Resistance. She carried that mirror with her always, to make sure her hair was in place while she fought the Nazis. Then, when she died, her granddaughter, who is the kind of person who is Not Interested, inherited it. She brought it here to sell because she thought it was tacky.’

Jake picked up a pair of cufflinks from a shelf.

‘Those,’ said The Voice, ‘were sold to me by the new husband of their owner’s wife. She had asked him to return them to her ex-husband, but he was so jealous he couldn’t stand to see him. So he brought them to me instead.’

Jake put the cufflinks back and turned to a pile of books. The one on the top was small and red and faded. He opened the cover and read the inscription: ‘You are the reason I’m glad there are words.’

‘Who’s was this?’ he asked The Voice.

‘Oh, I don’t actually know about that. Some woman found it when she moved into a new house. It had fallen behind a radiator or something.’

‘I’ll buy this, I think,’ said Jake. ‘What was the woman like?’ he asked as The Voice counted out his change. ‘Tall. A bit chub. Had a baby. Very, very long hair. Blonde.’

‘When did she sell you the book?’

‘Holy hell, I don’t know. A month ago maybe. Maybe two.’

‘Great,’ said Jake. ‘Thanks. I’ll see you.’

Jake could feel The Voice staring after him as he left the shop.

He walked the three blocks to his house as quickly as he could. He was feeling sort of fevered, but he didn’t know why. He let himself into the house. The door to his dad’s office was open, and Jake could tell he was in there, but he didn’t go in, nor did his dad come out to see who had come in, or to ask Jake why he wasn’t at school.

Jake climbed the stairs to his room and shut the door behind him. It was no good. There was too much stuff, too much clutter. His mum used to make him tidy his room all the time but now no one did. Jake hadn’t noticed how messy it had become. He put the small red book carefully on his pillow and began to tidy. He folded his clothes and put them in his drawers. He slipped his books neatly onto their shelves.

When everything had been put away and the floor was clear, he took the red book and placed it in the middle of the floor. He took a piece of paper and wrote, ‘Book. Gift. Behind radiator.’ He put the paper beside the book. He leaned back against his bed and looked at it.

Delia.

THERE WAS A ROOM IN Delia’s house that Delia never went into. It had been her room when she was a child, and for all her trips home after she moved away to study.

It was still decorated in the style she’d chosen when she was thirteen. Redecoration had been her birthday present that year and she’d spent hours deciding on and second-guessing colour choices. Three of the walls (luscious cherry 037) were almost entirely obscured by posters of pop singers and movie stars, many of which had come unstuck in key top corners. The fourth wall (bruised concrete 109) had a series of doodles in white paint that had started as a rebellion and grown into a meandering, wordless story. The curtains (dark purple brocade) had been closed for years. The bed (single, patchwork mainly in pink) was unmade. The last time Delia had slept in it had been the Easter holidays, a few weeks before the accident that would bring her home for good. She was supposed to wash the sheets and remake the bed herself, having never officially lifted the Keep Out Agreement of 97, but she’d been late for her train and had left them.

But it wasn’t the garishly twee decor or the depressing insight into adolescent Delia’s psyche that kept grown-up Delia out of the room.

When Delia had moved back home, she’d taken the seven boxes marked ‘Master’s Degree’ and stacked them in the middle of the room. She’d piled sketches and paintings on the bed, she’d dumped her easel, her box of paints and brushes, and her blank canvases on the floor and closed the door on them. She’d taken over the room that her mother would no longer be able to use.

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