Chapter 10
Ten
Tuesday
EMILY
Outside, the air feels cool and damp and I catch the faint scent of last night’s light rain. I cross the road, glancing back once at the Coach House, its symmetrical perfection. A curtain shifts in a house opposite and I’m beginning to realize Orchard Lane doesn’t miss a thing.
I’m headed for Lara’s house. It’s a smaller one directly across from ours, and I note how different it is from the rest of Orchard Lane. It has a driveway and ornamental gates, but the windows are smaller and it sits closer to the road, as if it’s been squeezed in like an afterthought.
I ring the bell and Lara comes to the door.
She looks almost wholesome in pale blue capri pants and a short-sleeved sweater.
Her hair is tied back in a neat ponytail with a ribbon the same colour as her trousers and she wears a pressed gingham apron with razor-sharp edges.
Her floral perfume smells very strong and reminds me a bit of scented toilet cleaner.
‘Emily! How lovely to see you. Come in, come in!’ she says.
I step into a spotless hallway. A pale runner sits in the centre of the light-oak laminate floor and there are framed prints along the wall. It’s neat and considered, but there’s no sterile gleam here.
I start to slip off my shoes, but Lara holds up a hand in protest.
‘Leave them on, honestly. Despite what I do for a living, I’m not that person.’
Before I can say anything more, she waves me through to the kitchen, which is bathed in a soft, amber light thanks to the sun breaking through the thick covering of cloud.
The room is full of imposing camera equipment: a ring light on a tripod and some kind of overhead rig contraption that has been clamped to the wall units.
A metal arm arcs menacingly above the island with a coil of cables to a monitor propped beside the food mixer.
There is even one of those big, blocky boom mics wired in from the doorway.
It makes the kitchen feel less like a home and more like a small television studio set up to record the baking of sourdough.
I stop in my tracks. ‘It looks like I’m interrupting something. Should I come back later?’
‘No, no. It’s like this pretty much twenty-four/seven, I’m afraid. Once you’ve got this stuff set up and working, it’s too much of a ball-ache to take it down each time. I forget it’s running half the time. Make yourself comfy and I’ll put some coffee on.’
Lara walks around the island to the kitchen counter.
The sofa looks comfortable; cushions with creases where someone’s leaned into them. I sit down and look around the room while she makes the coffee.
There are shelves lined with books and plants, a fruit bowl on the counter filled only with apples, a jar of wooden utensils by the hob and a calendar on the wall with neat handwriting marking key events.
By the window, a small tripod stands folded beside a stack of pastel plates, as if someone’s just finished taking a picture and set it aside.
I stand up, wander to the French doors and look out.
The garden is about half the size of ours, but every inch of it is a riot of colour.
Perfect, bright flowers fill the beds, pots crammed against the fence, tiny trellises threaded with foliage and blooms. It’s almost too perfect, like the set of a gardening show.
It gives me the same unsettled feeling I had about our own house on the first morning we arrived here. As though perfection, once you take a closer look, is usually trying to hide something.
Lara walks over carrying a tray bearing our coffees.
‘Don’t be too impressed—most of it’s faux,’ she says, setting down the coffee pot and mugs. ‘All of it. Not a drop of water needed.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘You can’t kill the plants, can’t forget to feed them. Grass never gets choked up with moss. Best decision, honestly.’
‘They look pretty. Maybe a bit too real.’
She shrugs. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? Like most things in life, it’s all about the angle.’
‘Very clever.’
‘So,’ she says, stirring sugar into her coffee, ‘how are you finding life in the immaculate suburbs so far? Adjusted to the sound of the leaf-blowers yet?’
I can’t help laughing; she seems far more relaxed than before. ‘Seems very peaceful.’
‘You’ll soon get used to it here,’ she says, eyes bright. ‘We all pretend to be busy, but secretly we’re just waiting for something interesting to happen.’ Her eyes glint mischievously. ‘And I think you two might be it.’
‘If that’s the case, then you might all be disappointed,’ I say nervously. ‘We’re not that interesting, sadly.’
She smiles. ‘Talking of interesting, have you met your neighbour yet, Vanessa Lambert?’
I nod as I take a sip of coffee. ‘Just briefly.’
‘She’s a very interesting woman. But I won’t spoil it for you. When she’s properly introduced herself—which she will—you can tell me what you think.’
‘Intriguing,’ I murmur.
‘Then there’s Ron and Margaret Windsor, two doors down from you.
They’ve taken in a lodger, a woman. She’s a bit weird.
’ Before I can ask why, or tell her I’ve already met Rachel, she adds, ‘And young Roman, who you’ll see out and about; his parents are Angie and Carl, at the Granary, next door to us.
Always arguing and, with the windows open in summer, you’ll definitely be hearing it first hand, like the rest of us. ’
‘Wow, I only wish we were that interesting. But listen, I checked your Insta page out. It looks amazing.’
In the posts filmed in this very kitchen, it had looked bigger and brighter. I watched reels of an immaculate Lara rolling pastry with perfect nails, spritzing fragrance on garments while she irons, pouring fresh coffee and smiling in a new dress just before her husband walks in from work.
‘I’m not quite the perfect wife in real life,’ she says, grinning. ‘A bit like the flowers. You’ve probably already guessed that, though.’
‘I mean . . .’ I look around the room. ‘It all looks perfect to me.’
She sits back, crossing her legs. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that nothing is ever quite as good or quite as bad as it looks.
I’ve had days when this kitchen has been piled high with washing-up and I’m crying and eating my way through a whole packet of chocolate digestives.
But you’d never know from the posts. The show must go on, right? ’
I find myself nodding because, for a moment, I can see her point. Oliver and I have steadfastly built our marriage to look flawless from the outside, the perfect couple living in the perfect house. But it’s been a different matter once the front door is closed.
‘My career’s blossoming, and I’ve finally built enough of a following that companies pay me to feature their products in my reels. I started small. All of this came later.’
We drift into talking about our husbands.
‘Tim’s the best,’ she says. ‘Kind, patient. Not the tidiest, mind. And he can’t cook to save his life.’
I’m intrigued, but decide not to ask more just yet.
‘Oliver’s tidy and organized,’ I say, smiling despite myself.
‘Almost obsessively so. He likes things just right. And he can cook—properly cook—when he’s in the mood.
He used to make these relaxed Sunday dinners that lasted hours, music on, windows open. ’
The memories rise easily because, once upon a time, they were real. Those were the things I fell for. The sense that, with him, life might be contained, ordered, safe. Predictable.
I still hold on to that version of us because it’s the version of my husband I’d like back. Before the conning became something more. Before he started liking the money too much and feeling the need to prove himself.
A familiar bitterness settles on my chest. Not because I don’t believe we can get that life back, but because I’ve learned how quickly the good parts of someone—including myself—can slip into something else.
Lara doesn’t seem to notice I’ve gone quiet.
‘Men are funny creatures, aren’t they? They love to think they’re in charge, but most of the time they’re just . . . well, doing what we want them to.’
I smile, but it catches somewhere inside me. That doesn’t really apply when it comes to Oliver. I’m only just waking up to the fact that I despise myself because, until now, I’ve been too weak to change the direction we’re travelling in.
Each and every time we pull off the next con, he swears that’s the last one. And of course it never is.
Lara and I chat a little longer, circling more general topics for safer ground: coffee beans, a new restaurant in town she’s keen to try.
She offers me another cup, and I decline, suddenly aware of the time.
When I leave, she hugs me like we’ve made a real connection, and to my surprise I feel a flicker of reluctance at stepping away.
‘So how did you and Oliver meet?’ she asks lightly, as if it’s just idle curiosity.
The question takes me by surprise, but I smile anyway.
‘Through mutual friends. Years ago.’
It’s a neat answer, if predictable. It’s one I’ve used many times before.
Lara nods, satisfied, and I let myself out on to the street with the familiar ache settling in. The knowledge that some stories are safer left untold.
Especially the true ones that remind me of how we got here.