Chapter 10 The Two-House Issue
The Two-House Issue
“Matt?” I call down the street, a little too familiarly, given our quite brief initial meeting. I need to be careful, in case I give myself away; I feel like I know him because I spent a whole day Googling him.
I know what teams he was on, his battered old holiday reads—Love, Etc. by Julian Barnes and Starter for Ten by David Nicholls, thankfully not a tattered Philip Roth or Bukowski in sight—and his preference for skiing over snowboarding.
He looks up suddenly, as if caught, and completely baffled as to who I am. I watch his eyes flick over my face before it finally clicks. Surely, I’m not that forgettable.
A smile breaks.
“Sorry—you threw me,” he hollers, heading in my direction, hands casually slipping into pockets, his easygoing vibe settling back in. “Fancy seeing you here.”
He seems pleased to see me now. The realization makes me buzz.
I smile, pause, and wait for him to get closer. It is only then I remember that this isn’t our street. He just came out of a house that isn’t his and double locked it.
I feel my expression stutter as we reach each other.
“Day off?” he asks me, his handsome eyes narrowing conspiratorially.
I’m back-footed by the question. Every day now is a day off.
But obviously I’m not going to tell him that: that I am terrifyingly unemployed, wandering the streets on a Wednesday morning looking for a café in which to surreptitiously watch cat camera videos.
That I’m concerned something weird is up with my incredibly expensive new house, or this whole neighborhood.
“Taking a half day, working from home,” I answer, giving him a flash of my laptop in my bag.
“Nice, got to love WFH,” he says with a smile.
“And you?” I ask.
“Got a video meeting soon, so I’m off back home now; otherwise I’d be up for that coffee.”
He’s on about the coffee again. And for the first time I get the feeling this is all about something else, not quite what it seems. The same feeling that I got with Arabella: that the person befriending me is just a little too eager, a hair’s breadth over what one might expect.
“Oh, great,” I answer.
“How’s it going with the new place?” he asks.
Terrible, my head screams. It’s haunted. Someone’s living in my walls.
“Yeah! Amazing. Love it. I’m almost unpacked, but there’s always those final few boxes, right?”
“God, yeah. I don’t envy you that.” He pauses a moment before asking: “You spoken to anyone else on the street yet?” I detect a note of mild concern.
“Not yet, no, but I took in a package for Mary Lamb?” The way I say the name indicates I’m not sure if that’s a real person.
His eyebrows shoot up at the mention of the name. “Oh, yeah. Aoife. Yeah, I took a few packages for her early days. Met her a few times when she first moved in but she’s always jetting around, so…” That note of mild concern is there again.
“Yeah, no one’s come to collect the package yet, so I haven’t actually spoken to her,” I begin, but he cuts me off with a little groan.
“Yeah, a word to the wise: don’t get in the habit of taking her parcels. I had one of hers in my hall for over two months. She’s on the group, though. Drop her a message if she doesn’t show up. Peer pressure always seems to work around here.”
“Noted.” I study his handsome, strong-jawed face as he checks down the street.
“The house you came out of, is that…?” I begin, without knowing where the question ends, because I’m not even supposed to know what he does for a living.
He winces before answering.
“Yeah, mine, also. I’m doing a complete gut-out renovation on this one. My design and I’m project-managing. I’m an architect by trade.”
I do not need to feign surprise at learning his occupation because I am genuinely surprised that Matt owns two houses in this neighborhood. “Wow, oh, that’s great,” I hear myself say.
“This one is bigger than my place on Northcroft,” he clarifies, clearly embarrassed to have to be explaining this shocking excess.
“The period details in this one are insane. My sister and brother-in-law are going to buy my old house once I’ve finished this one.
Planning and permits took forever, but most of the structural stuff is complete now so… ”
Matt can afford two houses and full structural renovations. I try not to have a visible response to this.
“Oh, that’s great, so you’ll just move out of Northcroft Road and in here when that place is ready?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I nod. He doesn’t know that I already know everything the internet can tell me about him, among them his degree results, a first in architecture from the University of Edinburgh, and his childhood dog, who died when he was at uni—Purdy, an energetic-looking brown-and-white springer spaniel.
“Well, I’d love to see the new place sometime,” I throw out. His embarrassment over the houses has weirdly afforded me more confidence.
“Yeah, sure.” He flashes that boyish, white-toothed smile. “I’m a few months away, but sure. Coffee this weekend, though, yeah?”
As I walk away, I try not to question too deeply why this man wants to get to know me so keenly.
He has a family, a busy career, a house renovation, and while I totally get—and support—the idea that men and women can be friends, I struggle to think of a single straight male friend I’ve had who didn’t eventually try to sleep with me.
But Matt doesn’t feel like a cheater, and since Ben fooled me, I have become a bit of an expert on that sort of thing. Matt isn’t Ben, I tell myself. And that is that.
—
When I get to the chic, almost Soviet-style 1960s Formica-clad coffee shop I had in mind, I order a coffee served in a ceramic canteen mug and slide into a quiet booth.
Everything around here is curated. It has a theme, a mood board, will have been researched and sourced and is no doubt run remotely by artistically but also commercially minded people dressed in pieces from Dover Street Market or repurposed from Daddy’s old wardrobe.
I should hate it here, but I love it. It all looks so good, tastes so good, feels so good to be on the inside of, now that I am on the inside of it.
I pull out my laptop, slip on my headphones, and bring up the footage file from Blue’s collar.
I click on the bleary thumbnail, and it occurs to me that I might get a look through some of the windows of the other houses on my street, and certainly their backyards. I angle the screen away from potentially prying eyes.
I can see who has the nicest house. I can see who has a messy garden.
I can get to know the people who live around me, even if I never actually seem to see them in real life.
I realize, with an illicit thrill, how much more interesting this might turn out to be.
The thought is delicious. I might see inside the movie star’s house; I might finally see Matt’s partner, beautiful and sparingly bejeweled, cashmere-clad, and as lithe as I imagine her. The feeling intensifies and shifts.
Filming people in secret does sound like it might turn out to be illegal. Maybe a little.
I scan the coffee shop. No one is looking. No one is interested in what I might be doing. I angle the screen away a little more. I press play.