‘Indeed.’ Magnus is looking more and more uncomfortable. ‘We were informed by the developer that this was an eight-bedroomed house and we had no reason to dispute this—’
‘So he just bulldozed into next door’s upstairs and stole all the rooms and no one even checked?’ I stare at him incredulously.
Magnus looks even more worried.
‘I believe the developer obtained the proper permissions from the Council …’
‘How?’ Mr Evans looms up, clearly bored of waiting. ‘By forging documents and greasing palms, that’s how! I come back from the States and go upstairs for a kip and what do I find? Half my top floor missing! Blocked up! Someone’s come in and stolen my property!’
‘Why didn’t someone notice?’ says Suze robustly. ‘Wasn’t it a bit careless of you to let them do that?’
‘My father’s deaf and nearly blind!’ Mr Evans looks even more incensed. ‘His carers pop in and out, but what do they know? Preying on the vulnerable, that’s what it is.’ His face is almost purple and his yellowing eyes are so menacing I quail.
‘It’s not my fault! I didn’t do anything! I didn’t even know! And you can have your bedrooms back,’ I add rashly. ‘Or … we could buy them off you, maybe? It’s just, we’re pretty desperate. We’re living with my parents and we’ve got a two-year-old …’
I’m gazing desperately at Mr Evans, willing him to soften, but he looks even more axe-murderery than before.
‘I’m phoning my lawyer.’ He wheels around and stalks back to the house.
‘What does this mean?’ I demand. ‘What happens next?’
Magnus can’t even look me in the eye.
‘I’m afraid this will be complicated. We’ll have to consult the deeds, take legal advice, the house may have to be put back the way it was, or perhaps Mr Evans will come to an arrangement … I think you will be able to sue the vendor successfully and indeed, there may be a fraud prosecution …’
I’m staring at him in growing dismay. I don’t care about a fraud prosecution. I want a house.
‘So we won’t be able to exchange next week?’
‘The whole deal is off for now, I’m afraid.’
‘But we need a house!’ I wail. ‘This is our fifth house!’
‘I’m sorry.’ Magnus takes out his phone. ‘Please excuse me, I need to alert our legal team.’
As he walks away, I look at Suze. For a moment, neither of us speaks.
‘I don’t believe it,’ I say at last. ‘Are we jinxed?’
‘It’ll all work out,’ says Suze hopefully. ‘Everyone will just sue each other and you’ll get the house in the end. And on the plus side, if you do have to stay with your mum a bit longer, think how thrilled she’ll be.’
‘She won’t!’ I say in desperation. ‘She’ll be livid! Suze, she doesn’t have empty-nest syndrome after all. We got it all wrong.’
‘What?’ Suze looks shocked. ‘But I thought she was going to really miss you and get suicidal.’
‘It was all an act! She can’t wait for us to go! The whole neighbourhood’s waiting.’ I clutch my head in despair. ‘What am I going to do?’
There’s silence as we both look round the wintry garden.
Maybe we could be squatters, I find myself thinking. Or set up a big tent in the garden and hope no one notices us. We could be alternative-lifestyle people living in our yurt. I could call myself Rainbow and Luke could be Wolf and Minnie could be Runs-On-Grass-In-Mary-Janes.
‘So what are you going to do?’ Suze breaks me out of a fantasy where we’re sitting by a campfire and Luke is chopping wood in old leather trousers with ‘Wolf’ tattooed on his knuckles.
‘Dunno,’ I say despairingly. ‘I’ll just have to think of something.’
As I get back home that day, I find Mum and Minnie in the kitchen, both in aprons, icing cupcakes. (Mum got the icing set at the pound shop. And the cakes.) They’re so engrossed and happy that for a moment they don’t see me – and with no warning, I have the weirdest flashback to Elinor, standing in that dressing room, looking old and sad and lonely and asking if she could see her grandchild.
She hasn’t even seen Minnie since she was in her cradle. She’s missed so much of Minnie’s life already. Which I know is her own fault, and I know she’s a bitch. But even so …
Oh God. I feel so torn. Should I let Minnie get to know her? Not that I could see Elinor icing cupcakes exactly. But they could do something together. Look through the Chanel catalogue, maybe.
Minnie’s concentrating so hard on putting multi-coloured sprinkles on to her cakes, I don’t want to disturb her. Her face is pink with effort and her little nose is screwed up and there are sprinkles stuck to her cheek with butter icing. As I watch her, my heart feels all crunchy. I could stand here watching her for ever, carefully shaking her little pot. Then suddenly she sees me and her face lights up.
‘Mummy! Spinkles!’ She holds out the pot of sprinkles proudly.
‘Well done, Minnie! Look at all your lovely cupcakes!’ I swoop down and give her a kiss. Her face is dusted in icing sugar – in fact, there seems to be a thin layer of icing sugar over pretty much everything in the kitchen.
‘Eat.’ Now Minnie is hopefully offering me a cupcake. ‘Eat spinkles.’ She starts cramming it into my mouth.
‘Yum!’ I can’t help laughing as crumbs fall down my chin. ‘Mmm.’