Amelia

AMELIA

I watch Adam as he adds another log to the fire. He’s behaving even more strangely than normal and looks tired. Bob seems equally unimpressed, stretched out on the rug. They are both prone to grumpiness when hungry. We have plenty of dog food—Adam always says that I take better care of the dog than I do of him—but that doesn’t help solve the problem of what we can eat. I should have packed more than just biscuits and snacks for the journey. The shop I intended to stop at closed early due to the storm, and my backup plan of dinner at the Blackwater Inn was an epic fail—the derelict pub looked like it had been abandoned for years.

“The note in the kitchen said something about there being food in the freezer. Why don’t we see what we can find?” I suggest, walking back toward the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

The cupboards are empty and I can’t find a freezer.

The fridge is also bare and not even plugged in. There is a coffee machine, but no coffee, or tea. There aren’t even any pots and pans. I do find two plates, two bowls, two wineglasses, and two knives and forks, but that’s it. The property is so big, it seems odd to only have two of everything.

I can hear Adam in the other room. He’s put on one of the albums we loved listening to when we first met, and I feel myself soften a little. That version of us was a good one. Sometimes my husband reminds me of the stray dogs at work—someone who needs protecting from the real world. It’s probably why he spends so much of his life disappearing inside stories. Believing in someone is one of greatest gifts you can give them, it’s free and the results can be priceless. I try to apply that rule to my personal life as well as my work.

Last week, I interviewed three prospective owners at Battersea for a cockapoo called Bertie. The first was a blond woman in her late forties. Stable home environment, good job, great on paper. Considerably less so in person. Donna was late for her appointment, but sat down in my little office without even the hint of an apology, dressed in bubble gum pink running gear, and stabbing her phone with a matching fake nail.

“Is this going to take long? I have a lunch date,” she said, barely looking up.

“Well, we always like to meet potential new owners. I wonder if you could tell me what it was about Bertie that made you interested in adopting him?”

Her face folded in on itself, as if I’d asked her to solve a complex equation.

“Bertie?” She pouted.

“The dog…”

She cackled. “Of course, sorry, I’m going to change his name to Lola once I get him home. Everyone has a cockapoo now, don’t they? I’ve seen them all over Insta.”

“We don’t recommend changing a dog’s name when they’re a bit older, Donna. And Bertie is a boy. Changing his name to Lola would be like me calling you Fred. Once we’ve had a chat, I’ll take you to meet Bertie and see how the two of you get along. But you won’t be able to take him home today, I’m afraid. There are several steps to this process. So that we can be sure it’s the right fit.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“The right fit for the dog.”

“But … I’ve bought the matching outfits already.”

“Outfits?”

“Yes, off eBay. Ghostbusters costumes. One for me, and a mini dog version for Lola. My Insta followers are gonna love it! Does it do tricks?”

I rejected Donna’s application. I rejected the next two people who came to see Bertie too—even though one threatened to “speak to my manager” and the other called me a “see you next Tuesday.” Nobody goes to a home where they won’t really be loved on my watch.

There are as many varieties of heartbreak as there are love, but fear is always the same, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m afraid of so many things right now. I think perhaps the real reason I am so scared of losing—or leaving—my husband, is because I don’t have anyone else. I’ve never known what it is like to have a real family, and I’ve always been better at collecting acquaintances than making friends. On the rare occasions when I feel like I have met someone I can trust, I hold on. Tight. But my judgment can be faulty. There are some people in my life I shouldn’t have walked away from: I should have run.

I never met my parents. I know that my dad liked old cars, perhaps that’s why I do too, and why I can’t let go of my ancient Morris Minor despite Adam’s constant complaints. I find it hard to trust new things, or places, or people. My dad swapped his vintage MG Midget for a brand-new family car just before I was born. New doesn’t always mean better. The brakes failed on the way to the hospital when my mum was in labor, a truck smashed into the driver’s side of their car and they both died instantly. The doctor—who had been driving in the other direction—somehow delivered me into the world on the side of the street. He called me a miracle baby, and named me Amelia because of his obsession with the aviator. She liked to fly away too. I flew from one foster home to the other until I was eighteen.

“I’m guessing people don’t stay here very often. It’s freezing cold and everything is covered in dust,” Adam says, appearing behind me and making me jump. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

He did.

“I wasn’t scared…”

I was.

“I’m just tired from the drive and I can’t find anything to eat.”

“Did you try in here?” he asks, heading for an arched door in the corner of the kitchen.

“Yes, but it’s locked,” I reply, without looking up. Adam always thinks he knows better than me.

“Perhaps the handle was just a bit stiff,” he says, as the door creaks open.

He flicks a switch, and when I catch up, I see that the door leads to what looks like a walk-in larder. But the shelves are filled with tools instead of food. There are neatly stacked boxes of nails and screws, nuts and bolts, different-sized spanners and hammers, and a selection of saws and axes hanging on the back wall. There are also a series of strange-looking smaller tools I don’t recognize, like miniature chisels, curved knives, and round blades all with matching wooden handles. The damp, dark space is lit by a single lightbulb dangling down from the ceiling. It struggles to illuminate everything below, but it’s impossible to miss the large chest freezer in the corner of the room. It’s bigger than me—the kind you might find in a supermarket—and, unlike the fridge, I already know it is plugged in from the humming sound it makes.

I hesitate before lifting the lid but needn’t have worried.

The freezer is stocked full of what look like individual home-made frozen meals. Each foil container and cardboard lid is carefully labeled with elaborate joined-up writing. There must be over a hundred dinners for one in here, and quite the selection: lasagna, spaghetti bolognese, roast beef, steak pie, toad in the hole …

“Chicken curry?” I suggest.

“Sounds good. Now we just need some wine. Luckily, I think I might have found the crypt,” Adam says.

He has discovered a torch among all the other tools, and is shining it on the stone floor. It’s only then that I realize some of the giant slabs we are standing on are old headstones, the names engraved on them worn away after years of being walked over.

“Down here,” Adam says, shining the torch on an ancient-looking wooden trapdoor.

I shiver, and not just because this room is inexplicably cold.