Читать книгу You Let Me In - Lucy Clarke - Страница 10

Oak, jasmine and something citrus – those are the smells that greet me as I step inside. There is a clean, fresh quality to the air that is different to my house: it is dry, free of cooking smells, or that earthy dampness that comes from washing dried on radiators.

I can’t help myself. ‘Hello?’

There is, of course, no reply. I smile. The quiet is beautiful, softened by the distant sound of the sea.

My black holdall looks incongruous on the solid oak floor. I kick off my shoes and leave them discarded. Yours, I see, are placed neatly beneath the oak settle.

I walk through the entrance hall, which leads straight into the spacious kitchen. The walls are a warm shade of white; I think the paint has been chosen with light-diffusing particles so that it feels as if the walls are breathing air into the room. The splashes of colour – chalky pastel shades – come from the painted wooden cabinets, the well-chosen artwork, the pottery carefully displayed.

The style is graceful, calming. It’s as if a handful of sea-bleached pebbles have been gathered and used as the basis for the palette. The modern, sleek lines of handle-less cabinets and a granite work surface have been married with a beautiful old farmhouse table, the wood ring-marked and age-worn. A long bench seat is set against the wall, strewn with hessian cushions. It’s a table for a family, or for dinner parties. Not a table for one.

I smile to see that the high chair, as requested, is placed at the end of this table, although it won’t be used, of course. On the kitchen counter there is a small bunch of wildflowers in an old honey pot, tied with brown string. Leaning against it is a handwritten card addressed to Joanna and family.

A thoughtful touch.

I pick up the card, tracing a finger across the elegant handwriting, but I don’t open it.

Setting it back down, I move past an aged dresser painted duck-egg blue, where earthenware mugs hang from neat iron hooks. Seagrass-speckled pots are stacked artfully between mason jars containing nuts, pulses and attractive spirals and ribbons of pasta. I slide open the dresser drawer and, as I reach into it, I experience the sharp sensation that someone is going to snap the drawer shut on my fingers, a child caught snooping.

I feel like a trespasser. Yet, in my pocket, I’m aware of the small but solid presence of the front door key resting against the top of my thigh.

I am no trespasser, I remind myself. You let me in.