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fury, signifying nothing.’ I finished with a flourish, hoping there was no security surveillance in the room.
    The bleak truth of the words cheered me, slightly. Neither of the grandparents had believed in an afterlife, and I was pretty sure that everything they had ever been had vanished. All that was left of them, now, was me. It was difficult, getting by in this world while being partly-them.
    I sprayed all available surfaces with eco-spray. I tried to assimilate the fact that the people who lived here had five bedrooms and used only one: they slept in the biggest bedroom on the first floor, with a bay window looking out to the front. If I were them, I would have chosen the room in the attic.
    It was a wonderful room, a retreat from the world, which took up the whole of the top floor. It was a place from which you could look without being seen. There were windows to the front and to the back, and a sloping ceiling. It seemed to be a spare room (there was a bed made up in pale blue sheets with a patchwork blanket over the top, and it didn’t look as though it had been slept in lately).
    When I finished the kitchen, I ran back up there and lost ten minutes standing at the front window, gazing at the panorama. I allowed myself to be the lady of the house, just for a moment.
    ‘And this is the view,’ I said casually to my guests. ‘Yes, it is quite impressive, I suppose.’ I brought my grandparents back to life, and gave them the big bedroom on the first floor. ‘Grandma and Granddad are perfectly happy down there,’ I confided to my imaginary friends, ‘but I spend most of my time up here. You know, it’s hard to step away from the window sometimes. I’m in my own little kingdom.’
    It was easy to live in Cornwall without appreciating it, particularly as all I had to compare it to was what I had read about in books or newspapers. To the left, I could see Pendennis Castle, standing high above the water. It was an old castle, built by Henry VIII, and had been used in the war. I knew that much, but I had never been to visit it. I had been to the ice-cream van that was parked on the headland below it, years ago, with the grandparents. They bought me an ice cream with a flake, and we sat on a sea-battered rock while the wind blew my hair into tangles.
    I could see the boats far out at sea, huge tankers just sitting there. There was the glassy sloping roof of the swimming pool on the headland, the green fields of Flushing across the estuary. There was the Atlantic Ocean. We were perched on the very edge of the continent.

    I finished, and put away all the paraphernalia, hoping that the job I had done was good enough. I longed to come back here week after week after week. I could construct an entire alternative life, based in this house.
    I made sure all the doors were closed, and I left my bag outside, in the porch, while I went back in to set the burglar alarm. I punched in the eight numbers carefully: it went 81181825, and I wondered whether there was any significance to the digits. All those ones and eights must have meant something. I closed the door behind me, double-locked it, triple-locked it, and took in a deep breath of fertile, pollenated air.
    Now I could see the life I would aim for. I could not really see how I was going to get from where I was now, to a house like this, but I would give it my best shot. I would have to find out how someone my age would go about getting a couple of A levels. Then I would be able to get myself into university, and perhaps I, too, could become a lawyer one day. If this was a lawyer’s house, I would become a lawyer.
    I had made a start, at least. I had just done the first half-day’s paid work of my life.

Chapter Four
Queenstown, New Zealand

    Jack Baker was unhappy. The kids were at school and nursery, the sun was shining, Rachel was at home and he had a job to do at one of the hotels, out of town. This was the part of the day he usually liked. Him in one place, his