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Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for The House of Whispers
  3. Title Page
  4. Note to Readers
  5. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  19. Twelve
  20. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  21. Thirteen
  22. Fourteen
  23. Fifteen
  24. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  25. Sixteen
  26. Seventeen
  27. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  28. Eighteen
  29. Nineteen
  30. Twenty
  31. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  32. Twenty-One
  33. Twenty-Two
  34. Twenty-Three
  35. Twenty-Four
  36. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  37. Twenty-Five
  38. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  39. Twenty-Six
  40. Twenty-Seven
  41. Twenty-Eight
  42. Twenty-Nine
  43. Thirty
  44. Thirty-One
  45. Thirty-Two
  46. Thirty-Three
  47. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  48. Thirty-Four
  49. Thirty-Five
  50. Thirty-Six
  51. Thirty-Seven
  52. Thirty-Eight
  53. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  54. Thirty-Nine
  55. Forty
  56. Forty-One
  57. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  58. Forty-Two
  59. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  60. Forty-Three
  61. Forty-Four
  62. Forty-Five
  63. Forty-Six
  64. Forty-Seven
  65. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  66. Forty-Eight
  67. Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
  68. Forty-Nine
  69. Fifty
  70. Fifty-One
  71. Fifty-Two
  72. Fifty-Three
  73. Fifty-Four
  74. Fifty-Five
  75. Fifty-Six
  76. Fifty-Seven
  77. Fifty-Eight
  78. Fifty-Nine
  79. Sixty
  80. Priory Hospital North London: 20 December 2019
  81. Acknowledgements
  82. About the Publisher

‘You can paint in your spare time,’ Dad said, over and over, like a broken record, like the words were a part of him, a part of his soul, his identity. In the end, I’d resolved to switch courses once I got to university, but then everything had happened and the fight had gone out of me and I’d ended up, empty as a soggy paper bag, on the Management Science course, and it had been Grace who’d helped me find my way back to painting.

She liked to watch television in my room. Every evening after lectures she’d slip into my room and flick it on. One evening, while she devoured whatever it was she was watching, I’d got my pencils and doodled a little sketch of her, enjoying the comforting rub of pencil on paper.

‘What’s that?’ she asked as the credits finally rolled, and I shrugged and turned the picture away. ‘Nothing.’

But she grabbed it from me and examined it, a wry smile lifting the corners of her mouth. ‘You know, it’s really rather good,’ she said. ‘You can actually draw. Weren’t you tempted to study Art? I mean, seriously, why are you studying Management Science when you so clearly hate it?’

I picked at the skin around my thumbs and tried to come up with a better answer than ‘because my dad told me to’.

‘Because it’ll be useful?’ I said.

‘No doubt about it.’ Grace picked up a bottle of my nail polish and started languidly to paint her nails. She balanced the blue polish she loved so much precariously on a textbook on my duvet cover. ‘But what about passion? I’ve known since I was twelve that I wanted to be a doctor, and my whole life since then has been spent working towards that goal. The subjects I chose, how hard I studied… the summer jobs I took. All to get me closer to where I want to be.’

‘Wow,’ I said faintly.

‘But what makes you happy – what makes your soul sing – is art,’ Grace declared. One hand done, she replaced the cap on the polish and looked up. ‘So why aren’t you painting? Just because you’re studying Management Science doesn’t mean you can’t paint. It’s not as if the two are mutually exclusive.’

She tilted her head and looked at me, waiting, and my mouth fell open. Dad may have said the same thing a hundred times, but this was the first time the words had actually reached me. Grace spoke again.