Chapters (82)
- Cover
- Praise for The House of Whispers
- Title Page
- Note to Readers
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Twelve
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Twenty-Five
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Forty-Two
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Forty-Eight
- Transcript of interview with Mr Rohan Allerton, husband of Abigail Allerton: 20 December 2019
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Priory Hospital North London: 20 December 2019
- Acknowledgements
- About the Publisher
‘Why would I be?’
‘Because it’s your neck of the woods. I don’t want you thinking I’m stamping on your turf. And I was hoping you’d come house-hunting with me one weekend. Both of us go down there, have a look around. Maybe stop in at the retreat I was at for a bit of R&R. Have you ever done yoga?’
My heart thumped in my throat; blood rushed in my ears. ‘I’m busy with my work,’ I said. ‘The exhibition’s less than a month away and I still have three pictures to do. And Rohan’ll be back permanently soon.’
‘He can come too. I’m sure he’d like to see Kent…’ She left the sentence hanging. No reply needed. A smile crept across her face as she nodded. ‘Just the two of us, then.’
The roaring in my ears was a tsunami. I ran to the door, scrambled to wrench it open, frantic to get away from her voice, which wrapped itself around me like coils of pond weed intent on dragging me down. Grace’s voice followed me, childlike, taunting, as I sank into the depths of the hall.
‘What’s wrong, Abs? Are you afraid of something?’
Upstairs, I slammed the attic door closed behind me and locked it from the inside. Then I cut my arm again, drawing the blade of my scalpel repeatedly across virgin flesh and leaking my blood into a jar before mixing it with the paint. I had to work quickly, before the blood coagulated, but it was a large area. It would take far more blood than I’d first thought.
Fifty-One
Grace was at work when Francesca came to view the paintings. Nearly two weeks had passed, and Grace had said nothing more about me going down to Kent and I’d focused only on completing the series. The seventh painting was finished, as was the eighth. Here, Grace was no more than a shadow, a smudge of a person, her features indistinct; just scattered eyelashes and the print of her lips; little more than a blur of pinks, lilacs and the greys of her fifty-something hair blended and imploding backwards through the canvas as if she were being sucked out of the universe by an unseen force.
The ninth showed only the edges of what could have been: the sense of a hole; the will-o’-the-wisp that might be a person in the blank canvas of the cosmos. Viewers, I knew, would stand in front of it, tilting their heads this way and that as they struggled to catch the gist of the colours that were maybe there, maybe not. It was an image that made my throat sore and my chest tight. It was an image of extinction.