But then Mrs Evans gave Benjy to one of the other children, a mouth-breather with a permanent nasal drip.

‘Sammy’s doggie just died,’ she told me, pulling a face I’d learned meant sad. ‘You don’t mind if I let him have Benjy today to cheer him up, do you?’

That afternoon, when Mrs Evans was supervising nap-time, I asked to go to the bathroom, which we were allowed to do on our own if we were potty-trained.

And then I went into her office, where she’d left her son’s papier-mâché model sitting on her desk, pulled down my pants, and peed all over it.

chapter 07

stacey

The woman seems to know the house better than Stacey herself. She doesn’t wait for the estate agent to show her from one room to the next: she’s already moving ahead of them, clearly familiar with the property’s inverted layout.

‘I like the way you’ve redone the kitchen,’ she says. ‘Moving the island to run horizontally across the room makes for much better sight lines. And you get to take full advantage of the morning light.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Stacey says.

The other woman runs her palm over the smooth quartz countertop, custom-ordered an extravagant three inches thick. ‘I always felt placing the island perpendicular to the western aspect was an odd choice,’ the woman muses. ‘I can only assume the architect didn’t have a hand in the final decision.’

This is why Stacey insisted she be here herself when the estate agent showed prospective buyers around: she needs to be the one to choose exactly the right person for the Glass House. Someone who’ll fall in love with the house, just as she did, and will do anything – anything – to get it.

‘The architect died just before the house was finished,’ Stacey says. ‘The executors wanted to get it completed as quickly as possible in order to sell it, so they brought in a new building firm who cut corners to save money. When we bought the house we located the architect’s original drawings and restored things in keeping with his design – not just in the kitchen, but elsewhere, too.’

‘Did you remove that pony wall in the master bathroom? I can’t believe the architect ever intended it to be there.’

Stacey laughs. ‘We did, yes. You seem to know the house awfully well, Mrs—?’

‘Millie Downton,’ the woman says, extending her hand. ‘And this is my husband, Tom.’

Stacey barely gives the man a second glance. ‘Downton?’ she repeats. ‘Oh, as in—’

‘Please don’t,’ Millie says. ‘I nearly reverted to my maiden name when that programme came out.’

Stacey laughs again. She finds herself wanting to know more about Millie Downton: she’s smart and funny, and clearly far more interested in the house than she is in Stacey, which makes a refreshing change.