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. I’m convinced of it. But what? What could that something be?
    I climb out of bed and pull on my dressing gown, wondering what time I finally fell asleep. I remember hearing distant church bells at four A . M ., so it must have been after that. And now it’s six thirty, and I could sleep for nine hours straight, but I have to go and haul Ellen out of bed, which gets harder each school-day morning.
    Swallowing a yawn, I head downstairs, thinking about hot water with a slice of lemon and a spoonful of honey in it—my new morning drink now that I have given up coffee, the favored fuel of those with too much to do—and what to put in Ellen’s packed lunch. This will be the biggest decision I’ll make today: tuna mayonnaise or roast chicken and pesto? Once that’s sorted, I’ll have the whole day free to do what I want, and, as luck would have it, I don’t want to do anything.
    The best thing is that whatever choice I make about the sandwich, it won’t matter. Ellen won’t notice the difference; she eats everything. My decision will affect nothing, which makes me wonder if it counts as a decision at all. Probably not. I find this idea profoundly calming.
    I stop in the hall when I see, framed in the kitchen doorway, a cereal bowl on the table with a half-drunk glass of orange juice and a carton of milk next to it. Splashes of milk on the wood: Ellen’s trademark.
    Impossible . Ellen, awake and finished with breakfast by half past six?
    She’s curled up on the kitchen sofa, already in her school uniform, typing on her laptop. I walk into the room and she shifts her body around so that I can’t see the screen.
    This is unheard of. Normally I have to drag her out of bed at seven.
    “Story?” I ask.
    She nods from behind a curtain of hair. It’s not only her creative efforts she’s keen to conceal; she doesn’t want me to see her eyes, either.
    “You’ve been crying.”
    “No. I’m just tired. I woke up at five and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
    “Ellen, I’ve known you all your life. I know what tired looks like, and I know what recent weeping looks like.”
    I’ve asked myself more than once if Speedwell House might be the problem. Does Ellen feel lonely here? Is it too isolated, too grand to feel like a proper home? Alex laughed when I put this question to him, and said, “Never say that in front of anyone but me. It sounds like passive-aggressive boasting: ‘Oh, it’s such a nightmare—my new house is so intimidatingly stunning.’ ”
    But it is. I don’t mind being far away from other people—I love it, in fact; people are overrated—but I do sometimes feel as if I’m living inside a rare work of art and don’t belong here. I grew up in a redbrick government-owned semi in Manchester with mold on the walls. The house we sold in London was nothing special, though we loved it: it was exactly like every other house on our street—a two-up, two-down Victorian terrace with one bay window at the front.
    Is that why I had that strange fantasy about 8 Panama Row when I saw it: because it felt more familiar, looked more like the sort of house someone like me ought to live in?
    “Can I have the day off?” Ellen asks. “I don’t want to go to school. If I stay here, I can blitz my story and finish it by this evening. Look, I’m being honest—not faking illness, not saying I think I’m coming down with something.” She twists her mouth into an exaggerated smile. “If you want me to be happy and not cry, letting me miss school will do the trick.”
    “Why don’t you want to go to school? You’ve always wanted to before.”
    “I’m getting really into this.” She nods down at her computer. “I don’t want to have to stop. I don’t believe creative work should be interrupted for the sake of an oppressive work regime that dictates I have to do this kind of work, at this time, in this place.”
    So this is how she plans to block me in future: with a rat-a-tat-tat of impressive words,