**The Flat, or A Family’s Tale**
Emily trudged home from school, her mind racing—how could she keep her mother from finding out about the failing grade? If only Mum weren’t home. Then she could just hide the report card and claim she’d left it at school. But what about tomorrow? She couldn’t “forget” it every day. Eventually, Mum would find out.
*Hide it today, fix the grade tomorrow. Then she won’t be too cross,* Emily decided, quickening her pace.
Mum reminded her daily: study hard. First, to honour the family name—her father had been a professor. Second, to keep her mind sharp. Some illnesses ran in the family. Her grandmother had died of Alzheimer’s when Emily was just two.
She crept into the flat, careful not to slam the door. Mum’s coat hung on the rack—she was home. Emily tiptoed to her room, shoved the report card under her pillow, and exhaled. Changed, then straight to her homework. She even read the history chapter twice. Still, Mum didn’t come in. Unusual.
Emily cracked the door, listening. Silence. Was Mum ill? Naping? Their flat was grand—high ceilings, wide windows, right in the city centre. The furniture was heavy, antique, dark. The hallway, lined with wardrobes, felt endless and shadowed.
Then the grandfather clock in the parlour struck. Emily nearly jumped. She steadied herself—just the clock. She padded down the hall, peeking into the kitchen. Mum sat slumped at the table, head in her hands.
“Mum?” Emily touched her shoulder.
Mum lifted her face, eyes red.
“Dad’s gone. Right in the middle of his lecture…” Her voice was hollow. She pulled Emily close, sobbing into her shoulder. Emily held tight—then broke down too.
The next day, she skipped school. No time for grades. They went to the hospital, then the morgue, where Mum brought Dad’s best suit and nearly new shoes.
The funeral was crowded—university colleagues, students. Emily barely recognised him. In the coffin lay a stranger. But Mum wept over him, whispering, *How will we manage without you? Why did you leave us?*
After, Mum barely moved from bed, crying, refusing food. Emily boiled pasta or ate frozen pies. When those ran out, she asked for pocket money.
“Take it,” Mum said, not even asking why.
She bought sausages, a loaf, two packets of pasta.
One day, she came home to Mum stirring soup on the stove. Emily’s heart leapt.
“How’s school? What’ve you been eating?” Mum asked. Emily told her. “Forgive me. I forgot about you. It’s all right. Tomorrow, I’ll go to Dad’s department—ask for work. They won’t refuse me, will they? We must carry on.”
Mum was gaunt, pale—nothing like when Dad was alive. But she wasn’t crying. That was something.
The new department head, Dad’s former student, hired Mum as a lab assistant. She had some university education, not enough to teach. The pay was meagre, so they offered her cleaning shifts in the evenings. She agreed but scrubbed floors only after the lecturers left.
“A professor’s wife, mopping,” Mum sighed. Emily often helped.
Money stayed tight. Mum sold her jewellery to colleagues—cheap, just to scrape by. Soon, even that was gone.
A neighbour offered to buy some furniture. Mum refused.
“A flat without its things—it wouldn’t be the same.”
“Suit yourself. But if you change your mind, my offer won’t stand.” The neighbour left in a huff.
Emily asked why Mum prized the furniture but sold her gold.
“You’re too young to understand. These pieces are museum-worthy. Even in the war, they weren’t sold.”
Then Mum told her how they’d come to live here.
She’d arrived from a tiny village to study, boarding in dorms. Dad was a lecturer, older—she’d fallen for him. They hid their affair. When she fell pregnant, he brought her home.
They married, though Dad’s mother disapproved, sneering that Mum wasn’t good enough.
“I nearly left. But Dad stood by me—argued with his mother. Then you were born. She quieted. One day, she went shopping… never came back. Dad searched everywhere. A neighbour found her at the station—she’d forgotten they’d sold the country house after Grandad died.”
“She’d leave the gas on, the taps running. I had to watch her every second—and you, just a baby. Two years of it. By the end, she didn’t know any of us…”
When she died, Mum turned her room into Dad’s study. He worked tirelessly, publishing papers.
“You remember how kind he was? I loved him. Even when it got hard. The professorship—it drained him. And I was still young…”
He’d started forgetting things, like his mother. Mid-lecture, he’d blank on terms. Terrified of forced retirement. Then—his heart gave out.
Emily was in Year Eleven when Mum brought Victor home.
“Is he *living* with us?” she scowled.
“He doesn’t drink, earns well. It’ll be easier. No more cleaning.”
Emily avoided him, even eating alone. Mum said he’d divorced, left his flat to his ex and daughter.
Once, Emily caught him stroking the furniture. She hinted—*He’s after the flat, the antiques.* But Mum brushed it off, rambling about loneliness, love… Victor was younger than Dad, even younger than Mum.
For months, it was fine. Mum smiled again, dressed well. Then she caught a cold. A cough lingered, worsened. Emily begged her to see a doctor.
“I did. They gave me pills. No fever. It’ll pass.”
But she worsened—thin, coughing violently. They hospitalised her.
Victor made broths, told Emily to deliver them. She did. The treatments failed. Mum faded. The doctors were baffled.
One morning, the phone rang. Victor answered. Emily eavesdropped.
“I’ll come now.”
“Who was that?” she asked.
He spun around—calm, almost smug.
“The hospital. Your mum… she’s took a turn.”
“I’m coming.”
At the hospital: *Heart attack overnight. The nurse slept through her call. We couldn’t save her.*
Victor wept drunkenly at home. “Just us now, eh? Poor Vera, why’d you leave us?”
Emily cried into her pillow.
At the funeral, just a few colleagues and the pushy neighbour mourned. All pitied Victor, Emily.
Two days later, she overheard him on the phone:
“Patience. Too soon—they’ll suspect.”
He turned, catching her stare. Hung up.
“Who called? Suspect *what*?”
“Loan sharks. I borrowed for Vera’s treatment. They want the debt paid—say to sell the furniture. I told them not yet, too soon after the funeral. Don’t worry, I’ll sort it.”
He sounded sincere. She almost believed him.
They lived like strangers. He drank more, sometimes barging in to ramble:
“You hate me, don’t you? Professor’s daughter. But your mum loved me. We’re family now.”
“You *have* a daughter.”
“Don’t speak to her. Ah, you wouldn’t understand.”
Autumn became winter. Emily fell ill—the same cough. Hot honeyed milk, pills—nothing helped.
“See a doctor,” Victor said. “I’ll make you a cordial.”
She studied at her desk. Later, the cordial sat on the kitchen table—the same jar she’d taken to Mum. She poured it down the sink.
A gnawing thought took root.
The doctors found nothing, just like with Mum. Weak, feverish, she staggered to the police.
The officer scoffed. “Hospital’s that way, love.”
Outside, she wept on a bench. A young constable, Nick, listened.
“Tomorrow, when he’s out—call me. We’ll look for evidence. Until then, don’t eat or drink at home. Buy bottled water. Act nauseous—sell it. Can you?”
She nodded.
Next morning, after Victor left, Nick searched cupboards, bins.
“Who takes out the rubbish?”
“Victor.”
He upended the bin. “Here.” An empty vial.
“Who’s been injected here?”
“No one.”
“I’ll test it. Eat *nothing* here.”
That night, she feigned sleep. Victor loomed over her bed, then left. She heard him phone:
“Soon… it’ll be over.”
Her heart hammered.
Twenty minutes later—a knock. Victor shouted:
“What warrant? I’m on the lease!”
Nick’s voice: “You’re under arrest for the murder of Vera Dobson. AndVictor lunged at Nick, but the officers restrained him, and as they dragged him away, Emily—now free from the shadow of his poison—took a deep breath, knowing she would finally reclaim her life.
