The Family Upstairs: A Novel

Sixteen Cheyne Walk, SW3.

They’ve left me the house.’

To Miss Libby Louise Jones

As trustee of the Henry and Martina Lamb Trust created on 12 July 1977, I propose to make the distribution from it to you described in the attached schedule …

I was nearly eleven when they came, and my sister was nine.

They lived with us for more than five years and they turned everything very, very dark. My sister and I had to learn how to survive.

And when I was sixteen, and my sister was fourteen, the baby came.

‘All men are weak,’ said Phin. ‘That’s the whole bloody trouble with the world. Too weak to love properly. Too weak to be wrong.’

My dad is weak,’ I replied, knowing with a burning clarity that this was true.

‘All men are weak,’ said Phin. ‘That’s the whole bloody trouble with the world. Too weak to love properly. Too weak to be wrong.’

My breath caught at the power of this statement. I immediately knew it to be the truest thing I’d ever heard. The weakness of men lay at the root of every bad thing that had ever happened.