The Family Upstairs

“‘Yes,’ my sister replied brightly, because although she was only a year and a half younger than me she was too young to understand that not everyone thought sleeping in secret rooms at the top of secret staircases was an adventure, that some people might think they deserved proper big bedrooms and would be offended.” 

When Birdie and Justin first move into the Chelsea mansion, the Lamb family puts them in the smaller bedrooms upstairs. Henry notes Birdie and Justin’s negative reactions, and suspects that they are offended at being put in the upstairs bedrooms. This is a moment of foreshadowing, since Birdie, along with David, feel entitled to the Lamb family’s belongings and will end up taking over the entire house.

“She finds it hard to locate the overlap, the point at which one becomes the other. When her adoptive mother first held her in her arms, she imagines. But she wasn’t sentient then. She wasn’t aware of the transition from Serenity to Libby, the silent twisting and untwisting of the filament of her identity.” 

After discovering that her birth name is Serenity Lamb, Libby tries to make sense of the two parts of her identity: her adoptive name, and the biological family into which she was born. Libby will continue to unravel the story behind her biological family and will learn new things about herself along the way.

“I was so electrified by my proximity to him, my nerve endings so raw, my body so primed and aching for something that I was too young to even begin to understand, that I had no choice but to turn my back to him.” 

When Henry meets Phin, he feels immediately attracted to him. This is an important moment because Henry is learning about his own sexuality, as well as developing an obsession with Phin that will follow Henry his entire life.

“I saw all this, I saw all this, and I knew already on some subliminal but incredibly uncomfortable level that a power struggle had started under my very nose and that even then, at moment zero, my father was already losing.” 

When David first moves into the Chelsea mansion, Henry can already tell that the power dynamic in the house is shifting. Ultimately, Henry’s dad will become very weak, opening the door for David to take control of the house and of the Lamb family’s entire lives.

“That’s what old houses do when they get too hot, or too cold. They complain. That’s what you heard the other day. The house complaining.” 

Here, Miller Roe assures Libby that the noise she heard upstairs in the house had simply been the house creaking. However, this line can also be read as a reference to the house’s dark and painful past.

“But I certainly felt something like dread pass through me at the sight of David and Birdie coming together, an innate sense that they might bring things out of each other that were better left buried away.” 

David and Birdie begin a romantic relationship. Witnessing this, Henry knows that their relationship could cause more shifts in the power dynamics in the house. Here, Henry predicts that the family’s situation will become much worse now that David and Birdie are romantically involved.

“My father’s going to take everything you own and then break your life. It’s the least I can bloody do.” 

Here, Phin warns Henry that his father, David, is going to ruin the Lamb family’s lives. As David’s son, Phin is familiar with David’s ability to manipulate other people. This is an important moment of foreshadowing, because David will go on to steal the Lamb family’s belongings, implement harsh rules, and control the lives of the inhabitants of the house.

“‘June the nineteenth.’ A chill goes through her as she says the date. How does anyone know? Maybe it was just made up. By social services? By her adoptive mother? She feels her grasp on the certainty of herself start to slip and slide.” 

As Libby learns more about her biological family, she realizes how little she knows about her own story. Libby will later discover that the date she believed was her birthday is really off by five days. Throughout this novel, Libby will learn more about her true identity, and her past in the process.

“She pulls her phone from her bag with shaking fingers, switches it on, and is about to press the first digit when she realizes this: she may well be believed, but she will not be released. She will have to stay in France, answer questions; she will have to reveal that she is here illegally, that she does not exist, and her children will be taken away from her and everything, absolutely everything will unravel, horribly, quickly, nightmarishly.” 

Lucy is about to call the authorities to report Michael’s death when she realizes this will cause the police to ask her questions and discover that she is living in France illegally. This realization causes Lucy to hide Michael’s body. This moment shows the lengths to which Lucy will go to protect herself and her children.

“Looking back on it now, I can see that it was the same sort of terrible self-deception that played a part in the way everyone felt about David Thomsen. People could look and see just a man, but in the same glance, the answer to all their problems.” 

Here, Henry realizes how David was able to take control of Henry’s house and influence the members of his family. David is a manipulative and charismatic person, who is able to convince Martina, Birdie, and others that his presence in their lives is a good thing. This element of David’s personality is what allowed him to have such a strong hold on the Lamb family.

“Since we already spent most of our free time in our rooms, this didn’t at first feel quite as sinister as it looks written down like this. It’s very strange, looking back, how accepting children can be of the oddest scenarios. But still, seeing it now, in black and white, it really is quite shocking.” 

This quote is significant because it points out the nature of trauma. When Henry and the other children were locked in their rooms, they were so used to being abused by David that this moment didn’t shock them so much. But, thinking back to this time as an adult, Henry realizes the horrifying reality of the situation.

“It was winter when she left England and in her mind it is always cold there, the trees are always bare, the people always wrapped up against inclement weather. But England is in the grip of a long hot summer and the streets are full of tanned, happy people in shorts and sunglasses, the pavements are covered in tables, there are fountains full of children and deck chairs outside shops.” 

When Lucy returns to England as an adult, she is surprised that the country is different than how she remembered it. This moment is symbolic of how things aren’t always the way you remember them or expect them to be.

“‘Before he came, I could not see the point of living each day. But now I wake up each morning and I feel happy about my existence. About myself. I am not taking from the planet. I am not plundering the earth. I am not contributing to global warming. My children are not going to end up sitting behind glass-topped desks taking money from the poor. I just wish,’ she said, ‘that David had come into our lives many years before.’” 

Martina explains to Sally why she is so grateful for David’s presence in her life. This moment is significant because it shows how David brainwashed Martina—Martina believes that David’s way of living is better for herself and for the planet, even though David is only saying these things to manipulate and control Martina. This demonstrates David’s charisma and harmful influence over others.

“And all the time the truth jangled at her nerves, squeezed at her stomach muscles, played drums on her heart, taunted her in her dreams, sickened her when she awoke, and kept her from sleeping when she closed her eyes at night.” 

Even as an adult, Lucy is never able to escape the trauma she endured as a child. This quote demonstrates the long-term effects of trauma, which can include trouble sleeping, sickness, and heart palpitations. This description demonstrates just how much Lucy’s childhood continues to affect her as an adult.

“But that was the problem. Because there was no normal. My father’s life was not normal. Our existence was not normal. The baby had gone, but I still didn’t have any shoes. The baby had gone but my father still sat in a chair all day staring at the wall. The baby had gone but there was no school, no holiday, no friends, no outside world. The baby was gone, but David Thomsen was still here.”

When Martina becomes pregnant with David’s child, Henry tries to feed her herbs that will end the pregnancy. After Martina loses the baby, however, Henry realizes David’s hold on his family is so strong that this is not enough to send David away. Here, Henry realizes just how far his family has deviated from normal life. Soon after, Henry begins to plan his escape from the house.

“Libby gazes at him for a split second. She realizes that he doesn’t see life the way she sees it. He’s prepared to be wrong; he doesn’t always need to know what’s going to happen next. The thought of living life as Miller lives his life is strangely appealing to her.” 

Libby is someone who likes to plan out her life and stay organized. However, the more time she spends with Miller Roe, the more Libby realizes it’s okay to be spontaneous. This shows how Libby’s character changes over the course of the novel the more she learns about her background and her identity.

“And it was them; I knew it clearly. It was them, draining the house, like vampires, of all its decent energy, of all of its love and life and goodness, draining it all for themselves, feasting on our misery and our broken spirits.” 

After David and Birdie become involved romantically, Henry realizes how much they, together, are controlling the house. Henry notices how David and Birdie are thriving while the members of his family and the other children are suffering. This demonstrates David and Birdie’s control over the house and how much their control is harming the other inhabitants.

“It was a fork in the road, really. Looking back on it there were so many other ways to have got through the trauma of it all, but with all the people I loved most in the world facing away from me I chose the worst possible option.” 

At this moment in the novel, Henry has begun seriously planning how he and the other children will escape from the house. Henry will ultimately poison the adults by accident. This moment raises an interesting question, because on one hand, Henry’s plan leads to dangerous and deadly outcomes. On the other hand, the children had endured so much trauma at this point that Henry was determined to escape by any means necessary.

“He poisoned her. Cut off her tail. Threw the rest of her body into the river. So the signs were there all along. It’s a terrible thing to say about a child, it really is, but in my opinion Henry had a streak of pure evil.”

Clemency describes Henry’s character to Libby, accusing Henry of killing Birdie’s cat and pushing Phin into the river when they were children. This moment reveals that Henry’s character may have a dark side, and also suggests that Henry is an unreliable narrator. Though Henry later claims he didn’t intentionally kill Birdie’s cat, there are other clues that indicate Henry is a liar. This moment helps explain how Henry’s actions may have intentionally contributed to the deaths of the four adults at the Chelsea house.

“And so everything changed again: the lines between the thems and the usses shifted a few degrees and my sister was once more one of us, and it was this final act of cruelty that brought us back together.” 

After Lucy gives birth to her baby, David and Birdie take the baby and forbid Lucy from seeing her. This causes Lucy to lose trust in David and seek support from her brother, Henry, and the other children once again. David’s cruelty, along with the children’s loyalty to one another, allow the children to finally plan their escape.

“But what nobody seems to realize is that without me, Christ almighty, we might all still be there, middle-aged skeletons, having missed out on our entire lives. Or dead. Yes, let’s not forget we could all be dead. And yes, absolutely, things did not go exactly according to plan, but we got out of there. We got out of there. And nobody else had a plan, did they? Nobody else was prepared to step up to the line. It’s easy to criticize. It’s not easy to take control.” 

After it is revealed that Henry’s herbal concoction led to the deaths of the senior Henry Lamb, Martina, and David, Henry justifies his actions, explaining that this move ultimately enabled the children to escape the house. It is unclear whether or not Henry intentionally poisoned the adults, but Henry explains that if it had not been for him, the children may have never escaped.

“When I got my first smartphone a few years ago, the first thing I did was put a reminder into the calendar, so I wouldn’t forget. And every minute of every day since then I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve been waiting to come back.” 

Lucy assures Libby that she never forgot about her and she never meant to abandon her forever. This moment shows just how important Lucy’s children are to Lucy, including Libby. Now reconnected, Lucy and Libby will go on to forge a strong and loving relationship.

“It’s not just the money. It’s not just the money at all. It’s the people whom she now belongs to, the family who’ve encircled her so completely.” 

By the end of the novel, Libby becomes close to Lucy, Marco, Stella, and Henry. Libby never expected the Chelsea house to bring new family members into her life, but Libby now has a tight-knit family around whom she can feel loved and be herself.