The Good Neighbour (2 page)

‘Old-school types, huh?’

‘Totally. They behaved as if Abe was some kind of antisocial yob, just because he’s got long hair. I’m sure they used to spy on us out of your funny round window, when we were in the front garden. We drank champagne, well Prosecco, when we heard they were moving out.’

‘I hope you won’t feel the same way about us.’

‘Definitely not. I’m so glad you’re here.’ Minette raised her mug and chinked it against Cath’s.

‘Our first day in our wonderful new house.’ Cath stretched her arms out wide. ‘We’re really glad to be here, too.’

Minette sang as she cut up carrots for a chicken cassoulet. Thank you, thank you, she prayed; to who, she didn’t know. To the God of Good Things, perhaps. Everything was going to be all right.

‘Minette is a glass-half-full type,’ one of her school reports had said, and she liked that view of herself. She did try to look on the bright side of things, though someone narky, Minette thought, might point out that it should be easy for her, given she’d led a fairly charmed life, had experienced few sorrows in her twenty-eight years. But then again, she said to the narky voice, things hadn’t been so smooth since having a baby. Not that there was anything wrong with Tilly, god no! She was perfect. Minette knew how lucky she was. She gave Tilly a big kiss as she put a bowl of raw vegetables in front of her. ‘Crudités, Tilly. Can you say “crudités”?’

Yes, completely lucky. Think about all the things that could go wrong, that did go wrong every day. You didn’t have to look any further than the new kid next door, in a wheelchair. Poor him, and poor his mum. But it was – fingers crossed – such a good lucky thing for her that someone like that had moved in.

By the time Abe got back from work, Minette had the radio on and was luxuriating in the noise.

‘Hi honey, I’m home,’ Abe called as usual. He kissed Tilly, but didn’t, Minette noticed, attempt to kiss her. ‘Isn’t that a bit loud?’ Then he remembered. ‘They’re gone!’

‘Yes! They’ve bloody well gone, and the new woman is lovely. She’s a bit older than us, late thirties, maybe forty? Two kids. Really friendly.’

‘That’s brilliant. Bon fucking voyage, Miltons. Hey, I brought you a no-more-House-of-Horror present to celebrate, look.’ He held up a stack of wooden picture frames, cobwebbed and dirty, doubtless from a skip. ‘Can you believe the stuff people chuck out, Dougie? They’ll scrub up nicely, be perfect for those black-and-white photos Dad took of Tilly.’

His enthusiasm was contagious, so that even though Minette knew who’d be doing the scrubbing up, she smiled and took them from him carefully. Since having Tilly her life was made up of such compromises: dirty frames as a gift, curry in front of the telly instead of going out, smiles instead of kisses. Hand-holding rather than sex. Minette hadn’t noticed the lack of sex at first, because it had been the last thing on her mind. Like every new mum before her, she’d laughed mirthlessly when the solemn young midwife at the hospital questioned her about contraception, the day after Tilly was born. ‘If you think I’m doing that again …’ Minette had deadpanned, and the midwife smiled wearily, having heard it many times before.

But Tilly was nearly nine months old now, and they still hadn’t done it, or even mentioned it. Minette suspected it was the noise factor: Abe, always quite shy in the bedroom, had not wanted to give the Miltons something else, something more embarrassing, to bang on the wall about. So, Minette thought, ding-dong the witches are dead, lovely Cath is next door instead, and things will soon get better. She felt an anticipation that hadn’t been there for months. She turned up Radio 1 even louder, and clapped as Abe danced Tilly round the kitchen.

NO MATTER HOW
careful you were with the measuring tape, Cath told the kids, there was always something that didn’t fit. The removal men yesterday had tried, god love ’em, had took the living-room door off the hinges, but in the end they had to admit defeat. They’d took the sofa to the dump for her; there was no way as she could eBay it, because it didn’t have that fire label thing. It just meant sitting on deckchairs for a bit, till she got her act together.

This was a great house though. Hall plenty wide enough for the wheelchair – see, Davey, she could measure some things properly! And of course the Miltons had put in a disabled loo downstairs for his old mum. That was one of the attractions of the house: that and the two reception rooms. There was soon going to come a point, sad to say, when Davey would be too heavy a lump for her to carry upstairs. Then she could convert one of the downstairs rooms for him. At eight, he was still just about light enough, but the last couple of months she’d noticed a twinge in her back when she took him up to bed in the old house. But anyway, another massive advantage of the new house was that there were five less stairs. So chin up, Cathykins! Just because the sofa wouldn’t go in was small taters compared to the big pluses:

1. New house, new town, new start.
   
2. Gina just up the road.
   
3. Good school for Davey.
   
4. Away from all the bad stuff.
   

She didn’t even want to think of the name of their last town, so associated with bad feelings was it. Troubletown, that’s what she’d call it now. Where you come from? Troubletown, up north. Oh can’t say as how I’ve ever heard of Troubletown. No lovie, you don’t want to, believe me!

Like that pretty girl next door. Minette. French-sounding name, and French-looking too, with her dark hair and chic clothes, but English as you like. Not stuck-up, but nicely spoken. She was all, oh where you from, why’ve you moved here, but Cath was a life-long expert at asking questions rather than giving answers. ‘We was up north but what about you, how long you been here, what’s going on for kids, how old’s your baby, isn’t she sweet?’ The person you were talking to soon forgot you hadn’t answered them. Like when people asked – and a few of them had, the nosy whatsits, while they were staying at Gina’s – about the children’s father. Cath had rapped back, ‘He’s working abroad. So what about you, what does your husband do?’ Cath laughed her throaty laugh, thinking of the embarrassment this had produced (‘Oh god something in computing, I suppose I should know, shouldn’t I?’ or ‘Um he, well, we’re separated’). She went into the living room, where Davey was setting up the telly. Lola was kneeling on the floor, passing him leads, following his instructions.

‘What’s funny, Mum?’ Davey asked.

‘I’m just happy to be here. Aren’t you? I slept so well last night.’ Cath sat down on a deckchair and sang, ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside, while the brass band plays tiddly-om-pom-pom!’

Lola sat on Cath’s lap, but Davey just gave her one of his funny looks.

‘What’s up with you? We
are
beside the seaside now.’

‘We haven’t seen it yet,’ Davey pointed out, ‘except in the car.’

‘Well, it’s there, all right. We’ll go look at it later, shall we?’

Both children nodded. Lola rubbed her head against Cath’s neck.

‘Fantastic. Hop off, Lolly. I just got to do something. I’ll come and help you with the telly in a sec.’

Cath went upstairs, marvelling all over again at the wide staircase, the three good-sized bedrooms leading off the hall. She paused at the little round window at the top of the stairs, which looked out onto Minette’s front garden. These funny old houses. They were semi-detatched, but the big bay windows, upstairs and down, meant that the right-hand side of the house – the left-hand side in Minette’s case – stuck out further than the centre. The round window was on the side of the bit which stuck out, but only on her house: Minette’s didn’t have one, so maybe a previous owner had bricked it over. A window like this would never get planning permission now. They’d say, rightly, that it was overlooking next door. From what Minette had said about the previous owners, they were quite keen on overlooking, and complaining too. Well, Minette would find her quite a different kind of neighbour.

Cath went into her bedroom, and smiled at herself in the mirror. A room of her own. No dirty work clothes chucked on the floor, no smells other than her own, nothing moved unless she moved it. There was a bolt on the inside, but she’d have to get a proper lock on the outside too, pretty sharpish. The kids were going to go mad, especially Davey, but she’d realised, soon as they got to Gina’s, that she couldn’t risk them going on the computer. Gina had put hers away while they were there and told Davey it was at the repair shop. She needed the computer herself, of course, for fundraising, so she’d have to keep it in here. As Davey got older this was going to be a massive headache. Computers were everywhere, smart phones, everything. School was going to be a big problem. Well, she’d have to explain some of their situation to the head teacher, was all.

The bed looked very inviting. Five minutes, all right, Cathykins? Just till she felt a little calmer. She lay on her back and sank into the pillows, focused on soothing the tension in her arms. Lying in bed in the day always made her think of being off school, her mum coming up with soup, or to put a cool flannel on her forehead. It was such a safe feeling. Cath snuggled under the covers, and tried to hold onto the safeness, to stop worrying about everything. She consciously stopped herself thinking about Davey and computers. She’d go mad if she thought about everything she had to sort out, all at once. There was so much of it, and she was so tired. Lousy night last night, no point telling the kids that, though. She’d hoped it would be better now they were here in their own place, far away from Troubletown, but it was obviously going to take a bit of time. It had only been one night, after all.

She’d always fall asleep fine, but an hour later she’d be awake, heart racing, convinced something had happened to the children. She’d hurtle out of bed, go into each of their rooms, shine a torch on their faces, check they were breathing. Only when she’d done that could she get back into bed. Then she’d be asleep, awake, asleep, for the rest of the night. Sometimes she’d have to check them again; other times she’d manage to get into a deeper sleep, but then she might have one of her stressy, argumentative dreams.

Her dream this morning had woken her at five-thirty, shaken her so much she’d got up and gone downstairs to paint a couple of walls before the children stirred. Her dreams were frantic, her racing round, trying to do some unspecified thing. There was usually a chase in which she had to cross a road that became sticky trapping mud. Other times there was an old-fashioned phone where she kept dialling the wrong number.

Andy had been sympathetic about her nightmares. He was lucky, he always knew he was dreaming, and when things got frightening his conscious self could tell his unconscious ‘it’s just a silly dream’. How she wished she could do that. But her dreams always seemed totally real and terrifying.

She remembered she hadn’t yet noted down the names she’d learned off Minette, and from Josie, the woman on her other side, who she’d met this morning. She sat up and grabbed a notepad and pen from the bedside table. Gina’s mum had taught her, years ago, that one way to feel more in control was to focus on one small, manageable task. On a separate page for each address, so there was space to add things when she got to know people better, she wrote:

29: Priya, Rashid, Amina, Nisha and Raka. Three generations. Priya’s sister = estate agent. Brother owns and lives over shop at end of the street.

30: Don’t know.

31: Minette, Abe and Tilly. Her = a bit strung out. Him = don’t know yet. Sweet baby.

32: Old woman, living alone.

34: Sixty-something couple. Smart red car.

35: Liam and Josie. Him = gorgeous and knows it. Her = slightly less so and knows it.

36: Kirsten. On her own. Husband left her last year. Skip outside. Post-divorce renovating. Cranial osteopath.

37: Greg and Steven. Gay?

38: Student house.

39: Don’t know.

40: House-share. All girls in their twenties, Josie thinks.

41: Martin, Sarah and Callum. She walks with a stick. Accident? Kid a teenager, Josie says a menace with his skateboard.

The other houses she could just put an invite through with the house number on the envelope. No need to get everyone’s names yet.

Cath surveyed her notes, frowning at her babyish handwriting. At school, boys and girls had been separated for writing lessons. Cath and all her mates had left primary with the same rounded writing, lots of loops. The boys all had nice spiky writing, straight lines, no messing. Only Gina had rebelled, had got Barry Etherington to teach her the boys’ version and practised over and over till she got it right. The teacher had whinged about it, called Gina a silly tomboy, but there was nothing the school could do. It was a good lesson, Cath thought, and she didn’t mean the one from school. If you really set your mind to something, what could anyone else do to stop you?

Cath locked the notepad in her bureau. She definitely felt calmer. She turned on her laptop and sent a quick email.

Dearest V

We are here! Safe. Gina was a star, did so much, helped me with all the paperwork. Couldn’t have done it without her. But must admit it is so nice to have our own space. Hoping for long-ish breathing space before we see you. Has Wade gone yet? Keep me posted.

R xx

She took a last look at the neat, silent room, and went back down. The television was working and the kids were watching a cartoon.

‘Well done, Davey. You’re a right little electrician. I’ve got a good feeling about this place, don’t you?’

‘Mmm.’

‘I’m going to sort out a party for the neighbours, really soon. Would you like that?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Yes Mum. Blimey, I’m talking to myself here.’ Cath laughed and ruffled his hair. ‘It’ll be a great chance to tell people about our fundraising and that.’

‘Can we have a biscuit?’ Lola asked.

‘What, them ones from her next door? They’ve all gone, Lolly. I’ll do some sandwiches. I’m just going to sit for a minute, I’m cream-crackered.’

‘Will Daddy be here soon?’ Lola asked.

Cath caught Davey’s expression, saw him shake his head at Lola. Cath frowned, not really meaning to, just thinking about what to say, and Lola’s face crumpled. Cath put her arm round Lola and held her close. She put her other arm round Davey but he leaned away so that she had to stretch awkwardly to reach him. ‘Ooh, you big lump,’ Cath said, ‘so stubborn. What’ll you be like when you’re a teenager? I tremble to think. I knew a kid like you, Davey, a little girl, in the hospital, very poorly she was, but stubborn? Jumping snakes! She was.’