The New Neighbours (50 page)

“Mum, I came to you for help,” Jill said angrily, “if you're just going to moralise at me, I might as well go home.”

“I'm not moralising,” Nancy said, “at least that's not the point of what I am saying. What I'm saying is, that if you want things to work out for you and Anthony and the children now, then you have to face up to what you've done. I'm not saying it was all your fault that things were going wrong, I'm sure it wasn't, but you have to take the blame for having the affair.” She looked across at her daughter, longing to take her in her arms and cradle her and comfort her as she had as a child, but Jill was sitting stony-faced, stiff as a ramrod in her chair, and Nancy knew she would be rebuffed.

There was a long silence and then Nancy asked quietly, “If Anthony will have you, do you want to go back and try again?”

Jill nodded wordlessly.

Her mother smiled. “Good,” she said. “Then we must work towards that. Let's sleep on it and see what we think we should do in the morning.”

Amazingly, Jill did sleep. Perhaps it was getting everything off her chest to her mother, but she felt more at peace now, less hopeless about the future, and more sure in her own mind as to what she wanted. As she drifted off to sleep, she was writing a letter to Anthony in her head, asking him if they could try again to make their marriage work.

Over the next few days she became more certain in her own mind that she wanted to save her marriage. When she thought about Ben, and he often entered her mind unbidden, the whole affair had a strange unreality about it, almost as if it had happened to someone else, but having faced up to it as her mother had said she must, she now felt deeply and desperately ashamed. She thought hard about what she could offer Anthony, about what he might want from her and what she wanted from him. If they were starting again, she felt the ground rules should be clear, though she was not at all sure she was the one who should be setting them.

Anthony had called on the Monday evening to tell her where he'd be staying in case of emergencies. In the course of their short conversation he told her that Madge Peters had been found dead in her chair on Sunday and that the funeral was on Friday, but apart from that and telling her that he'd see her on Friday when he got home, they had no other conversation, and his voice was cold and hard. Jill decided that it would be best to write him a letter, and send it to his hotel, so that he could read it before they met on Friday evening.

“It'll be easier to say everything I want to,” she explained to Nancy, “I won't get side-tracked and I can chose my words carefully so I really say what I mean to say.”

“It's up to you,” Nancy said, “but keep it simple, don't make it too long and involved.”

“I'll show it to you before I send it,” suggested Jill.

“No,” Nancy said, “I don't want to see it. It must be entirely private between you and Anthony.”

So Jill wrote a simple letter, saying she was sorry for hurting him, and that she wanted to give their marriage another try, if he was willing to forgive her. “I know you'll find it hard to believe,” she wrote, “but I never stopped loving you. I was stupid and selfish and allowed myself to get involved with Ben. I never loved him, but I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse. I shall be coming home in time for Madge's funeral on Friday afternoon. Please can we talk this weekend, properly?” She didn't quite know how to sign off, so she simply settled for her name.

When the letter was sent she tried to put it out of her mind, and enjoy the time with her mother and the children. She did some school work with Sylvia every day, which they both enjoyed, and they all fed the geese and went to the leisure centre to swim and generally behaved as if it were the school holidays. There was no Isabelle to make the children's tea, or put them to bed, and Nancy left all that to Jill. She had always thought that part of Jill's problem was having too much time on her hands, and if she wasn't going to have a job, she could at least look after the two children more. Jill found that she did indeed enjoy looking after them herself, and wondered what Anthony would say if she suggested that they didn't need Isabelle. By the end of the week, they were all ready to go home, and Nancy was ready to see them go. She'd enjoyed having them, but she did find the children a bit tiring, and she felt there was nothing more she could say to help Jill, from now on it was up to her.

Sylvia and Thomas were ready for bed when Anthony came in on Friday evening. They flung themselves at him, telling him, both at once, about the geese and the swimming and helping Granny make chocolate cakes, their voices high and excited, as they told him their news. Jill waited in the background as the children greeted their father, watching their delight at having him home in time to read them their story, and his pleasure at being able to do it. Whatever happens, she thought we must hang on to this.

She was dreading being left alone with him. He had hardly spoken to her when he'd come in, just asking casually, “Did you get back in time for Madge's funeral?” and when she said yes he simply nodded and went upstairs with Sylvia and Tom. What would he say when the children were tucked up in bed and how would she answer?

She had dressed with care, having a shower herself while the children splashed happily in the bath, and re-done her face. The dinner was ready in the oven, and she'd opened a bottle of wine. Isabelle had been given another night off, so that they would not be interrupted and any time now she and Anthony would have to face each other.

When Anthony came down from reading the story, he had changed in jeans and sweater, and looked much younger than in his business suit, but still tired and drawn. Jill had poured him a drink, and then escaped upstairs herself to kiss the children goodnight.

At last, there could be no further procrastination. Taking a deep breath, Jill went down to the living room where Anthony was reading the paper by the fire. He looked up when she came in, watching her as she picked up her own drink, but saying nothing.

“Did you have a successful week?” she asked at last.

“Yes, not bad,” Anthony replied. “How was your mother?”

“She was fine. She was great with the children, and they love doing things with her.”

“Good.” His eyes dropped to his paper again, and silence lapsed round them again, an awkward silence that Jill felt she must break. It was time to take the plunge.

“Did you,” her voice came out as a croak and she cleared her throat, “did you get my letter?”

Anthony looked up again. “Yes,” he said, “I got it.”

“And…?”

“And we'll talk things through over the weekend.”

“Couldn't we begin now?” asked Jill.

Anthony set the paper aside. “If you want to,” he said, and then waited. His face was cold and bleak, and he gave her no hint of what he was thinking, no help in starting to say what she needed to say.

“Anthony,” Jill began, “I don't know what to say. Can you forgive me for what I did?”

“I don't know,” he said. “I can try, but I don't know.”

Jill stared at him. “So what are we going to do?”

“I don't know that either, not in the long term.” He sighed. “I suppose we'll just keep going as we are for now and see how things are.”

“But if we're going to try again…?” began Jill.

“But are we? I'm not sure I can put things behind me as easily as you seem to be able to. We can't put the clock back, and things will never be the same.”

“I know that,” Jill agreed, “things will be different, but they may end up better. If you still love me…”

“If I still love you? I don't know that either. Maybe that's changed.”

Jill looked at him helplessly. “So what are we going to do?” she asked again. “What about the children?”

“It's for them that we must keep going,” he said, “and see what can be salvaged, but I can't see far into the future. I don't know if we have one together or not.”

Jill's eyes were filled with tears, and on a sob cried, “Anthony, I'm so sorry.”

“Yes,” he said, “so am I.”

They had an almost silent dinner and then Anthony said he had some work to do and would be in his study. “I've taken the folding bed from underneath Isabelle's, and put it up down there,” he said. “So I shan't trouble you upstairs.”

“But Anthony…”Jill protested.

“I'm sorry, Jill, but I'm not ready to share a bed with you at present.”

“And will you ever be?” Jill whispered.

Anthony's eyes were as sad as her own. “I don't know,” he said.

Oliver Hooper had a problem. Indeed, he had several, but the one that concerned him most was news he'd heard from his father. The Smarts were due home for Christmas, and this meant that he must clear out everything he'd been storing in their shed before they arrived. He had tried to find out the exact day when they would be returning, but Steve Hooper didn't know.

“A couple of weeks before Christmas, I think,” he said. “Why?”

Oliver shrugged. “Just wondered,” he replied casually. “They've been away a long time, haven't they?”

“They've been visiting their daughter in Australia,” Steve said. “If you're going that far and can take the time, it makes sense to stay for a good while. Anyway, Mike Callow's heard from them to say they'll be back for Christmas.”

Oliver warned Scott that they had to clear everything out at once.

“You'll have to take all I've got,” he said.

Scott agreed. “Pity,” he remarked, “it was a good scam, right?”

“It's not going to end,” Oliver assured him with more confidence than he felt. “I'll get another place sorted.” He was determined not to let his source of extra income dry up and having given it some concentrated thought, he came up with a plan that he thought would work. There was, perhaps, more risk attached to it, but there was no reason why, with a little care things shouldn't go on as before.

Oliver's bedroom was on the ground floor. His father, security conscious as always, had long ago decided not to make his home office in the room that had been designed as a study. Being on the ground floor, he thought, it was too easy for thieves to look through the windows and see what computers and other office hardware were on offer. With the house unoccupied during the day, it would be simple enough for them to remove everything of value. So he used one of bedrooms at the top of the house to work in and had made the study into a bedroom for Oliver. This actually suited Oliver very well. Beside his bedroom was the door into the garden. He'd had a second key cut and could now come and go, unobserved, at will. Once he was in the back garden it was quite easy to swing up over the fence into the car park of the office block that backed on to the houses on that side of the Circle. At night the offices would be deserted, and the car park empty. Provided he could store the stuff in his room, it would be easy enough to pass it over the fence, under cover of darkness, to Scott waiting with his van in the car park. The risk was in the hiding of the stuff in his room. Although none of the items was large, there was nowhere much to hide it where Annie wouldn't find it.

When Oliver first moved into the house permanently, the ground rules had been laid down. He was to make his own bed and keep his room tidy, and Annie would make sure it was properly cleaned once a week. However, he seldom bothered to make his bed, or took any trouble to keep the place tidy, and recently Annie had been complaining about the state of the room and refusing to go into it until he tidied it up. This suited his plans very well, so he didn't touch the dirty clothes heaped on the floor, or pick up magazines and school work dumped on the desk. At last, she refused to clean the room and in this decision she was backed by his father.

“If you can't take a few moments to clear up your room, Oliver,” he said in exasperation, “Annie's certainly not going to do it for you.”

“I don't want her to,” Oliver snapped back. “I don't want her poking her nose into my things! I like my room the way it is!”

“Well, if you want to live in a pigsty…”

Oliver had his victory, but even so he didn't trust Annie not to go into his room when he wasn't there and poke around. Then he saw his big empty suitcase on the top of the wardrobe. She'd hardly be likely to look in there, he thought, and anyway it had a key, so he could keep it locked. Until he could find somewhere better to stash his stuff, he decided, that would have to do

Scott arranged to come round and clear the shed on Saturday night. He normally took the stuff on a Friday or Saturday ready to offload at Sunday boot sales.

“Better be late,” he said. “Too many people about early Saturday evenings. I'll come round after the pubs chuck out.”

Oliver didn't care how late Scott came. As far as he was concerned, it was easier to go to bed and then go out through the garden door. That way there were no awkward questions as to where he was going. At midnight, when the house was dark and settled for the night, he slipped out into the garden, carefully locking the door behind him. In a moment he was over the fence into the car park and round the road to the track behind the houses opposite. Scott's van wasn't there yet, so he climbed over the fence and made for the shed. He could hear music coming from somewhere and for an awful moment he thought there was someone in the house. Then he realised it was coming from much further away, from the front of the house, loud reggae music, and he guessed that the students must be having a party. That'll shake up old Ma Colby, he thought with a grin.

He crept into the shed and by the light of his torch began to pack the last of his stash into black bin bags. He wasn't worried that the torchlight would be seen, as he knew that Mike Callow wasn't at home. He'd met him a couple of days earlier and asked if Peter would be about this weekend.