The New Neighbours (60 page)

“It isn't that I can't forgive you,” he said huskily, “it's that I can't forget. I keep thinking of you and him together… imagining things he did to you, with you…” he choked on a sob.

Jill dropped his hand and very gently put her arms round him. “Anthony, darling, you must stop torturing yourself like that,” she pleaded. “With Ben I had sex, with you I make love. Remember on the hill in Ireland? That was us, you and me, making love. You being beside me when the children were born; the two of us sitting up with Sylvia when she was so ill as a baby. That was us. Ben was a fling, a moment's madness because I was bored, fed up and lonely, Ben is a thing of the past, the real thing now is us, you, me, Sylvia and Tom.

“So. I'm asking you, Anthony, please can you forgive me, so that I can come back to you?”

She still had her arms round him, but he stood stiff and straight.

“Don't you want me?” she whispered.

His arms closed convulsively around her and he spoke into her hair. “Of course I want you,” he groaned.

Still holding Jill's hand, Anthony had switched off the lights and led the way upstairs. In the bedroom he had taken her into his arms and kissed her, gently at first and then as he explored her mouth with mounting intensity. By the light of the bedside lamp, he had undressed her, kissing her body as it was slowly revealed, her neck, her breasts with their taut nipples, the smooth soft skin of her stomach, and she had returned his kisses, running her hands down the length of his back and round under his buttocks, stroking, smoothing, tickling with the tips of her fingers. He laid her on the bed and let his eyes rove over her body, quivering, expectant, waiting for him, as he pulled off his own clothes. Jill reached up to pull him down beside her. For a moment his body was against her, the length of their bodies burning together and then suddenly he rolled away and lay with his back to her, leaving her cold and exposed on her side of the bed. For a moment she did nothing, so abrupt was his departure, then she rolled over herself, so that her breasts brushed against his back and whispered softly, “Anthony?”

“I can't,” came his bleak reply. “I'm sorry, I can't.”

She raised herself up on her elbow and resting her chin on his shoulder, looked down at him and saw that indeed he couldn't. She slid her arm round his chest and nestled against his back, curving her body round his as they had always used to sleep.

“It doesn't matter,” she murmured into his ear. “It doesn't matter one little bit.” But it did, and they both knew it.

Neither of them had spoken again that night. Anthony had simply reached up and turned the light off. The movement had removed him from the circle of her arm. Jill didn't know if that were intentional or not, but when he lay back down he was no longer close against her, and the sudden chill round her body also crept into her mind.

In the morning, Anthony got up at the usual time. Jill had not slept well. For hours she had lain wide awake, her mind churning as she went over and over what had happened. She had finally gambled everything to bring Anthony back to her and she had lost. He had responded as best he could, he had told her he loved her and wanted her but when it came to the final moment, his own body had defied him, leaving them worse off than before.

She lay in the bed with her eyes shut and listened to him moving softly round the room, gathering his clothes and then going quietly into the bathroom. At some time, they had to face each other in the cold light of day, Jill decided, and she too got up. She followed him into the bathroom and had her shower while he shaved, as she always had done, then she went back to dress. He had not turned when she came in, but he had looked at her in the mirror and said, “Sorry, didn't mean to wake you. I've an early appointment this morning.”

They'd had breakfast and then he'd gone, and Jill was left wondering where they went from there. Neither of them had mentioned the previous evening, perhaps because neither knew what to say. Impotence wasn't something you could discuss across the breakfast cereal, and it was a relief to both of them when he got up to leave. When he'd gone, Jill took her second cup of coffee into the window and looked out across the Circle. She could hear Isabelle getting the children dressed upstairs, and knew that very soon she was going to have to be the usual, smiling Mummy.

It made her think of Nancy, and she suddenly knew then what she was going to do. She would go to Nancy and tell her about moving to London. She would ask her to have Isabelle and the children so that she could go with Anthony and look for somewhere to live.

“I'll take the children to school this morning, Isabelle,” she said when they came down. “I have to go and visit my mother, so I'll drive straight on. Perhaps you'd like the morning off and then pick Thomas up. I should be back in time to fetch Sylvia, but if not please collect her and give them their tea.”

It was a clear January morning, with a stiff breeze sending the clouds scudding across a slate grey sky, but shafts of sunlight struck an occasional clump of snowdrops in the more sheltered parts of the hedgerows, and she found her spirits lifting. By the time she reached Meadow Cottage, she discovered that the drive had been therapeutic and she could talk quite easily to Nancy.

“Anthony is going to work in the London office,” she told Nancy later, “we're moving to London.”

“Does that mean you've sorted things out?” Nancy asked.

Jill smiled. “I think so,” she said fairly untruthfully. “We're certainly going to give it another go. What I wondered, Mum, was whether you'd come and have the children again for a little while, so I can go up to London house-hunting. You'd have Isabelle too, so it shouldn't be too much for you.”

“Of course I will,” Nancy said, only too willing to help out if it meant that Jill and Anthony could start afresh, but she was surprised at the hug her daughter gave her. Jill had ceased to be demonstrative as far as she was concerned a long time ago. This hug had a sort of desperation to it, and even as she returned it, Nancy felt uneasy.

“Are you all right, really?” she asked anxiously?

Jill longed to tell her the truth of the matter, the real problem that now lay between her and Anthony, but she knew she could never disclose Anthony's humiliation even to her mother, so she gave her a reassuring smile and said, “Yes, fine. You know, Mum, I'm sure this will be the best thing for us, a new start in a new place.”

“I'm sure you're right too,” Nancy agreed, and set aside her own worry that Jill was trying to escape her problems by moving away from them. However, she was glad that they were going to work at their marriage. She was fond of her son-in-law and thought that Jill had behaved very badly.

“I'll look forward to coming,” she said as Jill got in the car to drive home. “Tell them that when I come I'll bring a chocolate cake.”

As the children ate their tea, Jill watched the removal van finally drive away from next door. Strange both families should be leaving Dartmouth Close so soon after each other, she thought. She remembered her conversation with Angela over their coffee before Christmas. Ian and Angela had rescued their marriage and were setting off to start again in a new place, surely she and Anthony could do the same thing.

When he came in that evening, Anthony greeted her with a light kiss on the lips, something he hadn't done since before Ben. Jill found that recently she judged things as “before Ben” or “since Ben”. Before Ben, Anthony would sit in the living room nursing his drink and telling her about his day; since Ben he had taken to carrying his drink upstairs while he changed out of his suit, and then sitting straight down to supper before disappearing into his study. What would he do tonight?

It turned out to be a mixture of both. He went upstairs to change and say goodnight to the children, and then he poured them each a drink and sat down in his own familiar chair and said, “They're very pleased that I'm taking the London job. If you want to come up and house hunt, they'll put us in a company flat. What do you say?”

Jill smiled at him. “I say brilliant,” she said. “I've already organised for Mum to come and look after the children with Isabelle for a couple of weeks, so I can come whenever you want me.”

That night they slept comfortably side by side, their bodies touching in tiny patches of heat, but with no move from either towards intimacy. Both of them knew that there was too much at stake to hurry anything now. It would take time, but, with luck, time was the one thing of which they had plenty, patience and love might accomplish the rest.

Oliver Hooper came home from school with his usual homework to do, but he had little intention of doing it. Tomorrow he would be in the youth court again, and not going to school, in which case slaving over a history essay he wouldn't be there to give in, seemed a complete waste of time.

As he slouched up the cut into the Circle, he glanced over the fence into the Smarts' garden. The shed was still there of course, swept clean and as empty as when he'd left it. The police hadn't discovered where he'd been keeping the stuff he sold before he'd had to risk putting it in his bedroom, and it made him furious that he'd had to clear the shed because of the Smarts coming home. Even more infuriating was that they didn't stay for long. They had come home to put the house on the market so that they could emigrate, and live near their daughter in Australia. They had stayed until after Christmas and then packed up their home and, as far as Oliver was concerned, disappeared.

Oliver had been relieved there had been little mention of the tools that had gone from the shed. He'd been afraid if the police were called they might have put two and two together and realised he had something to do with the missing tools, but he was lucky. Martin Smart had mentioned to Mike Callow that his shed had been broken into and all his garden tools stolen, but he hadn't bothered to contact the police.

“What's the point?” he said resignedly to Mike. “They could have been taken any time we were away, so we'll never find them now. Whoever it was simply took everything out of the shed and dumped it over the wall on to the allotment track, you can see where they trampled the ground behind the bushes at the bottom of the garden. They must have loaded it into a van or something there. You didn't see anyone about, I suppose?”

Mike shook his head. “No,” he replied. “Once I did think someone might have been in, and I went round to have a look, but there was nothing to see. Maybe David saw someone.”

Martin shrugged, “Well,” he said, “it hardly matters now. I wouldn't have been taking any of that stuff from the shed anyway.”

“When do you go back to Oz?” asked Mike.

“As soon as we sell the house,” Martin said. “Doreen wants to spend some time with her cousin in Birmingham before we go, so we shall pack up most of our stuff and move out. The agent will sell whatever furniture we leave when the place is sold.” They had left in early January.

Good riddance, thought Oliver, what did they have to come back at all for? He considered making use of the shed again, but eventually decided against it. The estate agent might bring prospective buyers round any time, and they'd be almost certain to look in the garden shed. The risk was too great, so he still had nowhere to stash his stuff.

There was also the problem of Jay Manders. Since Scott had beaten up that Annabel girl, he was now held on remand, and Jay had begun to be difficult. Oliver knew with a smouldering fury that it had to be Jay or Scott who had dropped him in it. After all, they were the only other two people who knew that he had several credit cards and a pension book in his possession, and he was sure the police had known what they were looking for. Unfortunately for Oliver, by the time the police, in the person of PCs Woodman and Carver, came round to talk to his dad just before Christmas, he also had a social security benefit book, three more cards and several hand tools that he'd taken from a DIY supermarket.

Dad had been great to start with, standing up to the police, adamant that his son wouldn't be involved in anything dishonest.

“I'm sure you've got this wrong, officer, Oliver wouldn't take anything that wasn't his.”

“He already has one caution for theft,” pointed out Woodman.

“Yes, but that was a one-off, when he wanted to get something for my birthday.” Steve became more defensive. “Even the shopkeeper didn't want to press charges. It shouldn't mean you come straight round here every time something goes missing!”

“Well, I'm sorry, sir, but we've had a tip-off that he is in possession of several stolen items.”

Shit! thought Oliver. Fucking Jay, getting his own back because I don't do the business with him anymore. They had almost come to blows when Oliver had said he would only deal with Scott, direct, not through Jay.

“What's the matter ? ” growled Jay. “ Don ' t you trust me or somethink?”

“No, I don't,” Oliver declared. “You tried to rip me off with those cards last week. Scott never told you to pay me only seventy-five, did he? Do you think I'm stupid or what? You did that for yourself, mate, to get your grubby little hands on the other twenty-five. I'm not going to deal with you again, not till I've talked to Scott himself. Right?”

“Scott's keeping 'is 'ead down just now,” Jay said. “The filth have emptied his stash, an' 'e's on bail to the crown court.”

“He should have been more careful who he told about his garage,” Oliver said. “Sounds like he was bloody careless to me.”

“'Ow did you know it was a garage?” demanded Jay suspiciously. “You been keeping tabs, or what?”

“Got better things to do,” scoffed Oliver, though he had once seen Scott go into the yard off Camborne Road and, on impulse, followed him. The information about the garage had been recorded in his notebook for future use. “He told me about it himself,” Oliver lied. “Said he could put some of the bigger stuff there if necessary. Sounds like he made a mistake!”