Those People

by Louise Candlish

  “You need to go and say something,” Em told him. “We” had become “you” with emphatic speed. More man’s work, clearly.

  “It’s only been going five minutes,” he reasoned. “Sam’s shattered after traveling. He might sleep through it. Let’s go down and have another go at the Great Aim.”

  The Great Aim was to finish an episode of something on Netflix without being interrupted by Sam crying. In the old days, they’d binged on TV drama with the rest of society, a season of House of Cards in a working week, like a second job. Now they were living in a house of cards. One false move, like not reaching the front door before the delivery guy rang the doorbell or cracking open a window just as one of the Morgans’ dogs barked at a fox, and the whole thing collapsed.

  Sam’s cries came thirty-four minutes and a large glass of red in. It was only when they paused the TV that they realized just how loud the music was. They could easily make out the lyrics—something by Metallica that Ant vaguely recognized. A slightly slower tempo than the earlier thrash, but equally pounding. Here came the chorus: “Sad but true.”

  You could say that again.

  Em went upstairs and reappeared with Sam in her arms. He was pressing his head into her neck, burrowing for the reentry to sleep being violently denied. “Ant, can you please go and ask them to break up this Monsters of Rock tribute night?”

  Her uncompromising streak was in evidence, which made Ant feel as if he were the child. As a boy, he’d frequently been berated for acting too much on impulse—“Just stop and think for a minute,” teachers would say; “Act in haste, repent at leisure, Anthony” (that one was from his grandfather)—and in an adult effort to override this fault he’d become, perhaps, a little too passive.

  “You’re right,” he said, jumping to his feet.

  Outside, there was an unpleasant post-demolition odor, as if ancient sewers had been disturbed. Across the road, Sissy’s pristine garden, the golden glow from her sitting room window, felt like another country. He passed the new neighbors’ living room window to get to the door but could make out little through the crack between the curtains that had remained hanging since Old Jean’s departure: packing boxes spilling open, bin liners swollen with possessions. At the door, he rapped the knocker, but nobody came, which made sense since the music was almost loud enough to burst the walls. Then, abruptly, the song ended and he was able to take advantage and knock again in the seconds before the next track started.

  This time the door opened. Facing him was a short, bony, blond woman of about forty-five, her clothing in the gray area between sportswear and pajamas and her demeanor that of someone easily angered—or perhaps simply drunk. She gestured rather than spoke her hello, can of Heineken in hand, face set in irritation. “Yes?”

  “Are you the new owner?” Ant raised his voice over the music, which tore past him into the night. If the other neighbors hadn’t heard it before, they would now.

  “What?”

  “I said, are you the new owner?”

  Inexplicably, she laughed, a brittle, humorless sound. “You want Darren.”

  “OK, well, it’s about the music—”

  But she was already turning away, yelling at the top of her voice: “Darren! Darren!”

  The man who came forward was the DIY enthusiast, judging by his filthy overalls. He was in his fifties, his face weathered to an extent that suggested either committed drinking or a passion for coastal hikes. He too gripped a can, as well as a cigarette, the burning tip close to his knuckles.

  “Yeah?” he said to the woman, as if there wasn’t an open door in front of him and a stranger standing a few feet away.

  “He wants a word with ‘the new owner,’” the woman said. “Get you.”

  “Fuck off,” Darren told her.

  His pulse stuttering, Ant struggled to produce a convincing smile. “I’m Ant Kendall. I live next door with my wife, Em. This house right here.” He pointed to the wall with his index finger, emphasizing the intimate proximity of the two houses. “So, you are Darren and . . . ?”

  “Jodie.” Her face clenched in fresh distrust. “Wait, this isn’t about the wall again, is it? We’ve had a load of busybodies on our case about it all week. How were we meant to know there’d been some barney with the council?”

  Startled by her hostility, Ant was nonetheless heartened by that “load of busybodies”: someone had been here to complain before him, Sissy or one of the Morgans, presumably. “No, not that. It’s just, we’ve got a baby next door and his bedroom is right here, on this side of the house. . . .”

  As Ant gestured to Sam’s window, Darren tossed his burning cigarette end at Ant’s feet and, mindful of the nearby cars, Ant ground it out. Em had joked about serial killers, but he could think only of those movies in which a fraternity moved in next door to upstanding suburbanites and proceeded to party. Comedy gold—for everyone else.

  “I’m not sure if you can hear, but he’s getting very distressed,” Ant added. There was an unraveling sensation inside him, the knowledge that he was handling this poorly.

  But at last the woman seemed to get it. “Not a problem,” she said, shrugging.

  “Thank you. I appreciate your understanding.”

  But in between watching the door close in front of him and stepping back over the threshold of his own house, he became aware first through his feet—in the form of powerful rising vibrations—and then through his ears that the music had in fact been turned up. He hurried back to the new neighbors’ door, but his hammering was either inaudible to them or ignored.

  At home, Em still had Sam downstairs. He was screaming now, as if in physical pain. Babies had that supersensitive hearing, didn’t they? Was this decibel level even less bearable for him than for them?

  “What happened?” Em asked—yelled. It was as if there were a live band on the other side of the wall.

  “I don’t know.” He perched on the arm of the sofa. “They said they’d turn it down, but if anything they’ve turned it up.”

  They looked at each other in bewilderment.

  “When I said we had a baby, they couldn’t . . . they couldn’t have thought I was talking about our noise? Apologizing for the crying?”

  “Only if they’re complete morons.” Em became suspicious. “Why? Did you sound like you were apologizing? How much of that bottle of wine did you drink, Ant?” She shook her head. “We can’t put up with this. I’ll take Sam out in the car and drive him around till he falls back asleep.”

  “What, this late?”

  “It’s only nine thirty. It’s either that or call the police.”

  “We can’t do that. We’ve only been neighbors for a few hours.”

  He followed her out and helped her get Sam into his car seat, screaming guitars in one ear, wailing baby in the other, before watching the car pull forward into the street. Back inside, he poured a new glass of wine and took it into the darkened rear garden. Next door, the song had changed, the intro accelerating and exiting the neighbors’ open kitchen window like a series of controlled explosions.

  Without thinking, Ant picked up the nearest loose object, a scrap of broken terra-cotta plant pot, and hurled it over the wall.

  He was taken aback by his own fury.

  * * *

  —

  In the morning, Em and Sam slept late, but Ant, having been unable to sink any deeper than into an agitated semiconsciousness, dressed and went out to the bakery on the high street for coffee and pains au chocolat. Next door was mercifully silent, but outside, the buzz of Play Out Sunday was already building. As usual, Ant was grateful that his off-road parking meant he didn’t have to relocate his car as the other residents did, creating a tarmac runway on which kids swarmed and shrieked. The plan had been a draw when they were house hunting, the agents having shared a link to a feature in the South London Press that Ant had since seen fr
amed in Ralph and Naomi’s kitchen. He revisited it as he waited in the queue at the bakery, reminding himself of the solid, unassailable respectability of his neighborhood:

  SOUTH LONDON STREET WINS URBAN SPACES AWARD

  The residents of a street in Lowland Gardens, South London, have won an award for their community initiative that gives children a taste of the kind of safe outdoor play older residents took for granted years ago.

  Every Sunday, Lowland Way is cleared of vehicles, closed to traffic and turned over to the kids for “Play Out Sunday.” From skateboarding to stilt walking, hopscotch to hula-hooping, anything goes—except for one thing: screens.

  “For a long time, I’d felt uneasy about how much time my kids were spending indoors on their screens,” says website curator and mother of two Naomi Morgan, 43, who came up with the idea. “Now we don’t have to persuade them to turn their devices off—they do it themselves!”

  Attending a reception at City Hall with her sister-in-law and next-door neighbor, Tess Morgan, 38, Naomi Morgan received the Urban Spaces Award from the London mayor, who commented: “Play Out Sunday is a wonderful example of a community coming together to improve its own quality of life.”

  Lowland Gardens, a leafy enclave west of Crystal Palace, has long prided itself on its low profile, but with house prices rising by almost five percent more than the capital’s average in the last six months, it seems its discreet charms are set to be discovered by a stampede of new house hunters.

  There was a photo of Naomi and Tess receiving an award from the London mayor, Naomi towering in her heels, her open smile elongating her face and giving her the look of a glossy racehorse. (Tess, unfortunately, had been caught mid-blink.)

  No, he wouldn’t dwell on last night, an unfortunate episode that had happened to coincide with their return from holiday. Busy with renovations over the last week, the newcomers must have had a few drinks to let off steam, and only a killjoy would begrudge them that. Today, Lowland Way would be back to its community-spirited, rising-house-prices best.

  His mood vastly improved by the locally roasted black Americano in his hand, he retraced his steps, at first registering only the usual buoyant, high-pitched volumes of children playing. Then, walking alongside the Portsmouth Avenue boundary of number 1, he picked out lyrics that had no place in kids’ ears:

  Gonna get you . . .

  Fucking whack you . . .

  What on earth . . . ? Turning into Lowland Way, he expected to see the parents gathered in objection, but all was just as he’d left it, the throngs slightly thicker, the voices a little more excitable: some of the kids were on their bikes and racing a slalom course between bollards. At the bottom of his drive, he judged that the music was probably not of the volume to trouble anyone other than those near the corner, and he experienced a sudden tremor of disquiet. They were a little isolated here, out on a limb with number 1; if this turned into something, would they be able to count on the support of the other neighbors?

  It was a moment before he spotted Darren, who was at the open doors of his van, and a shock to see he was bare-chested. His chest hair was a faintly repulsive light fuzz of gray.

  Ant approached before he could get cold feet. “Hi again, Darren.”

  “Huh?” Darren looked as if he’d never seen Ant before in his life.

  “We met last night.” Though Ant was technically on his own side of the drive, it felt like an invasion of Darren’s privacy to speak to him when he was not fully clothed. Though fifteen or twenty years older than Ant, his new neighbor was in better shape and not in the slightest self-conscious. A deep red-brown tan suggested his half nudity might be a habitual state. “I live next door?”

  “Oh yeah. Y’all right?” Neither polite nor rude, but simply preoccupied with something else.

  “I’m fine. I mean, well, except . . . Would it be possible to turn the music down? You might get complaints that the lyrics aren’t exactly family-friendly.” Might get complaints? How cowardly he was. Thank God Em wasn’t out here to hear him.

  “Family-friendly?” Darren’s expression changed—to one of deep suspicion. “Hang about, was that you that woke us up?”

  “What?”

  “Half an hour ago? Someone banging on the door like a fucking bailiff.”

  “No.” Ant recoiled at the casual profanity. “Perhaps it was someone asking if that Peugeot is yours? Or the white Toyota outside number 7? We close the road to traffic every Sunday. Play Out Sunday? It’s quite famous in the area. I’m surprised you weren’t told about it when you bought the house.”

  “Every Sunday?” Booth gave a short laugh. “No chance, mate. If these kids’re out screaming like this every weekend, that’s gonna do my head in.” He shut the van door with a crunch in obvious dismissal of Ant, who stood uncertainly, bag of croissants hanging limply by his side.

  The adrenaline was making him shake slightly; he felt ashamed to be so unfit for confrontation.

  No sleep left for you

  Bitch, got plans for you . . .

  Before he could get his key in the lock, the door swung open and Em came springing out. She’d clearly dressed in a hurry, her top misbuttoned, feet in flip-flops, one of Sam’s soft building blocks in her hand. She passed Ant with a quick look of disbelief—not that this was happening, he understood, but that he had failed to stop it.

  “Excuse me?” she called out to Darren, tone strident. “I said, excuse me? Can you please turn this music down? It’s far too loud!”

  Ant understood her exasperation, of course he did, but it was the wrong thing to do, to get upset and combative right off the bat, before having even introduced herself, and inevitably, the guy reacted with a defensive scowl.

  “Says who?”

  “Says me. The mother of a six-month-old baby!”

  Now Jodie appeared to even up the numbers, standing closer to Ant and Darren, which gave the impression it was the three of them against Em. Fresh from the shower, Jodie’s hair was damp and stringy, face shiny. Her nose sharpened at the tip, Ant noticed, and as she turned her attention from one person to another, it was as if she was led by her sense of smell. “What’s the problem?”

  “Your music is the problem,” Em snapped. “Can you please turn it down?”

  “There’s no need to be so aggressive,” Jodie told her, squaring up. There was a small tattoo on the side of her neck, Chinese characters of some sort.

  Em flushed. “I’m aggressive? What about the fact that you’ve been playing heavy metal all night and now this on a Sunday morning? Is that not aggressive, then?”

  “Em, let’s not argue,” Ant said, hoping he didn’t sound as disloyal as he felt. He was aware of glances from the street; if this went on, they’d attract a crowd.

  “Can you believe this place?” Darren said to Jodie as the sound of Sam’s screams came pouring through the open door. “Their kids are going mental, but they can’t handle a bit of music.”

  “There’s a difference!” Em cried, and Ant was relieved when she abandoned the argument to return indoors and tend to Sam.

  “Perhaps we could talk sometime when you’re not so busy?” he suggested. “Just let me know when you’re free.”

  Em had closed the front door behind her and he felt foolish having to open it up separately. “Not much of a laugh, are they?” he heard Jodie say to Darren as he finally got in.

  He waited in the doorway of the kitchen while Em quietened Sam’s cries. He could see her shoulders heaving with anger.

  “Who the hell are these people?” she demanded.

  “They’re the people we have to live next door to, so I’m not sure how wise it is to fall out with them on day one.” At the sight of her furious scowl, Ant wasn’t sure how wise it had been to make this comment.

  “Might have known you wouldn’t back me up,” she huffed.

  “What are you tal
king about?” he protested. “Of course I’m backing you up!”

  “Well, it didn’t sound like that to me. ‘Let’s not argue’: typical Ant, sitting on the fence.”

  Typical Ant? The escalation took his breath away.

  “Except we haven’t got a fence, have we? Not out front. And if we did, they’d probably tear that down as well.” She glared at Ant as if he were directly responsible for this catastrophized misdeed. “Well, things’d better not carry on like this, because there is nothing separating us from them, is there? Literally nothing.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  TESS

  I was here this morning, yes. I was in the back garden playing with the kids, when we heard this boom, like a car being blown up— Hush, Dex. The nice officer is talking about something very serious. You go and finish watching Spider-Man with your sister.

  Yes, so I’m sure I heard screaming as well, but I might be imagining that. My husband came out and we just looked at each other and said, “What on earth . . . ?” Then our sister-in-law Naomi told her daughter to mind the younger ones for a couple of minutes and we ran out front and saw a huge cloud of dust in front of number 1. Em Kendall was already there and she said Booth was on the ground somewhere in the rubble. We could hear him moaning and coughing. He was the only one we saw at first. We didn’t realize there was someone else under there. Then we saw this foot sticking out. It was so awful, I’ll never forget it.

  I have to say that even though it’s the most shocking thing, in a way it feels totally inevitable. None of us has been safe from them. Sooner or later someone was going to get hurt.

  Who do I mean by “them”? Darren Booth and his horrible wife, of course. Jodie, she’s called. You know, this morning, she didn’t even come out, not at first. Did anyone tell you that? The whole street was there, desperately trying to help, and she was still inside, asleep! Someone had to go in through the back door and get her. She’s on medication, apparently, but if you ask me she was in a drunken coma from the night before. They’re big binge drinkers. They like to party.