I could quite easily start howling. How would Pat react? I don’t think she would. I can’t see her rushing over to give me a hug; it’s probably against council rules, and since she can’t bring herself to look at me, I’m assuming actual physical contact is out of the question.
‘It’s very dark in here,’ Pat observes suddenly.
I stare at her. Is that all she’s got to say? I didn’t ring the environmental health department this morning and beg them to send someone round in order to have my house criticised.
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ she says in a matter-of-fact tone, looking straight ahead at the reflection of the room in the window’s framed blackness. ‘If it were dark outside, we’d think it was light in this room with the light on. But this time of the morning, same light on – it seems dark. Because it should be light without the light.’
‘It’s as light as I can make it,’ I say sharply. Imran’s men wrapped us in cardboard and plastic yesterday afternoon, stealing all our views, sealing us in. ‘At least it’s not dusty yet. Next time you come, you won’t be able to breathe quite so easily. They start the sandblasting tomorrow.’
Finally, Pat moves away from the window, sits in a chair opposite me. ‘Next time I come? I might not need to come again. You never know your luck.’ She smiles down at her bag as she pulls her notebook out of it.
I’ve had enough of this. ‘Why are you being so non-committal all of a sudden?’ I ask. ‘Last time, you were all gung-ho and “Don’t worry, we’ll sort him out.” Today you can hardly be bothered.’
‘Let me tell you something you’re not going to want to hear, Mrs Beeston. I’ve spoken to your neighbour. I didn’t want to tell you until I’d heard your version of events –’
‘You’ve spoken to him? When?’
‘Today. Before I came here, I nipped next door.’
My insides clench around a hot spurt of rage, squeezing it dry. If my windows weren’t covered with cardboard, I’d have known this; I’d have seen her park and go into number 19. I hate Imran, hate Pat Jervis, hate Mr Fahrenheit.
My ‘version of events’. As if others might be of equal interest and validity.
‘Mr Clay admits to having disturbed you with his noise on many Friday and Saturday nights since you moved in. He admits to having played a classical CD to annoy you after the last time you went round to complain, which was the night you made your first call to our out-of-hours service – Saturday the twenty-ninth of September.’
Did she stress the word ‘first’, or did I imagine the emphasis? Is she subtly digging at me? I have phoned the environmental health department dozens of times this week, pleading with them to send someone round – Pat, ideally, though now that she’s here and disappointing me with every word she utters, I wish I had asked for anyone but her.
If the council don’t want to be telephonically stalked by people like me who grow progressively more hysterical with each call, they need to think about introducing some kind of fast-track help for sufferers of extreme neighbour noise victimisation.
‘Mr Clay also admits to having played loud music again the following night, Sunday 30 September. He was still angry with you from the Saturday night, so he played his music between eleven and midnight – exactly an hour, as you said. He corroborates.’
‘I don’t give a toss if he corroborates or not! I’ve told you the truth about every aspect of the situation – whole and nothing but. I don’t need his agreement.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t disregard his account of what’s taken place,’ Pat says to her notebook. ‘He denies absolutely that he has ever played choral music of any kind, or anything that involves children, boys, singing. In his bedroom, with the intention of disturbing you in yours, or anywhere else in his house.’
‘That’s a lie. Read my diary. He’s woken me up at two or three in the morning every night for the last four nights. Always with choral music, always boys – or maybe some girls too, some pieces, but definitely children, sometimes even singing the music my son sings at Saviour.’
Pat shrugs. ‘That’s not what Mr Clay says. He assured me he’d done nothing of the sort.’
‘And you don’t think someone who deliberately plays loud music to intimidate a neighbour with a valid complaint is capable of lying?’ I snap.
‘Oh, I have no doubt he’s capable. Mrs Beeston—’
‘Louise. It’s bloody obvious what he’s up to. He thinks that if he pleads guilty to some bad behaviour, he can get away with hiding the worst of what he’s done – the nastier, more sinister, more insidious strand of his campaign. Look, ask Stuart if you don’t believe me. He’s not here now, but come round when he is and he’ll tell you. It might not disturb him in the way it does me, but he’s heard it several times.’
‘He’s your husband, though, isn’t he?’ says Pat.
I laugh. ‘And you think that means he’d support me no matter what? Far from it. I can’t …’ I cut myself off in time. I was about to say, ‘I can’t rely on him for anything.’
‘Louise. Believe me when I tell you that in my long career in environmental health, I have met every kind of noise pest on this earth. I’m not naive. I know problem neighbours lie – some a hundred per cent, others to a lesser degree. I’ve got a good nose for lies.’ She sniffs as if to prove her point. ‘But I’ve never come across anyone who seeks out a particular kind of music with a view to hurting a neighbour’s feelings. I’ve never met a noisy neighbour who plays music loudly for only a few seconds, to wake someone up, then turns the volume down just in time so that the person on the receiving end can’t swear to it having been louder at first and imagines they’re going crackers.’
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Cannot believe it.
Taking care to compose myself first, I say, ‘All you’re telling me is that you’ve never come across Justin Clay before. That proves nothing! I’ve never lived in a cardboard-swaddled, light-resistant house before – doesn’t mean I’m not living in one now! Tell me this – have you ever known anyone with a noisy neighbour to grow bags under their eyes that swell up and burst?’ With the index fingers of both my hands, I point at the two raw patches of skin on my face. ‘And yet here I am, looking like something out of a horror film, and proving that not all people behave and react in the same way as all other people!’
Pat leans forward: eye contact at last. She squints at me. ‘You need to put some St James’s Balm on that – it’d clear up overnight. Trouble is, it’s harder to find than the Holy Grail.’ Instead of sitting back, she stays in the leaning position long after she’s said her piece, long after she’s stopped looking. It’s as if the top half of her body has locked into a slant. She doesn’t seem to have noticed that this is making it much harder for her to write in her notebook.
I want to know what she’s writing. That I’m rude and aggressive? A reminder to herself to buy me the ointment she thinks I need, as a Christmas present? It could be anything.
She’s mad. Must be, completely mad. That would explain everything: the change in her attitude, her noise Terminator bravado last time she was here, her lack of support now, the fingertip-pressing of random pieces of glass.
‘You’re evidently very upset, Louise. You’ve been off work how long?’
‘How can I go in to work in this state?’
‘I’m not accusing you of malingering. However … I’d bet good money that whatever’s going on with your eyes is a psychosomatic reaction to your conflict with Mr Clay –’
‘I agree.’
‘– and possibly also to the upset of having your son living away from home, which you alluded to last time we spoke.’
‘I didn’t allude. I told you straight out.’
‘Right,’ she agrees. ‘You did. And that’s why I’m asking you to consider if there’s any chance this boys choir music you’re hearing, or think you’re hearing, might be … something else? Not real, and nothing to do with Mr Clay?’
‘There is no chance,’ I say. Each
word is a heavy stone in my mouth that I have to spit out. ‘Stuart hears it too. Unless you think we’re both suffering from the same trauma-induced auditory hallucination – and I promise you, Stuart isn’t distressed about anything. Apparently he isn’t even worried about me looking like Frankenstein’s monster. He just keeps saying, “Oh, it’ll clear up.”’
‘Hmm.’ Pat sits back, finally. ‘Maybe I should talk to your husband.’
‘Why, to check I’m not crazy? I’m not. The choral music is real. I don’t know how you have the nerve to sit there and say these things to me! You promised you’d help me!’
‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.’
‘You’ve got a strange way of showing it. What’s stopping you from serving Mr Clay with a noise abatement order right now?’
‘Mr Clay assured me that he’s not going to be making a nuisance of himself in the future,’ Pat says. ‘Your tactic worked – you should be pleased. After you socked it to him with a bit of loud music of your own, he drew the conclusion someone more sensible might have drawn weeks ago – he can’t get away with it, not without paying a price. Oh, I’ve seen it countless times. It always makes me laugh. Noise offenders assume, for some reason best known to themselves, that their noise-averse neighbours wouldn’t play them at their own game. Why? Well …’ Pat looks up at the ceiling. ‘I have a theory.’
I’m not going to ask. I don’t give a shit about her theories. If she isn’t going to help me, I’m not interested in anything she has to say.
‘I think the mindset is along the lines of “If she can’t bear loud noise then she can’t use it against me because that would mean having to listen to it herself.” A bit like someone who can’t stand the sight of blood – they wouldn’t train to be a doctor, would they?’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I say, wondering if she’s right. ‘It’s loud noise you can’t control that’s the problem.’
‘Quite. But many people are unimaginative and … well, a little bit stupid,’ says Pat. ‘Mr Clay strikes me as a prime example. Which is why when he told me that he wasn’t going to risk making you angry again if that was how you were likely to react, I believed him.’ She leans forward again, stares down at her shoes. ‘I don’t see him as being cunning enough to dream up a spiteful plan like the one you’ve described in your noise diary. I honestly don’t.’
I’m too furious to speak. Furious with myself. A voice in my head is whispering: She’s right. You know she’s right.
‘Louise, I think you ought to make an appointment with your doctor.’
‘No! So what if he’s unimaginative? He’s got friends, hasn’t he? A girlfriend? Anyone could have suggested the choral music to him – who says it was his idea?’ Too late, I realise she might only have meant my eyes: that I should see a doctor to sort out the skin eruptions.
‘Where are you going?’ Pat asks out of the blue.
‘What?’
She points at the car keys I’m clutching. ‘You said when I arrived that you were on your way out.’
‘Oh. I … just …’ I don’t want to tell her. I don’t have to. It’s none of her business.
‘I hope you’re not planning a long drive,’ she says. ‘You don’t look anywhere near well enough.’
‘I’m going to the Culver Valley. For a sales tour of a second-homes development. I’m thinking of buying a place there. So that I get can away from here, at least at weekends.’
Holidays will be trickier, because Stuart won’t always be able to take the time off work. It won’t be a problem for me, thankfully; as soon as I heard that Joseph had got a place at Saviour, I reorganised my work schedule so that I could work longer days in the office during term time and from home during school holidays, when I would also take all my annual leave. I didn’t think work would agree, and was planning to resign if they didn’t, but to my surprise they said it was fine.
The tricky part will be confessing that my plan is for Joseph and me to live at Swallowfield whenever he’s not at school, even if that means leaving Stuart behind in Cambridge, as it often will.
Am I trying to stealth-leave my husband, subtly and by degrees? Trying to make a point by insisting on taking Joseph as far away from Saviour as I can, whenever I can, just to prove to Dr Freeman that I’m in charge?
Whatever my motivation is for wanting to leave Cambridge, I would prefer not to know. It’s as if I’m receiving my instructions from an authority that has nothing to do with me and isn’t even part of me – one I trust absolutely. I know what I need to do and that’s enough. It’s a weird feeling. Like none I’ve ever had before.
I need to buy a house on Swallowfield Estate.
‘I’d advise against,’ says Pat. For a minute, I forgot she was there.
‘Sorry?’
‘Now’s not a good time to be making important decisions, Louise. Trust me. It sounds to me like you’re trying to run away. What you should be doing’s sorting things out here – at home.’
‘Excuse me?’ I laugh. ‘First, I did trust you, to a ridiculous degree, and look where it got me – you believe my neighbour’s lies over me. Second, who are you to tell me how to arrange my life? I don’t even know you. You know nothing about me.’
‘I know you shouldn’t drive to the Culver Valley. Don’t do it, Louise.’
The room has darkened, as if someone has adjusted the dimmer switch, but that’s impossible. Pat and I are the only people here. Shaking, I haul myself to my feet and say, ‘I’d like you to leave now, please.’
Pat stands too. ‘Stay here,’ she says, looking past my shoulder, at the wall behind me. ‘Get some sleep. Forget buying a second home. The noise will stop. It already has. Mr Clay won’t bother you again. Please take my advice.’
‘That’s not true! You’ve not listened to anything I’ve said. Look, just … go.’
She nods, apparently unoffended, and begins to rock her way to the door, tilting from side to side as she goes.
‘Ring me if you need me. You know where I am,’ she says before leaving. ‘And keep writing the diary.’
5
It is like falling in love. It is falling in love. I knew it was going to be. I knew Swallowfield would be the right place. Two hours ago, as I drove past the sign that says ‘Welcome to the Culver Valley’, I imagined myself doing the journey with Joseph, his happy voice asking, ‘How much longer?’ from the back seat. He’ll be beside himself with excitement whenever we come here, desperate to get out of the city and back to his other house in the beautiful countryside outside Spilling.
Of course, I didn’t know for sure, on my way to Swallowfield, that I’d want to buy: this is what I tell myself and, although it doesn’t feel true, it must be. I hadn’t seen the estate yet, or any of the houses. I hadn’t been on Bethan’s sales tour. All I knew was that I felt drawn, as if by a magnet, and couldn’t resist. Didn’t want to resist.
As I drove along the approach road to Swallowfield, I imagined that it might have been rolled out, brand new and only seconds ago, for my sole use. There were no other cars on it going in either direction. I lowered my window to see if I could hear traffic in the distance; I couldn’t. The only sound, apart from my car’s engine, was that of the birds – so many and so varied that it made me realise I’d never really heard or listened to anything like it before. People say birds chirp – they call it ‘song’ – but I heard no tunes and all kinds of other strange utterances, most of which couldn’t be summed up so easily. It was like listening to an uncoordinated orchestra playing above my head, one that contained dozens of different instruments.
When I saw, coming up on the left, the large pale green sign with ‘Swallowfield’ printed across it in lower-case white letters, I had a crazy idea. I was a little early for my meeting with Bethan Lyons, the sales director, so I decided to try something that, in Cambridge, would be regarded as a suicide attempt: I slowed down, drove into the middle of the road and parked horizontally across the white line that separates eastboun
d traffic from westbound.
Nothing bad happened. No other cars came. I wasn’t worried that they would, either. I felt utterly calm and at peace, as though nothing could happen here that would threaten my safety or happiness in any way. It was the oddest feeling. I opened the car door and looked to my right at the fields, hedges and trees – at the hills in the distance with white and pastel-coloured cottages, warm beige stone farmhouses and black-painted barns dotted across them – and I almost closed my eyes and fell asleep on the spot. Finally, I could relax. I was home. (Technically, the opposite was the case, but I didn’t, and don’t, and never have cared about facts when they don’t feel true.)
It was cold – and still is – but the sun was shining brightly, lighting up patches of vivid green everywhere I looked. It was as if I’d strayed into some kind of magical other-world, a sparkling alternative reality that most people knew nothing about. And this was before I’d set foot on the estate itself. I don’t know how I’d have dealt with the disappointment if Swallowfield had turned out to be hideous. All I can say (and Stuart won’t believe me, unless he feels the same way himself, which he won’t) is that I knew it wouldn’t happen. I knew Swallowfield would exceed my expectations.
‘So, the nature-only part of the estate starts here,’ Bethan says, bringing me back to the moment. We have been round the stunning glass sculpture of a show home, the café and the shop, and now we are in the official crested Swallowfield Range Rover, about to go through wooden gates, off the gravelled lane and on to a wide grassy path that has a lake to one side of it. Swallowfield has five lakes, and residents are allowed to swim and fish in all but one of them. Three of them, the smallest, have houses around them and still a few bare plots for new houses to be built, and the two largest lakes are in the purely rural bit that Bethan is driving me around now, on the land that will never be developed, Swallowfield’s residents’ own private cultivated wilderness. I want it for myself, and for Joseph, with a desperation that verges on hysteria, though Bethan wouldn’t be able to guess from looking at me. I stare out of the Range Rover’s window at the ripples on the surface of the water and the wooden jetty, and I can see Joseph throwing off his clothes and diving in on a stifling hot day. I picture myself leaping in after him, Stuart shouting after us, ‘Rather you than me! I’ll save my swimming for the spa, thank you very much.’
The Orphan Choir Page 10